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nostromo
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Montréal, Québec
Mar 2002
time: 00:19
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Because they were interesting puzzles. Gorgias interests Plato because Parmenides does. Gorgias seems to think that all thinking must be like sensing, and infers that thought cannot have as its object the object of the other senses, but must have its own object. Plato tries to get around this in the Theaetetus by arguing that the mind uses the senses as instruments and is not restricted to its own objects.
He also wonders about how falsehood is possible, which is an interesting problem, especially since none of them really had a good idea of what a proposition was (except Aristotle). |
That sounds right. I would also add that explaining why the sophists were wrong also motivated Aristotle to create logic and rhetoric. So we learned something through this. Each fallacious argument is a lesson in logic.
I haven't read the Theaetetus in a long time, but wasn't it Protagoras who said that knowledge is sensing? As I remember it, the first definition of knowledge examined in the Theaetetus, that knowledge is sensing, was Protagoras', no? Correct me if I am wrong.
Last edited by nostromo on 15-04-2005 at 21:15
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:19
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That sounds right. I would also add that explaining why the sophists were wrong also motivated Aristotle to create logic and rhetoric. So we learned something through this. Each fallacious argument is a lesson in logic. |
There's a schism in our understanding of sophistry. We tend to waver between thinking of it as rhetoric over logic or technical education (e.g. Hippias) or relativism (Protagoras), but it later becomes a practice of making absurd and difficult arguments to annoy people or promote scepticism (as in the Euthydemus and Stilpo).
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I haven't read the Theaetetus in a long time, but wasn't it Protagoras who said that knowledge is sensing? As I remember it, the first definition of knowledge examined in the Theaetetus, that knowledge is sensing, was Protagoras', no? Correct me if I am wrong. |
Yep. That's what Plato has Protagoras say. I doubt whether Protagoras equated knowledge with sensation, but Plato has him do so for his [Plato's] own purposes.
The refutation of the Gorgianic theory is at the end of that section, where Socrates argues that direct sensation cannot account for "common" concepts like being and sameness, so we must have a central mind that processes the deliveries of the five senses.
I've been thinking about it, since it helps me solve a problem with Plato's theory of linguistic representation in the Cratylus.
The Theaetetus is a brilliant dialogue. It basically destroys every modern epistemological theory (except for the naturalized ones) before they even get off the ground.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:19
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For Plato no belief can constitute knowledge.
Knowledge is for Plato an infallible (ἀψευδὲς) grasp of reality (τὸ ὄν). No true belief will be infallible in the right way because, if it is possible to have a false belief without realizing it, it is also possible to have a true belief without any guarantee of it being true (since its truth depends on a relation external to the belief state).
True belief with any sort of account (λόγος) is never going to be knowledge because you end up with a regress when you consider whether we know tha account or not (we have true belief + an account of it, and true belief plus an account of that account, and so on...).
Russell's solution is to allow non-propositional acquaintance with sense data, and have a different sense of "to know" for the account. Plato thinks that won't work, since he thinks he has shown that the sort of non-representational sensation (direct acquaintance) that Russell proposes, robs us of a unitary mind (because we know that the objects of one sense cannot be the objects of another - and if we then propose that the senses offer up sensation to the mind, for its assent or dissent from what seems to be the case, then that just throws us back into claiming that knowledge is a kind of belief).
Any representational theory of sensation will suffer the same problem, as representations themselves can misrepresent reality without the person who has them ever becoming aware of it – hence they are not infallible in the way that knowledge is supposed to be.
That's why Plato thinks that knowledge is non-representational cognition of non-sensible, immaterial entities.
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nostromo
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Montréal, Québec
Mar 2002
time: 00:19
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I'll have to reread my Plato and think about it. But here's my first reaction...
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Knowledge is for Plato an infallible (ἀψευδὲς) grasp of reality (τὸ ὄν). |
Plato and the other dogmatic philosophers of his time (as opposed to the sceptics) were asking for the moon.
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No true belief will be infallible in the right way because, if it is possible to have a false belief without realizing it (...) |
Is that the second part of the Theaetetus? But how can I know something without even believing it in the first place? Can I say, for example, that I know that 2+2=4, but I don't believe it? That would be strange, to say the least.
(There's possibly a translation problem here. When you say "belief" you mean "doxa", right? If so, I'm not sure "belief" is a good translation. For the greeks, "episteme" and "doxa" are two different things, whereas
in english, knowledge can be understood as a type of belief.)
Moreover, the fact that you can have false beliefs without realizing it doesn't even scratch, imo, the traditional definition of propositional knowledge. Knowledge is justified true belief. Hence, if it isn't true, its not knowledge.
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(...) it is also possible to have a true belief without any guarantee of it being true (since its truth depends on a relation external to the belief state). |
I'm not sure I understand this point. If a belief is true, its true; if its not well, its not. Unless your saying: well, sometimes, you think something is true, but it isn't. Again, I don't think this makes a dent in the traditional definition of propositional knowledge. I can always answer: if its not true, then it ain't knowledge.
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True belief with any sort of account (λόγος) is never going to be knowledge because you end up with a regress when you consider whether we know tha account or not (we have true belief + an account of it, and true belief plus an account of that account, and so on...). |
λόγος is notoriously hard to translate. But imo there are a lot of satisfying answers to the regress problem. So no worries here.
That is not to say that the our traditonal definition of knowledge hasn't any flaws. Your aware that Gettier found some real counter-examples. I'm not sure Plato has found any.
