Journal Article•
Plato's 'Theaetetus': On the Way to the Logos
TL;DR: The opening of the Theaetetus as discussed by the authors is a curiosity, and it was always a curiosity to the Megarian school, which was the case even before the publication of the first version.
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. …
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01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: Ferber and Damschen as discussed by the authors showed that self-predication of the form of the Good, or of any form, is not possible and applied Spinoza's distinction between an "ens imaginarium" and a "chimaera" to Plato's idea of the good.
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
38 citations
Book•
10 Mar 2011TL;DR: Peterson as mentioned in this paper 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 dialogue partners believe is the best way to live.
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.
34 citations
Dissertation•
17 Aug 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the epistemology in Plato's Meno, Phaedo and Theaetetus and explain how Plato constructs his thought on knowledge in those three dialogues into a coherent explanation.
Abstract: This dissertation analyses the epistemology in Plato’s Meno, Phaedo and Theaetetus. It will explain how Plato constructs his thought on knowledge in those three dialogues into a coherent explanation. In the Meno and Phaedo Plato offers an outline of his epistemology. The Meno introduces Meno’s paradox, the theory of recollection and the formula “knowledge is true opinion with an explanation of the reason why”. In the Phaedo, Plato proposes recollection theory as a proof of immortality of soul and introduces the theory of Forms to make the epistemological outline complete. Although this outline of epistemology is systematic, it still has problems, such as knowledge is limited to a narrow sphere and the epistemological function of the body is denied.
Theaetetus is an attempt to rethink the definitions of knowledge and to supplement the epistemological outline in the Meno and Phaedo by presenting new theories. In Theaetetus, three definitions of knowledge are discussed, namely, knowledge is perception, knowledge is true opinion, and knowledge is true opinion with an account. During the investigation of the three definitions, Plato successively supplies the detailed explanations of the process of perceiving colours, the wax block analogy, the aviary example and the discussion of the meaning and nature of the
concept of account.
In the progress of my study, I will also prove that not all of Socrates’ arguments about knowledge are good and strong. Those poor or weak arguments are mainly caused by employing metaphors to illustrate philosophical thought.
6 citations
Cites background from "Plato's 'Theaetetus': On the Way to..."
...121 C.f. Seth Benardete carefully analyses the setting of prologue of Theaetetus, especially the whole dialogue is actually Euclides’ retranslation of Socrates’ report, and he also shows how Plato makes a way of logos thr ugh this opening setting with the dialogues Parmenides and Sophist....
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...Therefore, if Theodorus compares the lyre of Socrates and the lyre of 163 C.f. Benardete (1997) pp. 29-30....
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...118 C.f. Timaeus 45b-46c....
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...See Benardete (1997) pp. 25-53....
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TL;DR: In this article, the intelligibility of Theaetetus' midwife metaphor requires the recognition of two different kinds of pregnancy, the false and the true: the first and false kind is roughly as the standard interpretation says that it is: a theory germinating in the mind; the second kind is wisdom in his soul; true spiritual pregnancy is the actualisation of the soul's potential for wisdom.
Abstract: Abstract Socrates’ midwife metaphor in Theaetetus depends logically on the concept of male spiritual pregnancy. Male spiritual pregnancy is typically understood as a process in which a young man develops in his mind a theory or idea; a spiritual child is, on this view, a theory; and spiritual childbirth is the painful movement of a developed theory from the mind into the speech-world. Although this account of spiritual pregnancy and maieutics is widely accepted in the scholarship, it cannot be upheld. The intelligibility of Socrates’ midwife metaphor requires the recognition of two different kinds of pregnancy, the false and the true. The first and false kind is roughly as the standard interpretation says that it is: a theory germinating in the mind; but Theaetetus’s true spiritual child is not a theory of knowledge—it is wisdom in his soul; true spiritual pregnancy is the actualisation of the soul’s potential for wisdom.
5 citations