Theaetetus

The curious image in which Protagoras' head' pops up at 171d  to quibble with the interlocutors is read as alluding to the 'headline' (kephalaion) of his most famous work and part of the case study conducted in the opening of Theaet. on how to do "pre-socratic" philosophy form fragments of thinkers of the past.

Plato argues, at Theaetetus 170e-171c, that Protagoras’ relativism is self-refuting.  This argument, known as the ‘exquisite argument’, and its merits have been the subject of much controversy over the past few decades.  Burnyeat (1976) has argued in defense of Plato’s argument, but his reconstruction of the argument has been criticized as question-begging.  After offering an interpretation of Protagoras’ relativism, I argue that the exquisite argument is successful, for reasons that Burnyeat hints at but fails to develop sufficiently.  I consider Protagorean relativism under both of the two possible readings with respect to its scope:  global relativism, according to which all truths are only relatively true, and qualified relativism, according to which the relativistic thesis itself is excepted.  Taking into consideration some contemporary work on relativism and self-refutation, I show that Plato’s argument succeeds on both of these readings.  Given that Protagoras could avoid self-contradiction simply by denying that an enduring subject exists, I argue that the exquisite argument is best understood as confronting Protagoras with a dilemma between self-contradiction and self-defeat of various sorts, all of which lead to the same result, that Protagoras violates the requirements of rational discourse in such a way that he becomes an absurd figure who has nothing to say to us.

Corpus Platonicum is one of our primary evidence on the history of Greek magic in the classical period and with other sources it gives the knowledge on those who practiced magic-working (magoi, goetes, pharmakeis and epodoi). Plato is well known for his critics of magicians in the Republic and the Laws yet picturing Socrates as a magician and enchanter in other dialogues. I will address this apparent inconsistency by examining pharmakon (drug) and epode (incantation) as two magical terms that we know already from pre-platonic texts while in the dialogues Plato make use of them for depicting a variety of Socratic philosophical practices: in the Charmides Socrates presented as a follower of Thracian medical-magical practitioner, in the Theaetetus he appears as a midwife of the souls, in the Phaedo as a prophet and a servant of Apollo and in the Republic as a lover of poetry who places his own incantation in opposition to poetry’s mimetic charm. As it follows, the magic of Socrates is a counter-magic to the bewitchment and jugglery of a sophistry and mimetic poetry. By enchanting pharmakon with epode Socrates balances pharmakon’s double nature as both medicine and poison: a model for a method that Socrates is famed for yet expressed in the words of magic.

T discussion of the so-called dream theory in the Theaetetus consists of two basic parts. In the first, which runs from    to   ,  Socrates describes the theory's ontological, logical,  and epistemological commitments. In the second, from    to   , he introduces a familiar model onto which the theory's commitments can be mapped and uses it to show that the third commitment is inconsistent with the first two.  In what follows I wish to concentrate primarily on the second of these two parts and examine the dream theory exclusively through the paradigm which its author is said to have used for framing it and which Socrates uses in order to refute it. My reasons for proceeding this way, rather than dealing directly with the dream theory, are twofold. First, while Socrates' description of the theory leaves many cardinal details undetermined,  all the features of the letters/syllable model Taking the Syllable Apart  cise nature of its shortcomings. This will expose the theory's significance for the dialogue as a whole by revealing some of what I take to be Plato's considered views regarding the nature of reductive scientific accounts and, more particularly, the so-called elements which they invoke. We shall discover that a complete analysis of the world of experience, i.e. one which reaches as far down as its elements, will alter our conception of the nature of the simple and the complex. Simplicity, Plato wants us to see, is strictly an ideal, scientific notion, so that the elements to which it is ascribed are likewise dependent on and inseparable from a scientific conception of reality. And it is precisely this conception of the world of experience by means of ideal, scientific elements which allows us to regard all phenomena as essentially complex.

The Theaetetus' final definition of knowledge as true belief with a logos (201c-210b) ends in merely apparent failure. The three accounts of logos individually fail. Yet Plato intends us to see that together they constitute a structured whole of functional parts, the necessary and sufficient conditions for a proper logos. Material from the Statesman, the Theaetetus' dramatic sequel, provides crucial support to the Theaetetus' own evidence for this.

Protagoras’ berühmter Satz, der Mensch sei das Maß aller Dinge, bringt die von den Sophisten akzentuierte Hinwendung zum Menschen auf den Begriff und kann deshalb als gemeinsame Leitthese der Sophistik auffasst werden . Obwohl die politischen Positionen der Sophisten teilweise stark differieren, lässt sich doch das Ausgehen vom Menschen als erkenntnistheoretische Neuerung dieser Denkströmung festhalten. In den vorhergehenden Denktraditionen (mythisch-religiöse Dichtung und vorsokratische Naturphilosophie) hatte der Mensch eine gänzlich andere Stellung inne. Im Mythos werden die Menschen stets von den Göttern her gedacht, die in jeglicher Hinsicht als Maß fungieren . Die Vorsokratiker interessieren sich in erster Linie für metaphysische Fragen des Seins, so dass der Mensch für sie keinen Forschungsgegenstand im eigentlichen Sinne darstellt .
Diese beiden Traditionen bilden den geistigen Hintergrund vor dem die Sophistik entsteht. Bevor hier das protagoreische Verständnis des Menschen selbst untersucht wird, soll deshalb im ersten Schritt die Stellung des Menschen in dem Denken vor der Sophistik kurz umrissen werden. Im zweiten Schritt soll das Verständnis des Menschen bei Protagoras aus den platonischen Dialogen herausgearbeitet werden, da das platonische Werk unsere wichtigste Quelle für das protagoreische Werk darstellt . Hierbei lege ich die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Homo-Mensura-Satz im Theaitetos als Hauptquelle zugrunde. Im dritten und letzten Schritt soll die Frage gestellt werden, was das spezifisch Sophistische an dem Menschenbild des Protagoras ist.

