Plato's Critique Research Articles

Plato's critique of standpoint epistemology: balancing subjectivity and objectivity in contemporary discourse

The discourse on knowledge formation distinguishes sharply between the concept of "standpoint" and Plato’s notion of truth. Plato’s philosophy argues for a form of truth that is both objective and universal, largely independent of individual experiences. In contrast, the "standpoint" theory underscores the significant role of personal and contextual experiences in shaping one's knowledge. This paper contends that the "standpoint" theory’s major flaw is its emphasis on individual perspectives, which can lead to a form of relativism detrimental to the quest for objective truths. This analysis seeks to reaffirm the relevance of Platonic ideals in the contemporary debate over "standpoint" theory, emphasizing the necessity of rational and objective evaluation in the acquisition of knowledge. The methodological approach of this study involves a detailed comparative analysis between the philosophical underpinnings of Plato and the principles of "standpoint" epistemology, exploring their respective impacts on the validation of knowledge. Plato’s philosophy insists on the rational justification of knowledge claims and critiques the reliance on subjective perceptions, which he argues, lack universal applicability. This stands in stark contrast to "standpoint" epistemology, which, while enriching academic discourse with diverse viewpoints, risks reducing knowledge to mere subjective interpretations devoid of broader validation. The conclusion of this study posits that integrating Platonic objectivity with the subjectivity inherent in "standpoint" theory introduces complex challenges. Although "standpoint" enriches the diversity of academic debates, the Platonic framework is indispensable for developing a methodology that ensures knowledge is scrutinized both rationally and objectively. The pursuit of a balanced approach between these divergent perspectives promises to advance a more inclusive and equitable epistemological framework. This balanced approach not only fosters rigorous validation of knowledge but also appreciates the diverse experiences contributing to academic discourse, potentially leading to a richer and more comprehensive understanding of truth.

Middleman: Homer's Philosophical Rhapsody

Abstract: Although the Iliad is typically approached as a version of, say, Catch-22 , the epic is not about armed conflict and its horrors. The war at Troy serves the poet as a metaphor for life. Advanced in the hexameters is an account of the genesis, and a defense, of the humanist view that men and women occupy an autonomous place midway between clods and gods. Plato's harsh criticism of Homer's work comes into focus once Achilles's transformation is interpreted along these philosophical lines. Homer is rejecting what Plato, who flattens human reality and calls it justice, endorses.

Tragedy according to Plato's critical opinion

The ancient Greek world gave world literary philosophy great names such as Plato, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and others who revolutionized the art of writing and told it the idea of critical thinking, on the forms, styles and skills of making art generally. In ancient antiquity these attitudes were primary, and it was almost impossible for the writings to break away from the tradition, which at its core was dominated by tragedy, as one of the formats that would later dominate the entire globe as a source of inspiration. Man seems to need to experience loss, suffering and tragedy, perhaps to appreciate the love and spirit that it (life) gives. Therefore, in this paper, the types of dramatic works are taken for analysis, in particular the tragic and the tragedy according to the critical opinion of Plato, and the development of this field in old Greece, with the most famous authors Aeschylus and Sophocles and with Shakespeare in Europe. A special space in this study is occupied by Plato's criticism of Homer, to whom he even asked special questions, because, as is known, Plato in his theory on the state was looking for a literature, an art that would have educational effects on young people ...as well as the theoretical problems that characterize tragedy, the hero and heroism and other feats, and the writing style within the literary narrative.

