Has philosophy ever completed a transition from divine revelation to rational reflection? Has it been Plato’s goal? In this paper I will establish and examine a parallel between divination and philosophy embodied in Plato’s Socrates. I will cite instances from both directions to analyze Plato’s indecision concerning a philosophical treatment of divination: On the one hand, Plato renovates the cultural stock of divination to supplement the rational process of Socratic dialectics. In particular, when he makes a proposal not as a (...) proven proposition, but as the starting point of discussion, Socrates frequently helps himself to divinatory language. On the other hand, Plato does not seem to abandon the nondiscursive elements in his narrative, especially since the vision of the ultimate objective of the Platonic-Socratic project, i.e. the Good, requires a resort to divination. The indecision is reflected in the textual ambivalence as to whether the being of the Good transcends other forms or is on a par with other forms as the noblest form. Based on the correlation between the power of knowledge and the object of knowledge, I will argue that the epistemic entanglement of divination with reason in Plato’s approach corresponds to the ambiguous relationship between being and the Good in Plato’s ethically imbued metaphysical scheme. Since Plato presents Socrates as a seer in the aforementioned occasions, I will further suggest that Plato presents himself as a collector of oracles by preserving Socratic’s teaching in writing, whose ultimate meanings are open to interpretation and debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung1Laura J. Mueller (bio)Michael Hogue’s American Immanence draws from some of the fundamental features of American philosophy: philosophy is not alienated from life, but rather, part and parcel of the structure of our experiences, a way of living. His notion of “resilient democracy” is particularly representative of this tradition of thought. Resilient democracy is, first of all, (...) an ethos, grounded in “the collective experience of uncertainty and animated by the living desire to bring about a more beautiful world.”2 This ethos is an associational, relational one, and it is democratic because, for Hogue, it must be “empathetic, emancipatory, and equitable,” assuming that each member of the association can be enriched by other members” (AI, 172–73). Vital to this democratic ethos is its anti-foundational politics; we start not with an immutable reality, but rather with the vulnerable reality of our actual, political, experiences (AI, 176). We start with where we are, not where some abstract ideal demands we should be. Democracy, for Hogue, is not just a certain political ideal for which to aim, but rather a way of being, a way of life. Dewey writes:A democracy is more than an associated form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.... These more numerous and more varied points of contact denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to respond... They secure a liberation of his powers which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests.3Throughout this paper, I use “democracy” in this sense; as a way of life, as a relational ethos, not as any particular political system. [End Page 40]As a way of life, democracy is both the process—the struggle—and that which we aim for. This feature of democracy is similar to the structure of Bildung, in which self-cultivation is both the process and the product.4 For example, for Wilhelm von Humboldt, an individual is in “continuing activity,” whose powers are never stagnant; humankind is always progressing, an infinite object.5 This is an end-in-view, not a fixed end.6 Humboldt “did not formulate a catalogue which prescribed what a person should know, what a person should read, what a person should have heard, what a person should have concerned himself with, so that one can say: this person has Bildung.”7 For Humboldt, Bildung is “the development of the capacities of the individual into a harmonious whole.”8 This paper, in part, looks at Hogue’s resilient democracy as a cultivation of both the individual and the group, as Bildung of both self and culture. In particular, the individual and culture that are being cultivated are relational, grounded in an emancipatory, equitable, and empathetic ethos, with a democratic way of life.Similar to the traditional Bildungstradition, education plays a vital role in this kind of democratic cultivation. If our end-in-view is a democratic society, then the method to reach that end must also be democratically ordered. Myles [End Page 41] Horton put it best: “When you believe in a democratic society, you provide a setting for education that is democratic.”9Modern Socratic Dialogue (MSD) is a particular method of philosophical dialogue that engages in and cultivates the ethos of resilient democracy. It cultivates empathy (in listening), pluralism (difference is accommodated and incorporated) and equity (insofar as no special knowledge is required), and anti-foundationalism (participants approach the conversation with epistemic humility, not trying to grasp a Truth as the ground of knowledge, but rather work together to form a common truth that comes out of their situatedness). These are all traits of Hogue’s resilient democracy, and all traits of an American Bildung, our self-correcting vulnerability, a way of being that replaces an unattainable ideal without sacrificing amelioration.Much like the tradition it addresses, this paper is layered; it is polyphonically pluralistic in method and structure. The many voices of this paper are first stratified and folded in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Socrates' Trial and Conviction of the Jurors in Plato's ApologyDougal BlythI am going to argue in this paper that, in the three speeches constituting his Apology of Socrates, Plato presents the judicial proceedings that led to Socrates' execution as having precisely the opposite significance to their superficial legal meaning. This re-evaluation will lead to some reflections on the politics of Socrates' defence, and, similarly, on Plato's own aims in (...) writing the Apology. I want to show not only that the trial as portrayed demonstrates an inevitable dereliction of duty by the democratic jury, but also, more interestingly, that throughout the proceedings Socrates understands the meaning of the trial precisely in terms of his anticipation of the jurors' judicial incapacity.In the prooimion to his defence speech, Socrates requests that the jurors ignore his manner of speaking and concentrate on whether his case is just, "since this is a judge's virtue (), while that of a rhêtôr is to speak the truth" (18a5-6, cf. 35c2-5). We can gloss the expression "a judge's aretê" in this context as his function, or responsibility.1 Socrates claims that he, himself, fulfills his own responsibility as a defendant to tell the truth (17b4-c4, 33c1-2, cf. 34b5, 35b9-c2) in a speech that asserts his exemplary piety in Apollo's service and his beneficial influence on the Athenian youth. But if, in claiming that he is innocent of the charge, Socrates does tell the truth, then those jurors who thereupon convict him of impiety and corruption, and subsequently sentence him to death, have failed in their duty to judge rightly.My claim is that Socrates sees the trial as a test of the jurors' abilities. It is characteristic of Socrates to test people regarding their concern for virtue and justice, a habit to which he devotes extended discussion during his defence, even dramatising it provocatively in a central passage (29d7-e5) that I aim shortly to analyse in detail. Moreover, Socrates specifically withholds from the jury the title of dikastai or judges; he does finally award the title in his address following the sentence, but only to those who have voted [End Page 1] to acquit him (40a2-3).2 The possibility thus emerges that Socrates has treated the legal proceedings all along as a moral (and intellectual) test, or trial, of the empanelled jurors themselves, to see whether they are capable of the legal function to which they have been allotted. In that case, Socrates is putting on trial, not just those individual citizens, but the very legal system of democratic Athens.Socratic irony and truthfulnessBefore considering Socrates' own explicit judgement during those final remarks on the jurors' moral offence and punishment, I should first address briefly the issue of Socrates' irony. In the past, some writers have asserted that this irony involves him in not telling the truth about himself during his defence, in which case the jury might well have been justified in convicting him. Actually, there does seem to be a consensus among the more extended treatments of the Apology that have emerged during the last decade, at least on the point that Plato presents Socrates as committed to making as sincere an attempt at a defence of his case as is consistent with his philosophical commitment to virtue, and so to telling the truth.3I shall not re-argue this point in detail, but shall take it to be secured by two basic considerations: consistency with the Crito would require Socrates to recognise a legal obligation to make a sincere attempt at defence while his obligation to Apollo to continue his mission in Athens if possible would motivate that attempt with the goal of acquittal.4 Instead, I want to show what role irony does have in Socrates' defence, given that his principled law-abidingness requires him to attempt to persuade the jury, in accordance with truth and justice, that he is innocent (cf. 19a6-7, 18a7-b1, 18e5).Where Socrates acknowledges the obligation to defend himself, he remarks on the difficulty he faces, a difficulty that has resulted from the slander to which he has long... (shrink)

In Plato’s Symposium eros and paideia draw the fabric of dramatic and rhetorical speeches and, especially, the picture of the relation between Socrates and Alcibiades. This paper will focus, firstly, on two important facts, which are essential for the correct understanding of the dialogue, both of which appear at the beginning. First, it is said that Socrates, Alcibiades and the others were present at the famous banquet, and second, that the banquet and the erotic speeches of the participants were so (...) celebrated as to attract the attention for several decades to come. So, the memory of that symposium is thus the memory, far beyond the other symposiasts, and through the erotic speeches, of something precise: that is, a particularly significant relationship, that between Socrates and Alcibiades. What matters most for the aim of this paper is the fact that Alcibiades is considered one of the major reasons for the defeat of Athens and the main cause of the crisis into which the city was plunged during the last years of 5th century BC. Due to the distrust of the city towards the groups of ‘philosophers’ that remitted to Alcibiades’ group, it is no surprise that the so-called Socratics committed themselves to refuting the accusation of Socrates having been Alcibiades’ mentor, to the point of reversing the charge. In the same way as the others Plato, also a Socratic, concerns himself with what might be called the ‘Alcibiades’ Connection’. Realizing there obviously was no way to deny the deep connection between Socrates and Alcibiades, he uses a clever dramatic construction with the intention of operating a political intervention upon the memory of this relationship, that is, of rewriting history, with the intent of relieving him of a more precise charge, which must have especially weighed upon Plato andupon Socrates’ memory: of him having been Alcibiades’ lover/mentor. This Platonic apology is based, ultimately, in a clever rhetorical strategy, which emphasizes the now traditional sexual paranomia of Alcibiades, in order tomake him guilty of an attempted excessive and outrageous seduction not only of Socrates, but of the polis itself. Reusing comic and oratorical/rhetorical motifs of his time, therefore, Plato deepens the J’accuse against Alcibiades, trying to withdraw him from the orbit of Socrates and the Socratics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Socrates' Trial and Conviction of the Jurors in Plato's ApologyDougal BlythI am going to argue in this paper that, in the three speeches constituting his Apology of Socrates, Plato presents the judicial proceedings that led to Socrates' execution as having precisely the opposite significance to their superficial legal meaning. This re-evaluation will lead to some reflections on the politics of Socrates' defence, and, similarly, on Plato's own aims in (...) writing the Apology. I want to show not only that the trial as portrayed demonstrates an inevitable dereliction of duty by the democratic jury, but also, more interestingly, that throughout the proceedings Socrates understands the meaning of the trial precisely in terms of his anticipation of the jurors' judicial incapacity.In the prooimion to his defence speech, Socrates requests that the jurors ignore his manner of speaking and concentrate on whether his case is just, "since this is a judge's virtue (), while that of a rhêtôr is to speak the truth" (18a5-6, cf. 35c2-5). We can gloss the expression "a judge's aretê" in this context as his function, or responsibility.1 Socrates claims that he, himself, fulfills his own responsibility as a defendant to tell the truth (17b4-c4, 33c1-2, cf. 34b5, 35b9-c2) in a speech that asserts his exemplary piety in Apollo's service and his beneficial influence on the Athenian youth. But if, in claiming that he is innocent of the charge, Socrates does tell the truth, then those jurors who thereupon convict him of impiety and corruption, and subsequently sentence him to death, have failed in their duty to judge rightly.My claim is that Socrates sees the trial as a test of the jurors' abilities. It is characteristic of Socrates to test people regarding their concern for virtue and justice, a habit to which he devotes extended discussion during his defence, even dramatising it provocatively in a central passage (29d7-e5) that I aim shortly to analyse in detail. Moreover, Socrates specifically withholds from the jury the title of dikastai or judges; he does finally award the title in his address following the sentence, but only to those who have voted [End Page 1] to acquit him (40a2-3).2 The possibility thus emerges that Socrates has treated the legal proceedings all along as a moral (and intellectual) test, or trial, of the empanelled jurors themselves, to see whether they are capable of the legal function to which they have been allotted. In that case, Socrates is putting on trial, not just those individual citizens, but the very legal system of democratic Athens.Socratic irony and truthfulnessBefore considering Socrates' own explicit judgement during those final remarks on the jurors' moral offence and punishment, I should first address briefly the issue of Socrates' irony. In the past, some writers have asserted that this irony involves him in not telling the truth about himself during his defence, in which case the jury might well have been justified in convicting him. Actually, there does seem to be a consensus among the more extended treatments of the Apology that have emerged during the last decade, at least on the point that Plato presents Socrates as committed to making as sincere an attempt at a defence of his case as is consistent with his philosophical commitment to virtue, and so to telling the truth.3I shall not re-argue this point in detail, but shall take it to be secured by two basic considerations: consistency with the Crito would require Socrates to recognise a legal obligation to make a sincere attempt at defence while his obligation to Apollo to continue his mission in Athens if possible would motivate that attempt with the goal of acquittal.4 Instead, I want to show what role irony does have in Socrates' defence, given that his principled law-abidingness requires him to attempt to persuade the jury, in accordance with truth and justice, that he is innocent (cf. 19a6-7, 18a7-b1, 18e5).Where Socrates acknowledges the obligation to defend himself, he remarks on the difficulty he faces, a difficulty that has resulted from the slander to which he has long... (shrink)

"Socrates' Pursuit of Definitions" examines the manner in which Socrates pursues definitions in Plato's early definitional dialogues and advances the following claims. Socrates evaluates definitions (proposed by his interlocutors or himself) by considering their consistency with conditions of the identity of F (F-conditions) to which he is committed. In evaluating proposed definitions, Socrates seeks to determine their truth-value. Socrates evaluates the truth-value of a proposed definition by considering the consistency of the proposed definition with F-conditions that F he believes (...) to be true. (For instance, a proposed definition's inconsistency with one of these gives Socrates reason to believe that the definition is false.) Socrates' belief in the truth of a given F-condition to which he is committed may be based on self-evidence, its endoxic status, experience, or deduction from premises to which he is committed on the basis of any of the previous three. However, Socrates does not consider the epistemological grounds of his commitments to his F-conditions. This is part of a general avoidance of metaethical and ethical epistemological issues. Due to his avoidance of these, Socrates' pursuit of true definitions is theoretically naïve. However, Socrates recognizes a certain limitation to his manner of pursuing definitions. These results are applied to advancing the following further points. (1) Although Socrates has a distinctive manner or style of pursuing definitions, it is inappropriate to ascribe to him a method of doing so in the following sense. The concept of method implies a certain theoretical conception of procedure that Socrates lacks. Moreover, according to Socrates' own conceptual framework, only one who possessed the relevant τέχνη would have a method. (2) Furthermore, Socrates' manner of pursuing definitions is not elenctic just insofar as the word "elenchus" is interpreted to have adversarial connotations; that is inconsistent with Socrates' motives and interests. (3) Socrates' manner of pursuing definitions is consistent among the early definitional dialogues. More specifically, there is no "demise of the elenchus" in a set of transitional dialogues, as Vlastos describes it. First, Socrates' manner of pursuing definitions is not "elenctic" (in the sense described). And, second, the fact that Socrates himself proposes definitions in allegedly post-elenctic dialogues (that is, Lysis and Hippias Major) is consistent with his manner of pursuing definitions. (4) In the early definitional dialogues, Socrates does not have a theory of definition. In particular, he lacks a general theoretical ontology. Moreover, while his comments and implicit commitments entail beliefs about some conditions for a satisfactory definition (for example, that the definiens must be a uniquely identifying true verbal description), such conditions do not constitute a theory. (5) Although in other early dialogues and in other parts of the definitional dialogues Socrates may express concern over the psychological states and well-being of his interlocutors, in the process of pursuing definitions, Socrates' principal concern is the evaluation of definitions, not the psychologies or lives of his interlocutors. (6) Finally, Socrates is committed to the epistemological priority of definitional knowledge for pertinent non-definitional knowledge. This does present a methodological problem of the kind to which Geach first drew attention. Specifically, according to the manner in which Socrates pursues definitions, it is unclear how he can get from belief that p to knowledge that p. Although this problem is genuine, Socrates himself is not unaware of such limits of his approach. (shrink)

En el ámbito de la acción moral, el principio socrático de que nadie yerra voluntariamente implica que toda vez que un agente elige algo lo hace por considerarlo, al mismo tiempo, como bueno o, al menos, preferible a otra cosa: su elección es internamente racional. La tesis socrática sobre la conexión estructural entre error y autoengaño constituye, sin duda, uno de los aportes más decisivos al pensamiento filosófico occidental. De esta concepción en torno a la naturaleza y estructura del error, (...) en general, y de su aplicación específica al caso del error moral, se siguen importantes consecuencias para el modo en que Sócrates considera el fenómeno del conflicto motivacional. Asimismo, se muestra la importancia decisiva que tuvo la concepción socrática para la discusión de la estructura de la conciencia moral tanto en Platón y Aristóteles como en Tomás de Aquino. In the realm of moral action, the socratic principle nobody errs willingly implies that the rational agent always chooses to do what he/she takes to be good or better for himself/herself: his/her choice is internally rational. Socrates' view of the connection between error and self-deception is a major contribution to western philosophy. The application of this view to the particular case of moral error has important consequences concerning the possibility of motivational conflict. Not only Plato and Aristotle but also Aquinas are strongly influenced by Socrates in their views concerning the structure of moral conscience. (shrink)

