In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates argues that ‘the many’ are confused about the experience they describe as ‘being overcome by pleasure’. They think the cause is ‘something other than ignorance’. He argues it follows from what they believe that the cause is ‘ignorance’ and ‘false belief’. I show that his argument depends on a premise he does not introduce but they should deny: that when someone is overcome by pleasure, the desire stems from a belief. To explain why Plato does not (...) make Socrates introduce this premise, the account I construct is speculative. It starts from the assumption that Plato is thinking through an understanding of human beings and what they must do to live good lives that he takes the historical Socrates to set out. (shrink)

Keith DeRose gives an invalid argument for contextualism in “Assertion, Knowledge, and Context.” In section 2.4, entitled “The Argument for Contextualism,” DeRose makes the following remarks. “The knowledge account of assertion provides a powerful argument for contextualism: If the standards for when one is in a position to warrantedly assert that P are the same as those that comprise a truth-condition for ‘I know P,’ then if the former vary with context, so do the latter. In short: The knowledge account (...) of assertion together with the context-sensitivity of assertability yields contextualism about knowledge”. (shrink)

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates says to Callicles that “your love of the people, existing in your soul, stands against me, but if we closely examine these same matters often and in a better way, you will be persuaded” (513c7–d1). I argue for an interpretation that explains how Socrates understands Callicles’s love of the people to stand against him and why he believes examination often and in a better way will persuade Callicles.

Keith DeRose gives an invalid argument for contextualism in “Assertion, Knowledge, and Context.” In section 2.4, entitled “The Argument for Contextualism,” DeRose makes the following remarks. “The knowledge account of assertion provides a powerful argument for contextualism: If the standards for when one is in a position to warrantedly assert that P are the same as those that comprise a truth-condition for ‘I know P,’ then if the former vary with context, so do the latter. In short: The knowledge account (...) of assertion together with the context-sensitivity of assertability yields contextualism about knowledge”. (shrink)

I argue for an alternative interpretation of some of the examples Fred Feldman uses to establish his theory of happiness. According to Feldman, the examples show that certain utterances of the form S is pleased/glad that P and S is displeased/sad that P should be interpreted as expressions of extrinsic attitudinal pleasure and displeasure and hence must be excluded from the aggregative sum of attitudinal pleasure and displeasure that constitutes happiness. I develop a new interpretation of Feldman’s examples. My interpretation (...) is plausible in its own right. Moreover, it is significant within the context of the debate. It allows the attitudinal hedonist to preserve the initial understanding of happiness that Feldman believes is open to counterexample: that happiness is the sum of attitudinal pleasure minus attitudinal displeasure and that all attitudinal pleasure and displeasure counts equally in the aggregation that constitutes happiness. (shrink)

Fred Feldman conceives of happiness in terms of the aggregation of attitudinal pleasure and displeasure, but he distinguishes intrinsic from extrinsic attitudinal pleasure and displeasure and excludes extrinsic attitudinal pleasure and displeasure from the aggregation that constitutes happiness. I argue that Feldman has not provided a strong reason for this exclusion.

In the Phaedo, to explain why the philosopher lives in the unusually ascetic way he does, Socrates explains what someone realizes when philosophy takes possession of his soul and how he changes his behavior on the basis of this information. This paper considers the conception of belief the character uses in this explanation and whether it is the same as the conception Michael Frede thinks the historical Socrates is likely to have held and that the Stoics much later incorporated into (...) their doctrine of practice. (shrink)

There is a set of texts in the history of ancient skepticism that have not been widely understood. Michael Frede has done much to set these texts in their proper context, but his work has not gotten the appreciation it deserves. Historians have tended to think that ancient skepticism in the Clitomachian-Pyrrhonian tradition is the suspension of belief on all matters and that Frede’s attempt to show otherwise is confused. This may turn out to be correct, but Frede’s interpretation, as (...) I think it should be understood, is more plausible and interesting than is usually thought. Frede has made it possible to see the skeptics in the Clitomachian-Pyrrhonian tradition as taking some of the first steps in working out the philosophical view that epistemic justification is a matter of whether a belief is the sustained outcome of a correct cognitive process and that correctness here need not and perhaps should not be understood in terms of modal reliability. (shrink)

This book offers a sympathetic explanation of the origin of the Theory of Forms that is true both to the dialogues and to Plato's place in history. The author's explanation makes the development of Plato's thought part of an intellectual and philosophical history that begins in the pre-Socratic period, extends through Socrates and the Sophists, and continues into the twentieth century. The explanation provides a unified reading of three passages that scholars have long recognized as keys to Plato's thought about (...) the Forms, but which have proved stubbornly resistant to interpretation, both individually and as a group: (i) the intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo; (ii) the discussion of the philosopher and the lover of spectacles in the Republic; and (iii) the discussion of starting points, the Receptacle, and the four kinds of stuff in the Timaeus. The book will be of special interest to scholars of ancient philosophy, it will also be of interest to philosophers in general, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students. (shrink)

