Browsing by Subject "Socrates"

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The aim of dialectics In Plato's Euthyphro
(2015-12) Fallis, Lewis Bartlett; Pangle, Thomas L.; Stauffer, Devin; Pangle, Lorraine; Tulis, Jeffrey; Muirhead, Russell
This dissertation presents an analysis of Plato’s dialogue on piety, the Euthyphro. The aim of the dissertation is to understand the nature of piety and its connection with morality. Chapter One introduces the topic of the dissertation, discusses two aspects of its political relevance, and justifies the decision to turn to Plato, and specifically Plato’s Euthyphro, for guidance on the question. Two weaknesses of contemporary approaches to the investigation of piety are discussed here, in order to highlight by contrast the strengths of Plato’s approach. Chapters Two and Three present an analysis of Plato’s Euthyphro, with special attention to what the dialogue can reveal about the connection between piety and morality. Chapter Four is a conclusion discussing the limitations of the study, the understanding of piety conveyed by Plato’s Euthyphro, and the aim of Socratic dialectics, understood as a means of testing whether moral opinions might be a condition of pious experiences.
Between theory & practice in Plato’s “the Republic” & “Laws”
(2019-05) Dragon, Drake Sterling; Pangle, Thomas L.
One of the most comical implications of Socrates’ (in)famous suggestion that "philosopher-kings" be made to rule the city alone is how far the illustrated model of the "philosopher kings" in the “the Republic” diverges from and falls short of being a genuine or complete philosophers on the model of Socrates himself. Why would Socrates propose the “Third Wave” if it is untenable, even in theory, and what does this suggest about the possibilities for radical political revolution in a democratic system? The activity of philosophy, as practiced by Socrates, is extremely problematic from the city’s perspective, and must be radically transformed if it is to be coetaneous with political life. In “Laws”, Plato presents use with a political philosopher who appears to actually succeed in this endeavour. The Athenian Stranger, as a character-type representative of the genuine philosopher, is noticeably different from Socrates. He is able to present himself, not merely as a theoretician or conceptual idealist, but a man with keen insight into the practical world of political institutions and legal practice. What changes would “philosophy” or the “philosopher” have to undergo in order to be made civic-minded or, atleast, legally permissible? Would these be antithetical to the core of Socratic political philosophy, properly understood? This essay seeks to shed light on the prior questions through an analysis of key differences in the character and rhetorical approach or “action” of Socrates and the Athenian Stranger in either dialogue.
Examining ambition : an interpretation of Plato's Alcibiades
(2013-12) Helfer, Ariel Oscar; Pangle, Thomas L.
The relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades was infamous in antiquity. Alcibiades’ notorious betrayal of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian war helped to bring about Athens’ downfall, and the charges of corrupting the young and impiety for which Socrates was ultimately executed point unambiguously to the misdeeds of his most renowned and treasonous pupil. In Plato’s Alcibiades, Socrates approaches Alcibiades for the first time, claiming to have the power to bring the youth’s grandest and most tyrannical political hopes to a culmination. What does the ensuing conversation tell us about the nature of Alcibiades’ ambition and about Socrates’ intentions in associating with him? In this essay, careful attention is paid to the structure and unity of this underappreciated dialogue in order to uncover Plato’s teaching about the roots of political ambition and the approach of Socratic philosophy. The resulting analysis reveals that Socrates is interested in recruiting politically ambitious students because of how powerfully youthful political ambition seeks the good by means of just, noble, and honorable activity, and that Socrates’ hope is to awaken Alcibiades to the ambiguous and unquestioned character of his belief that the greatest human good can be obtained in the world of politics. Having recognized this as central to the Socratic project, we can consider how and to what extent political ambition relies on some misapprehension about the relationship of the good and the advantageous to the just and the noble.
First and Second Responses to the Assembly of Athens, 403 B.C.E.
(2020) Sefiane, Elyssa
Plato's Theaetetus and the problem of knowledge
(2010-12) Rabinowitz, Laura; Stauffer, Devin, 1970-; Pangle, Thomas L.
