Papers by Pauline Sabrier
Archai: The Origins of Western Thought, Sep 1, 2018
Politis, V. (2015). The Structure of Enquiry in Plato’s Early Dialogues. Cambridge, Cambridge Uni... more Politis, V. (2015). The Structure of Enquiry in Plato’s Early Dialogues. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Recensão a] POLITIS, V. (2015). THE STRUCTURE OF ENQUIRY IN PLATO’S EARLY DIALOGUES](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/104041153/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Archai: Revista de Estudos sobre as Origens do Pensamento Ocidental, 2016
A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitali... more A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitalis, UC Pombalina e UC Impactum, pressupõem a aceitação plena e sem reservas dos Termos e Condições de Uso destas Bibliotecas Digitais, disponíveis em https://digitalis.uc.pt/pt-pt/termos. Conforme exposto nos referidos Termos e Condições de Uso, o descarregamento de títulos de acesso restrito requer uma licença válida de autorização devendo o utilizador aceder ao(s) documento(s) a partir de um endereço de IP da instituição detentora da supramencionada licença. Ao utilizador é apenas permitido o descarregamento para uso pessoal, pelo que o emprego do(s) título(s) descarregado(s) para outro fim, designadamente comercial, carece de autorização do respetivo autor ou editor da obra. Na medida em que todas as obras da UC Digitalis se encontram protegidas pelo Código do Direito de Autor e Direitos Conexos e demais legislação aplicável, toda a cópia, parcial ou total, deste documento, nos casos em que é legalmente admitida, deverá conter ou fazer-se acompanhar por este aviso.
force of Socrates' exhortation to pursue the knowledge that is virtue which I both recognize that... more force of Socrates' exhortation to pursue the knowledge that is virtue which I both recognize that I lack and value more than the knowledge of how to care for my body. And, again like Clitophon, having felt the force of this exhortation, I have wondered what comes next. How am I to go about acquiring this knowledge which is in some way crucially connected with virtue (henceforth, virtue-knowledge) and which I recognize that I lack and value more than other knowledge? Clitophon supposes that Socrates possesses this virtue-knowledge himself and so Clitophon's conclusion challenges Socrates to teach him what Socrates himself knows. 4 But I, like many, perhaps most, Socratic scholars, take seriously Socrates' professions of ignorance and so doubt that Socrates has the virtue-knowledge Clitophon challenges him to teach. 5 So, Socrates can respond to Clitophon's version of the challenge by simply denying that he has this virtue-knowledge Clitophon and assert, as he does often in the elenctic dialogues, 6 that he is not a teacher. But that seems to me only a dodge. It only makes Clitophon's more general challenge more salient. For those of us, like Socrates, Clitophon, and myself, who feel the force of Socrates' exhortation to pursue the virtue-knowledge that we recognize that we lack, what comes 4 maintained, however, that outside the so-called elenctic dialogues (see n. 6 below), Socrates is depicted as abandoning the necessity and sufficiency of knowledge for virtue in favor of the view that knowlege (of some sort) is only sufficient (see, for example Meno 98B-99E) or only necessary (see, for example, Republic 4 427C-444E and 6 487D-497A).
New Perspectives on Platonic Dialectic, 2022
Apeiron, 2020
In this paper I defend a new reading of the final argument of the Gigantomachia passage of Plato’... more In this paper I defend a new reading of the final argument of the Gigantomachia passage of Plato’s Sophist (249b5–249c9), according to which it is an argument for a two-kind ontology, based on the distinction between the changing beings and the unchanging beings. This argument, I urge, is addressed not only to Platonists but to all philosophers – with one exception. My reading is based on the claim that this argument does not rely on the view that nous requires unchangeable objects – what I call the traditional reading – but on the view that nous itself is unchanging. The difference between the traditional reading and my reading is that on the former, Plato’s argument relies on a distinctive epistemological assumption, whereas on the latter, Plato’s argument is free from any such commitments. If the argument of this paper is along the right lines, then this implies that this argument has a much more far-reaching scope than critics have usually assumed. It also invites us to reconsid...