In this essay, I muse upon aporia’s value as a pedagogical technique in the philosophy classroom using as a guide examples of aporia that are found in Plato’s Socratic dialogues. The word aporia, translated as “without passage” or “without a way,” is used metaphorically to describe the unsettling state of confusion many find themselves in after engaging in philosophical discourse. Following a brief introduction in which I situate aporia as a pedagogy amicable to experiential learning, I examine various ways in which aporia appears in certain Platonic dialogues, which enables us to draw out some paradigmatic features of aporia. I then discuss how I apply aporia as a pedagogical technique in the contemporary philosophy classroom, taking up three specific concerns in detail: aporetic discomfort, right use, and potential misuse.

I proceed in the following manner. After summarizing key findings from
Thesleff (1982) and Tarrant (2010), I explore the prologue and other selected
passages from the Theaetetus with an eye toward uncovering any remnants of
Socrates’ narrative voice from the original version.4 Thesleff’s and Tarrant’s investigations
suggest that our interpretation of the Theaetetus would benefit by considering
it alongside the other five dialogues that Socrates narrates. To this end,
I then place these narrative remnants in the Theaetetus in conversation with the
findings from my recent book, Plato’s Socrates As Narrator: A Philosophical Muse
(Schultz 2013). There, I analyze Socrates’ role as narrator of the Lysis, Charmides,
Protagoras, Euthydemus, and Republic. Using this textual evidence, I construct a
model of ‘Socrates the narrator’. Socrates the narrator is highly attuned to his
mental and emotional states, the mental and emotional states of his interlocutors
and auditors, and the social context in which he narrates. The emotionally
nuanced ways that Socrates the narrator acts in

Expanded version of paper delivered at the International conference "Heraklit von Ephesos und seine Zeit" (7-12 Oktober 2013, Selcuk Municipality, Turkey), in:  „Heraklit im Kontext” hrsg. von Enrica Fantino, Ulrike Muss, Charlotte Schubert, Kurt Sier", Studia Praesocratica Bd. 8, De Gruyter, 2017, 231-267.

          A.Lebedev, Metaphor of Liber Naturae and Alphabet Analogy in Heraclitus' Logos-Fragments (Abstract)

  This article criticizes both the traditional metaphysical interpretation of Heraclitus’ notion of logos (logos as divine reason, universal law etc.) and the widespread verbalist interpretation (logos as the discource of Heraclitus humself). On the basis of the systematical study of Heraclitus’ metaphorical language a new interpretation is proposed that takes the phrase “this logos” in the beginning of Heraclitus’ book as a metaphor of “book of nature” with a referential meaning “Universe”. This interpretation was known in antiquity and is attested by a group of ancient sources including Plato (λόγος σημαίνει τὸ πᾶν) and the Stoic source of Philo Alexandrinus who ascribes to Heraclitus the notion of τὰ τῆς φύσεως γράμματα. The metaphor of book of nature is a part of a more complex metaphorical model based on the grammarical or alphabet analogy between speech or text (logos in grammatical sense)  and  the external world. In Greek grammar “logos” (both phonetic speech and written text)  is analyzed into “syllables”,  syllables into “letters”, stoicheia (later this term came to denote “elements”). In this analogy “letters” correspond to separate elementary opposites of the physical world, syllables to their combinations and “logos” to the total sum of all “syllables”, i.e. to the Universe. The metaphor of “book of nature” in Heraclitus has both epistemological-metaphysical, and ethical-political as well as a theological dimension.  First of all its purpose is to explain the fundamental thesis of Heraclitus’ metaphysics about the identity of opposites and the unity of the cosmos: all visible phenomena (τὰ φανερά) without a single exception form pairs of opposites which should be “joined together” in thought, and the resultig “syllables”  should be all incorporated into a single Logos which is the only true reality, τὸ ξυνόν. Reading the book of nature is like killing the lice: the more you “grap”, the less is left (against polymathia of the positive science of  the Milesians).  Wisdom consists in knowing all things as one (ἓν πάντα εἰδέναι keeping the MSS reading εἰδέναι). At the same time it contains a hidden polemics against the mechanistic physics of the Milesians (Anaximander). The physical cosmos should be “read” and interpreted like a book rather than explained by mechanistic causes. It has not been produced by a blind vortex of the dead matter, but created by the divine fire endowed with consciousness and providential reason. When interpreted correctly it displays the Cosmopolis or the City of Zeus perfectly governed by the divine Mind (Gnome). The Cosmopolis is the divine paradigm for ideal legislation in the human world. Polytheism and democracy (the rule of “many”) go “against nature” and therefore should be replaced by monotheism and the rule of “one the best”, i.e. philosopher-king. Heraclitus can be ragarded as the author of the first Greek political utopia as well as the proponent of the first consistent and well-argued theory of natural law. Heraclitus’ book was written during or after the Ionian revolt (499 – 494 BC) and contained an appeal to Ionian Greeks to overcome the local separatism of the multiple city-states and to create a unfied federal Greek state in order to fight against the Achaemenid empire. The unifying common cult, accordung to Heraclitus, had to become that of Apollo the Sun. The words “attending not to mine logos…” (but to the logos of the Universe, i.e. to divine command) in the incipit of Heraclitus’ book is a prophetic formula: Heraclitus speaks as a prophet of Apollo.

