Seth Benardete

Bio: Seth Benardete is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Form of the Good & SOCRATES. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 3 publications receiving 13 citations.

Plato's 'Theaetetus': On the Way to the Logos

Abstract: THE OPENING OF THE THEAETETUS(1) is curious. The report we have of another opening of nearly the same length indicates that it was always a curiosity.(2) If both openings are Plato's, and the rest of the dialogue they preface were not different, then Plato changed his mind about how to start off the trilogy to which the Theaetetus belongs. If the second version is spurious, someone thought he could surpass Plato and make a more sensible introduction. If ours is spurious, however, then we cannot hope to interpret it. If we assume its genuineness and that it represents Plato's only or final recension--the other one is said to be spurious and rather frigid--then the Theaetetus opens with our listening in on a recital of the conversation Socrates had with Theaetetus and Theodorus shortly before his death, while we supposedly are hearing it in Megara many years after the conversation occurred. The temporal and spatial layers of the dialogue are these: (1) the original conversation; (2) Socrates' report of it to Euclides, in which every speech, explicitly or not, had a parenthetical "I said" or "He said"; (3) Euclides' notes on Socrates' report which Euclides corrected after his frequent returns to Athens; (4) Euclides' retranslation of Socrates' report into nonnarrated dialogue; (5) Plato's eavesdropping on Euclides and Terpsion in Megara, and his subsequent transcription of the slaveboy's reading of the dialogue after their return to Euclides' house; and (6) our reading or hearing the dialogue at another time and another place. It is possible to ticket each of these layers, but it seems impossible to do anything with our careful discrimination of them. We are left with a logos whose indices of space and time alter while it itself presumably remains the same. It carries a reminder of the irrecoverable particularity of the original setting no less than of its subsequent transpositions, but the logos stands clear of what occasioned it and remains to be viewed without distortion under strata of nonillusory transparency. The publication of the logos is due to Plato. Euclides was content to render an illusion of the original conversation, in conformity with Socrates' recommendation in the Phaedrus, as his own private reminder. One might suppose, however, that he would not have gone to so much trouble had he not intended to publish it at some time or other. Had not Plato intervened, and Euclides got around to bringing it into the light, we might have had a non-Platonic Socratic dialogue, which would have had a purely accidental link with Plato's Sophist and Statesman. They could still be taking up where the Theaetetus left off, but the difference in authorship would have hindered us from reading the Theaetetus in light of Plato's twins. The Theaetetus would not be standing at the head of the seven dialogues that now constitute a single logos about the trial and death of Socrates. It seems, then, that Plato has imagined what the transmission of Socrates' teaching would have been like had his illness at the time of Socrates' death been fatal,(3) and Socrates had had to rely on Euclides for getting out his message. The extreme skepticism of the Megarian school, with its reliance on nothing but logos, would have received its imprimatur in Euclides' Theaetetus. The solution to such a radical skepticism that we now find in the Sophist and the Statesman would have been missing. The Theaetetus of course would not have been entirely free of the circumstantial. Socrates implies in his first speech to Theodorus that he is tied down to the local more than Theodorus is, and he does not fail to bring the dialogue down to earth by mentioning at the end that he must go to the stoa of King Archon to face the indictment Meletus has drawn up against him. Socrates the gossip, who knows all about Theaetetus's father, cannot possibly be the philosopher whom Socrates describes to Theodorus, whose body alone remains in the city but whose thought flies above and below the earth. …

On Plato's 'Sophist.'

