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Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge: Themes
from the Work of Gail Fine and Terence

Irwin David O. Brink
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Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

Virtue, Happiness,
Knowledge
Themes from the Work of
Gail Fine and Terence Irwin
edited by
David O. Brink, Susan Sauvé Meyer,
and Christopher Shields
1
3
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Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Introduction1
1. Rethinking Agreement in Plato 18
Lesley Brown
2. Plato’s Theory of Knowledge 33
Ralph Wedgwood
3. Justice and Persuasion in the Republic57
Dominic Scott
4. Plato against Democracy: A Defense 77
Richard Kraut
5. Self-Mastery and Self-Rule in Plato’s Laws97
Susan Sauvé Meyer
6. Plato’s Philebus and the Value of Idle Pleasure 110
Verity Harte
7. A Series of Goods 129
Christopher Shields
8. Practical Truth: An Interpretation of Parts of NE VI 149
David Charles
9. Aristotelian Feelings in the Rhetoric169
Paula Gottlieb
10. ‘Ought’ in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics184
Julia Annas
11. Deliberation and Decision in the Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics197
Karen Margrethe Nielsen
12. The Freedom Required for Moral Responsibility 216
John Martin Fischer
13. Virtue: Aristotle and Kant 234
Allen W. Wood
vi Contents
14. Richard Price on Virtue 253

Roger Crisp
15. Eudaimonism and Cosmopolitan Concern 270
David O. Brink
Bibliographies of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin 293

Index Locorum 305
General Index 315
Notes on Contributors
Julia Annas is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.

She holds a B.A. (Hons) from Oxford, a Ph.D. from Harvard (1972), and an Honorary
Doctorate from the University of Uppsala. Her research interests have ranged over a
wide field of ancient philosophy, but for some years have focused on ancient ethics,
and she has also worked in the field of contemporary virtue ethics. Her publications
in ancient philosophy include An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (1981), The Morality
of Happiness (1993), Platonic Ethics Old and New (1999), and Virtue and Law in Plato
and Beyond (2018). She has also published Intelligent Virtue (2011) and is working on
a book on virtue ethics.
David O. Brink is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of
California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1985, where
he studied with Gail Fine and was supervised by Terry Irwin. His research interests
are in ethical theory, history of ethics, moral psychology, and jurisprudence. He is the
author of Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge University Press,
1989), Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T.H. Green
(Clarendon Press, 2003), and Mill’s Progressive Principles (Clarendon Press, 2013).
Lesley Brown is Fellow in Philosophy emeritus at Somerville College, Oxford and
a member of the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Oxford. She has published
extensively on Plato, particularly on Plato’s Sophist, and on Aristotle, including
‘Why is Aristotle’s Virtue of Character a Mean?’ in the Cambridge Companion to the
Nicomachean Ethics (2014).
David Charles is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of
Aristotle’s Philosophy of Action (Duckworth, 1984) and Aristotle on Meaning and
Essence (Clarendon Press, 2000) and edited Definition in Greek Philosophy (Clarendon
Press, 2010).
Roger Crisp is Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford,
and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is author of Mill
on Utilitarianism (Routledge, 1997), Reasons and the Good (Clarendon Press, 2006),
and The Cosmos of Duty: Henry Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics (Clarendon Press, 2015).
He has translated Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics for Cambridge University Press
(2000) and edited the Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (2013).
John Martin Fischer received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell University
in 1982. He was fortunate to study with both Gail Fine and Terry Irwin during his time
at Cornell. His primary research interests are in free will and moral responsibility.
viii notes on contributors
He is the author of The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control and (with Mark
Ravizza) Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Oxford University
Press has published four collections of his essays: My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility;
Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will; Deep Control: Essays on Free Will and
Value; and Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will. He is Distinguished Professor of
Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside.
Paula Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Classical and

Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her
B.Phil. at Oxford and studied for the Ph.D. with Terry Irwin and Gail Fine at Cornell.
She specializes in Aristotle’s ethics and metaphysics. She is the author of The Virtue
of Aristotle’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and ‘Aristotle on Non-
Contradiction’ for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. She is presently writing a
book, tentatively titled Aristotle on Reason and Feeling, for Cambridge University Press.
Verity Harte is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Yale University. She

received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1994. Her research interests are in
ancient philosophy, especially the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, with a particular
focus on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical and moral psychology.
She is the author of Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure (Oxford,
2002) and of numerous articles on Greek philosophy.
Richard Kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in the Humanities, in

the Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University. His interests include con-
temporary moral and political philosophy and the ethics and political thought of
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Among his publications are Against Absolute Goodness
(Oxford, 2011), What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being (Harvard, 2007),
Aristotle: Political Philosophy (Oxford, 2002), Aristotle, Politics Books VII and VIII:
Translated with a Commentary (Clarendon Aristotle Series, 1997), Aristotle on the
Human Good (Princeton, 1989), and Socrates and the State (Princeton, 1984). He is a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Susan Sauvé Meyer is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Trained at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1982) and Cornell University (Ph.D. 1987),
she taught at Harvard University before joining the faculty at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1994. A specialist in Classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophy with
special interest in the ethical tradition, her publications include Aristotle on Moral
Responsibility (1993; reissued in 2011), Ancient Ethics (2008), and Plato: Laws 1 and 2
in the Clarendon Plato Series (2015). She is currently an editor of the journal Archiv
für Geschichte der Philosophie.
Karen Margrethe Nielsen is Tutorial Fellow at Somerville College and Associate
Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford. Her publications include
‘Spicy Food as Cause of Death: Coincidence and Necessity in Metaphysics E 3’, Oxford
notes on contributors ix
Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2017), ‘Vice in the Nicomachean Ethics’, Phronesis

(2017), ‘The Will: Origins of the Notion in Aristotle’s Thought’, Antiquorum Philosophia
(2013), and ‘Deliberation as Inquiry’, Philosophical Review (2011). She received her
Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2006, on a dissertation supervised by Terry Irwin
and co-supervised by Gail Fine, on Aristotle’s theory of decision (prohairesis). The
topic has held her attention ever since.
Dominic Scott is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford and a fel-
low of Lady Margaret Hall. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge
and taught in the Philosophy Department there from 1989 to 2007. He was professor
of philosophy at the University of Virginia from 2007 to 2014. He is the author of
Recollection and Experience (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Plato’s Meno
(Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Levels of Argument: A Comparative Study of
Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2015).
He co-authored The Humanities World Report 2015 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and
edited Maieusis: Studies in Honour of M. F. Burnyeat (Oxford University Press, 2007)
as well as The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter: A Seminar by Myles Burnyeat and
Michael Frede (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Christopher Shields is Shuster Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre
Dame. Previously he taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Colorado
at Boulder. He has held visiting posts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the
University of St. Louis, the Humboldt University of Berlin, Cornell University, Stanford
University, Yale University, and the University of Arizona. He is the author of Order
in Multiplicity: Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle (Oxford University Press,
1999), Classical Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2003), Aristotle
(Routledge, 2007), Ancient Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2011),
with Robert Pasnau, The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Westview, 2003; 2nd rev. ed.
