Self-reflexivity in Plato's Theaetetus: Toward a phenomenology of the lifeworld

Review of Metaphysics

Volumn 52, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 807-833

  Wood, Robert E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS   (United States)

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EID: 0010354951     PISSN: 00346632     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (105)

1. "Plato's Line Revisited: The Pedagogy of Complete Reflection," The Review of Metaphysics 44 (1991): 525-47. have attempted to fit that into the full context of the Republic in "Image, Structure and Content: A Remark on a Passage in Plato's Republic," The Review of Metaphysics 40 (1987): 495-514.
2. "Plato's Line Revisited: The Pedagogy of Complete Reflection," The Review of Metaphysics 44 (1991): 525-47. have attempted to fit that into the full context of the Republic in "Image, Structure and Content: A Remark on a Passage in Plato's Republic," The Review of Metaphysics 40 (1987): 495-514.
3. One could also see how reflexivity works more concretely by attending to the opening of the Republic, which, according to antiquity, Plato reworked many times to get it just right: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 310-311. The very first line, "I went down to the Peireius yesterday," announces the metaphoric theme of going down and going up which structures the whole work precisely because it structures the way we talk about our lives in terms of values. Yet what immediately follows presents a concrete instantiation of the proximate work of the Republic, which is to persuade the citizens that philosophy is no threat to the city but could even be a boon to it. Socrates and Glaucon are about to go "up to the city" when they are arrested by a group which claims the power to hold them from their goal by reason of their greater numbers. Socrates tells them that that in addition to such power, there is also the power to persuade the group to let him and Glaucon do what they originally intended, namely go up to the city. The dialogue leads, through an attempt to persuade the group that philosophy is no threat for the city, to Socrates' leading them in discourse to "a city laid up in heaven," which will never exist on earth but of which each individual can make himself or herself a member by becoming the philosopher-king of his or her own life. It is this self-reflexivity clue that leads us to look at the opening of the Theaetetus in the light of the dialogue taken as a whole. It is the central claim of this paper that in the Theaetetus the self-reflexivity is not merely metaphorical; it is substantive.
4. Theaetetus 151e-187a.
5. Theaetetus 187b-201c.
6. Theaetetus 201c-210a.
7. See also Sophist 263e.
8. Theaetetus 172c-177c.
9. Myles Burneat, The Theaetetus of Plato with the M. J. Levett translation (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990), 2-3. In Gadamerian terms, we will try to achieve a Horizontverschmelzung. See Truth and Method, trans. Garrett Barden and John Cumming (New York: Crossroads, 1982), 267-74 and 337-34.
10. Myles Burneat, The Theaetetus of Plato with the M. J. Levett translation (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990), 2-3. In Gadamerian terms, we will try to achieve a Horizontverschmelzung. See Truth and Method, trans. Garrett Barden and John Cumming (New York: Crossroads, 1982), 267-74 and 337-34.
11. Theaetetus 142a. The translations are from H. N. Fowler, Theaetetus and Sophist, Loeb Classics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977).
12. Theaetetus 142a. The translations are from H. N. Fowler, Theaetetus and Sophist, Loeb Classics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977).
13. Theaetetus 142a. The translations are from H. N. Fowler, Theaetetus and Sophist, Loeb Classics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977).
14. Theaetetus 154d, 143a, 172c, 175e, 187d.
15. Theaetetus 155d.
16. Theaetetus 210d.
17. See Theaetetus 178e.
18. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
19. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
20. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
21. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
22. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
23. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
24. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
25. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
26. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
27. Statesman 269d-274e. The surface level background to the States-man is projected at the beginning of Sophis t as an inquiry into the samenes s and/or difference between the sophist, statesman, and philosopher (Sophist 217a). The deeper level is the inquiry into sameness and difference them-selves playing in relation to motion and rest as encompassed by the notion of being in the Sophist (254a-257b). The latter announces its aim as securing a place for logos among beings (260a), thus continuing the discussion of Theaetetus into logos. The Statesman announces that its aim is not simply to teach how to think about the statesman but how to think about all things (285d). It weaves the hard and soft fibers of apodeixis ("showing from the top down") and paradeigma (a model "showing alongside") respectively. It begins with a paradigm (shepherding, 261c), as does the Sophist (angling, 221b), and comes later to weaving (305e), but the models are set within a top-down framework of the human arts which are set, in turn, within the widest distinction between nature and techne. It proceeds, as does the Sophist, by bifurcatory diairesis, showing relations of sameness and difference. It modifies the paradigm by manipulating and integrating traditional myths which has the effect of setting the divine shepherd at a distance and viewing the statesman as a man among men (268d). It further modifies the diairetic procedure by an articulation of the functions of the city which follows the Phaedrus's advice to "carve along the joints" (265e). It also distinguishes between the universalizing function of law and the particularizing function of prudence in seeking the mean (284e).
