Ignorance, Irony, and Knowledge in Plato

Inbunden, Engelska, 2022

1 499 kr

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A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic TitleSocrates famously claimed that he knew nothing, and that wisdom consisted in awareness of one’s ignorance. In Ignorance, Irony and Knowledge in Plato, Kevin Crotty makes the case for the centrality and fruitfulness of Socratic ignorance throughout Plato’s philosophical career. Knowing that you don’t know is more than a maxim of intellectual humility; Plato shows how it lies at the basis of all the virtues, and inspires dialogue, the best and most characteristic activity of the philosophical life. Far from being simply a lack or deficit, ignorance is a necessary constituent of genuine knowledge. Crotty explores the intricate ironies involved in the paradoxical relationship of ignorance and knowledge. He argues, further, that Plato never abandoned the historical Socrates to pursue his own philosophical agenda. Rather, his philosophical career can be largely understood as a progressive deepening of his appreciation of Socratic ignorance. Crotty presents Plato as a forerunner of the scholarly interest in ignorance that has gathered force in a wide variety of disciplines over the last 20 years.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2022-11-08
Mått160 x 236 x 21 mm
Vikt540 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor260
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781666927115
UtmärkelserWinner of Outstanding Academic Title 2023

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Introduction: On Self-Constitution and IgnorancePart I: Ignorance and IronyChapter One. The Origins of Socratic IgnoranceChapter Two. Socratic Ignorance in the MenoChapter Three. Ignorance, Irony, DialoguePart II: KnowledgeChapter Four. Knowledge and PerceptionChapter Five. Knowledge and Expertise IChapter Six. Knowledge and Expertise II: Plato and Protagoras on ExpertiseChapter Seven. Knowledge and Dialogue Chapter Eight. Knowledge, Ignorance, WisdomConclusion: Inconclusion

This is a refreshing and persuasive book. Crotty starts by taking Socrates’s disavowals of wisdom in the Apology seriously. Socrates’s ignorance motivates his virtuous search for wisdom through dialogue. Crotty argues that the irony in Socrates’s famous method is not that Socrates already knows the answers; rather ignorance motivates sincere, ongoing dialogue and is itself a source of moral action and wisdom. Crotty takes issue with a scholarly tradition (and with an impressive array of scholars—Gregory Vlastos, Paul Woodruff, Charles Kahn, Julius Moravcsik, among others) that focuses on the objects of knowledge—eternal, immutable Platonic forms. To grasp a form, Crotty suggests, would mean closure, whereas Socratic virtues emerge in process—engaging other thinkers while admitting ignorance and refraining from actions (e.g., politics) about which one can know almost nothing. A sticking point, if there is one, comes in Crotty’s fluid comparisons of dialogues from different periods of Plato’s presumed theoretical development. Crotty sees an ethical theory across the Phaedo, Meno, and Charmides, and a theory of the relation of perception to knowledge across Theaetetus, Phaedrus,and Republic, for example. But Crotty’s wholistic interpretation is lucid, erudite, and challenging. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.