This dissertation presents a new account of Thales based on the idea that Acheloios—a deity equated with water in the ancient Greek world and found in Miletos during Thales’ life—was the most important cultic deity influencing the thinker, profoundly shaping his philosophical worldview.  In doing so, it also weighs in on the metaphysical and epistemological dichotomy that seemingly underlies all academia—the antithesis of the methodological postulate of Marxian dialectical materialism vis-à-vis the Platonic idea of fundamentally real transcendental forms.  Unbeknownst to many philosophers, there are various Neo-Marxian scholars that position the origin of coinage as the pivotal technological development giving rise to impersonal “metaphysical cosmology,” suggesting that the value of money was more-or-less projected back onto the cosmos in the form of “ideal substances.” While the arguments are incredibly sophisticated and persuasive, their conclusions (either stated or implied) are rather difficult to swallow: the self is merely an illusion, abstract ideas of an ultimate source of value, like God or the Good, are totally delusional (as is the soul), and essentially everything is reducible to mankind’s enslavement to commodities and the notion of our own objectified labor (the true source of all value according to Marx). Not only is this a dangerous belief that many philosophers (consciously or unconsciously) have adopted, since essentially any action could be “justified,” it is also demonstrably false, since it rests on a thorough misunderstanding of Thales and misconception of philosophy as such.

My work rectifies that misunderstanding. In an important sense, it is an attempt at redefining philosophy as a “love of wisdom,” which I argue was accurate even in its Presocratic setting, and it uses the influence of Acheloios on Thales to do so. Throughout its pages I explore the etymology and historical uses of the word ὔδωρ, examine the archaeological context of 7th to 6th century Miletos, consider various aquatic myths Thales encountered, and highlight a hitherto overlooked tradition stemming from Thales and influencing such thinkers as Pythagoras, Empedokles, and Hippo, which culminates in a completely new reading of Plato’s Phaedrus.  It is there that we find Socrates and Phaedrus engaging in dialogue while surrounded by the iconography of Acheloios and the nymphs, all while they lie reclined like river gods (the sinews of Acheloios) on the banks of the Ilisos.  And it is in that dialogue that Plato defines philosophy as a love of wisdom—the beholding of a multiplicity of hermeneutical frameworks—and alludes to the fact that it began with the sacrifice of Acheloios, the initial philosophical maneuver which he attributes to Thales. I end with a threefold rejoinder to the Neo-Marxian school, corresponding to the λόγος, μῦθος, and ἔργον of Acheloios.  It turns out that, (1) the λόγος of Acheloios contained the ideal preconditions conducive to an abstraction to a more refined philosophical worldview in which water operated as the One among the Many; (2) the μῦθος of Acheloios actually encouraged the application of the notion of sacrifice to Acheloios himself (thus revealing his essence as divine water); and, (3), the ἔργον of Acheloios, in which he kneels in assent to sacrifice, is found on a coin that was probably designed by Thales himself. In the final analysis, I suggested we have recourse to Acheloios yet again, and reorient ourselves toward the οὐσια ὄντως οὖσα.

