Patterns in Plato’s Thought: Papers arising out of the 1971 West Coast Greek Philosophy Conference

223 Pages·1973·22.12 MB·English

by  Jaakko Hintikka (auth.)

PATTERNS IN PLATO'S THOUGHT
SYNTHESE HISTORICAL LIBRARY
TEXTS AND STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF
LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
Editors:
N. KRETZ MANN, Cornell University
G. NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
L. M. DE RUK, University of Leyden
Editorial Board:
J. BERG, Technische Hochschule, Munchen
F. DEL PUNT A, Linacre College, Oxford
D. P. HENRY, University of Manchester
J. HINTIKKA, Academy of Finland and Stanford University
B. MATEs, University of California, Berkeley
J. E. MURDOCH, Harvard University
G. PAT ZIG, University of Gottingen
PATTERNS
IN PLATO'S THOUGHT
Papers arising out of the
1971 West Coast Greek Philosophy Conference
Edited by
J. M. E. MORAVCSIK
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-83566
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2547-8 c-ISBN: 978-94-010-2545-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-2545-4
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico
by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc.
306 Dartmouth Street, Boston,
Mass. 02116, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1973
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm
or any other means without written permission from the publisher
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE VII
J. HINTIKKA / Knowledge and Its Objects in Plato 1
G. SANT AS / Hintikka on Knowledge and Its Objects in Plato 31
J. D. MOORE / The Relation Between Plato's Symposium and
Phaedrus 52
J. DILLON / Comments on John Moore's Paper 72
R. F. HA THA WAY / The Second 'Third Man' 78
E. N. LEE / The Second 'Third Man'; an Interpretation 101
F. A. LEWIS / Two Paradoxes in the Theaetetus 123
J. BOGEN / Comments on Lewis 150
J. M. E. MORAVCSIK / Plato's Method of Division 158
S. M. COHEN / Plato's Method of Division 181
J. P. KOSTMAN / False Logos and Not-Being in Plato's Sophist 192
PREFACE
In his teachings and through his choice of the dialogue-form as a mode
of communication, Plato emphasized the communal aspect of intellectual
work. The need for having a community work together is nowhere more
apparent then when the intellectual task set is that of interpreting the
ancient philosophers. Those of us who were fortunate enough to spend
some of our years as students at Oxford found that among our most
inspiring experiences were the meetings of the Oxford Aristotelian So
ciety, as well as the seminars in which B.PhiI. students discussed Plato
and Aristotle. Up until the past few years no such group existed on the
West Coast.
In the fall of 1970 some of us got together to form the West Coast Greek
Philosophy Conference, which was within a short time renamed by Prof.
T. Rosenmeyer as 'the Aristotelians of the West, Unincorporated'. In
our monthly meetings we translate and discuss Greek philosophic texts.
For the past two years the group has been working on Aristotle's
'Physics'.
In addition to these monthly meetings, the group holds an annual 2-day
workshop in the spring. These are organized around some topic, or
around the work of an individual philosopher. Our group consists of
classicists and philosophers from various institutions located on the West
Coast. It is mostly a young group, and we made a concentrated effort
to achieve cross-fertilization between classics and philosophy. All of this
is reflected in our discussions and workshops. Thus our workshops are
not purely philosophical meetings but neither are they meetings that might
resemble those of the philological associations.
At the workshops papers are read, with the addition of prepared
comments, and followed by discussion. Thus whatever position emerges
on a given topic at the end of such a session, it is likely to be the result
of the efforts of many. Such workshops are at their best if they result
in further thinking and creative work by those who attended.
In line with this perception of the purpose of the workshop we decided
VIII PREFACE
not to publish mere proceedings. Rather, we encouraged each author and
commentator to think further about the topics discussed, and see if they
came up with new papers that they would wish to be offered to the public.
Such was indeed the case after the first of our workshops, and the result
is the collection embodied in this volume.
On the one hand, this is not a mere proceedings of a meeting, on the
other hand, it is not a mere anthology of papers written independently
at different times and occasions. Some papers are more philological,
while others more philosophical in orientation. It is hoped that the
different points of view will be regarded as complementary. The same
applies to the philosophical approaches of the papers; there was no
attempt made to give all of these the same slant. The philosophical
outlooks of the various authors differ considerably; nevertheless we
believe that the study of the history of philosophy is one of the important
unifying forces in our subject; and when it comes to consider certain
apparently perennial issues in the history of philosophy, people of dif
ferent convictions can get together and find common grounds for
discussion.
Though the papers deal with different dialogues, the common theme
is the metaphysics and epistemology of Plato. The first of the papers
deals with certain general and fundamental issues in Plato's ontology and
conception of epistemology; subsequent papers are arranged more or less
according to the accepted chronological order in which the dialogues
treated would fall. It should be mentioned that there was one additional
paper read at the conference. This was Prof. D. Keyt's paper on the
'Sophist'; it was already committed to another volume, and thus neither
it nor any version of its appears in this collection.
It is appropriate to express the gratitude of the whole group to all of
those institutions that make our monthly meetings and annual workshops
possible.
JAAKKO HINTIKKA
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS OBJECTS IN PLATO
1. WHAT HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IS AND WHAT IT
OUGHT TO BE
What we find in texts and treatises of the history of philosophy is by
and large information as to what theses or opinions different philosophers
put forward at different times. All too seldom do we find any interesting
clues as to why they adopted these views and why it was important for