Oxford University Press, 2015), and Aristotle’s De Anima, Translated with Introduction
and Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is the editor of The Blackwell
Guide to Ancient Philosophy (Blackwell, 2002) and The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle
(Oxford University Press, 2012).
Ralph Wedgwood is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern
California. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1994, where he studied
with Gail Fine and was supervised by Terry Irwin. Later, he was their colleague at the
University of Oxford, where until 2012 he was a member of the Faculty of Philosophy
and a Fellow of Merton College. His principal research interests are in ethics, epis-
temology, and the theory of practical reason and rational choice, with a subsidiary
interest in the history of those subjects. He is the author of The Nature of Normativity
(Clarendon Press, 2007) and of The Normativity of Rationality (Clarendon Press,
forthcoming).
x notes on contributors
Allen W. Wood is Ruth Norman Halls Professor at Indiana University and Ward
W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. He was born in
Seattle, received his B.A. from Reed College in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Yale University
in 1968. His interests are in the history of philosophy, especially German philosophy
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in ethics, social and political philosophy,
and philosophy of religion. He is the author of a dozen books and editor or translator
of about a dozen others. His most recent books are Fichte’s Ethical Thought (Oxford
University Press, 2016), Formulas of the Moral Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017),
and a second (revised) edition of his translation of Kant’s Groundwork for the Meta
physics of Morals (Yale University Press, 2018). Forthcoming in Spring, 2018 is a
second (revised) edition of his translation of Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics
of Morals (Yale University Press).
Introduction
Through their writing, their teaching, their mentoring, and their broader scholarly
output, Gail Fine and Terry Irwin have reshaped the character of ancient philosophy
as an academic discipline. Their contributions to the discipline do not, however, end
there. On the contrary, their wide-ranging achievements extend into all periods of the
history of philosophy and indeed into several areas more systematic than historical.
Or perhaps one should say, rather, that their work defies any ready classification as
being either historical or systematic, because whatever its primary focus on a given
occasion, what they write cannot be pigeonholed as either exclusively scholarly or
thematic; for they practice an unremittingly philosophical form of history of philosophy,
or, judged from another angle, a historically enriched form of systematic philosophy.
That is, as they pursue it, philosophy engages the discipline’s history in a manner
animated by its current and perennial concerns, but it does so while remaining fully
sensitive to the original context of its production. Their work combines the highest
level of scholarly rigor and rich philosophical insight. Animated by a purely philosophical
spirit, it is never narrowly antiquarian in orientation. Although alert to matters of text
and transmission reflecting painstaking philological care and exceptionally broad
scholarly erudition, their work never loses sight of a simple question: should we too
believe this?
Their students, their colleagues, and the broader philosophical public have been the
beneficiaries of their sustained and remarkable activity. In an effort to express their
admiration and gratitude to Terry and Gail, the contributors to this Festschrift have
offered these essays to mark the occasion of their retirements from the University of
Oxford and Cornell University, where both have held permanent posts in their long
and distinguished careers. They have between them educated several generations of
philosophers, many of whom have in their turn begun the process of passing along
to their own students the legacy of excellence originating in the careers of Terry and
Gail. Most of the essays in the present volume made their first appearance at a con-
ference held at Cornell University in September of 2013, dedicated to Terry and Gail,
who kindly presided over the proceedings. The speakers at the conference found
themselves, in typical fashion, challenged, encouraged, and schooled by Terry and
Gail, and indeed by the assembled audience of their past and current students, their
colleagues, and those whose work they have influenced. Since then, the editors have
2 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge
carried the spirit of the conference forward, commenting upon each of the chapters,
engaging in mutually beneficial exchanges with their authors, and working to produce
a volume worthy of its two honorees. We offer it to Gail and Terry with admiration and
continuing gratitude.
Prefatory to the chapters which follow, we have undertaken to offer brief overviews
of the careers and contributions of Gail and Terry. Although they share a common
method and a dominant period of focus, their individual contributions head in dis-
tinctively different directions, often arriving at instructively divergent points of view,
at times complementary and other times at variance with one another. Accordingly, we
begin by recounting their philosophical careers individually, before returning briefly
to their shared influence and legacy.
Gail Fine
Gail’s contributions to ancient philosophy center on Plato and Aristotle, but extend to
Hellenistic philosophy as well, where she has done seminal work on Academic
Scepticism. Her work is characterized by a lively, minute form of textual engagement
motivated by broader philosophical considerations: she wants to know what the
philosophers she studies maintain, to ascertain why they maintain what they do, and
then to determine whether we ourselves should agree with them, and, if we do, whether
we should do so on the basis they advance for holding the views they espouse. We find,
then, careful exegesis and philosophical assessment in equal measure.
It should not be inferred, however, that these activities parcel into discrete compo-
nents in her work, beginning with neutral exegesis where positions are discerned
and dispassionately characterized, followed by argument reconstruction, and then
rounded off by critical appraisal. On the contrary, it is a hallmark of Gail’s methodology
that each of these activities informs the others in a symbiotic, mutually enhancing way.
Generally speaking, on her approach it counts as a good reason to discount an inter-
pretation of Plato, or Aristotle, or Sextus that it ascribes without compulsion a view
that is transparently implausible or simply false. Accordingly, Gail’s approach to
ancient texts is guided by the thought that we are better served by reading a supporting
argument as enthymematic than by concluding that it is transparently invalid or
unsound, unless, again, we are faced with an unanswerable reason for doing so. This is
not because ancient authors never say false things or give bad arguments for their
views, whether true or false. Rather, Gail’s approach commends the thought that if we
read a text understanding our first hermeneutical impressions to be unassailable,
then we do our authors a disservice: we are apt to miss their deeper meanings and
motivations. By the same token, if on a first reading we find a philosophical position
alien to the point of being unintelligible, that, Gail thinks, is as likely our fault as it is
the fault of the author being studied. In consequence, we should in every instance
strive to understand and assess the philosophers of antiquity in terms we ourselves can
readily understand and articulate in our own vocabulary.
introduction 3
This last point has induced some of her readers to suspect Gail of courting anachron-
ism: we should, such scholars advise, grapple with philosophers of earlier periods in
their own terms, not in the terms we happen to find congenial, and we should avoid
allowing our independent assessments of the plausibility of their positions to colour—
or, or as they would have it, to discolour—our judgment as to the accuracy of an
ascription. Gail, they may rightly point out, is happy to recruit both Chomsky and
Damascius when elucidating a single Platonic text (2014, 154 n. 51, 165); yet Chomsky
writes in a place and time far removed from Plato and in an idiom utterly alien to that
of Damascius. Put in its most unsympathetic terms, this sort of reaction calls into
question the unflinchingly logocentric method Gail characteristically employs.
Does this charge have any traction? Each time she encounters an ancient text Gail’s
method involves posing a pair of questions: (i) what are the possible meanings of this
text? and (ii) which among them is most plausibly supported by the argument it offers?
