Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient …, 2003
Page 1. The Method of Hypothesis in the Meno Hugh H. Benson Published in Proceedings of BACAP 18,... more Page 1. The Method of Hypothesis in the Meno Hugh H. Benson Published in Proceedings of BACAP 18, 2003, pp. 95-126. (please cite that version) The Meno has long been considered a transitional Platonic dialogue. Indeed, Gregory ...
This chapter presents a reading of Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito. These dialogues, in whi... more This chapter presents a reading of Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito. These dialogues, in which Plato depicts the weeks leading up to Socrates’s last day, are replete with various philosophical explorations. Among those explorations is the question of how to live our lives. On the one hand, Socrates is clear and straightforward. We should live the examined life—making logoi and examining ourselves and others in order to determine whether we are as wise as we think we are, and we should live the virtuous life. This is how Socrates lives his life. On the other hand, the examined life undercuts, or at least should undercut, the confidence with which he seeks to live the virtuous life. It may help bring some stability to the general principles by which he lives his life, but it can do so only defeasibly and without certainty.
Readers of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics will be familiar with the idea that Aristotle distingu... more Readers of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics will be familiar with the idea that Aristotle distinguished roughly between definitional and non-definitional propositions, and even that he may have recognized distinct methods for acquiring knowledge of these sorts of propositions.2 I hypothesize that a roughly similar understanding of Plato provides a resolution to a longstanding difficulty in Platonic scholarship.3 The difficulty arises from the following observations: 1. The hypothetical method described and practiced in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic is distinct from the method of collection and division described and/or practiced in Sophist, Politicus, and Philebus. 2. The hypothetical method is Plato’s recommended method for knowledge acquisition in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic.4 3. Collection and division is Plato’s recommended method for knowledge acquisition in the Philebus.5 4. Collection and division introduced in the Phaedrus is roughly identical to collection and division d...
Page 353. CHAPTER 9 Socrates and the beginnings of moral philosophy Hugh H. Benson ~*~ INTRODUCT... more Page 353. CHAPTER 9 Socrates and the beginnings of moral philosophy Hugh H. Benson ~*~ INTRODUCTION***** Cicero in Tusculan Disputations famously tells us that Socrates first called philosophy down from the sky, set ...
Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient …, 2003
Page 1. The Method of Hypothesis in the Meno Hugh H. Benson Published in Proceedings of BACAP 18,... more Page 1. The Method of Hypothesis in the Meno Hugh H. Benson Published in Proceedings of BACAP 18, 2003, pp. 95-126. (please cite that version) The Meno has long been considered a transitional Platonic dialogue. Indeed, Gregory ...
This chapter presents a reading of Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito. These dialogues, in whi... more This chapter presents a reading of Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito. These dialogues, in which Plato depicts the weeks leading up to Socrates’s last day, are replete with various philosophical explorations. Among those explorations is the question of how to live our lives. On the one hand, Socrates is clear and straightforward. We should live the examined life—making logoi and examining ourselves and others in order to determine whether we are as wise as we think we are, and we should live the virtuous life. This is how Socrates lives his life. On the other hand, the examined life undercuts, or at least should undercut, the confidence with which he seeks to live the virtuous life. It may help bring some stability to the general principles by which he lives his life, but it can do so only defeasibly and without certainty.
Readers of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics will be familiar with the idea that Aristotle distingu... more Readers of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics will be familiar with the idea that Aristotle distinguished roughly between definitional and non-definitional propositions, and even that he may have recognized distinct methods for acquiring knowledge of these sorts of propositions.2 I hypothesize that a roughly similar understanding of Plato provides a resolution to a longstanding difficulty in Platonic scholarship.3 The difficulty arises from the following observations: 1. The hypothetical method described and practiced in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic is distinct from the method of collection and division described and/or practiced in Sophist, Politicus, and Philebus. 2. The hypothetical method is Plato’s recommended method for knowledge acquisition in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic.4 3. Collection and division is Plato’s recommended method for knowledge acquisition in the Philebus.5 4. Collection and division introduced in the Phaedrus is roughly identical to collection and division d...
Page 353. CHAPTER 9 Socrates and the beginnings of moral philosophy Hugh H. Benson ~*~ INTRODUCT... more Page 353. CHAPTER 9 Socrates and the beginnings of moral philosophy Hugh H. Benson ~*~ INTRODUCTION***** Cicero in Tusculan Disputations famously tells us that Socrates first called philosophy down from the sky, set ...
Uploads
Papers by Hugh Benson