WEEK

1
WEEK 7THE THEORY OF RECOLLECTION, THE METHOD
OF HYPOTHESIS, AND THE THEORY OF
FORMS(Phaedo)(2-28-06)
2
Agenda

• Outline of Phaedo
• The Theory of Recollection in Phaedo
• The Method of Hypothesis in Phaedo
• Does Plato have a Theory of Forms?
• Is Plato committed to the existence of Forms?
• What is it to be so committed?
• Evidence for a Theory of Forms
• Passages which refer to Forms
• Arguments for Forms
• Motivations for Forms
• Arguments for Forms
• Motivations for Forms

3
Cast of Characters 59b-c

• Phaedo
• Apollodorus - narrator of Symposium
• Critobulus
• Critobulus father - Crito - Apology 33d-e
  Diogenes Laertius 2.121
• Hermogenes - son of Hipponicus and brother of
  Callia (Ap. 20a) - in Cratylus
• Epigenes - in list at Apology 33d-e
• Aeschines - Socratic fragments -
• Antisthenes - reputed founder of the Cynic school
  - Socratic fragments
• Ctesippus - in Lysis Euthydemus
• Menexenus - in Lysis Menexenus
• Simmias of Thebes (a center for Pytahgoreanism) -
  in Crito
• Cebes of Thebes - in Crito
• Phaedondes - Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.48
• Euclides of Megara - founder of the Megarian
  school - in Theaetetus
• Terpsion of Megara - in Theaetetus
• Aristippus (grandson was founder of Cyreniac),
  Cleombrotus, and Plato are mentioned as absent

4
Outline of Phaedo

• Prologue (57a-59c)
• Socrates in prison (59c-69e)
• Setting of scene (59c-61b)
• Tension (61b-63e)
• No one ought to commit suicide
• Philosophers would be better off dead
• Philosophers should willingly die (64a-69e)
• Three Arguments that Wisdom is better acquired
  when soul is separated from body
• Bodily pleasures interfere with the pursuit of
  truth and wisdom (64d-65a)
• Perception is inaccurate/only reasoning
  (logizesthai) is accurate (65b-d)
• Forms, the objects of wisdom, cannot be viewed by
  perception, but only by thought (dianoia) or
  reasoning (logismos) (65d-66a)

5

• The Argument(s) for the immortality of the soul
• The Cyclical Argument (70c-72d)
• The Recollection Argument (72c-77a)
• The Conditional If TR -gt immortality (73e3-73a6)
• First Argument for antecedent (73a7-b2)
• Second Argument for antecedent (73b3-76d)
• Principles concerning recollection (73b3-74a8)
• The Equality Argument (74b7-c5)
• The Recollection Argument (74c7-75d5)
• Responses to objections (75d6-76d)
• Recapitulation (76d-77a)

6

• The Survival Objection (77b-c)
• The Affinity Argument (78b-84b)
• Simmias Cebes Objections (85e-88b)
• The soul as harmony (85c-86e)
• The soul as a cloak (86e-88b)
• Arguments Against Simmias/Harmony (91e-95a)
• Argument Against Cebes/Cloak (95a-107b)
• Introduction (95a-96a)
• Socrates Philosophical Biography (96a-102b)
• Natural Science Phase (96a-97b)
• Anaxagoras Phase (97b-99d)
• Second Voyage/Method of Hypothesis (99d-102b)
• X is F because x participates in F-ness

7

• The Final Argument (102c-107b)
• Simmias/Socrates/Cebes case (102b-103a)
• Objection and reply (103a-c)
• The Clever view (103c-105c)
• X is F because x participates in G-ness and
  G-ness entails F-ness
• The immortality argument (105c-107b)
• The Myth (107c-115a)
• The Death Scene (115a-118a)

8
General Structure of the Argument from 64a-69e

• 1. Death is separation of the soul from the body
• 2. Philosophers seek wisdom and truth
• 3. Wisdom and truth can only (or best) be gained
  when the soul is separated from the body
• 4. So, philosophers seek separation of the soul
  from the body
• 5. So, philosophers seek death
• 6. So, philosophers should willingly die

