Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T05:38:15.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Socrates’ Search for Laches’ Knowledge of Courage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2017

DYLAN B. FUTTER
DYLAN B. FUTTER*
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand
*
*<[email protected]>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Plato’s Laches, Socrates ascribes knowledge of courage to his eponymous interlocutor and makes an attempt to reconstruct it in speech. His attribution of knowledge to Laches controls his discursive behaviour in the dialogue, requiring him to withhold judgements of error, construe apparent error as a failure of speech rather than knowledge, and search for the deeper truth underlying the overt content of Laches’ utterances. Socrates’ method in this elenchus can be described as a kind of ‘epistemic exegesis,’ which aims to draw out and give discursive shape to knowledge of virtue that it assumes that the interlocutor already possesses.

Dans le Lachès de Platon, Socrate attribue à son interlocuteur la connaissance du courage et tente de reconstruire cette connaissance sous forme discursive. Son attribution de connaissance à Lachès détermine son comportement discursif dans le dialogue, nécessitant qu’il s’abstienne de juger erronés les propos son interlocuteur, qu’il interprète l’erreur apparente comme une erreur de discours plutôt que de connaissance, et qu’il cherche la vérité sous-jacente au contenu manifeste des paroles de Lachès. La méthode de Socrate dans cet elenchos peut être décrite comme une sorte d’«exégèse épistémique», qui cherche à extraire et à donner une forme discursive à la connaissance de la vertu dont elle suppose que l’interlocuteur est déjà possesseur.

Keywords

PlatoSocratesSocratic methodelenchusLaches
Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 775 - 798
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, D. 1998 “Elenchos and Evidence,” Ancient Philosophy 18 (2): 287–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bealer, G. 1998 “Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy,” in Paul, M.D. and Ramsey, W. (eds.) Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield: 201–239.Google Scholar
Benson, H.H. 1995 “The Dissolution of the Problem of the Elenchus,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13: 45–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, H.H. 2000 Socratic Wisdom. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, H.H. 2011 “Socratic Method,” in Morrison, D. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Socrates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 179–200.Google Scholar
Beversluis, J. 2000 Cross Examining Socrates. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Booth, W. 1975 A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brickhouse, T.C. and Smith, N.D. 1994 Plato’s Socrates. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brickhouse, T.C. and Smith, N.D. 2002 “The Socratic Elenchos?,” in Scott, G.A. (ed.) Does Socrates Have a Method: Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato’s Dialogues and Beyond. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press: 145–157.Google Scholar
Forster, M. 2006 “Socrates’ Demand for Definitions,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 31: 1–47.Google Scholar
Frede, M. 1992 “Plato’s Arguments and the Dialogue Form,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues 10 (Supplement): 201–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Futter, D.B. 2011 “Socratic ‘Argument’ in Plato’s Eary Definitional Dialogues,” South African Journal of Philosophy 30 (2): 122–131.Google Scholar
Futter, D.B. 2013 “On Irony Interpretation: Socratic Method in Plato’s Euthyphro,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (6): 1030–1051.Google Scholar
Futter, D.B. 2016 “Commentary, Authority, and Care of the Self,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 49 (1): 98–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Futter, D.B. n.d. “Nicias Fights in Armour: Sophistical Self-Defence in Plato’s Laches,” unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Geach, P.T. 1966 “Plato’s Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary,” Monist 50 (3): 369–382.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, F.J. 1998 Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato’s Practice of Philosophical Inquiry. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, C.S. 1987 “Socratic Intellectualism and the Problem of Courage: An Interpretation of Plato’s Laches,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (3): 265–279.Google Scholar
Grice, P. 1991 Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Griswold, C.L. 1986 “Philosophy, Education, and Courage in Plato’s Laches,” Interpretation 14 (2–3): 177–193.Google Scholar
Plato 1924 Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus. Plato. Translated by Lamb, W.R.M.. London: Harvard University Press, the Loeb Classical Library.Google Scholar
Plato 1987 “Laches,” in Pangle, T.L. (ed.) The Roots of Political Philosophy. Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues. Translated by Nichols, J.H.. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press: 240–269.Google Scholar
Plato 1997 Plato: Complete Works. Edited by Cooper, J.M. (with Hutchinson, D.S.). Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Plato 1998 Ion, Hippias Minor, Laches, Protagoras. Translated by Allen, R.E.. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, R. 1953 Plato’s Earlier Dialectic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ryle, G. 1949 The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson Press.Google Scholar
Santas, G. 1969 “Socrates at Work on Virtue and Knowledge in Plato’s Laches,” Review of Metaphysics 22 (3): 433–460.Google Scholar
Schmid, W.T. 1992 On Manly Courage: A Study of Plato’s Laches. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, M.C. 1986 Plato’s Socratic Conversations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Vlastos, G. 1983 “The Socratic Elenchus,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1: 27–58.Google Scholar
Vlastos, G. 1994 “The Socratic Elenchus: Method Is All,” in Burnyeat, M.F. (ed.) Socratic Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1–28.Google Scholar
Wolfsdorf, D. 2003 “Socrates’ Pursuit of Definitions,” Phronesis 48 (4): 271–312.Google Scholar
Wolfsdorf, D. 2004 “The Socratic Fallacy and the Epistemological Priority of Definitional Knowledge,” Apeiron 37 (1): 35–67.Google Scholar