The Socratic fallacy undone

ABSTRACT

The Socratic fallacy is the supposed mistake of inferring that somebody does not know any instances or attributes of a universal because of their inability to give a satisfactory definition. I argue that Socrates does not make this inference. Instead he interprets definitional failure as indicating that the interlocutor has not stated his knowledge. Moreover, I argue that Socrates’ commitment to the necessity of definitions of universals for knowledge of particulars reduces to the claim that a person who knows something about virtue has the ability to speak the whole of it. This is, I suggest, not so much a ‘style of mistaken thinking’ as a profound affirmation of the possibility of philosophy.

KEYWORDS:

• Plato
• Socrates
• Socratic fallacy
• Socratic method
• definition

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous referees for the BJHP for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. I am also grateful for feedback received from members of the audience at the 2018 meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy in Newport News, Virginia.

ORCID

Dylan B. Futter http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1863-6838

Notes

1 Geach (‘Plato’s Euthyphro’). The quoted phrase in the previous sentence is from p. 271. For earlier statements, see Wittgenstein (The Blue and Brown Books, 20), Ross (Plato’s Theory of Ideas, 16) and Robinson (Plato’s Earlier Dialectic, 51–53).

2 For discussion, see Benson (‘The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchus’), Beversluis (‘Does Socrates Commit’), Irwin (Plato's Moral Theory, 41), Lesher (‘Socrates’ Disavowel of Knowledge’), Nehamas (‘Socratic Intellectualism’.), Prior (‘Plato and the “Socratic Fallacy”’), Vlastos (Socratic Studies, 67–86) and Wolfsdorf (‘The Socratic Fallacy’). Benson (‘The Priority of Definition’) provides a comprehensive survey of the literature.

3 I use both ‘F-ness’ and ‘the F’ to designate a universal. See also Benson (‘The Priority of Definition’, 125, n. 2). The scope of the principle is discussed in §3.

4 On terminology and variations in the naming of the principle, see Dancy (Plato’s Introduction of Forms, 36 note 40).

5 Compare the contrapositive formulations of (PD) given by Beversluis (‘Does Socrates Commit’, 211–212), Wolfsdorf (‘The Socratic Fallacy’, 37–38) and Benson (‘The Priority of Definition’, 137).

6 It is not certain that Benson accepts this claim, for he later considers and endorses the proposal that ‘Socrates has in mind a more robust sort of knowledge than the sort that Geach (and others) do’ (‘The Priority of Definition’, 155). For an interpretation of the relevant sort of knowledge as dialectical understanding, see Sedley (The Midwife of Platonism, 25).

7 I will revise this assessment in §7.

8 See Plato, Meno, 73ff. and Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1078b17-29. A slight modification of this claim would be required to accommodate Hippias Major, Lysis, and the first part of Gorgias.

9 Kant seems to have thought that mathematical concepts are constructed, that is, acquired ‘through acts of definition’ (Callanan (‘Kant on the Acquisition’, 587)). Notice that the subsequent discussion does not in any way depend on the correctness of the claim that (PD) holds of mathematical objects.

10 What I call pre-discursive knowledge of what F-ness is accounts for the ability to identify F things in many contexts and to say how F-ness is qualified. The description is deliberately vague. See the discussion in §4.

11 In the scholarship, (PD) is often formulated simply in terms of knowing what F-ness is and thus without explicit reference to the ability to give a definition. See, e.g. Wolfsdorf (‘The Socratic Fallacy’) and Beversluis (‘Does Socrates Commit’). In speaking of an ability to give a definition I am taking my cue from Geach’s proposition (A).

12 Unless otherwise indicated, translations are from Cooper (Plato's) (ed.). Revisions are noted when appropriate.

13 I do not mean to suggest that Laches is initially clear about the difference between (PD′) and (K). However, he will himself draw the distinction later on at 194a6–b4. Moreover, the reader expects Laches, a self-professed man of action who disparages mere speeches (188 f.), to deny that knowledge of virtue implies the ability to articulate this knowledge. But he does not do this, instead answering Socrates’ question with a confident affirmative (190c7). Plato has taken care to distinguish knowledge of virtue from articulate knowledge of virtue.

14 I have argued this point at length in Futter (‘Socrates’ Search for Laches’ Knowledge of Courage’). Some phrasings in the following paragraphs are borrowed from this article.

15 For discussion, see Schmid (On Manly Courage, 111 ff.).

16 Socrates’ discussion with Nicias does not fit this model. It corresponds to the model of destructive elenchus, viz. the reduction of the interlocutor to propositional self-inconsistency (199e). This does not weaken the present argument since (PD) plays no role in the interrogation of Nicias.

17 The dialogue does not provide any reason for saying that Socrates does not have knowledge of courage in the pre-discursive sense that Laches attributes to them both. Thus, he too is entitled to claim knowledge of instances of courage, and even, if necessary, to use his pre-discursive knowledge of courage to evaluate and reject specific definitions. See 191a1–2.

