There seem to be two major schools of thought regarding Plato and his aims – the skeptical school of Plato and the doctrinal school of Plato. The skeptical school holds that Plato was, in the end, a skeptic. Plato believed the role of philosophy was to investigate and question as it is unlikely that we’ll ever come to truly know the answers to the questions we ask. (Plato’s acadamy eventually develops into this school.) The doctrinal school holds that Plato did put forward positive theses such as his theory of the soul, his epistemological theory, his account of justice, etc.
Both schools of thought have a lot of evidence from within the dialogues. We can see evidence for the skeptical school in the Theaetetus passage in which Socrates likens himself to a midwife. We can see evidence for the doctrinal school from a variety of dialogues – the Republic’s discussion of the soul (or justice, or epistemology, or the Forms), the Phaedo’s account of the Forms, the Gorgias’s account of virtue and happiness, etc.
One other bit of evidence that the skeptical school uses is the dialogue form itself. Plato uses the dialogue form, they contend, because Plato is distancing himself from the claims that are put forward. He’s distancing himself because he does not feel that the claims put forward are sufficiently justified so as to be considered knowledge. Writing a treatise would indicate a belief that you are justified in the claims that you put forward. Writing a dialogue, especially the sort of dialogues that Plato wrote, in the voice of another person and with a rather aporetic undertone emphasizes that these dialogues and the ideas put forward are proposals. They’re continuations of the debate (in the skeptical spirit of continuous investigation and inquiry), but not conclusions to the debate.
I, personally, find myself torn. Quite recently (since teaching Plato last semester, actually) I’ve come to develop a much deeper appreciation for the skeptical strands that run through the dialogues. But I think that there is another equally good reason for the dialogue form that Plato writes in and for the deliberate detachment from authorial authority (Julia’s terminology that I’m co-opting here) that results from the dialogue form. This proposal is very much in line with a doctrinal reading of Plato and his philosophy.
We can understand why Plato wrote in a dialogue form if we appreciate the philosophical and epistemological method that he put forward and his emphasis on learning for oneself, not copying from others. Plato very much believed (well…this is assuming a doctrinal view, I suppose. But whatever.) that one comes to develop a deeper understanding through engaging in the dialectic. In talking, conversing, debating with oneself and (more importantly) with others. It is through active engagement with the material that one comes to have episteme. If he believes this so strongly (and I think he does. See Republic 7, or Phaedo 100, or Hippias Major 298b) then it would be odd that his explicit discussion of philosophic or epistemic method would be greatly divorced from the method that he actually engages in and the style with which he writes. Plato says that we come to have understanding through engaging in the material, in dialegontai, in discussing. Believing this, then, it makes sense that he would write in dialogues as that is how one ought to do philosophy. I quite doubt that Plato wrote these dialogues for his own amusement, because he liked the long hours stooped over a papyrus roll (or perhaps in dictation to the slave who was stooped over the papyrus roll). Instead I think he wrote these works because he wanted to help others engage in the sorts of thinking and examinations in which he himself was engaged. And he would do this using the method he thought best: the dialogue form.
In addition to this, another central epistemic/methodological point that Plato believed was that coming to have understanding is hard work and that someone can’t do that hard work for you. You cannot simply read a book and, simply in virtue of reading the book (or hearing the lecture), come to have understanding. (This, of course, ties into this need for active engagement with the material.) This explains the sort of distancing that Plato does within the dialogues. Without being able to appeal to authority, those who read the dialogues are forced to consider the answers and objections for themselves. With the awareness that Socrates in the context of this dialogue may be wrong, or may contradict the views put foward by the Socrates of another dialogue, the students of Plato (both then and now) are forced to examine the arguments on their merits rather than on the merits of the mouthpiece. And, of course, examinations of arguments is one crucial step in active engagement with philosophy.
OK….so those are my thoughts. We can very much understand why Plato wrote in the dialogue form, why he distanced himself from the views he put forward without having to succumb (not like succumbing is a bad thing. But still.) to the skeptical reading of Plato’s philosophy. Plato wrote in the dialogue form because 1) discussion and dialogue are the key components of the philosophic/epistemic method put forward and 2) because it forces his students to actively engage in the material, to look beyond the name and reputation of the writer and focus on the arguments put forward. And all of this, I believe, is quite amenable to a doctrinal reading of Plato’s philosophy.
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Michelle,
I am by no means a Plato scholar (or philosophy scholar, for that matter, being a lowly senior philosophy major hoping to be accepted to grad school!)but I have a question for you.