When we know the argument, we have a handle on the position, but not before. It is
rarely if ever the case that we can simply light upon the correct interpretation of an
ancient philosophical text as a matter beyond question or controversy from a reading
which avoids assessing its author’s philosophical motivations and objectives, no matter
how thorough our reading may otherwise be. Competing interpretations of varying
degrees of plausibility will invariably present themselves; we are then asked to choose
among them. Gail’s way of choosing begins by determining, with all due charity and
intellectual humility, which of the alternatives is best supported by the argument the
author of the text promulgates. Where no immediate argument is given, one may equally
determine, as her approach suggests, which among the positions most readily comports
with claims motivated by argument elsewhere. We may then, adapting a metaphor
deployed in Plato’s Republic (434e), rub the passages together to see which interpretation
emerges from the process, as fire emerges from the sparks of fire sticks when rubbed
together. If we proceed in this way, our governing impulse will be primarily logocentric,
in the sense that it will enjoin us to ferret out the argumentative underpinnings of a claim
as our first and most secure—if not our sole—guide to its likely meaning.
At any rate, Gail’s governing practice seems to reflect some such approach; she does
not spend a great deal of time overtly defending or even describing her philosophical
method. Still, the same method structures her work in virtually every period of her
long and productive career. She deals primarily with non-value areas of philosophy,
concentrating especially on issues in metaphysics and epistemology, and their inter-
section, as they crop up in the philosophers of special concern to her, taken both indi-
vidually and in concert.
This last point bears emphasis because one core area of Gail’s research has concerned
the philosophical interaction of Plato and Aristotle. In the early twentieth century, the
pioneering German scholar Werner Jaeger advanced a striking set of views about
Aristotle’s development, focussed centrally upon his evolving attitudes towards Plato.
Jaeger thus kicked off a long and fruitful scholarly dialectic to which Gail has made
lasting contributions.
In general terms, Jaeger (1923) took the view that Aristotle began life as a dutiful
Platonist who gradually grew critical of his teacher, developing into his own master as
he matured and forged a system of philosophy markedly incompatible with Plato’s,
rejecting most conspicuously the cornerstone of Plato’s thought, his theory of Forms.
Jaeger’s view won many adherents but also some partial detractors as well; it was not,
however, frontally assaulted with any success until 1965 with the publication by G. E. L.
Owen (Gail’s doctoral advisor) of a British Academy lecture entitled ‘The Platonism of
Aristotle’. In this work, Owen attempted to turn the tables completely by arguing that
only as he matured did Aristotle come to appreciate the profounder dimensions of
Plato’s thought, with the result that, far from beginning as a dutiful Platonist who
emerged incrementally as an autonomous thinker and harsh critic, Aristotle actually
began life as an impetuous critic who came to adjust his own thinking with an increas-
ingly appreciative eye on delicate problems acknowledged by Plato himself in some
admirably self-critical moments. One such moment, a crux of sorts, is the so-called
Third Man Argument directed against Plato’s theory of Forms, introduced by Plato in
his Parmenides, according to some scholars merely maieutically and heuristically, in
an effort to clarify and defend his conception of Forms, but according to others as a
candid negative assessment of his own system intended to present an unanswerable
criticism of his signal contribution.
This Third Man Argument came to play a significant role in Gail’s intellectual devel-
opment. She investigates the argument in several articles, and then returns to it along
with various other Aristotelian assaults on the theory of Forms in her magisterial On
Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticisms of Plato’s Theory of Forms (1995). This work is a study of an
uncommonly rich text of Aristotle’s, the Peri Ideôn (On Ideas), sections of which were
preserved by Alexander of Aphrodisias. In the fragment recorded by Alexander,
Aristotle assails Plato’s theory of Forms by means of a series of complex arguments,
including a version of the Third Man Argument. Gail’s treatment of these arguments
represents the pinnacle of an argument-focused assessment of Aristotle’s relationship
to Plato and his theory of Forms. The picture that emerges is—as a philosophical as
opposed to a doxagraphical matter—far more detailed and philosophically nuanced
than anything produced by either Jaeger or Owen. It is, and will remain for many years
to come, an indispensable resource for philosophical scholars investigating Aristotle’s
relationship to Plato in metaphysical matters.
This work is, however, but one of Gail’s signal achievements in ancient philosophy.
Judged by their impact and the amount of discussion they have generated, Gail’s
contributions in four areas merit special note. First is the issue already introduced,
Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato, including, but not limited to, those pertaining to the
theory of Forms; second is her widely influential, early account of knowledge and
belief in the middle books of Plato’s Republic; third is her career-spanning interest in
the paradox of inquiry, as it was formulated originally in Plato, but then also as it
appears subsequently in various guises in post-Platonic ancient philosophers; and fourth
is her engagement with Plato’s epistemology more broadly, which already occupied her
introduction 5
in her Harvard doctoral thesis, ‘Plato and Acquaintance’ (1975). Her concern with
Plato’s epistemology surfaces over and over again throughout her more than 50 schol-
arly articles, critical discussions, and scholarly monographs.
Her great body of work comprises many publications not mentioned in this short
discussion, including several important contributions on the nature of substances and
universals, most but not all of which take Plato and Aristotle as their focus, as well as
assays into scepticism, subjectivity, perception, causation, and determinism. (A full
bibliography of Gail’s scholarly publications can be found at the end of the volume.)
Without any attempt at being comprehensive, then, we may characterize some of
Gail’s most prominent publications, in an effort to provide an indication of her lasting
contributions to the field and to reflect at least briefly on her distinctive philosophical
methodology.
Beginning with the last recurrent theme mentioned, we may focus first on Gail’s
approach to Plato’s epistemology. In an earlier, much discussed work, ‘Knowledge and
Belief in Republic V’ (1978), later reprised, refined, and expanded as ‘Knowledge
and Belief in Republic V–VII’ (1989b), Gail articulates a deep problem in Plato’s epis-
temology and proceeds to offer a startling solution to it—startling, at any rate, to a
certain sensibility, one characteristic of an older generation of scholars who had
understood Plato’s metaphysical epistemology in such a way that the problem Gail
articulates with such clarity and force barely comes into focus. The problem is this. In
the middle books of the Republic, Plato offers an account of knowledge which seems
first to bifurcate the world into the knowable and the unknowable and then to suggest
that knowledge (epistēmē) is, reasonably enough, restricted to those sorts of objects
which are knowable, namely Forms. Forms are, on this picture, suitable objects of
knowledge because they are stable, precise, context-invariant, and incapable of slip-
ping away, as Plato puts it in the Meno, in the manner of the statues of Daedalus. These
seem at first to be fixed in place, like other statues, but then prove so lifelike that when
left unshackled, they scamper away, leaving those who possessed them empty-handed.
What value they have to those whose they are, then, lasts only so long as they are
secured. Evidently, beliefs are like that: they are fine as far as they go, but unless tied
down, they slip away when unobserved, and so prove of no lasting value. To be secured,
however, beliefs must be bound with the chains of reason, tethered by an account
(logos) or reasoned explanation (aitios logismos); then, and only then, do beliefs give
way to knowledge. In this way, an item of genuine knowledge is superior to any given
belief, because in addition to being true, as a belief may (or may not) be, it is supported
in the right way by an anchoring account.
