The Person and the Limit of Empiricism

Knowledge of oneself is not easy to attain. Plato was aware of this and in this paper we aim to show that he suspected then, like psychologists know now, that one's introspective capacity to attain knowledge of oneself is very much restricted and that we must rely on the other as a source of such knowledge. We further argue that, for Plato, this knowledge is not easily achieved given not only the shortcomings of the first-person perspective but also the limitations of the third-person one.

While it may be controversial to categorize Plato's Theatetetus as " epistemological, " given what is implied by this term, the dialogue does offer a discourse on knowledge, at least in the minimal sense of questioning knowledge. But more than that, the dialogue " situates " its questioning, and its critical examination of attempted definitions of knowledge, in two ways that are particularly illuminating: first, its dramatization of Socrates coming-to-know Theaetetus through philosophical dialogue; second, its taking for granted a whole array of epistemic practices and keeping them in view, peripherally, throughout the discussion. The most interesting example of the latter is found in the famous Digression of the Theaetetus, where the difference between philosophy and rhetoric is understood in terms of the knowledge/lack-of-knowledge belonging to each.

In this paper, I defend that the historiographical category of eclecticism is a correct way to describe the epistemology and the exegetical activity of the Anonymous commentator on Plato's Theaetetus. In addition, I show that the interpretation of the platonic philosophy presented in this text not only presupposes an eclectic philosophical attitude, but also offers a conscious defense of a

Plato's Epistemology: How Hard Is It To Know?, 1997

Laidlaw's analysis of Plato's theory of knowledge and theory of education provides a consistent reading of the corpus while suggesting resolutions to puzzles scholars identify in the Theaetetus.

2010

Apeiron, 2014

When Socrates says, for the only time in the Socratic literature, that he strives to “know himself” (Phdr. 229e), he does not what this “self” is, or how he is to know it. Recent scholarship is split between taking it as one’s concrete personality and as the nature of (human) souls in general. This paper turns for answers to the immediate context of Socrates’ remark about self- knowledge: his long diatribe about myth-rectification. It argues that the latter, a civic task that Socrates’ dismisses as too laborious, nevertheless serves as a model for the more personal former task. Both involve piecemeal acknowledgement and adjustment of one’s commitments for the sake of living successfully. Both require looking simultaneously to general facts about people (or the world) and to particular facts about oneself (or one’s city). Socrates’ hope that he differs from Typhon (230a) means that he hopes he is amenable to rectification.

"The Conclusion of the Theaetetus", History of Philosophy Quarterly, Volume I, No. 4, October 1984, pp. 355-367.

Folia Philosophica, 2019

In this paper, the notion of the classical theory of knowledge is analysed with reference to its primary source – the philosophy of Plato. A point of departure for this analysis is the description of the classical theory of knowledge presented by Jan Woleński in his book Epistemology (but it can be also found in the works of other researchers devoted to epistemology). His statements about Plato are examined in the context of Plato’s thought. The dialogues Apology, Gorgias, Meno, fragments of the Republic, Theaetetus, Timaeus and the testimonies about the so-called agrapha dogmata are especially taken into consideration.

This paper offers a detailed reconstruction of the so-called Self-Refutation Argument against Protagoras' "Measure Doctrine" (MD) for which "every appearance is true" (Theaet. 169e8-171c7): the relevant textual and theoretical issues are critically considered such as: whether the argument is meant to refute an "infallibilist" MD (every appearance is true simpliciter) or a relativist MD (every appearance is true for the subject who has it); whether the argument is meant to refute a "qualified" relativism (MD is true) or a global relativism (MD itself is true for those who believe it); whether the argument is generally successful or not, and how its logical, dialectical, rhetorical and phenomenological dimensions are deeply interwoven; which relations connect MD with the epistemological doctrine that knowledge is perception and with the ontological doctrine that "everything is becoming"; how the "broadening" of MD into the thesis that "all beliefs are true" is crucial for the success of the argument; how the many steps of the argument are inferentially related. Theaetetus's first 'baby' is the idea that knowledge is perception (= KP). 1 Socrates congratulates him and suggests that Protagoras said the very same thing but in a different way, as he literally wrote that «man is the measure of all things (of those which are, that they are, of those which are not, that they are not)» 2 , by which he meant roughly that «any given thing is for me the way it appears to me, and for you the way it appears to you» (151e8-152a8) (Measure Doctrine = MD); 3 for example, the same gust of wind will appear (and so be) cold to me and appear (and so be) hot to you (b2-7). Such an assimilation between KP and MD is not an identity, but a strong theoretical connection: it is grounded first on the equivalence between a subject S perceiving something a certain way and something appearing to S a certain way (S's αἴσθησις of F = F's φαίνεσθαι to S); 4 through this equivalence, MD becomes "X is to S the way S perceives it", so perception is always «of what is» and is never false/mistaken, 5 just as knowledge is supposed to be, and indeed as KP makes explicit. Then the Secret Doctrine (= SD) comes into the picture: whilst MD was what the letter of Protagoras's homo-mensura sentence in his Truth purportedly meant in spirit, SD was "secret", so-net of irony or dramatic purpose-it is a doctrine that Socrates suggests Protagoras could have shared or assumed but which he did not share apertis verbis or even "mean", as in a climax from a literal to a more 1 151e1-3: though cautiously proposed (δοκεῖ οὖν μοι… ὥς γε νυνὶ φαίνεται), KP is meant to be a proper definition (οὐκ ἄλλο τί ἐστιν ἐπιστήμη ἢ αἴσθησις)-the smart Theaetetus has been methodologically "trained" by Socrates beforehand about the inadequateness of providing examples or incomplete characterizations-so definiens and definiendum are supposed to be co-extensive: if KP is true, any case of knowledge is a case of perception and the other way round. 2 152a2-4. 3 I take λέγει at 152a6 as meaning "means" rather than "says", as it is an explicitly Socratic interpretation of what Protagoras wrote. 4 Just below (152c1-3) the equivalence between αἴσθησις and φαντασία is explicitly stated, but it is also limited to cases of stricto sensu sensory perception (i.e. of properties like [cold], [warm] and the like). 5 One comes to be perceiving, you come to be perceiving something (160a9-10), perception cannot be objectless.

The Bloomsbury Companion to Bertrand Russell, edited by Russell Wahl, 2019

This chapter examines Bertrand Russell's developing views--roughly from 1911 to 1918--on the nature of introspective knowledge and subjects most basic knowledge of themselves as themselves. It argues that Russell's theory of introspection distinguishes between direct awareness of individual psychological objects and features, the presentation of psychological complexes involving those objects and features, and introspective judgments which aim to correspond with them. It also explores his transition from believing that subjects enjoy introspective self-acquaintance, to believing that they only know themselves by self-description, and eventually to believing that self-knowledge is a logical construction. It concludes by sketching how Russell's views about introspection and self-knowledge change as a result of his adoption of neutral monism. Along the way, it sheds additional light on his acquaintance-based theory of knowledge, preference for logical constructions over inferred entities, and gradual progression towards neutral monism.