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Table of Contents Introduction Part I: Socrates and Sophistry in the Eyes

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Table of Contents Introduction Part I: Socrates and Sophistry in the Eyes Table of contents Introduction 1 Part I: Socrates and sophistry in the eyes of Socrates 7 Chapter one: The double-introduction to the Theaeteus 7 §1. The conversation between Eucleides and Terpsion (142a-143c8) 7 §2. Socrates’ question (143d1-146c3) 9 §3. Theaetetus’ first answer (146c4-148e10) 13 §4. The craft of the midwife (149a1-151d6) 15 Chapter two: Theaetetus’ second answer and Protagoras’ defence speech 19 §5. Knowledge is perception (151e-157c3) 20 The measure-doctrine 21 The flux-doctrine 22 §6. Emerging problems (157c4-165e5) 24 §7. Protagoras’ defence speech (165e6-168c7) 27 Chapter three: The refutation of Protagoras and the flux-doctrine 31 §8. The logical refutation of Protagoras (168c8-172c2) 32 §9. The appearance of philosophy (172c3-177c5) 35 §10. The pragmatic refutation of Protagoras (177c6-179d1) 38 §11. The dismissal of the flux-ontology (179d2-184b2) 40 Chapter four: the soul of Theaetetus 44 §12. Socrates’ renewed discussion with Theaetetus 44 §13. The activity of the soul and the notion of perception (184b3-186e12) 45 1) The soul is what perceives through the sense-organs… 45 2) …and certain common forms are reached by the soul itself, through itself… 46 3) … and the way the soul reaches these is different from the way in which it perceives. 48 Chapter five: True opinions and the act of opining 53 §14. Theaetetus’ new definition 56 §15. The first three attempts to explain false opinions (187e5-190e4) 58 Chapter six: Wax, pigeons and jurors 64 §16. Of memory and perception (191a8-196c9) 64 §17. The shamelessness of Socrates (196d1-197a6) 68 §18. The pigeon coop (197a7-200d4) 69 §19. The jury (200d5-201c6) 72 Chapter seven: How to account for accounts 76 §20. Socrates’ dream (201e1-202e2) 77 §21. Of parts and wholes (202e3-206b12) 79 §22. The logos of logos (206c1-210b3) 82 §23. Ignorance and wisdom (210b4-d4) 86 iii Part II: Socrates and sophistry in the eyes of the stranger 88 Chapter one: The opening scene of the Sophist 88 §1: The guiding question of the Sophist (216a1-217b4) 88 §2. The way of settling Socrates’ problem (217b5-219a4) 92 §3. The traditional understanding of the method of divisions and its problems 93 §4. To move from a common name to a shared understanding through logos 96 Chapter two: The angler and the first definitions of the sophist 98 §5. The angler (219a4-221c5) 99 §6. Sophistry and expertise (221c6-d7) 102 §7. The first five definitions of the sophist (221d8-226a5) 103 Chapter three: The sophist of noble lineage 109 §8. The change of paradeigma (226a6-226d11) 109 §9. The normative stance of the stranger’s way of inquiry (226e1-227c9) 111 §10. The stranger on psychē, excellence and vice (227c10-229a11) 113 §11. Elenchus as education (229b1-230e5) 115 §12. The refutation of Theaetetus’ understanding of sophistry (230e6-232a) 119 Chapter four: logos and mimesis 123 §13. Why the art of debating in particular reveals the art of sophistry (232b1-b10) 123 §14. The sophist as a producer of opinions (232b11-233d2) 124 §15. Logos and the problem of imitation (233d3-237a2) 126 Part III: An Eleatic defence of Socratic philosophy 133 Chapter one: Non-being and images 135 §1. The problem of non-being 237a3-239c8 136 §2. Images, non-being and false speech (239c9-241c1) 139 §3. The stranger’s change of attitude (241c2-242b5) 142 Chapter two: The cross-examination of earlier thinkers 143 §4. Questioning the notion of being (242b6-243d6) 143 §5. Questioning the first physiologoi (243d6-244b5) 146 §6. Parmenides and the one being (244b6-245e5) 147 Chapter three: the gigantomachia 153 §7. A dispute about being (246a8-e1) 153 §8. The somatists (246e5-248a3) 156 § 9. The dynamis-proposal and the friends of Forms (248a4-248c9) 159 §10. The refutation of the friends (248c11-249d5) 162 iv Chapter four: the problem of being and the power of dialectic 167 §11. The new problem of being, the late learners and the mixing of beings (250c9-252e7) 167 §12. Dialectic and sophistry 172 Chapter five: The dialectic of the great kinds and the clarification of non-being 177 §13. Ontological letters (254d4-255e7) 177 §14. The combination of the Forms (255e8-257a12) 180 §15. Contrariety and otherness (257b1-259d8) 183 Chapter 6: Nonbeing in thought and speech 188 §16. Falsehood in speech and opinion, the possibility of deception, and the notion of logos 189 §17. Logos as statement: naming and speaking (261d1-262e3) 191 §18. False statements and the nature of dianoia, doxa and phantasia (262e4-264b10) 196 Chapter 7: Imitation, sophistic and philosophic 202 Abstract 210 Resumé 211 Bibliography 212 v Introduction This study presents a full-length interpretation of two Platonic dialogues, the Theaetetus and the Sophist. The reading pursues a dramatic motif which I believe runs through these dialogues, namely the confrontation of Socratic philosophy, as it is understood by Plato, with the practise of sophistry. I shall argue that a major point for Plato in these two dialogues