Source: Phronesis, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 97-113 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182581 . Accessed: 27/03/2014 19:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Phronesis. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Plato and the "Socratic Fallacy" WILLIAM J. PRIOR ABSTRACr Since Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much discussion among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." No consensus presently exists on whether Socrates commits the "Socratic fallacy"; almost all scholars agree, how- ever, that the "Socratic fallacy" is a bad thing and that Socrates has good reason to avoid it. I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that what Geach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent conse- quence of Platonic epistemology. The "Socratic fallacy" arises from the "Priority of Definition" principle (PD). Plato is committed to (PD) in the Meno. The Meno also contains a famous dis- cussion of the difference between episteme and doxa (97a ff.). If we understand what Plato meant by episteme we can see that he must be committed to (PD); but we can also see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attrib- utes to it. Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. (PD) is implausible on this reading of the verb "to know," but not on Plato's. Plato claims that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever a claim to knowledge is made. Plato links the concept of episteme explicitly with the concept of logos; the connection between the terms may have been analytic. It does not follow from the Platonic conception of knowledge, as Geach argues, that it is "no use" using examples to establish general definitions. All that follows is that one cannot know that an alleged example of a term T is a genuine example until one has a general account of what it is to be T. Without the stronger conclusion, Geach cannot establish that the "Socratic fallacy" is a fallacy. I. Introduction Since Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much dis- cussion among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." According to Geach, this fallacy consists of two propositions: (A) that if you know that you are correctly predicating a given term "T" you must "know what it is to be a T," in the sense of being able to give a general criterion for a thing's being T, and (B) that it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of "T" by giving examples of things that are T.' Accepted September 1997 I P.T. Geach, "Plato's Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary," The Monist 50 (1966), 371. ? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Phronesis XLI1112 This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 98 WILLIAM J. PRIOR Geach believed that "(B) in fact follows from (A)."2 He believed that these two propositions constitute a fallacy because they present an incorrect view of knowledge: We know heaps of things without being able to define the terms in which we express our knowledge. Formal definitions are only one way of elucidating terms; a set of examples may in a given case be more useful than a formal definition.3 Geach also believed that Socrates is committed to the "Socratic fallacy" in the early dialogues of Plato. Geach has had many respondents. All have wanted to show that the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues is innocent of Geach's charge. In general their strategy has been to argue that Socrates is not committed to Geach's principle (A), which has come to be known as the "Priority of Definition" principle (PD). This task is made possible by the fact that Plato nowhere puts (A), in so many words, into Socrates' mouth. He says many things that suggest that he believes in (A), but Robinson speaks correctly of "the impression vaguely given by the early dialogues"4 that he accepts it. Gregory Vlastos, who believed that the early dialogues represent the views of the historical Socrates, argued that the principle only emerges in a set of "transitional dialogues" in which Plato's views were supplanting those of Socrates.5 Other scholars have argued that the Socrates of the early dialogues is committed not to (PD) but to some weaker principle or principles that do not have the epistemological con- sequences of (PD).6 Some scholars have also argued for a distinction in two kinds of knowledge: for Vlastos, the distinction was between "certain" and "elenctic" knowledge; for Woodruff and Reeve, it is between "ordi- 2 Ibid. I Ibid. I think that the general view of knowledge underlying Geach's position, which I shall discuss further below, bears some resemblance to the view Protagoras defends in the "Great Speech" (Protagoras 320c-328d), especially at 327e-328a, where he indicates that eveiy Greek has sufficient knowledge of the Greek language to be able to teach it. I don't mean to suggest that Protagoras's view and Geach's are iden- tical, however, or that they have the same roots. 4 Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic (Oxford 1953), 53. Gregory Vlastos, "Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge," Philosophy 35 (1985), 23- 26, esp. nn. 54, 56 (which refers to 1, n. 1), 60, and 65. 6 For example, Gerasimos Santas, "The Socratic Fallacy," Journal of the History of Philosophy 10 (1972), 127-141; Alexander Nehamas, "Socratic Intellectualism," Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1986), 275-316 (cf. esp. 277-293); and John Beversluis, "Does Socrates Commit the Socratic Fal- lacy?," American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1987), 211-223. