Trials of Reason: Plato and the Crafting of Philosophy

by David Wolfsdorf

Overview

Scholarship on Plato's dialogues persistently divides its focus between the dramatic or literary and the philosophical or argumentative dimensions of the texts. But this hermeneutic division of labor is naïve, for Plato's arguments are embedded in dramatic dialogues and developed through complex, largely informal exchanges between literary characters. Consequently, it is questionable how readers can even attribute arguments and theses to the author himself. The answer to this question lies in transcending the scholarly divide and integrating the literary and philosophical dimensions of the texts. This is the task of Trials of Reason. The study focuses on a set of fourteen so-called early dialogues, beginning with a methodological framework that explains how to integrate the argumentation and the drama in these texts. Unlike most canonical philosophical works, the early dialogues do not merely express the results of the practice of philosophy. Rather, they dramatize philosophy as a kind of motivation, the desire for knowledge of goodness. They dramatize philosophy as a discursive practice, motivated by this desire and ideally governed by reason. And they dramatize the trials to which desire and reason are subject, that is, the difficulties of realizing philosophy as a form of motivation, a practice, and an epistemic achievement. In short, Trials of Reason argues that Plato's early dialogues are as much works of meta-philosophy as philosophy itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190296216
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/22/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

David Wolfsdorf received a doctorate in Classics from the University of Chicago in 1997. He currently teaches in the Philosophy Department at Temple University where he specializes in Ancient Greek philosophy.

Table of Contents

Interpretation     3
Introduction     3
Interpreting Plato     4
The Political Culture of Plato's Early Dialogues     7
Dialogue     13
Character and History     16
The Mouthpiece Principle     19
Forms of Evidence     25
Desire     29
Socrates and Eros     29
The Subjectivist Conception of Desire     33
Instrumental and Terminal Desires     40
Rational and Irrational Desires     49
Desire in the Critiqe of Akrasia     51
Interpreting Lysis     59
The Deficiency Conception of Desire     60
Inauthentic Friendship     68
Platonic Desire     72
Antiphilosophical Desires     74
Knowledge     86
Excellence as Wisdom     86
The Epistemic Unity of Excellence     88
Dunamis and Techne     100
Goodness and Form     110
The Epistemological Priority of Definitional Knowledge     121
Ordinary Ethical Knowledge     131
Method     146
The Socratic Fallacy     146
Socrates' Pursuit of Definitions     148
Hupothesis     157
Two Postulates     162
The Geometrical Illustration     164
Geometrical Analysis     170
The Method of Reasoning from a Postulate     173
Elenchus and Hupothesis     177
Knowledge and Aitia     181
F-conditions     185
Cognitive Security     192
Aporia     197
Forms of Aporia     197
Dramatic Aporia     201
The Example of Charmides     210
Charmides as Autobiography     211
The Politics of Sophrosune     213
Critias' Philotimia     217
Self-Knowledge and the Knowledge of Knowledge     225
Knowledge of Knowledge and the Form of the Good     233
Philosophy and the Polis     234
Commonly Used Greek Words     240
The Irony of Socrates     242
Bibliography     261
Index of Passages Cited     277
General Index     283

Editorial Reviews

Trials of Reason is an impressive book, from which a great deal may be learned." —Ancient Philosophy

"A fine book for both specialists and those with a more general interest in ancient philosophy. Wolfsdorf is careful to appreciate the dramaturgical elements of the dialogues as well as the culture in which they were authored. A seminal introduction to the early dialogues." —Philosophy in Review

"Wolfsdorf's central contribution is a new method to resolve inconsistancies between statements made by Socrates within a single dialogue or within several early dialogues. The resolution of such inconsistancies is one of the greatest problems we face in unraveling the philosophy of the early dialogues, and Wolfsdorf's solution to the problem is clearly and forcefully presented." —Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"In Trials of Reason there is much excellent material worthy of mention that space here does not permit. The balance Wolfsdorf strikes in his writing between elementary explanation and detailed cognizance of the scholarly literature will indeed ensure that his book reaches a 'broad audience' and that his readers will come away having addressed, with close reading of the texts, the full spectrum of debate that has focused upon these fourteen dialogues."—Will Rasmussen, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

From the Publisher