Abstract: ONCE THE STRANGER TAKES OVER THE DISCUSSION at the beginning of the Sophist,(1) and agrees to discuss the sophist, the statesman, and the philosopher, it is hard to remember that Socrates had arranged to meet with Theodorus, Theaetetus, and young Socrates once more, even after he had left Theaetetus completely barren, at least temporarily, and had encountered a resistance on Theodorus's part to his further participation in any argument which the interval of a single day could not, it seems, have overcome (Theaetetus 169c6-7; 183c5-d5). The Stranger's intrusion thus makes us fail to notice that the only possible interest Socrates could have had in the same group would have been in young Socrates, about whom he knows only that he developed with Theaetetus a way of classifying two kinds of number: those with integral square or cube roots and those without. If Socrates had engaged young Socrates in a discussion, and informed Euclides about it in the same way as he had reported his discussion with Theodorus and Theaetetus, we know that Euclides could not have transposed Socrates' report into direct discourse and omitted Socrates' "I said" and "He said." A transposition of the kind Euclides practiced in the Theaetetus would have led to the indiscernability of the two Socrateses, since each would have addressed the other as Socrates, and there is no reason to believe that the wiser answers would have consistently belonged to only one of them. The dialogue between the two Socrateses, which does not occur at dawn on the day after Socrates' appearance before the kingarchon, would not perhaps be of any interest if it did not call attention to the characterization of thinking on which Socrates and the Stranger both agree: thinking is the silent conversation of the soul with itself (Theaetetus 189e4-190a7; Sophist 263e3-264a3). A double negation is assigned to thinking. Thinking is dependent in its presentation on the denial of two things that are indispensable for conversation: it must be before another, and it must be spoken. On the one hand, to strip speaking of its vocalic character is to assign it consonants by themselves and thus to deny it the possibility of any combination of elements, even though the combination of consonants with vowels is that which alone makes it possible to overcome the problem of nonbeing and falsehood (253a4-6). On the other hand, to strip speaking of a second participant in the conversation is to transform the single speaker into a double thinker, who retains in his doubleness the singular identity of the speaker, and who is going by the same name cannot control the split he needs in himself. Whatever thought one self gives birth to, the other self cannot test it "objectively" and must succumb, as fathers do, to favoring his own thoughts because they are his own. The Stranger's intrusion thus looks like a godsend for both Socrates and Plato. It is a godsend for Plato, since a philosopher of the same caliber as Socrates can continue the discussion in a form that Plato has no trouble transcribing. It is a godsend for Socrates, since he is not forced to face the true difficulty his own revision of Protagoras raises, namely, How is thinking possible if the thinker in becoming a double agent becomes thereby a double patient, and if whatever he thinks experiences a multiplicative effect that is in no time completely out of his control? Socrates proposes at the beginning of the Statesman to examine young Socrates as a means for his own self-knowledge (257d1-258a6). Whether or not he could have succeeded in such a task, we know that Plato could not have shown him in either his success or his failure had Plato continued to preserve the nonnarrated form of the Sophist and the Statesman. The missing dialogue Philosopher, which would have been the truth of which the Sophist and Statesman are two phantom images, could never have been written without Plato's reversion to Socrates' or Theodorus's narration of it. …

Aristotle on the common sense

Abstract: Apart from using our eyes to see and our ears to hear, we regularly and effortlessly perform a number of complex perceptual operations that cannot be explained in terms of the five senses taken individually. Such operations include, for example, perceiving that the same object is white and sweet, noticing the difference between white and sweet, or knowing that one's senses are active. Observing that lower animals must be able to perform such operations, and being unprepared to ascribe any share in rationality to them, Aristotle explained such operations with reference to a higher-order perceptual capacity which unites and monitors the five senses. This capacity is known as the 'common sense' or sensus communis. Unfortunately, Aristotle provides only scattered and opaque references to this capacity. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the exact nature and functions of this capacity have been a matter of perennial controversy. Pavel Gregoric offers an extensive and compelling treatment of the Aristotelian conception of the common sense, which has become part and parcel of Western psychological theories from antiquity through to the Middle Ages, and well into the early modern period. Aristotle on the Common Sense begins with an introduction to Aristotle's theory of perception and sets up a conceptual framework for the interpretation of textual evidence. In addition to analysing those passages which make explicit mention of the common sense, and drawing out the implications for Aristotlenulls terminology, Gregoric provides a detailed examination of each function of this Aristotelian faculty.

