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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
In this article, Sandis defends four of the most notorious doctrines which Plato attributes to Socrates. The first is the ‘theory’ of forms, the second is the doctrine of recollection, the third Socrates'contention that philosophers ought to be the guardian-kings of the ideal state, and the fourth his rejection of rhetoric. Sandis does not claim that his interpretation (which owes a lot to Wittgenstein) is correct, but only that it renders the doctrines both relevant and plausible.
2 Phaedo, 65 dff. Trns Tredennick, H. (London: Penguin, 1954).Google Scholar
3 Republic, Book V, 476a. Trns. Lee, D. (London: Penguin, 1955)Google Scholar. Cf. Theaetetus 146dff. I remain neutral on whether or not the term ‘eidos’ should be translated as ‘form’ here but see no reason to deny the existence of ‘negative eternal forms’, save that these will be the opposite of ideals (which is not to say that the belong to the order of earthly things that can change, see below). I do not wish to defend that part of Plato which extends his ‘theory’ of forms beyond such to include forms of objects such as beds and tables (cf. Plato, , Republic, Book X, 596b–597bGoogle Scholar), though I see no reason why it cannot work for all non-normative properties (such as tallness) as well as for normative ones (such as uprightness).
4 Cratylus, 439dff,.Trns. Jowett, B. (Oxford: OUP, 1871)Google Scholar
5 Republic, Book V, 476b.Google Scholar
6 Cratylus, 440b.Google Scholar
7 Republic, Book V, 476d.Google Scholar
8 Recent debates among academics suggest that concepts themselves do not obviously belong in either the world of ideas or the world of sights and sounds. But one can remain neutral on this issue while agreeing that some of the things which we can have concepts of have no independent material existence (but only material manifestations).
9 Meno 81 c-d. Trns. Sharples, R. W. (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1985).Google Scholar
10 Phaedo 72e–73a.Google Scholar
11 Theaetetus 147b, trns. McDowell, J. (Oxford: OUP, 1977).Google Scholar
12 Phaedo, 99E.Google Scholar
13 Cf. Hanfling, O., Philosophy and Ordinary Language (London: Routledge, 2000), Ch. 1.Google Scholar
14 Cf. Cratylus, 436b–439b.Google Scholar
15 Wittgenstein, L., The Big Typescript, Trns. Luckhardt, C. G. & Aue, M. A. E. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), § 419CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, Trns. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), § 109.Google Scholar
17 Ibid, § 127.
18 Wittgenstein, L., The Blue and Brown Books (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958), p. 20. &. p 27Google Scholar. Emphasis in the original. The passage in Plato that Wittgenstein is referring to is Theaetetus 146d–7c where, interestingly, Socrates asks Theaetetus about what he means by certain words he is using.
19 See, for example, Theaetetus 146e.Google Scholar
20 Malcolm, N., Wittgenstein: A Memoir (Oxford: OUP, 1958), p. 511Google Scholar.
21 G. H. von Wright ‘Wittgenstein: A Biographical Sketch’, Ajatus 1954 & (in English) Philosophical Review 1955. Reprinted in Malcolm (1958: 20–1). Malcolm's reference to the Investigations makes it likely that the lecture in question was delivered after the dictation of the passage from the Blue Book, quoted above, while his final remark suggests that he had not entirely abandoned his earlier view of Socrates either.
22 Republic, Book VI, 484b.Google Scholar
23 Ibid. 499b–c.
24 Theaetetus, 149b–150d. Trns. McDowell, J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).Google Scholar
25 Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire, p227 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
26 Gorgias, 462. Trns. Hamilton, W. (London: Penguin, 1960).Google Scholar
27 Ibid, 465. Given his definition of cooking as ‘a pandering which corresponds to medicine’, I take it that Socrates' real target here is what we would now call nutriology; alternative medicines such as aromatherapy might also fit the bill.
28 Ash, T. G., ‘The War on Terror is Over’ The Age, 01 27, 2004.Google Scholar
29 Such legitimate uses are at odds with some of the conditions which Barries Paskins and Michael L. Dockrill claim are ‘necessary’ for war in their 1979 book Ethics of War (University of Minnesota Press). They might insist that some uses of the word ‘war’ are parasitic on others and therefore in some sense secondary; I leave such arbitrary etymological questions for another day.
30 N. Chomsky Distorted Morality. Televised talk at Harvard University (Epitaph, 2002).
31 Gorgias, 454–60.Google Scholar
32 Ibid, 463. Trns. W. Hamilton (London: Penguin, 1960).
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