18 (K) says that someone who knows instances or attributes of virtue must know what virtue is in some sense that enables her to know instances or attributes. Since the nature of this knowledge is left open, the principle is uninformative. But this does not call into question the truth of the principle so much as provide the conceptual space for several (even anti-Platonic) accounts to be given. To see this, notice that a Wittgensteinian who wanted to ground conceptual abilities in something like a shared form of life would be able to accept (K).

19 For this manoeuvre, see Benson (‘The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchus’, 29 note 20) and Dancy (Plato’s Introduction of Forms, 37).

20 Compare Brickhouse and Smith’s (Plato's Socrates, 30–45) attribution to Socrates of a distinction between ‘clear’ and ‘unclear’ knowledge.

21 Dancy writes: ‘We possess a good deal of pretheoretical knowledge about anything for which we have concepts; that is at least a part of what it is to have the concepts’ (Plato’s Introduction of Forms, 36). By here invoking the concept of a ‘concept’, Dancy sweeps a Platonic mystery under the carpet. He thus fails to notice that Socrates uses the distinction between (K) and (E) to draw attention to the question of the ultimate grounding of the conceptual power to identify things as the things that they are.

22 For this style of argument, see Irwin (Plato’s Ethics, 27–28).

23 It is difficult to avoid metaphor. I have given a more detailed account of the phenomenon in Futter (‘Socrates’ Search for Laches’ Knowledge of Courage’).

24 This claim fits well with the results of earlier discussion in Laches (192c–193d), where Socrates compares the relationship between virtue and the soul to the relationship between sight and the eye (189e–190a). Just as sight is inherent in a properly functioning eye, wisdom is inherent in a properly functioning soul (see also Aristotle, EN 1144a26–33).

25 Geach says that the mistaken style of thinking is ‘paralleled in many dialogues’ (‘Plato's Euthyphro’, 370–371) but does not elaborate on which these might be.

26 The same point is reasserted a little while later at 5d7 and 6e3–6.

27 For this argument in more detail, see Futter (‘On Irony Interpretation’). Some phrasings in the present section are borrowed from this article.

28 Socrates explains or pretends to explain Euthyphro’s failures in definition in terms of irony, his wilful concealing of his knowledge. In this respect, his method is slightly different to that in Laches, where Laches’ failure to say what he knows seems to be traced to inexperience and lack of proficiency in discourse (188c-e; 194a4). This discrepancy does not make any difference in the present context.

29 See Futter (‘On Irony Interpretation’) for more on the notion of irony interpretation.

30 While Socrates’ method in the dialogue is transparently ironical throughout, his irony is an essential part of his method. See Futter (‘On Irony Interpretation’).

31 The question of whether Socrates wants to divert Euthyphro from his prosecution of his father by disclosing his epistemic limitations to him can be answered in much the same way as it was in the discussion of Laches. See §4 above.

32 Similar remarks can be made about disavowals of knowledge that occur at other points in the dialogue.

33 See Nehamas (‘Socratic Intellectualism’, 280–285) on the scope of the proposition.

34 For a historically influential proposal that Socrates’ irony consists in the movement between two quite different senses of knowledge, see Vlastos (‘Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge’). The interpretation I am recommending here is similar to Vlastos’s in form but different in substance.

35 This will exclude many of the Socratic interlocutors who seem unable to make the attempt to speak their knowledge. A perpetual danger is the tendency to parrot the opinions of authoritative figures.

36 When Socrates came to conclude that human wisdom was worthless on the basis of his oracle investigation, he took this to provide reason for further philosophy (Ap. 23a5–b6). Human wisdom involves the recognition that the examined life (Ap. 38a1–6) is the best state for a human being. See Futter (‘Socrates’ Human Wisdom’). It seems to follow that Socrates’ commitment to (E) transcends its own denial. It would be better to believe (E) even if it were not true for a human being. See Halper (‘The “Socrates” of Plato’s Early Dialogues’) for discussion of the idea that Plato’s separation of forms is designed to explain the failure of the Socratic search for definitions. On this view, if definitional knowledge of the virtues is attainable at all, it would be attainable after death. See e.g. Phd. 66b1-67c3. Compare also the Platonic conception of virtue as ‘becoming like god as much as possible’, e.g. Theaet. 176b1-2 and Rep. 613a8-b1.

37 The word ‘power’, or ‘ability’ (dynamis), is used to describe knowledge throughout Plato’s writings. See Rep. 477d8, Prot. 352b ff., and Theaet., passim. We can see here that Platonic metaphysics and epistemology would permit a defence of (PD) and not only (PD′). Discussion of this question is beyond the scope of this essay.

38 This claim is both compatible with Unitarianism and a version of Developmentalism that interprets Platonic metaphysics as an attempt to work out the foundations of Socrates’ ethical methodology. For discussion of the latter possibility, see Klein (A Commentary on Plato’s Meno, 9–10).