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The Importance of the Meno on the Transition from the Early to the Middle Platonic Dialogues a Thesis Submitted to the Graduate

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The Importance of the Meno on the Transition from the Early to the Middle Platonic Dialogues a Thesis Submitted to the Graduate THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MENO ON THE TRANSITION FROM THE EARLY TO THE MIDDLE PLATONIC DIALOGUES A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY TONGUÇ SEFEROĞLU IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY MAY 2012 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr.Meliha Altunışık Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Doç. Dr. Samet Bağçe Supervisor Examining Committee Members Doç. Dr. Barış Parkan (METU, PHIL) Doç. Dr. Erdoğan Yıldırım (METU, SOC) Doç. Dr. Samet Bağçe (METU, PHIL) I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Tonguç Seferoğlu Signature: iii ABSTRACT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MENO ON THE TRANSITION FROM THE EARLY TO THE MIDDLE PLATONIC DIALOGUES Seferoğlu, Tonguç M.A. in Philosophy Supervisor: Doç. Dr. Samet Bağçe May 2012, 148 pages The purpose of the present study is to signify the explanatory value of the Meno on the coherence as well as the disparateness of the Plato’s early and middle dialogues. Indeed, the Meno exposes the transition on the content and form of these dialogues. The first part of the dialogue resembles the Socrates’ way of investigation, the so-called Elenchus, whereas Plato presents his own philosophical project in the second part of the dialogue. Three fundamental elements of Plato’s middle dialogues explicitly arise for the very first time in the Meno, namely; the recollection, the hypothetical method and reasoning out the explanation. Therefore, the connexion of the early and middle dialogues can be understood better if the structure of the Meno is analyzed properly. In other words, the Meno is the keystone dialogue which enables the readers of Plato to sense the development in Socratic-Platonic philosophy. Keywords: Plato, Socrates, the Meno, recollection, elenctic investigation. iv ÖZ ERKEN DÖNEM DİALOGLARDAN ORTA DÖNEME GEÇİŞTE MENON’UN ÖNEMİ Seferoğlu, Tonguç Yüksek Lisans, Felsefe Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. Samet Bağçe Mayıs 2012, 148 sayfa Bu çalışmanın amacı Menon’un Plato’un erken ve orta dialoglarının uyumluluğunu olduğu kadar farklılıklarını da açıklayan bir değer taşıdığını işaret etmektir. Gerçekten de, Menon bu dialoglar arasındaki içeriksel ve biçimsel değişikliği ortaya koymaktadır. Dialoğun ilk kısmı Socrates’in araştırma yolunu, yani Elenkus’u, çağrıştırırıken, Platon ikinci kısımda kendi felsefi planını sunmaya başlamıştır. Orta dönem dialoglarının temel parçaları ilk kez Menon’da karşımıza çıkar: anımsama, hipotez yöntemi ve açıklamayı çözümlemek. Bu yüzden, eğer Menon’un yapısı uygun biçimde incelenirse erken ve orta dialoglar daha iyi bir şekilde anlaşılabilir. Bir başka değişle, Menon Platon’un okuyucularının Sokratik-Platonik felsefede gelişmeyi sezmesinde kilit bir rol oynamaktadır. Anahtar kelimeler: Platon, Sokrates, Menon, anımsama, elenktik sorgulama. v To my first tutor, Binali Seferoğlu vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor, Doç. Dr. Samet Bağçe for his guidance, comments and contributions throughout the evolution of the text. I would also like to express my thankfulness to my committee members, Doç. Dr. Barış Parkan and Doç. Dr. Erdoğan Yıldırım for their important suggestions and valuable comments that made this work possible. I would like to thank the many other people who facilitated for me the process of writing, among whom are Feyza Eşim, Özgür Uçak, Nevzat Kaya, Serkan Acar, Haydar Öztürk and Başta Başar Binici. My family’s support made everything easier for me, for whom I am always thankful. I also thank to the staff of Kadıköy Belediyesi Ambalaj Atıkları Toplama ve Ayrıştırma Merkezi. I am also grateful to Şahan Evren and Besim Karakadılar for their illuminative and substantial comments on the earlier drafts of this work. I owe special thanks to Mehmet Fazıl Çelik and Zöhre Koçkan who have helped throughout the process of the preparation of the text. Their support have been incalculable to this day, their candidness is priceless which I cannot ask for more. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM……………………………………………………………………iii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………iv ÖZ…………………………………………………..……………………………..v DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………...……………………………………………..vii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………..viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION…….……………………………………………….