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What Socrates Learned From Parmenides. Part 2. Hypothesis, Antilogy, and Philosophical Self-Defense in the Phaedo

Publication date: 30.09.2024

ORGANON, 2024, Volume 56, pp. 119 - 138

https://doi.org/10.4467/00786500.ORG.24.008.20210

Authors

Annie Larivée
Carleton University
, Canada
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Titles

What Socrates Learned From Parmenides. Part 2. Hypothesis, Antilogy, and Philosophical Self-Defense in the Phaedo

Abstract

My first study identified the cognitive abilities and argumentative skills developed by the gymnasia presented in Plato’s Parmenides. Since the correspondence with the intellectual virtues Socrates displays in other dialogues is too remarkable to be a coincidence, I concluded that Socrates must have trained with Parmenides’ eightfold routine in his youth. My second study supports this conclusion by drawing attention to textual evidence found in the Phaedo. The autobiographical account Socrates shares in that dialogue indicates how the gymnasia impacted his intellectual development, mostly through the action of hypothesizing. This strategic move used by the Eleatics transformed the originally sectarian way Socrates related to Forms and enabled him to protect his theory from attacks in a secure yet non-dogmatic way.

References

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Information

Information: ORGANON, 2024, Volume 56, pp. 119 - 138

Article type: Original article

Authors

Carleton University
Canada

Published at: 30.09.2024

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Annie Larivée (Author) - 100%

Information about author:

Annie Larivée is Professor at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, where she served two terms as Chair of the Philosophy Department. She has published extensively on topics revolving around care for the soul and self in Plato as well as philosophy as a way of life and as an art of living in ancient philosophy. For the past few years, she has been an active member of the project Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, a Contemporary Approach funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

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English