Knowledge and its Objects in Plato

Abstract

What we find in texts and treatises of the history of philosophy is by and large information as to what theses or opinions different philosophers put forward at different times. All too seldom do we find any interesting clues as to why they adopted these views and why it was important for them to propound them as a part of their explicit teaching. However, if history of philosophy is to be something more than the graveyard of more or less forgotten doctrines, it ought to offer us some insights into the reasons why different problems were problematic for different thinkers, why the way in which they used to attack them differed from one philosopher to another, and why the standards of successful solutions to problems have varied. Often, though not always, answers to these questions depend on the conceptual assumptions which the thinkers in question more or less tacitly adopted. Often, these conceptual assumptions and conceptual preferences were common to all or most thinkers of the same period or even of the same culture. However, attempts to study such hidden conceptual assumptions and the characteristic modes of argumentation to which they give rise are few and far between, and successful attempts seem to me still rarer. One does find, it is true, some interesting and illuminating observations concerning, for instance, Aristotle’s typical modes of philosophical discussion.