The Unity of Oneness and Plurality in Plato&#039;s Theaetetus

Daniel Bloom

doi:10.5771/9780739185728

Summary

The Unity of Oneness and Plurality in Plato's Theaetetus offers a reading of the Theaetetus that shows how the characters’ failure to give an acceptable account (i.e a logos) of knowledge is really a success; the failure being a necessary result of the dialogue’s implicit proof that there can never be a complete logos of knowledge. The proof of the incompatibility of knowledge and logos rests on the recognition that knowledge is always of what is, and hence is always of what is one, while logos is inherently multiple. Thus, any attempt to give a logos of what is known amounts to turning what is one into something multiple, and hence, that which is expressed by any logos must be other than that which is known. In this way The Unity of Oneness and Plurality in Plato's Theaetetus provides its readers with developed sketches of both a Platonic epistemology, and a Platonic ontology.

An account of the incompleteness of all accounts is, obviously, a very slippery undertaking. Plato's mastery of his craft is on full display in the dialogue. Besides offering a reading of Plato's epistemology and ontology, The Unity of Oneness and Plurality in Plato's Theaetetus investigates the insights and difficulties that arise from a close reading of the dialogue through a sustained analysis that mirrors the movement of the dialogue, offering a commentary on each of the primary sections, and showing how these sections fit together to supply an engaged reader with a unified whole.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2015
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7391-8571-1
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7391-8572-8
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 116
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Preface No access
3. Acknowledgements No access
1. 0.1 Sketch of the book's main argument No access
2. 0.2 Outline of the primary sections of the dialogue No access
3. 0.3 Outline of the book's chapters No access
1. 1.1 Images representing the dialogue’s fundamental opposition No access
2. 1.2 Impossibility of contradiction for Heraclitus and Parmenides No access
3. 1.3 Impossibility of logos for Heraclitus and Parmenides No access
4. 1. 1.4.1 First marker: the frame (142a-143d) No access
  2. 1.4.2 Second marker: first attempt to define knowledge (146c-148d) No access
  3. 1.4.3 Third marker: Socratic midwifery (149a-151d) No access
1. 2.1 Part one: the refutation of “knowledge is perception” (184b-186e) No access
2. 2.2 Unpacking the argument No access
3. 1. 2.3.1 The first argument: knowing or not knowing (188a-e) No access
  2. 2.3.2 The second argument: being or not being (188d-189b) No access
  3. 2.3.3 The third argument: allodoxia, or other-judging (189b-190e) No access
  4. 2.3.4 Section four: the wax block (191c-196c) No access
  5. 2.3.5 Section five: the aviary (197a-200c) No access
1. 3.1 Outline of upcoming argument No access
2. 3.2 The dream in return for a dream (201c-202c) No access
3. 3.3 The intentionally problematic arguments identifying the all and the whole (204a-205e) No access
4. 3.4 The dream reversed (206a-c) No access
5. 1. 3.5.1 First definition of logos (206d-e) No access
  2. 3.5.2 Second definition of logos (206e-207b) No access
  3. 3.5.3 Third definition of logos (207c-210b) No access
1. 4.1 Making the unintelligible intelligible, and vice versa No access
2. 4.2 Every grasp is knowing and no grasp is knowing No access
3. 4.3 Good logos and bad logos No access
Conclusion No access Pages 105 - 106
Bibliography No access Pages 107 - 110
Index of names and subjects No access Pages 111 - 114
About the Author No access Pages 115 - 116