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 99 nary" and "expert" knowledge. Given this distinction it is possible to argue that (PD) applies only to claims of certain or expert knowledge; Socratic claims of ordinary or elenctic knowledge do not succumb to the "Socratic fallacy."7 All of these strategies have been challenged. The most thorough dis- cussion of (PD) is Benson,8 who concludes that the best explanation for Socrates' acceptance of principles weaker than (PD) is his acceptance of (PD). Benson also questions the strategy of restricting (PD) to the transi- tional dialogues. Lesher9 has criticized the strategy of granting to Socrates two kinds of knowledge or two senses of "knowledge." No consensus pre- sently exists on whether Socrates commits the "Socratic fallacy"; almost all scholars agree, however, that the "Socratic fallacy" is a bad thing and that Socrates has good reason to avoid commitment to (PD).'0 I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that what Geach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent consequence of Platonic epistemology. If we understand what Plato meant by episteme we will see that he must be committed to (PD); but we will also see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attributes to it. I hope to show both of these things in this paper. II. Interpretive Strategy Before I begin discussion of the "fallacy" itself, however, I want to note a limitation that all of the above strategies share. They attempt to remove the "fallacy" from the early dialogues, or at least from the pre-transitional, Vlastos, op. cit., 1-31 (cf. esp. 23-26); Paul Woodruff, "Expert Knowledge in the Apology and Laches: What a General Needs to Know," Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 3 (1987), 79-115, and "Plato's Early Theory of Knowledge," in Stephen Everson, ed., Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 60-84; and C.D.C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis 1989), 37-62. 8 Hugh H. Benson, "The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchus," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1990), 19-65. 9 James Lesher, "Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge," Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987), 275-288. 10 See Beversluis, op. cit., 212, who describes the result of accepting Geach's premises as "a hopeless epistemic impasse," Woodruff, who writes that "the trouble with believing in priority of definition is that it would paralyze inquiry if it were true" ("Expert Knowledge," 91; Woodruff may only be interpreting Geach, not endorsing his conclusion; however, he says Geach "represents a fairly broad consensus") and Santas, op. cit., 129. Exceptions to this general rule are Terence Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford 1977), 40-41, and Benson, op. cit. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 100 WILLIAM J. PRIOR elenctic dialogues, but not from the transitional dialogues, the dialogues in which, according to a common account, Plato first introduces his own views through the character of Socrates. This strategy is one of isolation and containment: it attempts to keep the Socratic dialogues free of the philosophical assumptions that give rise to the "fallacy." It attempts to remove the fallacy from the elenctic dialogues, and thus from Socratic philosophy, only to inflict it upon Plato. It attempts to save Socrates from an infection that Plato carries. Now I have little sympathy with the project that underlies this strategy, the project of isolating a "pure Socratic" phase of thought within the early dialogues that is free from epistemological and metaphysical assumptions, whether or not that first stage is taken to be a faithful record of the views of the historical Socrates." But even if we accept the assumptions that mark this project, it is hard to imagine a scenario that offers a convinc- ing explanation of how Plato could have come to commit the "Socratic fallacy" in some dialogues but not in others. If commission of the "So- cratic fallacy" is a blunder, how could Plato have carefully avoided com- mitting this blunder in the early, elenctic dialogues (while asserting things very much like it), only to embrace it in the transitional dialogues? Even if his role in composing the early dialogues was more that of Socrates' biographer than that of an original philosopher, is it reasonable to assume that Plato simply recorded the views of Socrates without understanding them? If Socrates avoided (PD) because he realized that its adoption would have the disastrous epistemological consequences Geach claims it has, is it reasonable to think that Plato did not realize this, and that, like a fool, in the transitional dialogues he rushed in where his angel had pre- viously feared to tread? Given what we know about Plato's philosophical abilities, this seems highly unlikely. Now it seems clear that Plato is committed to (PD) in the Meno. Bevers- luis distinguishes two forms or aspects of Geach's (A): (Al) If you do not know the definition of F, you cannot know that any- thing is an F, and (A2) If you do not know the definition of F, you cannot know any- thing about F (e.g. that F, say Justice, is Y, say beneficial).'2 I I find the critique of this project found in Charles H. Kahn's classic essay, "Did Plato Write Socratic Dialogues?," Classical Quarterly 31 (1981), 305-324, and later works completely convincing, though I do not agree with his alternative account of the relations among the dialogues or his chronological placement of the Gorgias. 12 Beversluis, op. cit., 211-212; cf. Benson, op. cit., 20, n. 2. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 101 At Meno 71b Socrates states, "I have no knowledge about virtue at all. And how can I know a property of something when I don't even know what it is?" The question clearly invites a negative reply; and, a negative reply would commit Plato to Beversluis' (A2). He is not so clearly com- mitted to (Al); however, as Benson has put it, the best explanation for his acceptance of (A2) is his acceptance of (PD). Whether Socrates in this dialogue represents the historical Socrates, Plato, or a combination of both, he seems committed to the principle that gives rise to the "Socratic fallacy." The Meno also contains a famous discussion of the difference between episteme and doxa (97a ff.), which I shall discuss below. It seems rea- sonable to assume that the concept of episteme Socrates employs when he denies that he has any knowledge of virtue is the same as that he uses when he distinguishes episteme and doxa, and that therefore we may use the later discussion of knowledge to illuminate his meaning in the former.'3 That is what I shall attempt to do below. It is possible that Plato wrote both passages without connecting them to each other; but this is unlikely in so careful a writer as Plato. Even if he were unaware of the connection between the two passages, however, we can fairly take both, occurring as they do within a single dialogue, as indicative of his thought on the "Socratic fallacy" at a certain period of his life. It seems to me, then, that if the "Socratic fallacy" is indeed a fallacy, it is committed in the Meno. If the person who commits it is Plato and not Socrates, that really doesn't matter; what matters is the commission itself. If these principles really do constitute a fallacy, they undermine, or at least threaten to undermine, some central aspects of Plato's epistemol- ogy. Let us consider, then, whether or not this pattern of reasoning really is a fallacy. 13 Irwin has used the distinction between episteme and doxa, though without specifi- cally invoking the Meno passage, in developing his own answer to Geach's problem. Irwin accepts the standard English translations of these terms as "knowledge" and "belief"; his solution is, in a nutshell, that Socrates denies he has knowledge but not true belief. This solution is, of all the published responses to Geach I am aware of, the closest to the one I propose below; unlike Irwin, however, I have serious reserva- tions about the adequacy of the usual translations, and as will become clear below I do not accept the claim that the alternative to Platonic episteme is a cognitive state similar to what we would describe in English as true belief. Beversluis (op. cit., 217ff.) discusses the Meno passage in the course of a critique of the "true belief" theory; his discussion is an excellent example of the project of purifying the early dialogues from the epistemology of middle Platonism. Since this paper concems a dialogue in which that epistemology emerges, his comments do not have a direct bearing on it. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 102 WILLIAM J. PRIOR III. Knowledge and Definition First of all we must ask what Geach means when he labels (A) and (B) a fallacy. I think he does not mean what logicians mean by a fallacy, namely an invalid pattern of argument. For, though Geach thinks that there is an inference from (A) to (B), he does not think that the inference is in- valid, for he states that (A) entails (B). Rather, I think that Geach regards (A) and (B) together as expressing a false conception of the nature of knowledge, a "style of mistaken thinking" about knowledge. As noted above, Geach's response to the "Socratic fallacy" is to claim that we know "heaps of things" we can't define. Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, and is based in part on the Wittgensteinian claim that one need not have ex- plicit knowledge of the definition of a term to be justified in one's use of that term. According to the slogan that once characterized this position, "meaning is use." This slogan conceals an ambiguity, however. It may mean that in order to be justified in saying that a is F one need not have definitional knowledge of F-ness, but only the ability to apply the term "F" to various objects in various situations. In this case what we know, in Geach's terms, is how to apply "F"; and this might be a skill that has no explicit knowledge of a semantic nature attached to it. This skill is hardly different, if it is different at all, from the practical ability to iden- tify F things. It is semantic knowledge only in a very minimal sense. Alter- natively, the slogan might mean that in order to be justified in applying the term "F" to various things one must be able to give an account of how "F"' is used, but that this account need not take the form of an ex- plicit definition or a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for its appli- cations. The second claim is less radical, and perhaps thus more plausible, than the first. I suspect, however, that the first, stronger view is behind Geach's objection. Philosophers who accept this dictum and the philosophical framework out of which it arises will think that Plato has made a straightforward and simple error in demanding explicit definitional knowledge from his inter- locutors. They may also argue that the error is not simply an error in the philosophical theory of meaning, however, but an error in the philosoph- ical conception of knowledge. It is then open to them to claim that, as Wittgenstein's predecessors in the English-speaking philosophical commu- nity shared a mistaken understanding of the ordinary use of "knowledge" in English, so the Greek philosophers shared a mistaken understanding of the ordinary use of episteme. Thus, the issue becomes not simply one involving the use of certain Greek or English terms, but one of the