Resumen En el �mbito de la acci�n moral, el principio socr�tico de que nadie yerra voluntariamente implica que toda vez que un agente elige algo lo hace por considerarlo, al mismo tiempo, como bueno o, al menos, preferible a otra cosa: su elecci�n es internamente racional. La tesis socr�tica sobre la conexi�n estructural entre error y autoenga�o constituye, sin duda, uno de los aportes m�s decisivos al pensamiento filos�fico occidental. De esta concepci�n en torno a la naturaleza y estructura del (...) error, en general, y de su aplicaci�n espec�fica al caso del error moral, se siguen importantes consecuencias para el modo en que S�crates considera el fen�meno del conflicto motivacional. Asimismo, se muestra la importancia decisiva que tuvo la concepci�n socr�tica para la discusi�n de la estructura de la conciencia moral tanto en Plat�n y Arist�teles como en Tom�s de Aquino.: In the realm of moral action, the socratic principle nobody errs willingly implies that the rational agent always chooses to do what he/she takes to be good or better for himself/herself: his/her choice is internally rational. Socrates"� view of the connection between error and self-deception is a major contribution to western philosophy. The application of this view to the particular case of moral error has important consequences concerning the possibility of motivational conflict. Not only Plato and Aristotle but also Aquinas are strongly influenced by Socrates in their views concerning the structure of moral conscience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato's Charmides by Raphael WoolfAlan PichanickWOOLF, Raphael. Plato's Charmides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 282 pp. Cloth, $110.00With the publication of Raphael Woolf's Plato's Charmides, Cambridge University Press releases its second commentary on the dialogue in the last two years. Woolf's contribution is a welcome addition. More than a discussion of the difficulties of defining sophrosune, his approach to the Charmides is distinctive in his attempt to unify (...) the drama and the argument of the dialogue around two elements that prior commentators have not stressed enough: the centrality of eros and the significance of Socrates' first-person narration of the conversation.Chapter 1 begins with an account of two methodological principles: the "principle of agnosticism," which states that "one should not assume, in advance... that one has knowledge of the aims and methods at work... of either Plato or... Socrates." Along with this principle, Woolf adopts what he calls "the principle of separation," which says that "we should not assume that what is said or done by any of Plato's characters is necessarily endorsed by Plato himself." These two principles, as principles, are helpful interpretive tools to confront the dialogue on its own terms. On Woolf's reading, Plato portrays Socrates in conversation with his interlocutors in order to "instill in his readers... the stance of inquiry... [, that is,] an attitude that does not take ideas or arguments on trust but engages reflectively with them." He argues, moreover, that such an endeavor on Plato's part can yield a "unified account" of the structure of the conversation Socrates has with Charmides and Critias, including the rich dramatic introduction to the dialogue.In chapter 2, Woolf turns to five examples from the Charmides that illustrate what he calls the stance of inquiry. In a particularly interesting section, Woolf turns to the ominous ending of the dialogue, in which Charmides conspires with Critias to force Socrates to continue to instruct him. It is a moment in which Plato intends his readers to think of the forthcoming violence of these two tyrants, and it thus prompts readers to confront the question: Was Socrates possibly a bad influence on Charmides? In answer to this question, Woolf suggests that Plato wants readers to reflect on the possibility that Socrates could be flawed (or at the very least, distinctive) in that "he seems sufficiently indifferent to the spatiotemporal world to be pretty much unaffected by the deaths of his comrades in battle," and that we may reasonably doubt that Socrates "would be any more affected by the havoc wreaked by the Thirty and by Charmides' subsequent fate." According to Woolf, such an interest in the abstract over the concrete should not be imitated by readers who have taken up the stance of inquiry toward Socrates.Woolf returns later in the book to defend this provocative claim, especially in chapters 4 and 5, but first turns in chapter 3 to develop his earlier claim that the unity of the dialogue can be grounded in Socrates' erotic concern with Charmides. Here he argues that Socrates' concern for the young man connects to the dominant medical metaphor in the dialogue: Socrates' claim to be a physician of the soul. Woolf makes a [End Page 559] compelling case for the importance of eros in the dialogue, and in drawing attention to the erotic features of the dramatic setting of the conversation, he makes an equally compelling argument that these elements are related to Socrates' role as a soul doctor. In Woolf's own account of the dialogue, it is only after 110 pages of commentary that the reader comes to hear Charmides' first definition of sophrosune (which Woolf prefers to translate as "temperance"). Woolf's procedure is warranted by the richness of the introduction and his persuasive case that this context is essential to understanding the dialogue as a whole. In particular, he demonstrates that the dramatic introduction reveals the importance that Plato lays on conversations in his account of Socratic philosophy. From here emerges Woolf's candidate for definition of sophrosune as "selfrealization." He argues that the dialogue suggests, especially in the dramatic introduction, that sophrosune is... (shrink)

This article is concerned with the nature of Socratic refutation.Over fifty years agon ow, Richard Robinson argued that Plato‘s Socrates assumes that his refutations show an interlocutor‘s thesis, not merely to contradict other beliefs held by the interlocutor, but to be self-contradictory. At first sight,this interpretation does not seem plausible, and it would indeed be rejected by most scholars today. Nevertheless, I argue that the interpretation contains much truth: Plato‘s Socrates does, if not always, then at least sometimes think of (...) his refutations in this way. In addition – and here I part company not only with Robinson‘s critics but also with Robinson himself – I argue for two further claims: first,that in thinking of his refutations in this way Socrates gives a reasonable characterization of a significant number of his refutations; and second, that it is not implausible of him to suppose that theses of the sort that he attempts to refute are in fact self-contradictory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cross-Examining Socrates. A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato’s Early DialoguesMark L. McPherranJohn Beversluis. Cross-Examining Socrates. A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato’s Early Dialogues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 416. Cloth, $69.95.This book is a valuable and thoroughly-researched contribution to the study of Plato's Socratic dialogues. Its fine qualities stem in part from its cathartic motivations: for years Beversluis suppressed his ever-growing reservations concerning (...) the "standard picture" of Socrates's interaction with his various interlocutors (16). On Beversluis's account, this position naively takes Socrates's own apologia at face-value, portraying him as a self-sacrificing soul-therapist who treats his corrupt, one-dimensional interlocutors fairly, despite their many carefully drawn faults (e.g., stupidity, vanity, and violence, followed by face-saving exits). Beversluis aims to rectify this picture by retrying Socrates in a class-action suit on behalf of Socrates's interlocutors—who, he thinks, the standard account has quite unfairly maligned (while it has simultaneously ignored Socrates's "dark side"; e.g., his unscrupulous, hypocritical, and harmful tactics [esp. his conscious use of fallacy]).Beversluis's book contains a Preface, Introduction, and seventeen chapters, finishing with a very good bibliography, general index, and indexes of passages cited, names, and modern authors. Chapter 1, "The Socratic Interlocutor," examines the structure of Plato's Socratic dialogues and the role of their interlocutors. Beversluis contrasts Plato's dialogues with those produced by Augustine, Anselm, Hume, and Berkeley, arguing that a key difference between them lies in the fact that Socrates is presented as having no system to expound, championing instead the intrinsic value of philosophizing. Also, Socrates's interlocutors are drawn from a "narrow sociological group," (29) and are unprepared for their (unpleasant) encounters with Socrates (31).Chapter 2, "Elenchus and sincere assent," cogently argues that the "say what you believe" constraint on Socrates's use of the elenchus represents a consensus in need of critical reappraisal. In particular, Beversluis contends that Socrates often relies on qualified or uncomprehending assent, and that our texts do not support the idea that Socrates never argues with the soul-ignoring intention to win an argument using faulty argumentation and willful misrepresentation of the interlocutor's statements.The next fourteen chapters closely assess Socrates's encounters with Crito, Ion, Hippias, Laches and Nicias, Charmides and Critias, Euthyphro, Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Hippocrates, Protagoras, Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles. The book ends with a chapter on "The last days of the Socratic interlocutor," outlining the view that Plato's later work features non-elenctic spokesmen who are sensitive to the moral dangers of careless (i.e., Socrates's) elenchus-wielding.In his central chapters, Beversluis argues that "Saint Socrates" is in fact a philosophical [End Page 583] Jekyl and Hyde. Although scholars have celebrated the former philanthropic figure as a model philosopher, that has obscured his Hyde-like, predatory behavior towards innocents such as Euthyphro and Crito. However, here readers are themselves given a mixed bag: while Beversluis offers, for example, a detailed and smart defense of Cephalus against those who portray him as a petty-minded, superstitious, moral fraud (Chapter 9)—as well as sensitive, careful analyses of Socrates's less-than-clear arguments throughout—other chapters occasionally go overboard in their apologetic efforts. One example will have to suffice here.According to Beversluis, Euthyphro's typical characterization as a pretentious, dense, father-bashing, religious zealot who "would have done well in the Nazi Youth Movement," (R. F. Holland; 163), has drawn attention away from the fact that Socrates's treatment of Euthyphro is abusive and ineffectual. But although Beversluis rightly sees that the figure of Euthyphro is being used in a complex fashion by Plato, his account is marred in several ways. For example, although it is likely that Socrates does not himself possess complete definitions of virtue-concepts such as justice (164-169), unlike Euthyphro, Socrates can presumably provide elenchus-proof defenses of his own non-traditionalist claims. Again, while Socrates may overwhelm Euthyphro with his principles of proper definition (Eu. 5c-d, 6d-e), proceeding on uncomprehending, merely verbal agreement (169-177), Plato surely did not intend... (shrink)

In Xenophon’s Socratic literature, there is repeated emphasis on the utility the friends provide one another. One extended passage, _Memorabilia_ 2.6, shows that Socrates takes a good person to care about a friend both for the benefits to be gained for oneself and for the sake of the other’s welfare. Genuine friendship, for Socrates, is not transactional or self-interested but rather rooted in the mutual benefit that only good people can provide one another.

My title is deliberately provocative, since I want to challenge both the chronology and the philosophical interpretation generally accepted for the dialogues called Socratic. I am not primarily interested in questions of chronology, or even in Plato's intellectual ‘development’. But the chronological issues are clear-cut, and it will be convenient to deal with them first. My aim in doing so will be to get at more interesting questions concerning philosophical content and literary design. Interpreters should perhaps think more often about (...) such questions as: Why did Plato write dialogues after all? Why does a little dialogue like the Laches have such a stellar cast, with so many major figures from Athenian history? Why does Plato re-create the schoolboy atmosphere of the Charmides and Lysis? Why does he compose such a large and vivid fencing-match between Socrates and the long-dead Protagoras, in a conversation supposed to have taken place before Plato himself was born? The view which I wish to challenge tends to assume that Plato's motivation in such dialogues was primarily historical: to preserve and defend the memory of Socrates by representing him as faithfully as possible. From this it would seem to follow that the philosophic content of these dialogues must be Socrates' own philosophy, which Plato has piously preserved somewhat in the way that Arrian has preserved the teachings of Epictetus. The counterpart assumption tends to be that when Plato ceases to write as an historian he writes like any other philosopher: using Socrates as a mouthpiece to express whatever philosophical doctrines Plato himself holds at the time of writing. (shrink)

My title is deliberately provocative, since I want to challenge both the chronology and the philosophical interpretation generally accepted for the dialogues called Socratic. I am not primarily interested in questions of chronology, or even in Plato's intellectual ‘development’. But the chronological issues are clear-cut, and it will be convenient to deal with them first. My aim in doing so will be to get at more interesting questions concerning philosophical content and literary design. Interpreters should perhaps think more often about (...) such questions as: Why did Plato write dialogues after all? Why does a little dialogue like the Laches have such a stellar cast, with so many major figures from Athenian history? Why does Plato re-create the schoolboy atmosphere of the Charmides and Lysis? Why does he compose such a large and vivid fencing-match between Socrates and the long-dead Protagoras, in a conversation supposed to have taken place before Plato himself was born? The view which I wish to challenge tends to assume that Plato's motivation in such dialogues was primarily historical: to preserve and defend the memory of Socrates by representing him as faithfully as possible. From this it would seem to follow that the philosophic content of these dialogues must be Socrates' own philosophy, which Plato has piously preserved somewhat in the way that Arrian has preserved the teachings of Epictetus. The counterpart assumption tends to be that when Plato ceases to write as an historian he writes like any other philosopher: using Socrates as a mouthpiece to express whatever philosophical doctrines Plato himself holds at the time of writing. (shrink)

This book presents translations of three dialogues Xenophon devoted to the life and thought of his teacher, Socrates. Each is accompanied by notes and an interpretative essay that will introduce new readers to Xenophon and foster further reflection in those familiar with his writing. "Apology of Socrates to the Jury" shows how Socrates conducted himself when he was tried on the capital charge of not believing in the city's gods and corrupting the young. Although Socrates did not secure his (...) own acquittal, he profoundly impressed some listeners who then helped to shape the public perception of philosophy as a noble, if highly idiosyncratic, way of life. In "Oeconomicus," Xenophon relates the conversation Socrates had on the day he turned from the study of natural philosophy to that of moral and political matters. "Oeconomicus" is concerned most directly with the character and purpose of Socrates' political philosophy. Xenophon provides entertaining portraits of Socrates' circle of friends in the "Symposium." In the process, he conveys the source of every individual's pride in himself, thus defining for each a conception of human excellence or virtue. The dialogue concludes with Socrates' beautiful speech on love (eros) and its proper place in the good or happy life. (shrink)

Plato's Laches, the dialogue devoted to the discovery of courage, is generally considered a failure, as the interlocutors' various definitions ultimately prove insufficient. Laches, however, notes that a definition of this kind can only be assessed by considering whether the speaker's words and deeds are in harmony. In fact he goes one step further, and admits that deeds are far more persuasive than words. He therefore declares that he is willing to let Socrates, whose deeds on the battlefield speak volumes, (...) say whatever he pleases. Although himself content to deal with words, Socrates is well aware that, as far as others are concerned, Laches is right. During his defence, for example, Socrates proposes to convince the jury that he is not afraid of death by offering them 'great proofs'; not words, but what they value, namely deeds. On his final day, having undergone a lengthy and complex attempt to persuade his friends that death is nothing to be afraid of, Socrates leaves them with a deed attuned to his word, and thus becomes, in Nietzsche's words, 'the emblem . . . above the entrance gate of science'. (shrink)

In the Republic, Plato’s Socrates argues that the wealthy feel contempt for the poor, and the poor feel hatred for the rich. But why is Socrates, leading a life of scandalous poverty without taking wages for philosophical work, an exception to this rule? Instead of hatred, envy, or no emotion at all, Socrates consistently treats wealth and the wealthy with ridicule and kataphronēsis – active looking-down or contempt – while meditating on the temptation of the poor to appropriate the excess (...) flesh of the wealthy (Resp. 556d). It is contempt that allows Socrates to remain free and wageless, away from the tempting distortion wealth has on the soul (Resp. 330c, 554a–b). Socrates therefore insists his philosopher-kings should be paid only in food, the same reward he proposes for himself in the Apology. Instead of securing freedom from murderous epithumia through moderate property, Socrates implies only contemptuous poverty can safeguard a philosophic life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 327 conceptual impositions and consider nirvana in the light of its own "intentional infrastructure." Interpreted as doctrine, nirvana is a wooden category; as a path, subtle and paradoxical, a factor celebrated in the later Mahayana texts (samsara is nirvana; nirvana is samsara). In pleading for sensitivity to context, Welbon maintains that the Buddha was not a philosopher, much less a nineteenth-century one, but a saint and a (...) "genius as a soteriological tactician": Depending on the context and in particular the needs of the individual(s) to whom he spoke, his emphasis varied. To those full of self, his message was expressed negatively. To those full of fear, the message expressed confidence. To those full of suffering, the message expressed hope. (p. 300) Nirvana's "meanings," then, are many, and include "both annihilation and bliss, negation and affirmation, nonexistence and existence" (p. 302). Yet the author's primary concern is not simply to advance one more theory of nirvana, lined up beside the rest; it is rather to elucidate the role of theory in its relation to intercultural and history of religions data. Interpretations are themselves phenomena whose intentionality, context, or history must be clarified. The differences between the scholars surveyed in this book stem not so much from varying conclusions about given data as from differences of premise and method; they are differences of questions rather than answers. Nirvana, a religious ultimate without the conception of deity, has indeed been a classic stumbling block to Western theories. The encounter, Welbon suggests, documents not only a history of methodological shortcomings, but "the fragile and inadequate nature of our understanding of what religion itself may be" (p. 301). WILLIAM E. PADEN University of Vermont Hamann's Socratic Memorabilia, A Translation and Commentary. By James C. O'Flaherty. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967. Pp. xv+229. $7.50) Johann Georg Hamann, Philosophy and Faith. By W. M. Alexander. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966. Pp. xii+212. Gld. 28.25) America continues to contribute more than a fair share to the study of Hamann ---even though the Hamann News-Letter, edited by James C. O'Flaherty, had to stop appearing in 1963. It is now the same O'Flaherty who opens wide the gates for the study of Hamann in the English-speaking world by translating the Socratic Memorabilia and providing an introduction and explanatory notes. The Memorabilia without doubt offer the best first approach to Hamann. t But so great is the obscurity of Hamann that it is by no means sure that the Memorabilia have now become an exotericum. Before reviewing O'Flaherty's book I shall therefore present the content of the Memorabilia. If only we had simple blow-by-blow accounts of all of his writings before we embark on a wholesale interpretation! a For decades they were available in Reclams Universalbibliothek (in c. 1914 at a price of about three cents) and have now (August, 1968) been republished (together with Hamann's Aesthetica in nuce) with excellent notes and a commentary by Sven-Aage Jorgensen (present price: about twenty cents). In 1959 F. Blanke published another amply annotated edition with an extensive thorough commentary. 328 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY The purpose of the Memorabilia is to "convert" two friends of Hamann, Kant and Berens, from Enlightenment to Christianity (the two tried to do the opposite to Hamann) and to defend himself and his Christianity from their criticisms. To do so, Hamann decides to use philosophic rather than religious language. In so doing he will present himself as another Socrates, because, as Hamann sees it, it was the mission of Socrates to lead the Athenians to the unknown God, thus prefiguring the mission of St. Paul, and because Socrates opposed the then "enlighteners," viz., the Sophists. In so doing he furthermore compares some of his own character traits (for which he was blamed by Kant and Berens) and some events in his life with Socratic ones. But as he compares (equates) Socrates with the prophets and with Jesus, he by the same token compares (equates) himself with them. Of course, Hamann knows that the Enlightenment also admired Socrates. But it did so for entirely wrong reasons: they praised... (shrink)