It is an odd irony of reception that rhetorical scholars often read Plato insufficiently rhetorically, ignoring the dramatic structure of both individual dialogues and the Platonic corpus as a whole and Plato's consistent practice of always placing argument within ethical (i.e. pertaining to êthos) context, in favor of trying to recover, often from a hostile perspective, some fixed Platonic "doctrines" about rhetoric or the Older Sophists, from a limited group of dialogues, usually Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Protagoras. This study attempts to correct the standard portrait of Plato in the discipline of rhetoric by meaning Plato's investigations of persuasive language as they are embodied and articulated rhetorically in a group of four dramatically related dialogues, Theaetetus, Statesman, Sophist, and Euthyphro, particularly emphasizing Theaetetus and Sophist. These dialogues are important correctives to the ones more commonly studied by rhetoricians, both because of the problems they discuss (the relationship of being to language) and the manner of discussion (cooperative rather than agonistic). In Theaetetus, Plato explicitly revisits an earlier treatment of Protagoras, substituting for the entertaining, albeit gentle, satire of the Protagoras a sustained engagement with Protagorean rhetorical epistemology. In Sophist, similarly, as well as pursuing the often quoted and dismissive definition of the "sophist", the characters discuss how the problem of non-being makes sophistic language necessary and unavoidable in all conversation, despite its unavoidable limitations, sophistic language, in fact, being something even philosophers cannot avoid, as is demonstrated by the form of the Platonic dialogues themselves. These points are not set forth as Platonic "dogmas", but rather dramatically enacted, with each claim embodied in the êthos of the character articulating it, his very dialogue form showing that, Plato understands the relationship between knowledge and language (for living human beings) not being a universalizable and disembodiable abstraction, but something which varies depending on the individual knowing, speaking, and hearing. Because of this, especially as rhetoricians, we should read the Platonic dialogues not as non-rhetorical apodeictic proofs but as rhetorical arguments from êthos about how we should think and argue.

The digression of Plato’s Theaetetus (172c2–177c2) is as celebrated as it is controversial. A particularly knotty question has been what status we should ascribe to the ideal of philosophy it presents, an ideal centered on the conception that true virtue consists in assimilating oneself as much as possible to god. For the ideal may seem difficult to reconcile with a Socratic conception of philosophy, and several scholars have accordingly suggested that it should be read as ironic and directed only at the dramatic character Theodorus. When interpreted with due attention to its dramatic context, however, the digression reveals that the ideal of godlikeness, while being directed at Theodorus, is essentially Socratic. The function of the passage is to introduce a contemplative aspect of the life of philosophy into the dialogue that contrasts radically with the political-practical orientation characteristic of Protagoras, an aspect Socrates is able to isolate as such precisely because he is conversing with the mathematician Theodorus.

In Plato’s Theaetetus (157e-158c) Socrates raises a short argument about dreams, illnesses, and madness against Protagora’s phenomenistic epistemology (“knowledge is perception”), arguing that in all three cases we misperceive reality and we experience “false sensations”. This argument has been generally understood as a common-sense objection or as a hint to previous philosophical debates about abnormal mental states. However, some clues hinting at the fact that Socrates’ argument is an original reflection on the links between misperception and mental illness (manía). Plato’s view of sensory alterations – substantially differing from Hippocratic reflections on sensorial disorders as well as from Sophistic arguments in favor of the indistinguishability of health and madness, and from the variability of the subjective conditions of knowledge stated by Presocratics – may therefore be taken as an original epistemological argument.

Scholars have typically viewed book 3 of Aristotle’s "Metaphysics" as an unsystematic array of different metaphysical problems. In this article, the author argues that Aristotle organizes them with great care. The principle behind his ordering of the problems stems from Aristotle’s concern with impressing upon his audience the difficulty of becoming thoroughly perplexed. This principle is found to make sense of the discrepancies between Aristotle’s list of the problems in 3.1 and his discussion of them in 3.2–6. In short, Aristotle’s primary concern in Metaphysics 3 is to temper the ambitions of his audience of enterprising physicists, a concern that takes him from the aim of metaphysics to the tension between theology and philosophy. Borrowed as this concern is from the Platonic Socrates, the author shows that the arc of "Metaphysics" 3 is Socratic, and how it is Socratic.

The bounds of who counted as a teacher in Late Antiquity were in part determined by social formation, educational training, professional competition, and consecrating recognition by others in the field. They were also fashioned in literary and visual representations.In this essay I offer a modest survey of textual and visual representations of teachers in Late Antiquity, focusing specifically on teachers of philosophy and others who, without the title “philosopher,” were understood to fall into that category. I contend that these representations not only expressed in words and materials the character, practices, and appearances of teachers of wisdom, but they also attest to the evolution of the conception of the “philosopher” in the volatile intellectual and social contexts of the late Roman world.

Most scholars agree that Plato’s concept of freedom, to the extent he has one, is ‘intellectualist’: true freedom is submission to the rule of reason through philosophical knowledge of rational order. Surprisingly, though, there are few explicit linkages of philosophy and freedom in Plato.  Socrates is called many things in the dialogues, but not ‘free’. I aim to understand why by studying the Theaetetus, heretofore ignored in discussions of Platonic freedom. By examining the Digression (172c-177c) and Socrates’ ‘dream’ about wholes and parts (201c-206c), I show that describing freedom as ‘rule of reason’ simplifies what, for Plato, is a more tangled skein. In the Digression, philosophers are free in occupying a comprehensive standpoint transcending all limited and partial perspectives. Socrates’ dream, however, shows that logos cannot completely account for the knowledge of complex wholes or for itself as such a whole. Philosophical freedom cannot mean comprehensive discursive knowledge, then, since reason lacks a comprehensive grasp of itself. Socrates dreams of the rational whole, but is aware of why it remains only a dream, rather than wakeful knowledge. This awareness constitutes a freedom attained, not in total liberation from the confines of the partial human perspective, but within those confines.

