Abstract
In some Platonic dialogues Socrates apparently shares significant characteristics with contemporary sophists, especially a technique of antithetical argumentation. Since sophists anticipated later Academic philosophers in arguing antithetically and a resultant form of, then, with Socrates’ repeated claims to ignorance, Plato’s depiction of him arguing antithetically suggests later Academics could plausibly appeal to Plato for evidence that Socrates and he were, as it seems they actually did.
Highlights
Later members of Plato’s school, those we collectively call Academic sceptics, claimed consistency with both Socrates and Plato.[1]
I will argue that Socrates, in some Platonic dialogues concerned with both individual sophists and the nature of knowledge, shares significantly in a range of characteristics belonging to several sophists, including, significantly, a technique of antithetical argumentation.[5]
I will initially restrict the detailed case to the plausibility of a sceptical interpretation of the Socrates presented by Plato in the Protagoras, Hippias Minor, Gorgias, Meno, Lysis and Theaetetus, and Plato as the author of these
Summary
One argumentative technique that undeniably connects Plato’s Socrates explicitly with the sceptical Academy is dialectical refutation. In the latter case, might aim at either the opponent’s or audience’s adoption of the opposite case (as formally in a reductio ad absurdum, for instance), or merely the realisation of ignorance (as in Socrates’ dialectical refutations); the aim is aporetic This recognition of ignorance (as apparently in many Socratic refutations) might involve the presupposition that neither foregoing case is correct, so motivating the search for a new account of the matter (zetetic scepticism), or if no further alternative seems possible, the presupposition will be that one or other of the two opposed foregoing cases must be correct and the other not (i.e., a dilemma), in which case either further inquiry is again required (again, zetetic scepticism), or the abandonment of either all opinions or just claims to certain knowledge (ephectic scepticism, epochê).[14] In what follows I will aim to locate sophistic, Socratic and Academic scepticism within these contours, and, with some further adjustments, trace their deeper similarities.[15]
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