To what extent do you think Plato (or Socrates) philosophical method, through dialectic or elenchus, is a vehicle for self-reflection and examination. It seems to me that “debating with oneself”,
may lead just as much to self-deception as to knowledge. I started thinking about this in light of Michael’s recent post on his website that we both replied to. Is it possible for Plato’s method to lead to the self-awareness that Nietzsche displays, for example, in Ecce Homo? I suppose that Plato’s reply is that if one knows what is good, which they would find out through examining arguments with others, they will subsequently do the good. But the type of good that Plato is after (objective) seems very different than Nietzschean self-examination. It seems very possible that one can examine virtue, knowledge, etc. yet fail to examine oneself. I’m not sure that I formulated my question very well, or if it’s even a good question…
Thanks for the comment, Kevin! I think it’s a great question…although I doubt my abilities to offer a decent reply to it. Plato very much believed that one not just engage in conversations with himself, but go around and engage in conversations with others. Further one cannot be dogmatic in his beliefs – he cannot hold a belief simply because he believes it to be true (although, of course, he can hold a belief if he is able to give defensible reasons for why it’s true). So this combination of the need to seek discussions with others and the realization that one’s aim is the pursuit of truth rather than the maintenance of certain beliefs come hell or high water will probably do a lot to avoid problems with self-deception. (Since one will (hopefully) become aware of the false beliefs and not feel compelled (either consciously or unconsciously) to maintain the beliefs regardless.)
About the second part of your question – whether one can examine (for example) virtue without examining herself. Plato just flatly denies this. I think this is largely because of the dialectic style that Plato adopts. In trying to develop an account of what virtue is one will necessarily reflect to try to figure out what she thinks it consists of. Then, through engaging in the dialectic, we come to see whether our beliefs are justified or not. Thus, our attempts to develop accounts and justify those accounts will lead to a great degree of introspection. Whether this is true or not is open to question. I find myself pretty skeptical about it (well…I think you’ve got to engage in at least some level of self-examination but it’s questionable about how much self-examination would be necessary in order to engage in philosophic investigations.
(I should think about this question more and see how it ties back into Plato’s conceptions of the soul and epistemology. I’ve got class in half an hour, though, so the thinking will have to happen a bit later!)
Oh…and you should definitely consider yourself a philosophy scholar/philosopher!
Michelle, I came upon your post via the carnival. It’s an interesting question but I wonder if we aren’t falling into the trap of a false dichotomy. Afterall might not Plato have been one in some dialogs and an other in the other dialogs? We already divide his thought into the early (largely seen as more Socratic), middle, and late periods. (Not to mention questionable dialogs like the Alciabides – although I really like that one) If we allow figures like Wittgenstein to be “divided” why not Plato?
I definitely agree that the dialogs are in the form they are for a reason. I think that whole approach of Plato has largely been lost in philosophy. (Well, there are a few exceptions like Peirce, but not many)
I’ll admit my biases though, in that I tend to like the way many Continental influenced thinkers read Plato. I may be completely wrong, but I think his ideas of things like “the Good” and the approach to them reminds me a lot of Heiddeger’s analysis of “for-the-sake-of” in places like Being and Time. Pure potential that never is actual. In that case then Plato might be neither skeptic nor doctrinal but something in between. (i.e. pointing to something “real” but never actual in the sense of being able to be a doctrine)
Hi Clark,
Thanks for the comment! Being a grad student at the UofA, we don’t read much continental philosophy *grin* but I may just have to check out Being and Time. There are times (many, many times) when I wish I could take a couple years off from everything and just read. Maybe then I’d be able to tackle the various books and subjects and philosophers that I intend to get to!
I completely agree with you that Plato likely didn’t put forward positive doctrines in all of the dialogues (the Theaetetus comes to mind as a quite prominent example, many Socratic dialogues, etc). (Or, put another way, that Plato acts the skeptic in some dialogues while acting the dogmatist in others.)
I guess that in the end I think that Plato was a dogmatist (as the ancient skeptics called all those who held that they knew things) who thought that the way one does philosophy is to first play the skeptic and then, from there, begin to develop a positive account. One must begin by investigating the beliefs he already holds (ala the Socratic elenchus/dialectic) and must determine whether he ought to maintain those beliefs or reject them as false. Once he’s done that he can build on his beliefs and/or try to develop a new account of the matter. (All the while continuing to examine the new beliefs he forms.) I think that this sort of reading of Plato can accomodate the motivations for both the skeptical and doctrinal schools of thought although, in the end, I still want to maintain that it’s more doctrinal than skeptical (because Plato, in the end, does put forward positive theses). Although I’m certainly not a doctrinal absolutist…I don’t want to deny that Plato definitely had skeptical tendencies. I just see them as playing a role in his (positive) epistemology and philosophic methodology.
Of course this is such a sledge-hammer approach to a very nuanced philosopher, so I’m a bit hesitant to make such broad ranging charges. I’m certain that any number of dialogues speak against my above account of Plato’s methodology/epistemology!
Continuing the Discussion