9
Recollection in the Phaedo

• Second Argument for the Immortality of Soul
  (72e-78b) If TR -gt Soul is immortal
• Furthermore, Socrates, Cebes rejoined, such is
  also the case if that theory (logos) is true that
  you are accustomed to mention frequently, that
  for us learning (mathesis) is no other than
  recollection (anamnesis) Phaedo 71e3-6 Grube
  trans.
• Arguments for TR
• First Argument the slave boy example (73a-b)
• Second Argument for TR (73b-76d)

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Second Argument

• if anyone is to be reminded of a thing, he must
  have known that thing at some time previously.
  73c1-2 Gallop trans.
• x is reminded by y of z at t ? x knew z before t.
• if someone, a on seeing a thing, or hearing
  it, or getting any other sense-perception of it,
  b not only recognizes that thing, but also
  thinks of something else, c which is the object
  not of the same knowledge but of another, dont
  we then rightly say that hes been reminded of
  the object of which he has got the thought?
  73c6-d1 Gallop trans.
• a A perceives x, b A thinks of/knows y, and
  c knowledge of x ? knowledge of y ? A
  recollected y
• There is equality (74a9-b1)
• We know what it is (74b2-3)
• We got this knowledge of equality by perceiving
  equal things (74b4-7) 2a
• Equality is distinct from equal things
  (74b8-74c6) 2c
• We learn equality by perceiving equal things by
  noticing the latters deficiency to the former
  (74c7-75a10) 2b
• So, we knew equality before noticing this
  deficiency (75b1-c6)
• Generalized to all forms (75c7-d5)
• But, we have not always had this knowledge
  (75d6-76d6)
• So, TR lt-gt Forms (76d7-77a5)

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Differences between Meno Phaedo

• Meno robust knowledge acquisition
• Phaedo concept formation ?
• Meno mathematics
• Phaedo no mathematics
• Meno no stress on sense perception
• Phaedo sense perception
• Meno introduced to meet a problem
• Phaedo introduced to prove immortaltiy
• No commitment to Forms in Meno

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Hypothesis in Phaedo

• The problem
• It is no unimportant problem that you raise,
  Cebes, for it requires a thorough investigation
  of the cause of generation and destruction. I
  will, if you wish, give you an account of my
  experience in theses matters. Then if something
  I say seems useful to you, make use of it to
  persuade us of your position. 95e9-96a4 Grube
  trans.
• The method of the natural scientists 96a-97b
• I do not any longer persuade myself that I know
  why a unit or anything else comes to be, or
  perishes or exists by the old method of
  investigation, and I do not accept it, but I have
  a confused method of my own. 97b3-7 Grube
  trans.
• The method of Anaxagoras 97b-99c
• I would gladly become the disciple of any man who
  taught the workings of that kind of cause.
  However, since I was deprived and could neither
  discover it myself nor learn it from another, ...
  99c6-9 Grube trans.
• The method of hypothesis 99c-101e
• ... do you wish me to give you an explanation of
  how, as a second best, I busied myself with the
  search for the cause, Cebes? 99c9-d2 Grube
  trans.

13
The Method of Natural Science

• When Socrates was young he was keen on the
  wisdom (sophia) called natural (peri phuseos
  historian) he thought it would be splendid to
  know (eidenai) answers to questions like the
  following (96a6-c1)
• 1. Do living things develop whenever the hot and
  the cold give rise to putrefaction?
• 2. Is it blood, air or fire by which we think?
• 3. Or is it none of these, but is it that the
  brain provides the senses, from which memory and
  doxa become?
• 4. Does knowledge come to be in this way from
  memory and doxa when they acquire stability
  (heremein)?
• 5. How these things are destroyed?

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Socrates discovers, however, that he has no gift
for this sort of inquiry

• This investigation made me quite blind even to
  those things which I and others thought that I
  clearly knew before, so that I unlearned what I
  thought I knew before, about many other things,
  but specifically about how men grew. 96c3-7
  Grube trans.