Now, if all knowledge qualifies as knowledge only if it is accompanied by an account,
then—on the assumption that an account is also something that has to be known by
the knower whose belief it anchors—knowledge will require prior knowledge if it is to
qualify as knowledge at all. If that is so, however, knowledge will be impossible. For
each attempt at a knowledge claim will require a prior, more fundamental justifying
knowledge claim. One may counter, as many scholars take Plato to counter, that some
kinds of knowledge escape this regress: some knowledge is privileged, qualifying as a

first principle, as something known simply and immediately, without any need for
further justification. An older generation of scholars accepted this second outcome,
taking a cue from Plato himself, who introduces the Form of the Good as the ‘unhy-
pothethical first principle of all’ (Rep. 510b7, 511b6). The suggestion thus lies near that
knowledge of this Form, the Form of the Good, is foundational for all other know-
ledge, and that Plato’s solution to the regress problem is thus a version of epistemic
foundationalism.
This near-lying suggestion is also, however, as Gail presses, deeply problematic.
Indeed, its manner of being problematic nicely illustrates Gail’s general approach to
interpreting Plato. To begin, the notion of a first epistemic principle, an ungrounded
ground accessed directly by an unnamed faculty of mind via some manner of immedi-
ate apprehension, strikes many as inherently, intractably mysterious. Still, one may
aver, this is Plato’s view and we are left to make such sense of it as we can.
Is it, though, Plato’s view? To many it seems so. Is this not, after all, the immediate
purport of Plato’s commitment to the Form of the Good as an unhypothetical first
principle? Indeed, the entire analogy of the sun in Republic VI supports this view. After
all, as the Form of the Good is to the intelligible realm, so the Sun is to the visible realm.
As the Sun illuminates other things but is visible itself by its own nature, so the Form of
the Good renders other things intelligible but is itself intelligible in virtue of itself, by
its own nature, and so needs nothing beyond itself to vouchsafe its grounding role in
Plato’s foundationalist epistemology. This seems very close to a straightforward state-
ment of epistemic foundationalism on Plato’s part.
As Gail is quick to point out, however, and as we have already seen, Plato maintains
precisely the opposite regarding objects of knowledge as a class: he distinguishes
knowledge (epistēmē) from mere belief (doxa) by demanding that knowledge be accom-
panied by an account or reasoned explanation; the foundationalist model mooted
precisely abjures that requirement. When a cognizer becomes acquainted with a Form,
or at least the Form of the Good, there is no further justification needed or wanted;
indeed, the very possibility of providing a justifying account seems ruled out by the
unhypothetical character of the experience. How, if this is so, is knowledge (epistēmē)
to be distinguished from mere belief (doxa)? There seems to be little wriggle room here,
since Plato’s contention that knowledge (epistēmē) requires something more than mere
belief (doxa) is not a singular or even rare in his writings. On the contrary, he asserts
it repeatedly (e.g. Rep. 510c, 531e, 533b–c; Phaedo 76b; Symp. 202a; Tht. 202c; Laws
966b, 967e). More to the point, it figures centrally in his brief in Republic V for the
claim that only philosophers can rule: they, and they alone, can differentiate Forms
from one another by reason and by giving an account of what each is (by providing a
logos), including, as Plato acknowledges, the Form of the Good (Rep. 534b–c). Are we,
then, left with a simple contradiction?
Gail thinks not. All knowledge, including knowledge of the Form of the Good,
requires, just as Plato says, some accompanying justification or account (logos) to
introduction 7
secure it. It does not follow, however, that the justificatory chains of our claims to
knowledge must be linearly ordered, with each justification appealing to a justifying
principle prior to it in a justificatory order. Indeed, it does not even follow that the
‘chains’ of justification be chains. Individual justifications might rather fit into a web,
deriving justification one from the other and all in concert from the totality which
comprises them, conferring justification holistically rather than atomistically. Plato
might, after all, be an epistemic coherentist rather than a foundationalist. Such, at any
rate, is Gail’s contention.
Gail’s contribution to this debate has occasioned a great deal of discussion, including
a good deal of dissent. This is, however, only because it is novel, provocative, philo-
sophically alert, and uncommonly creative. It also turns out to be motivated not by
some anachronism, but by a looming contradiction internal to Plato’s writings which
others have failed to acknowledge. Philosophically minded readers of Plato have
rightly taken note.
The same again holds of her career-spanning interest in the paradox of inquiry
(1992b, 2004a, 2007, 2010a, 2010b, 2013, 2014). Like her work on the middle books of
the Republic, Gail’s engagement with the paradox of inquiry reflects her deep and abid-
ing interest in both epistemology and metaphysics—in this case beginning already in
her undergraduate days, when, as she reports, she read the Meno and was ‘immediately
enchanted’ (2014, vii). It is easy to see why she should find this dialogue so captivating.
Its core paradox raises deep questions about Plato’s aims and objectives, and thereby
also about the aims and objectives of a broader sort of philosophical mission.
Readers of the Meno will recall that a problem about the goals of Socratic inquiry is
first interjected into the dialogue by a frustrated Meno on the occasion of his having
been refuted by Socrates. Meno’s frustration results in part from his failure to answer a
general sort of question posed by Socrates, a so-called ‘What is F-ness?’, where ‘F’
stands in for some virtue term: ‘What is courage?’, ‘What is piety?’ and so forth. Meno
grows indignant, asserting that the Socratic ‘What is F-ness?’ question is unanswerable,
insinuating that in posing it Socrates is setting up his interlocutors for failure. Socrates
rejoins with what he purports to be a precisification of Meno’s complaint. In so doing,
Socrates presents what has come to be known as ‘Meno’s Paradox’: for all x, inquiry
into x is impossible, since either one knows x, in which case there can be no occasion
for coming to know it by inquiry, or one does not know x, in which case one will fail to
recognize it even if one stumbles upon it in the course of inquiring after it, rendering
any attempt to inquire into what one does not know futile. Socrates’ response to the
paradox as he himself formulates it is perplexing: he first dismisses it as a debater’s trick
(Meno 80e), yet then proceeds to counter it by means of an elaborate, even extravagant
response involving his remarkable doctrine of recollection, according to which all
learning is actually recollection, coupled with a commitment to the prenatal existence
of the human soul. As Socrates shows by cross-questioning a slave about a simple
geometrical problem, the slave already has the answer he professes not to know some-
how, so to speak, lurking unrecognized in his soul. If this is correct, the process of
‘learning’ is shown to be not the acquisition of something from without, but really
rather a dredging up of what one already knows. This in turn implies, Socrates con-
tends, that the soul is immortal, since it shows itself able upon examination to recollect
things never learned in this lifetime. Looked at from one angle, then, Socrates’ response
may appear concessive to a fault, implicitly allowing that the debater’s argument, no
matter how slippery, actually has a true conclusion: inquiry into what one does not
already know is impossible.
This appearance is, however, misleading at best. The situation proves far more
complicated, in ways Gail, more than any other scholar, has painstakingly made clear.
Indeed, all of the ingredients for the sort of philosophical problem which excites Gail’s
interest are present in this exchange. There is an epistemic dimension: what can be
known and how? What standards are appropriately employed in determining that
someone has and can demonstrate having genuine knowledge, as opposed to convic-
tion or earnest, even true belief? There is a metaphysical component as well: what
kinds of things can be known? Propositions? Abstract entities? Only what is assertoric
and truth-evaluable? Sensible individuals, in addition to the abstract objects of know-
ledge? These questions play out against the backdrop of the worry Meno rightly presses
in his initial outburst: what does Socrates want to achieve in posing his ‘What is F-ness?’
question? What form will a successful response take? Are there perhaps different kinds
of knowledge for different kinds of objects? That is, does knowledge (or virtue, or piety,
and so on for any of the various values of ‘F’ in the ‘What is F-ness?’ question) admit of
a univocal analysis, as Socrates so often seems to assume? Finally, there is a multi-tiered
set of textual questions about Plato’s presentation of these issues. Is he speaking in
propria persona using Socrates as a dramatic character or representing the historical
Socrates he knew? Are we to take Socrates’ presentation of the doctrine of recollection at
face value, or as going proxy for some milder doctrine, about the possibility of innate or
perhaps a priori knowledge? In sum, in Meno’s Paradox we have a complex and multit-
iered nexus of textual, exegetical, epistemological, metaphysical, and methodological
questions, each of which impacts the other in appreciable ways: plainly grist for Gail’s mill.
Scholars have responded in all manner of ways to this situation, some even main-
taining that Socrates cannot be in earnest in offering his doctrine of recollection in
response to Meno’s Paradox, that he is sparring, sporting, or otherwise spoofing.
Gail, by contrast, sees a genuine problem met with an earnestly proposed solution.
According to Gail, Plato responds by showing that though perfectly valid, Meno’s
paradox is unsound. Its premise is false: the claim that if one does not know x, then one
cannot inquire into x. On the contrary, one can, just as Socrates’ exchange with the
slave illustrates, begin in belief, even false belief, and steer one’s way to knowledge.
Since we can in fact move from belief (doxa) to knowledge (epistēmē), not least through
the instrument of a shrewdly deployed Socratic elenchus, it is simply false that inquiry
is impossible for those lacking knowledge.
When we confront Plato’s Meno, we are asked to determine how deep the paradox of
inquiry runs. The discussions inaugurated by Gail provide ample reason to believe that
introduction 9
no simple quick fix suffices. We see this same result in another way as well, a way made
clear in Gail’s latest work on this topic, a book-length study of the paradox of inquiry
as it appears not only in Plato but also in the philosophers influenced by him. For, as
she shows, the paradox of inquiry has a long afterlife in antiquity, captivating a full
spectrum of top-tier philosophical minds, including Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics,
and the Sceptics. Their nuanced attention to aspects of the problems it poses gives us
further reason to conclude that Meno’s paradox cannot be dissolved simply by disarm-
ing it as a debater’s equivocation. Gail’s career-long interest in this topic thus eventu-
ates in another lasting contribution to the field, The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s
Paradox from Socrates to Sextus (2014).
Yet another agenda-setting thesis emerges in a different early work of Gail’s (1978),
one offering an especially clear illustration of her hermeneutical methodology. It also
shows how Gail’s work on Plato crosses readily over from epistemology into metaphys-
ics. On one natural reading of the middle books of Plato’s Republic, we find him
committed to an epistemically driven bifurcation of reality. Given their invariability
and context-insensitivity, Plato suggests, Forms are uniquely suited to serve as objects
of knowledge (epistēmē); by contrast, sense particulars, given their ceaseless variability
and context-dependence, are suitable objects of belief (doxa) but never of knowledge.
Can we know, for instance, that an elephant is large? Well, fairly plainly, in the class of
mammals, elephants are indeed large. Still, in comparison with Mt. Everest or the
Milky Way, an elephant is puny. So, is an elephant large? Well, suggests Plato: yes and
no. By contrast, largeness itself, taken by itself, is never anything but large: it does not
rely on a context of appraisal for being what it is. One Platonic way of thinking, then,
differentiates Largeness, the Form, a transcendent, abstract entity, from sensible large
things, which can never escape their context sensitivity. As a result, the Form Largeness
itself is not reducible to large sensibles, taken either individually or corporately. The
requisites of knowledge thus imply that the objects of knowledge are supra-sensible,
demarcated by their very natures from anything we might perceive by the senses.
This doctrine, again congenial to an older generation of scholars, is sometimes
dubbed the ‘Two-Worlds Theory’. According to the Two-Worlds Theory, Plato divides
reality into two mutually exclusive domains, a domain of sense perceptibles which
serve as objects of belief and a domain of abstract entities which serve as objects of
knowledge. No object of belief can be known; no object of knowledge can serve as an
object of belief. To revert to the earlier illustration of the Meno, if we think that we
know what largeness is because we know that Jumbo the elephant is large, then we
have truncated vision: we will find the predicate ‘. . . is large’ scurrying away as we shift
Jumbo from one context of appraisal to another. When we know something, we know
it stably and securely; so, our attitudes towards largeness vis-à-vis Jumbo do not
amount to knowledge of largeness. Large things are perceived and not known; known
things are grasped by the mind and not perceived.
It must be said that Plato does much to encourage the Two-Worlds Theory. In
Republic V, for instance, he individuates our mental capacities by what they are ‘over’ or
‘set over’ (epi), thus: (i) knowledge (gnōsis, epistēmē) is set over (epi) what is; (ii) belief
(doxa) is set over (epi) what is and is not; and (iii) ignorance (agnōsia) is set over (epi)
what is not (Rep. 477a–b). One natural way of taking this passage would be that know-
ledge ranges over Forms (over what is, what exists fixedly and permanently), belief
ranges over sensibles (which are ever shifting, and never completely or permanently
what they are, because of the point about context sensitivity already mentioned), while
ignorance ranges over what is not (because it takes no object at all). Bracketing the
point about ignorance, which raises special difficulties for all approaches, the Two-
Worlds approach takes Plato here to be more or less stating a straightforward commit-
ment to the mutually exclusive and exhaustive bifurcation of reality, into the knowable
and the sensible, the realm of Forms and the material realm.
Gail begins with a simple, deflating pair of observations. First, if we think that
knowledge is the same as justified true belief (or that it at least requires justified true
belief), then knowledge must involve belief, rather than exclude it. Since we do in fact
think this, we cannot easily understand Plato as overlooking it so blithely.
This is another occasion, however, where some may suspect Gail’s method of court-
ing anachronism. What matters, after all, is not what we think about knowledge and
belief, but what Plato thinks; and has he not just effectively asserted that they are dis-
joint? Not exactly, it turns out. Gail too has textual evidence on her side. As we have
already seen, it is not us, but rather Plato himself who urges, in the Meno and then also
in the Theaetetus, that knowledge (epistēmē) precisely is true belief together with an
account (logos) or reasoned explanation (aitios logismos). So, on his approach, far from
being belief-excluding, knowledge (epistēmē) is belief-entailing. Hence, not only can
Forms be objects of belief, they evidently must be. Moreover, Plato repeatedly speaks
of his beliefs about Forms, including even the Form of the Good, about which he
expressly claims to have no knowledge. So, the Two-Worlds Theory, however recom-
mended by Plato’s manner of speaking, seems incompatible with his practice; it also
seems at variance with some deeply intuitive convictions, such that one can know
one’s neighbour, though she is not a Form, and one can believe, but not know for sure,
that Plato’s Forms are meant to be paradigms after which the sensibles which partici-
pate in them are named.
Gail’s first observation recommends, then, a second. As she rightly maintains, when
he asserts that knowledge and belief are set over (epi) specifiable objects, Plato may be
taken in a variety of non-equivalent ways, depending on how one understands the
word ‘is’. The English word ‘is’, like the Greek word it translates (esti), can be used in at
least three different ways: (a) existentially (‘There is a God’ = ‘God exists’); (b) predica-
tively (‘Miss Stanbury is prim’, an instance of the general predicative schema ‘x is F’);
and, if somewhat less frequently in English than in Greek, (c) veridically (‘Tell it like it
is’ = ‘Tell the truth’) In principle, then, to take just his first sentence as an illustration,
when Plato says that knowledge is set over (epi) what is, he might mean that knowledge
takes as its objects: (a) what exists; (b) what is F, for some predicate or other; or (c) what
is true. As Gail rightly observes, proponents of the Two-Worlds Theory move too
introduction 11
readily and without argument to (a), the existential use of ‘is’. Beyond the problems
already noted, this interpretation has some immediately perplexing consequences
even taken in its own terms: it is not at all clear what it means to assert that knowledge
concerns what exists, whereas belief concerns what both exists and does not exist.
What can both exist and not exist? Taken distributively, that one has beliefs both about
what exists and about what does not exist, the suggestion seems more promising. Yet
then we have a different worry. Surely if we can have beliefs about what does not exist,
so too can we know things about what does not exist. One can, after all, know that
Santa Claus does not exist; and one can believe falsely of the tree in the front garden
that it is a poplar, when it is in fact a cyprus. In the first case we have knowledge per-
taining to a non-existent and in the second false belief pertaining to an existent.
Perhaps, then, Plato has some one of the other, non-existential senses of ‘is’ in mind?
Gail argues for (c), the veridical sense, such that Plato’s meaning is rather something
less extravagant, that knowledge is in every instance of something which is true,
namely a true proposition, whereas belief can be set over true or false propositions
indifferently. Put another way, knowledge is truth-entailing, while belief is not. That
much seems neither alien nor even problematic.
How, though, are we to adjudicate these differing interpretations? One can generate
them, just as Gail does, only to find that there is no way forward. Even in that case,
however, one will already have shown that Plato’s text does not demand the existential
reading, and so does not simply state or even imply the Two-Worlds Theory. Still, with
no further argumentation from one side or the other, the debate will stalemate.
Fortunately, there is a way forward. For, happily, the second phase of Gail’s logocentric
method is still to be deployed. One can proceed just as Gail is disposed to proceed, by
looking to the text of the Republic to see which, if any, of these alternatives its argu-
ments require, or, failing that, which they recommend. Gail argues that upon close
inspection, the arguments of Republic V–VII in fact recommend (c), the veridical
reading, which in turn carries with it various exegetical and philosophical advantages.
Here too Gail’s solution has garnered a great deal of scholarly attention, once again a
fair bit dissenting. All this discussion, including the dissent, is welcome: Gail’s work
has inaugurated a healthy, productive scholarly debate, and has thus advanced our
understanding of Plato and the issues he brings to our attention. That she should have
this effect is altogether unsurprising. In assessing the so-called Two-Worlds Theory,
Gail advances a textually informed, philosophically nuanced, bold and attractive thesis,
one which has proven agenda-setting for all the best reasons.
We have focussed mainly on Gail’s influential discussions of Plato’s metaphysics and
epistemology. Although our doing so provides at least a faint portrait of her approach
to the study of ancient philosophy, we would be remiss not at least to mention her
many other accomplishments. She has additionally done pioneering work on
Aristotle’s metaphysics, on issues in ancient Scepticism, and on an intricate set of
questions regarding the relationship between Plato and Aristotle. In particular, and
not only in the monumental work already mentioned, On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticisms of
Plato’s Theory of Forms (1993), Gail has done more than any other living scholar to
investigate Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s theory of Forms.
Gail’s work in all these areas proceeds with an unsurpassed level of attention to argu-
mentative detail and displays an unremitting commitment to philosophical precision,
all delivered with her trademark clarity and candour. The beneficiaries—her students,
her colleagues, her readers—come away with renewed respect for the ancient authors
whose philosophy it has been her life’s work to make vivid. When we encounter her
engagements with Plato, or Aristotle, or Sextus, we are treated to philosophical dia-
lectic at its highest level, and we are reminded that the ancient philosophers are, well,
philosophers, as we ourselves wish to be. Gail shows that by treating the ancients as the
philosophers they claim to be we ourselves stand to become, as she is, philosophers
worthy of the tradition they inspire.
Terence Irwin
Through his research and graduate student supervision, Terry has had a profound
influence on ancient philosophy and the history of ethics. In over four decades in the
professorate, Terry had published five monographs, five translations, and well over 100
scholarly articles and helped shape the philosophical communities at Cornell and
Oxford universities. He has trained many students who have gone on to successful
academic careers, including several who are represented in this Festschrift. The depth
and breadth of his work in Greek philosophy and the history of ethics have reshaped
the agenda in those fields, for which we are all in his debt.
Terry made a dramatic entry into scholarship about Greek philosophy with the
publication of Plato’s Moral Theory (1977a). It is common to read Plato’s earlier dia-
logues as representing the philosophical thought of the historical figure Socrates and
later dialogues as representing the thought of Plato himself. Terry defends a striking
version of this developmental thesis by contending that there is significant change in
philosophical commitments from Socrates to Plato. Focusing primarily on ethical
issues in Plato’s early and middle dialogues, he argued that, despite agreement on some
claims about the nature and importance of the virtues, Socrates and Plato disagreed on
several important methodological and substantive issues. On Terry’s reading, whereas
Socrates seeks reductive real definitions of the virtues that eliminate disputed terms in
the definiens, Plato defends real definitions of the virtues that are non-reductive.
Further, Socrates accepts the unity of the virtues, believes that the virtues are forms of
ethical knowledge, and denies the possibility of akrasia or weakness of will. By contrast,
Plato conceives of virtue as an affective and conative state that is regulated by ethical
knowledge; though his position about the unity of the virtues is not certain, he emphat-
ically embraces the reality of akrasia. Moreover, though Socrates believes that virtue is
both necessary and sufficient for happiness, he nonetheless thinks that virtue has only
instrumental value. Like Socrates, Plato thinks that the demands of virtue are always
introduction 13
dispositive. However, Plato rejects the Socratic assumption about the instrumental
value of virtue, claiming that virtue is valuable for its own sake as a proper and control-
ling part of happiness. Despite claiming that virtue dominates happiness, Plato does
not think that it exhausts happiness. For Plato, unlike Socrates, virtue can have a price,
but it is one that is always worth paying.
Terry’s book was arresting, not just for its provocative interpretive claims but also
for the resourcefulness of its arguments, both exegetical and philosophical. In addition
to a densely argued text, covering Plato’s early and middle dialogues, the book con-
tained an even denser and extremely rewarding set of notes, situating his claims in a
rich secondary literature and offering reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with various
received interpretations of Plato. The book, especially Terry’s reading of Socrates as
an instrumentalist about virtue, proved extremely controversial, but critics recog-
nized its value. The great classical scholar and philosopher Gregory Vlastos, Terry’s
supervisor at Princeton, reviewed the book for the Times Literary Supplement,
expressing reservations about Terry’s dense analytic prose and his instrumentalist
reading of Socrates but also unequivocal praise for it as being ‘rich in philosophical
erudition, arresting in its claims, and powerful in its reasoning.’ While taking issue
with various aspects of Terry’s reading of Socrates, Vlastos also took care to record his
admiration for Terry’s book.
Those who might think I am doing so [depreciating the value of Plato’s Moral Theory] would
only reveal how sadly they misunderstand the standards by which a work of pure scholarship is
appraised in its own domain. If an interpretation is as clear, bold, imaginative, yet painstakingly
attentive to its texts and philosophically as rigorous as is Irwin’s, it has more than proved its
worth. Its effect on those who work with it, testing it out, text by text and argument by argument,
will be bracing, compelling them to bring into sharper focus things which had been heretofore
fuzzy in their perception of what is being said in the dialogues and to explore connexions they
had never troubled to track down before . . . . For this I am greatly in his debt, which is all the
heavier because of the many pages of level-headed and level-tempered criticism his notes have
devoted to my own work. I have never had more valuable help from a critic. (231)
This judicious assessment of Terry’s first book might equally serve as an assessment of
his scholarly oeuvre.
Shortly after the publication of Plato’s Moral Theory, Terry contributed a translation,
with extended notes, of Plato’s Gorgias for the Clarendon Plato series (1979a). The
translation quickly became the best English translation of the dialogue, and the notes
raise important scholarly questions about the text, not just concerning individual
passages but also the role of the Gorgias—especially on topics about happiness, pleasure,
virtue, and akrasia—in relation to the Protagoras and the Republic.
In Plato’s Ethics (1995a), Terry returned to the themes of Plato’s Moral Theory.
Though it endorses the main developmental picture of the relation between Socrates
and Plato in the earlier book, it is not a second edition of the first book. Instead, it
broadens the scope of the first book by including examination of ethical doctrines in
Plato’s later dialogues, especially the Philebus, and it aims to provide a more balanced
and accessible discussion of Plato’s ethics and rival ways in which it has been inter-
preted. Terry’s examination of methodological and ethical themes and commitments
in various dialogues yields important insights about individual dialogues and a
striking developmental narrative. The extended engagement with the ethical argument
of the Republic (eight chapters) is masterful. This alone would make Plato’s Ethics the
best monograph on Plato’s ethical theory, though its scope, depth, and systematicity
make an even greater scholarly contribution.
Building on several important articles on Aristotle’s metaphysics and ethics and a
translation with notes and glossary of the Nicomachean Ethics (1985a, 1999), Terry’s
monograph Aristotle’s First Principles (1988a) was a tour de force. It provides a system-
atic treatment of Aristotle’s methodological and substantive commitments, ranging
from his dialectical methods to his conception of explanation and science, the meta-
physics of matter, form, substance, and essence, the soul and action, eudaimonia, the
virtues, and political science. Terry begins with an apparent tension between Aristotle’s
dialectical methods and his naturalistic realism. How can dialectical methods, in
which inquiry is driven by common and respected beliefs, be a guide to objective facts
and truths? He argues that the resolution of this tension consists in the pursuit of
dialectical methods involving privileged beliefs (which he terms ‘strong dialectic’).
Strong dialectic appeals to first philosophy, which involves a particular kind of dia-
lectical study of substances with an essence. Terry reconstructs Aristotle’s application
of this conception of first philosophy to substance itself and then to the human soul,
the human good, and the ethical virtues, and finally to political community. Though
the book is chock-full of resourceful interpretive proposals and philosophical assess-
ments of individual topics in Aristotle, which move the state of scholarship on those
topics forward, perhaps its greatest contribution is to provide a sustained and system-
atic assessment of how Aristotle’s various philosophical commitments hang together
in a system that is informed by his commitments to dialectical method and philosoph-
ical naturalism. Its combination of interpretive and philosophical scope and detail
is unrivaled, and it remains the most impressive single monograph on Aristotle’s
philosophy as a whole.
Though much of Terry’s scholarship concerns various figures and issues in Greek
and Roman philosophy, he has always had diverse interests in the history of philosophy,
especially the history of ethics. He taught the British idealists at the beginning of his
career at Harvard, he regularly taught seminars on Kant at Cornell, and in the early
1980s he began teaching a two-semester sequence in the history of ethics. At Oxford,
he has continued this engagement with medieval and modern, as well as ancient,
figures and traditions. Terry’s interest in the history of ethics culminated in the publi-
cation of his monumental three-volume work The Development of Ethics (2007–9), a
masterful reconstruction and assessment of figures, traditions, and ideas in the history
of ethics in the Western tradition from Socrates through John Rawls. The three volumes
weigh in at over 11 pounds and span 96 substantial chapters and over 2700 densely
introduction 15
formatted pages. The Development of Ethics covers not only familiar figures, such as
Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hutcheson, Butler, Hume, Smith,
Reid, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Green, and Sidgwick, but also a rich variety of ancient sources
(including the Cynics, Cyrenaics, Sceptics, and Church Fathers, such as Augustine),
medieval, renaissance, and reformation sources (including Scotus, Ockham, and
Machiavelli), sources for natural law (including Hooker, Vasquez, Suárez, Grotius,
Pufendorf, and Barbeyrac), continental rationalists (including Spinoza and Leibniz),
British moralists (including Cumberland, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, Clarke, Balguy, and
Price), post-Kantians (including Marx, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and
Heidegger), and twentieth-century Anglo-American sources (including Moore, Ross,
Stevenson, Ayer, Lewis, and Hare). This is just a sampling of the more familiar histor-
ical sources that Terry discusses. He also discusses a wealth of less familiar philosoph-
ical and theological figures. Most chapters are devoted to individual figures, and
several figures get multiple chapters (Aristotle gets four, Aquinas nine, Scotus two,
Suárez two, Hobbes three, Hutcheson two, Balguy two, Butler four, Hume five, Reid
two, Kant seven, Hegel two, Mill two, Sidgwick three, and Rawls two). A few chapters
discuss traditions and themes.
The combination of scope and depth in The Development of Ethics is without pre-
cedent. The broad scope of Terry’s inquiry pays various dividends, not the least of
which is that he is able to show that some ideas and themes often taken to be distinctive
of modern ethics have their origins and antecedents in antiquity. It is hard to think of
anyone else as well qualified historically, philologically, and philosophically to under-
take such an ambitious interpretive and philosophical task and carry it out with
such authority. Any reader of his three volumes should find the process immensely
illuminating though also humbling.
Though Terry has a keen sense of the context of the figures and ideas he discusses, he
is relentless about understanding and assessing the philosophical content and implica-
tions of the texts. Though he provides self-contained reconstructions and assessments
of various figures and traditions that make good sense of those figures and traditions
on their own terms, two general principles emerge from and guide his discussion.