Анализ критики Платоном и Аристотелем парменидовского единства сущего

Анализ критики Платоном и Аристотелем парменидовского единства сущего

المنهج الجدلي وإمکان المعرفة في فلسفة أفلاطون

ينحصر موضوع البحث في دراسة نظرية المعرفة عند أفلاطون، تلک النظرية التي تبحث في المقام الأول عن الحقيقة المطلقة وعن الکيفية التي يمکن أن تکون بها موضوعا للفهم والإدراک البشرى. وبإمعان النظر في جملة محاورات أفلاطون نجد أن نظريته عن المعرفة لم تتخذ صورة کاملة ولم تطرح بطريقة مباشرة في أي محاورة على حدى، وإنما کانت تتطور وتتعدل بشکل تدريجي عبر المحاورات. ويمکن التمييز، داخل نظرية المعرفة الأفلاطونية، بين جانبين رئيسيين أحدهما سلبي والآخر إيجابي: ويتمثل الجانب السلبي في الانتقادات التي وجهها أفلاطون إلى نظريات المعرفة التقليدية الشائعة سواء السابقة عليه أو المعاصرة له. ويمکن القول بأن أفلاطون قد استطاع، من خلال ما قدمه من انتقادات لکل من المعرفة الحسية والمعرفة الاستدلالية، أن يحدد بوضوح ما هو ( ليس بعلم أو بمعرفة )، وذلک کمرحلة تمهيدية لبناء نظريته الخاصة عما هو ( علم ومعرفة بحق ). أما الجانب الإيجابي فقد تمثل في بناء أفلاطون لنظريته الخاصة عن المعرفة، والتي تقوم على أساس التمييز بين نوعين أساسيين من المعرفة(*)، هما: ( المعرفة الحقيقية اليقينية ) وموضوعها المفاهيم والمبادئ الکلية والمطلقة والمفارقة لکل ما هو مادي وحسي ومتغير، أي أن موضوعها هو ( المثل )، والتي يمکن أن تؤدي بدورها إلى اکتساب العلم الحقيقي. و( المعرفة الظنية غير الحقيقية ) وموضوعها الإدراکات والانطباعات الحسية وما تؤدي إليه من أحکام ظنية، والتي لا يمکن أن تؤدي بأي شکل من الأشکال إلى اکتساب أي علم حقيقي. والواقع إن أفلاطون لم يکتفي بهذا التمييز بين المعرفة اليقينية والمعرفة الظنية، وإنما تجاوز ذلک فوضع منهجا عقليا يمکن من خلاله بلوغ وإدراک تلک المفاهيم والمبادئ الکلية والمطلقة والمفارقة، أي يمکن من خلاله بلوغ وإدراک المثل ذاتها، وبالتالي يمکن العقل البشري من اکتساب العلم الحقيقي والمعرفة اليقينية، وکان هذا المنهج العقلي هو ( الجدل أو الديالکتيک ). The Dialectical Method And Possibility Of Knowledge In Plato's Philosophy Mohamed Samir Mohamed Abd Elhamid Demonstrator, Department Of Philosophy And Sociology Faculty Of Education - Ain Shams University Abstract: research subject is consisted in studying Plato's theory of knowledge, which searches primarily for absolute truth and how it can be a subject of human understanding and perception. A closer look at Plato's dialogues, we find that his theory of knowledge was not presented directly in any one of dialogues separately, but rather developed and modified gradually through dialogues. It can also distinguish, within his theory of knowledge, between two main aspects one negative and other positive: negative aspect was represented in Plato's criticisms of traditional theories of knowledge, whether previous or contemporary to him. It can be said that Plato was able, through his criticisms of both sensible and inferential knowledge, to clearly define what is “not true knowledge”, as a preliminary phase to build his own theory of what is “true knowledge”. And Plato devoted “Theaetetus” to this critical negative aspect of his theory of knowledge. positive aspect was represented in Plato's building of his own theory of knowledge, which is based on distinction between two basic types of knowledge, which are: “The certain knowledge” and its object is universal, absolute and transcendent concepts and principles of everything that is material, sensible and changing, that is, its subject is the Ideas which in turn can lead to acquisition of true knowledge. “The uncertain knowledge” and its subject is sensible perceptions which in turn lead to uncertain judgments, and therefore It cannot lead in any way to acquisition of any true knowledge. Indeed, Plato did not stop at distinction between certain knowledge and uncertain knowledge, but rather went beyond that, so he developed a rational method which through it human mind can be able to realize universal, absolute and transcendent concepts and principles. It is possible through this method to realize the Ideas itself, Thus this method enables human mind to acquire true knowledge, and this method was The Dialectical Method. It can be said that Plato almost presented this positive aspect of his theory of knowledge in all his dialogues, and at forefront of those dialogues “The Republic”, “Phaedrus” and “Meno”. (*) إن هذا التمييز بين ( الحقيقة ) و( الظن ) کان بمعنى ما هو الأساس لکل الفلسفات اليونانية السابقة، إذ يظهر هذا التمييز بوضوح في احتقار هرقليطس وبارمنيدس لأخطاء العامة. وبالإضافة إلى ذلک نجد أن بارمنيدس قد قسم قصيدته الفلسفية إلى جزئيين: الأول طريق الحق، والثاني طريق الظن. وکذلک ميز ديموقريطس بين المعرفة الخالصة والمعرفة الغامضة. ومن هنا کانت هذه النظريات بمثابة المصدر الممهد لنظرية أفلاطون عن المعرفة. Look: Ritchie, David George: Plato, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902. Chapter: IV, P: 81.

