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Studies in Greek Philosophy PDF

325 Pages·1995·9.271 MB·English
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Gregory Vlastos STUDIES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY GREGORY VLASTOS VOLUME II: SOCRATES, PLATO. AND THEIR TRADITION Edited by Daniel W. Graham l'RINC'ETON UNIVERSITY I'RESS l'RIN\ETON. NFW JERSEY Copyright <!J 1995 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdum: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Co11gress Catalogillll·ill·Publkatitm Data Vlastos, Gregory. Studies in Greek philosophy I Gregory Vlastos. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: v.l. The Presocratics - v. 2. Socrates, Plato, and their tradition. ISBN 0-691-03311-0 I. Philosophy. Ancient. I. Graham. Daniel W. II. Title. BI71.V538 1994 180-dc20 94-3112 This book ha~ been composed in Times Roman Princeton University Press books arc printed on acid-free paper, and meet the guidelines li1r pcm1anence and durability of the Cumminee on Pmduction Guideline~ for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 CONTENTS AcKNOWI.EDGMENTS vii IN TROD! rcnoN xi Non; ON TEXTUAL CONVENTIONS XV /..I.H OF ABHREVIA TIONS xvii PART ONE: SOCRATES 1. The Paradox of Socrates 3 , Platis's Socrates' Accusers 19 .1. Brickhouse and Smith's Socrates 011 Trial 25 -1. Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience 30 :'i. Socrates on Acrasia 43 h. Was Polus Refuted? 60 PART TWO: PLATO r\. ETHICS, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY 7. The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic 69 x. The Rights of Persons in Plato's Conception of the Foundations of Justice 104 9. The Virtuous and the Happy: Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory 126 10. Was Plato a Feminist? I 33 B. METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY II Ancmme.\·is in lhe Me11o 147 l~a. The Third Man Argument in the Parme11icles 166 l~h. Addendum to the Third Man Argument in the Parme11icles 191 12.:. Addenda to the Third Man Argument: A Reply to Professor Sellars 194 l~d. Postscript to the Third Man: A Reply to Mr. Gcach 204 IJ. On a Proposed Redefinition of "Self-Predication" in Plato 215 VI CONTENTS C. SCIENCE 14. The Role of Observation in Plalo's Conception of Astronomy 223 15. Disorderly Motion in Plato's TimaeuJ 247 16. Creation in the Timaeus: Is It a Fiction? 265 PART THREE: AFrER PLATO 17. A Note on the Unmoved Mover 283 18. Minimal Parts in Epicurean Atomism 285 19. Zeno of Sidon as a Critic of Euclid 315 8/BLIOGRAPHl'." THE WORKS OF GREGORY VLASTOS 325 INVF.X LOCORUM 331 GENERAL INDEX 343 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS T l-IE PAPERS in this volume were previously published as noted be low. The editor and the heirs of Gregory Vlastos gratefully acknowl edge the permission to reprint granted by the agencies indicated. 1. 'The Paradox of Socrates" Queen's Quarterly 64 ( 1957-58): 496-516 Copyright, the heirs of Gregory Vlastos J Platis's Socrates' Accusers AlP 104 (1983): 201-6 The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore . ." \. Brickhouse and Smith's Socrates on Trial TLS. No.4, 524. Dec. 15. 1989. p. 1393 Tillll'.\' Literary Suppll'lnent, London. -L "Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience" Yale Rel'il'\1' 63 (1974): 517-34 The Yale Review. Copyright © Yale University, New Haven. 5. "Socrates on Acrasia" Phoenix 23 ( 1969): 71-88 The Classical Association of Canada. Toronto. 6. ··was Polus Refuted?" AlP 88 ( 1967): 454-60 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore. 7. "The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic" Helen North, ed., lmerpretations of Plato: A Swarthmore Symposium ILeiden: E. J. Brill. 1977), Mnemosyne. Suppl. vol. 50: 1-40 E_ J. Brill. Lciden. The Netherlands. X. "The Rights of Persons in Plato's Conception of the Foundations of Justice" 1-1. Tristram Englehardt. Jr. . and Daniel Callahan. eds .. Morals, Science and Society (Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Hastings Center. 1978), pp. 172-201 Copyright © The Hastings Center. Briarcliff Manor. N.Y. lJ. 'The Vit1uous and the Happy: Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory" TLS. No.3. 961. Feb. 24. 1978. pp. 230-31 Timc•s Literary Su11f1h•nu•111. London_ INTRODUCTION U NUKE THE FIRST VOLUME of this collection, which contains all Vlastos' major discussions of Presocratic philosophy, the present volume contains only a fraction of the author's discussions of Socra tes and Plato. His Platonic Studit~s; Socrates. /mnist and Moral Philosopher; and Socratic Swdies comprise much of his major work on these two philoso phers. Nevertheless, the present volume fills major gaps in his other collec tions and shows the wide range of his interest and ability. "The Paradox of Socrates," originally a lecture for a general audience, provides Ylastos's first extended statement on the Socratic Problem. i.e .• the prohlem of how to reconstruct the views of the historical Socrates from the ancient evidence. We must rely on Plato's Socratic dialogues as the source for Sm:rates, for only Plato can account for the data. Plato's Socrates-whose conversations Plato fictionally recreates, rather than documenting-has a complex view of how to save Athenian souls. In a discussion that anticipates much of his later interpretation of Socrates. Vlastos sketches salient points of Socrates' method and philosophy and in a famous passage criticizes him for a "failure of love." This essay is still one of the best introductions to the para dox of Socrates. In his review of E. N. Platis's Socmtes' Accusers, Vlastos shows his knowl edge of and interest in the prosopography of Socrates' accusers. Reviewing Brickhouse and Smith's Socrates on Trial, he dissents from the authors on the important role they assign to the claimonion in Socrates' thought. In "Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience." Vlastos discusses the argument of the Crito and attempts to locate Socrates' position between the extremes of passive obedience and political disobedience. Vlastos reexamines the argument against weakness of will from the Pro laMuras in "Socrates on Acrasia." rejecting the account he had given in his introduction to the Pro/agoras. ··was Polus Refuted" discusses the debate be tween Socrates and Polus in the Gorgias. concluding that Socrates' argument i~ fallacious. Vlastos makes an important defense of Plato against Karl Popper's criti cism. in "The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic." Argu ing that there is a legitimate normative and mcta-nom1ativc theory of justice in the Rt•public, he maintains that justice is based on impartiality. not on inequal ity as Popper would have it. Although Vlastos defends Plato from charges of subverting the notion of justice. he does not shrink from the consequences, often downplayed by others, that the worker will be as a slave to the intellec tual. Plato's theory docs indeed fail. but not for want of formal equality: it fails because it rejects substantive equality. In a companion essuy. "The Rights xii I NTRO DliCTI ON of Persons in Plato's Conception of the Foundations of Justice," Vlastos adds to his analysis of justice in the Republic the observation that beyond fonnal equality a further condition is needed to provide a basis for rights: that condi tion is supplied by the Principle of Functional Reciprocity. But even thus supported, Plato's theory of justice still fails to satisfy minimal conditions established by single-standard moral systems. In his review of Terence Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory, Vlastos accepts Irwin's account of Plato's eudaimonism but criticizes his instrumentalist inter pretation of Socratic virtue: virtue is not a mere means to an end. "Was Plato a Feminist?" takes up the problem of Plato's attitude toward women; Vlastos gives a complex answer. maintaining that in some respects Plato favored equal rights for women, in other respects he did not. Behind the apparently different attitudes. Vlastos finds a belief that women could in principle share intellec tual excellence with men, although in contemporary Greek societies social and educational disadvantages made equality impossible. The theory of recollection appears for the first time in Plato's Mello. Exam ining the theory and its data, Vlastos defines recollection as "any enlargment of our knowledge which results from the perception of logical relationships." Plato for the first time marks off non-empirical from empirical knowledge. But he asserts much more than the distinction, for he now comes to hold that sense experience is not a source of genuine knowledge. The new epistemol ogy is introduced along with a doctrine of reincarnation which seems to have inspired the theory of recollection. Vlastos's 1954 paper. "The Third Man Argument in the Parme11icles." is an epoch-making essay (see Introduction to Volume I) that spawned a whole industry of exegesis on the Third Man Argument. The machinery of the Self Predication' assumption and the Non-Identity assumption have become part of the koi11e of ancient philosophy scholarship. Vlastos's conclusion that Plato's discussion of the argument was a ··record of honest perplexity" satis fied no one; scholars quickly attempted to find a Platonic trump card to solve the puzzle or evidence that he modified his later views to avoid the problem. Vlastos responded to early criticisms of his views by Wilfred Sellars and Peter Geach, leading philosophers from opposite sides of the Atlantic. whose atten tion shows how influential was Vlastos's essay right from the first. A follow-up article, "Plato's 'Third Man' Argument (Parm. 132AI-B2): Text and Logic," PQ 19 ( 1969). was reprinted in Platonic Studies (see Appendix I of the reprint for a bibliography of recent papers to 1972). But the latter article was more of a restatement and a criticism of alternative views than a new argument, and it is the 1954 paper that constitutes the starting-point of all recent work on the Third Man Argument. Vlastos criticizes an important recent interpretation of 1 Vlash" gives credit fur lhc in~ight lu A. E. Taylor: hut the lcnn i' VI;IStus"s. INTRODUCTION Xiii Sdf-Predication by Alexander Nchamas in "On a Proposed Redefinition of ·Self-Predication' in Plato." Plato's views on the study of astronomy expressed in Republic VII arc the topic of "The Role of Observation in Plato's Conception of Astronomy." Plato's criticism of empirical astronomy have been interpreted. at one ex treme. as a rejection of all empirical evidence, and at the other as recommend ing a temporary moratorium on empirical research until mathematical hypoth eses can be developed. Vlastos argues for a middle way: the troublesome phrase "let go the things in the heavens" means to reject sensible phenomena a~ providing knowledge, but nevertheless use them as data for theoretical astronomy. It was long the prevailing opinion that Plato's description of the creation of the world was an allegorical representation of an uncreated cosmos. In "Disor derly Motion in Plato's Timaeus." Vlastos's first essay in ancient philosophy, he vigorously criticized this view held by his mentor F. M. Comford. Vlastos further supported his position some twenty-five years later with the essay, ··creation in the Timaeus: Is It a Fiction?" which takes into account arguments of Harold Chemiss. Although the great bulk of Vlastos's work consisted of research into early Greek philosophy down to Plato, three essays show his knowledge of later Greek philosophy. His short "Note on the Unmoved Mover" criticizes W. D. Ross's claim that Aristotle's Unmoved Mover is an efficient cause. In a de tailed and closely argued essay, "Minimal Parts in Epicurean Atomism," Vlastos rejects the interpretations of minimal parts as physically indivisible clements on the one hand, or mathematically indivisible magnitudes on the 11thcr: rather. Epicurus holds that the sizes of atoms occur in integral multiples nf a minimal size. A sequel, "Zeno of Sidon as a Critic of Euclid," continues hi~ attack on the influential view of the Epicureans as advocates of mathemati cal atomism. He shows that the Epicurean mathematician Zeno of Sidon can not he shown to he more than a methodological critic of Euclid.

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