Two Types of Philosophy in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas (original) (raw)
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The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy
Quantity: 1 Order Available as a Google eBook for other eReaders and tablet devices. Click icon below... Summary Shows that the dialogue in Plato's Phaedo is primarily devoted to presenting Socrates' final defense of the philosophical life against the theoretical and political challenge of religion. "That the psychology of its characters is a key to understanding the argument of a Platonic dialogue is a principle effectively applied in this reading of the Phaedo and well supported by the results: in bringing out the differences in the perspectives of Socrates' two interlocutors on this occasion-one primarily concerned with the question of the goodness of the philosophic life, and indeed of life as such, the other motivated by a deep skepticism about the possibilities of human reason-this study leads us to see why the conversation in the Phaedo has to be divided between them, and how the strategy of each argument is motivated by its particular addressee."-Ronna Burger, Tulane University While the Phaedo is most famous for its moving portrayal of Socrates' death and its arguments for the immortality of the soul, Ahrensdorf argues that the dialogue is primarily devoted to presenting Socrates' final defense of the philosophic life against the theoretical and political challenge of religion. Through a careful analysis of both the historical context of the Phaedo and the arguments and drama of the dialogue, Ahrensdorf argues that Socrates' defense of rationalism is singularly undogmatic and that a study of that defense can lead us to a clearer understanding and a deeper and richer appreciation of the case both for and against rationalism. "This clear, extremely well-written book distinguishes itself from other fine works on the Phaedo by its careful attention to Socrates' rhetoric. It does a masterful job of showing how Socrates intends his arguments to affect Simmias and Cebes-as well as readers like them-even in cases where Socrates must have seen those arguments to be logically weak. Ahrensdorf's insight into the differences between Simmias and Cebes is excellent."-Chris A. Colmo, Rosary College
Socrates Autobiography An Epitome of Platonism
In Phaedo 95A4-102A9, we find the famous account by Socrates of his own intellectual history. Our best evidence, including Aristotle's testimony, leads us to suppose that this is Plato's own autobiography on display. It contains, as I shall argue, the most concise and complete statement of the nature of Platonism, both its distinction and separation from the philosophies of Plato's predecessors and the outline of its positive construct. In this autobiography, Socrates rejects the explanations of the natural philosophers given for scientific problems. Instead, he posits separate Forms as the source of true explanation. The naturalism of Plato's predecessors, explicitly here that of Anaxagoras, presumes materialism and mechanism as the matrix for scientific explanation. The positing of the explanatory role of Forms entails the rejection of those presumptions. In addition, these Forms as participatable οὐσίαι can only fulfill their explanatory roles if nominalism is false, that is, if it is false that the only things that exist are unique individuals. So, Plato announces in this passage his rejection of materialism, mechanism, and nominalism. In addition, the focus on Forms as explanatory entities is preceded by the argument that we already know these Forms prior to embodiment. So, the claim of Pre-Socratic skeptics that knowledge of the ultimate explanation of things is not available to us, particularly if these explanations are non-sensible, is rejected, too. Finally, insofar as the Forms fulfill an explanatory role, both the epistemological and ethical relativism of Sophists like Protagoras is rejected. This is owing to the objectivity of Forms as well as their universality. The rejection of materialism, mechanism, nominalism, skepticism, and relativism is the matrix for Plato's positive metaphysical construct. The autobiography 'hypothesizes' Forms as explanations, adding that any hypothesis is provisional until one comes to 'something adequate' (τι ἱκανόν). I argue here, on the basis of an analysis of the meaning of 'hypothesis' in Republic and elsewhere, that what would be 'adequate' cannot be another hypothetical entity, but rather the unhypothetical entity that the Idea of the Good is explicitly said to be and that, as Aristotle tells us, is identical with the One. That which is 'adequate' cannot be anything that is complex, that is, anything that exists and has an οὐσία. That is why the unhypothetical first principle of all must be ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας. Further, the claim that there must be a unique first principle of all reveals a great deal about the entire