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because we know that the objects of one sense cannot be the objects of another - and if we then propose that the senses offer up sensation to the mind, for its assent or dissent from what seems to be the case, then that just throws us back into claiming that knowledge is a kind of belief |
According to Plato, I presume. It obvious that different senses can have the same object. When I play the piano, I see it, I touch it and I hear it... Anyway, didn't Aristotle tried to solve this problem with his theory of common sense?
Mmmm, it doesn't seem that Unicode does french accents.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:19
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quote:
Originally posted by nostromo
I'll have to reread my Plato and think about it. But here's my first reaction...
Plato and the other dogmatic philosophers of his time (as opposed to the sceptics) were asking for the moon. |
Perhaps, but at least Plato delivers.
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Is that the second part of the Theaetetus? But how can I know something without even believing it in the first place? Can I say, for example, that I know that 2+2=4, but I don't believe it? That would be strange, to say the least. |
Only if you hold to the modern fetish that the objects of knowledge are propositions, as the objects of belief are. Plato firmly rejects that hypothesis.
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(There's possibly a translation problem here. When you say "belief" you mean "doxa", right? If so, I'm not sure "belief" is a good translation. For the greeks, "episteme" and "doxa" are two different things, whereas
in english, knowledge can be understood as a type of belief.) |
Not really. Plato uses various words for knowledge. But it's not a semantic problem - the Theaetetus argues against the possibility of propositional knowledge.
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Moreover, the fact that you can have false beliefs without realizing it doesn't even scratch, imo, the traditional definition of propositional knowledge. Knowledge is justified true belief. Hence, if it isn't true, its not knowledge. |
But Plato argues that you have no infallible way of telling that it's true. Hence true belief isn't knowledge. If you look for an account of justification, you either end up with sensation (which doesn't work) or more beliefs, which suffer the same problem.
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I'm not sure I understand this point. If a belief is true, its true; if its not well, its not. Unless your saying: well, sometimes, you think something is true, but it isn't. Again, I don't think this makes a dent in the traditional definition of propositional knowledge. I can always answer: if its not true, then it ain't knowledge. |
True belief is true, but someone can have a true belief without thinking it is true, and thinking you have a true belief does not mean you have one. The content of a true belief does not give its possessor certainty.
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λόγος is notoriously hard to translate. But imo there are a lot of satisfying answers to the regress problem. So no worries here. |
Name one.
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That is not to say that the our traditonal definition of knowledge hasn't any flaws. Your aware that Gettier found some real counter-examples. I'm not sure Plato has found any. |
Plato invented them. The jury example at the end of the second thesis is one.
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According to Plato, I presume. It obvious that different senses can have the same object. When I play the piano, I see it, I touch it and I hear it... Anyway, didn't Aristotle tried to solve this problem with his theory of common sense? |
No. The formal objects are different - the extensional objects may be the same. He admits this. You cannot see a sound, or hear a sight - that is what he means.
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nostromo
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Montréal, Québec
Mar 2002
time: 00:19
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Perhaps, but at least Plato delivers. |
Plato delivers the philosophical goods, I agree. One of the things I like about teaching is rereading the classics. Something I don't do while writing my PhD thesis: I mostly read contemporary philosophers and psychologists. More often than not, the classics are more interesting than contemporary philosophers. That said, the quest for certainty, the quest for infaillible knowledge is dead and buried.
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Only if you hold to the modern fetish that the objects of knowledge are propositions, as the objects of belief are. Plato firmly rejects that hypothesis. |
Then call me a fetishist then, because I don't want to see intellectual intuitions making a comeback. Assuming that's what you mean by "non-representational cognition of non-sensible, immaterial entities."
My speciality isn't epistemology. You know all this better than me. Foundationalism is a classic answer. But radical foundationnalism (like Descartes') is not the way to go, since we can't put our hands on infaillible foundations for our knowledge. Fallibilist foundationalism is a lot more plausible, because you're not asking for infaillible foundations. Coherentism is also an answer. But pure coherentism is also problematic. I think coherentism needs to be supplemented by a touch of faillibilist foundationalism, or reliabilism or both.
For the rest, I'll take your word for it. I definitely have to reread the Theaetetus.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:19
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quote:
Plato delivers the philosophical goods, I agree. One of the things I like about teaching is rereading the classics. Something I don't do while writing my PhD thesis: I mostly read contemporary philosophers and psychologists. More often than not, the classics are more interesting than contemporary philosophers. That said, the quest for certainty, the quest for infaillible knowledge is dead and buried. |
Perhaps. I don't think most philosophers really understand Platonism though.
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Then call me a fetishist then, because I don't want to see intellectual intuitions making a comeback. Assuming that's what you mean by "non-representational cognition of non-sensible, immaterial entities." |
No. Intuitions are usually thought of as propositional. Plato thinks that knowledge requires an identity between knower and known. Hence knowledge is non-representational cognition of Forms.
It's easily the best answer ever given to the traditional problem of knowledge, and the most ignored.
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My speciality isn't epistemology. You know all this better than me. Foundationalism is a classic answer. But radical foundationnalism (like Descartes') is not the way to go, since we can't put our hands on infaillible foundations for our knowledge. Fallibilist foundationalism is a lot more plausible, because you're not asking for infaillible foundations. Coherentism is also an answer. But pure coherentism is also problematic. I think coherentism needs to be supplemented by a touch of faillibilist foundationalism, or reliabilism or both. |
The cogito is one example of infallible cognition, if it works. But that's about it. The Theaetetus to my mind gives all forms of foundationalism other than that a black eye, because they are propositional accounts of knowledge.
The problem with coherentism is that it makes all relations between the world and our beliefs causal, rather than justificatory. But it does have a point: only a belief could justify a belief – but the Theaetetus closes that possibility off.
Old books  
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15-04-2005 07:57
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