A partir du Théétète, cet article revient sur quelques aspects des débats épistémologiques suscités, de Zénon à Platon, par la préhistoire de la constitution de l’axiome dit d’Eudoxe-Archimède et les paradoxes métriques caractéristiques de l’angle de contingence. Après avoir rappelé les conditions axiomatiques nécessaires à l’apparition du problème des grandeurs non-archimédiennes, il s’attache à reconstruire le débat qui opposa Protagoras à Zénon à propos de la validité d’une version naïve et archaïque de l’axiome archimédien, ainsi que la réponse platonicienne qu’il suscita.

Felsefe tarihinde bilgi kuramı alanında son derece açık ve bilinçli bir biçimde bilginin kaynağının deney veya tecrübe değil akıl olduğunu söyleyen akılcılık ilk ve mükemmel biçimiyle Platon’da ortaya çıkmıştır. Platon’ın bilgi kuramı varlık felsefesiyle bütünlük gösterir. Devlet diyalogunun altıncı ve yedinci kitaplarında ortaya koyduğu İdealar Kuramı onun aslında hem bilgi hem de varlık kuramıdır. Ancak özellikle ve bizzat bilgi konusunu -İdealar Kuramına gönderimde bulunmadan- ele aldığı eser ise Theaitetos diyalogudur. Burada o günün klasik anlayışında bilgi olduğu sanılanların neden dolayı bilgi olmadığı gösterilmeye çalışılır. Böylece varsayılan bilgi tanımlarının -bilgi türü adaylarının- başarısızlığı gösterilir. Oysa Devlet diyalogunun sözü edilen bölümlerinde varlık dünyasına getirilmiş olan derecelendirmeye paralel bir bilgi sınıflaması yapılarak birbirleriyle ilişkisi içerisinde bilgi türleri ortaya konur.

Scholars who have taken interest in Theaetetus’ educational theme argue that Plato contrasts an inferior, even dangerous, sophistic education to a superior, philosophical, Socratic education. I explore the contrasting exhortations, methods, ideals, and epistemological foundations of Socratic and Protagorean education and suggest that Socrates’ treatment of Protagoras as educator is far less dismissive than others claim. Indeed, Plato, in Theaetetus, offers a qualified defense of both Socrates and Protagoras. Socrates and Protagoras each dwell in the middle ground between the extremes presented in the dialogue’s digression, which contrasts the life of the philosopher and the life of the courtroom orator. Both Socrates and Protagoras demonstrate a serious engagement with both politics and philosophy. Theodorus presents an educational option in which theory is divorced from politics while an ignoble sophistic education is presented as political but divorced from theory. Protagorean education, in Theaetetus, emerges as superior to a base sophistic education, though it remains inferior to Socratic education.

It is noteworthy that both in the Theaetetus and in the Sophist Plato aporetically introduces the notion of holon. The author argues that it is possible to outline a connection between the two dialogues by focusing on the methodological relevance of holon and heteron. Several hints contained in the Theaetetus suggest that Plato conceives of holon as a method of dialectical thinking, underlying the process of soul’s reasoning. The Theaetetus presents this notion ex negativo due to the lack of distinction between difference (heteron) and negation (not being). By contrast, the Sophist shows that heteron guides the dialectics of forms as well as the communication between the soul and the eidetic sphere. Accordingly, the Sophist entails that the process of soul’s reasoning is correlative to the eidetic horizon in so far as they both rely on a holistic methodology that is activated by the quest for the difference.

Este artigo pretende examinar a ideia de episteme, palavra traduzida frequentemente para línguas modernas com termos diferentes tais como conhecimento, saber ou ciência, e as maneiras como tal ideia é abordada na obra Migalhas Filosóficas, escrita por Kierkegaard sob o pseudônimo Johannes Climacus, e no diálogo Teeteto, de Platão. Nessa investigação sobre a episteme, serão analisadas também as ideias de aporia e de paradoxo, e suas relações com a episteme nas duas mencionadas obras.

This paper intends to examine the idea of episteme, a  word  often  translated  to  modern  languages  as  knowledge, knowing or science, as well as the ways this idea is approached in  the  book  Philosophical  Fragments,  written  by  Kierkegaard under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, and in the dialogue Theaetetus, by Plato. In this enquiry about episteme the ideas of aporia and paradox, as well as their relations to the idea of episteme, are going to be analyzed.

In this paper I focus my attention on the two references to Hesiod—one explicit (207a), the other implicit (155d)—that we encounter in the Theaetetus. Whereas at first glance Socrates seems to evoke Hesiod with a view to lending authority to or illustrating his own ongoing argument, if we go back to the original Hesiodic text and examine the wider context of the lines that Plato has Socrates quote or allude to, it becomes clear that the meaning attached to them is arbitrary, even absurd. Although this distortion appears to be " sophistic " owing to its seemingly self-serving and mercenary purposes, upon closer investigation it proves to be philosophically significant, insofar as Plato's orchestration of the two references provokes the alert reader to reflect upon and enter into a more rigorous dialogue with the Hesiodic text and the issues in question.

