Knowledge and truth in Plato : stepping past the shadow of Socrates / Catherine Rowett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rowett, Catherine, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato.

Plato. Meno.

Plato. Republic.

Plato. Theaetetus.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Truth.

Philosophy, Ancient.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Stepping past the shadow of Socrates

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2018.

Summary:

This volume includes detailed studies of the Meno, Republic and Theaetetus, and argues that the insights that Plato brings about the nature of conceptual knowledge, its importance in underpinning all other activities and about the notion of truth as it applies to conceptual competence are significant and should be taken seriously as a corrective to areas in which current analytic philosophy has lost its way.

Contents:

Cover; Knowledge and Truth in Plato: Stepping Past the Shadow of Socrates; Copyright; Preface; I. About the Reader's Views on Plato; II. What I Am Trying to Do in This Book; III. How to Read This Book; IV. Numbering System for Quoted Texts; Contents; Acknowledgements; Part I: Knowledge, Truth, and Belief; 1: Knowledge, Conceptual Knowledge, and the Iconic Route to Grasping an Idea; I. In Which We Consider Whether 'Knowledge' Is an Important Topic in Plato's Work; I.i That there is an irreducible form of knowledge that has to do with grasping concepts and types or forms.

I.ii That Lyons's 'structural semantics' approach to understanding Plato's term episteme needs to be superseded; I.iv That knowledge is not a species of (propositional) belief, and that Plato does not mean 'belief ' when he speaks of doxa; II. In Which We Classify Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Plato's Epistemology Into Roughly Three Distinct Views, and I Place My View in This Taxonomy (or Outside It); II.i That there are two classic ways of understanding the relation between Plato's Middle and Later dialogues, one unitarian and one developmental, and a third way that is also unitarian.

II.i.i The Metaphysical Reading; II.i.ii The Rylean Reading; II.i.iii The Fine Reading; II.ii Some further options; II.iii That my interpretation is a variant of the first type; II.iv That the contrast between episteme and doxa is the contrast between the grasp of types or concepts and the recognition of tokens or instances; III. In Which We Consider Whether it Is a Good Idea to Look for a Definition, and, If So, Why; III.i That definition can serve three different roles in philosophical work, only one of which is part of a philosophical method.

III.ii That failing to find a definition can be a fruitful part of a philosophical investigation, when the author's aim is to problematize faulty assumptions or diagnose confusion; III.iii That the definition does not need to be in terms understood by the interlocutor, nor does Socrates (or Plato) think that it does; IV. In Which We Investigate How Knowing Relates to Factual Information and Propositional Utterances or Beliefs; IV.i That knowledge should not be equated with the ability to do something, or to express a belief in words, although those abilities may be evidence of knowing.

IV.ii That some other kinds of knowing, besides knowing particular facts about states of affairs, are more important for understanding what Plato is talking about; IV.iii That the ability to read the world as made up of tokens that instantiate types is like using a map, dense with pictorial information; V. In Which I Summarize the Plan for the Rest of This Book; 2: Truth and Belief; I. In Which We Consider the Relation Between Knowledge and Truth, and Between Knowledge and Belief; I.i That knowledge is about something, but not about a proposition, or about the truth of a proposition.

Notes:

This edition previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on April 18, 2018).

ISBN:

0-19-255642-8

0-19-185056-X