Isócrates libre de la sombra de Platón

Isocrates is commonly remembered as a logographer or as a distinguished professor of oratory, but never as a philosopher, although he persists in styling himself as such. No doubt this is largely due to Plato's criticism, which has significant influence on the way Isocrates is still considered. According to Plato, Isocrates who promotes a kind of philosophy with no regard to truth but only to opinion, does not deserve to be seen as an accomplished philosopher. Despite his claims, Isocrates would fail to set himself apart from other sophists, with whom he does not wish to be confused. In this article, I want to free Isocrates from Plato's disparaging view by showing what kind of philosophy Isocrates claimed to teach.

Plato on the Value of Philosophy: The Art of Argument in the Gorgias and Phaedrus

Plato on the Value of Philosophy: The Art of Argument in the Gorgias and Phaedrus

Plato and His Standpoint on the Tragedy As a Literary Creation

The subject matter of this paper focuses on the types of dramatic works, in particular the tragic and tragedy according to Plato's critical thinking, and the development of this field in ancient Greece, through many of its most famous authors like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare in Europe. A special space in this study is engaged by Plato's criticism of Homer, to whom he even posed particular questions, since as it is well-known, in the theory on the state Plato sought literature, as an art that would have educational effects on young people... as well as theoretical problems that characterize the tragedy, the heroic and heroism and other essentials, and the writing style within the literary confession. Tragedy is a kind within dramatic works, in which the character of the hero develops and heads into an impasse, in an unequal, fierce, heroic war that leads to catastrophe. This, ultimately, constitutes one of the three main types of dramatic literature, alongside comedy and drama,; however, it has very close ties to many other literary and philosophical notions, such as: mimesis, subject, fable, the high idea, the inevitable conflict, catharsis, the death of the hero, the triumph of the central idea, etc.

A Mathematician Reads Plutarch: Plato's Criticism of Geometers of His Time

This essay describes the author's recent encounter with two well-known passages in Plutarch that touch on a crucial episode in the history of the Greek mathematics of the fourth century BCE involving various approaches to the problem of the duplication of the cube. One theme will be the way key sources for understanding the history of our subject sometimes come from texts that have much wider cultural contexts and resonances. Sensitivity to the history, to the mathematics, and to the language is necessary to tease out the meaning of such texts. However, in the past, historians of mathematics often interpreted these sources using the mathematics of their own times. Their sometimes anachronistic accounts have often been presented in the mainstream histories of mathematics to which mathematicians who do not read Greek must turn to learn about that history. With the original sources, the tidy and inevitable picture of the development of mathematics disappears and we are left with a much more interesting, if ultimately somewhat inconclusive, story.