Études platoniciennes, 2019
This paper addresses the vexed question of the outcome of the second horn of the dilemma of parti... more This paper addresses the vexed question of the outcome of the second horn of the dilemma of participation in Plato's Parmenides bringing in Sophist 257c7-d5 where the Eleatic Stranger accepts what he seems to reject in the Parmenides, namely that a Form can have parts and nevertheless remain one. Comparing Plato's treatment of parts of Forms in both passages, and in particular the relation among Being, Change and Rest at Sophist 250a8-c8, I argue that unlike in the Parmenides, in the Sophist, parts and wholes are seen as offering a structure that can explain how things that may, at first, appear unrelated nevertheless belong together.
THESIS 11411This dissertation addresses the general question of the relation between the problem ... more THESIS 11411This dissertation addresses the general question of the relation between the problem of being and the theory of the five great kinds (megista gen?) in Plato?s dialogue the Sophist. In contemporary scholarship, the two issues have been dealt with separately, and the megista gen? theory has mostly been understood as Plato?s tool for solving the problem of not-being and falsehood. This dissertation intends to challenge the current state of the art with regard to the megista gen? theory and its relation to the question about being by focusing primarily on the role of two great kinds, Kin?sis and Stasis (the other three are Being, Sameness and Otherness). The role of Kin?sis and Stasis has been relatively neglected, and they have often been regarded as kinds of minor importance compared to the other three. In what follows, I shall defend a significantly different interpretation of the role of Kin?sis and Stasis, according to which Kin?sis and Stasis are the key to the metaphy...
New Perspectives on Platonic Dialectic , 2022
In this paper, I enquire about the relation between the questions 'What is there?' and the questi... more In this paper, I enquire about the relation between the questions 'What is there?' and the question 'What is being?' in Plato's Sophist. While the latter question is seen as the mark of Plato's method of enquiry, it is generally thought that in the Sophist, it is the question 'What is there?', and not the question 'What is being?', that is the central question addressed. If this is correct, it means that Plato's method of enquiry in the Sophist is significantly different from the one found in other dialogues.
In this chapter, I propose to tackle this question—that of the relation in the Sophist between the question ‘What is being?’ and the question ‘What is there?’ The central claim I defend is that the relation between the two questions is more complex than critics have usually assumed. In particular, I argue that it is not because of a change in Plato's method that the question 'What is there?' plays such a prominent role in the dialogue, but because of a particular issue that arises when one enquires about being, and that makes it necessary to raise and address both questions in conjunction.
Apeiron, 2020
In this paper I defend a new reading of the final argument of the Gigantomachia passage of Plato’... more In this paper I defend a new reading of the final argument of the Gigantomachia passage of Plato’s Sophist (249b5–249c9), according to which it is an argument for a two-kind ontology, based on the distinction between the changing beings and the unchanging beings. This argument, I urge, is addressed not only to Platonists but to all philosophers – with one exception. My reading is based on the claim that this argument does not rely on the view that nous requires unchangeable objects – what I call the traditional reading – but on the view that nous itself is unchanging. The difference between the traditional reading and my reading is that on the former, Plato’s argument relies on a distinctive epistemological assumption, whereas on the latter, Plato’s argument is free from any such commitments. If the argument of this paper is along the right lines, then this implies that this argument has a much more far-reaching scope than critics have usually assumed. It also invites us to reconsider Plato’s approach to the question of being in the Sophist.
Études Platoniciennes, 2019
This paper addresses the vexed question of the outcome of the second horn of the dilemma of parti... more This paper addresses the vexed question of the outcome of the second horn of the dilemma of participation in Plato’s Parmenides bringing in Sophist 257c7-d5 where the Eleatic Stranger accepts what he seems to reject in the Parmenides, namely that a Form can have parts and nevertheless remain one. Comparing Plato’s treatment of parts of Forms in both passages, and in particular the relation among Being, Change and Rest at Sophist 250a8-c8, I argue that unlike in the Parmenides, in the Sophist, parts and wholes are seen as offering a structure that can explain how things that may, at first, appear unrelated nevertheless belong together.