………1 2. THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO………………………………...…..………..7 2.1. Constitution of Platonic Corpus……...……………………………………7 2.2. Ancient and Modern Interpretations of Plato………...………...………...10 2.3. Who is Socrates?……………………...………………………………….21 3. THE EARLY DIALOGUES………………………………………………...29 3.1. Socrates Moral Aspiration...……………………………………………...29 3.2. Socrates' Epistemology (the Elenchus)……………………..……………32 3.3. Disavowal of Knowledge……………………..………………………….39 4. THE EARLY AND MIDDLE DIALOGUES: A DIVISION?.....................48 4.1. Epistemic Differences……………………………………………………49 4.2. Ontological Differences …………………....……………………………51 4.3 Methodological Differences......…………………………………………55 viii 4.4. Mathematical Differences………………………………………………..64 4.5. The Beginnings of Transition……..………………………………...……69 5. THE MENO………………..…………………………………………………75 5.1. Significance of theDialogue…………………………………….…….….75 5.2. Priority of Definition……………………………………...……………...78 5.3. The Dialectical Requirement (DR)…………………………………….....84 5.4. Meno's Paradox……………………………………...…………………...88 5.5. The Anamnesis…………….............………..……………………………93 5.5.1. Religious and Mythical Content……...……………………………..94 5.5.2. Epistemological and Metaphysical Aspects…………..…………...100 5.5.3. The Slave Boy Demonstration……………………………………..101 5.6. The Distinction between True Belief and Knowledge…………...……..111 5.7. Hypotheses………….………..………………………………………….116 5.8. Aitias Logismos…………...……...……………………………………..121 6. CONCLUSION………………………………………...…………...……….128 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………..…………………………………135 APPENDICES ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: PLATO’S PROJECT Vlastos (1991), as well as many other scholars, remarks that the style and theme of Socratic-Platonic philosophy changes dramatically in the so-called transition from early dialogues to the middle ones, that is; the content, format and subject of Platonic works come through a metamorphosis, if not a radical variation. Indeed, Plato - unlike his hero Socrates' apathy to such domains - puts an epistemological and ontological model in and after the Meno.1 I believe, among all the transitional dialogues, the Meno involves outstanding philosophical implications. In other words, the development of Plato’s ideas in the Meno indicates the transformation from pretty much moral content of the early dialogues to a theoretical and systematic framework of the middle dialogues. In the middle dialogues, Plato undervalues Socrates' “disavowal of knowledge”, and then he claims certain knowledge can be grounded and “reasoned out from explanation.” In fact, whereas logos is instrumentally used in the moral investigations in the early dialogues, it becomes an essential element to have knowledge in the middle and late dialogues. That is to say, Plato, unlike Socrates, aims to give an elaborated reason and method for the pursuit of knowledge. In this 1 The Meno is “the first dialogue in which the impact of these new [mathematical] studies on the content and method of his philosophizing is allowed to surface freely.” (Vlastos, 1991, p.118) The Meno, according to Day, seems to be last of the early dialogues (1994, pp. 9-12). 1 respect, throughout this work, I intend to show the epistemic, ontological and methodological enhancements in Socratic-Platonic philosophy which lead the way to the Plato’s most complex and comprehensive works. That is, my intention of writing on this subject is to re-evaluate the more or less diverging philosophical perspectives and motives of Plato and “Socrates” in Plato's dialogues. I suppose Plato's new epistemology which is more or less initiated with the Meno, i.e.; recollection, hypothetical method and reasoning out the explanation (aitias logoi), can be distinguished from Socrates' way of examination, i.e.; the elenchus.2 I none the less have to note that I do not mean to take apart Plato’s philosophy from Socratic perspective. That is to say, I will neither try to depict a non-Socratic Plato nor Socrates without Plato, on the contrary, I think that the Socratic elenchus may also be found at the core of Plato’s middle dialogues, if not solely. I also believe Plato has never abandoned “Sokratikoi logoi” in his works, which is “textually recreation of accounts of Socrates with his friends and interlocutors”.3 Another objective of this present thesis is to show the reason and format of the changeover from the early dialogues to the middle ones. In that sense, I come to believe that Plato systematizes a new philosophical outlook by developing Socrates’ moral investigations and their implications. In fact, Plato, in my opinion, has “reconstructed” Socrates’ philosophy by purposing a method to have certain and stable
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