Does Plato's Theaetetus Provide a Comprehensive Refutation of Empiricism - Term Paper Example

Does Plato's Theaetetus provide a comprehensive refutation of empiricism? What does empiricism mean? According to Webster dictionary (1913) definition of this word is: “1. The method or practice of an empiric; pursuit of knowledge by observation and experiment. 2. Specifically, a practice of medicine founded on mere experience, without the aid of science or knowledge of principles; ignorant and unscientific practice; charlatanry; quackery. 3. (Metaph.) The philosophical theory which attributes the origin of all our knowledge to experience.”(Definition….) Some of the important Thesaurus words for “empiricism” are, altruistic ethics, atomism, commonsense realism, deontology, earthliness, ethonomics, experimentalism, hylozoism, physicalism, pragmatism, substantialism, temporality, utilitarianism, worldliness etc. This list is representative and by no means exhaustive. In Theaetetus, Plato works on an anti-imperialist stance. It is no ordinary job to offer criticism on definite lines to Plato's assumptions. From the mind-level, they are available to various interpretations, depending upon the level of intellectual progression of scholars. Chappell “offers a brilliantly original interpretation of his own: first, he sets out to give a defense of the Unitarian interpretation of the Theaetetus superior to Cornford's, whose many defects he points out along the way; and second, he argues that Plato's Theaetetus is primarily an anti-empiricist tract. It exposes the shortcomings of that theory, and hints at the advantages of a rationalist epistemology such as Plato's, waiting in the wings.”(Timothy….) Out of the interpretations till the mid-20th century, Unitarianism was the predominant view of Plato's Theatetus and most of his dialogues.While maintaining the theory of Forms and other essential doctrines consistently throughout the corpus, Plato is also aware of his difficulties in doing so. The position is so confusing for the scholars making attempts of interpretation of the doctrines, that they were led to conclude that the theory of Forms is nowhere mentioned explicitly in the Theaetetus and that by the time he wrote the book, he had given up on that theory. Some of them, found evidence of Plato's criticism and his retreat as for the theory in that dialogue. Many unsolved puzzles and problems in the Theaetetus are the pointers to Plato's honesty and integrity—that he admits his inability to offer satisfactory solutions to them and the revisionists harp on this position of Plato. But the remedy of the Revisionist interpretations is worse than the disease, so to say! The original problems of the Theaetetus remain the original problems, as the alternative routes of interpretations attempted by them proved more confusing. Mr. Burk's analysis of the Empiricist Theory is the case in point. He tries to put forth the ostensive definition. According to him, “ For ostensive definition, …. amounts merely to an indication of the predicative usage(positive and negative) of the term which connotes the concept in question—to an indication of the entities to which the term applies, and those to which the term does not apply. Now in the case of common terms, this usage is known by every competent user of the language is able to define (we should ordinarily say) each common term. Thus most persons would find considerable difficulty in defining such common terms as “chair,” “horse,” “tree,” etc even though the correct usage of such terms is perfectly evident to them.”(Ledden, 1947) Plato did not reject the theory outright, but he was aware of its shortcomings and limitations.Scholars like Chappell have strived their utmost to explain that the whole of Theaetetus provides enough proof of the difficulties of empiricism. Plato in the Protagoras part of the Theaetetus avers that knowledge is the same as perception. When one perceives, the object of one's perception is a sense-datum in one's mind.Chappell further explains, “Empiricism says that all thought is derived from perceptual experience; or to put it another way, that there can be no thought about anything that you are not acquainted with. A natural way of spelling out this empiricist idea is to suggest that when I perceive something, Socrates for example, my perception of Socrates leaves a perceptual “echo” in my mind; an idea or mental image of Socrates; a picture in my head.(call this view Ideationism.) Then thinking about Socrates will be associating this mental image with other mental images, e. g. the mental image of Theaetetus.(call this view Associationism.) So, for the empiricist, the judgement that “Socrates” is “Theaetetus” will be an association of the idea SOCRATES and THEAETETUS.”(Chappell, p.161) Plato clearly understands and explains the problems posed by perception. Perceptions are like sense-data. Since one has incorrigible direct acquaintance with experienced particulars, the results are infallible. But then limitations of such perceptions are that they are just the sense-data. One cannot be judgmental about them that they are right or wrong. On the basis of them unfailing beliefs cannot be formed. Plato asks: “What sort of association between ideas of this sort could possibly amount to our meaning anything, e.g. that 'Socrates is Theaetetus'? How, in fact, can the empiricist explain our ability to make any judgement or form any belief at all? (p. 161) This statement according to Chappell, is the admission of the empiricist that one has no way to explain how one gets semantic content out of sense-data. So, the fundamental problem of the empiricist remains the same. “How we get from unstructured, content less, and non-referring collections of mental images to semantically-structured, content-full, and reference-making beliefs?”