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"Politis, Vasilis"
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The structure of enquiry in Plato's early Dialogues
\"This book proposes and defends a radically new account of Plato's method of argument and enquiry in his early dialogues. Vasilis Politis challenges the traditional account according to which these dialogues are basically about the demand for definitions, and questions the equally traditional view that what lies behind Plato's method of argument is a peculiar theory of knowledge. He argues that these dialogues are enquiries set in motion by dilemmas and aporiai, incorporating both a sceptical and an anti-sceptical dimension, and he contends that Plato introduces the demand for definitions, and the search for essences, precisely in order to avoid a sceptical conclusion and hold out the prospect that knowledge can be achieved\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
PLATO, STATESMAN 275D8–E1
In his dialogue Statesman (= Plt.), Plato first sets out one way of thinking of the statesperson, on the model of a nurturer of a herd such as a shepherd; then he sets out a very different way of thinking of him, on the model of a weaver of a social fabric. Critics have long been wondering whether Plato wants to combine the two models or, on the contrary, to abandon the nurturing model in favour of the weaving model. This article shows that a particular passage in the dialogue, 275d8–e1, is crucial for this question. As this passage is understood by all commentators and translators, it says that the statesperson is not a nurturer. This ought to have settled the question. But the article argues that we cannot read the passage like that. For an adjacent passage, 275b1–7, says that the statesperson is a nurturer. There is no way out of this contradiction, unless we reconsider the traditional reading of 275d8–e1. The article defends a different reading of 275d8–e1, which avoids the contradiction. On this new reading, the passage does not say that the statesperson is not a nurturer, it says that her/his being a nurturer is not the grounds for her/him deserving the title ‘statesperson’.
Journal Article
Plato's Geach Talks to Socrates: Definition by Example-and-Exemplar in the Hippias Major
The paper argues that Plato, in the Hippias Major gives due consideration to the question whether, for some qualities F, such as beauty, it is possible to give an account of what F is by pointing to an example-and-exemplar. He takes seriously, and gives cogent reasons in defense of, an affirmative answer to this question in a manner comparable to Geach-although he argues that these reasons lead to inconsistency, if combined with the view that it is possible to make comparisons in regard to F among significantly different examples-and-exemplars of a thing that is F.
Journal Article
What do the Arguments in the Protagoras Amount to?
Abstract
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.
Journal Article
Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Aristotle and the Metaphysics
Aristotles' 'Metaphysics' is one of the most important texts in Ancient Philosophy. This GuideBook looks at the Metaphysics thematically and takes the student through the main arguments found in the text. The book introduces and assesses Aristotle's life and the background to the Metaphysics , the ideas and text of the Metaphysics and Aristotle's philosophical legacy.
1. Aristotle's Metaphysics 2. Metaphysics as the Science of the Ultimate Explanations of all Things 3. Metaphysics as the Science of Being, Qua Being, Primary being and Non-Primary Being 4. The Principle of Non-Contradiction 5. The Search for Primary Being 6. The First Cause of Change, God 7. The Criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms
Vasilis Politis is lecturer of philosophy at Trinity College Dublin.
eBook
The Place of \aporta\ in Plato's \Charmides\
The aim of the paper is twofold: to examine the argument in response to Socrates' question whether or not reflexive knowledge is, first, possible, and, second, beneficial; and by doing so, to examine the method of Platos argument. What is distinctive of the method of argument, I want to show, is that Socrates argues on both sides of these questions (the question of possibility and the question of benefit). This, I argue, is why he describes these questions as a source oí aporia. Socrates can argue, without contradiction, on both sides of these questions because the arguments against the possibility and benefit of reflexive knowledge are premised on the supposition, defended by Critias, that this knowledge is only of ones knowledge and lack of knowledge, whereas the arguments for its possibility and benefit are not committed to this supposition.
Journal Article
The Voices of Wittgenstein
The Voices of Wittgenstein brings for the first time, in both the original German and in English translation, over one hundred short essays in philosophical logic and the philosophy of mind. This text is of key historical importance to understanding Wittgenstein's philosophical thought and development in the 1930's. Transcribed from the papers of Friedrich Waismann and dating from 1932 to 1935, the majority are highly important dictations by Wittgenstein to Waismann. It also includes texts of redrafted material by Waismann, closely based on these dictations.
eBook