Introduction: Shaw and Classical Literature—What You See Is Not Always What You Get

Introduction: Shaw and Classical Literature—What You See Is Not Always What You Get

The Future of Knowing and Values: Information Technologies and Plato's Critique of Rhetoric

ABSTRACT Transhumanism that is centered on artificial intelligence shares core features with large-scale data collection and surveillance that commercial and governmental entities pursue: the idea that knowledge is informational in nature, that technologies are value neutral, and that ethical challenges can be framed in technical-procedural terms. In this article, I am mainly concerned with the latter, society-wide, manifestations of these features. Here, criticisms leading to technical-procedural changes in data practices are of limited use because they foster an illusion of foundational headway while leaving questionable assumptions about knowledge and values intact. Because what is closest is hardest to glean, we may more readily discern these assumptions if we see them operating in a milieu that is at once quite different and strikingly familiar. Ancient rhetoric manifests versions of our three factors. Plato's critique of rhetoric, along with aspects of his philosophical methodology, helps us see why we should contest increasingly prevalent views of knowledge and values—and do so before other constructions become unfathomable.

Plato's Criticism of Poetry in Republic and its Educational Implications

플라톤은 [국가]에서 당시 교육의 대명사인 시(poiēsis)에 대해 논한다. [국가] 2, 3권에서시는 수호자를 위한 기초 교육 중 하나로 제시되는 데 비해, 10권에서 시는 해로운 것이자 추방되어야 할 것으로 기술된다. 이러한 외견상의 상충은 교육의 차원에서 바라볼 때 해소될 수있다. [국가] 2, 3권에서 시는 어린이를 교육대상으로...

PLATO AND THE SPECTACLE OF LAUGHTER

This essay examines the critical role played by comedy and laughter in Plato. It begins by taking seriously Plato's critique of comedy and his concerns about the negative effects of laughter in dialogues such as Republic and Laws. It then shows how Plato, rather than simply rejecting comedy and censuring laughter, attempts to put these into the service of philosophy by rethinking them in philosophical terms. Accordingly, the laughable or the ridiculous is understood not just in relation to the ugly or the ignoble, as it is in Homer, but in relation of blindness, ignorance, and falsity. By taking up such a philosophical perspective, one can then distinguish what truly is laughable from what merely appears so. It is in this way that Plato is able to explain why Socrates appeared so ridiculous to the multitude but was known to be anything but to those who were able to see him with philosophical eyes, that is, those who were able to attend to what I call the spectacle of laughter. The paper concludes by following the curious role played by laughter in the very dialogues where it seems least appropriate, namely, the dialogues recounting the trial and death of Socrates.

LA PRAXIS FILOSÓFICA COMO PRAXIS POLÍTICA. UNA LECTURA DE ‘LO POLÍTICO’ EN EL FEDRO DE PLATÓN

El Fedro de Platón se presenta como un diálogo que versa sobre retórica yerótica. No obstante, el tratamiento platónico de ambos temas deja entreverel entramado político que les da sentido. En este trabajo me ocuparéde leer la crítica platónica a la escritura en clave política, para de estamanera tratar de establecer el carácter histórico del relato platónico.Intentaré mostrar que la crítica a la escritura se enmarca dentro de unaoperación platónica por legitimar una recuperación de los privilegios deciertos sectores aristocráticos en el contexto de la democracia ateniense.Este artículo partirá de la ‘différence politique’ como marco teórico, paraluego analizar la dimensión de ‘lo político’ en la presentación del relato yla articulación de los elementos del relato de Theuth y Thamus.

Thumos and rationality in Plato’s Republic

This article examines Plato's critique of, and revisions to, Socratic rationality via a close examination of Socrates’ teaching about the early education of the guardians in the Republic. I argue that Plato's move to a new more Platonic Socrates in Books 2 through 10 of the Republic reflects his revisions to the particular style of rationality exhibited in the arguments of his teacher, Socrates, in Book 1. Plato's discussion of thumos, the middle part of the soul, shows that he moves to an imagistic and aesthetic notion of rationality to correct the problems with the combative and analytical style practiced by Socrates. At the same time, Plato retains the key elements of his teacher's philosophy, and this includes their shared notion that any outlook on life that orients itself away from the fact of human mortality is irrational on a foundational level.

