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Non-Assertoric Discourse Plato Sextus Empiricus Non-assertoric Discourse: Plato, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein Yung Yeuk-Yu Doctor of Philosophy The University of East Anglia School of Philosophy June 2012 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may be published without the author’s prior, written consent. 1 Contents Preface …...…………….….…………………………………………………..p.5 Acknowledgements…..…...……………………………………………………p.6 Introduction……………..………………….....………...……………………..p.8 CHAPTER ONE DOING PHILOSOPHY: THE ASSERTORIC WAY AND THE NON-ASSERTORIC WAY……….p.13 1. Assertoric Discourse: A Familiar Model Across Several Traditions......p.14 1.1 Three Examples of Assertoric Mode of Discourse....…………….p.15 1.2 Conclusion….…………………………………………………….p.20 2. What Is It To Make An Assertion?..........................................................p.23 2.1 Metaphor and Truth….……………………………………………p.28 2.2 Fictional Discourse and Truth…..….……………………………..p.36 3. Doing Philosophy in Non-assertoric Discourse: A Less Familiar Model……………...……………………………p.40 CHAPTER TWO PUZZLES IN THE SUN, LINE AND CAVE: A CASE STUDY IN READING PLATO’S IMAGERY…...…………….…p.42 1. Two Assertoric Ways of Reading the Material 1.1 Scholars who take it to be illustration…….………………………p.43 1.2 Scholars who take it to be argument……………….……………..p.47 1.3 Scholars who offer a more sophisticated view…..……………….p.52 2. Six Key Problems with the Line and its Problematic Integration with the Other Images 2.1 Should the Line be drawn vertical or horizontal?..........................p.54 2.2 Should the larger segment be made at the top or the bottom?.......p.56 2 2.3 Is the equality of the two middle subsegments for thought ( dianoia ) and trust ( pistis ) a matter of importance or an irrelevant consequence originated in the proportion of the Line?.......................................p.58 2.4 What kind of things should we find in the subsegment for thought (dianoia )?.....................................................................p.62 2.5 What should be the meaning of eikasia ?.........................................p.66 2.6 How does the philosophical method proceed to an unhypothetical first principle (arch ē) and then finish with knowledge?.................p.70 2.7 How do the stages on the Line integrate with the stages in the Cave?....................................................................p.74 3. Must We Adopt These Assertoric Ways of Reading the Material?........p.77 3.1 Giving Up the Assertoric Ways of Reading……........……………p.79 3.2 Fiction and Authorial Silence..…..………………………………..p.82 3.2.1 The Voice of Socrates as the Authorial Voice: Rowe’s ‘two voices reading’……………………………………...p.87 3.2.2 Hidden Voice Readings: Kahn’s Ingressive Interpretation and Cornford’s Reading…...…..p.88 3.2.3 Whether Any Voice is the Voice of the Author…….…………....p.91 3.3 The Elenctic Mode of Argumentation….……..………….……….p.97 4. Conclusion……….…………………………………………………...p.100 CHAPTER THREE THE PROBLEMS OF INCOHERENCE : A CASE STUDY IN SEXTUS EMPIRICUS’S WRITING..…….…..……p.103 1. Sextus Empiricus’s Writing and Its Problematic Status 1.1 Writing and the Problems of Incoherence in the Pyrrhonian Tradition……...……………………………....p.109 1.2 Two Forms of Pyrrhonism…….…...…………………………....p.115 1.3 The Problematic Status of Sextus’s Writing: Implications and Defences…...…………………………….p.121 2. Pyrrhonian Non-Assertoric Speech…….…….……………………….p.133 2.1 The Attitudes of Aphasia ……..………………………………….p.134 2.2 The Plea of Katachr ēsis for Pyrrhonian Avowal of Appearance..p.138 3 2.3 Philosophical Phainetai Pronouncement and Belief…….......….p.144 2.4 Sceptical Phōnai and the deep grammar of Ou(den) mallon …....p.152 3. Dissoi Logoi : Misology and the Premature Dialectician……….....….p.158 3.1 The Premature Dialectician………….…………………..………p.163 3.2 Objections to Annas’s Views………..…………………………..p.166 3.3 The Misologist…..……………………………..……...………....p.170 CHAPTER FOUR A CASE STUDY IN WITTGENSTEIN’S TRACTATUS AND THE PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS ….……..p.176 1. The Tractatus and the Aim of Elucidation………………...…………p.177 1.1 The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy: the Distinction between What can be Said and What can only be Shown….…….…p.178 1.1.1 Russell’s Reading of the Tractatus …………………………..….p.179 1.1.2 Kenny’s Reading of the Tractatus ………………………………p.185 1.1.3 Fogelin’s Reading of the Tractatus …………………….………..p.189 1.2 The Spirit of Non-assertion and the Textual Strategy of the Tractatus ……………………………………….....…p.198 1.2.1 Frege’s Reading of the Tractatus : Form over Content?..............p.199 1.2.2 Resolute Readings of the Tractatus ………………………..……p.203 2. The Philosophical Investigations …………..………...………………..p.211 2.1.1 Dialogue in the Philosophical Investigations ………..