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Catherine Rowett
For the last few years I've been working mainly on Plato, first preparing a book (Knowledge and Truth in Plato, which is now out) that is focused round issues to do with knowledge and truth, but which also suggests radical revisions across a wide range of areas of Plato's philosophy. I argue that Plato does not agree with the Socrates portrayed in his dialogues, who thinks that to know something you first have to define it. This project always fails in the dialogues. But Plato has other methods that do not fail, but are also routes to conceptual understanding. Plato does not define justice in the Republic, but he illustrates it with an imaginary city and an imaginary soul (just one example of each) which he uses as an icon to think with. It follows that Plato is not an opponent of art or literature as he has often been thought to be. His exposition in the Line and the Cave show how art and literature can be tools for philosophical thinking, and how we can rise beyond the particular to discover truths that are much more abstract and inspirational. I have also been working on the relation between knowledge and doxa in the Theaetetus, showing that knowledge is not of propositions, but once again refers to the conceptual tools with which we read the world, and hence is a prerequisite for all cases of doxa about the identity of particular things. Some of this work relates to Plato's critique of the aims and achievements of geometry, and its potential to train the mind for philosophy.
In my current work I am continuing to work on Plato's Republic, examining a number of further questions about the methods used there. I am also embarking on a project on Plato's Symposium, again examining the way in which Plato the author dissents from the views of Socrates his character, and the artistry of his dialogical work.
Alongside this work on Plato, I continue to work in many other areas of ancient philosophy. One of my main areas is Early Greek Philosophy (that is Presocratic philosophy from Thales to the Sophists), which has been a longstanding focus of my work since my early work on Hippolytus of Rome, and on the use of embedded texts (Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy). My contribution in this field includes challenging the traditional division of Empedocles' work into two poems (on which my initial work antedated the identification of the Strasbourg papyrus by ten years). More recently I have questioned the assumption that thinkers after Parmenides were aware of Parmenides and responding to him, and received opinions regarding the relation between Heraclitus and Parmenides. I have recently published on Pythagorean politics, and I am continuing to work on Empedocles and on the poetics of ancient philosophy.
I have published a range of work on Plato. In the book Eros Unveiled and various articles I focused on the dialogues on love (Lysis, Symposium and Phaedrus), and I frequently return to issues in the Timaeus. I also have recent work on the Protagoras, Meno and Theaetetus.
I also work on Aristotle, where my interests have largely clustered around issues of mind, soul and imagination, some of it related to my work on animal minds (in Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers). I have worked on the De anima and De sensu, Ethics, Metaphysics and Physics. I am interested in Aristotle's work on perception, memory, self awareness, teleology, animal minds, the scala naturae and self-love (among other things).
In the philosophy of late antiquity I range widely in Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism, and early Christian thought. In the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca I have focused primarily on the Alexandrian Christian Neoplatonist John Philoponus. I have an article on Clement of Alexandria in the Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity and I am currently writing on Arius and Neoplatonism (discussing the work of Rowan Williams and Christopher Stead).
In history of modern philosophy I have explored how the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth uses Presocratic philosophy in the True Intellectual System of the Universe, and I have published on Plato and Wittgenstein. I am currently working on issues raised by Bernard Williams. I retain an occasional interest in the history of science and mathematics.
In contemporary philosophy I am interested in recent work in epistemology, the concept of truth, rule-following and ethical dilemmas, various issues in metaphysics including the notion of 'matter' and the location or usefulness of 'values', and in the role of the imagination and literary sensitivity in ethics.
Phone: +44 (0) 1603 592719
Address: Dept of Philosophy, PPL,
University of East Anglia
Norwich Research Park
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
In my current work I am continuing to work on Plato's Republic, examining a number of further questions about the methods used there. I am also embarking on a project on Plato's Symposium, again examining the way in which Plato the author dissents from the views of Socrates his character, and the artistry of his dialogical work.
Alongside this work on Plato, I continue to work in many other areas of ancient philosophy. One of my main areas is Early Greek Philosophy (that is Presocratic philosophy from Thales to the Sophists), which has been a longstanding focus of my work since my early work on Hippolytus of Rome, and on the use of embedded texts (Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy). My contribution in this field includes challenging the traditional division of Empedocles' work into two poems (on which my initial work antedated the identification of the Strasbourg papyrus by ten years). More recently I have questioned the assumption that thinkers after Parmenides were aware of Parmenides and responding to him, and received opinions regarding the relation between Heraclitus and Parmenides. I have recently published on Pythagorean politics, and I am continuing to work on Empedocles and on the poetics of ancient philosophy.
I have published a range of work on Plato. In the book Eros Unveiled and various articles I focused on the dialogues on love (Lysis, Symposium and Phaedrus), and I frequently return to issues in the Timaeus. I also have recent work on the Protagoras, Meno and Theaetetus.