explanatory framework of Platonism. First, it tells us that no explanation can be ultimate or adequate if it does not end in the adduction of the first principle. Thus, Socrates’ ‘simple hypothesis’ to the effect that something has a property f owing to the causal operation of Fness is, indeed, too simple; it is only provisional. The ‘clever hypothesis’ that adduces relations among Forms to explain the original phenomena must also be provisional. The reason why this is so, I argue, is every Form, regardless of its relations to other Forms, is essentially complex. It is ‘composed’ of its existence and its nature or essence. To claim that x is g because x is g and G always accompanies F may be true, but it leaves entirely unexplained how an eternal and immutable and apparently simple entity can implicate the nature of another entity. For example, participation in a Form of Hot may be provisionally explained by participation in a Form of Fire and an assertion that a Form of Fire and a Form of Hot are necessarily connected. But the putative necessary connectedness of Fire and Hot is problematic, particularly if we insist that Fire itself is not really hot. Without the explanation for this necessary connectedness, there is no adequate explanation for the initial phenomenon. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, without such an explanation, both the simple and the cleverer hypothesis do not really explain anything at all. They are equivalent to maintaining that x is f because just because it is f. Every adequate must conclude with a principle that is self-explanatory, that in which existence and essence are identical. The 'adequate' explanation for all natural phenomena unifies the elements of the matrix of Plato's negative assessment of the natural philosophy of his predecessors. Thus, the unhypothetical first principle of all shows why anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-skepticism, and anti-relativism are all necessarily connected. Accordingly, 'Platonism' does not name a smorgasbord of philosophical theories or positions from which one can pick and choose, variously making qualified accommodations for the polar opposite of Platonism, namely, naturalism. The intellectual autobiography in Phaedo is, in short, an epitome of Platonism. All of the dialogues written after this likely early work are attempts to apply the principles of Platonism to the full range of philosophical problems left to Plato by his predecessors and still current in the 4th century. Finally, this dialogue provides good philosophical evidence that Plato thinking is at least well along the trajectory which ends in the doctrine to which Aristotle’s testimony testifies, namely, the identification of the Idea of the Good with the One.
This is the fourth in series of brief, analytic biographies of the 'Top-Nine' thinkers, whose thoughts have powerfully influenced large numbers of people across extended time scales. They are all reviewed here in the order of their birth. Negative thinkers (e.g. Hitler, Stalin) are ignored, while 'Mythic' talkers (like Jesus) are also ignored as little direct written information is available. Plato has the enviable reputation as the first teacher of Greek Philosophy (the attempt to describe our living world in a structured set of regular words). He has dominated the European approach to the Greek View and defined too much of the Art of Philosophy. He was a hugely derivative thinker: building on Socrates and Pythagoras with a hidden agenda of enforcing the aristocratic viewpoint on every society. His attempt to impose abstraction on his thinking led him to steal Parmenides' empty theory of 'Forms', where even simple problems became twisted into no sense. His longlasting achievement was the establishment of schools ('Academies') to propagandize an unending number of mediocrities to maintain his reputation and authority. The 'Theory of Forms' underlies Plato's most original work (The Republic) where attempts to promote a timeless model of society controlled by 'his' type of intellectual. There is little thought of personal freedom or individual rights as everything is tightly defined and controlled for the State and its Directors. Like too many clever intellectuals, Plato only admired one aspect of living that he was capable of defining. He had no time for the Arts (and certainly not Entertainment) that he saw as distractive. His real success was inspiring his best pupil (Aristotle) to construct the study of thinking and research, so as to establish his own rival school (the Lyceum). Unfortunately, Plato's writing style became venerated as the model for the written word, while being first has kept his reputation as unimpeachable. This essay allowed me to investigate directly one of the most influential thinkers that have played too strong a role in western thinking, especially the rigid significance of mathematics in descriptions of frozen reality: a broad myth that is rarely challenged enough today [see my Numbers essay].