Ancient Greek Philosophy: From the Presocratics to the Hellenistic Philosophers presents a comprehensive introduction to the philosophers and philosophical traditions that developed in ancient Greece from 585 BC to 529 AD. Provides coverage of the Presocratics through the Hellenistic philosophers Moves beyond traditional textbooks that conclude with Aristotle A uniquely balanced organization of exposition, choice excerpts and commentary, informed by classroom feedback Contextual commentary traces the development of lines of thought through the period, ideal for students new to the discipline (...) Can be used in conjunction with the online resources found at http://tomblackson.com/Ancient/toc.html. (shrink)

IN POSTERIOR ANALYTICS 2.19 AND METAPHYSICS 1.1, Aristotle describes the natural process by which man acquires reason and the knowledge that belongs to reason. He says that from perception comes memory, from memory comes experience, and from experience comes reason and the knowledge that belongs to reason. This is the sequence in induction, and it is common to the description in both passages. In the Metaphysics, however, unlike in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle goes on to explain how the expertise gained (...) in experience is different from but easily mistaken for the knowledge that belongs to reason. He says that men of experience know that the thing is so, but not the why and the cause, and this can be perplexing because it can seem to conflict with his epistemology and ontology of reason. As I understand Aristotle, he thought that wisdom, not the knowledge that belongs to reason, varies among men, and that every adult who is not defective acquires the knowledge why in the course of his natural development. It thus follows that the experience that men of experience possess cannot be the experience in induction, for otherwise reason and its knowledge would come to man late in life, if at all, and would come to only those who had acquired the expertise that belongs to men of experience. (shrink)

According to the Stoics, human beings enslave themselves. When they change from nonrational children into rational adults, human beings form false beliefs about what is good and what is bad. These beliefs enslave them to things that are neither good nor bad. The author argues for an interpretation of how the Stoics understood the reasoning in terms of which human beings form these false beliefs. This interpretation helps makes sense of the argument against Chrysippus’s explanation of the origin of vice (...) that Galen attributes to Posidonius. It also helps explain how the Stoics could think that nature is provident and that nature constructs human beings so that they enslave themselves when they change from nonrational children into rational adults. (shrink)

Professor Beversluis says that this book is a re-reading of Platos early dialogues from the point of view of the characters with whom Socrates engages in debate. He says that unlike existing studies, which are thoroughly dismissive of the interlocutors and reduce them to the status of mere mouthpieces, this book takes them seriously and treats them as genuine intellectual opponents whose views are often more defensible than commentators have standardly thought. Beversluis says his purpose is not to summarize their (...) positions or the arguments of the dialogues in which they appear, much less to produce a series of biographical sketches, but to investigate the phenomenology of philosophical disputation as it manifests itself in the early dialogues. He thinks that this investigation demonstrates the truth of his thesis that Socrates frequent use of faulty arguments and unscrupulous dialectical tactics calls in question his announced seriousness and concern for the souls of his fellows. (shrink)

In Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Professor Bobzien accomplishes what she describes as her “primary goal”; namely, “to establish-as far as that is possible—what the Stoic positions were, and to make them comprehensible to modern readers”. To this end, she demonstrates a scholarly command of the ancient texts and the contemporary secondary literature that places her as one of the most knowledgeable philosophers working in the history of ancient philosophy today. Moreover, as Myles Burnyeat says in his remarks on (...) the jacket, not only is the book “a model of scholarly method,” it is “an outstanding example of lucid philosophical thinking in an area where clear thought is extremely difficult.” Bobzien herself says that the “book is written with those in mind who have an interest in philosophy” and that “[t]his means that historical and philological questions are treated strictly as subordinate to the question of what the respective philosophical position was, whether it was consistent, etc.” This strict subordination is not always so clear, and the philosophical problems are certainly interesting enough that a deeper and more extensive discussion would have been welcome, but Bobzien does provide a philosophically lucid treatment of the Stoic position on determinism, freedom, and related subjects. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy is likely to be a dominate work in the field for quite some time. (shrink)

Few recent events in the world of Platonic scholarship have caused more excitement than the publication of the initial volumes of R. E. Allen’s The Dialogues of Plato. Allen is on track to become the first scholar since Benjamin Jowett in the nineteenth century to produce a translation, with commentary, of all of Plato’s works. This feat is all the more impressive because Allen’s translations and comments thus far have been superb.