Author Archives: M.A.D. Moore

The Problem of Truth in Philosophical Dialogue

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Socrates: How wonderful, Glaucon, is the power of the “art” of disputation!

Glaucon: How, in fact?

Socrates: Because, many seem to fall into its clutches involuntarily and think they are not being eristic but are in fact dialoging, since they are unable to look at the subject under discussion by dividing form by form, but they pursue the literal words of what is said, and make use of contention, instead of dialectic, in dealing with each other (Translation mine, Republic 454a1-9). [1]

Socrates had his own sophists, in addition to the feisty youths of his circle, and the countless, helpless interlocutors he good-naturedly harassed, as partners in his dialogues, rarely as entirely competent as much as instrumental “yes” cogs in his argumentative apparatus.  Now, perhaps Socrates was not as consistent in his practice in championing the charitable principle I quoted above, yet I think there is considerable value in reflecting on the intellectual poise when engaging in argument, or really any topic of dispute, and communication of that dispute. 

The kind of disposition I have in mind serves most well in classroom or seminar settings, but it also recommends itself to any interaction between people who are merely sharing ideas.  The guide in all this, as Socrates was fond of believing, is that the people in a discussion are pursuing Truth.  Why is this important?  The post-modern or relativist would simply scoff at the idea of Truth, and even the more jaded might say that Socrates, or even philosophers in general, think they are pursuing truth when all they are doing is advocating for their very personal and socially-saturated viewpoints under the dubious guise of objectivity.  I think there are compelling and determinative refutations of this viewpoint, the most devastating being that it is self-refuting, but I want to focus on a different consequence, the idea that without the guide of objective truth we are actually prone to abuse our partners in dialogue.

If two disputants begin from the idea that there is something “out there,” which both are pursuing, each will have a conception of this, concomitant with a motivation to achieve an understanding of this thing “out there.”  The thing “out there,” as it so happens, is Truth.  Now, if one truly believes this, it is easy to see how the commitment to an objective goal, the attainment of Truth, can regulate and pacify the personal feelings and ulterior motives that would otherwise have free reign over the conduct of the disputants.  I say regulate here, not eliminate, for the latter is impossible, while the former is admirable.  This is to say that we are after something beyond, because it is greater, than ourselves, so that anything bearing on ourselves has little or nothing to do with that which we are really after.

On the other hand, if two people earnestly are convinced that they each have their own “truth,” unmoored to any independent truth or objective fact, from where will the impetus arise to treat each other with respect or kindness or to give each other’s arguments a charitable hearing?  This, I suggest is a great problem inside certain classrooms and academic settings, in that people who do not concede there is objective Truth and yet who are given to disputation are very unlikely to have patience for any view that does not result in personal advancement, of some sort, for themselves.  In the final analysis, it is difficult to understand how, lacking an adequate plumb-line for truth, one person can, when he is alone by himself, distinguish between the putative intellectual “reasons” because of which he holds a position, and his fickle preferences, which are equally explanatory.  When the arguer and the argument are one, is it any wonder that challenges to a view are taken personally?

 

REFERENCES:

[1] Ἦ γενναία, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ὦ Γλαύκων, ἡ δύναμις τῆς ἀντιλο-
γικῆς τέχνης.

Τί δή;

Ὅτι, εἶπον, δοκοῦσί μοι εἰς αὐτὴν καὶ ἄκοντες πολλοὶ
ἐμπίπτειν καὶ οἴεσθαι οὐκ ἐρίζειν ἀλλὰ διαλέγεσθαι, διὰ (5)
τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι κατ’ εἴδη διαιρούμενοι τὸ λεγόμενον ἐπι-
σκοπεῖν, ἀλλὰ κατ’ αὐτὸ τὸ ὄνομα διώκειν τοῦ λεχθέντος
τὴν ἐναντίωσιν, ἔριδι, οὐ διαλέκτῳ πρὸς ἀλλήλους χρώ-
μενοι.

Aristotle’s Categories: Predication with Genus and Differentiae

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(See here for the previous posts on the Categories: Chapter 1, Chapter 2)

Aristotle’s philosophical writing, often opaque in style as well as content, can also venture into extended periods of intricate simplicity, innovating complexity and depth from a rather limited set of fixed, technical terms.  This is the case for much of the Categories, and chapter 3 certainly fits this description as well.  In this post, I will be continuing my quasi-commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, now arriving at chapter 3.

Whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject (ὑποκειμένου), as many things as are said of the thing being predicated, all of these will also be said of the subject. For example human is predicated of an individual human, and animal is predicated of a human. Therefore animal will be predicated of an individual human also. For an individual human is both a human and an animal.

