The crane's walk : Plato, pluralism, and the inconstancy of truth / Jeremy Barris.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barris, Jeremy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato.

Truth.

Certainty.

Pluralism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 359 p. )

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In The Crane's Walk, Jeremy Barris seeks to show that we can conceive and live with a pluralism of standpoints with conflicting standards for truth--with the truth of each being entirely unaffected by the truth of the others. He argues that Plato's work expresses this kind of pluralism, and that this pluralism is important in its own right, whether or not we agree about what Plato's standpoint is.The longest tradition of Plato scholarship identifies crucial faults in Plato's theory of Ideas. Barris argues that Plato deliberately displayed those faults, because he wanted to demonstrate that basic kinds of error or illogic have dimensions that are crucial to the establishing of truth. These dimensions legitimate a paradoxical coordination of logically incompatible conceptions of truth. Connecting this idea with emerging currents of Plato scholarship, he emphasizes, in addition to the dialogues' arguments, the importance of their nonargumentative features, including drama, myths, fictions, anecdotes, and humor. These unanalyzed nonargumentative features function rigorously, as a lever with which to examine the enterprise of rational argument itself, without presupposing its standards or illegitimately assimilating any position to the standards of another.Today, communities are torn apart by conflicts within and between a host of different pluralist and absolutist commitments. The possibility developed in this book-a coordination of absolute and relative truth that allows an understanding of some relativist and some absolutist positions as being fully legitimate and as capable of existing in a relation to their opposites-may contribute to perspectives for resolving these conflicts.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

INTRODUCTORY

IDEA 1 Artificiality and Nature (Sometimes Being Is Something Else)

IDEA 2 Knowledge as Intervention: Difficulties and Solutions

IDEA 3 A Philosophical Rhetoric

IDEA 4 Knowledge as Intervention: Advantages

IDEA 5 The Variegated Texture of Truth

IDEA 6 The Artificiality of Rigorous Thought and the Artificial Dimensions of Reality

IDEA 7 The Risk of Rigorous Thought

IDEA 8 Mixture and Purity

CHAPTER 1 What Plato Is About: An Overview

CHAPTER 2 Charmides: Lust, Love, and the Problem of Knowledge

CHAPTER 3 Republic: Justice, Knowledge, and the Problem of Love

CHAPTER 4 Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman: The Tragicomedy of Knowledge, Reality, and Responsible Conduct

CONCLUSION The Unevenly Even Consistency of Truth

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 333-347) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612698835

9780823246717

082324671X

9780823235674

082323567X

9781282698833

1282698834

9780823238354

0823238350

9780823229154

0823229157

OCLC:

647876435