In our tradition, Socrates, as he figures in the work of Plato, stands for rationality. In one way, of course, the tendency to treat him as rationality incarnate is not too far of the mark; for Socrates does indeed introduce into our thought and discussions a demand for argument, for stringency and consistency. However, the manner in which Socrates carries out his historically influential elenctic activity belies the shortcomings of this oft-quoted and inspirational picture. It is these irrational features of (...) the figure of Socrates in Plato's early dialogues that shall concern us in this article. Although we shall see that a certain sort of interlocutor is required for Socratic questioning to get off the ground, heavily irrational features are brought to the activity from Socrates himself. Furthermore, Socrates’ irrationality is no extraneous matter in relation to the very notion of dialectic rationality, but results from certain features of rationality itself understood in the mode of critical dialogue.1. (shrink)

Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it. In forty brief chapters, Nigel Warburton guides us on a (...) chronological tour of the major ideas in the history of philosophy. He provides interesting and often quirky stories of the lives and deaths of thought-provoking philosophers from Socrates, who chose to die by hemlock poisoning rather than live on without the freedom to think for himself, to Peter Singer, who asks the disquieting philosophical and ethical questions that haunt our own times. Warburton not only makes philosophy accessible, he offers inspiration to think, argue, reason, and ask in the tradition of Socrates. _A Little History of Philosophy_ presents the grand sweep of humanity's search for philosophical understanding and invites all to join in the discussion. (shrink)

Beginning with the origins of Western philosophy, the profound creation of the Hellenic genius, Reale presents an appreciation of the Naturalists, the Sophists, Socrates, and the Minor Socratics. Special attention is paid to the Eleatics because their problems decisively mark Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. Interpretation of the Sophists benefits from the recent reevaluation of their thought. Socrates himself would be inconceivable without the Sophists since he is one of them. Socrates is given major prominence. Plato, Aristotle, and all of (...) Hellenistic philosophy are deeply impregnated with his words and spirit. The teachings of the Minor Socratics are interpreted as one-sided reductions of the pluralistic values of Socratic thought and as anticipations of some issues that explode later in the Hellenistic Age. There are two appendices. The first concerns Orphism and contains a series of documents indispensable for the comprehension of some aspects of pre-Socratic and Platonic thought. The second explains the key to understanding the message of the Greeks—the message of “theorein”. (shrink)

Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it. In forty brief chapters, Nigel Warburton guides us on a (...) chronological tour of the major ideas in the history of philosophy. He provides interesting and often quirky stories of the lives and deaths of thought-provoking philosophers from Socrates, who chose to die by hemlock poisoning rather than live on without the freedom to think for himself, to Peter Singer, who asks the disquieting philosophical and ethical questions that haunt our own times. Warburton not only makes philosophy accessible, he offers inspiration to think, argue, reason, and ask in the tradition of Socrates. _A Little History of Philosophy_ presents the grand sweep of humanity's search for philosophical understanding and invites all to join in the discussion. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. `Wise (...) Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Zoroaster's Influence on Anaxagoras, the Greek Tragedians, and Socrates. By Ruhi Muhsen Afnan. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969. Pp. 162. $5.00) Of the author's Zoroaster's Influence on Greek Thought a striking flaw was the misleading rifle. In this earlier volume not one example of Zoroastrian impact was pointed out to corroborate the claim. Now, in the preface to the new work, the author discloses that the original (...) title had merely been "Zoroaster and the Trend of Greek Thought" and that the publishers changed it into "Zoroaster's Influence" etc. "to give the book a more attractive heading" (p. 9). This fiat of the publishers, however, was then gratefully felt by the author a~ a "challenge.... prodding" him to the "venture" (cf. p. 10) of attempting to substantiate (what was before just his belief) "that the illumination vouchsafed by Zoroaster generated the Enlightenment attributed to the Periclean Age of Athens" (p, 12) and to demonstrate, for instance, an ostensible basic similarity between the pfiilosophy of Anaxagoras and the teachings of Zoroaster. This venturous attempt fills six long chapters supposed to show that "Medism," or Zoroastrianism, was the great spiritual power menacing the autochthonous Athenian values, and that Anaxagoras and his circle and Aeschylus, Euripides, Socrates, and Thucydides essentially were propagandists of Zoroastrianism who undermined the pagan culture of Athens. True, the general presentation of Medism and its role in the spiritual struggle of the Periclean Age is sometimes thrillingly interesting reading. Yet, for us the main question is: Has the author succeeded in his attempt? There are prerequisites of such an undertaking. Thorough and first-hand knowledge of both sides of the topic is indispensable, in the first place. To question the historical authenticity of a modern believer's presentation of Zoroastrianism might seem improper. But it should still be permitted sharply to distinguish between the official traditional version and the results of recent serious research. The other side of the topic is concerned with those who, according to the author's claim, were downright prophets of Zoroastrianlsm. Whether this holds true of Aeschylus and Euripides, whether, for instance, really all the dramatis personae of Euripides' Ion were meant as nothing, but symbolizations of the antagonistic spiritual powers of Medism and Athenianism, this to discuss, and perhaps to doubt, is up to literary analysts. But two of those alleged heralds are philosophers: Anaxagoras and Socrates. (Incidentally, what about Heraclitus and Empedocles?) Well, let us forget about Socrates. The "real" Socrates is such an intangible figure anyway that it would not make much sense to argue with any of the author's allegations about him. In the presentation and "analysis" of the philosophy of Anaxagoras, however, the decisive shortcomings come to the fore. The level of the author's general philosophical training is not quite equal to the task. Conceptual haziness, confusion [469] 470 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of fundamental notions (e.g.,"creator" and "demiurge") are omnipresent. Sometimes even a confusion happens of Anaxagoras with Democritus when the "atom" is ascribed to Anaxagoras (p. 48). And the author does not seem to feel the fatal inadequacy of merely second-hand knowledge. While he in longura et latum argues with Aristotelian presentations and misrepresentations of Anaxagorean tenets, there is good reason for the suspicion that he might never have read even one authentic sentence written by Anaxagoras himself. For those interested in general cultural history, this book, the religious diatribe of a modem Zoroastrian believer, is very worthwhile reading. For the historian of philosophy, itis of rather modest value. P-~LIX M. CLEVE New School for Social Research New York City The Esthetics of the Middle Ages. By Edgar De Bruyne. Trans. Eileen B. Hennessy. (New York: Frederick Uugar, 1969. Pp. viii+232. $6.50) This book has a very complex character. It is the English translation of a French work, L'Esth~tique du moyen dge,I which, in turn, is a one-volume abridged version by Edgar De Bruyne of his own original three-volume work, I~tudes d'Esth~tique M~di~vale.2 Thus, one may evaluate this book either as a translation or, presupposing the faithfulness and correctness of the translation itself... (shrink)

In modern work on the Parmenides it is commonly supposed that in the First Part of the dialogue Plato's main concern is criticism of his own doctrine of Forms, or of some formulations of that doctrine, and that the criticisms have some sort of validity and are in some degree ‘damaging’ to the doctrine. It is thus often assumed that Plato's purpose is to make the reader ask himself, ‘Where is Plato wrong? Where is his doctrine of Forms, (...) or his statement of it, inadequate?’ This is no doubt due partly to the fact that no reply is offered to the criticisms, and partly to the fact that they are put into the mouth of Parmenides, for whom Plato had a very great respect. Nevertheless, Plato can hardly have had a greater respect for Parmenides than he had for Socrates; and therefore on general grounds it is at least as likely that he intends us to ask ourselves the question, ‘Where is Parmenides wrong, or inadequate?’ It is, of course, obvious that Socrates is represented as a young man, who, in his enthusiasm for a new doctrine which he has invented himself, has not thought out all the difficulties involved in it or prepared replies to all the possible criticisms. Yet again, on general principles it is not likely that Plato would have written a dialogue primarily to represent Parmenides' position as substantially more satisfactory than that of Socrates. It is therefore of the first importance not merely to have clearly in our minds the nature and purpose of the doctrine of Forms, but also to examine carefully the basis of the criticisms which Parmenides is made to bring against Socrates, and the methods by which Parmenides conducts his arguments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Zoroaster's Influence on Anaxagoras, the Greek Tragedians, and Socrates. By Ruhi Muhsen Afnan. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969. Pp. 162. $5.00) Of the author's Zoroaster's Influence on Greek Thought a striking flaw was the misleading rifle. In this earlier volume not one example of Zoroastrian impact was pointed out to corroborate the claim. Now, in the preface to the new work, the author discloses that the original (...) title had merely been "Zoroaster and the Trend of Greek Thought" and that the publishers changed it into "Zoroaster's Influence" etc. "to give the book a more attractive heading" (p. 9). This fiat of the publishers, however, was then gratefully felt by the author a~ a "challenge.... prodding" him to the "venture" (cf. p. 10) of attempting to substantiate (what was before just his belief) "that the illumination vouchsafed by Zoroaster generated the Enlightenment attributed to the Periclean Age of Athens" (p, 12) and to demonstrate, for instance, an ostensible basic similarity between the pfiilosophy of Anaxagoras and the teachings of Zoroaster. This venturous attempt fills six long chapters supposed to show that "Medism," or Zoroastrianism, was the great spiritual power menacing the autochthonous Athenian values, and that Anaxagoras and his circle and Aeschylus, Euripides, Socrates, and Thucydides essentially were propagandists of Zoroastrianism who undermined the pagan culture of Athens. True, the general presentation of Medism and its role in the spiritual struggle of the Periclean Age is sometimes thrillingly interesting reading. Yet, for us the main question is: Has the author succeeded in his attempt? There are prerequisites of such an undertaking. Thorough and first-hand knowledge of both sides of the topic is indispensable, in the first place. To question the historical authenticity of a modern believer's presentation of Zoroastrianism might seem improper. But it should still be permitted sharply to distinguish between the official traditional version and the results of recent serious research. The other side of the topic is concerned with those who, according to the author's claim, were downright prophets of Zoroastrianlsm. Whether this holds true of Aeschylus and Euripides, whether, for instance, really all the dramatis personae of Euripides' Ion were meant as nothing, but symbolizations of the antagonistic spiritual powers of Medism and Athenianism, this to discuss, and perhaps to doubt, is up to literary analysts. But two of those alleged heralds are philosophers: Anaxagoras and Socrates. (Incidentally, what about Heraclitus and Empedocles?) Well, let us forget about Socrates. The "real" Socrates is such an intangible figure anyway that it would not make much sense to argue with any of the author's allegations about him. In the presentation and "analysis" of the philosophy of Anaxagoras, however, the decisive shortcomings come to the fore. The level of the author's general philosophical training is not quite equal to the task. Conceptual haziness, confusion [469] 470 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of fundamental notions (e.g.,"creator" and "demiurge") are omnipresent. Sometimes even a confusion happens of Anaxagoras with Democritus when the "atom" is ascribed to Anaxagoras (p. 48). And the author does not seem to feel the fatal inadequacy of merely second-hand knowledge. While he in longura et latum argues with Aristotelian presentations and misrepresentations of Anaxagorean tenets, there is good reason for the suspicion that he might never have read even one authentic sentence written by Anaxagoras himself. For those interested in general cultural history, this book, the religious diatribe of a modem Zoroastrian believer, is very worthwhile reading. For the historian of philosophy, itis of rather modest value. P-~LIX M. CLEVE New School for Social Research New York City The Esthetics of the Middle Ages. By Edgar De Bruyne. Trans. Eileen B. Hennessy. (New York: Frederick Uugar, 1969. Pp. viii+232. $6.50) This book has a very complex character. It is the English translation of a French work, L'Esth~tique du moyen dge,I which, in turn, is a one-volume abridged version by Edgar De Bruyne of his own original three-volume work, I~tudes d'Esth~tique M~di~vale.2 Thus, one may evaluate this book either as a translation or, presupposing the faithfulness and correctness of the translation itself... (shrink)

AT PHAEDO 96A-C Plato portrays Socrates as describing his past study of "the kind of wisdom known as περὶ φυσέως ἱστορία." At 96c-97b, Socrates says that this study led him to realize that he had an inadequate understanding of certain basic concepts which it involved. In consequence, he says at 97b, he abandoned this method and turned to a method of his own. But at this point in the dialogue, instead of proceeding immediately to describe his method, Plato has him (...) interjecting a complaint concerning Anaxagoras and his view that everything should be explained in terms of Mind. His complaint is that Mind would order things in the best possible way and that, therefore, an account of things in terms of Mind would amount to showing that they are ordered in the best possible way. But Anaxagoras did not show this and, instead, offered other kinds of explanations of the various phenomena. Socrates is not just criticizing Anaxagoras here for not doing what he set out to do; he makes it clear, for example at 99b-c, that he believes that the best kind of explanation of the phenomena would be to show that they are ordered in the best possible way. But he was unable to discover an explanation of this kind, either for himself or from others, and so turned to a method which he calls "second best". The actual description of this method is contained in two passages, 99e5-100a7 and 101d5-e1. Between these passages, Socrates invokes the doctrine of Forms and, in particular, the formula. (shrink)

Cicero, Lucullus 38: ‘…non potest animal ullum non adpetere id quod accommodatum ad naturam adpareat …’ From earliest childhood every man wants to possess something. One man collects horses. Another wants gold. Socrates has a passion for companions. He would rather have a good friend than a quail or a rooster. In this way, Socrates begins his interrogation of Menexenus. He then congratulates Menexenus and Lysis for each having what he himself still does not possess. How is it that (...) one gets a friend, Socrates asks? Since the nineteenth century many who have read these lines have found them repulsive. Scholars have damned the Lysis for its selfish egoism, for regarding persons as personal belongings. At the turn of the century some sought to discredit the dialogue as a forgery and a calumny. Others debated the dating of the dialogue as Socratic or Platonic, seeking whom to blame rather than whom to credit. And those who have regarded the dialogue as Platonic have tried to redeem it by detecting hints of Plato's theory of Forms. A few have attempted to salvage reputations by understanding the argument of the Lysis as a reductio of egoism, or else by invoking the loyalty of Socrates' friends and the history of Plato's friendship for Dion of Syracuse to speak up for their defence. Guthrie has condemned the dialogue as a failure of method and presentation , and Vlastos has pronounced it a failure of love: ‘The lover Socrates has in view seems positively incapable of loving others for their own sake, else why must he feel no affection for anyone whose good-producing qualities he did not happen to need?’ The Lysis appears to make no positive contribution to the Greek tradition on friendship when compared to the Symposium or the Phaedrus. And in the subsequent tradition, whatever Aristotle might have borrowed from the dialogue he uses for his own purposes. Aristotle too is quite critical of specific points raised in the Lysis. Now it might seem that Aristotle made a place for the selfish love of the Lysis in his own theory, as an inferior grade of utility love. But even this cannot be so, if we are to agree with recent studies of Aristotle's ethics. According to Aristotle, if a client is friendly to his benefactor because of the latter's usefulness, this utilitarian motive must accompany a genuine concern for the benefactor's own interest in that relation, if they are to be friends. Inferior and genuine friendship may differ in purpose but not in regard for the well-being of the beloved. This respect for the object of one's love has no parallel in the Lysis, according to the standard reading of the dialogue. (shrink)