Socrates Ex Machina: The Preamble of Plato’s Laches (178a1-181d7)

The preamble to Plato's Laches is an integral part of the whole dialogue. It puts forward the fundamental beliefs of Socrates' interlocutors in an intelligent way, while highlighting the ideological confusion caused by their uncritical acceptance of traditional beliefs. Thus, Socrates' interlocutors are brought to an insoluble impasse. Plato offers a way out of this impasse by introducing the figure of Socrates, who emerges as the literary instrument of Plato's criticism of Athens' educational system. Socrates' elenchus shows that the only way to achieve the real benefit, the benefit to the soul, is to lead a life of philosophical activity in pursuit of the truth.

Imagining Deliberative Democracy in the Early American Republic by Sandra M. Gustafson (review)

Imagining Deliberative Democracy in the Early American Republic. By Sandra M. Gustafson. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. Pp. 271. Cloth, $45.00.)Reviewed by Katherine HenryMichael Sandel has advanced a cogent critique of the liberal ideal of the unencumbered self - the fiction that citizens can bracket certain fundamental differences and participate in civic life on terms of abstract equality.1 In her important new book Imagining Deliberative Democracy in the Early American Republic, Sandra Gustafson offers a rich and provocative account of what we might call the encumbered selves who fashioned practices of deliberation in the early nineteenthcentury United States. Her interest is in precisely those moments when the deliberative ideal seems to have reached its limits: both when such encumbrances as religious conviction or habits of discrimination would seem to preclude compromise, and when such legislation as the Compromise of 1850 seems to reveal the inadequacy of compromise as a means of civic resolution. Gustafson's prior work has already established her reputation as a broadly interdisciplinary scholar of early America with a talent for bringing literary and archival material together in surprising and original ways. Imagining Deliberative Democracy enhances that reputation and expands her reach further into the field of American civic culture.One of the fundamental questions underlying theories of public discourse - from Plato's critique of the sophists to American Pragmatism to Jurgen Habermas - is whether truth is imagined intersubjectively or as existing independently. Rather than approach it as a theoretical question, Gustafson examines the effects of a belief in transcendent truth both on the process of civic deliberation and on particular rhetorical forms. For one thing, the belief in a truth that transcends deliberation gives rise to suspicion of silver-tongued orators and the powers of eloquence - a suspicion that Gustafson describes in rich detail, from Edward Tyrrel Channing's 1817 essay warning of the dangers of false excitement and corrupt eloquence, to Daniel Webster's sophisticated critique of extravagant or excessive language, to the anti-intellectualism of David Crockett's frontier style (23, 104). And, in an illuminating discus- sion of twentieth-century accounts of U. S. deliberative democracy, she suggests that such critics as Walter Lippmann and Noam Chomsky can usefully be situated in this longer tradition of anxiety that the deliberative process can be manipulated.But if a belief in transcendent truth can cast doubt on the delibera- tive model of civic engagement, it can also give rise to particularly powerful rhetorical forms. One such form is what Gustafson calls pro- phetic rhetoric, or the rhetoric of the jeremiad, frequently appro- priated by abolitionists. David Walker's Appeal, for example, engaged the deliberative practices of Walker's contemporaries while putting for- ward a position that embodied metaphysical truth claims that chal- lenged deliberative ideals (141). In Gustafson's reading, Walker rejected deliberative exchange in part because of the inability of the deliberative model to address the continued existence of slavery. And it is Webster who most strikingly embodies that inability. Webster, writes Gustafson, espoused a model of deliberative discourse that privileged civility and process and avoided rhetorical excess. Legisla- tors should embrace these ideals, he believed, because they fostered good legislation and helped build consensus (103). Whether one saw Webster's support of the Compromise of 1850 as consensus-building or apostasy revealed much about one's conception of the nature and viability of the deliberative process. …

Rhetoric in the Light of Plato's Epistemological Criticisms

Plato's chief argument against rhetoric is epistemological. Plato claims that rhetoric accomplishes what it does on the basis of experience, not knowledge. In this article I examine Plato's criticisms of rhetoric in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus. I argue that Plato is right to identify rhetoric's empirical basis, but that having this epistemic basis does not constitute an argument against rhetoric. On the contrary, Plato's criticism of rhetoric serves to give us an epistemological explanation of rhetoric's success.

