The Ontology of Socratic Questioning in Plato's Early Dialogues by Kirkland Sean D

Author:Kirkland, Sean D. [Kirkland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781438443454
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

Having placed his interlocutors before the question, ‘What is virtue?’ Socrates suggests that they not investigate this “perhaps greater question” eutheōs or ‘straightforwardly, directly,’ but that they instead focus on a meros or a ‘part, portion’ of this whole, an investigation that is “likely” easier. We should notice that this does not rule out the possibility that what follows will itself be a non-straightforward or indirect consideration of the being of virtue.

In the secondary literature on the early dialogues, Socrates is often presented as holding a conviction opposed to the one he states here. That is, many scholars argue that the ‘unity of virtue’ is a Socratic principle, doctrine, or belief. With this it is intended that for Socrates all of the various virtues, such as courage, piety, temperance, and justice, refer to the same condition of the soul (and also that he believes this condition to be, in a fundamental sense, a form of wisdom or knowledge).12 As we have observed, what characterizes the figure of Socrates in Plato's early dialogues most emphatically and consistently is his “human wisdom (ἀνθρωπίνη σοφία)” (Ap. 20d), or that he acknowledges his own non-knowing of virtue. Indeed, it is not his knowledge or his correct convictions, but his non-knowing of virtue that seems to account for, however paradoxically, the superior and even heroic status of this man as presented in Plato's works, which in sum constitute the greatest tribute ever paid by a student to his or her teacher. Given this, we would do well to try to explain Socrates' relation to this unity of virtue not as Socrates' presuming to know something, but in terms that are consistent with his going about “always in aporia” (Hp. Ma. 304b–c).

In order to do so we need only attend to the fact that what we find here, and in every such case where a Socratic “doctrine” might be suspected, is not Socrates stating his own opinion, belief, or understanding, but inhabiting the site of appearing with his interlocutors. This is the vital function of what has been referred to as the Socratic “say what you believe” requirement (Cri. 49c–d, R. I.346a, Prt. 331c, Grg. 500b),13 as well as of his constant requests for consent from his interlocutors. That is, Socrates requires his interlocutors to state earnestly the way the subject matter of the questioning appears to them and he will brook no hypothetical answers to his questions. Furthermore, along the way Socrates secures the interlocutors' agreement that the subject matter appears each time to require the next step in the argument. In addition to ensuring that the interlocutor himself will be refuted rather than an abstract definition, and consequently that the interlocutor will most likely suffer some actual distress and pain at the refutation, these tactics also effectively situate Socrates and maintain him at the site of the interlocutors' everyday attitude, such that the elenchus has only their opinions or the way the issue appears to them with which to work. It then develops and

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