Huaiyuan Zhang, “What Does Divination Mean for Plato’s Socrates? On the Relationship between Being and the Good,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 77, no. 1 (2021): 71–92, https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2021_77_1_0071.
| Type | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Author | Huaiyuan Zhang |
| Rights | © 2021 by Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 71-92 |
| Publication | Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| ISSN | 0870-5283 |
| Date | 2021 |
| DOI | 10.17990/RPF/2021_77_1_0071 |
| Language | English |
| Abstract | Has philosophy ever completed a transition from divine revelation to rational reflection? Has it been Plato’s goal? In this paper I will establish and examine a parallel between divination and philosophy embodied in Plato’s Socrates. I will cite instances from both directions to analyze Plato’s indecision concerning a philosophical treatment of divination: On the one hand, Plato renovates the cultural stock of divination to supplement the rational process of Socratic dialectics. In particular, when he makes a proposal not as a proven proposition, but as the starting point of discussion, Socrates frequently helps himself to divinatory language. On the other hand, Plato does not seem to abandon the nondiscursive elements in his narrative, especially since the vision of the ultimate objective of the Platonic-Socratic project, i.e. the Good, requires a resort to divination. The indecision is reflected in the textual ambivalence as to whether the being of the Good transcends other forms or is on a par with other forms as the noblest form. Based on the correlation between the power of knowledge and the object of knowledge, I will argue that the epistemic entanglement of divination with reason in Plato’s approach corresponds to the ambiguous relationship between being and the Good in Plato’s ethically imbued metaphysical scheme. Since Plato presents Socrates as a seer in the aforementioned occasions, I will further suggest that Plato presents himself as a collector of oracles by preserving Socratic’s teaching in writing, whose ultimate meanings are open to interpretation and debate. |
| Date Added | 4/29/2021, 12:33:04 AM |
| Modified | 4/29/2021, 11:23:38 AM |
Brisson, Luc. Plato the Myth Maker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Cornford, Francis Macdonald. From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1912.
Denyer, Nicholas. “Sun and Line: The Role of the Good,” In The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic, ed. by Giovanni RF Ferrari, 284-309. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Dodds, Eric Robertson. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951.
Flower, Michael. The Seer in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus, trans. Ted Sadler, London: Continuum, 2002.
Johnston, Sarah Iles. Ancient Greek Divination. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444302998.
McPherran, Mark L. Religion of Socrates. University Park: The Pennsylvania State UP, 2010.
Munn, Mark H. The School of History: Athens in the Age of Socrates. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, 1982. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203328064.
Parke, H. W. Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity. New York: Routledge, 1988.
Plato. Complete Works. eds. John M. Cooper and Douglas S. Hutchinson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0009840x98410035.
Plato. Charmides. trans. Christopher Moore and Christopher C. Raymond. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2019.
Plato. Timaeus. trans. Peter Kalkavage. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2016.
Struck, Peter T. Divination and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691169392.003.0004.
Xenophon. Conversations of Socrates. trans. Hugh Tredennick. London: Penguin UK, 1990.
