Plato on Naming

Dialectic and Dialogue in Plato: Refuting the model of Socrates-as-teacher in the pursuit of authenticPaideia

“…In relation to the discussion in section one, this epistemological view emerges from the conception of Socrates (Plato) consistent with the echonic notion of philosophy, and it is a view expressed by analytic philosophers such as Fine (1977), who claims that the Socratic search for definitions, or reasoned accounts (logous) of the virtues, is ultimately a search for propositional truth, where a knows x is translatable into a knows what x is, into a knows that x is F. Much of contemporary education--for example education models such as Adler's, grounded in the so-called 'Socratic method'--embrace forms of knowledge in the curriculum that are reducible to propositional discourse (High-Stakes testing draws its life-blood from such an epistemological view), which gives the impression that knowledge is objective and located at a distance from the human as it is immersed in the world of its experientially involved projects. Against this view, I present an interpretation of Socrates' notion of philosophical understanding that is neither a techne nor episteme proper, which cannot be expressed through tightly reasoned propositional discourse.…”

TAKING THE TOOL ANALOGY SERIOUSLY: FORMS AND NAMING IN THECRATYLUS

“…The traditional source for modern views on conventionalism is, of course, Lewis's seminal discussion in Convention (1969); however, it would seem that Lewis would not have a problem with a Crusoe language whereby an individual could establish his own naming conventions (182). 5 For examples of those who see Hermogenes presented as an extreme, or naive conventionalist, or swiftly refuted, see e.g., Baxter (1992) 18; Fine (1977) 295; Gold (1978) 242 ff. ; Kahn (1973) 158-9; Ketchum (1979) 136; Reeve (1998) xiv.…”

“…Although the latter is said to be more correct than the former, both are acknowledged to be names for him (cf. Fine (1977) 297). It would seem that these names are co-extensive then, yet nowhere does Socrates appear to suggest that these two names have the same dunamis .…”

“… 1 It has often been noted that the Greek word ὄνομα has broader signification than the English ‘name’; my use of the English ‘name’ in this essay should be understood broadly to encompass all referring terms, and, furthermore, ‘referring term’ should be understood to encompass both names of objects and predicate terms. (For further discussion of this point see, e.g., Ackrill (1997) 36; Fine (1977) 291 ff). …”

Plato on the Norms of Speech and Thought

“…For a range of opinion on the issue, see Miller and Wright (2002). 3) Helpful treatments can be found in G. Fine (1977), Barney (2001), and Sedley (2003). 4) Notable exceptions are Ackrill (1994Ackrill ( /1997, Keller (2000: 291-4), Barney (2001: 42-4), and Sedley (2003: 54-8).…”