Explanation and Essence in Plato's Phaedo

Abstract

This chapter makes several proposals concerning Plato's discussion in Phaedo (95e f.), where causes or explanations are said to be or be based on forms or essences. It states that Plato's argument involves not a contentious notion of a Platonic form but only the notion of essence in the sense of the correct answer to a question of the type ‘What is’, with which we are familiar from earlier in this dialogue, from Plato's earlier dialogues. Second, the chapter suggests, Plato's argument does not rely on a presupposed notion of essence but rather serves to establish the need for such a notion in the context of explanation. Third, it contends, Plato's argument does not rely on the principle ‘like-explains/causes-like’ but rather on the requirement that explanations must be uniform, which Plato spells out independently of that principle. Fourth, the chapter argues, in Plato's account of explanation, which involves basic essences, physical or material components of things can be genuinely part of explanations. Finally, Plato's argument is to be understood as conducted according to a general method of argument and inquiry. This method of argument and inquiry consists in first articulating a particular aporia about explanation in general, and then arguing that a particular account of explanation is both necessary and sufficient to resolve this aporia. The aporia is that, on the one hand, no proposed explanation is genuinely explanatory unless it is uniform; but, on the other hand, no currently proposed explanations, be they everyday or the scientific ones favoured by the natural philosophers, are uniform or begin to indicate how the uniformity-requirement is to be satisfied in the explanations that we propose.

Is There Something in Common? Forms and the Theory of Word Meaning

“…5 As Irwin puts it, a property G cannot be the explanation of x's being F 'if either (1) G is present in y, but y is not F, or (2) G is not present in z, but z is F' (Irwin 1995: 155;cf. 159;and see Nehamas 1979;Politis 2010). 6 Ide (2002) suggests that a key problem addressed in the Philebus is: 'given a single account of being F, how could different F's have different properties in virtue of being F?…”

“…Socrates explains how in his youth he had looked to natural science for the aitiai (often translated, a bit misleadingly, by ‘causes’) of everything. The use of aitia here indicates some type of explanation, something that answers a ‘why’ question, but where the type of answer can be much broader than our contemporary notion of cause (see Politis ; Sedley ; Vlastos ). The type of answer—the type of explanation, or aitia —that is in view can be illustrated from Hippias Major 294a–b:

we were looking for that by which [ hō(i) ] all beautiful things are beautiful—like that by which [ hō(i) ] all large things are large, that is, by exceeding [ tō(i) huperechonti ].

…”

“…Plato also, in many passages, expresses unambiguous focus on what characteristics constitute something's being such‐and‐such (cf. Politis ). He speaks of what any given thing ‘actually is’ [ ho tunchanei hekaston on ] ( Phaedo 65d–e).…”

“…As Irwin puts it, a property G cannot be the explanation of x's being F ‘if either (1) G is present in y, but y is not F, or (2) G is not present in z, but z is F’ (Irwin : 155; cf. 159; and see Nehamas ; Politis ).…”