(1994). The rhetoric of science and the challenge of post‐liberal democracy. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, Public Indifference to Population Issues, pp. 261-271.

Socratic irony is potentially fertile ground for exegetical abuse. It can seem to offer an interpreter the chance to dismiss any claim which conflicts with his account of Socratic Philosophy merely by crying ‘irony’. If abused in this way, Socratic irony can quickly become a convenient receptacle for everything inimical to an interpretation. Much recent scholarship rightly reacts against this and devotes itself to explaining how Socrates actually means everything he says, at least everything of philosophical importance. But the fact (...) that a commentator needs toarguethat Socrates is really serious when he disavows knowledge or claims to be the saviour of Athens is by itself sufficient to establish that there is an abundance of what I will call ‘play’ in the Socratic dialogues. The term ‘play’ refers to occasions when Socrates at leastappearsnot to be speaking straightforwardly. ‘Play’ covers cases of real or apparent humour, mockery, teasing, irony, and sarcasm, without differentiation or further elaboration. When left undefined, as often, the phrase ‘Socratic irony’ seems to be used to refer to what I am calling ‘play’. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate Plato’s conception of the whole in the Phaedrus and the theory of medical dialectic underlying this conception. Through this analysis Plato’s conception of kairos will also be adressed. It will be argued that the epistemological holism developed in the dialogue and the patient-typology emerging from it provides us with a way of perceiving individual situations of medical discourse and decision-making that makes it possible to bridge the gap between observations of a professional (...) nature, i.e. of diagnostics and therapy—of whom to treat and in what magnitude—and individual patients’ perceptions of their situation. Besides, it will be argued that such a patient-typology represents a conceptual framework to assess and deal normatively with patients’ ailments and needs that is more robust than the current standards in use, i.e. the Subjective Standard, the Reasonable Person Standard and the Professional Practice Standard. Finally, it will be argued that the possession of kairos, which according to Plato is the hallmark of a true physician, represents a normative conception of time that today’s medicine is in need of revisiting. (shrink)

Educational theorists may be right to suggest that providing mindfulness training in schools can challenge oppressive pedagogies and overcome Western dualism. Before concluding that this training is liberatory, however, one must go beyond pedagogy and consider schooling’s role in enacting the educational neurofuture envisioned by mindfulness discourse. Mindfulness training, this article argues, is a biopolitical human enhancement strategy. Its goal is to insulate youth from pathologies that stem from digital capitalism’s economisation of attention. I use Bernard Stiegler’s Platonic depiction of (...) the ambiguousness of all attention channelling mechanisms as pharmaka—containing both poison and cure—to suggest that this training is a double-edged sword. Does the inculcation of mindfulness in schoolchildren empower them; or is it merely an exercise in pathology-proofing them in their capacity as the next generation of unpaid digital labourers? The answer, I maintain, depends on whether young people can use the Internet’s political potentialities to mitigate the exploitation of their unpaid online labour time. That is, on whether the exploitative ‘digital pharmakon’—the capitalistic Web—can at the same time be socio-politically curative. (shrink)

In his second question of thePhaedrus, Socrates asks Phaedrus how he spent (διατριβή) his morning with Lysias. Phaedrus answers: ‘You'll learn, should you have the leisure (σχολή) to walk and listen.’ Socrates responds:What? Don't you think I would judge it, as Pindar puts it, a thing ‘surpassing even lack of leisure’ (καὶ ἀσχολίας ὑπέρτερον), to hear how you and Lysias spent your time? (227b6–10)Socrates quotes fromFirst Isthmian2. In this victory ode, Pindar celebrates, uniquely in his extant oeuvre, a charioteer winner (...) who has driven his own team. The epinician poem and the dialogue, especially the myth in Socrates’ second speech, have remarkable systematic parallels. This suggests that Pindar's victor serves as model for the palinode's philosophical lover, and Pindar's song for Socrates’ conversation. (shrink)

Porphyry'sLife of Plotinusis the earliest extant memoir of a philosopher by his pupil. Historians of philosophy have embraced it as a key to the intellectual development of Plotinus, while historians of the third century have found it an invaluable supplement to the fragmentary records of this era. Yet few have cared to read it as an original work of literature, or even as the mature work of a scholar and philosopher who for centuries eclipsed his master in influence, if not (...) in reputation. In consequence, attention has not been paid to certain striking peculiarities in Porphyry's selection and arrangement of materials, which, if studied, will shed light on the form and purpose of the whole biography. This article is devoted to a strange chapter which, as in any ancient writing, we should expect to be the most instructive because it is the first. (shrink)

Resumen: Mientras que en Banquete Platón presenta a Éros como un daímon metaxý, i.e. como una divinidad intermedia e intermediaria entre dioses y hombres, en Fedro lo caracteriza, en cambio, como un theós -un dios. Procuraremos mostrar aquí que esto no implica, sin embargo, un cambio doctrinal substancial sino que se trata de dos aproximaciones distintas pero complementarias respecto a la verdadera naturaleza de Éros. Según el Fedro, si bien éros puede permanecer en una expresión puramente física, sin desarrollar su (...) aspecto divino, es posible también que, debido al intenso deseo sexual por el bello muchachito, el amante recuerde la Forma de la belleza y crezcan en él las alas del Éros divino. Pero únicamente los dioses nunca pierden las alas de sus almas y están regularmente en pleno contacto con las Formas. Las almas humanas deben adquirirlas, y aun así, con riesgo a perderlas, quedando entonces en un lugar “intermedio” -metaxý- como el Éros de Banquete.: Although in the Symposium Plato describes Erôs as a daimôn-metaxy, i.e. as an intermediate and intermediary divinity between gods and men, in the Phaedrus it is said that Erôs is a theos -a god. I will try to show that these different descriptions do not imply a substantial change of mind but work as two complementary views about the true nature of Erôs. According to the Phaedrus, although erôs can remain just at a physical level and not develop its divine power, it is also possible that, thanks to the same intense, sexual desire for the beautiful boy, the lover recollects the Form of beauty and so grows divine Erôs`s wings. However, only the gods never lose their wings and so are in regular, full contact with the Forms. The human souls need to acquire the wings and even so take the risk of losing them; they are then in an intermediate state -metaxy- like Erôs in the Symposium. (shrink)

In this paper I use the traditional image of Plato as swan to suggest that interpreting Plato should not be a matter of getting to know what his doctrines are (a doctrinal approach), but rather a of getting to know Plato himself (a knowledge by acquaintance approach). I argue that the dialogues encourage the knowledge by acquaintance approach and discourage the doctrinal approach, through the use of Platonic anonymity, Platonic irony and Platonic self-effacement. I point out how the knowledge by (...) acquaintance approach values the rich diversity of historical opinions about Plato, whereas the doctrinal approach seeks to resolve such diversity once and for all. Even though the doctrinal approach has powerful tools at its disposal—such as the testimony of Aristotle, the principle that the main speaker in a dialogue is Plato’s mouthpiece, and stylometric analysis—the product of a doctrinal approach is a brand of Platonism that is weak, rigid, and ultimately dispensable. The philosophy of Plato is worthy of more respect than that, and it repays such respect with wider understanding. (shrink)