Plato's Philosopher, 2020
Plato intended to write a trilogy on the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Soph.216-218, Pol.257), but although we have dialogues on the first two the third seems to be missing. The Philebus meets many of its expectations. It immediately follows the Sophist and the Politicus. It reinstates Plato's philosopher, Socrates, as discussion leader, and for the first time portrays him as an experienced philosopher-dialectician able to separate pleasure from knowledge and good from bad in human life and to rank soul's most valuable possessions. This Socrates also provides a last lesson in philosophical dialectic by dividing everything in the universe into four well-named kinds and tracing their evolution into different types, thus meeting the Sophist's description of the philosopher's ability to do exactly this (Soph.253cd, Phil.23cd,). He also applies the Politicus' teaching about due measure, making good its claim that this will be needed in a future demonstration of true accuracy in dialectic (Pol.284d, Phil.64). And in dialectically seeking, and at last finding, the good in human life and soul he comes very close to the nature of the good itself (ib.61), the end of the philosopher's education in the Republic. Nevertheless, although this Socrates has the character, skills, powers, and types of knowledge expected of Plato's good philosopher, we are told that his account is not complete (ib.67b) and he will not be allowed to leave until it has reached a satisfactory end (ib.19de, 23b). In a later discussion of pleasures and pains, he also announces that he will give a full account of the rest "tomorrow": "I fancy I shall secure your consent to release me if I just add this: that I will gladly give you a full account of the rest tomorrow but for the present I want to address myself to the matters still outstanding if we are to settle the problem set us by Philebus" (ib.50de). It is clear from the dialogue that its most vital missing part is its fourth kind, the one to which human reason and intelligence belong: the cause/maker of everything that comes to be and is made, the king of heaven and earth, divine reason; the perfect and self-sufficient good itself 1 (ib.20de, 22cd, 26e-28e). The Timaeus' account of coming into being, however, begins from this kind: a form-knowing, intelligent and good craftsman-god, maker of the fairest, most perfect, and self-sufficient combined kind, the living cosmos itself, a likeness of its maker (Tim.27d-33d). Pious Timaeus alone gazes upon the intelligent and intelligible cause(s) of cosmic measure, beauty, intelligence, and goodness set aside in the Philebus. He completes the Philebus' account of the causes of pleasures and pains in the light of this knowledge (ib.64a ff.). And he can do all this because he is the Republic's fully educated philosopher-ruler. The Timaeus' prologue (ib.17-21) sets the scene for all that follows. Its first words, spoken by Socrates, are: "One, two, three. . but where, dear Timaeus, is the fourth of those who were my guests yesterday and are to be my entertainers today"(ib.17a). 1 The Philebus Socrates signals that this kind is not yet fully visible by associating his teachings on the four kinds and the good to divine stories, dreams, and memories (e.g. ib.16c, 18b, 20). In like manner, the Politicus uses a myth to introduce its divine maker.
Socrates and Plato in Historic Context: From Dialogue to Dialectic
Past and Future, 2023
This overview of the thought of Socrates and Plato begins by placing them and their sources in their historic content, situating Socrates as an active citizen of Athens. Socrates’ investigative way of life is explored, assessing how this led to a wide range of ideas and texts that were developed by his student, Plato. Specific philosophical methods, including elenchus, dialogue and dialectic, are explained, followed by a brief exploration of the wider significance of Plato’s Republic, a book which has sometimes been misunderstood as straightforward political blueprint. The main legacies Socrates and Plato have given us are the commitment to, and engagement with, the process of achieving true understanding, and providing approaches whereby we can continue this journey to explore the nature of love, justice, and the Good.