In keeping with Socrates’ advice that it is “a better thing to accomplish a little well than a lot inadequately” (Theaetetus, 187d), this master’s report provides a detailed study of a few relatively short sections of Plato’s Theaetetus. After an analysis of the beginning of the work and its opening themes, I examine the Protagorean thesis as it is first revealed in Theaetetus’ second endeavor to say what knowledge is. Rather than follow the entire course of Socrates’ account of Protagoras’ position, I bring out a few of the essential features of this initial presentation and attempt to gain some clarity as to the possible meaning and purpose behind Protagoras’ enigmatic declaration that man is the measure of all things. The final section of my paper entails a close analysis of the dialogue’s last definition of knowledge: true opinion with speech. Although this account does not answer all of the questions posed by the Protagorean thesis, we find within it the most promising approach to answering the question of the dialogue: “What is knowledge?” While the Theaetetus comes to a close with this final attempt and ultimate failure to answer the question with which it began, I show that Socrates’ spurious arguments often serve more as pointers toward the truth than as refutations of the “truths” proposed.
Plato’s Euthyphro : an examination of the Socratic method in the definitional dialogues
(2011-05) Combs, Blinn Ellis; White, Stephen A. (Stephen Augustus); Mourelatos, Alexander P. D., 1936-; Woodruff, Paul B.; Hochberg, Herbert I.; Sosa, David
This dissertation examines Socrates' method of examining interlocutors, referred to as the elenchus, in Plato's definitional dialogues. It contains three parts. The first part lays out various theories of the elenchus. The first chapter examines the seminal view of Richard Robinson. The second sketches the development and aftermath of Vlastos' constructivist view. The third focuses on Socrates' own testimony about the elenchus in the Apology. These pictures of the elenchus form a selection of views against which various definitional dialogues may be compared. The second part, containing six chapters, provides a detailed commentary on the Euthyphro. Various features of that dialogue suggest that neither the prominent forms of constructivism, nor their non-constructivist alternatives presented in the first part adequately capture Socrates' procedure. The third part, consisting of one chapter, presents my view of the Socratic elenchus, which I term “technical destructivism.” I argue that this view provides a straight-forward solution to a number of problems which the alternative treatments leave unsolved. It also helps to explain some otherwise puzzling features of Socrates' procedure in the shorter definitional dialogues, including his use of the technē analogy, and his appeal to the priority of definitional knowledge.
Political ambition and piety in Xenophon's Memorabilia
(2013-05) Fallis, Lewis Bartlett; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Thomas L.
This thesis analyzes Books III and IV of Xenophon’s Memorabilia. The Memorabilia is Xenophon’s defense of Socrates or the philosophic life against Athens or the political community as such. In Book III, Xenophon presents six portraits of ambitious young men. These portraits, read closely, unveil the psychological nature of ambition and convey important lessons about the Socratic understanding of healthy politics, as a realm that is necessarily pious. Book IV’s four Socratic conversations with a dim-witted youth named Euthydemus both underscore the lessons of Book III and explore piety itself, as a phenomenon that is necessarily political. These sections of the Memorabilia may be read as an argument for the necessity of a fissure between healthy politics and philosophy – and as a bridge from the one to the other.
Political ambition and Socratic philosophy : Plato's presentation of Socrates and Alcibiades
(2015-05) Helfer, Ariel Oscar; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Lorraine S; Stauffer, Devin; Saxonhouse, Arlene; Ahrensdorf, Peter
This dissertation examines and interprets Plato’s three major presentations of the infamous Athenian general and Socratic pupil Alcibiades as a paragon of political ambition: the Alcibiades, the Second Alcibiades, and Plato’s Symposium. These texts are, for the first time, treated as authentic Platonic works and presumed to present a coherent though incomplete narrative of the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades. The dynamic Platonic portrait of Alcibiades’ changing disposition toward democracy, law, virtue, and piety offers insight into the corruptibility of political ambition. By studying it, we can recover a valuable classical point of view on the nature of political ambition, especially in its relation to civic-spiritedness on one hand, and to the self-serving pursuit of private or political goods on the other. This point of view can in turn be brought to bear upon our own political situation as citizens of liberal democracy, with its complex tradition of distrust of the political ambitious. Finally, the question of Socrates’ corruption of Alcibiades itself provides invaluable insight into the matter of Socrates’ own enigmatic philosophic project, which brought him into fatal conflict with the city of Athens.
Self-knowledge in Socrates and St. Augustine : a consideration of Alcibiades I and Confessions book 1
(1995-05) Siebach, James L.; Mackey, Louis
In the Alcibiades I of Plato, Socrates argues for a conception of self-knowledge by using an analogy between the eye looking into a mirror and the soul seeing itself reflected in another soul. Socrates argues that: the self is the soul; is divine; resembles (homoion) God; self-knowledge requires knowledge of God. Both Plotinus and St. Augustine are familiar with the dialogue, though St. Augustine only indirectly, and modify Socrates' discussion of self-knowledge for their own philosophical purposes. The dissertation examines the notion that the soul is a mirror and image of the One or God and that self-knowledge requires following the traces of God written in the soul. The dissertation examines Plotinus' Ennead V (knowing God and the "homoiosis" doctrine) and St. Augustine's Confessions Book 1 and On the Trinity (the view of man as imago Dei) and the transformation of a concept of self-knowledge found originally in Alcibiades I.
Socrates’s and the Eleatic stranger’s defenses of philosophy
(2022-05-05) Myers, Ian G.; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Lorraine Smith
Only in his Statesman does Plato present a philosopher of the caliber of the Eleatic Stranger giving a non-Socratic teaching on politics and political philosophy with the mature Socrates in the audience. The Stranger and Socrates, as I aim to show here, share a basic agreement about the purpose of political inquiry: inquiry into politics and human nature is according to both thinkers necessary for a defense of philosophy as a whole. In the following, I argue that the Stranger, like Socrates, turned to political theorizing to respond to the anti-rationalist challenge posed by the claims of the great poet-teachers of Greece, Homer and Hesiod, whose poems, by asserting either that irrational, omnipotent divinity exists or that the universe came into being without a cause, deny the existence of necessary causes. I argue as well that although they understand this challenge in a similar way, Socrates and the Stranger focus on different puzzles of political and ethical life, and that those different focuses lead to different approaches to defending rationalism. Socrates, on my reading, thinks that a critical analysis of our opinions about virtue and happiness is the decisive ingredient in a response to the theological challenge, while the stranger thinks that a critical analysis of law as such is the decisive ingredient in such a response.
Socratic protreptic and moral education in Plato's early dialogues
(2007-12) Rider, Benjamin Albert, 1978-; Woodruff, Paul, 1943-
I examine how Plato, in his early dialogues, tries to make good on Socrates' claims, in the Apology, about the value of his philosophical life and the benefits it provides his fellow citizens. Beginning with the Apology, I analyze how Socrates tries to exhort people to take care for or tend to virtue and the state of their souls. I argue that Socrates is challenging his fellow-citizens, and Plato his readers, not only to recognize their ignorance, but also to engage in active philosophical inquiry into ethical questions. This aspect of Socrates' mission--his quest to get people to live examined, philosophical lives--is sometimes called philosophical protreptic. In subsequent chapters, I analyze the arguments that Socrates employs in engaging interlocutors in philosophy in three dialogues, the Euthydemus, Lysis, and Alcibiades I. In the Euthydemus, Socrates argues that wisdom is necessary for happiness, but he and his interlocutor discover that they neither have nor understand the wisdom they need. In the Lysis, Socrates discusses friendship and love with two youths, and though their inquiry fails, their cooperative philosophical investigation exemplifies philosophical love and friendship. Finally, in the Alcibiades I, Socrates tries to convince an ambitious young Alcibiades that true power and happiness arise from self-knowledge, and he challenges the young man to seek self-knowledge by taking up a philosophical life under Socrates' guidance. What emerges in these dialogues is a radical and compelling picture of the good life. Socrates does not believe that he or any human fully understands virtue or happiness. His investigations end inconclusively, and indeed he has little hope that he or anyone else will discover final and complete answers about virtue or happiness. Nevertheless, each dialogue demonstrates both the nature and value of philosophical enquiry. We humans are limited and ignorant, and we need to examine ethical questions together in order to live well. By drawing others into the philosophical discussion--full though it is with problems, inconclusive results, and difficulties--Socrates believes that he is both himself living the best available human life and offering the greatest benefit any human can provide to those with whom he talks.
The Socratic analysis of nobility and beauty : politics, wisdom, and the divine in Plato's Greater Hippias
(2022-12-02) O'Toole, Daniel Frederick; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Lorraine S; Stauffer, Devin; Blitz, Mark
This dissertation provides a comprehensive interpretation of the Greater Hippias, Plato’s dialogue on nobility and beauty. It helps shed light on a crucial dimension of Plato’s political philosophy, for according to him, nobility and beauty are among the most important yet contentious aspects of moral, political, and religious life. In the course of interpreting the Greater Hippias, the dissertation seeks to clarify how Plato understands the nature and character of nobility and beauty and the various ways in which they hold meaning and relevance for our individual and political lives. This requires tracing his analysis of what all is implied in the conventional conception of nobility and beauty and the natural basis of our attachment to it. The dissertation concludes, first of all, that the Greater Hippias shows that the kind of nobility that seems most impressive to us serves the common good and is rooted in what conventional and lawful political orders honor and praise most highly. Second, it shows how nobility and beauty promise to satisfy the soul’s longing for the transcendent and the divine. Third, it shows that nobility must ultimately be understood in terms of the good, and especially in terms of the beneficial and the pleasant, but that men resist understanding nobility in those terms. Hence the dissertation uncovers the core of the tension between the conventional understanding of nobility and a rational understanding of nobility—or between what seems noblest to us and what’s actually good for us.
The Socratic critique of tyranny : tyrannical psychology in the thought of Plato and Xenophon
(2023-08-07) Williams, Avery Allen; Pangle, Lorraine Smith; Pangle, Thomas; Stauffer, Devin; Newell, Waller; Helfer, Ariel
This dissertation articulates the critique of tyranny made by Socrates’ two greatest students—Plato and Xenophon—through a thematic interpretation of the Republic, the Hiero, and the Cyropaedia. Their critique focuses on the psychological defects of tyrannical rulers and demonstrates the fundamental failures of even the most seemingly successful tyrants. Through a synthesized interpretation of these three texts, this dissertation elucidates a single, unified insight into the nature of tyranny and tyrants in the thought of the early Socratics. The core of that insight is an understanding of the essential elements of tyrannical psychology: pleasure in violence toward enemies, hostility to the rule of law, a desire for love and admiration, and a rejection of any limit to the fulfillment of one’s desires. This dissertation uncovers the presence of this psychological analysis in the Republic, hidden behind the moralistic condemnation of the tyrant that most scholars have taken to be the Socratic view, and follows Xenophon as he fleshes out its details through direct investigations of political tyrants. In doing so, the dissertation shows the unique way that the Socratics understand the tyrant—not as evil or a monster but as a person who shares our own human nature. The core aspects of the tyrant’s psychology are misguided and unhealthy versions of attributes that otherwise play an important role in healthy souls, led astray by a lack of self-knowledge and an unwillingness to accept necessity. But perhaps most importantly, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of the Socratic understanding of tyranny to contemporary politics. For our own political moment, the Socratics offer a prescient warning about the dangers of the democratic love of freedom which when taken to excess provides fertile ground for tyranny, particularly when it turns against the rule of law. To prevent tyranny, it is thus essential that we understand the proper place, and the proper limits, of this characteristically democratic desire in ourselves and in our politics. This dissertation shows the invaluable guidance that the Socratics provide for doing so.
Theaetetus' first definition : logos ou phaulos
(2010-12) Lasell, Leah Anne; Hankinson, R. J.; Koons, Robert C.; Pautz, Adam; White, Stephen A.
Socrates and Theaetetus consider and reject three different definitions of knowledge in the Theaetetus. The first of these is the thesis that knowledge is perception. According to the received reading Plato's consideration of the thesis that knowledge is perception is limited to the consideration of the naive and implausible thesis that immediate sense-perception is knowledge and there is no knowledge apart from immediate sense-perception. This reading, which limits the philosophic interest of Platos consideration of the thesis that knowledge is perception, follows from a widespread misunderstanding of Socrates' reasons for introducing Protagoras and Heraclitus which circumscribes their role in the dialogue to supplying two theses, epistemological relativism and metaphysical flux, which are sufficient or perhaps necessary conditions for the thesis that knowledge is perception. I will show that Socrates introduces Protagoras and Heraclitus, not simply because they provide the epistemological or metaphysical framework within which Theaetetus' definition holds good, but because each man is committed to the thesis that knowledge is perception. Protagoras' sophistic expertise will be classed as a kind of empirical knowledge which bases itself on past and present perceptions and makes educated predictions of future perceptions. While Heraclitus' theory of flux will lead to a radical skepticism which rejects the possibility that there should be any knowledge of the world apart from perception. Socrates will give arguments against both of these ways of understanding the thesis that knowledge is perception. Plato thus articulates, develops, and ultimately rejects three different ways of understanding Theaetetus' initial definition of knowledge.