In this paper I explore a famous part of Plato's Theaetetus where Socrates develops various models of the mind (picturing it first as a wax tablet and then as an aviary full of specimen birds). These are to solve some puzzles about how it is possible to make a mistake. On my interpretation, defended here, the discussion of mistakes is no digression, but is part of the refutation of Theaetetus's thesis that knowledge is "true doxa". It reveals that false doxa is possible only if there is a certain stock of abstract knowledge, conceptual knowledge, that is not awareness of the particular individual that is being described. The individual must be identified under some description, or seen as something of a certain kind. Error can only occur if the description applied misdescribes the situation, but then if it is to be applied falsely it must first have been known from somewhere else. So knowledge cannot be reduced to the application of descriptions to particulars, but is to be found in the prior possession of abstract descriptions that can be deployed in identifying particular individuals on the ground.

Cette étude prend appui sur la constatation selon laquelle, dans le Théétète, dialogue tardif où est présenté d’une manière inédite le thème complet de la maïeutique, force est de constater que la description paraît bien peu littéraire et bien peu platonicienne : surgit toute une série d’indications scabreuses sur des pratiques soi-disant liées à l’art de la maïeutique : pratiques d’incantation, d’avortement, de l’entremise, et même du proxénétisme ; il y est surtout question de commerce sexuel avec des considérations assez prosaïques sur la nécessité d’orienter vers un bon terreau l’émission de la semence… Ce qui surgit d’emblée comme une totale incongruité littéraire peut finalement s’atténuer dès lors que l’on admet que le discours sur la maïeutique n’est pas initialement issu de la main de Platon, mais prend sa source chez un penseur nettement moins huppé, dont le franc-parler frise parfois l’indécence, autrement dit, un penseur de l’oralité connu pour ses saillies provocatrices et ironiques, en l’occurrence Socrate lui-même : le Banquet de Xénophon s’avère, d’ailleurs, particulièrement éloquent à cet égard. À la question de savoir pourquoi Platon a attendu sa maturité pour fournir une description globale de la maïeutique socratique, cette communication tente d’apporter une réponse en montrant que cet art présentait une telle complaisance dans l’analogie entre le sexuel et le spirituel, et, en même temps, une telle rigueur au niveau de la sélection des disciples « parturients », que Platon l’a tenue longtemps secrète, alors même qu’elle s’imposait comme la pratique la plus originale et la plus profonde du ministère socratique. Il s’agit d’abord de montrer que, dans un certain nombre de dialogues de jeunesse de Platon, la maïeutique, bien que non mentionnée comme telle, reste néanmoins présente en filigrane, apparaissant comme la pièce manquante, le non-dit de l’écriture. À la suite d’une analyse thématique concernant l’apparition subreptice, dans les dialogues, de ces curieuses pratiques annexes, telles qu’elles sont récapitulées dans le descriptif du Théétète, l’étude débouche sur une réflexion générale concernant le sens initial de la maïeutique. En effet, après avoir croisé toutes sortes d’indications provenant des Nuées d’Aristophane, des dialogues de Platon et de Xénophon, il s’agit de se demander s’il n’existait pas, antérieurement à l’ésotérisme platonicien, un ésotérisme socratique impliquant lui aussi une relation de pure oralité, s’inspirant en particulier du modèle de la tradition initiatique des Mystères. Ne s’agissait-il pas, finalement, de soumettre l’impétrant à toute une série de mises à l’épreuve, des plus sélectives qui soient, pour qu’il parvînt, guidé par un initié, Socrate en l’occurrence, à des phases émotionnelles de révélation de vérités supérieures, exprimées symboliquement par le thème de l’enfantement ?

Platonic dialogues show a great awareness of how images creep in our understanding and Socrates is said to be a master in drawing images. In these texts, analogies occur in different forms and for different reasons; well-known and widely analyzed are for example images of knowledge. In this paper, I will focus on a neglected though fundamental aspect, the use of derisive images in Plato’s Dialogues.
Firstly, I will frame derisive practices in both classical Athens and Platonic texts. The habit of addressing funny images (eikasmoi) was a common playful practice in symposia and is attested in comedy. Moreover, sophists like Gorgias theorized and recommended laughter and funny images for their persuasive effect. Platonic dialogues, too, reflect on derisive practices and some dialogues propose a normative version of them. I will then focus on how Socrates has recourse to funny images and argue that he uses these images in order to lower the level of discussion and display the ridicule of the opponents’ thesis. I will present examples from the Philebus, the Gorgias, the Republic, and the Theaetetus. Finally, I will contrast Socrates’ use of funny images with that of his opponents. Indeed, some of them, like Callicles and Thrasymachus, prove to be proficient in images-making, but fail to be effective because their aim is the particular (Socrates) and not the general (Socrates’ thesis).
This paper will show that the character Socrates masters the art of images-making and can use it for different purposes. I argue that images, and derisive images specifically, serve three main aims: philosophical persuasion, change in the socio-political imaginary, and entertainment. For some of my remarks, I will draw concepts and observations from political philosopher Chiara Bottici’s work on imagination and imaginary. In particular, the use of funny images has not only a disruptive aim towards his opponents’ thesis but could unveil the strong core of Platonic thought. Indeed, the occurrence of such mocking images highlights a persuasive goal addressing internal and external audiences. Moreover, funny images and laughter could appeal to young people and catch their interest.
This paper aims at developing a new gaze on Platonic images, framing his theory and use of images in a larger project of re-founding imaginary.

