Abstract

In this paper, I support the perspectivist reading of the Platonic dialogues. The dialogues assert an objective truth toward which we are meant to strive, and yet acknowledge that we as seekers of this truth are always partial in what we grasp of its nature. They are written in a way to encourage the development of philosophical practice in their readers, where “philosophical” means not only having an epistemic state in between the total possession of truth and its absence, but also growing in selfknowledge as being that kind of a being. I take up three particular qualities of the dialogue: they are multilayered, multivocal, and mimetic. Devices such as Platonic irony, multiple characters’ voices, and a reformulated notion of mimesis that encourages the development of rationality and autonomy are central to Platonic rhetoric and philosophy.

Highlights

  • There are probably as many Platos as there are readers of him

  • Devices such as Platonic irony, multiple characters’ voices, and a reformulated notion of mimesis that encourages the development of rationality and autonomy are central to Platonic rhetoric and philosophy

  • 50 | Perspectivism and the Philosophical Rhetoric of the Dialogue Form to how to read the dialogues in relationship to one another fits well with what I understand to be the relationship between language and Platonic ontology

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Summary

Introduction

There are probably as many Platos as there are readers of him. Perhaps it will be a surprise, for a commentator to begin by saying that I share a basic agreement with Gonzalez’s perspectivist approach to the Platonic dialogues. I want to argue, that the perspectivism of the dialogues is accompanied by a dialogical, rhetorical practice that actively encourages us as readers to become philosophical— where “philosophical” is understood to be having an epistemic state in between the total possession of truth and its absence, and becoming increasingly self-consciously aware of oneself as being that kind of a being.

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