A Philosophical Solution to the Problem of Socrates

Is Socrates a Model for the Rest of Us?, 2005

A revised version of a chapter in Craig de Paulo, Patrick Messina, and Marc Stier, eds. Ambiguity in the Western Mind, (Peter Lang, Inc. International Academic Publishers, 2005). The philosopher who, on the standard interpretation, seeks above all others to escape ambiguity is Plato. The world of forms is, after all, portrayed as a attractive realm precisely because everything is just what it is and nothing else. Yet, at the same time, Plato presents his philosophy is a literary form that, if only we could recognize it as such, is highly ambiguous in nature. In recent years, the importance of the dramatic character of the Platonic dialogue has been widely recognized. Scholars have paid greater attention to who says what to whom and under what circumstances. The irony of having an ironist—Socrates—as one’s main spokesman has been duly noted. This essay on Plato’s Symposium follows a very few contemporary philosophers in taking this new way of interpreting Plato one step further. He takes seriously the challenge that is put to Socrates in the Symposium, a challenge that touches not just or mainly his philosophy but his way of life. Along with other new interpreters of Plato, the essay suggests that Plato’s ideas may be found in not just in Socrates’ words but in the speeches of other characters in the Platonic dialogues. Stier, however, goes further in suggesting that, however noble it is, Socrates’ life may not be the Platonic model for the rest of us human beings. The picture presented of Socrates in the Symposium suggests that he is too different from even the best of other human beings to serve as a model for us. Socrates is a profoundly strange creature, whose qualities suggest that he has partly escaped from the usual circumstances of human life, circumstances that are best presented in Aristophanes account of how we were mutilated by the gods. As a result, Socrates escapes from human eros as well. Yet because he lives among us, and seeks to understand us in order to understand himself, Socrates must pretend to share a common nature with us. The ambiguity of Socrates position—and the danger that accompanies that ambiguity—is revealed when Alcibiades burst into the drinking party and tells tales about his mentor / tormentor. As the drama ends, the ambiguity of Socrates position is shown to parallel the ambiguous nature of the dialogue itself, in which tragedy and comedy are intertwined.

Published book, 2025

Socrates urges us to examine our lives, but what exactly does that mean? Should we question our moral convictions, or construct theories of virtue and the good? This book argues for a third path: the best human life is one of moral learning, in which we actualise our potential for wisdom. Readers will gain a fresh perspective on the Socratic method—not as mere argument, but as a process of inquiry. The author develops an exegetical model of dialogue and shows its fidelity to Plato’s texts. He then situates this model in the scholarly literature and uses it to clarify several puzzling features of Socrates’ approach. The result is a deeper understanding of Socrates’ method and his philosophical life. Socrates’ Search for Wisdom: An Exegetical Theory will appeal to scholars, students of Greek philosophy, and general readers, continuing the Socratic tradition of engaging specialists and non-specialists alike.

2009

Mnemosyne, 2019

This short paper offers an interpretation of Socrates’ closing words in Plato’s Apology. I argue that the closing words are directed at two particular groups of people at the trial, the three accusers and the jurymen who voted for Socrates’ death penalty. The interpretation I propose does not assume any confusing shifts in the intended recipients of Socrates’ words. Instead, it gives a natural reading of all the verbs and pronouns in the second person plural that follow the third person plural autōn at 41e1, it fixes the reference of the final ō andres accordingly and without compromising the distinction introduced by addressing only the friendly jurors with ō andres dikastai. In addition, I argue that the interpretation makes excellent sense of Plato’s text and gives it a richer meaning than what we find in the literature.

Philosophy in Review, 2011

Peterson's book addresses a familiar puzzle in Platonic scholarship: in dialogues such as the Apology and Euthyphro, the depicted Socrates disavows wisdom and avoids advancing views of his own, focusing instead on elenctic examination of his interlocutors' positions. In dialogues such as the Republic and Phaedo, however, Socrates no longer scrutinizes the views of his interlocutors, but rather seems to advocate ambitious philosophical theses of his own. The question is, how can we explain the shift? The traditional response is to understand changes in the depicted Socrates as indicative of changes the author. We eventually find a doctrinal Socrates who no longer engages in elenchus, the view goes, because we eventually have a doctrinal Plato who no longer thinks the elenctic method is the best.