…………..p.212 2.1.2 Dialogue as a Vehicle and the ‘intended upshot’ of reading the Philosophical Investigations ……...…….……...………p.221 2.2 The Anti-doctrinal Character and Therapeutic Nature of the Philosophical Investigations ………..………………p.227 2.2.1 The Two-voice Assumption and the Mouthpiece Assumption…p.228 2.2.2 The Character and Methods of the Philosophical Investigations .p.237 CONCLUSION………………………………………….………..……p.252 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………….…………..……p.256 4 Preface All Greek words in the text are transliterated, even in direct quotations from modern authors where the original quoted words in Greek script. The translations of Sextus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism quoted in the text are drawn from Benson Mates, The Skeptic Way (New York and Oxford, 1995). I have also consulted Annas and Barnes, Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge and New York, 2000). I use ‘Pyrrhonist’ and ‘sceptic’ interchangeably. When I refer to Sextus’s writings in the text, I use PH as an abbreviation for the Outlines of Pyrrhonism and M as an abbreviation for Against the Mathematicians , followed by book and section number. When I quote from Wittgenstein in the text I use T as an abbreviation for the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus followed by section number and PI as an abbreviation for the Philosophical Investigations followed by section number. The length of this thesis is 80975 words 5 Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes to Professor Catherine Rowett for her valuable advice and generous support since I began working on this thesis in 2005. My sincere gratitude goes to my secondary supervisors Dr Rupert Read and Dr Oskari Kuusela for their beneficial advice and help. I would like to thank my examiners Dr Mark Rowe and Dr Luca Castagnoli for their engaging and detailed recommendations for improving my work. I am responsible for any remaining shortcomings and mistakes this thesis may contain. I would also like to thank Dr Sean Mcconnell who proofread some of the chapters and Ms Mavis Reynolds from the office of the School of Philosophy for her assistance with the submission in 2010. 6 To My Mother And In Memory of My Father 7 INTORDUCTION DOING PHILOSPHY IN WORDS This thesis addresses fundamental issues about the very nature of philosophy by exploring the philosophical writings and methods of Plato, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein under the framework of a special mode of doing philosophy that does not result in theory or doctrine. Philosophy is a self-reflective discipline and philosophical writings naturally fall within the scope of its field of study since the antique. We should recall the famous statement that ‘there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry’ in Plato’s Republic (607b5-6) and the various discussions of rhetoric and poetry in the Ion , Republic , Gorgias and the Phaedrus . In the modern time, the philosophical importance of the dialogue form, orality, authorial anonymity and silence, dramatic techniques, irony and humour, the fables, myths and stories used in Plato’s writing has gained increasing attention in Platonic scholarship. 1 Moreover contemporary philosophers also begin to take film seriously as a new subject for philosophical investigation (films as philosophy) and also a new form of philosophical medium (the philosophy of film). 2 These ongoing and 1 See for instance Arieti 1991, Clay 2000, Farness 1991, Fendt and Rozema 1998, Hart and Tejera 1997, Klagge and Smith 1992, and also Press 1993 and 2000. The discussion on Plato in this thesis should join force with this growing trend. 2 See for instance Cavell 1979a and 1995, Falzon 2002, Frampton 2006, Freeland and Wartenberg 1995, Livingston 2009, Read and Goodenough 2005. 8 spreading interests in philosophical writing, methods, and new media reflect the critical and self-examining dimension of philosophy. This thesis investigates the philosophical and interpretive challenges posed by the distinctive language-uses, as well as the unique styles and methods of Plato, Sextus and Wittgenstein. The novelty of this thesis lies in its attempt to apply the idea of non-assertoric discourse in a close examination of a wide and disparate philosophical writings by three major philosophers from different schools of thought and traditions. In general, language can be put to different kinds of use and the same sentence-type can perform different speech acts. The force of my utterance may not be given in the form of my utterance and the relationship between the words being used and their illocutionary points is often oblique. All these can have crucial implications on how we should approach a philosophical text if we want to achieve a more sophisticated and sensitive reading. For instance, because
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