(p. 181). Neither Plato has claimed nor are the Revisionists able to offer the total solution for this. Confusing and contradictory platforms have been erected by the revisionists without leading to any tangible solution. Every argument at one end finds a counter arguments at some other end, true to the nature of mind-level arguments in any field, for which no permanent solution is ever possible. As for Theaetetus, Plato attempts to explain something from the mind-level, that which essentially transcends then barriers of the mind. Individually, Plato understands what it is! But he is unable to capture those transcendental experiences, assumptions and possibilities in the printed page.“On the way of spelling out empiricism that seems most obvious to Plato, the empiricist has offered an account of 'saying of ' which entails that no mistake are possible in 'saying of '. But mistakes are possible in 'saying of. ‘So, by modus tollens, the empiricist’s account is wrong. The deep semantic structure of the true judgement 'Swans are white', or of the false judgement 'Socrates is Theaetetus', is not, and could not be, that in each case one mental image is 'said of ' another mental image.”(p.162) Now, let us examine the view point of Myles Burnyeat, as explained in his book, “ “The Theaetetus of Plato.” “Knowledge is perception” he writes, “ has a decidedly empiricist ring to it. In brief, empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge has its source in sense-experience, although of course a bald statement like this admits of, and has been given, many different interpretations.”(Burnyeat, p.10) 'Light is bright’ and it is evident. 'Milk is white,' and it is evident. But these are general statements. Detailed explanation, profound commentaries on the statements are possible as per the demands of the situation. Therefore, these statements are not the be-all and end-all on the subject. Plato must have anticipated criticism on this line by scholars. Plato's objective is to indicate that empiricist approaches to knowledge fails to explain how sense-experience is able to provide a basis for semantic structure, and how reference can be inferred. It fails to explain how to get from sense-data to authentic content. Plato has an half-hearted answer to this but the empiricist agrees to disagree: “sense experience becomes content-ful when it is understood and arranged according to the structures that the Forms given to sense experience. (Chappell, p.205) The Theaetetus has been hailed as the greatest work on epistemology by Plato(427-367 BC) He has discussed about the nature of knowledge elsewhere in his writings, but in this particular work, he has taken the ; bull by the horn.' He provides a set-piece, minutest discussion on the prime question, “What is knowledge?” The style and form adopted for the writing, question-and-answer exchanges makes the writing more interesting and kindles curiosity of the inquisitive. Socrates, another intellectual giant is the main questioner. The two respondents are Theaetetus, a young brilliant amongst the brilliants mathematician, and his tutor Theodorus, not so brilliant as compared to the former.Theaetetus is considered as aporetic—a dialogue that does not give conclusive answers or solution; it ends in an impasse. It reviews three definitions of knowledge; rather it is appropriate to say that it dissects knowledge by dividing it into three parts. They are discussed and reviewed one by one. Firstly a preliminary discussion next is a would-be definition. Both these are discussed and rejected and thus the dialogue ends without discovering what the true knowledge is. Three things are highlighted, that knowledge is not! It is simple to understand why every issue ends up in an impasse. It is not possible to provide final answers to mind-level questions-- What is courage? What is self-control? What is justice? What is holiness? What is friendship? What is virtue? What is nobility? Every question can be answered with another question, which leads to more confusion. But in these dialogues Plato has attempted something different. He has shown greater willingness to accommodate positive and ambitious metaphysical views in his theory of Forms and hence they become more acceptable and provide room for further healthy discussions. Commenting further on Plato and empiricism, Burnyeat says, “Now the knowledge is perception breaks down into two propositions: (1) all perceiving is knowing, (2) all knowing is perceiving. The Theatetetus shows little recognition of the more generous empiricism that would result if the ‘is’ in (2) was changed to ‘gets its content from’ or, less stringently, ‘is based on.’ Nor is the dialogue interested in the (perhaps characteristically modern) idea, that where knowledge runs out, we may still seek reasonable belief. But the question whether the senses provide us with knowledge and certainly and, if they do, what kind of knowledge and certainty this is, goes to the heart of any empiricist programme.”(Burnyeat, p.10) The problem of empiricists is how to tackle abstract entities. “Empiricists are in general rather suspicious with respect to any kind of abstract entities like properties, classes, relations, numbers, propositions, etc. They usually feel much more in sympathy with nominalists than with realists (in the medieval sense). As far as possible they try to avoid any reference to abstract entities and to restrict them to what is sometimes called a nominalistic language, i.e., one not containing such references.”