1 Introduction1 In the 1980s, hermeneutics was often incorporated into deconstructionism and literary theory. Rather than focus on authorial intentions, the nature of writing itself including codes used to construct meaning, socio-economic contexts and inequalities of power,2 Gadamer introduced a different perspective; the interplay between effects of history on a reader’s understanding and the tradition(s) handed down in writing. This interplay in which a reader’s prejudices are called into question and modified by the text in a fusion of understanding and (...) topic revitalized the study of the printed word. Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being also appealed to the post-modern antipathy toward modernity and metaphysics.3 If the truth and validity of interpretations are limited to communities of language, then our mode of being in history cannot but be historical. This point of view rendered Gadamer’s phenomenological hermeneutics vulnerable to the critique of moral and epistemological relativism. However, Gadamer’s theory of interpretation also stems from re-examination of the beginning of knowledge in the Pre-Socratics and Plato, and on this basis, is receptive to another dimension of inquiry than that which was trending in North America. -/- At the East-West Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 1982, Chung-ying Cheng for the first time introduced onto-hermeneutics to an audience of esteemed philosophers including Li Zehou, Ren Jiyu, Feng Youlan, and Zhang Liwen.4 In contrast to schools of deconstruction and literary theory that had disengaged the interpreter from trans-historical sources of meaning and truth, Cheng explained that interpreters exist within a cosmological order inextricable from responsibility to harmonize Heaven and Earth in creative acts of interpretation. By integrating Chinese cosmology into hermeneutics through ontology, he tacitly challenged philosophers in the West to re-examine assumptions about humanity’s place in nature and by implication, Gadamer’s recovery of the beginnings of knowledge in Western philosophy. -/- Cheng’s Neo-Confucianism is inspired by the method and goals of Thomé H. Fang. The following words by Fang seem to prefigure, although in an indistinct and bundled way, aspects of Cheng’s philosophy including a Mencian theory of human nature, comprehensive observation, and creativity: “In the very process of living in concord with creative Nature, Man is charged with an ideal to be fully realized in the light of the principle of comprehensive harmony.”5 Like Fang, Cheng reinvigorates Chinese culture and language, but not solely in order to vindicate the insights of Neo-Confucianism. He has studied Western thought, from pragmatism and the analytic school to German idealism and phenomenology, to unlock and clarify philosophical concepts within the Yijing tradition and thereby render them intelligible to Anglophones. The result has been an awakening of Western scholars to the moral and cultural consequences of decoupling their thought from metaphysical foundations that are neither dogmatic nor doctrinal. -/- Not unlike the dialectic of Gadamer’s dialogue form, onto-generative hermeneutics integrates contrary positions on the same topic in order to blend both sides into a world philosophy, or as Cheng says, a “totalizing or integrative theory,”6 not to be confused with a theoretical rewording of a theory. On the contrary, the universal scope and relevance of hermeneutics stems from personal experience. Just as Gadamer, in response to faction and strife, immersed himself in Plato during the war years, and developed a method with which to harmonize opposites, so too, according to On-cho Ng, was Cheng moved by faction, strife and political persecution to develop a path toward unity.7 Gadamer taught at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and Cheng at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa among other institutions in North America. They facilitated trans-continental educational and cultural ties. Similar experiences yield similar insights irrespective of differences of time and place. Hence, authors in this issue who reside in Europe, China and North America, delineate the differences between Gadamer and Cheng, yet also, in light of Cheng’s onto-generative method and cosmology, develop integrative theories. Due to the page-budget restriction of the publisher, certain articles of this special theme will be subsequently published in the next issue. -/- 2 Integrative Theory This special issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy confirms a dimension of hermeneutics that Cheng has both motivated and inspired. The contributors do not abide by the conviction that since thought is mediated by language, interpretations cannot transcend culture. On the contrary, their research exemplifies the fruits of trans-historical onto-dialogical hermeneutics within limits defined by their field inquiry, organized into Parts I and II, around three themes: language, the philosophy of history and ethics. -/- Andrew Fuyarchuk introduces the theme of ontology in relation to Gadamer’s turn to language. Fuyarchuk argues that Chung-ying Cheng’s criticism of Gadamer’s hermeneutics is informed by Heidegger’s concept of Dasein and thereby overlooks how Gadamer’s Platonic-Pythagorean problem of the division between the One and Many is harmonized in the event of language, which in turn positions Gadamer in proximity to the presupposed grounds of receptivity in Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics. Lauren Pfister’s contributing article addresses the year 2000 meeting between Cheng and Gadamer in Heidelberg and expands the transhistorical grounds of meaning in Gadamer to matters of theology. Pfister’s summary of the written Chinese record of their conversation indicates that Cheng does not address the role of Christian philosophy and hence, the role of the inner word in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This is important not only for detecting changes in Cheng’s philosophical development, but also for modifying his hermeneutics along the lines of a living conversation, possibilities explored by Pfister in a sequel to the article submitted to this issue. Nevertheless, by raising the issue of how Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being extends possibilities in Cheng’s thought, Pfister anticipates the article by Katarina Gajdosova. She returns to the roots of Chinese thought during the Warring States period and broadens the meaning of names in recently excavated texts. Contrary to the conventions about how to understand terms, she appeals to both Heidegger’s ontology and Cheng’s notion of receptivity and creativity to reinterpret naming in relation to cosmology. Along the same lines, insofar as the event of Being is lingual, Jay Goulding captures its emergent structure in an evolving community of scholars and scholarship. He recalls his philosophical journey toward Cheng’s philosophy that begins in conversations with Gadamer at McMaster University in Hamilton, leads to Heidegger and Asian thought, expands into turning points with teachers and colleagues from various backgrounds that by increments contributed to Goulding’s formulation of “Daoist phenomenology.” -/- Although differing traditions guide their inquiries and research, Cheng and Gadamer recall the wisdom of the past to ameliorate the fragmentation in contemporary life. This leads them to re-examine the origins of philosophy; historical roots and thus sources of creative re-interpretations East and West whose affinities are developed in contributions by Hyun Höchsmann and Friederike Assandri. Höchsmann assesses convergences and divergences in the origins of Chinese and Western philosophy (Confucius and Socrates, the Yijing and Pre-Socratics) that culminates in pairing Gadamer’s understanding of paideia in the context of Plato’s political cosmology in the Timaeus with moral and social cultivation in The Western Inscription. She delineates the limits of this comparison which in turn justifies introducing Vattimo’s notion of locality. Assandri’s comparative analysis moves between India and China, Buddhism and Tang Daoism. Based on Gadamer’s argument that writing detaches concepts from their cultural moorings, she defines and applies three levels of understanding in onto-generative hermeneutics to Buddhist terms that were assimilated into the Benji Jing and in so doing clarifies essential dimensions of Daoism. -/- Contributions by Stephen Palmquist and Nicholas Brasovan position Cheng in relation to Kant and Gadamer by way of Aristotle’s ethics respectively. On the one hand, Palmquist plots Cheng’s evolving criticism of Kant’s moral philosophy and draws on crucial dimensions of Gadamer’s hermeneutics to reposition that criticism in a constructive relation to Kant’s emphasis on the philosophical conditions of morality while also indicating how religious dimensions of his thought answer Cheng’s concerns for lived moral action. For Palmquist, Gadamer enables a constructive criticism of Cheng. On the other hand, Brasovan compares Cheng’s Yijing-based account of moral deliberation with Gadamer’s Aristotelian-based ethics and reasons that in contrast to Cheng, Gadamer’s hermeneutical consciousness is disengaged from practical knowledge. For Brasovan, Cheng is a constructive critic of Gadamer. Palmquist and Brasovan’s divergent angles on Gadamer and Cheng map onto a dialectic of contrast and complementarity that constitutes the inner logic of Cheng’s philosophy. In other words, Gadamer and Cheng ought to be read alongside one another for the sake of removing discrepancies and contradictions, which constitutes the organic structure of their thinking. -/- 3 Our Mode of Being in History Is Not Historical The conversations between Cheng and Gadamer in this issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy pivot on language, philosophy of history and ethics within a comparative framework of analysis, but also explore the grounds that make the comparisons possible. Those grounds are informed by Chinese cosmology, and function to wrest Gadamer from the shadow of Heideggerian facticity and reposition him within the range of Cheng’s ideas about our place in nature that is embedded in his question about how mind emerges from inorganic matter.8 -/- For Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, human finitude, our ownmost individuating death ensures that hermeneutics is always open to the other as other, always on the way toward understanding the meaning of Being. To arrest the process in a concept of “the Absolute” cannot but represent someone’s point of view, and thereby render hermeneutics indistinguishable from ideology. However, insofar as finitude is defined by them in terms of an onto-theological concept of immorality, finitude is a metaphysical concept consistent with epistemologies and confuse beings with the meaning of Being. As a result, the celebrated political value of hermeneutics to always be on the way toward an understanding of the meaning of Being admits subtle variations on the same worldview that are insufficiently self-critical. -/- Gadamer scholars of Heidegger are right. A transformation in ethos and opening to the meaning of Being depends on awareness of finitude. Yet this awareness does not yield openness to more of the same, i.e., discourse structurally incapable of coming to unity but instead, for both Gadamer and Cheng, openness to a distinctly different ontological dimension of reality. As Sandra Wawrytko and So-Seong Park indicate,9 this ontological dimension is prefigured in the experience of being-as-a-whole or the totality of all possible relations in both Chinese totemic shamanistic rituals,10 and Greek Dionysian festivals.11 Through these religious experiences human ethos and therefore consciousness is expanded and elevated from being centered on one’s ownmost concerns toward an affinity with all sentient beings from insects and plants to animals. The channel for this affinity is an auditory disposition and hence, the emotions, compassion, and feeling response. -/- The capacity for an auditory disposition, or as Gadamer calls it, listening consciousness to respond to the inter-relationality and therefore inherent balance of nature is developed through music, song and dance of the religious rituals and festivals. They facilitate the unity of mind with nature. This use of music, that transforms ordinary consciousness, explains Cheng’s emphasis on the receptivity of feeling response in comprehensive observation, and Gadamer’s emphasis on openness to the other in attunement. However, an auditory disposition characteristic of pre-literate oral cultures that reveals the “All” need not rely on religion. As theorists about the evolution of language have explained,12 modern languages preserve their pre-historical past in music or prosody. That is to say, the song and dance that revealed the totality of inter-related beings to an ethos of comprehensive observation and attunement toward beings in classical civilizations is retained in the back-and-forth movement or rhythm of the dialogue form. Our mode of being in history is a mode of being in nature – through the music of language. -/- While alerting the reader to the limits of a nominalist interpretation, Gadamer expresses the inner law of the nature as follows: “in perishing there is always becoming, and in becoming there is always perishing.”13 Considered in process, opposites generate and blend into each other. This law of nature applies to everything.14 Hence, in a manner comparable to Pfister’s concluding insights, onto-dialogical hermeneutics is not only open to discrete events of otherness but moreover, to the moving structure of reality expressed, as Gajdosova suggests, in the existential moment of naming. Considered as interplay of tension and resolution with a life of its own, the dialectic of a dialogue is self-similar to the way in which an organism grows (by instinct). There is, therefore, a sense in which the art of interpretation extends the human mind into the eternal cycles of nature such that we participate in the articulation of the inner telos/homeostasis toward which all beings strive and importantly for Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, within the material limits of energy to which our embodied minds are self-evidently subject. In mortality there is always immortality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Adam Smith and the Virtues of EnlightenmentFred D. Miller Jr.Charles L. Griswold. Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv + 412. Cloth, $59.95.For over a century, scholars have been vexed by the so-called "Adam Smith problem," which concerns the relationship between the two works which Smith published during his lifetime: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) in 1759, and An Inquiry (...) into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN) in 1776 (citations are to the Liberty Classics reprints of the Oxford University Press editions). Many have regarded them as discordant: while TMS is apparently concerned with classical ethics, WN seems to assume that humans are basically egoistic, although they can be directed toward the public good by means of the "invisible hand." It is tempting to view Smith as a transitional author: TMS is the swan song of virtue ethics, whereas WN is a pioneering work in a new tradition of political economy.Griswold challenges this temptation in this brilliant study, arguing that Smith had a coherent and integrated philosophical viewpoint encompassing TMS, WN, and other surviving writings. Griswold views Smith as offering a virtue ethics and "throwing in his lot with the ancient moralists" (65). He argues, "We cannot grasp Smith's diagnosis of and therapy for the modern age without devoting considerable attention to his analysis of the virtues (especially the virtue of justice) as well as to the theory of the emotions, of the impartial spectator, and of sympathy" (20). Smith tried to reconcile a traditional ethics with modern skepticism and the new values associated with commercial society and religious secularism. Griswold's book illuminates a wide range of themes in Smith's moral philosophy: his view of rhetoric, method, and system underlying TMS (chapter 1); sympathy and self-interest (chapter 2); moral psychology and the theory of the impartial spectator (chapter 3); Smith's skepticism and reservations about philosophy (chapter 4); virtue theory (chapter 5); justice (chapter 6); the relationship between TMS and WN (chapter 7); and nature versus artifice in ethics (chapter 8). The epilogue critically discusses whether Smith's moral theory falls into subjectivism, and whether [End Page 439] Smith goes too far in excluding philosophers such as Socrates from ordinary moral discourse.A brief review cannot do justice to Griswold's compelling interpretation, and I shall focus on his solution to "the old problem of how the moral theory and the political economy mesh" (21). Griswold argues, "Smith sees himself as synthesizing an ancient view about the nature of virtue with a modern approach to the problem of the source of moral value. Consequently the moral psychology (especially the notions of sympathy and the impartial spectator) and the virtue theory must be understood in light of each other" (181). Further, "The virtue theory is the moral foundation of Smith's political economy, political theory, and 'natural jurisprudence.' Hence the virtue theory is closely tied to his doctrine of liberty as well as to his views about the pursuit of wealth. However 'ancient' the virtue theory may in some respects be, Smith combines it with a modern view of the social and political institutions appropriate to virtue" (ibid.). With impressive erudition Griswold argues that "taken together... TMS and WN form complementary parts of a larger whole" (265), and that Smith thinks "the virtues of a free and commercial society" may be defended on the basis of views espoused in WN: skepticism of state interference in economic and social matters, anti-utopianism, and the doctrine of the invisible hand (21). Yet WN does not place blind faith in laissez faire but advocates social justice, compulsory public education and greater taxes on the rich (254, 264, 359).Has Griswold, then, finally solved the Adam Smith Problem? There remains the problem that WN apparently neglects central themes of TMS: sympathy, the impartial spectator, and benevolence. In TMS virtue has distinctive components: "Concern for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of prudence: concern for that of other people, the virtues of justice and beneficence" (TMS 262). These constitute perfect virtue: "The man who acts according to the rules of perfect... (shrink)

Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the early and (...) middle period dialogues. Though this is a kind of strengthening the developmentalistic approach corresponding the relation of the early and middle period dialogues, based on the fact that what is to be proved here is a essential development in Plato’ ontology and his epistemology, by expanding the grounds of development to the ontological and epistemological principles, it hints to a more profound development. The fact that the bipolar and split knowledge and being of the early period dialogues give way to the tripartite and bound knowledge and benig of the middle period dialogues indicates the development of the notions of being and knowledge in Plato’s philosophy before the dialogues of the middle period. -/- Keywords Plato; early dialogues; middle dialogues; being; knowledge; development -/- Introduction The differences between two groups of the early and middle period dialogues have always been a matter of dispute. Whereas the developmentalists like Vlastos, Silverman (2002), Teloh (1981), Dancy (2004) and Rickless (2007) think that from the early to the middle dialogues Plato’s philosophy changes, at least in some essential points, the unitarists like Kahn, Cherniss and Shorey believe that there happens no development and the differences must be taken as natural, ignorable and even pedagogic. In his well-known article, Socrates contra Socrates in PLATO, Vlastos lists ten theses of difference between two groups of dialogues. The first group which includes Plato’s early dialogues he divides to 'elenctic' (Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and Republic I) and 'transitional' (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Menexenus and Meno) dialogues. These transitional come after all the elenctic dialogues and before all the dialogues of the second group which compose Plato’s middle period dialogues, including (with Vlastos' chronological order) Cratylus, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic II-X, Phaedrus, Parmenides and Theaetetus (1991, 46-49). Vlastos asserts strictly that his list of differences are 'so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention, beginning with Aristotole’s' (ibid, 46). Vlastos’ list of differences between two Socrateses is considered a view breaking sharply between the early and the middle dialogues. Besides all ten differences between the two Socrateses in Vlastos’ list that can be supportive for our doctrine here, we intend to focus on some ontological as well as epistemological distinctions that have not completely been discussed hitherto. Contrary to the developmentalist theory of Vlastos, unitarian theory of Charles Kahn wishes to eliminate any substantial difference between the early and the middle dialogues. He distinguishes seven 'pre-middle' or 'threshold' dialogues including Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Protagoras, Meno, Lysis and Euthydemus from the other Socratic dialogues which he calls 'earliest group' (1996, 41). The threshold dialogues, Kahn thinks, 'embarke upon a sustained project' that is to reach to its climax in the middle period dialogues, namely Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. Believing in that there is no 'fundamental shift'between the early and middle dialogues (ibid, 40), Kahn thinks the Socratic dialogues are just the 'first stage' with a 'deliberate silence' towards the theories of later periods (ibid, 339). One of the reasons of the surprising fact that Plato gives no hint of the metaphysics and epistemology of the Forms in the early dialogues, he thinks, is the pedagogical advantages of aporia. He thinks that Plato 'obscurely', and mostly because of education, hinted to some doctrines and conceptions in his early dialogues and with the aim of clarifying them only in the later ones (ibid, 66). The seven threshold dialogues, Kahn asserts, 'had been designed from the first' to prepare the pupils and readers for the views expounded in the middle period dialogues (ibid, 59-60). To show that the differences of the two Socrateses of the early and middle period dialogue are in their onto-epistemological grounds and thence cannot be explained by a unitaristic view, we try to draw the ontological and epistemological principles of the early dialogues in the first part below in order to show, in the second part, that those principles have been developed in the middle period dialogues. -/- A. The Onto-Epistemologic Principles of the Early Dialogues Socratic dialogues are paradoxical about knowledge because while being knowledge-oriented always searching for knowledge, they deny it and even never discuss it directly. Three elements of Socrates’ way of searching Knowledge throughout the early dialogues, i.e. Socratic 'what is X?' question, his disavowal of knowledge and his elenctic method combined together produce something like a circle which works, more or less, in the same way in these dialogues. Though this circle is an embaressing inquiry always resulting in ignorance instead of knowledge, its motivation is surprisingly Socrates’ passionate enthusiasm for knowledge, an intensive love of wisdom. The starting point of this circle is Socrates’ confession of having no knowledge which might be explicitly asserted or presupposed, maybe because it was one of the famous characteristics of Socrates; a confession always paradoxically accompanied with his intense longing for knowledge (e.g., Gorgias 505e4-5). Every time Socrates encounters with someone who thinks he knows something (οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι) (Apology 21d5) and tries to examine him. This examination seems to be the simplest one asking just what it is that he knows. Socrates’ elenchus, therefore, is always connected with 'what is X?' (τίς ποτέ ἐστιν) question, a question that most of the early dialogues of Plato are concerned with; 'what is courage?' in the Laches, 'what is piety?' in Euthydemus, 'what is temperance?' in Charmides and 'what is beauty?' in Hippias Major. This question we call here 'Socratic question' and probably is the very question the historical Socrates used to employ, is tightly interrelated with both his disavowal and his elenchus. He disclaims knowledge because he cannot find the answer to the question himself and he rejects others’ since they cannot offer the correct answer too. Every interlocutor can claim he knows X, if and only if he can answer the Socratic question. Otherwise, he is more of an ignorant than of a knower of τί ποτέ ἐστι X. Knowing the answer to this question is, thus, knowledge’s criterion for Socrates. Having found out that he cannot answer what it is which he would claim to know, the interlocutor comes to the point Socrates was there at the beginning. The least advantage of this circle is that he becomes as wise as Socrates does about the subject, becoming aware that he does not know it. At the end of the circle they are both still at the beginning, not knowing what X is. So let us first take a glance at these three elements. Socratic disavowal of knowledge is strictly asserted in some passages. At Apology 21b4-5, Socrates says: -/- I do not know of myself being wise at all (οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν σύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὤν) -/- Moreover, at 21d4-6: -/- None of us knows anything worthwhile (καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι) …. I do not know (οἶδα) neither do I think I know. -/- In Charmides Socrates speaks about a fear about his probable mistake of thinking that he knows (εἰδέναι) something when he does not (166d1-2). The somehow generalization of this disavowal can be seen in Gorgias. After calling his disavowal 'an account that is always the same' (509a4-5), Socrates continues (a5-7): -/- I say that I do not know (οἶδα) how these things are, but no one I have ever met, like now, who can say anything else without being absurd. -/- At the end of Hippias Major (304d7-8), Socrates affirms his disavowal of knowledge of 'what is X?' this time about the fine: -/- I do not know (οἶδα) what that is itself (αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν). Some other passages, however, made a number of scholars dubious about Socrates’ disavowal. Vlastos mentions Apology 29b6-7 as an evidence : 'that to do wrong and to disobey one’s master, both god and men, I know (οἶδα) to be evil and shameful'. He thinks that if we give this single text 'its full weight' it can suffice to show that Socrates does claim knowledge of a moral truth (1985, 7). Vlastos’ claim is not admittable since it would be too strange, I think, for a man like Socrates to violate his disavowal claim just after emphasizing it. We can see his claim just before the already mentioned passage: -/- And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything it world be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge (οὐκ εἰδὼς ἱκανῶς) of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have (οὐκ εἰδέναι) (Apology 29b1-6) Vlastos tries to solve what he calls the 'paradox' of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge distinguishing the 'certain' knowledge from 'elenctic' knowledge (1985, 11) and thinking that when Socrates avows knowledge, we must perceive it as an elenctic knowledge, a knowledge its content 'must be propositions he thinks elenctically justifiable' (ibid, 18). Irwin’s solution is the distinction of knowledge and belief. He approves that Socrates does not 'explicitly' make such a distinction, but still thinks that Socrates’ 'test for knowledge would make it reasonable for him to recognize true belief without knowledge, and his own claims are easily understood if they are claims to true belief alone' (1977, 40). While I agree with Vlastos up to a point, I strongly disagree with Irwin about the early dialogues. As I will try to show below, we are not permitted to consider any kind of distinction within knowledge in Socratic dialogues because only one category of knowledge is alluded to there and the distinction of knowledge and belief thoroughly belongs to the second Sorcates. Although no kind of distinction can be admittable here, I think Vlastos’ distinction can be accepted only if we regard it as a distinction between knowledge, which is unique and without any, even incomparable, rival, and a semi-idiomatic and ordinary one that is a necessary requirement for any argument, and thus, unavoidable even for someone who does not claim any kind of knowledge. An apparent evidence of this is Gorgias 505e6-506a4: -/- I go through the discussion as I think it is (ὡς ἄν μοι δοκῇ ἔχειν), if any of you do not agree with admissions I am making to myself, you must object and refute me. For I do not say what I say as I know (οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω ἃ λέγω) but as searching jointly with you (ζητῶ κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν). -/- The minimal degree of knowledge everyone must have to take part in an argument, conduct it and use the phrase "I know" when it is necessary is what Socrates cannot deny. We can call it elenctic knowledge only if we agree that it is not the kind of knowledge that Socrates has always been searching, the one that can be accepted as the answer of Socratic 'what is X?' question. His disavowal of knowledge is applied only to the knowledge which can truly be the answer of Socratic question and pass the elenctic exam; a knowledge that, I believe, is never claimed by first Socrates. Socrates conducts his method of examining his interlocutors’ knowledge, our second element here, by almost the same method repeated in Socratic dialogues. That whether we are allowed to regard all the examinations of Socrates in the early dialogues as based on the same or not has been a matter of dispute. Vlastos himself (1994, 31) distinguished Euthydemas, Lysis, Menexenns and Hippias Major from the other Socratic dialogues because he thinks Socrates has lost his faith to elenchus in there. Irwin (1977, 38) distinguishes Apology and Crito where Socrates’ own convictions is present. Contrary to some scholars like Benson (2002, 107) who take elenchus in all the Socratic dialogues as a unique method, Michelle Carpenter and Ronald M. Polansky (2002, 89-100) argue pro the variety of methods of elenchus. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (2002, 145-160) even reject such a thing as Socratic elenchus which can gather all of the Socrates’ various arguments under such a heading. There can be no solution for the problem of elenchus, they think, is due to 'the simple reason that there is no such thing as 'the Socratic elenchos"'(p.147). Though we consider elenchus a somehow determined process and a part of Socratic circle in the early dialogues, all we assume is that whatever differences it might have in different dialogues, it has the same onto-epistemological principles and, thus, we are not going to take it necessarily as a unique method. This method sets out to prove that the interlocutors are as ignorant as Socrates himself is. That whether elenchus is constructive, capable of establishing doctrines as Vlastos (1994) or Brickhouse and Smith (1994, 20-21) believe or not is another issue to which this paper is not to claim anything. What is crucial for our discussion here is that elenchus does not reach to the very knowledge Socrates is looking for. This is strictly against Irwin who thinks that not only elenchus leads to positive results, 'it should even yield knowledge to match Socrates’ conditions'(1977, 68, cf. 48). He does not explain where and how they really yield to that kind of knowledge. He explains his elenctic method in his apology in the court (Apology 21-22), that how he used to examine wise men, politicians, poets and all those who had the highest reputation for their knowledge and every time found that they have no knowledge. If we accept, as I strongly do, that Socrates’ disavowal of his knowledge is not irony, it might seem more reasonable to agree that the process that has that disavowal as its first step cannot be irony as well. The key of the circle which can explain why Socrates disclaims knowledge and how he can reject others’ claim of having any kind of knowledge lies in the third element, Socratic question. In Hippias Major (287c1-2), Socrates asks: 'Is it not by Justice that just people are Just? (ἆρ᾽ οὐ δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοί εἰσιν οἱ δίκαιοι). He insists at 294b1 that they were searching for that by which (ᾧ) all beautiful things are beautiful (cf. b4-5, 8). At Euthyphro 6d10-11 it is said that the Socratic question is waiting for 'the form itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος) by which (ᾧ) all the pious actions are pious; and at 6d11-e1: -/- Through one form (που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ) impious actions are impious and pious actions pious. -/- Since the X itself is that by which X is X, knowing 'X itself' is the only way of knowing X. It is probably because of this that Socrates makes the distinction between the ousia as a right answer to the question and effect as a wrong one: -/- I am afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is (τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἐστίν) you did not wish to make clear its nature itself (οὐσίαν … αὐτοῦ) to me, but you said some effect (πάθος) about it. (Euthp. 11a6-9) -/- 1. Knowledge of what X is Now it is time to look for the onto-epistemological principles of Socratic circle and its three elements. It cannot reasonably be expected from the first Socrates to present us explicitly and clearly formulated principles of his onto-epistemology when such explications cannot be found even in the second Socrates who has some obviously positive theoris. Since there must be some principles underlying this first systematic inqury of knowledge, we must seek to them and be satisfied with elicitation of the first Socratas’ principle. What will be drawn out as his principles cannot and must not, thus, be taken as very fix and dogmatic principles. Some very slightest principles and grounds suffice for our purposes here. The first principle that is the prima facie significance of the Socratic question and his implementation of all those elenctic arguments I call the principle of 'Knowledge of What X is' (KWX): -/- KWX To know X, it is required to know what X is. -/- Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b23-25, 27-29, 987b4-8) takes Plato’s τί ἐστι question as seeking the definition of a thing that is the same as historical Socrates’ search but applying to a different field. That Plato’s 'what is X?' question was a search for definition became the prevailed understanding of this question up to now. I am going neither to discuss the answer of Socratic question nor to challenge taking it as definition. What I am to insist is that knowledge is attached firmly to the answer of the question: Knowledge of X is not anything but the knowledge of what X is. It entails, certainly, the priority of this knowledge to any other kind of knowledge about X but it also has something more fundamental about the relation of knowledge and Socratic question. Socrates’ exclusive focus on the answer of his question can authorize the consideration of such an essential role for KWX in his epistemolgoy. The total rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are unable to answer the question can be regarded as a strong evidence for it. Socrates’ elenctic method and his rejection of others’ knowledge in the early dialogues, which all end aporetically with no one accepted as knower and nothing as knowledge, prevent us from finding any positive evidence for this. We have to be content, therefore, of negative evidences which, I think, can be found wherever Socrates rejects his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are not able to give an acceptable answer to his 'what is X?' question. 2. Bipolar Epistemology Socrates’ rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge has another epistemological principle as its basis. Let me call this principle Bipolar Epistemology' (BE): BE There is no third way besides knowledge and Ignorance. -/- BE says that about every object of knowledge there are only two subjective statuses: knowledge and Ignorance. Socrates’ disavowal, however, says nothing but that he is ignorant of knowledge of X because he does not know what X is. This means that BE is presupposed here. Socrates’ elenchus and his rejection of interlocutors’ having any kind of knowledge are the necessary results of the fact that he does not let any third way besides knowledge and ignorance. The first Socrates never let anyone partly know X or have a true opinion about it, as he would not let anyone know anything about X when he did not know what X is. -/- 3. Bipolar Ontology The principle of BE in first Socrates’ epistemology is parallel to another principle in his ontology. Plato’s bipolar distinction between being and not being is as strict and perfect as his distinction between knowledge and ignorance. This principle I shall call the principle of 'Bipolar Ontology' (BO): BO Being is and not being is not. BO is apparently the same with the well-known Parmenidean Principle of being and not being (cf. Diels-Kranz (DK) Fr. 2.2-5). Euthydemus’ statement against the possibility of false knowledge can be good evidence for this principle: -/- The things which are not surely do not exist (τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα … ἄλλο τι ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν). (Euthydemus 284b3-4) -/- He continues (b4-5): -/- There is nowhere for not being to be there (οὖν οὐδαμοῦ τά γε μὴ ὄντα ὄντα ἐστίν). -/- That BE does not let true opinion as a third option besides knowledge and ignorance seems to be related to BO’s rejecting a third option besides being and not being, which is itself the basis of the impossibility of false belief. Socrates’ elaborate discussion of the problem of false belief in Theatetus that leads to a more decisive discussion and finally to some solutions in Sophist can make our consideration of BO for the first group of dialogues authentive. -/- 4. &5. Split Knowledge and Split Being The fourth principle I shall call the principle of 'Split Knowledge' (SK): -/- SK Knowledge of X is separated from any other knowledge (of anything else) as if the whole knowledge is split to various parts. -/- This Principle is hinted and criticized as Socrates’ way of treating with knowledge in Hippias Major: -/- But Socrates, you do not contemplate the entireties of things, nor do people you have used to talk with (τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). (301b2-4) -/- Contrary to Rankin who regards the passage as 'antilogical, almost eristic in tone rather than presenting a serious philosophy of being' (1983, 54), I think it can be taken as serious. Hippias criticizes Sorcates that he does not contemplate (σκοπεῖς) the entireties of things (ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων), a critique which Socrates is not its only subject but all those whom Socrates accustomed to talk with (ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). This last phrase, I think, extends this critic beyond this dialogue to other Socratic dialogues. Hippias’ use of the perfect tense of the verb ἔθω (to be accustomed) is a good evidence of this extension. We can get, thus, these ἐκεῖνοι as Socrates’ interlocutors in his other dialogues that hints that this criticism has the epistemological groundings of the previous dialogues as its subject. What ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι points to is that Hippias does not have in mind Socrates’ way of treating things only in this dialogue, but he is also criticizing Socrates’ way throughout his dialogues. At 301b4-5, Socrates and his interlocutors’ way of beholding things is described as such: -/- You people knock (κρούετε) at the fine and each of the beings (ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων) by taking each being cut up in pieces (κατατέμνοντες) in words (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). This leads us to our next principle that is parallel to, and the ontological side of, SK, the principle of 'Split Being'(SB): -/- SB Everything (being) is separated from any other thing as if the whole being is split to many beings. -/- Socrates and his interlocutors and thus, as we saw, the Socratic dialogues are accused to regard everything as it is separated from all other things. This separation is en tois logois that, I think, can reasonably be taken as saying that Socratic dialogues (it refers of course to the dialogues before Hippias Major) cut up all things which have the same name/definition from all other things and try to understand them separately, without considering other things that are not in their logos. They, for example in Hippias Major, are cutting up to kalon and try to understand what it and all others inside this logos are by separating it from all other things. This is directed straightly against Socratic question and the way Socratic dialogues follow to find its answer, every time separating one logos. As Meyer (1995, 85) points out, every question 'presupposes that the X in question in a logos is something' and 'every answer to every question aims at unity' (84). The critique of Hippias Major is, therefore, at the same time a critique of SK and SB. It is also a critique of KWX because it is only based on KWX that Socratic dialogues could search for the answer of 'what is X' question supposing that knowing what X is is enough for the knowledge of X. SK and KWX are absolutely interdependent. What Socrates and all his previous interlocutors have neglected in Socratic dialogues, Hippias says, was 'continuous bodies of being' (διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας) (301b6). Either this theory actually belongs to the historical Hippias as it is being said or not, it is strictly criticizing SB. We have the same phrase with changing sūma to logos some lines later at 301e3-4: διανεκεῖ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας. Although this theory that can be observed as both an ontological and an epistemological theory is rejected by Socrates (301cff.), it is still against first Socrates’ onto-epistemological principles and might let us look at what is rejected as Socratic prineple. -/- 6. Knowledge is of Being The sixth principle that I think is presupposed by the first Socrates, is the 'Knowledge of Being' Principle (KB): -/- KB Knowledge is of Being. -/- This principle is obviously the source of the problem of false knowledge, a very important problem throughout Plato’s philosophy. We face this problem maybe for the first time in Euthydemus. In less than 20 Stephanus’ pages, 276-295, we are encountered with different interwoven problems about knowledge , all grounded in the problem of false opinion. Having challenged the obvious possibility of telling lies at 283e, at 284 Euthydemus discusses it saying that the man who speaks is speaking about 'one of those things that are (ἓν μὴν κἀκεῖνό γ᾽ ἐστὶν τῶν ὄντων)' (284a3) and thus speaks what is (λέγων τὸ ὄν) (a5). He must necessarily be saying truth when he is speaking what is because he who speaks what is (τὸ ὄν) and the things that are (τὰ ὄντα) speaks truth (τἀληθῆ λέγει) (a5-6). This is based on Parmenidean principle of the impossibility of being of not being which Euthydemus restates (284b3-4) and we mentioned discussing BO principle above. The things that are not are nowhere (οὐδαμοῦ) and there is no possibility for anyone to do (πράξειεν) anything with them because they must be made as being before anything else can be done, which is impossible (b5-7). The words, then, are of things that exist (εἰσὶν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι) (285e9) and as they are (ὡς ἔστιν) (e10). The result is that no one can speak of things as they are not. It is this impossibility of false speach that is extended to thinking (δοξάζειν) at 286d1 and leads to the impossibility of false opinion (ψευδής … δόξα) (286d4). The general conclusion is asserted at 287a extending this impossibility to actions and making any kind of mistake. Not only knowledge is of being but speech, thought and action are of being simply because of the fact that nothing can be of not being. -/- B. First Socrates’ Principles in the Middle Period Dialogues Out of what were presupposed or criticized mostly in five dialogues, Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Laches and Charmides, we tried to draw the first Socrates’ principles. Our inquiry here is directed to find out the fate of these principles in the three dialogues of the middle period, Meno, Phaedo and Republic. To do this, first we ought to check the situation of Socratic circle in these dialogues. The Socratic circle that was predominant in the early dialogues, does not look like a circle here anymore though they certainly have some features in common. Meno, Phaedo and Republic II-X are not committed to the principles of the circle and the whole circle in disrupted in them. The difference of the two Socrateses towards acquiring knowledge is obvious. The Socrates of Meno, Phaedo and Republic is evidently more self-confident that he can get to some truths during his arguments as he does. They are in their first appearance, as almost all other dialogues, committed to Socrates’ disavowal. All of them try to keep the shape of the Socratikoi Logoi genre, which is committed to the historical Socrates’ way of discussion; a dramatic personage who is to challenge his interlocutors, ask them and refuse the answers. Nevertheless, the fact is that what we have in common between two groups of dialogues is mostly a dramatic structure. Whereas the first group’s arguments are based on Socrates’ disavowal and lead to no positive results, the second group is decisively going to achieve some positive results. The aim of the first Socrates was to show others that they are ignorant of what they thought they knew. The new Socrates of Meno, on the opposite, makes so much efforts to show that the slave boy has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the things that he does not know (οἶδε) (85c6-7). Despite his lack of knowledge, he has true opinions nevertheless. The way from these true opinions to knowledge, as Socrates states, is not so long. These true opinions are now like a dream but 'can become knowledge of the same things not less accurate than anyone’s' (οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστήσεται περὶ τούτων) (c11-d1), if they be repeated by asking the same questions. The most outstanding text regarding Socrates’ disavowal is Meno 98b where he explicitly claims knowledge: -/- And indeed I also speak as (ὡς) one who does not know (εἰδὼς) but is guessing (εἰκάζων). However, [about the fact] that true opinion and knowledge are different, I do not altogether expect (δοκῶ) myself to be guessing (εἰκάζειν), but if I say about anything that I know (εἰδέναι) -which about few things I say- this is one of the things that I know (οἶδα). (98b1-5) This passage is very significant about Plato’s disavowal of knowledge. There can hardly be found, I think, anywhere else in Plato’s corpus where Socrates speaks about his knowledge of something as such. He says first that he speaks as someone who does not know. This ὡς οὐκ εἰδὼς λέγω comparing with what he used to say in the first group, οὐκ οἶδα, has this added ὡς. Socrates does not claim strongly anymore that he does not know anything but speaks only as someone who does not know. He needs this ὡς not only because he is going to accept that he does know some, though few, things immediately after this sentence, but also because he needs his previous disavowal to be loosened from Meno on. He does not merely say here that he knows something. It is then different from the examples mentioned before which could be taken as idiomatic or at least not emphatic. Socrates’ remarkable emphasis on distinguishing εἰδέναι from εἰκάζειν departs it from all other passages where he says only he knows something. Moreover, he claims definitely that he has knowledge about few (ὀλίγα) things. From the early to the middle dialogues, Socrates’ attitude to knowledge has totally renewed its face. He brings forth a new concept, true opinion, and he does not speak of knowledge as he used to before; the rough, perfect and unachievable knowledge of the first group has turned to something more smooth, realistic and achievable. Comparing with the early dialogues that did not set out from the first to reach positive results, the middle ones are extraordinarily and surprisingly positive and hence destroy the basis of the Socratic circle. The questions and answers are purposely directed to some specific new theories; most of them are not directly related to the topics or the main questions of the dialogues. They are suggested when Socrates draws the attention of the interlocutor away from the main question because of the necessity of another discussion. Even if the main question remains unanswered, we have still many positive theories, prominently of metaphysical type. These theories are so abundant and dominant in these dialogues, especially Phaedo and Republic, that one might think that they may appear to be arbitrarily sandwiched in there. This helps dialogues to keep their original Socratic structure while they are suggesting new theories. Hence, the Socratic question of 'what is X?', though is still used to launch the discussion, is loosened and is forgotten for most part of the dialogues. Meno that has first a differently formulated question, 'can virtue be taught?', leads finally to the Socratic question of 'What is virtue?'. Phaedo is dedicated to the demonstration of the immortality of soul and the life after death without having a central Socratic question. The case of Republic is more complicated. The first book, on the one hand, has all the criteria of a Socratic circle: its 'what is justice?' question, Socrates’ strong disavowal (e.g. 337d-e), his rejection of all answers and coming back to the first point without finding out any answer. This Book, considered alone, is a perfect Socratic dialogue, as many scholars regard it as early and separated from other books. The books II-X are, on the other hand, far from implementing a Socratic circle. They have still the 'what is justice?' question as their incentive leading question, but they are, in most of the positive doctrines and methods that encompass the main parts, ignoring the question. Even these books that, I believe, are the farthest discussions from the Socratic circle are so cautious not to break the Socratic structure of the dialogue as long as it is possible. What is changed is not the structure of the dialogue but the ontological and epistemological grounds based on which new theories are suggested. -/- 1. Knowledge of the Good We can clearly see in the second group of dialogues that the KWX principle loses the place it had before in our first group. It is not, of course, rejected, but still we cannot say that it has the same situation. KWX that was based on Socratic question, as we discussed before, was the leading principle of the first Socrates’ epistemology and of the highest position. Other epistemological principles, SK directly and BE indirectly, were relying on Socratic question and therefore on KWX. Such a position does not belong to KWX from Meno on. What makes it different in the second Socrates is another principle that is needed it not only as its complementary principle but also as what is more fundamental. Plato, then, does not reject KWX in this period, but, it seems, he transcends to another more basic principle; a principle we shall call the principle of 'Knowledge of the Good' (KG): -/- KG Knowledge of X requires knowledge of the Good. -/- Whereas all the dialogues of our first group are free from any discuscon about KG, it bears a very important role in the second group so as becomes the superior principle of knowledge in Republic. Trying to solve the problem of teachability of virtue, Socrates says that it can be teachable only if it is a kind of knowledge because nothing can be taught to human beings but knowledge (ἐπιστήμην) (Meno 87c2). The dilemma will be, then, whether virtue is knowledge or not (c11-12) and since virtue is good, we can change the question to: whether is there anything good separate from knowledge (εἰ μέν τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄλλο χωριζόμενον ἐπιστήμης) (d4-5). Therefore, the conclusion will be that if there is nothing good which knowledge does not encompass, virtue can be nothing but knowledge (d6-8). What let us discuss KG as an epistemological principle for the second Secrates is the relation he tries to establish between knowledge and the Good which, though is alongside with the mentioned thesis and the idea of virtue as knowledge, goes much deeper inside epistemology asking to regard the Good as the basis of knowledge. The effort of Phaedo cannot succeed in establishing the Good as the criterion of explanation and knowledge since, I think, it needs a far more complicated ontology of Republic where Socrates can finally announce KG. What is said in Republic is totally compatible with Phaedo 99d–e and the metaphor of watching an eclipse of the sun. In spite of the fact that we do not have adequate knowledge of the Idea of the Good, it is necessary for every kind of knowledge: 'If we do not know it, even if we know all other things, it is of no benefit to us without it' (505a6-7). The problem of our not having sufficient knowledge of the Idea of Good is tried to be solved by the same method of Phaedo 99d-e, that is to say, by looking at what is like instead of looking at thing itself (506d8-e4). It is this solution that leads to the comparison of the Good with sun in the allegory of Sun (508b12-13). What the Good is in the intelligible realm corresponds to what the sun is in the visible realm; as sun is not sight, but is its cause and is seen by it (b9-10), the Good is so regarding knowledge. It has, then, the same role for knowledge that the sun has for sight. Socrates draws our attention to the function of sun in our seeing. The eyes can see everything only in the light of the day being unable to see the same things in the gloom of night (508c4-6). Without the sun, our eyes are dimmed and blind as if they do not have clear vision any longer (c6-7). That the Good must have the same role about knowledge based on the analogy means that it must be considered as a required condition of any kind of knowledge: -/- The soul, then, thinks (νόει) in the same way: whenever it focuses on what is shined upon by truth and being, understands (ἐνόησέν), knows (ἔγνω) and apparently possesses understanding (νοῦν ἔχειν). (508d4-6) -/- Socrates does not use agathon in this paragraph and substitutes it with both aletheia and to on. He links them with the Idea of the Good when he is to assert the conclusion of the analogy: -/- That which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say, is the Idea of the Good: being the cause of knowledge and truth (αἰτίαν δ᾽ ἐπιστήμης οὖσαν καὶ ἀληθείας) so far as it is known (ὡς γιγνωσκομένης μὲν διανοοῦ). (508e1-4) Knowledge and truth are called goodlike (ἀγαθοειδῆ) since they are not the same as the Good but more honoured (508e6-509a5). KG, which had been implicitly contemplated and searched in Phaedo, is now explicitly being asserted in Republic. As what was quoted clearly proves, this principle is the very one which we can observe as the most fundamental principle of the second Socrates in Republic, corresponding to the role KWX had in the first Socrates. The Form of the Good in Republic, of which Santas speaks as 'the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and …' (1983, 256) much more can be said. Plato’s Cave allegory in Book VIII dedicates a similar role to the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is there as the last thing to be seen in the knowable realm, something so important that its seeing equals to understanding the fact that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful (517b). Producing both light and its source in visible realm, it controls and provides truth and understanding in the intelligible realm (517c). -/- 2. Tripartite Epistemology BE is thoroughy rejected in the second Socrates and substituted by its opposite, the principle of 'Tripartite Epistemolgy' (TE): -/- TE Opinion is an epistemological status between knowledge and ignorance. BE of the first Socrates was denying any third way besides knowledge and ignorance which was the foundation of Socratic circle without which Socrates could not reject his interlocutors’ possessing any kind of knowledge. We cannot say, however, that the first Socrates had a third epistemological status in mind but rejected it. Such a status was unacceptable for him so that one can say that he would reject any kind of such status if suggested. There were only two possibilities about knowledge: either one knows something or he does not know it. TE, thus, was not the first Socrates’ discovery and, I think it is not the second Socrates’discovery. All we can see in our second group of dialouges is that he uses this principle as an already demonstrated one. Having examined the slave boy in Meno for the prupose of showing the working of recollection, it truns out that he has some opinions in him while he still does not know. Without trying to prove it, Socrates takes this as the distinction between knowledge and opinion: -/- So, he who does not know (οὐκ εἰδότι) about what he does not know (περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ) has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the same things he did not know (περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε) (85c6-7). -/- The same distinction is set between ὀρθὴν δόξαν and ἐπιστήμην at 97b5-6 ff. (also cf. 97b1-2: ὀρθῶς μὲν δοξάζων … ἐπιστάμενος). He connects then their difference to the myth of Daedalus, the statue that would run away and escape. So are true opinions, not willing to remain long in mind and thus not worthy until one ties them down by αἰτίας λογισμῷ (98a3-4). Socrates says that this tying down is anamnesis. We face, in Phaedo, the same relation is settled between knowledge as the process of being tied down and getting the capability to give an account, on the one hand, and anamnesis, on the other hand. When a man knows, he must be able to give an account of what he knows (Phaedo 76b5-6) and since not all people are able to give such an account, those who recollect, recollect what once they learned (76c4). Although the distinction between knowledge and opinion is not explicitly used in Phaedo, referring to the parallel link between knowledge plus account and anamnesis in Phaedo and Meno, one can say that those who cannot recollect are not able to give account and, thus, are in a state of opinion. What is said at Phaedo 84a, though not yet a definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, makes a distinction between their objects so as we can agree that it is presupposed. The soul of the philosopher, Socrates says, follows reason, stays with it forever and contemplates the divine, which is not the object of opinoin (ἀδόξαστον) (84a8, cf. Meno 98b2-5). The distinction of knowledge and belief in Republic has a significant difference with what we discussed in Meno and Phaedo since the distinction of Meno was based on anamnesis and thus more an epistemological distinction. Even in Phaedo that we do not have any elaborate discussion about the distinction, the only hint to the matter at 76 is bound to the theory of anamnesis. In addition to the relation of the distinction with this theory, there is another evidence that does not permit us to consider the distinction as an ontological distinction. Let’s see Meno 85c6-7: -/- So, he who does not know about what he does not know has within himself true opinions about the same things he did not know (τῷ οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ ἔνεισιν ἀληθεῖς δόξαι περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε). (85c6-7) -/- This last sentence persists that the objects of knowledge and true opinion are the same. What Socrates is to say here is that whereas he does not know X he has true opinion about the same X. I think Socrates’ sentence that the slave boy οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ and his restatement of it by saying περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε is because he wants to emphasize that the slave boy who does not know, has true opinion about the same thing. Socrates could say this just with using τούτων and there would be no necessity to bring περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ for οὐκ εἰδότι if he did not want to emphasize. -/- 3. Tripartite Ontology The distinction between knowledge and true opinion in Republic, on other side, has nothing to do with recollection, but is based on an ontological principle, 'Tripartite Ontology' (TO): -/- TO There are things that both are and are not. -/- This principle I confine, among our three dialogues of the second group, to Republic not extended to Meno and Phaedo, is obviously the opposite of BO. Speaking about the lovers of sights and sounds in the fifth book, Socrates distinguishes them from philosophers because their thought is unable to understand the nature of beautiful itself besides beautiful things (476a6-8) and hence they can only have opinions. The philosopher who, on the contrary, believes in beautiful itself and can distinguish it from beautiful things (476c9-d3), has knowledge because he knows, contrasting others who have opinion because they only opine (d5-6). Since those whose knowledge were degraded as opinion will complain about Socrates’ such calling their thought, he provides them the following argument (476e7-477b1): -/- - Does the person who knows, knows (γιγνώσκει) something (τὶ) or nothing (οὐδέν)? - He knows something (τί). - Something that is (ὂν) or is not (οὐκ ὄν)? - Something that is (ὂν) for how could something that is not be known (πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείη)? - Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what completely is (παντελῶς ὂν) is completely knowable (παντελῶς γνωστόν) and what is in no way (μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῇ) is in every way unknowable (πάντῃ ἄγνωστον). - A most adequate one. - Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be (ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι), won’t it be intermediate (μεταξὺ) between what purely is (εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος) and what in no way is (μηδαμῇ ὄντος)? - Yes, it’s intermediate. - Then as knowledge (γνῶσις) is set over what is (τῷ ὄντι), while ignorance (ἀγνωσία) is of necessity set over what is not (μὴ ὄντι) mustn’t we find an intermediate between ignorance (ἀγνοίας) and knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) to be set over the intermediate, if there is such a thing? -/- From the third status of being we must reach to the third status of knowledge. The simple reading of this text can be an existential reading, taking the "is" of the mentioned sentences as existence. The problem is that when it is said that there is something that both is and is not reading "is" existentially, it sounds too bizarre to be acceptable. It cannot easily be understandable to have something as both existent and non-existent at the same time. This problem arose so many debates and led many scholars to reject the existential reading of "is" and suggest some other readings like predicative or veridical readings. I think though Plato’s complicated ontology of Republic cannot be correctly understood by a simple existential reading, this "is" cannot be free from existential sense of being and, thus, cannot be reduced to just a predicative or veridical sense of being. -/- 4. Bound Knowledges In addition to KG, the Good is also the basis of another principle in the second Socrates, namely the principle of 'Bound Knowledge' (BK): -/- BK Knowledge of everything is bound to the knowledge of the Good. -/- We distinguished BK from KG because we want to insist, in BK, on what had not been insisted upon in KG, that is, the binding role that the Good plays in the second Socrates, contrasting the absence of such a role in the first Socrates. Socrates remembers, in Phaedo, his wonderful keen on natural philosophers' wisdom when he was young. The origin of this enthusiasm was Socrates’ hope to know the cause of everything as they used to claim. When he was searching the matters of his interest on their basis, Socrates says, he became convinced he can get no acceptable answer from them and found himself blind even to the things he thought he knew before. One day he hears Anaxagoras’ theory that 'it is Mind that arranges and is the cause of everything (ὡς ἄρα νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος)' (Phd. 97c1-2 cf. DK, Fr.15.8-9, 11-12, 12-14) and thinks that he can finally find what he has always expected, i.e. something which can explain all things. What I intend to show here is that what makes Socrates hopeful is that Anaxagoras’ theory tries 1) to explain all things by one thing and 2) this explanation is understood by Socrates as if it is based on the concept of the Good. That Socrates was searching for one explanation for all things can be proved even from what he has been expecting from natural philosophers. The case is, nonetheless, more clearly asserted when he speaks about Anaxagoras’ theory. In addition to διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος of 97c2 mentioned above, we have τὸ τὸν νοῦν εἶναι πάντων αἴτιον (c3-4) and τόν γε νοῦν κοσμοῦντα πάντα κοσμεῖν (c4-5) all emphasizing on the cause of all things (πάντα) which can clearly prove that one of the reasons which caused Socrates to embrace it delightfully was its claim to provide the cause of all things by one thing. Another reason was that Anaxagoras’ Mind, at least in Socrates’ view, was attempting to explain everything by the concept of the Good. This connection between Mind and Good belongs more to the essential relation they have in Socrates’ thinking than Anaxagoras’ theory because there are almost nothing about such a relation in Anaxagoras. The reason for Socrates’ reading can be that Mind is substantially compatible with Socrates’ idea of the relation between good and knowledge. Both the thesis 'no one does wrong willingly' and the theory of virtue as knowledge we pointed to above are evidences of this essential relation. Nobody who knows that something is bad can choose or do it as bad. The reason, when it is reason, that means when it is as it should be, when it is wise or when it knows, works only based on good-choosing. In this context, when Socrates hears that Mind is considered as the cause of everything, it sounds to him like this: good should be regarded as the basis of the explanation of all things. We see him, thus, passing from the former to the latter without any proof. This is done in the second sentence after introducing Mind: -/- I thought that if this were so, the arranging Mind would arrange all things and put each thing in the way that was Best (ὅπῃ ἂν βέλτιστα ἔχῃ). If one then wished to find the cause of each thing by which it either perishes or exists, one needs to find what is the best way (βέλτιστον αὐτῷ ἐστιν) for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is the most excellent (ἄριστον) and best (βέλτιστον). The same man must inevitably also know what is worse (χεῖρον), for that is part of the same knowledge. (97c4-d5) This passage is a good evidence of Socrates’ leap from Anaxagoras’ Mind to his own concept of the Good that can explain why Socrates found Anaxagoras theory after his own heart (97d7). Mind is welcomed because of its capability for explanation on the basis of good to 'explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better (ἄμεινον), and that it was better (ἄμεινον) to be so' (97e1-3). What Socrates thought he had found in Anaxagoras can indicate what he had been expecting from natural scientists before. Socrates could not be satisfied with their explanations because they were unable to explain how it is the best for everything to be as it is. It can probably be said, then, that it was the lack of the unifying Good in their explanation that had disappointed him. We must insist that we are discussing what Socrates thought that Anaxagoras’ theory of Mind should have been, not about Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. Phaedo 97c-98b, is not about what Socrates found in Anaxagoras but what he thought he could find in it. On the contrary, it should also be noted that it was not this that was dashed at 98b, but Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. It was Anaxagoras’ fault not to find out how to use such an excellent thesis (98b8-c2, cf. 98e-99b). Socrates gives an example to show how not believing in 'good' as the basis of explanation makes people be wanderers between different unreal explanations of a thing. His words δέον συνδεῖν (binding that binds together) as a description for the Good we chose as the name of BK principle: They do not believe that the truly good and binding binds and holds them together (ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δέον συνδεῖν καὶ συνέχειν οὐδὲν οἴονται). (99c5-6) -/- Having in mind Plato’s well-known analogy of the sun and the Good at Republic 508-509, we can dare to say that his warning of the danger of seeing the truth directly like one watching an eclipse of the sun in Phaedo (99d-e) is more about the difficulty of so-called good-based explanation than its insufficiency, a difficulty which is precisely confirmed in Republic (504e-505a, 506d-e). Moreover, BK is asserted in a more explicit way in the Republic, where the Good is considered not only as a condition for the knowledge of X, as was noted above discussing KG, but also as what binds all the objects of knowledge and also the soul in its knowing them. At Republic VI, 508e1-3, when Socrates says that the Form of the Good 'gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower (τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παρέχον τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις καὶ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι τὴν δύναμιν ἀποδιδὸν)', he wants to set the Good at the highest point of his epistemological structure by which all the elements of this structure are bound. This binding aspect of the Good is by no means a simple binding of all knowledges or all the objects of knowledge, but the most complicated kind of binding as it is expected from the author of the Republic. The kind of unity the Good gives to the different knowledges of different things is comparable with the unity which each Form gives to its participants in Republic: as all the participants of a Form are united by referring to the ideas, all different kinds of knowledge are united by referring to the Good. If we observe Aristotle's assertion that for Plato and the believers of Forms, the causative relation of the One with the Forms is the same as that of the Forms with particulars (e.g. Metaphysics 988a10-11, 988b4), that is to say the One is the essence (e.g., ibid, 988a10-11: τοῦ τί ἐστὶν, 988b4-6: τὸ τί ἢν εἶναί) of the Forms besides his statement that for them One is the Good (e.g., ibid, 988b11-13) the relation between the Good and unity may become more understandable. Since the quiddity of the Good (τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἀγαθὸν) is more than discussion (506d8-e2), we cannot await Socrates to tell us how this binding role is played. All we can expect is to hear from him an analogy by which this unifying role is envisaged, the sun. The kind of unity that the Good gives to the knowledge and its objects in the intelligible realm is comparable to the unity that the sun gives to the sight and its objects in the visible realm (508b-c). The allegory of Line (Republic VI, 509d-511), like that of the Sun, tries to bind all various kinds of knowledges. The hierarchical model of the Line which encompasses all kinds of knowledge from imagination to understanding can clearly be considered as Plato’s effort to bind all kinds of knowledges by a certain unhypothetical principle. The method of hypothesis starts, in the first subsection of the intelligible realm, with a hypothesis that is not directed firstly to a principle but a conclusion (510b4-6). It proceeds, in the other subsection, to a 'principle which is not a hypothesis' (b7) and is called the 'unhypothetical principle of all things' (ἀνυποθέτου ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὴν) (511b6-7). This παντὸς must refer not only to the objects of the intelligible realm but to the sensible objects as well. Plato does posit, therefore, an epistemological principle for all things, a principle that all things are, epistemologically, bound and, thus, unified by. -/- 5. Bound Beings The ontological aspect of BK we shall call the principle of 'Bound Beings' (BB): -/- BB Being of all things are bound by the Good. -/- We saw in our principle of Split Being (SB) how the first Socrates was criticized because of his approach to split being and separate each thing from other things. The principle of Bound Beings intends to make the things more related, a duty which is done again by the Good. In the allegory of Sun, there are two paragraphs that evidently and deliberately extend the binding role of the Good to the ontological scene: -/- You will say that the sun not only makes the visible things have the ability of being seen but also coming to be, growth and nourishment. (509b2-4) -/- This clearly intends to remind the ontological role the sun plays in bringing to being all the sensible things in order to display how its counterpart has the same role in the intelligible realm (b6-10): -/- Not only the objects of knowledge (γιγνωσκομένοις) owe their being known (γιγνώσκεσθαι) to the Good, but also their existence (τὸ εἶναί) and their being (οὐσίαν) are due to it, though the Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power. That the Good is here represented as responsible for being of things in addition to their being known means, in my opinion, that Plato wants to posit BB in addition to BK. The allegory of Cave at the very beginning of the seventh Book (514aff.) can be taken as another evidence. The role of the Good, one might say, is confined to the intelligible realm because it is asserted that the role the Good plays in this realm is corresponding to that of the sun in the visible realm. The fact that Plato wants to observe the Good also as the ontological cause of the sensible things is obvious from his saying, in the allegory of Cave, that the Form of the Good 'produces light and its source (τὸν τούτου κύριον) [i.e. the sun] in the visible realm' (517c3). We can conclude, then, that the ontological function of the Good is not confined to the intelligible realm in which it is the lord and provides truth and understanding (c3-4) because it is also responsible to produce τὸν κύριον of light. 6. Proportionality of Being and Knowledge Insofaras BE and BO principles of the first Socrates gave way to TE and TO principles of the second Socrates, we cannot expect him to preserve KB in the same way as it was in the first Socrates. The new tripartite ontology and epistemology necessitates some modifications in KB which results in the principle of 'Proportionality of Being and Knowledge' (PBK): -/- PBK To every class of being there is a proportionate category of knowledge. -/- This principle, of course, does not entail the refutation of KB and thus is not kind of rejecting PBK but only a more complicated version of it. Based on PBK, we can still agree that knowledge is of being (KB) but the issue is that since none of the concepts of knowledge and being in the second Socrates are as simple as they were for the first Socrates, we need a more complicated principle for their relation here. Although from Meno 97a where the distinction of knowledge and true opinion is drawn out in the second group of the dialogues, we can expect a new relation, it is articulated in its most complete way in Republic and specifically in the allegory of Line. All the beings are divided there hierarchically to four classes, to each of them belongs a class of knowledge: imagination to images, belief to the sensible things (more correctly: the things of which they[in previous class] were images (ᾧ τοῦτο ἔοικεν)), thought to mathematical objects (?) and understanding to the Forms and the first principle. The degree of clarity that each of the classes of knowledge shares in (σαφηνείας ἡγησάμενος μετέχειν) is proportionate to the degree that its object shares in truth (ἀληθείας μετέχει). (511e2-4) -/- Conclusion From the six onto-epistemilogical principles of the first Socrates, four principles turn to their opposite in the middle period dialogues. While bipolar epistemology and ontology of the early dialogues give place to tripartite epistemology in the middle period dialogues and tripartite ontology in Republic, the split knowledge and being of the first Socrates are inclined to be substituted by bound knowledges and bound beings in the second Socrates and specifically in Republic. Not all our system of principles in this article is necessarily determinative. Either they are rightly formulated or not, our result would not be vulnerable if we accept that 1) making the distinction of knowledge and belief, 2) accepting the being of not being and 3) trying to bind both being and knowledge by the concept of the Good happens only in middle period dialogues, having been absent in the early ones. These are the favourite results all those somehow arbitrary and even oversimplified principles were to illustrate; that there is kind of a development in the epistemological as well as the ontological grounds of Plato’s philosophy. -/- Notes . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Adam Smith and the Virtues of EnlightenmentFred D. Miller Jr.Charles L. Griswold. Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv + 412. Cloth, $59.95.For over a century, scholars have been vexed by the so-called "Adam Smith problem," which concerns the relationship between the two works which Smith published during his lifetime: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) in 1759, and An Inquiry (...) into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN) in 1776 (citations are to the Liberty Classics reprints of the Oxford University Press editions). Many have regarded them as discordant: while TMS is apparently concerned with classical ethics, WN seems to assume that humans are basically egoistic, although they can be directed toward the public good by means of the "invisible hand." It is tempting to view Smith as a transitional author: TMS is the swan song of virtue ethics, whereas WN is a pioneering work in a new tradition of political economy.Griswold challenges this temptation in this brilliant study, arguing that Smith had a coherent and integrated philosophical viewpoint encompassing TMS, WN, and other surviving writings. Griswold views Smith as offering a virtue ethics and "throwing in his lot with the ancient moralists" (65). He argues, "We cannot grasp Smith's diagnosis of and therapy for the modern age without devoting considerable attention to his analysis of the virtues (especially the virtue of justice) as well as to the theory of the emotions, of the impartial spectator, and of sympathy" (20). Smith tried to reconcile a traditional ethics with modern skepticism and the new values associated with commercial society and religious secularism. Griswold's book illuminates a wide range of themes in Smith's moral philosophy: his view of rhetoric, method, and system underlying TMS (chapter 1); sympathy and self-interest (chapter 2); moral psychology and the theory of the impartial spectator (chapter 3); Smith's skepticism and reservations about philosophy (chapter 4); virtue theory (chapter 5); justice (chapter 6); the relationship between TMS and WN (chapter 7); and nature versus artifice in ethics (chapter 8). The epilogue critically discusses whether Smith's moral theory falls into subjectivism, and whether [End Page 439] Smith goes too far in excluding philosophers such as Socrates from ordinary moral discourse.A brief review cannot do justice to Griswold's compelling interpretation, and I shall focus on his solution to "the old problem of how the moral theory and the political economy mesh" (21). Griswold argues, "Smith sees himself as synthesizing an ancient view about the nature of virtue with a modern approach to the problem of the source of moral value. Consequently the moral psychology (especially the notions of sympathy and the impartial spectator) and the virtue theory must be understood in light of each other" (181). Further, "The virtue theory is the moral foundation of Smith's political economy, political theory, and 'natural jurisprudence.' Hence the virtue theory is closely tied to his doctrine of liberty as well as to his views about the pursuit of wealth. However 'ancient' the virtue theory may in some respects be, Smith combines it with a modern view of the social and political institutions appropriate to virtue" (ibid.). With impressive erudition Griswold argues that "taken together... TMS and WN form complementary parts of a larger whole" (265), and that Smith thinks "the virtues of a free and commercial society" may be defended on the basis of views espoused in WN: skepticism of state interference in economic and social matters, anti-utopianism, and the doctrine of the invisible hand (21). Yet WN does not place blind faith in laissez faire but advocates social justice, compulsory public education and greater taxes on the rich (254, 264, 359).Has Griswold, then, finally solved the Adam Smith Problem? There remains the problem that WN apparently neglects central themes of TMS: sympathy, the impartial spectator, and benevolence. In TMS virtue has distinctive components: "Concern for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of prudence: concern for that of other people, the virtues of justice and beneficence" (TMS 262). These constitute perfect virtue: "The man who acts according to the rules of perfect... (shrink)