The Intermediate Being of Socratic philosophy and its suppression in Plato's Trilogy
PhD Thesis, 2015
The Epistemic Statesman and the Suppression of the Intermediate…………………..312 10. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………334 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………...340 I wish to thank also Hayden W. Ausland, Professor of Classics at the University of Montana, for his numerous critical comments, questions, and constructive suggestions, as well as the job he undertook of, at one stage or another, proofreading the entirety of this dissertation. Responsibility for the mistakes, inconsistencies, and lack of precision that might be left is entirely mine. My wife Sigrun has supported me unconditionally all the years it took to finish this work. By taking care of our children and doing a lot more than her fair share of the housework, she has given me the opportunity to work evenings, weekends, and holidays. A grant from the Poetry and Philosophy research project allowed me to put the finishing touches to this work. 6 The Intermediate Being of Socratic Philosophy and its Suppression in Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman 9 complete ignorance and absolute truth, human beings can at best hope to attain an incomplete, partial, and preliminary image of divine wisdom, an image that will always be a mixture of the true and false. This has the implication that the Socratic philosopher does not stop philosophizing, but must persist searching for the truth. A philosopher can never know with certainty whether his opinions are true. Awareness of this ignorance should make any philosopher humble and moderate, such as befits any human being, at least according to Plato's Socrates. The power (dunamis) of Socrates' midwifery consists in rendering his interlocutors at a loss in order to make them aware of their own ignorance. To those who fail to know what Socrates is about, Socrates appears as a very unsettling sort of person. He does not follow the traditional scheme of those who engage in intellectual and "philosophical" discussions. Such people should be in possession of knowledge and wisdom, and thus display this to potential students and clients, but Socrates renders other people at loss about certain things and at the same time claims to be ignorant about those very things. Those who are exposed to Socrates' midwifery experience something almost completely opposite to sophistical teaching. Socrates 14 dialogue is meant to be significant is suggested by Plato's very detailed and prolonged description of it. Perhaps nowhere else in Plato do we get so a comprehensive an account of the place of conversation. This geographical sense of place will take on a transferred and relatively abstract sense in the course of the dialogue. Atopia and related terms occur three times in the prologue. 9 The literal sense of the term is "without place", thereby implying "out of place", and so perhaps alluding to the fact that this is the only Platonic dialogue where Socrates converses outside the city walls of Athens. An exception is perhaps The Republic, where the conversation takes place in Piraeus. Piraeus is a place that is somehow in between being in Athens and outside of Athens, since the harbor of Athens is within Athens itself only via the extension of the fortified city called the "long walls". One plausible interpretation is that such a setting is particularly suited for philosophical conversations. Philosophy is a potentially dangerous activity because of its critical disposition. Being among friends in an intimate setting, Socrates can speak more freely. The Symposium also has a similar setting, but within the city. In this dialogue, Socrates is very direct about the situatedness of philosophy. Eros is described as a daimon and philosopher. The philosopher is situated between (metaxu) the wise and the ignorant, between ugliness and beauty as well as between human beings and gods. The parallels between Eros and Socrates are striking. 10 The philosopher's indeterminacy in being intermediate is experienced by Alcibiades as very out of place. In his encomium of Socrates, strangeness (atopia) is the key characteristic of Socrates "in himself and in his speeches" (221d2). 11 This strangeness is similar to the one the lover experiences in the Phaedrus, when he recalls the image of the beautiful beloved. But this is perhaps to get a little too far ahead of things. The interplay between topos and atopia in the Phaedrus is set in motion when Socrates and Phaedrus are on their way out of the city. I. The dialogue starts with the theme of Eros, when Socrates stumbles upon the beautiful Phaedrus in the city. In this encounter between the lover and the beloved another major theme in the dialogue is prepared, namely a movement from concealment to disclosure: Phaedrus is hiding a speech by the famous rhetorician Lysias under his cloak. He wants to practice his memorizing of the speech on Socrates. But Socrates discloses both Phaedrus' intentions and the hidden 9 229c6, 229e1, 230c6 10 See e.g. Hunter (2004), p. 80 and Bloom (1993) p. 133 11 215a2 and 221d1 15 speech. He will not let Phaedrus speak until "(…) first, my love, you show me what you have in your left hand under your cloak. I'll hazard (topazô) it's the actual text" 12 (228d6-8). Topazô means "guess" or "aim at" (LSJ). But there may also be a pun on the literal sense of "putting in a place". 