 

Of the things differing in genus and not being subordinated to one another there are differentiae different in kind (τῷ εἴδει), for example, there are [distinct] differentiae of animal and of knowledge: footed, winged, water-dwelling, two-footed, and none of these is [a differentia] of knowledge. For [one kind] of knowledge does not differ from [another] knowledge by having two feet. Yet nothing prevents there being the same differentiae of the genera subordinate to each other. For the higher genera are predicated of the things said under them, so that as many differentiae as there are of the thing being predicated there will be of the subject as well (Translation mine, Categories 1b10-24). [1]

Aristotle begins this section with the confusingly worded, “Whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject (ὑποκειμένου), as many things as are said of the thing being predicated, all of these will also be said of the subject.”  Now the example that follows makes the concept he is addressing here rather clear.  If an individual human is a human, and if a human is an animal, then an individual human is an animal.  In this instance, using Aristotle’s terminology, the subject and the thing being predicated of is “the individual human,” while the thing being predicated is “human.”  (Keep in mind that I use quotation marks not to designate a mere linguistic term, but to clarify and distinguish the objects to which they refer.)

Aristotle next invokes language about genus and differentia (plural, genera and differentiae.)  Assuming that there are such entities we may roughly think of as “kinds of things,” designated as genera, then it follows that these things must be organized and distinguished from each other in some way.  For example, taking animal as a real genus, we can say that there are (at least) two “kinds”: birds and fish.  These two kinds of things, birds and fish, are each a species of the genus animal, and although they belong to the genus animal, birds and fish are distinguished from each other by differing in some salient way.  Possession of this differing property or properties, such as scales or feathers, is what makes the one animal (fish) differ from the other (bird).  Thus these properties are called differentiae.  Since this usage of genus is not to be confused with our modern classifications in biological nomenclature, we can freely apply the term genus to whatever level of kinds of things we wish.  With confidence in being philosophically consistent, in other words, we can also say that in addition to animal, fish is also a genus, with the differentiae of salt-water or fresh-water picking out two other species based on the difference of the type of water inhabited.  What Aristotle warns against in the second half of this text is being sloppy when it comes to distinctions made in one genus that do not apply to another, viz. knowledge and animal, where one applies two-footedness to knowledge.

 

REFERENCES:

[1] Ὅταν ἕτερον καθ’ ἑτέρου κατηγορῆται ὡς καθ’ ὑποκει- (10)
μένου, ὅσα κατὰ τοῦ κατηγορουμένου λέγεται, πάντα καὶ κατὰ τοῦ ὑποκειμένου ῥηθήσεται· οἷον ἄνθρωπος κατὰ τοῦ τι-
νὸς ἀνθρώπου κατηγορεῖται, τὸ δὲ ζῷον κατὰ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου·
οὐκοῦν καὶ κατὰ τοῦ τινὸς ἀνθρώπου τὸ ζῷον κατηγορηθήσε-
ται· ὁ γὰρ τὶς ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἄνθρωπός ἐστι καὶ ζῷον. (15)
τῶν ἑτερογενῶν καὶ μὴ ὑπ’ ἄλληλα τεταγμένων ἕτεραι
τῷ εἴδει καὶ αἱ διαφοραί, οἷον ζῴου καὶ ἐπιστήμης·
ζῴου μὲν γὰρ διαφοραὶ τό τε πεζὸν καὶ τὸ πτηνὸν καὶ τὸ
ἔνυδρον καὶ τὸ δίπουν, ἐπιστήμης δὲ οὐδεμία τούτων· οὐ γὰρ
διαφέρει ἐπιστήμη ἐπιστήμης τῷ δίπους εἶναι. τῶν δέ γε (20)
ὑπ’ ἄλληλα γενῶν οὐδὲν κωλύει τὰς αὐτὰς διαφορὰς εἶναι·
τὰ γὰρ ἐπάνω τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτὰ γενῶν κατηγορεῖται, ὥστε
ὅσαι τοῦ κατηγορουμένου διαφοραί εἰσι τοσαῦται καὶ τοῦ
ὑποκειμένου ἔσονται.

The Perceptive Daisy: I See You, I See You Not

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Thus far in the Theaetetus Socrates, Theodorus and Theaetetus have begun to discuss the nature of knowledge, discussing the Protagorean (and simplistic) ‘man is the measure’ tagline as a prompt to their first candidate: perceiving is knowledge.[1]  What does Socrates mean, or more properly, what does he take Theaetetus to have accepted, by “perceiving is knowledge?”  One thoughtful and easily producible experiment on this thesis is offered by Socrates at 165a, to which I will now turn.

 Socrates: In fact I say this is the most incredible question, and I think it is something like this: is it possible for the same man to know what he knows and not to know what he knows?

 

Theodorus: What then do we reply, Theaetetus?

 

Theaetetus: It is impossible, I think.