Platonic dialogues are self-concealing, presenting ideas by indirection or in riddling form, often exploring a difficulty or aporia without arriving at a solution. Since philosophers have begun to see Plato's work as imbued with irony, double meaning, and ambiguity, literary techniques that accommodate such layered meanings become a necessary adjunct to interpretation. The dialogue Politicus explores through an aporetic process a central Platonic concern, the relation between ideal and real. Close analysis of the important section dealing with law and (...) constitutions reveals some of the complexity. By his wayward conduct of the argument, the Eleatic stranger repeatedly forces reevaluation of earlier arguments or conclusions. At the close of the cosmic myth , the Stranger warned against confusing the divine monarch, a true shepherd, with his mortal counterpart, the best ruler, whose discovery is the aim of the dialogue. The distinction that was made then is simple in context, but complex in view of the conclusion at 303b8-c5 that the participants in all governments except the ideal monarchy are supreme wizards and fakers. The truly real statesman thus recedes into a distance remote from the world of practical politics, while the familiar regimes are marked as irretrievably flawed and inauthentic. The ability of the fake statesmen to deceive by impersonating the true king also means that it may be impossible to make the crucial distinction between king and tyrant, since either may disregard the laws. The strange fable of legalism run wild confirms the ludicrous and destructive results of rigid obedience to law, but concludes that rigidity is necessary to the false regimes. The corollary is that seekers after truth, like Socrates or even the Stranger himself, must always be rejected by law-based societies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 343 The Education of Desire: Plato and the Philosophy of Religion. By MICHEL DESPLAND. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Pp. xiv + 395. $45.00 (cloth); $25.00 (paper). Plato, in Professor Despland's considered estimate, is a " philosopher of religion" avant la lettre. Despite their remote antiquity, Despland finds the dialogues a plausible introduction to the admittedly "un-Platonic" twentieth-century philosophical discussion of religion. His premise (...) is that modern philosophy of religion shares, or ought to share, Plato's twin concern for inducing benign social dispositions and for arousing reverent intellectual contemplation-a combination which Despland's compendious yet for the most part plain-spoken scholarship calls "the education of desire." Despland accordingly aims to clarify " the demands for attention that the religious life of Greece presses upon Plato's mind 1and the sort of attention Plato pays to it" (xii). He begins with the Socratic dialogue Euthyphro, which raises but does not resolve the question "What is piety?" Socrates's question is posed during the late fifth-century twilight of Athenian religious traditions, amid the glare of competing practical claims about standards for evaluating right and wrong. Not surprisingly, neither Euthyphro nor Socrates quite embodies the traditional piety to which their conversation purportedly appeals. Euthyphro is one-sided and doctrinaire in his appropriation of the ancestral myths by which he would justify his highly irregular lawsuit against his father for impiety. Socrates, on the other hand, is consistently ironic and, claiming little more than knowledge of his own ignorance, is said to "stake everything on the, it is hoped, well-scrutinized conscience" (31). However this may be, Plato's unsettled and unsettling dialogue on piety indicates the need for philosophy of religion as Despland understands it. Plato (whom Despland would distinguish sharply from Socrates) aims "to rethink the opinions Greeks shared, or disputed, about t.he world or man's place in it" with a view to supplying more positive and lasting answers (57). He takes his bearings by the threefold theology implicit in the Laws. In Book X, Plato's Athenian Stranger asserts inter alia that the gods exist, that they care for human beings, and that they are incorruptible (cf. 907b). Despland attributes the Stranger's assertions to Plato himself, as Plato's innovative, rationally defensible " creed " by which he " seeks to change the minds of human beings with the help of the law and its penalties " (103f). He argues as follows. That the gods are incorruptible is seen to imply a " universal moral economy '' whereby " all souls in the end get their just deserts" (120)-as Socrates maintains in the myth which culminates Plato's Gorgias, whose plot Despland summarizes accordingly. That the gods exist at all suggests "an intelligible order con- 344 BOOK REVIEWS ducive to the human good" (126ff.), an order knowable not simply by analogy with the human cra£ts (as supposed by Socrates in the so-called " earlier " dialogues) but rather by " a sort of austere mystical submission to the Good" (141)-as Despiand shows by interpreting the Republic in the light of the cave image of Book VIL Finally, that the gods care for human beings means that, given " the presence of a cosmic pull that keeps the soul open to transcendent realities and helps it on its way towards them" (165), human desires are not inevitably selfish but are educable or convertible to the desire. for truth-;a doctrine which Despland ascribes to Plato by way of an analysis of Socrates's notion of "divine madness" in the Phaedrus and the adjacent myth comparing the soul to a pair of charioteer-driven winged horses (244e-255c). In Despland's reading, then, Socratic dialectics function above all to support or illustrate the accompanying myths. The dialogues.ther.eby produce "reasoned doctrines " (197). Socratic philosophizing is pressed into the service of a Platonic story-telling designed t.o reshape the popular mores. Plato's subsequent failure to bring about political reform during his own lifetime (whether in Athens or at Syracuse) evidently proved no obstacle to his posthumous influence (e.g., in the tradition of Christian Platonism). Therein lies his perennial interest for philosophers of religion... (shrink)