(Empiricism….) Plato seems to be seized of this issue and is in agreement that within certain scientific contexts it is not possible to avoid them. In exact subjects like mathematics, as it is a subject of calculus, a system where no interpretation is given or possible to give, empiricists may have the definite option. But reach out to physics. The language of physics and mathematics are different. Physics demands verification at every stage, as for the suspicious abstract entities. It will not move to the next stage unless the steps of the previous stage are scientifically verified, and the result is beyond doubt. In the dialogues of Plato also one finds similar predicaments. He seems to speak with an uneasy conscience—an issue about which he is not fully convinced and for which he is unable to find the final answer. He is aware of the advancing avalanche of criticism, and he shows preparedness to change his stance and opinions in his subsequent writings. This happens when one is depends solely on logic and reasoning which are the mind-level subjects. “Recently the problem of abstract entities has arisen again in connection with semantics, the theory of meaning and truth. Some semanticists say that certain expressions designate certain entities, and among these designated entities they include not only concrete material things but also abstract entities e.g., properties as designated by predicates and propositions as designated by sentences.Others object strongly to this procedure as violating the basic principles of empiricism and leading back to a metaphysical ontology of the Platonic kind.”(Empiricism….) Right from the time when Plato wrote Theaetetus, and his observations on empiricism, it continues to be scrutinized and fresh light thrown on it. Plato’s views have stood the test of time, and empiricism, noitwithstanding its shortcomings, has provoked interesting intellectual debates. “Quines paper Two Dogmas of Empiricism, published 1951, is one of the most celebrated papers of twentieth century philosophy in the analytic tradition. The paper is an attack on two central parts of the logical positivists philosophy. One is the distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths, explained by Quine as truths grounded only in meanings and independent on facts, and truths grounded in facts. Reductionism is the theory that each meaningful statement get its meaning from some logical construction of terms which only refers to immediate experience.” (Two dogmas….) His “Two Dogmas” are divided into six sections—four on an analyticity and two on reductionism and supports his arguments by concrete examples. Apart from the importance of logic, subjects like metaphysics-a branch of philosophy- and natural sciences like physics, psychology and biloogy of the brain, mysticism, religion and other spiritual areas find importance in these dogmas. The move towards pragmatism is clearly noticed. Conclusion: “Empiricism is a family of theories of knowledge (epistemology) claiming that all knowledge about the extant universe is based on experience, primarily on perception via the five senses. Some empiricists add introspection, a moral sense, or a special sensitivity to religious or aesthetic experience. Strong empiricists claim that all knowledge whatever derives from experience.”( Empiricism – Dictionary definition of….) Plato was aware of the down-to-earth demand of concrete experience and clarity, and as such he did not refute it outright, for it was a logical demand. Even for the mind level transcendental experiences, logic is the starting point, eventhough it is given up at a later stage. “In ancient times Aristotle was an empiricist relative to Plato's other-worldly rationalism…… In the twenty-first century nearly everyone is an empiricist in the everyday sense of taking experience seriously as a basis for knowledge claims about the natural world and human behavior, but most philosophers reject traditional, doctrinaire empiricism—the view that human sense experience provides a special connection of the knowing mind to the world and thus provides a foundation on which knowledge can build, step by step.”(Empiricism-Dictionary definition of…) The debate initiated by Plato as for empiricism continues unabated and the thinkers and scientists of the modern day advancved materialistic civilization have still not been able to provide the final answer to the issues posed by the empirists. The ultimate meeting ground of the empirists and the anti-empirists, will never be found on the basis of any phisolophy—perhaps the efforts of the individual for inner-search, and through it, the realization of the self, could be the real soultion. Works Cited: Burnyeat, M. F. M. The Theaetetus of Plato (with a translation by Jane Levett), Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990. Definition of Empiricism from dictionary.netFree online English dictionary. -Retrieved on January 7,2010 Empiricism – Dictionary definition of….) Empiricism | Encyclopedia ...In ancient times Aristotle was an empiricist relative to Plato's other-worldly rationalism. ..... www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3424300233.html - Retrieved on January 7,2010 Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology Sep 19, 1997 ... Retrieved on January 7,2010 Mr. Burks' Analysis of the Empiricist Theory of the Origin of Concepts by JE Ledden – 1947…. Retrtieved on January 2010 Timothy Chappell - Reading Plato's Theaetetus - Reviewed by Mi-Kyoung Lee, University of Colorado at Boulder, ...Aug 18, 2006 ... –Retrieved on January,2010 Two Dogmas Of Empiricism Quine Statements Analyticity-Logical Retrieved on January 7,2010 Read More