Mind, 2003

In Plato’s Laches, we find Socrates speaking to two generals, Laches and Nicias, during the Peloponnesian War. The philosopher finds himself in a position where he might possibly direct statesmen during a crucial political moment. However, instead of giving them guidance, it appears that instead, Socrates sets these generals in conflict with each other. The end of the conversation raises questions about philosophy’s own possibility in the light of challenges posed to it by divine revelation. Socrates' intention, thus, may be to secure time with the sons of Lysimachus and Melesias, because, he believes that by educating them, he can refine their moral self-understanding enough to be useful interlocutors for his continued inquiry into moral opinions, and, therewith, the divine. Political philosophy comes to light then, not as a skill that guides politics, but an activity that attempts to ground the possibility of philosophy.

In Phaedo 95A4-102A9, we find the famous account by Socrates of his own intellectual history. Our best evidence, including Aristotle's testimony, leads us to suppose that this is Plato's own autobiography on display. It contains, as I shall argue, the most concise and complete statement of the nature of Platonism, both its distinction and separation from the philosophies of Plato's predecessors and the outline of its positive construct. In this autobiography, Socrates rejects the explanations of the natural philosophers given for scientific problems. Instead, he posits separate Forms as the source of true explanation. The naturalism of Plato's predecessors, explicitly here that of Anaxagoras, presumes materialism and mechanism as the matrix for scientific explanation. The positing of the explanatory role of Forms entails the rejection of those presumptions. In addition, these Forms as participatable οὐσίαι can only fulfill their explanatory roles if nominalism is false, that is, if it is false that the only things that exist are unique individuals. So, Plato announces in this passage his rejection of materialism, mechanism, and nominalism. In addition, the focus on Forms as explanatory entities is preceded by the argument that we already know these Forms prior to embodiment. So, the claim of Pre-Socratic skeptics that knowledge of the ultimate explanation of things is not available to us, particularly if these explanations are non-sensible, is rejected, too. Finally, insofar as the Forms fulfill an explanatory role, both the epistemological and ethical relativism of Sophists like Protagoras is rejected. This is owing to the objectivity of Forms as well as their universality. The rejection of materialism, mechanism, nominalism, skepticism, and relativism is the matrix for Plato's positive metaphysical construct. The autobiography 'hypothesizes' Forms as explanations, adding that any hypothesis is provisional until one comes to 'something adequate' (τι ἱκανόν). I argue here, on the basis of an analysis of the meaning of 'hypothesis' in Republic and elsewhere, that what would be 'adequate' cannot be another hypothetical entity, but rather the unhypothetical entity that the Idea of the Good is explicitly said to be and that, as Aristotle tells us, is identical with the One. That which is 'adequate' cannot be anything that is complex, that is, anything that exists and has an οὐσία. That is why the unhypothetical first principle of all must be ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας. Further, the claim that there must be a unique first principle of all reveals a great deal about the entire explanatory framework of Platonism. First, it tells us that no explanation can be ultimate or adequate if it does not end in the adduction of the first principle. Thus, Socrates’ ‘simple hypothesis’ to the effect that something has a property f owing to the causal operation of Fness is, indeed, too simple; it is only provisional. The ‘clever hypothesis’ that adduces relations among Forms to explain the original phenomena must also be provisional. The reason why this is so, I argue, is every Form, regardless of its relations to other Forms, is essentially complex. It is ‘composed’ of its existence and its nature or essence. To claim that x is g because x is g and G always accompanies F may be true, but it leaves entirely unexplained how an eternal and immutable and apparently simple entity can implicate the nature of another entity. For example, participation in a Form of Hot may be provisionally explained by participation in a Form of Fire and an assertion that a Form of Fire and a Form of Hot are necessarily connected. But the putative necessary connectedness of Fire and Hot is problematic, particularly if we insist that Fire itself is not really hot. Without the explanation for this necessary connectedness, there is no adequate explanation for the initial phenomenon. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, without such an explanation, both the simple and the cleverer hypothesis do not really explain anything at all. They are equivalent to maintaining that x is f because just because it is f. Every adequate must conclude with a principle that is self-explanatory, that in which existence and essence are identical. The 'adequate' explanation for all natural phenomena unifies the elements of the matrix of Plato's negative assessment of the natural philosophy of his predecessors. Thus, the unhypothetical first principle of all shows why anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-skepticism, and anti-relativism are all necessarily connected. Accordingly, 'Platonism' does not name a smorgasbord of philosophical theories or positions from which one can pick and choose, variously making qualified accommodations for the polar opposite of Platonism, namely, naturalism. The intellectual autobiography in Phaedo is, in short, an epitome of Platonism. All of the dialogues written after this likely early work are attempts to apply the principles of Platonism to the full range of philosophical problems left to Plato by his predecessors and still current in the 4th century. Finally, this dialogue provides good philosophical evidence that Plato thinking is at least well along the trajectory which ends in the doctrine to which Aristotle’s testimony testifies, namely, the identification of the Idea of the Good with the One.