 

Socrates: It is not impossible, if you make seeing knowing. How would you deal with the inescapable question, trapped inside a well, so to speak, when some intrepid person asks you, placing his hand on one of your eyes, “Do you see my cloak with your covered eye?”

 

Theaetetus: I will deny I see it with this eye, but with the other I say I can see it.

 

Socrates: So then, do you both see and not see the same thing?

 

Theaetetus: Indeed–– yet in this specified way.

 

Socrates: Yet I did not arrange the question in this way nor did I ask how, but whether that which you know is also that which you do not know. But now what you do not see you appear to see. And you happened to agree that seeing was knowing and not seeing was not knowing. Therefore from these things consider how it turns out for you.

 

Theaetetus: Yet I do consider that it is at odds with what I hypothesized (Translation mine, Theaetetus 165a2-d1). [2]

(Not all Platonic experiments on the eye are so compelling or provocative. Notably in the Timaeus, I think, it is given out as proof that light emanates from the eye on the grounds that if you squeeze it a light is seen!)

I really am attracted to this little scenario, especially in light of the current investigation as to whether perception is knowledge.  Perhaps I am taken in by the simple novelty of the experiment, attributing too much to it–– for example, Cornford seems to dismiss it as a “cavil” and sophistry unfair to Protagoras’ position.  Yet what is going on philosophically when the eye is covered?

Assuming that perceiving is knowledge, say we then proceed to cover one eye and look at an eye chart with our uncovered eye.  Socrates says this shows that we both know and don’t know, since we both see (with one eye) and don’t see (with the other eye).  This seems like an easy position to refute, even from a Platonic standpoint.  Elsewhere Socrates says that the eyes are merely instruments and that the soul is that which really sees; so in this case the soul, qua self, would know, yet could not be said to not know.

However, playing along, what does covering one eye and seeing with the other prove if perceiving is knowing?  That we neither know nor not know?  This seems absurd.  That we know?  Yet we also do not know, with the eye that is covered.  That we don’t know?  Yet we do know with the eye that is uncovered.  Perhaps then, it is a proof that we don’t know whether we know or don’t know, since we perceive that we both see/know with one eye and don’t see/know with the other, and to perceive is to know.  This then would be a self-defeating belief, it seems.

Furthermore, stepping away from the confines of this dialogue for a moment: is this a proof that seeing does not occur in the eye(s), but in the mind, and thus one explanation for how or why Plato created a distinction between the instruments of the self (body) and the self itself (soul)?

 

 

REFERENCES: 

[1] Starting at about 165a
[2] ΣΩ. Λέγω δὴ τὸ δεινότατον ἐρώτημα, ἔστι δὲ οἶμαι
τοιόνδε τι· “Ἆρα οἷόν τε τὸν αὐτὸν εἰδότα τι τοῦτο ὃ οἶδεν
μὴ εἰδέναι;”
ΘΕΟ. Τί δὴ οὖν ἀποκρινούμεθα, ὦ Θεαίτητε; (5)
ΘΕΑΙ. Ἀδύνατόν που, οἶμαι ἔγωγε.
ΣΩ. Οὔκ, εἰ τὸ ὁρᾶν γε ἐπίστασθαι θήσεις. τί γὰρ
χρήσῃ ἀφύκτῳ ἐρωτήματι, τὸ λεγόμενον ἐν φρέατι συσχό-
μενος, ὅταν ἐρωτᾷ ἀνέκπληκτος ἀνήρ, καταλαβὼν τῇ χειρὶ
(c) σοῦ τὸν ἕτερον ὀφθαλμόν, εἰ ὁρᾷς τὸ ἱμάτιον τῷ κατειλημ-
μένῳ;
ΘΕΑΙ. Οὐ φήσω οἶμαι τούτῳ γε, τῷ μέντοι ἑτέρῳ.
ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν ὁρᾷς τε καὶ οὐχ ὁρᾷς ἅμα ταὐτόν;
ΘΕΑΙ. Οὕτω γέ πως. (5)
ΣΩ. Οὐδὲν ἐγώ, φήσει, τοῦτο οὔτε τάττω οὔτ’ ἠρόμην
τὸ ὅπως, ἀλλ’ εἰ ὃ ἐπίστασαι, τοῦτο καὶ οὐκ ἐπίστασαι.
νῦν δὲ ὃ οὐχ ὁρᾷς ὁρῶν φαίνῃ. ὡμολογηκὼς δὲ τυγχάνεις
τὸ ὁρᾶν ἐπίστασθαι καὶ τὸ μὴ ὁρᾶν μὴ ἐπίστασθαι. ἐξ
οὖν τούτων λογίζου τί σοι συμβαίνει. (10)
(d) ΘΕΑΙ. Ἀλλὰ λογίζομαι ὅτι τἀναντία οἷς ὑπεθέμην.