legit- This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 103 imacy of certain epistemic criteria. Followers of Wittgenstein might also argue that the enormous influence of the Greek philosophers, including Plato, on later philosophy is partially responsible for the perpetuation of this erroneous view. Geach's labeling of (A) and (B) a fallacy is thus tendentious: it depends on the correctness of the Wittgensteinian semantics and epistemology that underlie it. These were far from universally accepted when Geach wrote in 1966, and they are less so today. But if the Wittgensteinian view, or something like it, is not correct, it may not be the case that we know heaps of things we can't define; and if that is so, the Socratic view would not be a fallacy. It would not be a mistaken account of criteria for knowledge of the meaning of terms, whether we are speaking English or Greek. In other words, (PD) is implausible only on a certain reading of the verb "to know"; if we have reason to think Plato was committed to (PD) we have reason to think that he did not understand the corresponding Greek verb in that way.'4 Now it is tempting to respond that Plato was not talking about knowl- edge but about episteme, and that neither Plato nor the Greek philosophers in general thought that we can have episteme of things we can't define; and that indeed will be part of my response to Geach. I want to say some- thing about the general problem, however, that does not depend on the peculiarities of the Greek terms Plato uses. An examination of rival philosophical accounts of meaning and knowl- edge is beyond the scope of this paper (and beyond the competence of its author). I do want to note, however, that the Wittgensteinian position gains credibility as the explicitness and precision of the knowledge demanded by rival theories increases. It is not plausible that a mathematician's knowl- edge of the nature of the number 2 is required for an English speaker to claim justifiably that he or she knows that certain sentences containing that term are true (for instance, that 2 + 3 = 5). On the other hand, it seems reasonable to demand some account of the meaning of a term or the truth of a statement containing that term from a person who claims to know that the statement is true. That is, to use a Socratic example, if Laches claims to know that this person or that type of conduct is courageous, it seems reasonable to ask him what he means by "courage" and what he takes the condition for the ascription of courage to be. This, at any rate, is the way Plato and his Socrates understand the mat- ter. They assume that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever 14 I owe this formulation of the point to Hugh Benson. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 104 WILLIAM J. PRIOR a claim to knowledge is made. That is, when someone claims to know that a is F, they think that it is always in order to ask for general criteria for the application of F, or for a general account of the meaning of "F." This is the substantive issue on which Geach disagrees with them. Geach need not reject the idea that any account is inappropriate, but he must reject the idea that a general semantic account is always in order. He might say, in other words, "yes, it's appropriate to ask someone how he or she knows that a is F, but it isn't appropriate to ask for a definition of 'F'." This response is quite reasonable in those cases where we are think- ing of perceptual or memory knowledge of particular states of affairs. The right response to the question "How do you know it's raining?" might be, "I'm looking out the window at the rain coming down right now." The right response to "How do you know Susan lives on this street?" might be, "I've given her a ride home dozens of times." These responses aren't appropriate in the cases that Plato is interested in, however. As Socrates points out in the Euthyphro (7b ff.), the knowl- edge he is seeking concerns terms about which there is disagreement, and for which there is no universally recognized method for resolving the dis- agreement, terms of moral evaluation (right and wrong, noble and base, good and bad, and the names of the various virtues). As the early dia- logues demonstrate repeatedly, it is not possible to give an ostensive defi- nition of any of these terms. Piety and courage are not transparent moral properties, which only need to be observed in a select number of cases in order to be understood. Thus, it would seem that the Socratic method of seeking an account of the nature of these terms is well founded. Let us consider the matter from a slightly different perspective. On Geach's view it is possible for a person to say, correctly, "I know how to use the word X but I don't have any idea how to define X, or say what X essentially is." For some terms, such as color terms and terms for com- mon substances such as water or salt, this seems unproblematic; but even here we must be aware of the problem of the borderline case. Is that color a dark shade of yellow or a light shade of orange? The liquid in the glass looks like water and tastes like water, but how can we be sure it is water? How can we answer such questions if we lack criteria for determining where yellow leaves off and orange starts, or what water is? If one can't deal with the contentious cases, the borderline or disputed cases, it is tempting to think that one doesn't know how to use the term in question after all, or at least that one's knowledge is incomplete; and if that is true in the case of terms like "yellow" and "water," it would seem a fortiori to be true of terms like "brave" and "holy." Indeed, even if one finds the This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 