Plato's Conception of Knowledge

The purpose of this research is to examine Plato's conception of knowledge elaborated in the dialogue Theaetetus. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms what it appears Plato thinks knowledge is and then to discuss in more detail what can be discovered in the Theaetetus about Plato's conception of learning, first in terms of the content of argument and second in terms of the shape that the argument assumes and the method by which it is developed.

What we discover in the course of Theaetetus is that truth is something that if it cannot be found, it can be looked for and appreciated in a systematic way. In Theaetetus, Plato is not concerned with what is real, which belongs to an exercise of ontology, but with what is true, which belongs to an exercise of epistemology. The core of the reader's exercise in discovery is not so much the attempt to determine what or whether X or Y is true as a method that has legitimate application to a whole range of philosophical investigations and intellectual disciplines that aim at truth or, at minimum, at a strategy for being able to recognize the possibility of truth, or to make a critical, informed judgment about truth when the opportunity or need to do so arises. It is as if the principal implication running through this examination of knowledge has as much to do with moral structures informing experience as with the certainty of knowledge and experience per se.

What makes this enterprise so difficult is that by mean

Related Essays

Analysis of Plato's Euthyphro Dialogue .... Socrates is also looking at form, but the Socratic/Platonic conception is of nature or ideal form (95). .... Plato. .... Ed. S. Marc Cohen, Patricia Curd, and CDC Reeve. .... (2948 12 )

History & Sophocles, Plato, Marcus Aurelius & Capellanus .... In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone Sophocles is invoking a tragic conception of life. .... Clegg, Jerry S. The Structure of Plato's Philosophy. .... (2776 11 )

Symposium & Phaedrus .... One of these is the conception that two people in .... http://www.anotherscene.com/phaedrus/ socsym.html, 1-8. Plato. .... com/phaedrus/phaesym.html, 1-3. Woo, S. (2003). .... (2356 9 )

The Tragic Hero .... serve to create new heroes: "This conception of history .... Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. .... Halfon, Mark S. Integrity: A Philosophical Inquiry .... (1112 4 )

Life and Death .... relationship are found in the Chinese conception of Yin .... a curve not unlike a reverse "s" through the .... Plato also believes that knowledge is actually a matter of .... (1748 7 )

Concept of the Soul & the Afterlife .... Christian thought), as well as this reader=s views, and .... meaning that it is based on what Plato and/or .... question of when the soul enters the body--at conception? .... (2670 11 )

hilosophical meaning if Y is unknown (138). The philosophical importance of this is not to suggest that what might be conveniently be called knowledge of shoes is irrelevant to human experience; indeed, it may be useful. But where the project is epistemology, such knowledge is merely information, which from a philosophical point of view makes it trivial. Implicitly, therefore, the first thing that one discovers about learning, where learning can be considered relevant to knowledge, is that it is not the equivalent of acquiring a skill set--however useful (for a cobbler) or beautiful (for a musician) that set might be. What has to be further inferred from this is a point that Waterfield makes, that the definition of a general principle cannot be derived from particular examples The second part of Theaetetus deals with knowledge and perception, developing the insight that if individuals' perception, whether based on rational processes or sense experience, were the equivalent of truth, there would be no need to learn anything, which from one point of view is a patent absurdity since perceptions are perforce idiosyncratic, and from another would be "tedious nonsense" (Plato 48). The third part deals with knowledge and belief. The logi

Category: Philosophy - P