Plato’s Theaetetus and the Hunting of the Proposition
-
Lesley Brown
Abstract
Section 1 contrasts the approaches to Plato of F.M.Cornford and Gilbert Ryle, two of the early twentieth century’s leading Plato interpreters. Then I trace and evaluate attempts to discern in Plato’s Theaetetus a recognition of the role of the proposition. Section 2 focuses on the hunting of the proposition in Socrates’ Dream in the Theaetetus. Ryle, inspired by Logical Atomism, argued that Plato there anticipated an insight about the difference between names and propositions that Russell credited to Wittgenstein. I rehearse difficulties for understanding the logos of the Dream as a proposition, preferring a reading of logos there as something like definition: a reading Wittgenstein also adumbrated. Section 3 examines attempts by writers such as Burnyeat and Kahn to find Plato allocating a starring role to the proposition in the argument at Theaetetus 185–6: perception, since it cannot grasp being, cannot grasp truth and hence cannot be knowledge. On their reading a grasp of being is understood as a grasp of something propositional. Problems for the propositional reading include Socrates’ talk of grasping ‘the truth of something’ (alētheia tinos), and the way the dialogue develops after 186.
References
Bostock, David (1988): Plato’s Theaetetus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239307.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Brown, Lesley (1993): “Understanding the Theaetetus”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 11, pp. 199–224.Suche in Google Scholar
Burnyeat, Myles F. (1990): The Theaetetus of Plato, M. J. Levett (trans.) with Introduction. by M. F. Burnyeat. Indianapolis: Hackett.Suche in Google Scholar
Burnyeat, Myles F. (1976): “Plato on the Grammar of Perceiving”, Classical Quarterly 26, pp. 29–51.10.1017/CBO9780511974069.006Suche in Google Scholar
Campbell, Lewis (1883): The Theaetetus of Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Cooper, John M. (1970): “Plato on Sense perception and Knowledge: Theaetetus 184–186”, Phronesis 15, pp. 123–46.10.1515/9781400826445.43Suche in Google Scholar
Cornford, Francis M. (1935): Plato’s Theory of Knowledge. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315822884Suche in Google Scholar
Cornford, Francis M. (1939): Plato and Parmenides. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315822945Suche in Google Scholar
Cornford, Francis M. (1908): Microcosomographia Academica. Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes Publishers.Suche in Google Scholar
Fine, Gail (1979): “Knowledge and Logos in the Theaetetus”, Philosophical Review 88, pp. 366–97. page numbers cited from reprint in Fine (2003).10.2307/2184956Suche in Google Scholar
Fine, Gail (2003): Plato on Knowledge and Forms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199245581.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Frede, Dorothea (1989): “The Soul’s Silent Dialogue: A Non-Aporetic Reading of the Theaetetus”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 215, pp. 20–49.10.1017/S0068673500005137Suche in Google Scholar
Frede, Michael (1987): “Observations on perception in Plato’s Later Dialogues”. In: Michael Frede: Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–8.Suche in Google Scholar
Gaskin, Richard M. (2013): “When Logical Atomism met the Theaetetus: Ryle on Naming and Saying”. In: Michael Beaney (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 852–67.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199238842.013.0037Suche in Google Scholar
Kahn, Charles H. (1981): “Some Philosophical Uses of ‘To be’ in Plato”, Phronesis 26, pp. 105–34.10.1163/156852881X00204Suche in Google Scholar
McDowell, John (1973): Plato: Theaetetus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Modrak, Deborah (1981): “Perception and Judgement in the Theaetetus”, Phronesis 26, pp. 35–54.10.1163/156852881X00123Suche in Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand (1956): Logic and Knowledge, Essays 1901–1950, edited by Robert C. Marsh. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand (1918/1919): “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, The Monist 28, pp. 495–527, and 29, pp. 33–63, 190–222, 345–80.10.4324/9780203864777Suche in Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert (1939): “Plato’s Parmenides”, Mind 48, pp. 129–51 and 302–25. Reprint in Reginald E. Allen, ed. (1965): Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics. London: Routledge.10.1093/mind/XLVIII.190.129Suche in Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert (1960): “Letters and Syllables in Plato”, Philosophical Review 69, pp. 431–51.10.2307/2183479Suche in Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert (1966): Plato’s Progress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert (1971): Collected Papers vol. 1. London: Hutchinson.10.1111/j.1468-0149.1972.tb03781.xSuche in Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert (1990): “Logical Atomism in Plato’s Theaetetus”, Phronesis 35, pp. 21–46. The paper was written in 1952.10.1163/156852890X00024Suche in Google Scholar
Sedley, David (2004): The Midwife of Platonism. Oxford: University Press.10.1093/0199267030.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Szaif, Jan (1996): Platons Begriff der Wahrheit. Freiburg-Munich: Verlag Karl Alber.Suche in Google Scholar
Waddell, W. W. (1894): The Parmenides of Plato. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons.Suche in Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922): Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, with introduction by Bertrand Russell. London: Kegan Paul.Suche in Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953): Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Suche in Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. (1969): Philosophische Grammatik, ed. Rush Rhees. Frankfurt:a/M Suhrkamp. Translation Anthony Kenny (1974): Philosophical Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Introduction
- Articles
- Analytic Philosophy, the Ancient Philosopher Poets and the Poetics of Analytic Philosophy
- Drafted into a Foreign War?
- The Pursuit of Parmenidean Clarity
- Paying the Price: Contextualizing Exchange in Phaedo 69a–c
- Plato’s Theaetetus and the Hunting of the Proposition
- The Scandal of Deduction and Aristotle’s Method for Discovering Syllogisms
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Introduction
- Articles
- Analytic Philosophy, the Ancient Philosopher Poets and the Poetics of Analytic Philosophy
- Drafted into a Foreign War?
- The Pursuit of Parmenidean Clarity
- Paying the Price: Contextualizing Exchange in Phaedo 69a–c
- Plato’s Theaetetus and the Hunting of the Proposition
- The Scandal of Deduction and Aristotle’s Method for Discovering Syllogisms