For Pieper, the study of tradition is anything but antiquarian. He begins with a consideration of tradition in a changing world and is well aware of the need to confront the all-too-common perception that "tradition" is nowadays irrelevant. On the basis of his profound knowledge of the Western philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, to modern Existentialism and Marxism, Pieper is able to highlight the values established - and challenged - down through the (...) centuries. He sees the need to re-examine these values, to rid them of the false interpretations and misunderstandings that threaten to consign them to oblivion. He attempts to restate them in language which, in fact, not only reflects the clarity of his mind but also expresses his conviction that these values, freshly examined and understood, provide a sound basis for healthy living and for our survival against the dangers that pose a serious threat to the very existence of Western civilization. He illustrates these values by examining the contrast between an exponent of them, like Socrates, and an opportunist, like the Sophist Protagoras; between the man of principle and the nihilistic pragmatist. The book consists of a mixture of articles and speeches, produced by a man who, though often wooed by the academy, was not concerned with achieving personal status as an academic professor. He insisted, for the most part, in combining purely academic teaching with the education of teachers in teacher-training colleges. He would not be removed from close contact with "learners," and he remained a "learner" himself - from tradition. (shrink)

What is this "same thing" which Socrates is always repeating "in the same words"? What impels him "to search into himself and other men", a pursuit, which according to the Apology, he considers his sole vocation?