is to examine and defend his own Socratic or dialectical understanding of philosophy against the sophistic claim that false opinions and statements are impossible, a claim which undermines the point of Socratic conversation. As this claim in Plato’s view rests on a certain understanding of Heraclitus and Parmenides, the confrontation with the sophists implies a confrontation with these two Presocratics as well. This defence of dialectical philosophy takes place, dramatically, at the crucial time when Socrates is publically accused of impiety and of corrupting the youth of Athens, the Theaetetus right before he first faces the accusation, the Sophist on the following day. I shall argue that this fact is important in understanding the argument of the two dialogues.1 There is a longstanding tradition of reading the Theaetetus together with the Sophist. Indeed, in the 20th century, these two dialogues and the question how they are connected have stood at the centre of many philosophers’ readings of Plato. Both J. Stenzel’s groundbreaking work on the development of Plato’s notion of dialectic and F. M. Cornford’s classical commentary on the two dialogues helped cement their reputation as key in for understanding the later Plato’s conception of philosophy.2 The texts have accordingly been subject of intense debate, perhaps nowhere as intensely as in the Anglo-American Plato-scholarship initiated by the arrival of analytic philosophy. For many scholars of the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s, the Theaeteus and the Sophist, together with the Parmenides, became crucial in understanding the alleged development of the later Plato. Consequently, a large number of insightful and refined analyses of these dialogues have appeared in the last five decades, focusing especially on the discussion of false opinions and statements, on the question how doxa relates to epistēmē, and, finally, on the question what ontological status Plato assigns to the Forms, if any. In short, the majority of these works have focused on what may loosely be called epistemological and ontological questions. 1 The importance of the trial-motif for our understanding of the Theaetetus and the Sophist is pointed out by Sallis (1996), Miller (2004), Rosen (1983), Cropsey (1995), and Howland (1998). Additional studies that focus on the confrontation between Socratic philosophy and sophistry in the Theaetetus and the Sophist include Rehn (1982), Gadamer (1982) and (1990), and McCabe (2000). 2 Stenzel (1931), Cornford (1935). The tradition of reading the dialogues together is much older, apparently as old as the Platonic tradition itself, Cf. Sedley (1996), 89-90. 1 This intense discussion has no doubt advanced our understanding of many difficult passages in the dialogues. I believe, however, that focusing on a limited number of themes or questions comes at a price, since there are many aspects of these two dialogues that cannot be reduced to epistemological or ontological questions. The dominant picture of the dialogues is therefore rather one-sided,3 and the main purpose of my interpretation is to give a complementary reading. By interpreting both of them in their entirety, and by focusing, perhaps unusually, on the figure of Socrates and the confrontation with sophistry, I wish to highlight themes and questions I have not found addressed in the majority of works on the dialogues, in particular ethical and political themes. I hope to show that the epistemological and ontological questions discussed in the abovementioned literature are intimately connected with these themes, in particular those pertaining to education, the caretaking of the soul, expertise in political affairs and human happiness. * Since this is a full-length interpretation, most of the guiding assumptions are relatively straightforward. I shall assume, as most readers do, that the best way to read Platonic dialogues is to read them in their entirety (but not that this is necessarily the best way to write about them), and that one should pay attention to literary or dramatic as well as to argumentative features in order to fully appreciate the overall argument. I shall furthermore assume that Platonic dialogues are not just collections of arguments for various philosophical views or doctrines, but are depictions of trains of thoughts, carried out by multiple interlocutors. In the Theaetetus (189e4-190a7, cf. also Sph. 263e3-5), Socrates describes the activity of discursive reasoning (dianoeisthai) as a conversation which the soul carries out with itself, in silence, about what it investigates, where it asks itself questions and answers them, and I assume that a Platonic dialogue can, to a certain extent, be regarded as depicting such a “dialogue”.4 This means that it is the unfolding of a string of questions and answers which (sometimes) moves towards a gradually better understanding of what is being investigated,5 and this in turn means that 3 Already Friedländer (III), 139 complained about this; his complaint, however, was not directed against analytically inspired interpreters, but against the Neo-Kantians and, in particular, against J.
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