105 problem of borderline cases unconvincing in the case of physical concepts, one might find it persuasive in the case of moral concepts, such as those with which Plato is concerned. Geach might respond that his point holds at least for obvious and uncontroversial cases of the term in question. Wittgenstein notes that the answer to the question "How do I know that this colour is red?" may be "I have learnt English."'5 It is possible to respond that, until one is in pos- session of explicit criteria for the application of a term, one cannot be cer- tain of its application in apparently clear cases. This response has little plausibility in the case of terms like "red" but somewhat more in the case of terms like "brave," where the applicability of the term depends on the attribution to some agent of a psychological state he may or may not pos- sess. Laches may be unable to tell whether a given hoplite who stands his ground in battle is truly brave unless he can determine that hoplite's moti- vation for so standing.'6 I don't want to push skepticism about examples this far, however. Doubtless it was fear of reaching just such a conclu- sion that led Geach to object to principle (A) in the first place. Nor do I think that Plato would want to do so. Though he might harbor doubts about the ordinary hoplite, I'm sure he would agree with Laches that Socrates' behavior in the retreat from Delium was brave, and that we can be certain it was (cf. Laches 18la-b). The question he would raise in such situations is not whether the concept applied to the case but whether the cognitive certainty on the part of the observer amounted to knowledge. Now if we take seriously the account given in the Meno of the distinc- tion between knowledge and right belief, I think it is clear that what Plato requires for knowledge is something very close to what Geach attributes to him in (A). According to Meno 97e-98a, what converts right opinion into knowledge is the "tethering" of opinion, its stabilization, by a reason- ing out of the explanation (aitias logismoi). In other words, the person who has knowledge is able to offer a reasoned explanation of the item in question, whereas the person with true opinion is not. As the Meno indi- cates, the opinions of this person are no less true than those of the person with knowledge, and no less reliable a guide to action. Plato might have added that the person with right opinion might be no less certain of the truth of a given judgment than the person with knowledge. Though he generally thought that opinion was less stable than knowledge because it '' Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3d ed. (New York 1958), Part 1, para. 381, 117e. 16 1owe this point to Roslyn Weiss. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 106 WILLIAM J. PRIOR was subject to persuasion, whereas knowledge was not, there is nothing inconsistent in a person with true opinion stubbornly sticking to that opin- ion through all attempts to persuade him to change his mind. What makes for knowledge, then, is not certainty or practical reliability but the ability of the person who has knowledge to give a reasoned explanation of what he or she knows. If the knowledge were knowledge of the meaning of a term (the case with which Geach is dealing), this explanation might very well involve the ability to give criteria for the application of the term in question. Thus, Plato's own account of the difference between knowledge and right opinion would seem to commit him to Geach's (A). Is this requirement a reasonable one? It seems to me that it is, at least if we confine it to those cases of knowledge that don't admit of demon- stration through some simple method like ostension. It can easily be made to seem unreasonable by placing various constraints on the nature of an acceptable account. Socrates says in the Euthyphro (6e) that he is look- ing for something he can use as a standard to judge all cases of piety, and this sounds very much like what Geach describes in (A). But he also says there (6d) that this standard is a form; and, though scholars differ as to whether that term commits Socrates to a theory of Forms, there is no doubt that Plato does develop such a theory in the middle dialogues, and that in the Phaedo he explicitly invokes Forms as principles of explana- tion. The Meno passage links the ability to give an account with the Doctrine of Recollection (98a). Although earlier in the Meno Plato sug- gests that the specification of a distinguishing mark is sufficient for a definition (as at 75b, where Socrates defines shape as what always accom- panies color), in the Euthyphro he rejects such a definition of piety (piety is what is dear to all the gods) because it gives only an attribute of piety, not its essence. In the Meno, Phaedo and Republic Plato indicates that he believes that knowledge is a unified whole, so that one has adequate knowledge of a Form only when he has understood its relation to others.'7 This would mean that knowledge had to meet some pretty stringent cri- teria of completeness. It is one thing to say that a person with knowledge 17 At Meno 81d Socrates states that, since all nature is akin, when one has recol- lected a single item of knowledge one may eventually recollect everything else. At Phaedo lOld he suggests that the hypothesis that there are Forms is to be justified by appeal to higher hypotheses, and that one must continue to ascend the hypothetical ladder until one reaches "something adequate." In the Republic (VI, 51 lc-d) it is made clear that the unhypothetical first principle that puts an end to the ascent is the Form of the Good. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRAnC FALLACY" 107 must be able to give an account of what he knows (cf. Phaedo 76b), and quite another to require complete knowledge, expressed in essential de- finitions of a Form reached through the process of Recollection. But it does not follow from the fact that the metaphysical and epistemological elaboration Plato gives to the simple criterion may be unreasonable that the criterion itself is; and it should be remembered that it is the simple criterion, and not its metaphysical elaboration, that Geach objects to. IV. Episteme and Logos If it is reasonable to expect that someone claiming knowledge should be able to provide some rational explanation of the fact known, it is even more reasonable to expect this of someone claiming episteme. The concept of episteme is explicitly linked with the concept of logos, rational account or explanation, in Greek philosophy. Fine'8 mentions Meno 98a, Phaedo 76d, Republic VII, 53le and 534b as passages in which Plato links the possession of episteme to the ability to give a logos of what one knows; and, though the attempt to define episteme as true opinion with the addi- tion of an account in the Theaetetus ends in apparent failure, the con- nection between episteme and logos seems reaffirmed in the rhetorical question at 202d: "how can there ever be knowledge without an account?" One may well think that the connection between episteme and logos was for Plato analytic. Nor is Plato's connection between episteme and logos idiosyncratic. When Aristotle defines episteme in Posterior Analytics 2, he says that we have episteme of a fact when we "know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and no other, and further, that the fact could not be other than it is." (71blO ff.) As he defines the faculty of epis- teme in Nicomachean Ethics VI.3, it is "the capacity to demonstrate" (1139b3 1). Aristotle limits the scope of episteme to necessary truths, and demands for these not just a rational account but a demonstration that shows their necessity. These restrictions are so different from those we place on knowledge that translators are prone to mark them by translat- ing episteme as "scientific knowledge" rather than simply as "knowledge." 18 Gail Fine, "Knowledge and Belief in Republic V-VII," in Stephen Everson, ed., Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 106. For a detailed discussion of the relation between episteme and logos, with many additional references to passages in the Platonic corpus, see Jon Moline, Plato's Theory of Understanding (Madison 1981), ch. 2, esp. 33-43. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 108 WILLIAM J. PRIOR This is not the place to discuss the propriety of this translation; I simply note that the term on which Aristotle places these restrictions is the same term that translators translate as "knowledge" in Plato: episteme. Episteme is the state with which Geach's principle (A) is concerned. We are now in a position to understand what Plato meant to affirm when he affirmed (A) or, more precisely, when he affirmed the more spe- cific statements that have led scholars to attribute (A) to him. Consider the question from the Meno: "how can I know a property of something when I don't even know what it is?" (71b) What this implies in context is that Socrates does not believe that he can know whether virtue is teachable without knowing what the nature of virtue is. I suggest that what this im- plies is that Socrates thinks he can have no logos, no rational account of the teachability of virtue without a logos of the nature of virtue. In general, he can have no rational account of the properties of an object without having a rational account of the nature of the object. Is this a false view of the nature of knowledge? It certainly seems to have been a feature of ancient essentialist epistemology that knowledge of something begins (logically, not temporally) with knowledge of the thing's essence, proceeds to knowledge of properties that follow neces- sarily from the essence, and concludes with whatever accidental proper- ties may be knowable. It does not seem to me to be a relevant objection to this scheme to say that there is a perfectly good use of the English word "know" in which I can say "I know that the apple is red" without being able to give an account of the nature of an apple; for if a rational account is demanded that explains why this apple, or apples of this kind, are red, then I think I can't know what that account would be without knowing the nature of the apple. Similarly, it does not seem to be a relevant objection to Socrates' claim that he can't know whether virtue is teachable unless he knows what it is that there is a perfectly good use of the English word "know" in which I can claim to know that virtue can be taught without being able to give an account of the nature of virtue, namely that in which I say, "I know virtue can be taught, for I've seen it done. X passed on his virtue to Y by teach- ing; I don't know how he did it, but he did it nonetheless." For again, what Socrates is looking for is a rational account that explains how virtue can be taught, and it seems reasonable to think that such an account requires an account of what virtue is. It does not matter that there is a sense of "know" in English that dispenses with the rational account, for that sense isn't the one Socrates has in mind. He is not waiting for infor- mation about cases of successful teaching of virtue; rather, he is seeking to understand how those instances could have taken place. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 109 Plato restricts episteme to matters for which we possess a rational account. Nothing in this restriction requires him to deny that we might be in a cognitive state, on the question, say, of the teachability of virtue, that possesses many of the other features of knowledge. I might be, as in the case mentioned above, familiar with instances of the successful teaching of virtue. I might therefore be certain that virtue could be taught. I might be so certain that virtue could be taught, and so certain that the cases I had observed were instances of the teaching of virtue, that I was imper- vious to argument or evidence of any sort to the contrary. When Plato denies that, for all that, the state I'm in is that of episteme, he need not be taken to deny' that I might be in a state that English speakers might correctly identify as empirical knowledge. I think that people have found (A) unreasonable because they thought that it committed Plato to the view that we couldn't be morally certain of some feature of a thing without a rational account of its nature.19 But (A) is not a claim about the certainty,20 or the empirical basis of our beliefs; it is about the kind of account required to turn a belief, even an empirically grounded and dogmatically held belief, into episteme. It may in the end turn out to be a mistaken principle, but it doesn't seem to me to wear its falsity on its face. It isn't so obviously false a principle that I'd want to label it a fallacy. V. The Use of Examples The reader might well object at this point that showing that (A) is not as harmful a principle as Geach suggested is only half the battle; for it is (A) and (B) together that constitute the fallacy, and Geach believes that (A) entails (B). Let us turn, then, to an examination of (B). It states "that it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of 'T' by giving examples of things that are T." Now scholars have noted that Socrates' actual prac- tice in the dialogues is not in accord with this principle: he uses examples 1' This seems to be what Geach means when he suggests that the principle is morally harmful because someone who proved unable after repeated attempts to explain why swindling is unjust might come to doubt that it was unjust (372). It is true that someone might come to that conclusion, but there is nothing in (A) to sug- gest that he or she should. Note that Socrates, who sees more definitions go down in flames than anyone, never succumbs to such moral uncertainty. 20 As Woodruff notes, in "Plato's Early Theory of Knowledge," 65, "You can be quite certain in the ordinary way of any number of things, without being able to give a Socratic definition." Note also Aristotle's claim in Nicomachean Ethics VII.3, 1146b26-7 that "Some people have no doubts when they have an opinion, and think they have exact knowledge. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 110 WILLIAM J. PRIOR frequently to develop, refine, and critically assess definitions. As Bevers- luis notes, the dialogues of search abound with passages in which he not only unproblem- atically accepts examples of the virtue under discussion from interlocutors who manifestly lack a definition of it but heartily endorses examples as the primary data from which the definition is to be extracted.2' But Geach might respond, "So much the worse for Socrates' practice. If (B) follows from (A), Socrates is not entitled to make use of examples in any of these ways." To answer this challenge we must attempt to discover whether (B) does indeed follow from (A). Before we investigate this ques- tion, however, I want to note that, even if some general prohibition on the use of examples did follow from (A) that would not mean that the search for general criteria was pointless. A process such as recollection might put one directly in touch with general criteria, bypassing examples entirely; and if the metaphysics of recollection seems too extravagant to offer much hope in this regard, there might be other less implausible methods of direct apprehension of general semantic criteria. Still, it seems intuitively obvious that the quest for general criteria is im- measurably aided by the use of examples, so let us ask how the prohibi- tion of the use of examples is supposed to follow from (A). Here is Geach's argument: If you can already give a general account of what "T" means, then you need no examples to arrive at the meaning of "T"; if on the other hand you lack such a general account, then, by assumption (A), you cannot know that any examples of things that are T are genuine ones, for you do not know when you are pred- icating "T" correctly.22 But is Geach right about this? (A) says that one cannot know that a term "T" is correctly predicated unless one can give a general criterion for the correct predication of "T." When applied to examples, this means that one cannot know that an alleged example of T is a genuine example until one has a general account of what it is to be T. If Geach were to say only this about examples, he would be quite correct. But he says more; he says it is no use trying to reach a general criterion by the use of examples; and it seems to me that this is not the case. It is not necessary for me to know that an alleged example of a gen- eral term T is a genuine example in order to use this example in my search 21 Beversluis, op. cit., 212. Cf. Santas, op. cit., 129-134. 22 Geach, op. cit., 371. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 111 for a general criterion of meaning for "T." It is a perfectly intelligible pro- cedure, one followed in all forms of classificatory endeavor, to consider many alleged examples of a given term in the hope of coming up with a general criterion or general criteria of classification. Once one has devel- oped or discovered such criteria, one can then use them to sort through the initial set of alleged examples and separate those that truly belong to the class from those that merely appear to. It is not necessary to know beforehand that all of the putative examples in the initial set are genuine. It is not necessary to know, in the case of any particular example, that it is genuine. It is not even necessary to know that any of the examples in the initial set is genuine (though if one's initial choice of putative exam- ples is that unfortunate the classificatory project is unlikely to reach a suc- cessful conclusion). All that is necessary is that one have a reasonable amount of confidence that at least some of the examples in the initial set are genuine. It is the discovery of general criteria, which is the aim of the classificatory project, that will convert this confidence into knowledge; so it is hard to see how one could know, in advance of the discovery of these criteria, that a given example is a genuine one. I think that this is in fact the procedure followed by Socrates in the early dialogues. Consider as a single example the passage in the Laches wherein Socrates is attempting to expand Laches' understanding of the scope of courage. Laches had identified courage with the behavior of the hoplite who remains in his position in battle. Socrates first points out that other forms of behavior in combat may be courageous, then mentions those who are courageous in perils at sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again in politics, are courageous, and not only who are courageous against pain or fear, but mighty to contend against desires or pleasures. .. (191d-e; Jowett, trans.) Is Socrates committed to the claim that he knows, in advance of having a general definition of courage, that it can be found in all these settings? I think not. He is committed at most to the view that these provide plau- sible environments in which instances of courage can be sought. To pur- sue his investigation he needs nothing more than this. As we have seen, Plato is willing to say that someone knows some- thing only when that person is able to give an account of what he knows. When the case is that of predicating a term of an alleged example, the kind of account required is an account of the meaning of "T," which for Plato means the formulation of a general criterion for the application of that term. If one is searching for such a general criterion, one obviously is This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 112 WILLIAM J. PRIOR not in conscious possession of it, and in that sense one cannot know that the alleged example is a genuine one. As I also argued above, however, the absence of an account need not lead to uncertainty about the fact in question. In this case, the lack of an account of what makes something a T need not produce a lack of confidence in alleged examples of T. It certainly need not lead an investigator to doubt his or her ability even pro- visionally to identify examples of T. I think that, for Geach's objection to hold, and for (B) to follow from (A), it would have to be the case that a lack of a general criterion for what it is to be a T must produce in the investigator such a degree of con- fusion that he or she is unable even tentatively to identify examples of T. We have seen that this is not the case. Therefore, (B) does not follow from (A). Plato may, without logical error, make use of examples in seek- ing general definitions of terms. It seems clear also that he may, without logical error, follow another practice that he constantly employs in the early dialogues: he may propose alleged examples as counterexamples to definitions proposed by his interlocutors. The procedures by which Socrates attempts to discover general criteria for the use of terms in the early dialogues are not purely inductive ones; he does not simply attempt to assemble a sufficient sample of instances of the term and then abstract from these examples a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of the term. Rather, examples are used to stimulate rational reflection on the nature of the things denoted by the terms in question. As the Doctrine of Recollection has it, examples serve to remind us of the metaphysical originals from which they are de- rived. Though the Platonic procedure differs from the more familiar induc- tivist model familiar to students of philosophy of science, it is a procedure in which examples play a legitimate role, or in fact, more than one legit- imate role. VI. Conclusion In this paper I have argued that the "Socratic fallacy" is not a fallacy. I have argued that Geach's (A), which has come to be known as the Priority of Definition principle (PD), is not part and parcel of a "style of mistaken thinking" about knowledge and definition but a specific case of a general Platonic principle of epistemology: the principle that episteme requires a logos. The fact that this principle emerges explicitly for the first time in a transitional dialogue, the Meno, means that we ought to be suitably cau- tious about attributing it to Socrates in the early dialogues. On the other This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 113 hand, I have also argued that Plato's acceptance of (A) does not commit him to (B), so that the consequences Geach feared do not arise. Thus, there is no reason not to use (PD), as Benson has argued, as a unifying principle behind many specific Socratic remarks in the early dialogues about what we can know, and under what conditions we can know it.23 Santa Clara University 23 I thank Hugh Benson and Elizabeth Radcliffe for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This content downloaded from 192.167.204.6 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:37:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions