| Project title |
Aporia, the Search for Knowledge, and the Demand for Definitions in the Early Platonic Dialogues |
| Summary |
The aim of this project is to establish the function of aporia in Plato’s early dialogues and to show that this is crucial for our understanding of, first, the method and structure of Plato’s arguments and inquiries, and, second, Plato’s demand for definitions and the view that knowledge requires knowledge of definitions. It is generally recognized that many of these dialogues end in aporia, in the sense of the puzzlement distinctive of the failure of a search and typically the search for a definition. What has not been properly recognized is that in these same dialogues Plato uses the term aporia and its cognates also for the puzzlement distinctive of the grasp of a particular problem and for such problems themselves. According to this use – I shall call it the zetetic use – aporia is situated not at the end of a search, indicating its failure, but at the beginning of a search whose starting-point it serves to indicate. Such aporia is typically articulated in a question with two apparently conflicting sides (whether or not …, whether … or …) with good, or apparently good, reasons on both sides. I shall argue that this use of aporia has a central function in these dialogues, which is, first, to motivate, direct and structure particular searches, searches whose aim is the resolution of particular aporiai; and, second, to defend and justify the demand for definitions and the view that knowledge requires knowledge of definitions. |
| Funding Agency |
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| Programme |
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| Type of Project |
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| Date from |
2005 |
| Date to |
2008 |
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Vasilis Politis, 'What do the Arguments in the Protagoras amount to?', Phronesis, 57, (3), 2012, p1 - 31
Notes: [The main thesis of the paper is that, in the coda to the Protagoras (360e-end), Plato tells us why and with what justification he demands a definition of virtue; namely, in order to resolve a particular aporia. According to Plato’s assessment of the outcome of the arguments of the dialogue, the principal question, whether or not virtue can be taught, has, by the end of the dialogue, emerged as articulating an aporia, in that both protagonists, Socrates and Protagoras, have argued equally on both its sides. The first part of the paper provides an extensive analysis of the coda, with the aim of establishing the main thesis. The second part provides a comprehensive review of the arguments in the dialogue, with the aim of determining whether their outcome is what Plato says in the coda that it is. I undertake this review in three steps: on Plato’s conception of reasons (logoi); Socrates’ arguing on both sides; and Protagoras’ arguing on both sides.] |
| 'What is behind the ti esti question?' in, editor(s)J. Fink , The Development of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp232 - 260, [Vasilis Politis] |
| 'Explanation and Essence in Plato's Phaedo' in, D. Charles , Definition in Greek Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp62 - 114, [Dr. Vasilis POLITIS] |
| Dr Vasilis Politis, 'The Place of Aporia in Plato's Charmides', Phronesis, 53, (1), 2008, p1 - 34 |
| ‘The Aporia in the Charmides about Reflexive Knowledge and the Contribution to its Solution in the Sun Analogy of the Republic’ in, D. Cairns, F.-G. Herrmann, T. Penner , Pursuing the Good, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2007, pp231 - 250, [Dr. Vasilis POLITIS] |
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Last Updated:16-MAY-2012 |