The study of thinking has necessarily to be of interest to man, who is the natural bearer. A fortiori, such an analysis cannot be left aside by philosophers. This paper aims to produce an explanation of the phenomenon of thought, which is not limited to the area of philosophy: I shall attempt, albeit briefly, to take into account other research methods, namely that of psychology. By considering both ancient and modern theories about the meaning and nature of the activity of thinking, I shall define the thought as an unstoppable activity that accompanies man throughout his life.
Keywords: Thought – Philosophy – Psychology – Plato – Dewey

Este ensaio fala de uma possível (porém improvável) interpretação para a anedota a respeito de Tales, contada por Sócrates no Teeteto de Platão. Ele recupera também a fábula sobre o astrônomo de Esopo, que é muito provavelmente uma de suas principais fontes. A discussão das possibilidades de interpretação é uma sugestão de Hans-Georg Gadamer, em que ele aventa a possibilidade de que Tales não teria caído no poço, mas descido deliberadamente para melhor observar os astros. Discute também o papel da serva trácia, como iniciadora de um diálogo e do próprio diálogo como estando nas origens da filosofia.

The paper offers an interpretation of a disputed portion of Plato’s Theaetetus that is often called the Secret Doctrine. It is presented as a process ontology that takes two types of processes, swift and slow motions, as fundamental building blocks for ordinary material objects. Slow motions are powers which, when realized, generate swift motions, which, in turn, are subjectively bundled to compose sensible objects and perceivers. Although the reading of the Secret Doctrine offered here—a new version of the “Causal Theory interpretation”—is not without problems, these problems are acknowledged in Plato’s text, confirming that this interpretation is correct.

A.V.Lebedev, The alphabet analogy in Greek philosophy: Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato.
  Materials of the round table «Atomism and the alphabetical principle», held on June 11, 2013 at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), published in «Voprosy Filosofii», 2014 Nr. 6, 64-70

                                          Summary of paper

    The grammatical analogy plays important role in Greek epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of nature. It is the source of the philosophical notion of “elements” and it is related with the method of analysis or resolution of a complex whole into simple constituents. In Greek grammar speech or text (λόγος) is “divided” into names (ὀνόματα ), names into syllables (συλλαβαί), syllables into “letters” – στοιχεῖα or γράμματα (phonetic or graphical). According to Eudemus (fr. 31 W.) Plato was the first to introduce the abstract use of the term στοιχεῖα into philosophy. The locus classicus is the so called «dream theory» in Plato’s Theaetetus 210d which Wittgenstein compared with his own philosophy of language in the «Tractatus». We argue that this theory (also known to Democritus) derives not from Antisthenes, but from Heraclitus who combines it with the image of «dreamers».  It is attested in Heraclitus  B 10 Συλλάψιες οὖλα καὶ οὐχ οὖλα “syllables: voiced and unvoiced letters” (i.e. vowels and consonants) and is the basis of the metaphorical model of “this logos” or Liber Naturae in Heraclitus fr. B 1. We accept the superior text of Hippolytus in B 1 (without ἕκαστον added by  Sextus). It follows that the object of the verb διαιρέων “dividing” and the subject of Heraclitus’ book are not the particulars (which do not exist according to Heraclitus’ metaphysics!), but the “words and deeds” (ἔπη καὶ ἔργα) of the visible “logos” of the Universe which Heraclitus “divides” correctly  (“according to nature”) into names, syllables and letters: διαίρεσις was also used as a grammatical term for dividing scriptio continua into separate words.  The correct reading of the “Book of nature” results in the integration of all separate things (opposites) into single unified Logos of the divine Universe. The “Liber Naturae” interpretation of logos in B 1 for the first time elucidates the Heraclitean origin of the Stoic concept of divine logos. Democritus adapted Heraclitus’ grammatical analogy to his atomistic doctrine retaining some elements of subjective idealism inherent in the original version.

Pourquoi Clément d'Alexandrie, lorsqu'il mentionne la théorie stoïcienne de la causalité, en vient-il à dire que l'activité elle-même, l'™nerge…a, est incorporelle ? Quelle étrange intuition le pousse en effet à associer à une théorie qui rend à la causalité toute sa dimension active 1 et aux réalités corporelles le privilège d'agir, l'idée que l'acte même par lequel ces corps se signalent serait un incorporel, et par conséquent ne participerait pas au mode d'existence qui fait de ces mêmes corps des réalités fondamentales ? Cela est d'autant plus étonnant que la liste canonique des incorporels stoïciens, qui comprend le vide, le lieu, le temps et les dicibles, ne comprend pas l'action, qui est traditionnellement une forme de mouvement, pour reprendre l'un des sens aristotéliciens de l'™nerge…a 2 , * Je tiens à remercier Thomas Bénatouïl pour les échanges que nous avons eus à propos de ce texte, qui leur doit beaucoup, tant en riches suggestions qu'en difficultés vaincues. Dimitri El Murr m'a offert l'occasion de l'écrire et, par l'acuïté de sa lecture, m'a permis de l'améliorer en bien des points.

