Questioning Authority A Skeptical Approach to Reading Plato

P. N. Eldred

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Langston, Douglas

Keywords

Plato, Dialogues, Dramatic

Area of Concentration

Philosophy

Abstract

My assertion is that Plato did not write with the intention of expressing his own philosophical views through the utterances of his characters, though he very well may have agreed with a good many of those utterances. Rather, Plato wrote with the intention of presenting dramatized depictions of discussions of real philosophical issues in an attempt to challenge his audience to become critical themselves and to seek to find their own resolutions to the problems discussed throughout his dialogues. What follows is an argument in support of this assertion. Part One, consisting of the first three chapters, presents and discusses the interpretive approaches of two 20th Century scholars who attempt in different ways to determine a position of authority within Plato's dialogues. Chapter One focuses on the approach of Gregory Vlastos. Chapter Two focuses on the approach of Charles Kahn. Chapter Three examines various problems associated with both approaches, first through a discussion of Kahn's critique of Vlastos, and then by raising questions regarding their common presupposition that an authoritative voice is to be found within Plato's dialogues. Part Two, consisting of the final two chapters, presents and discusses an alternative to the approaches discussed in Part One, what I call "the skeptical approach." Chapter Four is my own analysis of several of Plato's dialogues in which writing and authority are problematized. I argue that the problematization of writing and authority are to be taken as clues that Plato deliberately wrote in such a way as to distance himself, as author, from the utterances of his characters. The final chapter presents an overview of my alternative "skeptical" approach, which does not rely upon the problematic assumption that Plato wrote with an authoritative voice.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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