28. Nicomachean Ethics 1.10.1100a10-1100b10.
29. Phaedo 64a.
30. Theaetetus 142c.
31. This is the sole reference in antiquity to Socrates' engagement in writing, outside of the belated attempt in the Phaedo at writing a hymn to Apollo and turning Aesop's fables into verse, following the command in a dream to compose poetry (Phaedo 60d-61b).
32. Theaetetus 152a.
33. Theaetetus 152d.
34. The Presocratic Philosophers, ed. G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven (London: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 197 n. 218.
35. Theaetetus 152a
36. Theaetetus 153a, 200e.
37. Theaetetus 181d.
38. Theaetetus 152a.
39. Theaetetus 156e.
40. Theaetetus 159e.
41. Theaetetus 156e.
42. Theaetetus 182a.
43. Theaetetus 158d.
44. Theaetetus 182d.
45. Theaetetus 184c.
46. Theaetetus 160a. To my knowledge, this is the first instance of the notion of intentionality in the history of thought.
47. Theaetetus 191d.
48. Theaetetus 197c.
49. Theaetetus 186a.
50. Theaetetus 185e. I am utterly amazed at the claim some scholars make that the Theaetetus does not consider the εδη. They appear again and again throughout the dialogue, although, it must be admitted, they are not consid-ered in the three theses focally but only in passing.
51. The expression is Whitehead's: Process and Reality (New York: Harper, 1960), 44-7.
52. Phaedrus 274c-277a. See Derrida's comments in his "Plato's Pharmakon," in Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 61-171. We should also look to the Herculean memory feats of Cephalus, Antiphon, and Polydorus in the Parmenides where the immensely complex account of the dialectical turnings between the one and the many (others) have been committed to memory without, at least in the case of Antiphon, sustaining their interest in the issues involved. Antiphon, after all, turned from such memory feats to raising horses!
53. Phaedrus 274c-277a. See Derrida's comments in his "Plato's Pharmakon," in Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 61-171. We should also look to the Herculean memory feats of Cephalus, Antiphon, and Polydorus in the Parmenides where the immensely complex account of the dialectical turnings between the one and the many (others) have been committed to memory without, at least in the case of Antiphon, sustaining their interest in the issues involved. Antiphon, after all, turned from such memory feats to raising horses!
54. On the comparison of writing to speech, see Paul Ricoeur, "The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text," Social Research 38 (1971): 530-7.
55. Theaetetus 163b.
56. Heidegger notes, in "The Origin of the Work of Art," that we have to "listen away" from our actual experience to hear sounds. What we hear are voices in the next room, the airplane overhead, the car going by outside, etc.: Poetry, Language, and Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 26.
57. See Bernard Lonergan for a discussion of these levels: Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 271-278.
58. Sophist 254d. In the Theatetus for 'being' see 186; for sameness and difference, 185a; for motion and rest, 180e-182e.
59. Sophist 254d. In the Theatetus for 'being' see 186; for sameness and difference, 185a; for motion and rest, 180e-182e.
60. Theaetetus 181d.
61. Theaetetus 203c.
62. Theaetetus 207a.
63. See Aristotle's treatment in his Poetics 20.1456b-1457a.
64. Theaetetus 204a.
65. Theaetetus 202b.
66. See Theaetetus 202b.
67. Theaetetus 144c.
68. Theaetetus 191b.
69. Theaetetus 201b.
70. See Gail Fine, "Knowledge and Logos in the Theaetetus," Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 391-2. For a more ample treatment, see Rosemary Desjardins, The Rational Enterprise: Logos in Plato's Theaetetus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).
71. See Gail Fine, "Knowledge and Logos in the Theaetetus," Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 391-2. For a more ample treatment, see Rosemary Desjardins, The Rational Enterprise: Logos in Plato's Theaetetus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).
72. Theaetetus 147d.
73. Theaetetus 192a.
74. Theaetetus 146c, 171e, and 178b.
75. Theaetetus 172c-184b.
76. Theaetetus 175a
77. Theaetetus 174a
78. Theaetetus 186.
79. Theaetetus 174a.
80. Theaetetus 172e.
81. Symposium 202e.
82. Theaetetus 155d.
83. Metaphysics 1.2.982b13.
84. I owe this reading to Heidegger, What Is Philosophy?, trans. William Klubak and Jean T. Wilde (New York: Twayne, 1958), 78-85. Heidegger says elsewhere that in great philosophy and poetry so much "world-space" is created that even the ordinary appears extraordinary: Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 26.
85. I owe this reading to Heidegger, What Is Philosophy?, trans. William Klubak and Jean T. Wilde (New York: Twayne, 1958), 78-85. Heidegger says elsewhere that in great philosophy and poetry so much "world-space" is created that even the ordinary appears extraordinary: Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 26.
86. See, for example, Robin Waterfield, commentary appended to his translation of Plato's Theaetetus (London: Penguin, 1987), 177. In his commentary appended to M. J. Levett's translation of Theaetetus, 34-5, Burnyeat gives a short history of response to this "digression."
87. See, for example, Robin Waterfield, commentary appended to his translation of Plato's Theaetetus (London: Penguin, 1987), 177. In his commentary appended to M. J. Levett's translation of Theaetetus, 34-5, Burnyeat gives a short history of response to this "digression."
88. Sophist 243d.
89. Sophist 234c.
90. Sophist 254a.
91. Parmenides, in Kirk and Raven, Presocratic Philosophers, 269 n. 344. The editors render it: "the same thing can be thought as can be."
92. Republic 6.509d.
93. See Republic 4.436b.
94. Republic 6.518d.
95. Republic 6.511b.
96. Republic 6.486a.
97. Statesman 284e.
98. Theaetetus 155c.
99. Theaetetus 154d.
100. Theaetetus 162d.
101. Republic 5.476.
102. See Theaetetus 178e.
103. Statesman 287e-289a, 303d-305d.
104. Prolegomena to a History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 136.
105. Phaedrus 265e.