them to propound them as a part of their explicit teaching. However,
if history of philosophy is to be something more than the graveyard of
more or less forgotten doctrines, it ought to offer us some insights into
the reasons why different problems were problematic for different
thinkers, why the way in which they used to attack them differed from
one philosopher to another, and why the standards of successful solutions
to problems have varied. Often, though not always, answers to these
questions depend on the conceptual assumptions which the thinkers in
question more or less tacitly adopted. Often, these conceptual assump
tions and conceptual preferences were common to all or most thinkers
of the same period or even of the same culture. However, attempts to
study such hidden conceptual assumptions and the characteristic modes
of argumentation to which they give rise are few and far between, and
successful attempts seem to me still rarer. One does find, it is true, some
interesting and illuminating observations concerning, for instance,
Aristotle's typical modes of philosophical discussion. At the same time,
there are respectable scholars who seriously compare Aristotle's notion
of analogy with Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblance, or
Aristotle's concept of aporia with the Kantian idea of antinomy, oblivi
ous to the fact that in both cases the concepts assimilated to each other
not only exhibit dissimilarities in addition to similarities but in reality
also belong to different and in fact diametrically opposite conceptual
contexts.
J. M. E. Moravcsik (ed.J. Patterns in Plato's Thought, 1-30. All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. Dordrecht-Holland
2 JAAKKO HINTIKKA
2. Two PROBLEMS IN PLATO'S EPISTEMOLOGY: PLATO'S
INTEREST IN THEM IS NOT PRIMARILY POLEMICAL
In this essay I shall venture a few suggestions concerning certain tacit
presuppositions that lurk in the background of Plato's theory of knowl
edge. These presuppositions can be seen from Plato's discussion of two
epistemological problems. They are the problem concerning the possibility
of meaningful falsity (of false logos) and the problem of distinguishing
knowledge from true belief. These two problems are related to each other
very closely by Plato. For instance, in the Theaetetus the discussion of
the relationship of knowledge and true belief leads at once to the question
of the possibility of false belief (I 87B-D). With the former of these two
problems Plato also connects a number offurther questions (the existence
of not-being, the impossibility of contradiction, etc.).
Especially in connection with the former problem, it has frequently
been assumed that Plato's discussion was not prompted by any systematic
problems intrinsic to his own thought, but rather by his desire to refute
sophistical paradoxes. Since my thesis implies that this assumption is
incorrect, a brief discussion of Plato's motivation is in order.
I think that all an open-minded historian has to do to arrive at the
same conclusion as I is to review the different statements and arguments
Plato devotes to the problem of meaningful falsity - in other words, to
arrive at the conclusion that this was a serious problem for Plato himself.
Plato takes up this problem repeatedly on several different occasions and
discusses it sometimes at some length. Most of the end of the Sophistes
is devoted to it after it has played an important role throughout the same
dialogue (Sophistes 236Eff., 240Bff., 241D, etc.) and in the Theaetetus
(183E, 188C-189B, 190E, etc.). In addition to these extended discussions,
the same problem is the subject of a shorter or longer discussion in the
Euthydemus (283E-284C, 285D-286E), in the Cratylus (429Dff.), and in
the Parmenides (160C-E).
No philosopher has ever spent as much time and labour as this on
straightening out other people's mistakes, except when these mistakes
were for some reason or other tempting, puzzling, or otherwise bother
some from his own point of view - or, rather, on the basis of this con
ceptual assumptions. And even if other philosophers should have done
so, Plato is about the least likely thinker to whom such 'disinterestedly'
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS OBJECTS IN PLATO 3
polemical motives can plausibly be attributed. The impatience of his
whole intellectual temperament at once belies such an attribution.
If the hypothesis of the sophistical origin of Plato's problems is a priori
as implausible as this, why has it nevertheless gained the wide circulation
that it has enjoyed and still does? The primary reason for this seems
to be that Plato himself attributes the problem to earlier thinkers, writing
at one point as follows:
I have heard this particular argument from many persons and at many times, and
it never ceases to amaze me. The followers of Protagoras made considerable use of
it and so did some still earlier (Euthydemus 286C).
These 'still earlier' thinkers include in any case some Eleatic philosophers,
for Plato indicates elsewhere that there is a close relation between his
problems and certain arguments and ideas in Parmenides. This prevalence
of the problem among earlier thinkers has undoubtedly prompted the
idea that Plato's interest in it is derivative. This is not the only possible
way of looking at the evidence, however. The ubiquity of the problem
might instead be an indication of its being due to deep conceptual
assumptions that were shared by as dissimilar thinkers as the Eleatics
and some of the Sophists - and presumably also Plato. It seems to me
that the facts we know suggest this latter view. In the very passage
quoted, Plato records his 'amazement' at it. In any case, from this point
of view we can appreciate Plato's ambivalent attitude to it. Parmenides
had used (I suggest) arguments closely connected with it to support his
own philosophy, which had deeply impressed Plato. Plato himself re
sorted to the ideas which form the conceptual background of 'the
argument against false speaking' for some of the most important explicit
arguments for his theory of Forms. Hence there is much here that he
found attractive. At the same time, he could not accept some of the
skeptical and sophistical uses of arguments of a closely similar type. This
posed a striking problem for him to which he felt impelled to devote a
major philosophical effort.
3. PLATO'S ATTITUDE TO 'FALLACIES'. THEIR
EVIDENTIAL VALUE
Plato's ambivalence vis-a-vis certain types of arguments makes it a
questionable procedure to approach his argumentation by asking whether