In the Theaetetus, the title character suggests that knowledge (or science, episteme) is perception (151e), namely that sensitive experience of the world succeeds in representing it accurately. Socrates claims that this thesis is identical to Protagoras' relativism (152a), according to which "man is the measure of all things". Then, he claims that Protagoras' thesis relies on Heraclitean flux (152d; 156a), also known as universal motion, according to which

This paper aims to show how the Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus
influenced the development of fundamental concepts and arguments
of the Academic and the Pyrrhonian Skepticism. The argument of
the madman, the drunk and the sleeper is a textual proof of this
inheritance.
Key-words: Theaetetus. Academics. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Perception.
Representation.

In this contribution, I aim to show how locating the Platonic dialogues in the intellectual context of their own time can illuminate their philosophical content.  I seek to show, with reference to a specific dialogue (the Theaetetus), how Plato responds to other thinkers of his time, and also to bring out how, by reconstructing Plato’s response, we can gain deeper insight into the way that Plato shapes the structure and form of his argument in the dialogue. In particular, I argue that the subtler thinkers (hoi kompsoteroi) discussed by Plato’s Socrates at Tht. 156a3 are Aristippus and the early Cyrenaics. (Recent scholars, such as Giannantoni and Tsouna, have rejected this identification, which was earlier defended by Schleiermacher, Grote, Zeller and Mondolfo.)  Further, I claim that, once we recognise that the subtler thinkers are most likely to be the early Cyrenaics, we can make better sense of the scope and content of the arguments Plato puts forward at Tht. 156a - 160e (especially 156a - 157c). Also, I suggest that this identification helps us to understand a crucial part of Tht. 184b - 186e. Here Plato, in exploring the account of perception offered at 156a - 157c, uses the metaphor of the Wooden Horse to illustrate the conception of perception that he attributes to thinkers such as Protagoras and, in my view, the early Cyrenaics, who maintain that knowledge is a form of perception.

Untutored common sense, relying perhaps on phenomena like the fixing of paint or fabric hues by colour-swatches—maybe with a side-order of Dr Johnson’s “refutation” of Berkeley—apparently inclines to think that definition by example is the simplest kind of definition that there could possibly be. Socrates rejects this view. On the contrary, according to him, the problem with definition by example—the reason why in fact there is no such thing as definition by example—is that “definitions” by example lack all real unity and simplicity; they tend, in fact, to lead us into all sorts of disorganised variety and complexity (ta pantodapa, ta poikila). But this is a view that Plato comes to reconsider and revise. The way he does so, and his reasons for his change of mind, take us deep into the heart of what Plato has to say about the complex and the simple, the element and the compound—especially in that prize exhibit for the mature Plato’s reconsideration of his Socratic inheritance, the Theaetetus.

Resenha de PLATÃO. Teeteto. Texto estabelecido e anotado por John Burnet. Tradução, apresentação e notas de Maura Iglésias & Fernando Rodrigues. Rio de Janeiro; São Paulo: Editora PUC-Rio; Edições Loyola, 2020. 264 pp. ISBN (PUC-Rio): 978-65-991801-0-1. ISBN (Edições Loyola): 978-65-5504-040-1.

resumo Há muita discussão sobre como interpretar o papel do argumento 'Saber ou não Saber' em Teeteto 188a-c. Alguns intérpretes supõem que esse papel é dialético e Platão não está comprometido com sua verdade. Outros pensam que o argumento revela a confusão de Platão sobre o tema da opinião falsa à época do Teeteto. Em minha análise, há uma terceira via que faz mais justiça ao que Platão está desenvolvendo em 188a-c. Penso que em 188a-c temos uma versão do princípio platônico da infalibilidade. palavras-chave Platão; Teeteto; Conhecimento; Opinião; Infalibilidade; Doxa; Epistêmê I O contexto imediato da segunda parte do Teeteto investiga se o conceito de conhecimento (epistêmê) 2 pode ser definido como uma das espécies do gênero de pensamento que o diálogo nomeia 'doxazein' (opinar), a saber, a alêthês doxa (opinião verdadeira) 3 . No texto do Teeteto o contexto específico dessa proposta se desenvolve do seguinte modo. Em 187b3 Sócrates diz "fala, novamente, o que é o conhecimento." [lege authis ti pot' estin epistêmê]. Teeteto responde, antes de qualquer outra coisa, que doxa como gênero não pode ser identificada à epistêmê porque também há casos de opinião falsa. Ele propõe, em 187b6, a resposta 'opinião verdadeira' [alêthês doxa]. Na sequência Sócrates retoma a formulação de Teeteto e pergunta (187c5): "você define conhecimento como opinião verdadeira?" [tên alêthê doxan epistêmên horizê(i);]. Este trecho deixa claro que o autor Recebido em 26 de maio de 2013. Aceito em 20 de setembro de 2013.