Plato and Aristotle on Truth and Falsehood

Szaif, Jan

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199557929.013.1

Cited by 18 publications

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“…See e.g. Szaif (1996Szaif ( , 2018 A choice between 7O and 7S should take into account how 7 fits into the argument as a whole. But a few preliminary points can be made here.…”

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Knowledge and Truth in the Greatest Difficulty Argument: Parmenides 133b4–134b5

Fine

2020

Int. J. Study Skept.

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One of Plato’s central tenets is that we can know forms. In Parmenides 133b4–134b5, Plato presents an argument whose sceptical conclusion is that we can’t know forms. Although he indicates that the argument doesn’t succeed, he also says it’s difficult to explain how it fails. Commentators have suggested a variety of flaws. I argue that the argument can be defended against some, though not all, of the alleged flaws. But I also argue that Plato hints at a crucial distinction that hasn’t been brought to bear in this context, and that indeed he is sometimes thought not to draw: that between the content and object of knowledge. Once we are clear about this distinction, we can see that the sceptical argument doesn’t imply that we can’t know forms.

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“…See e.g. Szaif (1996Szaif ( , 2018 A choice between 7O and 7S should take into account how 7 fits into the argument as a whole. But a few preliminary points can be made here.…”

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confidence: 99%

Knowledge and Truth in the Greatest Difficulty Argument: Parmenides 133b4–134b5

Fine

2020

Int. J. Study Skept.

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Aristotle on Knowledge and the Knowable

Moss

2024

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy

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Aristotle has a general concept of knowledge, which he labels gnōsis (in addition to his various concepts of specialized kinds of knowledge such as epistēmē). This paper illuminates Aristotle’s gnōsis by studying at his treatment of the gnōrimon (‘knowable’). Despite, Aristotle’s distinction between what is knowable by nature and what is knowable to us, and his application of ‘gnōrimon’ both to propositions and to objects, he has a unified notion of the gnōrimon, namely that with which we can be well acquainted. This strongly suggests that gnōsis is knowledge in the sense of good acquaintance. All knowledge, propositional or not, is a matter of being well acquainted with reality. Thus, on Aristotle’s view, all humans by nature desire to know not primarily because we want our beliefs to be certain or justified or the like, but because we want reality to be well known to us, like a well-known person.

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Plato's Epistemology

Moss¹

2021

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This book argues that Plato’s epistemology is radically different from our own. Unlike knowledge and belief as nowadays conceived, the central players in his epistemology are each essentially to be understood as cognition of a certain kind of object. Epistêmê is cognition of what Is—where this turns out to mean that it is a deep grasp of ultimate reality. Doxa is cognition of what seems—where this turns out to mean that it is atheoretical thought that mistakes images for reality. These objects-based characterizations, inchoate in the earlier dialogues and fully developed in the Republic, are the bedrock conceptions of epistêmê and doxa that explain all their other features, including the restriction of epistêmê to Forms and doxa to perceptibles. Moreover, Plato does epistemology this way because his epistemological projects are motivated by his central ethical and metaphysical views. He holds that there is a crucial metaphysical distinction between two levels of reality: genuine Being, which is hidden and difficult to access, and something ontologically inferior but readily apparent, presenting itself to us as real. He also holds that there is a crucial ethical distinction stemming from this metaphysical one: to be in contact with Being is to be living well, while to rest content with the inferior level is not only to fail to live well, but to hinder oneself from aspiring to do so. Therefore, when Plato turns to epistemological investigations, the distinction he finds most salient is that between cognitive contact with what Is and cognitive contact with what seems.

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Plato and Aristotle on Truth and Falsehood

Cited by 18 publications

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Knowledge and Truth in the Greatest Difficulty Argument: Parmenides 133b4–134b5

Knowledge and Truth in the Greatest Difficulty Argument: Parmenides 133b4–134b5

Aristotle on Knowledge and the Knowable

Plato's Epistemology

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