Organization by Pauline Sabrier
Talks by Pauline Sabrier
Texas Ancient Philosophy Workshop, 2019
This paper addresses the following question: in Enn. VI.2 [43], what are, according to Plotinus, ... more This paper addresses the following question: in Enn. VI.2 [43], what are, according to Plotinus, the five great kinds (megista genê) of the Sophist? In this paper, I defend the view that the five great kinds are, for Plotinus, the ultimate constituents of reality out of which all things are generated
IPS, 2019
In the Parmenides, the examination of the theory of Forms culminates in the ‘major difficulty’, n... more In the Parmenides, the examination of the theory of Forms culminates in the ‘major difficulty’, namely Parmenides and Socrates come to the conclusion that Forms and sensible things constitute two distinct realms that are completely unrelated. As a result, the theory of Forms, in the way it has been introduced and defended by the young Socrates, threatens the view that the world is one, for on the version of the theory of Forms that has been presented, the world is not a unity but the mere sum of two unrelated kinds of entities, Forms and sensible things. The introduction of the theory of Forms thus raises the issue whether the world or the totality (to pan) is one.
The question I want to raise in this paper is the following: What does it take to solve that problem? By which I mean: what does it take to overcome the challenge that if we posit Forms in addition to sensible things, then we can no longer claim that the world is one? It is often assumed that Socrates’ task is to work out an account of the theory of Forms that would allow him to circumvent that problem. In contrast to the standard reading, I argue here that Plato should first pause and ask about the the conditions of possibility of the unity of the world in the case of an ontology that recognizes that there are two kinds of things.
In a recently published paper, Muniz & Rudebusch (Phronesis, 2018) defend a new understanding of ... more In a recently published paper, Muniz & Rudebusch (Phronesis, 2018) defend a new understanding of the division of kinds in Plato, that aims at overcoming the dilemma between Moravcsik and Cohen. Here, I try to apply their model to the relation among the five great kinds of Plato's Sophist.
Uploads
Papers by Pauline Sabrier
In this chapter, I propose to tackle this question—that of the relation in the Sophist between the question ‘What is being?’ and the question ‘What is there?’ The central claim I defend is that the relation between the two questions is more complex than critics have usually assumed. In particular, I argue that it is not because of a change in Plato's method that the question 'What is there?' plays such a prominent role in the dialogue, but because of a particular issue that arises when one enquires about being, and that makes it necessary to raise and address both questions in conjunction.
Organization by Pauline Sabrier
Talks by Pauline Sabrier
The question I want to raise in this paper is the following: What does it take to solve that problem? By which I mean: what does it take to overcome the challenge that if we posit Forms in addition to sensible things, then we can no longer claim that the world is one? It is often assumed that Socrates’ task is to work out an account of the theory of Forms that would allow him to circumvent that problem. In contrast to the standard reading, I argue here that Plato should first pause and ask about the the conditions of possibility of the unity of the world in the case of an ontology that recognizes that there are two kinds of things.
In this chapter, I propose to tackle this question—that of the relation in the Sophist between the question ‘What is being?’ and the question ‘What is there?’ The central claim I defend is that the relation between the two questions is more complex than critics have usually assumed. In particular, I argue that it is not because of a change in Plato's method that the question 'What is there?' plays such a prominent role in the dialogue, but because of a particular issue that arises when one enquires about being, and that makes it necessary to raise and address both questions in conjunction.
The question I want to raise in this paper is the following: What does it take to solve that problem? By which I mean: what does it take to overcome the challenge that if we posit Forms in addition to sensible things, then we can no longer claim that the world is one? It is often assumed that Socrates’ task is to work out an account of the theory of Forms that would allow him to circumvent that problem. In contrast to the standard reading, I argue here that Plato should first pause and ask about the the conditions of possibility of the unity of the world in the case of an ontology that recognizes that there are two kinds of things.