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The Unity of Oneness and Manyness in Plato's THE UNITY OF ONENESS AND MANYNESS IN PLATO’S THEAETETUS by DANIEL BLOOM (Under the Direction of Edward Halper) ABSTRACT The guiding question in the Theaetetus is “what is knowledge?”, and as in most of Plato’s dialogues no satisfactory answer to the guiding question is found. My dissertation will offer a reading of the Theaetetus that shows how the characters’ failure to give an acceptable account (i.e. a logos) of knowledge really constitutes a success. In brief, the failure to give a logos of knowledge is confirmation of the dialogue’s implicit proof that there is neither a logos of knowledge nor knowledge of logos. The proof of the incompatibility of knowledge and logos rests on the recognition that knowledge is always of what is, and hence is always of what is one, while logos is inherently multiply. Thus any attempt to give a logos of what is known amounts to turning what is one into something multiple. The incompatibility of knowledge and logos amounts to far more than merely an epistemic claim. The dialogue shows us (implicitly) that the relation between knowledge and logos is grounded in the relation between being (or oneness) and manyness. Being, oneness and knowledge are all intertwined (if not identified) in Plato. This means that manyness fundamentally is not and is inherently unintelligible. Yet the denial of the existence of manyness amounts to a denial of the possibility of false opinion, which Socrates shows to be a self-refuting position. The denial of manyness also leaves us unable to explain how there can possibly be many distinct beings? Thus we find ourselves stuck in what seems to be a contradiction: manyness both is and is not. The necessity of the combination of being and non-being leads to the recognition of the need for levels of being; each higher level relating to the lower by supplying it with its principle of unity, and hence supplying it with its being. It is in these levels of being, both in their sameness and difference, that the meat of Plato’s rich account is to be found. INDEX WORDS: knowledge, logos, soul, false opinion, account, Plato, Theaetetus, unity, oneness, manyness, sameness, difference. THE UNITY OF ONENESS AND MANYNESS IN PLATO’S THEAETETUS by DANIEL BLOOM A.B., University of Georgia, 2001 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2012 © 2012 DANIEL BLOOM All Rights Reserved THE UNITY OF ONENESS AND MANYNESS IN PLATO’S THEAETETUS by DANIEL BLOOM Major Professor: Edward Halper Committee: Richard Winfield Elizabeth Brient Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2012 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Barry and Talya Bloom, in gratitude for their love and support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER TWO (184b-201a) ............................................................................ 43 CHAPTER THREE (201c-210d) ........................................................................ 85 CHAPTER FOUR ............................................................................................ 129 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................. 157 v Introduction The guiding question in the Theaetetus is “what is knowledge?” The dialogue ends without Socrates and Theaetetus having given an adequate account of what knowledge is, and as a result it appears that the dialogue fails to achieve its goal of giving a logos of knowledge. However, I will argue here that there is a way in which their inability to give a logos of knowledge really constitutes a success: the failure of the dialogue’s logos to capture knowledge is in accord with its implicit proof that knowledge and logos are incompatible. In other words, the dialogue’s inability to give a logos of knowledge constitutes a kind of proof that there is neither a logos of knowledge nor a knowledge of logos. The success of this proof, however, rests upon some kind of limited knowledge of logos and some kind of limited logos of knowledge. This means that the dialogue gives us an argument limiting the connection between knowledge and logos that itself rests upon that very connection. This is not an oversight on Plato’s part. Rather, I will argue that Plato is using the reflexivity in order to draw out the details of the limited connection between the two. The basic argument for the incompatibility of knowledge and logos rests on two points. The first is that knowledge is only of being. Since being is always one, this means that knowledge is always of what is one. The second is that logos is inherently multiple. Logos’ inherent multiplicity means that any attempt to express what is known 1 must always fail because it must always make something that is one into something that many. Yet in order for logos to be meaningful (one of the dialogue’s fundamental assumptions) the multiplicity it contains must somehow relate to the oneness that the logos seeks to express. In short, the dialogue’s failure to give a logos of knowledge is in accord with its implicit proof that the oneness of knowledge and the manyness of logos are incompatible, and yet the recognition of this depends upon the ability to relate the oneness of knowledge and the manyness of logos. My dissertation will attempt to make sense of this relation between the oneness of knowledge and the multiplicity of logos by trying to make clear the ways in which the relation is and is not intelligible. This is not merely an epistemic question; it is also an ontological one. In the Theaetetus the oneness of knowledge is tied directly to the oneness of being, and we will see that logos is tied directly to the multiplicity inherent within distinct beings. Thus the investigation into the relation between the oneness of knowledge and the multiplicity of logos is also a more general investigation into the relation between oneness and manyness. Plato uses literary and philosophical devices in the Theaetetus designed to direct the readers’ thinking towards the issues involved in the relation and opposition between oneness and manyness. To summarize, the opposition is represented dramatically through Parmenides and Heraclitus. The refutation of Theaetetus’ first proper definition of knowledge (“knowledge is perception”) undermines the Heraclitean position that everything is in flux, which holds that there is no being or oneness. The discussion of false opinion following Theaetetus’ second proper definition of knowledge (“knowledge is true opinion”) undermines the Parmenidean position that all is One and there is no 2 manyness. We are left with the difficulty of working our way through the problems involved in understanding the middle ground between the oneness of Parmenides and the manyness of Heraclitus. This middle ground is inherently contradictory. There are many ways in which this contradiction expresses itself, and many difficulties involved in trying to make sense of it. The basic problem, briefly, is that while all Being is One distinct being also requires multiplicity.1 Thus distinct being is somehow both one and many. But how is this possible? To state the same problem somewhat differently: distinct beings are composed of parts, and yet to be is to be one. Thus a unity composed of parts seems to be something that both is and is not. The connection between oneness and knowledge means that this problem of connecting oneness and manyness, or of understanding how the same thing both is and is not, is directly connected to the question “what is knowledge?” We will find that the account generated by the recognition that distinct being both is and is not leads to an account where we both know and don’t the same thing. As a result, the account I am offering can be read as an argument that concludes that all knowing (with the possible exception of knowledge of the One) is also a simultaneous not-knowing. I will give a brief outline of the argument here. The argument is strange and not as clear as I would like it to be, but that may be unavoidable when arguing that every act of knowing is also an act of not-knowing. Each distinct being is a multiplicity that is somehow held together as one thing by a principle of unity. The principle of unity of any distinct being cannot itself be a part of that which is unified, but rather must exist 1 The dialogue argues for the existence of distinct being primarily through the assumption that false opinion is possible. 3 separately from the multiplicity or, as I prefer to put it, must transcend the multiplicity. Since the principle of unity makes the unified object one, and oneness and being are the same, it follows that the being of that which is unified transcends the object it allows to exist. Since the unified object’s being is what it is and since this being is separate from it, the unified object is not what it is. This means that a simple grasp (such as an opinion) of an unified object is and is not a grasp of that object, for knowledge of the unified object requires knowing how it is one, which in turn requires knowing its principle of unity. But, since the principle of unity transcends that which it unifies, this knowledge is and is not knowledge of the unified object. The unifier as well, if it is also both one and many, will itself then only be known by grasping its principle of unity. Thus the process will repeat until we reach that which is entirely one. It follows that the entirely one is the only being that can be unqualifiedly known, the knowledge of everything else being a simultaneous knowing and not knowing.
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