I also work on Aristotle, where my interests have largely clustered around issues of mind, soul and imagination, some of it related to my work on animal minds (in Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers). I have worked on the De anima and De sensu, Ethics, Metaphysics and Physics. I am interested in Aristotle's work on perception, memory, self awareness, teleology, animal minds, the scala naturae and self-love (among other things).
In the philosophy of late antiquity I range widely in Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism, and early Christian thought. In the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca I have focused primarily on the Alexandrian Christian Neoplatonist John Philoponus. I have an article on Clement of Alexandria in the Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity and I am currently writing on Arius and Neoplatonism (discussing the work of Rowan Williams and Christopher Stead).
In history of modern philosophy I have explored how the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth uses Presocratic philosophy in the True Intellectual System of the Universe, and I have published on Plato and Wittgenstein. I am currently working on issues raised by Bernard Williams. I retain an occasional interest in the history of science and mathematics.
In contemporary philosophy I am interested in recent work in epistemology, the concept of truth, rule-following and ethical dilemmas, various issues in metaphysics including the notion of 'matter' and the location or usefulness of 'values', and in the role of the imagination and literary sensitivity in ethics.
Phone: +44 (0) 1603 592719
Address: Dept of Philosophy, PPL,
University of East Anglia
Norwich Research Park
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
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Via case studies from the Meno, Republic and Theaetetus, I establish that these theses are not only compatible with the texts, but render some otherwise puzzling passages intelligible. I show that Plato diagnoses, and deliberately sidesteps, the impasse of Socrates’ fruitless quest for definitions, developing a new method inspired by geometry’s ability to deal pictorially with indefinable lengths. The book offers a novel picture of Plato as resisting and overcoming, not following, the Socratic obsession with definitions, and adopting, not resisting, the use of pictorial proofs and imagery
There is a type of formula used in prayer in ancient Greece which I call (in this paper) a "precautionary formula". The person praying uses expressions like "whether you want to be called [x] or [y]", and "if this is the name by which you would like to be called". I also include here the practice of adding definite descriptions that identify the god by means other than the name (e.g. their place of birth or residence, their deeds etc). In this paper I ask what these formulae were for, why so many occur in philosophical work, particularly Plato, and whether the puzzles about the names of the gods go back to the Presocratics.""
Via case studies from the Meno, Republic and Theaetetus, I establish that these theses are not only compatible with the texts, but render some otherwise puzzling passages intelligible. I show that Plato diagnoses, and deliberately sidesteps, the impasse of Socrates’ fruitless quest for definitions, developing a new method inspired by geometry’s ability to deal pictorially with indefinable lengths. The book offers a novel picture of Plato as resisting and overcoming, not following, the Socratic obsession with definitions, and adopting, not resisting, the use of pictorial proofs and imagery
There is a type of formula used in prayer in ancient Greece which I call (in this paper) a "precautionary formula". The person praying uses expressions like "whether you want to be called [x] or [y]", and "if this is the name by which you would like to be called". I also include here the practice of adding definite descriptions that identify the god by means other than the name (e.g. their place of birth or residence, their deeds etc). In this paper I ask what these formulae were for, why so many occur in philosophical work, particularly Plato, and whether the puzzles about the names of the gods go back to the Presocratics.""
What would the world be like if there were no economic incentives to encourage that kind of behaviour, or if the people who had the power were not motivated by the idea of economic gain? Has anyone ever tried to organise society so that it would not be so?
In this paper I examine the economic considerations and analysis of the role of incentives that underpin radical political solutions, in the utopian thinking of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle.
The overall message is that economic growth cannot be used as a marker of success, that it brings no gain to a society where a certain basic level of prosperity has already been achieved, and that it tends to undermine some other important prerequisites for the good life, such as equality, educational opportunities, justice, fairness, agency and autonomy. In fact a reduction in productivity and wastage, if accompanied by improved distribution of wealth and resource, could lead to a rediscovery of traditional forms of achievement and well-being, and to genuine improvements to life and livelihoods—including many kinds of achievement and satisfaction that have been lost as a result of the enduring fashion for pursuing economic growth as if it were a good thing.
In this paper I take a look at what Socrates tells his listeners in the story recounted in Plato's Republic, in order to see why Socrates thinks that he and they must use icons to think with, and why he thinks that it works. I argue that his Divided Line diagram is not intended to show the worthlessness of images, but rather the value of them. It also illustrates the method that Socrates typically employs, once he has abandoned the fruitless search for definitions with which he generally starts the conversation. This method, which I call the iconic method, uses diagrams, images, pictures and stories. The Divided Line, and the surrounding text in the Republic, give us several clues as to why this richly imaginative method, which reaches no higher than the third of the four sections of the Line, still allows us to get to know the forms, even though we are taking a much shorter route than the rulers of the ideal city would need to take. But actually their longer route may also be quite pretty too.