15

• Three sets of examples of things that Socrates
  thought he could explain but no longer does
  (96c7-97b3)
• a. the growth of a human being (96c7-d6)
• b. one things being larger than another
  (96d8-e4)
• c. one things becoming two (96e6-97b3)
• His reason for his thinking that he can no longer
  explain a things becoming two is apparently that
  it violates the following principle
• (Causal Law) xs opposite must not be an aitia
  for anything being F (97a7-b3, cf. 101b9-c2, c7-8)

Conclusion (97b3-7)
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Conclusion (97b3-7)

• And I no longer believe that I know (epistamai)
  by this method (methodou) even how one is
  generated or, in a word, how anything is
  generated or is destroyed or exists, and I no
  longer admit this method, but have another
  confused way of my own. 97b3-7 Lamb trans.

17
What Socrates had hoped to learn from Anaxagoras
(97b7-98b6)

• If then one wished to know the cause of each
  thing, why it comes to be, or perishes or exists,
  one had to find what was the best way for it to
  be, or be acted upon, or to act. On these
  premises then it befitted a man to investigate
  only, about this and other things, what is best.
  The same man must inevitably also know what is
  worse, for that is part of the same knowledge
  (epistemen). 97c6-d5 Grube trans.

18

• As I reflected on this subject I was glad to
  think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher
  (didaskalon) about the cause of things after my
  own heart, and that he would tell me, first,
  whether the earth is flat or round, and then
  would explain why it is so of necessity
  (anagken), saying which is better (ameinon), and
  that it was better to be so. If he said it was
  in the middle of the universe, he would go on to
  show that it was better for it to be in the
  middle, and if he showed me those things I should
  be prepared never to desire any other kind of
  cause. 97d7-98a2 Grube trans.

19

• Once he had given the best for each as the cause
  for each and the general cause of all, I thought
  he would go on to explain the common good for
  all, and I would not have exchanged my hopes for
  a fortune. I eagerly acquired his books and read
  them as quickly as I could in order to know the
  best and the worst as soon as possible. (98b1-6
  Grube trans.

20
Socrates Disappointment (98b7-c8)

• Imagine not being able to distinguish the real
  cause from that without which the cause would not
  be able to act as a cause. It is what the
  majority appear to do, like people groping in the
  dark they call it a cause, thus giving it a name
  that does not belong to it. 99b2-6 Grube trans.

21
Conclusion

• I would gladly become the disciple of any man who
  taught the workings of that kind of cause.
  However, since I was deprived and could neither
  discover it myself (autos heurein) nor learn it
  from another (par allou mathein), ... 99c6-9
  Grube trans.
• ... do you wish me to give you an explanation of
  how, as a second best (deuteron ploun), I busied
  myself with the search for the cause, Cebes?
  99c9-d3 Grube trans.

22
Metaphor of the Sun

• After this, he said, when I had wearied of
  investigation things (ta onta skopein), I thought
  that I must be careful to avoid the experience of
  those who watch an eclipse of the sun, for some
  of them ruin their eyes unless they watch its
  reflection in water or some such material. A
  similar thought crossed my mind, and I feared
  that my soul would be altogether blinded if I
  looked at things (ta pragmata) with my eyes and
  tried to grasp them with each of my senses. So I
  though I must take refuge in discussions (logou)
  and investigate the truth of things by means of
  words (skopein ton onton ten aletheian).
  However, perhaps this analogy is inadequate, for
  I certainly do not admit that one who
  investigates things by means of words is dealing
  with images any more than one who looks at facts.
  Phaedo 99d4-100a3 Grube trans.

23
General Description

• However, I started in this manner taking as my
  hypothesis (hupothemenos) in each case the theory
  that seemed to me the most compelling, I would
  consider as true, about cause and everything
  else, whatever agreed (sumphonein) with this, and
  as untrue whatever did not so agree. But I want
  to put my meaning more clearly for I do not think
  that you understand me now. 100a3-100a8 Grube
  trans.

24
Application

• This, he said, is what I mean. It is nothing
  new, but what I have never stopped talking about,
  both elsewhere and in the earlier par of our
  conversation. I am going to try to show you the
  kind of cause with which I have concerned myself.
  I turn back to those oft-mentioned things and
  proceed from them. I assume the existence of a
  Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a
  Great and all the rest. If you grant me these
  and agree that they exist, I hope to show you the
  cause as a result, and so to find the soul to be
  immortal.
• Take it that I grant you this, said Cebes, and
  hasten to your conclusion. Phaedo 100b1-c2
  Grube trans.

