Opining Beauty Itself

The Ordinary Person and Plato's Forms

Naomi Reshotko

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781438490465, 9781438490458
• eBook ISBN: 9781438490472
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Greek Ancient History

Argues that Plato thinks that ordinary people grapple with the Forms and can make epistemological progress, even if they never achieve knowledge.

In Opining Beauty Itself, Naomi Reshotko examines Plato's discussions of epistemological states that fall short of knowledge. Wary that interpretations of Plato's epistemology often omit a detailed analysis of the way he deploys the epistemological concepts that are inferior to, but often prerequisites for, knowledge, Reshotko argues that we must understand these inferior prerequisite states, especially belief (doxa), before we can understand what Plato thought about knowledge. Examining how recollection provides what is required for inquiry, Reshotko argues that recollection does not afford doxa-let alone what contemporary philosophers call 'true belief.' Rather, recollection is responsible for an ability to refer that is a condition for every kind of doxa and for knowledge. Reshotko concludes that Plato regards doxa as the fabric of all the other epistemic states that fall short of knowledge, and develops a comprehensive view of Plato's deployment of doxa that can serve as a foundation for further interpretation of Plato's epistemology. In the process, Reshotko shows that, for Plato, ordinary people do opine the Forms and can make progress toward knowledge of them, even if that knowledge is never achieved.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Tarrying on the Path to Knowledge
• 1 Recollection and the Beginning of Inquiry in the Meno and Phaedo
• 2 Another Look at the Beginning Problem
• 3 Nonphilosophers and Beauty Itself in the Meno and the Phaedo
• 4 Nonphilosophers and Beauty Itself in Republic V
• 5 Doxastic Structure at Symposium 201d1–212c3
• 6 Doxa, Ignorance, and False Judgment in the Phaedrus and Theaetetus
• 7 Opining Beauty Itself in Republic V
• 8 Doxa, Ignorance, and the Consolation of the Lover of Sights and Sounds
• 9 Doxa and Ignorance in the Cave and the Divided Line
• Conclusion: What Doxa Opines and What Ignorance Is
• Bibliography
• Index Locorum
• Subject Index
• Back Cover