The moral enhancement of human beings is a constant theme in the history of humanity. Today, faced with the threats of a new, globalised world, concern over this matter is more pressing. For this reason, the use of biotechnology to make human beings more moral has been considered. However, this approach is dangerous and very controversial. The purpose of this article is to argue that the use of another new technology, AI, would be preferable to achieve this goal. Whilst (...) several proposals have been made on how to use AI for moral enhancement, we present an alternative that we argue to be superior to other proposals that have been developed. (shrink)

It has been not atypical for commentators to argue that Aristotelian friendship features disinterested concern for others, that is, concern for others that is completely independent of one's own happiness. Often, the relevant commentators point to some normative features of Aristotelian friendship, wishing goods for the other's sake and loving the other for herself, where these are assumed to be disinterested. While the disinterested interpretations may be correct overall, I argue that wishing goods for the other's sake and (...) loving the other for herself constitute a dubious foundation for disinterested interpretations. For wishing goods for the other's sake does not involve a reason for action on the other's behalf, and the primary point of loving the other for herself is the role of the other in facilitating one's own happiness, specifically conceived of by Aristotle in terms of one's own virtuous activity. (shrink)

Shared decision making has become the standard of care, yet there remains no consensus about how it should be conducted. Most accounts are concerned with threats to patient autonomy, and they address the dangers of a power imbalance by foregrounding the patient as a person whose complex preferences it is the practitioner's task to support. Other corrective models fear that this level of mutuality risks abdicating the practitioner's responsibilities as an expert, and they address that concern by recovering a (...) nuanced but genuinely directive clinical role. Cribb and Entwistle helpfully categorize models of shared decision making as ‘narrower’ and ‘broader’ and praise the latter's ‘open‐ended and fully dialogical ways of relating’. However, they stop short of providing a philosophical account of how that dialogue works. In this paper, a nurse–midwife and a philosopher collaborate to argue that the Socratic model of dialogue offers a solution to the practitioner–patient dilemma. In the Theaetetus, Socrates compares dialogical reasoning to ‘midwifery with all its standard features’. By means of a three‐way analogy, elements of midwifery practice are used to illuminate features of Socrates' claim that his dialogue is like midwifery; those features are then translated into an approach to shared decision making as the ‘midwifery of good thinking’ which both midwives and physicians would do well to adopt. A key concept that emerges is the need for practitioners to make a risk‐confidence assessment of the particular content of any decision to appropriately modulate their role in the practice of shared decision making. (shrink)

For Pieper, the study of tradition is anything but antiquarian. He begins with a consideration of tradition in a changing world and is well aware of the need to confront the all-too-common perception that "tradition" is nowadays irrelevant. On the basis of his profound knowledge of the Western philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, to modern Existentialism and Marxism, Pieper is able to highlight the values established - and challenged - down through the (...) centuries. He sees the need to re-examine these values, to rid them of the false interpretations and misunderstandings that threaten to consign them to oblivion. He attempts to restate them in language which, in fact, not only reflects the clarity of his mind but also expresses his conviction that these values, freshly examined and understood, provide a sound basis for healthy living and for our survival against the dangers that pose a serious threat to the very existence of Western civilization. He illustrates these values by examining the contrast between an exponent of them, like Socrates, and an opportunist, like the Sophist Protagoras; between the man of principle and the nihilistic pragmatist. The book consists of a mixture of articles and speeches, produced by a man who, though often wooed by the academy, was not concerned with achieving personal status as an academic professor. He insisted, for the most part, in combining purely academic teaching with the education of teachers in teacher-training colleges. He would not be removed from close contact with "learners," and he remained a "learner" himself - from tradition. (shrink)

Focusing on Socrates' proposals concerning women in The Republic Book V, in what follows I will attempt to show that Plato did not intend them as an argument for the desirability and feasibility of gender-neutral politics. A reading of Book V as the first feminist manifesto is thus anachronistic. I will also try to show that Socrates' rejection of gender-neutral politics is not to be explained as a chauvinist reaction to a perceived female incursion into the properly male domain of (...) politics. Because the Socratic discussion of gender and politics comprises issues that relate to and transcend embodiment, a proper reading of Book V must appreciate the ways in which it operates on both a gender and transgender level. On the gender level the question is the extent to which differential embodiment precludes sexual equality and communism. In agreement with the nonfeminist reading of Book V, I argue that problems pertaining to embodiment prevent the arguments for equality and communism from succeeding. But, because gender does not prevent women from becoming philosophers, on the transgender level the question concerns not the possibility of female philosopher rulers but the possibility of the guardian personality as such. In an attempt to further the case for reading Book V in the light of Socratic dissimulation, I argue that a second, perhaps deeper layer of irony is revealed when the possibility of the guardian nature as such is shown to be incompatible with what can be called psychic heterogeneity -- the irreconcilability, irrespective of gender, within the soul of what Socrates refers to as the natures of the spirited, the philosophic, and the warlike. (shrink)

In Edwards, we see the portrait of a man who knows how to merge in one vocation the ministry of a pastor and that of an evangelist. As a pastor, Edwards knew how to act soberly in supervising the flock of God. As an evangelist, he knew how to avoid any excess of emotionalism and how to focus his efforts on maintaining steadiness and stability in his care for the human souls. He saw himself under the obligation to take (...) the message of God to all those who struggled in this life. In his mind it was clear that God chooses his servants and then commissions them to preach the gospel with passion. (shrink)

This is the companion volume to Gregory Vlastos' highly acclaimed work Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Four ground-breaking papers which laid the basis for his understanding of Socrates are collected here, in revised form: they examine Socrates' elenctic method of investigative argument, his disavowal of knowledge, his concern for definition, and the complications of his relationship with the Athenian democracy. The fifth chapter is a new and provocative discussion of Socrates' arguments in the Protagoras and Laches. The epilogue 'Socrates (...) and Vietnam' suggests that Socrates was not, as Plato claimed, the most just man of his time. The papers have been prepared for publication by Professor Myles Burnyeat with the minimum of editorial intervention. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The “Socratic method” seems to be well understood in general to mean some sort of “question and answer” procedure as distinguished from “lecturing.” Law schools are familiar sites for its so-called practice, and the Platonic dialogues are believed to provide models of it. However, Socrates himself never speaks of having a method except in one place in the Phaedo – where it has nothing to do with “question and answer.” The Greeks had a clear word for method, “methodos,” (...) and Socrates applies it once and once only. He calls his method “eike phuro,” random mixing. In this paper, I shall attempt to bring this method together with the myths, jokes, and very long discourses with which the dialogues are replete. (shrink)

In humanities departments across the country Allan Bloom is condemned and reviled—but for what misconduct? The present investigation into our distorted view of Bloom begins by reframing his transgressions. Bloom has offended eminent philosophy professors by boosting students' desire for a philosophic education. He has emboldened promising young people by teaching them to bear up under the deforming forces of convention and corruption and edge their way towards the question, ‘How should I live my life?’ A philosophic education as Bloom (...) sees it ‘means precisely helping students to pose this question to themselves, to become aware that the answer is neither obvious nor simply unavailable, and that there is no serious life in which this question is not a continuous concern’. The philosopher's interests are not shared by most people. Hostility to philosophy is the natural condition of man. This surprising fact, plainly stated, invites so much anger that Bloom—standing in for the philosopher—is forced to defend himself. The story of Bloom, like Socrates', gives an account of philosophy's emergence, distinctive features and always imaginable suppression. Plato's artful writing captured Socrates' way of life for posterity. This essay explores the nature and function of Bloom's bestselling book The Closing of the American Mind (1987), as well as the purpose of Saul Bellow's final novel, Ravelstein (2000), a fictive account of Bloom's life and death. Together these books amount to the true Apology of Allan Bloom. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought as Prolegomena to a Future Christology. By HANS Kii'NG. Translated by J. R. Stephenson. New York: Crossroad, 1987. Pp. 601. $37.50 (cloth bound). This is an imposing book (first German edition, 1970), not only in length, but in breadth of presentation. Kiing, in the introduction, outlines the philosophical, theological and cultural milieus out of which Hegel's theology (...) and philosophy emerged. In the next 400 pages (seven chapters), Kiing thoroughly articulates the historical development of Hegel's theological and philosophical thought as expressed in his successive writings, specifically examining and evaluating the christological elements. Kiing's final chapter interprets Hegel's Christology in light of recent biblical historical/critical methodology, by way of a prolegomenon to a future Christology. The book concludes with five integral historical/theological excursus which take up specific questions that arise out of this Hegelian enterprise, for example: "Does God suffer?," "The Dialectic of the Attributes of God," "Immutability of God?". In the preface to this English edition, Kiing states that the purpose of this work is to "provide theologians with an introduction to Hegel's theological and christological thought.... [It will be] a many-leveled 'invitation' into Hegel's life and 'thought, with particular reference to his religious world, and then into his theology and Christology " (p. ix). "Moreover,.this book is an introduction to Hegel's thought by way of 'prolegomena to a future Christology '. In ·these pages we endeavour to return... a provisional reply that will take us some way in the right direction" (p. x). Why did Kiing look to Hegel for the clue to a future Christology? His thesis is that "the biblical message concerning a God who is by no means separated from the world but rather operates within it, and who is by no means stuck immovable and immutable in an unhistorical and suprahistorical realm but rather performs living acts in hi&tory can be better understood [along the lines of Hegelian thought] than in terms of the metaphysics of either classical Greece or the middle ages" (p. xii). Any student of historical or philosophical theology/christology will be captivated by Kiing's treatment of.the development of Hegel's ilhought. Undoubtedly he has mastered Hegel's life, writings and 698 694 BOOK REVIEWS thought, and presents these in a clear, complete and engaging manner. Kiing notes that Hegel, beginning with his student days at Tiihingen, was influenced by three strong cultural and intellectual currents: the Enlightenment as it specifically culminated in the thought of Kant, the French Revolution, and the rise of the Romantic movement. Kiing shows that, while the young Hegel was acquainted with the Bible, and even,though he already displayed an interest in the role of religion (folk religion) as formative of society, nowhere was he "seized in a lively and inward fashion by the Christian faith, by the figure of Christ himself" (p. 54). To rthe contrary, Hegel's early experience of Christianity was lifeless and joyless. During his subsequent time in Bern, Hegel's evaluation of Jesus un· derwent a transformation. Hegel became fascinated with Greek religion, not because it was true, but because it embodied the culture and spirit of the people. Developing this train of thought, he stated that "The supreme end of man is morality, and his religious bent is pre· eminent among his aptitudes for promoting that end" (p. 69). In light of this, Hegel considered Jesus,to lack the humane and universal scope of Socrates, who was " the paradigm of a free, good and humane Hellenism and of harmony with nature, world and state " (p. 63). Jesus' teaching was too much an authoritarian imposition upon people rarther than, like Socrates', a nurturing of their inner spirit and life. Shordy, as reflected in his Life of Jesus, Hegel's view of Jesus was to change. Now he was placed above Socrates, not because he was acknowledged to be the eternal Son of God, nor because he reconciled mankind to God by his death on the cross, but rather because he per· sonified the divine ideal of virtue that is so necessary for social order. " Whart is... (shrink)

On a number of occasions in Plato’s dialogues Socrates appears to disavow all knowledge. At Apology 21d, for example, Socrates says of one of his interlocutors: ‘He, having no knowledge, thinks he knows something, while I, having none, don’t think I have any,’ On other occasions, however, Socrates does claim to know some things: ‘It is not a mere guess to say that knowledge and right opinion are different. There are few things I would claim to know, but that at (...) least is among them, whatever else is’ (Meno 98b). Gregory Vlastos has sought to show that Socrates did not contradict himself but operated on the basis of two different senses of ‘know’: ‘know in the sense of having certainty’ and ‘know on the basis of elenctic examination.’ I argue against Vlastos’ interpretation and propose instead that Socrates claimed to know various things, but not the essential nature of virtue. (shrink)

For much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an "art of living." This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living. The idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Each of (...) these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived. In this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Alexander Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Why does each of these philosophers—each fundamentally concerned with his own originality—return to Socrates as a model? The answer lies in the irony that characterizes the Socrates we know from the Platonic dialogues. Socratic irony creates a mask that prevents a view of what lies behind. How Socrates led the life he did, what enabled or inspired him, is never made evident. No tenets are proposed. Socrates remains a silent and ambiguous character, forcing readers to come to their own conclusions about the art of life. This, Nehamas shows, is what allowed Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault to return to Socrates as a model without thereby compelling them to imitate him. This highly readable, erudite study argues for the importance of the tradition within Western philosophy that is best described as "the art of living" and casts Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault as the three major modern representatives of this tradition. Full of original ideas and challenging associations, this work will offer new ways of thinking about the philosophers Nehamas discusses and about the discipline of philosophy itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Less Familiar Plato: From Phaedo to Philebus by Kevin CorriganKristian SheeleyCORRIGAN, Kevin. A Less Familiar Plato: From Phaedo to Philebus. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. xi + 306 pp. Cloth, $110.00Corrigan makes a substantial contribution to the body of Plato scholarship that offers rigorous and textually supported corrections to [End Page 711] superficial (yet all too common) readings of Plato’s dialogues. The book covers a range (...) of core Platonic topics such as embodiment and selfhood, participation in the divine, the critique of artworks in the Republic, the form of the good, love, friendship, desire, and the relationship between mythos and logos. Corrigan devotes his primary attention to the so-called middle dialogues and the Philebus, but to varying degrees he engages with many more Platonic dialogues as well as other philosophers in the Platonic tradition.Chapter 1 combats common interpretations of the Phaedo claiming that Plato wholly denigrates the body and idealizes the state of disembodiment that can only be fully reached in death. Corrigan’s opponents claim that Plato’s negative comments about the body encourage an unhealthy attitude toward the body and the emotions. Corrigan responds by thoroughly showing how the passages about body–soul separation, when read in view of the dialogue as a whole, instead reveal a “model of positive embodiment” that is “full of conscientious protest, good hopes, thoughts, arguments, refutations, and friendship.” Next, Corrigan turns his focus to passages from both Plato and Aristotle that shed light on classic perplexities surrounding the key concept of participation. He argues that “participation” is not the best option for translating methexis or its related terms, and he suggests “having of” or “sharing” as alternative translations. If they are correctly understood, Plato’s discussions of the forms and their relationship to particulars are not vulnerable to criticisms concerning infinite regress or self-predication issues according to Corrigan’s analysis. Chapters 3 and 4 confront Plato’s well-known criticisms of artworks in the Republic and beyond. Here Corrigan makes a highly intriguing point about the role of what he calls “the intelligible painter” in Republic 6 and 7, through which Socrates both sketches and exemplifies “positive philosophical art” as an alternative to the traditional art he criticizes in books 2, 3, and 10. The intelligible painter uses the good as his “perfect and sufficient model” to cultivate himself and others through education, just as Socrates fashions the images of the sun-good, the cave, and other images for the sake of benefitting his interlocutors.In chapter 5 Corrigan draws inspiration from Plotinus’s nuanced understanding of the famous statement in the Republic that the form of the good is “beyond being.” According to the view Corrigan works out, the form of the good is the ground of all intelligibility, and so its relationship to everything that is intelligible can be understood, but it is not in itself intelligible. Chapter 6 takes a close look at the Philebus in light of the Republic’s discussions of the forms and dialectic, the One and the indefinite Dyad of the “unwritten doctrines,” and the work of Speusippus and Xenocrates. Corrigan then shows in chapter 7 how Plato reveals the wide variety of ways in which myths can be used, ranging from the misleading tales of unwise poets to Plato’s own use of stories to aid philosophical logos. Finally, chapters 8 and 9 focus on Plato’s dialogues concerning love and friendship: Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis, and First Alcibiades, which Corrigan regards as authentic. Corrigan’s main [End Page 712] objective is to show that these dialogues collectively provide a “guide for the perplexed” in matters of love that, contrary to modern criticisms of Plato, is both sensitive and relevant to real, complex, and concrete relationships between humans.As mentioned above, Corrigan sometimes uses terminology and conceptual resources from authors throughout the various ancient and medieval Platonic traditions, including Aristotle and his inheritors. Corrigan’s interpretive method often aims to show that the dialogues harmonize with one another as well as with Plato’s “unwritten teachings,” and he argues that some Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato are correct. This interpretive approach might be seen as... (shrink)