Waving or drowning? Socrates and the sophists on self-knowledge in the Euthydemus. (original) (raw)
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Socrates’ Philosophical Protreptic in Euthydemus 278c–282d
Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie, 2012
At Euthydemus 278c–282d, Socrates defends strong claims about the relative value of wisdom, fortune, and other goods in relation to happiness. He concludes that wisdom guarantees all of the good fortune a person needs, and that wisdom alone is good and ignorance alone is bad. However, Socrates’ arguments prove insufficient to establish his strong conclusions. I argue that Socrates does not aim to support his strongest conclusions with adequate arguments. Instead, the context indicates that Socrates’ arguments – with their evocative examples and strong but unsupported conclusions – are designed primarily to draw Clinias into the activity of philosophy.
2023
Heidegger, in his analysis of Plato's Sophist,¹ points out that "the sixth definition of the sophist always struck commentators as ac onsideration lying outside the framework of the previous definitions" mainlyb ecause "they werea taloss to see how this definition could be brought into the framework of the dichotomies".² He also believes that "if one understands thepreparatory definitionstobeconnected through Plato'ssupposed concern with building aconceptual pyramid, then indeed it will be difficult to fit the sixth definition among theo thers".³ If we were readyt oa dopt this view in an unexamined way, the consequencew ould be to take for granted ag ap or ad iscontinuity between the first five definitionsa nd the sixth. The aim of this paper is to draw al ine of interpretation thatc laims that when the fifth definition places the emphasis on logos (λόγος), it pavest he wayt ot he sixth; logos is ah uman characteristic which brings to the fore and realizes the manifestation of all thinking and specificallyofcontroversies and disputationsi nw hich our thought is involved and expressed. The same subject is reserved and developed in the sixth definition. Moreover,m ya im is to show that the sixth definition, apart from the explicit discussion of purification or cathartic dialectic,a ctually thematizes division itself.B ased on Proclus' interpretation of eristic in the Sophist,Iwill show that the notion of communion (κοινωνία)i si mplicitlyexamined for the first time in thedialogue within the sixth definition of the sophist,wheret he Sophistic and the Socratic dialectic are commingled. Finally, I maintaint hatf rom the analysis of thec rucial passage2 30 b-d, we can infer Throughout this paper,Ifollow the translation by White(1993) as ag eneral outline.
Says Who? Modes of Speaking in the Euthydemus
Australasian Philosophical Review, 2019
With very few exceptions, the relatively small number of scholars who have lavished attention on Plato's Euthydemus have found it fertile soil in two respects. For some, it is a compilation of fallacies committed by the sophistic brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, designed to serve as an introductory sourcebook of bad argument-a forerunner to Aristotle's Sophistici Elenchi [Robinson 1942; Sprague 1962; Hawtrey 1981]. 1 For others, it contains a significant contribution to Platonic ethics by way of a compressed and vexing argument for the view that compared to other purported goods (e.g., health and wealth), wisdom is the only good 'in itself' (280b-282a) (e.g.
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...
Speeches as Images of Being: Phaedo 99d4-100a8 and Sophist 254d4-256e7
Journal of Greco-Roman Studies, 2021
This paper argues that the metaphysical section in Plato's Sophist 254d4-256e7 is plausibly read as an instance of the method of hypothesis introduced in the Phaedo. I first note that Socrates' motivation for orienting his inquiry by speech, mentioned in Phaedo 99d4-100a8, is that speech (logos) is in one sense imagistic and in another sense not. Then I argue that this claim can be fleshed out in terms of the two kinds of images presented in the Sophist. While all speech is imagistic, some can elevate their status, namely when they become eikōn-type images. With this as a clue, I turn to the Sophist target passage and argue that first, the communion of Kinds employs the method of hypothesis by applying it to Forms and investigating what statements are consistent and inconsistent with the Forms posited; second, logos has the character of image at the level of words, sentences, and relationships between sentences; finally, the Stranger's introduction of partaking-language is meant to overcome the limitations of logos and create eikōnes that can serve as originals. The second point can be observed as the arguments proceed in increasing complexity, and I provide evidence for the first in 254d-255e, and show how the final point is illustrated in 256a-e. The above results bring me to a close by reflecting on what kind of philosophical illumination is achieved by this juxtaposition of the two dialogues. I suggest, on the one hand, that the Sophist passage explains why the method of hypothesis is said by Socrates to be second best. It is second best because the arguments might be based on insufficient insight, cannot reveal the nature of each Form by itself, and they might be misinterpreted. On the other hand, the Sophist also shows that the method of hypothesis, while safer than perhaps other methods of inquiry, is not fully safe: its very procedure risks falling prey to sophistry.
Developing the Good itself by itself: critical strategies in Plato's Euthydemus
Plato Journal
Did Plato change his mind? This has become a topical question once again, especially after the publication of two books which dispute some received wisdom about the 'Socratic' dialogues [1]. The received wisdom imagined that we might distinguish between an early period of Platonic thought and the middle period dialogues. In particular (many still suppose), between dialogues such as the Protagoras or the Laches and the Phaedo or the Republic we can see Plato changing his mind about metaphysics (are there transcendent forms?) and psychology (is the soul simple or complex?). The popular diagnosis of thisespecially since Vlastos defended it in detail [2]-was that Plato changed his mind because he began to move away from the influence of the historical Socrates, so that the middle period represented a break from the Socratic view. This stark view of Platonic development began to blur at the same time as a different set of questions came into focus, about how one should read the dialogues. It is now de rigueur to observe that the character of Socrates in the early dialogues is an emphatically fictional figure. To represent Socrates as a strictly historical personage (whether as having actually said these things or as having been committed to things like this) is to miss a great deal of the complex literary features of the early dialogues. This, in turn, is to miss the way in which Plato exploits literary technique to make philosophical points. Perhaps Socrates is not-ever or always-marked out for special, pietistic attention, but, rather, engages us in a complex piece of interpretation, itself to provoke philosophical reflection [3].
The Eleatic Stranger in Sophist dialogue: A Continuation of the Socratic Legacy
Plato Journal, 2022
Within the framework of the discussion about the existence of a spokesman in the Platonic dialogues, we look, in the first part, into the possible transfer of this spokesman's function from Socrates to the Eleatic Stranger, identifying the contact and divergence points between both characters. In the second part, we try to show that this transfer has a dramatic staging at the beginning of the Sophist dialogue, where Socrates makes a demand that enables the Stranger to demonstrate his genuine philosophical condition.
Sandra Peterson , Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato . Reviewed by
Philosophy in Review, 2011
Peterson's book addresses a familiar puzzle in Platonic scholarship: in dialogues such as the Apology and Euthyphro, the depicted Socrates disavows wisdom and avoids advancing views of his own, focusing instead on elenctic examination of his interlocutors' positions. In dialogues such as the Republic and Phaedo, however, Socrates no longer scrutinizes the views of his interlocutors, but rather seems to advocate ambitious philosophical theses of his own. The question is, how can we explain the shift? The traditional response is to understand changes in the depicted Socrates as indicative of changes the author. We eventually find a doctrinal Socrates who no longer engages in elenchus, the view goes, because we eventually have a doctrinal Plato who no longer thinks the elenctic method is the best.