GAIL FINE ON REPUBLIC V, VI – 7 ERIK GIARD-CHASE PHILOSOPHY 108, SPRING 2019
OVERVIEW ¡ Fine’s Two Main Arguments ¡ Republic 5 ¡ Fine on Republic 5 ¡ Republic 6 – 7 ¡ Fine on Republic 6 – 7
FINE’S TWO MAIN ARGUMENTS ¡ Claim1: Contents Based Analysis dominates Objects Based Analysis, Refutation of Two Worlds Hypothesis ¡ Claim 2: Plato is a Coherentist not a Foundationalist
REPUBLIC BOOK V Question: Who Should Rule? ¡ “Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either none exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils, Glaucon, or I think, will the human race. And, until this happens the constitution we’ve been describing in theory will never be born to the fullest extent possible or see the light of the sun.” (473c9 – 473e4) (Humans want to flourish, eudaimonia) ¡ (Philosophers do not rule → World full of evils, no flourishing) ¡
REPUBLIC BOOK V Question: Why Should Philosophers Rule? ¡ “The lovers of sights and sounds like beautiful sounds, colors, shapes, and everything fashioned out of them, but their thought is unable to see and embrace the nature of the beautiful itself.” (476b3) ¡ “But someone who, to take the opposite case, believes in the beautiful itself, can see both it and the things that participate in it and doesn’t believe that the participants are it or that it itself is the participants – is he living in a dream or is he very much awake?” ¡ “So we’d be right to call his through knowledge, since he knows, but we could call the others persons thought opinion, since he opines?” (Philosophers posses knowledge) ¡
FINE ON BOOK V, ARGUMENT 1 ¡ What is Knowledge and What is Belief? Dialectic Requirement – Interlocuters (sight- The Set of True ¡ lovers) must believe the claims made by and False Things Socrates to be true. Contents based ¡ Contents Based Analysis analysis ¡ Knowledge is set over what is true ¡ The set of propositions that can be believed includes some truths, and some false hoods ¡ Objects Based Analysis ¡ Knowledge and belief are set over distinct entities, e.g. disjoint The Set of False Things The Set of True Things ¡ Restricts ones’ epistemic position to that of the predicative Objects based analysis
FINE ON BOOK V, ARGUMENT 1 ¡ Reject T wo Worlds Hypothesis! ¡ It is in virtue of the different functions that knowledge and belief perform that they are individuated. ¡ Knowledge entails the truth ¡ Belief entails both truth and falsity ¡ Knowledge is not revelatory ¡ One can have beliefs and knowledge about the same objects or propositions
R E P U B L I C V I , V I I – T H E L I N E , T H E C AV E Understanding: Forms, “I mean that which reason itself grasps by the power of dialectic” (511b-c); Soul / Intelligible First Principles Thought: Equations, Theory, Hypotheses That Yield Conclusions Belief: Objects Themselves, Horses, Visible / Sensible Dogs, Erik, Manufactured Things Images: Shadows, Reflections, Instagram Accounts, Social Media
R E P U B L I C V I , V I I – T H E L I N E , T H E C AV E ¡ Question: How Does One Improve One’s Epistemic Position? ¡ Question: How Does One Come to Be (Flourishing, dynamic sense. An existence of a self, as contrasted against an instance of a self) ¡ Question:What is the Point of Education?
F I N E O N B O O K S V I & V I I , A R G U M E N T 2 ¡ Knowledge and Belief are intellectual dispositions, existentially speaking. ¡ Fine contends that these dispositions or states, are reflected in the various stages of the Line and Cave allegories described by Plato in Republic VI & VII . ¡ The epistemic state an individual is in is not conditioned by the objects or propositions he or she encounters, but the method and power of reasoning that he or she engages in. ¡ This is hostile to the TW view (515d)
F I N E O N B O O K S V I & V I I , A R G U M E N T 2 ¡ All individuals pursue The Form of The Good (TFTG) ¡ TFTG is the teleological structure of things ¡ To know the TFTG one first requires knowledge of the Forms ¡ Knowledge of the Forms necessarily requires knowledge ¡ One arrives at knowledge from belief by way of the elenchus.... ¡ “Then also understand that, by the other subsection of the intelligible, I mean that which reason itself grasps by the power of the dialectic... enabling it to reach the unhypothetical first principle of everything.” (511b – 511c, speaking to L4)
F I N E O N B O O K S V I & V I I , A R G U M E N T 2 ¡ The elenchus is enabling ¡ It can not be used to belittle or destroy. ¡ Fine: Accept CoherentistView, Reject Foundationalist View ¡ Fine: Access and arrive at knowledge via elenchus. Knowledge is evermore robust and explanatory accounts. ¡ Fine: Knowledge can’t be revelatory / unexplainable ¡ T o consider Socrates/Plato as a deceiver or ’jokester’ is logically absurd
Q U E S T I O N S THANKS! “ Now, does the matter seem like that to you, or does it seem to you that knowledge is a fine thing capable of ruling a person, and if someone were to know what is good and bad, then he would not be forced by anything to act otherwise than knowledge dictates, and intelligence would be sufficient to save a person?” -Protagoras, 352c3
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