Aristotle's Ethics as First Philosophy

Abstract: Introduction Part I. Prelude: Before Ethics: Metaphysics A and Posterior Analytics B 1. Metaphysics A: on 'metaphysics' and desire 2. Posterior analytics: on Nous and Aisthesis 3. Architecture as first philosophy Part II. Main Section: Ethikon Nikomakheion Alpha-Eta: 4. Human initiative and its orientation to the good 5. On happiness 6. On the soul 7. On justice 8. The virtues of the intellect Part III. Interlude: Metaphysics Gamma: 9. Aporiai of the science of 'being qua being' 10. The principle 'by nature' 11. Reiterations 12. Teleology, indefinable and indubitable 13. The phenomenon of truth and the action of thinking Part IV. Concluding Section: Ethikon Nikomakheion Theta-Kappa 14. Friendship and justice: inceptive remarks 15. Perfection and friendship 16. Again on friendship and justice 17. On happiness or the good 18. Again on Logos and Praxis Part V. Kolophon.

Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato

Abstract: The article tries to prove that the famous formula ”epekeina tês ousias” (R.509b8) has to be understood in the sense of being beyond being and not only in the sense of being beyond essence. We hereby make three points: first, since pure textual exegesis of 509b8–10 seems to lead to endless controversy, a formal proof for the metaontological interpretation could be helpful to settle the issue; we try to give such a proof. Second, we offer a corollary of the formal proof, showing that self-predication of the form of the Good, or of any form, is not possible, that is: no form of F has the form of F. Third, we apply Spinoza’s distinction between an “ens imaginarium” and a “chimaera” to Plato’s Idea of the Good. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: http://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-116007 Published Version Originally published at: Ferber, Rafael; Damschen, Gregor (2015). Is the Idea of the Good Beyond Being? Plato’s ”epekeina tês ousias” revisited (Republic, 6, 509b8-10). In: Nails, Debra; Harold, Tarrant; Kajava, Mika; Salmenkivi, Eero. Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato. Espoo: Wellprint Oy, 197-203. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 132 2015 SECOND SAILING: Alternative Perspectives on Plato Edited by Debra Nails and Harold Tarrant in Collaboration with Mika Kajava and Eero Salmenkivi Societas Scientiarum Fennica The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters Commentationes Humanarun Litterarum is part of the publishing cooperation between the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters and the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters ISSN 0069-6587 ISBN 978-951-653-409-4 Copyright © 2015 by Societas Scientiarum Fennica Layout by Maija Holappa Printed by Wellprint Oy, Espoo 2015

Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato

Abstract: In Plato's Apology, Socrates says he spent his life examining and questioning people on how best to live, while avowing that he himself knows nothing important. Elsewhere, however, for example in Plato's Republic, Plato's Socrates presents radical and grandiose theses. In this book Sandra Peterson offers a hypothesis which explains the puzzle of Socrates' two contrasting manners. She argues that the apparently confident doctrinal Socrates is in fact conducting the first step of an examination: by eliciting his interlocutors' reactions, his apparently doctrinal lectures reveal what his interlocutors believe is the best way to live. She tests her hypothesis by close reading of passages in the Theaetetus, Republic and Phaedo. Her provocative conclusion, that there is a single Socrates whose conception and practice of philosophy remain the same throughout the dialogues, will be of interest to a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy and classics.

The Meaning of Phantasia in Aristotle's De Anima , III, 3–8

Abstract: Aristotle's account of phantasia in De anima, III, 3, occurs at a critical juncture of his inquiry into the nature and properties of the soul. Having just completed a long discussion of sensation (II, 5-III, 2), and wishing now to turn to a consideration of the power of thought (nous), which he regards both as distinct from and as analogous to sensation, he suggests that an explanation of phantasia is necessary at this point, since there is no thought without phantasia, just as there is no phantasia without sensation.1 But while this sketch of a complex dependency among the soul's cognitive powers makes clear the importance of phantasia and the need for some explanation of it, the intermediate place of phantasia in the discussion and the incidental way in which it is introduced are indications that Aristotle does not treat it for its own sake, but rather is compelled to turn to a consideration of it by the exigencies of the subject-matter at hand. The analysis of sensation, the characteristic power of animals, could, it seems, be adequately carried out with little reference to phantasia, even though Aristotle is elsewhere led to stress the closeness, and even, in some respect, the identity of these two powers; the discussion of thought, on the other hand, and specifically of the human thought which is Aristotle's concern in De anima, III, 4–8, apparently requires a special preliminary treatment of phantasia.