25
Phaedo 99d4-100a8

• After this, he said, when I had wearied of
  investigation things, I thought that I must be
  careful to avoid the experience of those who
  watch an eclipse of the sun, for some of them
  ruin their eyes unless they watch its reflection
  in water or some such material. A similar
  thought crossed my mind, and I feared that my
  soul would be altogether blinded if I looked at
  things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with
  each of my senses. So I thought I must take
  refuge in discussions and investigate the truth
  of things by means of words. However, perhaps
  this analogy is inadequate, for I certainly do
  not admit that one who investigates things by
  means of words is dealing with images any more
  than one who looks at facts. However, I started
  in this manner taking as my hypothesis in each
  case the theory that seemed to me the most
  compelling, I would consider as true, about cause
  and everything else, whatever agreed with this,
  and as untrue whatever did not so agree. But I
  want to put my meaning more clearly for I do not
  think that you understand me now. 99d4100a8
  Grube trans

26
Phaedo 101d1-e3

• But you , ..., would cling to the safety of your
  own hypothesis and give that answer. If someone
  then attacked your hypothesis itself, you would
  ignore him and would not answer until you had
  examined whether the consequences that follow
  from it agree with one another or contradict one
  another. And when you must give an account of
  your hypothesis itself you will proceed in the
  same way you will assume another hypothesis,
  the one which seems to you best of the higher
  ones until you come to something acceptable, but
  you will not jumble the two as the debaters do by
  discussing the hypothesis and its consequences at
  the same time, if you wish to discover the truth.
  Grube trans.

27
Examination/Confirmation of Equivalent Question

• First one identifies a further hypothesis from
  which the original hypothesis can be derived and
  shows how this derivation goes until one reaches
  something adequate and upward path
• Second one examines the consequences of the
  hypothesis to be whether they are consistent with
  other background beliefs or information
  concerning the topic under discussion downward
  path.

28
Questions

• What are the alternative methods?
• Is the method of hypthesis second best?
• To the alternatives mentioned?
• To some other alternative?
• What is the hypothesis?
• Downward path
• Comes first in Phaedo
• Agree with
• Consistent with
• Entailed by
• Upward path
• What makes something adequate?

29
Does Plato Have a Theory of Forms

• Annas 1981
• Is Plato committed to Forms?
• What is it to be so committed?
• Aristotle
• Eidos/idea
• Genos
• Ousia

30
Metaphysics XIII.4 1078b17-1079a4

• The theory of Forms (peri ton eidon doxa)
  occurred to those who enunciated it because they
  were convinced as to the true nature of reality
  by the doctrine of Heraclitus, that all sensible
  things are always in a state of flux so that if
  there is to be any knowledge or thought about
  anything, there must be certain other entities,
  besides sensible ones, which persist. For there
  can be no knowledge of that which is in flux. Now
  Socrates devoted his attention to the moral
  virtues, and was the first to seek a general
  definition of these 20 () and he naturally
  inquired into the essence of things for he was
  trying to reason logically, and the
  starting-point of all logical reasoning is the
  essence (to ti estin). There are two
  innovations which, may fairly be ascribed to
  Socrates inductive reasoning and general
  definition. Both of these are associated with the
  starting-point of scientific knowledge. But
  whereas Socrates regarded neither universals nor
  definitions as existing in separation, the
  Idealists gave them a separate existence, and to
  these universals and definitions of existing
  things they gave the name of Ideas.

