2009

Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 2014

Socrates’ purposes, in his philosophical conversations with others, remain a puzzle. We review eleven distinct interpretive options, many of which stretch back more than a hundred years, finding all of them untenable. We then propose an original, twelfth interpretation as the most faithful and charitable alternative. Our discussion takes as its focus Plato’s dialogue Laches as a representative of the aporetic dialogues.

In this paper, I explore three autobiographical narratives that Plato’s Socrates tells: his report of his conversations with Diotima (Symposium 201d–212b), his account of his testing of the Delphic oracle (Apology 21a–23a), and his description of his turn fromnaturalistic philosophy to his own method of inquiry (Phaedo 96a–100b).1 This Platonic Socrates shows his auditors how to philosophize for the future through a narrative recollection of his own past. In these stories, Plato presents us with an image of a Socrates who prepares others to do philosophy without him. In doing so, Plato’s Socrates exhibits philosophical care for his students. In the first part of the paper, I briefly discuss Socrates’ overall narrative style as Plato depicts it in the five dialogues that Socrates narrates. I then analyze each of these autobiographical accounts with an eye toward uncovering what they reveal about Plato’s presentation of Socrates’ philosophical practice.2 Finally, I offer a brief description of what it might mean to practice philosophy as care for self and care for others in a Socratic fashion.

Dialogue, 2013

University of the Witwatersrand The concept of human wisdom is fundamental for an understanding of the Apology. But it has not been properly understood. The received interpretations offer insufficient resources for explaining how Socrates could have been humanly wise before Apollo’s oracle, when he falsely believed that he was not wise at all. I argue that a satisfactory interpretation of human wisdom can be given in terms of “philosophia”. Socrates was humanly wise before the oracle because he loved wisdom—even though he did not know that he did. The analysis is confirmed by its resolution of some enduring difficulties in the interpretation of Apology, in particular, the question of why Socrates continued to search for knowledge he thought impossible to attain.La notion de sagesse humaine est fondamentale pour comprendre l’Apologie — mais elle n’a jamais été comprise correctement. Les interprétations généralement acceptées n’offrent pas assez d’éléments pour expliquer comment Socrate pouvait faire preuve d’une sagesse humaine devant l’oracle d’Apollon, alors qu’il croyait à tort ne pas être sage du tout. Je soutiens qu’une interprétation satisfaisante de la sagesse humaine est possible en termes de «philosophia». Socrate fut humainement sage devant l’oracle parce qu’il aimait la sagesse — même s’il ne savait pas qu’il l’aimait. L’analyse est confirmée par le fait qu’elle résout certaines difficultés bien établies de l’interprétation de l’Apologie, en particulier la question de savoir pourquoi Socrate continuait à chercher un savoir qu’il savait être hors d’atteinte.

Socratica IV. Selected papers, 2020

Selected papers on the Socratic Philosophies peer-reviews by the Editorial Committee of the International Society for Socratic Studies.

Quantity: 1 Order Available as a Google eBook for other eReaders and tablet devices. Click icon below... Summary Shows that the dialogue in Plato's Phaedo is primarily devoted to presenting Socrates' final defense of the philosophical life against the theoretical and political challenge of religion. "That the psychology of its characters is a key to understanding the argument of a Platonic dialogue is a principle effectively applied in this reading of the Phaedo and well supported by the results: in bringing out the differences in the perspectives of Socrates' two interlocutors on this occasion-one primarily concerned with the question of the goodness of the philosophic life, and indeed of life as such, the other motivated by a deep skepticism about the possibilities of human reason-this study leads us to see why the conversation in the Phaedo has to be divided between them, and how the strategy of each argument is motivated by its particular addressee."-Ronna Burger, Tulane University While the Phaedo is most famous for its moving portrayal of Socrates' death and its arguments for the immortality of the soul, Ahrensdorf argues that the dialogue is primarily devoted to presenting Socrates' final defense of the philosophic life against the theoretical and political challenge of religion. Through a careful analysis of both the historical context of the Phaedo and the arguments and drama of the dialogue, Ahrensdorf argues that Socrates' defense of rationalism is singularly undogmatic and that a study of that defense can lead us to a clearer understanding and a deeper and richer appreciation of the case both for and against rationalism. "This clear, extremely well-written book distinguishes itself from other fine works on the Phaedo by its careful attention to Socrates' rhetoric. It does a masterful job of showing how Socrates intends his arguments to affect Simmias and Cebes-as well as readers like them-even in cases where Socrates must have seen those arguments to be logically weak. Ahrensdorf's insight into the differences between Simmias and Cebes is excellent."-Chris A. Colmo, Rosary College

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.

In his third speech in Plato’s Apology, Socrates consoles those jurors who voted for him by telling them that “death is one of two things”—either annihilation or a transfer to another place. In either case, he says, death would be an “advantage.” Scholars have understood this passage and several others to be found in Plato’s early or Socratic dialogues, as an indication that Socrates accepted that virtue is necessary for happiness (VNH). For Socrates, and all the rest of us who lack virtue, the consequence is that death is an advantage because we can never actually achieve happiness in life. In this paper, I review the textual evidence for attributing VNH to Socrates, and claim that the attribution is mistaken: Socrates did not hold such an extreme view about the human condition, and should be understood, instead, as holding the far more plausible view that human beings who do not achieve complete virtue may nevertheless enjoy some degree of happiness if they make it their mission to “become as wise as possible.”

Philosophical Practice and Counseling. Official Journal of the Korean Society of Philosophical Pratcice, 2018

In this essay, which is a summary of the main ideas in the author’s Ph.D. research (still work in progress), the author proposes a method to justify philosophical practice philosophically. Such a justification is necessary for the sake of the connection with academic philosophy and to avoid philosophical bungling. The author connects to Socrates’ skeptical and maieutic legacy, as well as to Husserl’s perceptive/experiential and Wittgenstein’s descriptive and ordinary language legacies. He explains his hypothesis that a philosopher might be aware of his epistemic premises and able to test these premises in the practice of philosophizing. He discusses his methodic and epistemic hypotheses, the latter being experiential and semantic questioning.

Apeiron, 2001