13 In a metaphorical sense, this is exactly what Socrates is doing. He is placing the speech in a particular place by disclosing its place of hiding. 14 The place of hiding (under Phaedrus' cloak) has a strong symbolic meaning, being a dialogue about love and rhetoric. This same incident also playfully indicates another important and related theme; the one of image and original. Phaedrus is trying to trick Socrates into hearing his image of Lysias' speech instead of the original. But, as indicated above, Socrates exposes his intentions: "(…) bear in mind that, as fond of you as I am, I am not prepared to let you practice your speaking skills on me, not when Lysias is actually present among us" (228d-e). But this "presence" of Lysias is in reality only another image in the form of a written speech. In the discussion of writing in the last part of the dialogue, writing is considered only an image (eidôlon 276a9) of the spoken word. The theme of image/original and presence/absence is set in motion. II. Phaedrus and Socrates are now on their way into the countryside conversing. As they walk along the river Ilissus, Phaedrus brings up the myth about Boreas and Oreithuia. He asks Socrates whether he really thinks the mythic story is true. In his rather long response to Phaedrus, the first two instances of atopia occur. In the first part of his reply, Socrates makes an important distinction between himself and "the wise" (hoi sophoi): 15 What do you mean? If, like the wise men of our day, I didn't believe in these stories, I wouldn't be so out of place (atopos). 16 And in my wisdom, I would say that the Borean wind blew Oreithuia down from the rocks nearby while she was playing with Pharmakeia. 229c6-8 19 Socrates is "without place" or "out of place" in the sense that, in imitating, he is not himself. Imitating means being other than oneself, and this is yet another way of being possessed. If you don't know what you are doing, possession can be dangerous and lead astray. But, as we will see in the palinode, it can also lead toward transcendence in the sense of metaphysical being and truth. By the description of the grove (230b2-c5), which has become paradigmatic as a topos of love and seduction, 27 Socrates is communicating to both Phaedrus and the readers that there is a seduction taking place, and, as it turns out, a philosophical seduction carried out by way of imitations. The themes indicated by place in the prologue can be summed up as consisting of three interrelated aspects: (1) the prologue plays out a movement between concealment and disclosure in a way that points to the relation between image and original. (2) The grove is potentially a place of transcendence, (3) and it indicates a theme of seduction, pointing forward to the divine madness of the philosophic lovers. All these aspects draw attention to the movement upward, to the divine. Strangeness (atopia) is associated with ignorance, imitation and mixed images, elements that potentially represent a danger to the movement upward. As such these elements are the first intimation of a theme centering on human limitations and the limitations of philosophy. What follows from this is a tension manifest in Socrates' two paradigms of self-understanding: a beast more complex than the Typhon and something simple and divine. The two kinds of imagesthe mixed and strange as opposed to the simple and divineare linked to the pair place and placelessness or strangeness (atopia). Part two will explore how this pair is an important doublet for the organization of the dialogue. More particularly, it will ask, is the interplay between place and strangeness an image of that interplay between image and original, which points to the limits and transcendence in human nature? Part two: Place and Strangeness as Recurrent themes in the Phaedrus There are seven instances of place in the main body of the text. 28 All of them refer to some kind of divine place, either the sacred grove or some place in heaven. This can hardly be a coincidence possible when a direct vision of those beings is no longer fully accessible? If we assume that the difference between images and originals lies in the partiality of images in relation to their originals, a serious problem occurs for the activity of recollection. How can the viewer be sure that he recollects correctly? How can we be sure that we are not mistaking a false image for a true one and correctly identify the true? 37 The palinode does not solve the problem of original and image. On the contrary, it confirms that imitation poses a genuine philosophical problem within the dialogue. Even the genuine...