The Image of a Second Sun: Plato on Poetry, Rhetoric, and the Technē of Mimēsis (review)

Reviewed by: The Image of a Second Sun: Plato on Poetry, Rhetoric, and the Technē of Mimēsis Catalin Partenie Jeff Mitscherling . The Image of a Second Sun: Plato on Poetry, Rhetoric, and the Technē of Mimēsis. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2009. Pp. 468. Cloth, $55.90. There are two main discussions of poetry in Plato's Republic: the first one is in Books II and III, the other in Book X. Their conclusions are not entirely coherent. In Books II and III, only some poetry is considered imitative, and certain forms of it are allowed in the ideal city. In Book X all poetry is considered imitative, and all of it is banned from the city. Jeff Mitscherling's book deals with Plato's criticism of poetry and art. It (i) reviews and discusses the main interpretations of the topic, paying special attention to those of Havelock (who argues that under attack is the Athenian educational system) and Gadamer (who argues the real target are the Sophists and their influence); (ii) discusses the prēPlatonic conception of poetry (Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, etc.); (iii) analyzes Plato's views on poetry in dialogues other than the Republic and (iv) in the Republic; and (v) outlines an aesthetics that, the author argues, can help us better understand Plato's criticism of poetry. The volume also contains indexes of the poets Plato quoted and/or referred to; a special index of passages from Iliad and Odyssey quoted and/or referred to; a review of Plato's quotations of Homer in the Republic; a bibliography; and its own general index. Mitscherling's interpretation may be summarized as follows. Plato distinguishes between dramatic and nondramatic poetry, and his criticism of poetry is directed at the technē of mimēsis, namely at the "widespread, uncritical, and obsessive employment of this technē in all spheres of the cultural and intellectual life of Athens" (74). This view, Mitscherling acknowledges, owes much to Havelock's and Gadamer's interpretations: "These thoughts are not my own—it is only their novel synthesis that is mine" (11). The criticism in Book X should be understood as "an attack on illusionistic art, dramatic poetry, the use of poetry in the schools, and the activity of the Sophists. All of these come under attack precisely because they all have as their foundation, as the necessary condition of their existence, that technē of mimēsis which Plato regarded as indicative of a morally, and thus politically, corrupting force: the tendency toward ethical relativism" (257). In the last chapter, drawing on the phenomenology of Roman Ingarden and the hermeneutics of Gadamer, Mitscherling outlines an aesthetics that, he argues, is consistently Platonic and enables us to understand Plato's criticism of art and poetry. His conclusion is that for Plato, the right enjoyment of art "demands the recognition of the symbolic nature of art, of poetry no less than of the visual arts." Thus, Plato's own allegories and myths "perform essentially the same symbolic function in Plato's dialogues as does the poetic image: they all point to some truth that can be indicated in no other or better way" (302). The work of the inspired poet, not that of the mere imitator, might "serve to undermine ethical relativism by turning the attention of the listener toward universal virtues." The listener, however, should be philosophically educated in order to appreciate the work of the inspired poet. In Plato, Mitscherling concludes, poetry and philosophy are not rivals, but companions: "The philosopher can say nothing about this real world of the Forms, and neither, strictly speaking, can the poet. The poet, however, can point to this world, thus rendering possible the vision of the true, the good, and the real. Heraclitus once wrote that 'education is a second sun to the educated' (DK B 134). It may well be the case that [End Page 371] Plato regarded poetry as the image of such a second sun" (304). But the author does not address the question of why Plato did not say this plainly, if this is what he really thought. If he believed that philosophy and poetry are not at all rivals, but companions, why did...

Plato's Criticism Against Democracy and His Vision of the Ideal State in the Republic: New Outlook on 'Politics' and 'The Ruler'

Plato's Criticism Against Democracy and His Vision of the Ideal State in the Republic: New Outlook on 'Politics' and 'The Ruler'