Plato's Dialectical Method

(please cite that version) Richard Robinson in his classic work Plato's Earlier Dialectic (1953) describes the following difference between dialogues which he takes to represent Plato's 'early period' -and dialogues which he takes to represent Plato's 'middle period': the early gives prominence to method but not to methodology, while the middle gives prominence to methodology but not to method. In other words, theories of method are more obvious in the middle, but examples of it are more obvious in the early. Actual cases of the elenchus follow one another in quick succession in the early works; but when we looked for discussions of the elenchus, we found them few and not very abstract. The middle dialogues, on the other hand, abound in abstract words and proposals concerning method, but it is by no means obvious whether these proposals are being actually followed, or whether any method is being actually followed. (Robinson 1953:61-62) Robinson goes on in what follows to soften this distinction between the two sets of dialogues, but scholarly discussion of Platonic method in the latter set of dialogues has continued to focus more upon Plato's explicit proposals than on Plato's actual practice in those dialogues. No doubt part of the explanation for this tendency is Robinson's suggestion that in the latter dialogues Plato appears not to practice what he preaches. The philosophical method that Plato has Socrates recommend in dialogues like the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic is apparently not the method that Plato has Socrates practice in those dialogues. In this chapter I resist such a conception of Platonic dialectic. I will begin by looking briefly at Plato's explict recommendations of philosophical method in three key middle dialogues -the Meno, the Phaedo, and the Republic. We will see that while differences in the methods recommended in these three dialogues are apparent, certain January 2005 2 core features remain invariant. These core features can be reduced to two processes: a process of identifying and drawing out the consequences of propositions, known as hypotheses, in order to answer the question at hand, and a process of confirming or justifying those hypotheses. I will then maintain that in three pivotal and extended stretches in these three dialogues Plato has Socrates practice one or the other of these processes of the method he has had Socrates recommend. Such a view of Platonic dialectic has two immediate consequences. First, there is more continuity and commonality to Plato's discussion of method, his 'methodology' to use Robinson's word, than has often been supposed. The methods of hypothesis introduced in the Meno and again in the Phaedo and the method of dialectic explicitly introduced in the Republic are versions of a single core method. Second, in order to understand Plato's recommended philosophical method in the so-called middle dialogues we should not restrict ourselves to Plato's explicit discussions of that method. Just as in the so-called early dialogues we look at both Socrates' explicit discussions of method and his actual practice in order to understand the elenchos (SEE YOUNG), so in the so-called middle dialogues we should look at both Socrates' explicit discussions of method and his actual practice in order to understand dialectic. We should, that is, look at both his 'methodology' and his 'method' to use Robinson's words. Nevertheless, we will see that the philosophical method that emerges from both of these sources remains by Plato's own lights in some way inadequate. I will conclude by offering an explanation of this apparent inadequacy -an explanation that points in the direction of further study.

Dialectics, a process that leads us to the knowledge of the Forms and finally to the highest Form of the Good, through discussion, reasoning, questions and interpretation, has preoccupied philosophers since ancient times. Socrates practiced dialectics through the method of oral dialogue, which he called the art of "the birth of souls" (a method also called Mayan, or the method of Elenchus), which could lead, according to Socrates' intention, to confirm or refute statements, or to the so-called "aporia" in which no definitive conclusion was reached. In Plato, dialectics is a type of knowledge, with an ontological and metaphysical role, which is reached by confronting several positions to overcome opinion (doxa), a shift from the world of appearances (or "sensible") to intellectual knowledge ( or "intelligible") to the first Principles. It also involves the ordering of concepts into genera and species by the method of division, and embraces multiplicity in unity, being used to understand the whole process of enlightenment, by which the philosopher is educated so as to attain knowledge of the supreme good, the Form of Good. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14169.80485

This is the second chapter of my section on Plato's late dialogues. It gathers into a whole what they say about the teaching and right use of dialectic. Apart from the Sophist and the Politicus, supporting chapters from the late group appear on my Profile. Chapters on late and middle group dialogues and their order of reading have not yet been posted but are available on request.

Ancient Philosophy, vol. 32, 2012

The aim of this paper is to provide an account of dialectic that emerges from Socrates’ examination of knowledge (55c-59d). Such an account will explicate Socrates’ remarks about dialectic as a discipline concerned with “what is, what really is, and what is by its nature in every way eternally self-same” (58a1-6) and as “a capacity in our soul to love the truth and do everything for its sake” (58c7-d8).

Plato Journal, 2023

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2019

Plato Journal: The Journal of the International Plato Society, 2019

Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman exhibit several related dialectical methods relevant to Platonic education: maieutic in Theaetetus, bifurcatory division in Sophist and Statesman, and non-bifurcatory division in Statesman, related to the 'god-given' method in Philebus. I consider the nature of each method through the letter or element (στοιχεια) paradigm, used to reflect on each method. At issue are the element's appearances in given contexts, its fitness for communing with other elements like it in kind, and its own nature defined through its relations to others. These represent stages of inquiry for the Platonic student investigating into the sources of knowledge.

Revista Archai

While refutation is usually related to Plato's early, Socratic, dialogues, this paper is aimed at exploring the link between refutation and dialectic in some of his middle and late dialogues. First, it argues that refutation assumes a constructive role in the Phaedo, where the best logos is the least refutable, and also in the Republic, where the philosopher is invited to fight his way through all elenchoi. Then, it tries to show that the gymnasia of Prm. 130a ff. is aimed at training young Socrates to come to the aid of the theory he embraces preventing it from being refuted. He should travel and explore all the paths, by assuming a hypothesis as well as the opposite one. This methodology paves the way on which Plato advances in the Sophist, where the antinomic structure of the gymnasia gives way to a “constructive” dialectic in which the aporia is solved and a thesis is established by refutation. The last section of this paper is devoted to analysing Sph. 251c-252e, where the ...

1958

The immediate end is the elucidation of £alse beliefs and the provision of a fruitful condition for the further pursuit of philosophy. This procedure of Plato is not often clear to many commentators since they often fail to recognize that Socrates weaves a philosophy without content, that in the Theaetetus there is no solution to the problem-of the definition of knowledge (apart from the nature of knowledge),9 that all views are found contradictory, that none is adequate. The result of the midwifery is that no view is accepted. Socrates states that, "I must try by my art of midwifery to deliver Theaetetus of his conceptions about knowledge."lO At the conclusion of the dialogue all the concepts of knowledge are displayed fraught with contradictionsll and Thea-etetus is brought to realize and agree "that the offspring of your brain is not worth bringing up.nl2 Yet, he does learn something in the process; he learns to be soberer, humbler, and "too modest to fancy that you know what you do not know.nl3 Consequently, this implies the answer to a few questions. Primarily, does the failure of Theaetetus to uphold and defend his argument preclude that someone else might have 9Jowett, £2• c_ it.

2000

I declare that the work contained within this thesis, submitted by me for the degree of Doctor of Philosop1;ly, is my own original work except where otherwise stated, and has not been submitted previously for a degree at this or any other University. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without her prior written consent, and information derived from it should be acknowledged.