31
Metaphysics 1086a30-b14

• but as for those who speak of the Ideas, we
  can observe at the same time their way of
  thinking and the difficulties which befall them.
  For they not only treat the Ideas as universal
  substances, but also as separable and particular.
  The reason why those who hold substances to be
  universal combined these two views was that they
  did not identify substances with sensible things.
  They considered that the particulars in the
  sensible world are in a state of flux, and that
  none of them persists, but that the universal
  exists besides them and is something distinct
  from them. This theory, as we have said in an
  earlier passage, was initiated by Socrates as a
  result of his definitions, but he did not
  separate universals from particulars and he was
  right in not separating them. This is evident
  from the facts for without the universal we
  cannot acquire knowledge, and the separation of
  the universal is the cause of the difficulties
  which we find in the Ideal theory. Others,
  regarding it as necessary, if there are to be any
  substances besides those which are sensible and
  transitory, that they should be separable, and
  having no other substances, assigned separate
  existence to those which are universally
  predicated thus it followed that universals and
  particulars are practically the same kind of
  thing.

32
Metaphysics 987a29-b13

• The philosophies described above were succeeded
  by the system of Plato, which in most respects
  accorded with them, but contained also certain
  peculiar features distinct from the philosophy of
  the Italians. In his youth Plato first became
  acquainted with Cratylus and the Heraclitean
  doctrines -- that the whole sensible world is
  always in a state of flux, and that there is no
  scientific knowledge of it -- and in after years
  he still held these opinions. And when Socrates,
  disregarding the physical universe and confining
  his study to moral questions, sought in this
  sphere for the universal and was the first to
  concentrate upon definition, Plato followed him
  and assumed that the problem of definition is
  concerned not with any sensible thing but with
  entities of another kind for the reason that
  there can be no general definition of sensible
  things which are always changing. These entities
  he called Ideas, and held that all sensible
  things are named after them sensible and in
  virtue of their relation to them for the
  plurality of things which bear the same name as
  the Forms exist by participation in them. (With
  regard to the participation, it was only the
  term that he changed for whereas the
  Pythagoreans say that things exist by imitation
  of numbers, Plato says that they exist by
  participation -- merely a change of term. As to
  what this participation or imitation may be,
  they left this an open question.)

33
Evidence

• Passages which presuppose the theory of Forms
• Arguments for the theory of Forms
• Motivations for the theory of Forms (Cherniss)

34
Arguments for the Theory of Forms

• Phaedo 74a9-c5 The Equality Argument
• Republic V.475d-476b The Argument from
  Opposites
• Republic X.596a5-b4 The One Over Many Argument
• Timaeus 51d3-e6 The Argument from Knowledge

35
The One Over Many Argument

• Do you want us to begin our examination, then,
  by adopting our usual procedure? As you know, we
  customarily hypothesize a single form in
  connection with each of the many things to which
  we apply the same name. Or don't you understand?
• I do.
• Then let's now take any of the manys you like.
  For example, there are many beds and tables.
• Of course.
• But there are only two forms of such furniture,
  one of the bed and one of the table. (Republic
  X.596a5-b4 Grube/Reeve trans.

36
The Argument from Knowledge

• If understanding and true opinion are distinct,
  then these "by themselves" things definitely
  exist-these Forms, the objects not of our sense
  perception, but of our understanding only. But
  if-as some people think-true opinion does not
  differ in any way from understanding, then all
  the things we perceive through our bodily senses
  must be assumed to be the most stable things
  there are. But we do have to speak of
  understanding and true opinion as distinct, of
  course, because we can come to have one without
  the other, and the one is not like the other. It
  is through instruction that we come to have
  understanding, and through persuasion that we
  come to have true belief. Understanding always
  involves a true account while true belief lacks
  any account. And while understanding remains
  unmoved by persuasion, true belief gives in to
  persuasion. And of true belief, it must be said,
  all men have a share, but of understanding, only
  the gods and a small group of people do.
  (Timaeus 51d3-e6 Zeyl trans.)

37
Motivations for the Theory of Forms

• TF accounts for objectivity in ethics (Cherniss)
• TF accounts for the distinction between knowledge
  and sensation/opinion (Cherniss)
• TF accounts for the instability in the phenomena
  (Cherniss)
• TF accounts for how words get their meaning
  (White)

38
Motivations from the Elenctic Dialogues

• TF may provide substance to Socratic Eudaemonism
• TF may account for the possibility of inquiry
  (and knowledge in general)
• TF may provide a justification for the Socratic
  concern with definition