The first principle is a methodological commitment to Socratic dialectic, as refined
and practised by Aristotle. This makes Terry’s approach to the history of ethics
essentially comparative. In understanding and assessing the philosophical claims of a
particular figure or tradition, he finds it fruitful to compare the philosophical commit-
ments and resources of that figure or tradition with the commitments and resources of
other figures and traditions. This is valuable, Terry believes, whether those different
figures and traditions were in actual and conscious conversation or not.
The second principle is a substantive set of commitments that are perhaps clearest in
Aristotle and Aquinas but that Terry thinks influence, in various ways, much of the
history of ethics. This principle Terry calls ‘Aristotelian naturalism’, which takes the
central ethical concept to be a teleological conception of a final good, which should be
identified with the agent’s happiness or eudaimonia, where conceptions of eudaimonia
should be constrained by human nature. Aristotelian naturalism implies that the

principal ingredient of the human good must be the realization of our rational nature.
The virtues, including the moral virtues, must be understood as essential expressions
of this rational nature. If we think of Aristotelian naturalism as receiving its fullest
expression in Aquinas, then we can understand a good bit of how Terry approaches the
history of ethics. Though few figures accept every element of Aristotelian naturalism,
many figures accept one or more elements. Those who accept several elements and
who, therefore, figure as central characters in Terry’s narrative are Aristotle, the Stoics,
Aquinas, Suárez, Butler, Kant, and Green. Even those who cannot plausibly be viewed
as Aristotelian naturalists can still be usefully understood, Terry argues, as contesting
one or more elements of Aristotelian naturalism.
One may wonder whether Aristotelian naturalism is the best lens through which
to appreciate the history of ethics. But there can be little doubt that it provides one
especially fruitful framework with which to understand and assess the history of
ethics and that Terry has made a powerful case for the plausibility of the essentials of
Aristotelian naturalism that every thoughtful reader should take seriously. The
Development of Ethics is the most significant contribution to the study and appreciation
of the history of ethics to date, and it is unlikely we will see its equal anytime soon.
The Development of Ethics is a tough act to follow, and it might seem like a suitable
capstone to a distinguished scholarly career, as Terry reaches his mandatory retirement
at Oxford. But, as will come as no surprise to those who know Terry, his scholarly
activity is not slowing down. He has been working on a series of essays about the rela-
tion between ancient and modern conceptions of virtue, value, and duty, and he is now
embarked on a critical edition of Aristotle’s three ethical works—the Nicomachean
Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, and Magna Moralia—that will combine the Greek texts,
translations, and commentaries. Those interested in Greek philosophy and the history
of ethics eagerly await the completion of these projects.
Terry will leave an unsurpassed legacy of scholarship in Greek and Roman philosophy
and the history of ethics, one which alters the way in which familiar figures, texts, and
traditions can be understood and assessed. Part of this scholarly legacy is reflected in his
engagement with and influence on his peers and colleagues, several of whom are repre-
sented in this Festschrift. But he will also leave a pedagogical legacy, perhaps equally
important. Terry has trained many students in ancient philosophy, the history of ethics,
and ethical theory. This influence is reflected in this Festschrift by its three editors and
by four other contributors, but this is just the tip of a larger pedagogical iceberg. Among
Terry’s many virtues as a supervisor are his willingness to take the views of his students
seriously, even when he disagrees with their substance, his prompt and copious feed-
back, his ability to distinguish the forest from the trees in this feedback, and his insist-
ence that we take seriously alternative readings of the texts and arguments under
discussion and not settle for easy victories. Though each of us reflects Terry’s influence
in different ways, we have all learned from him the pleasures of doing the history
introduction 17
of philosophy in a way that combines careful and systematic reading of the texts,
philosophical imagination and charity, and respectful and constructive engagement
with the secondary literature. For this inheritance, we are greatly in his debt.
The Influence of Irwin and Fine

In discussing them individually, we have had occasion as students of Terry and Gail to
note with gratitude their dedication to graduate education. They have given us gifts we
can never repay, and they have served as models for us as we have turned to our own
professional careers in higher education. We are doubtful that we will ever attain the
standards they have set. Even so, we may still regard them as Plato regards his Forms,
as regulative ideals to emulate. The closer we come, they greater the benefit to our own
students, and, more remotely, the greater the benefit to their own students in turn.
Such is the length of their legacy.
When we pull back from their individual contributions, however, whether peda-
gogical or professional, we may note in conclusion one final, unique feature of their
legacy: though individually unsurpassed, they are corporately astonishing in their
reach and influence. With the exception of their joint translation of selected texts of
Aristotle, which has become the standard in the English-speaking world, Terry and
Gail have gone down individual pathways in their publications. Still, one has the sense
that they have often walked together on the path to production, that each has been
the first and best critic of the other, that each has just cause to thank the other warmly,
as one sees them doing over and over again in their individual acknowledgements.
This gives us reason to appreciate them as a philosophical couple, as well as philo-
sophical individuals.
To highlight their already entrenched and growing legacy, perhaps it will serve to
close by mentioning one small piece of evidence, which gives some faint indication of
the reach of their works. When one of the editors of this volume served as a referee for
the ancient philosophy section on an annual meeting for the American Philosophical
Association, the following astonishing statistic came to light: of the 37 papers received
for blind reviewing, fully 36 of them began by citing the work of either Terry or Gail,
at times to take issue, at times to augment, at times simply and more neutrally to
record the state of play in the issue to be engaged. These submissions jointly give
ample testimony to the remarkable and wholly justified influence of these two figures.
Their work has been, and will remain, agenda-setting. Indeed, Gail and Terry have set
the agenda because they have set the standard.
We offer the essays in this volume as testament to the standard they have set.
1
Rethinking Agreement in Plato
Lesley Brown
1. Introduction: Varieties of ‘Agreeing’

(Homologein, Homologia)
Readers of Plato1 are aware how frequently agreeing and agreement feature in his
dialogues, in various guises. There are substantive discussions of agreement, such as
the famous argument mounted by the personified Laws in Crito to the effect that
Socrates by remaining in Athens has agreed to obey the laws,2 as well as critical men-
tions (in Republic and in Laws) of the thesis that justice is based on an agreement
(sunthēkē/homologia). In addition to these explicit discussions of agreeing and agree-
ment as making a promise, the term homologein (usually translated: to agree) and its
cognates occur with great frequency, but often almost unnoticed, in everyday philo-
sophical exchanges. Examining them and their implications is the task of this essay.
First, I draw some distinctions to identify and describe the use in which I am chiefly
interested, which I have labelled declarative homologein.
English has both ‘to agree that such and such’ and ‘to agree to do something’ (where
‘to agree’ is roughly to promise or consent). In Greek we find homologein when used of
persons with the same two meanings: (1) homologein as to agree that . . . or declare
that . . . or concede that . . . and (2) homologein as to agree or promise to do something.
The difference between uses (1) and (2) is often marked syntactically, but sometimes
only the sense given by the surrounding context makes clear which use is in question.3
I have chosen the label declarative homologein for use (1).4 This label marks the fact
1
This essay is a token of my immense gratitude to Gail Fine and Terry Irwin for the benefit I have
derived from their penetrating scholarly work, and for friendship and fruitful discussions over many years.
2
For discussion of the Crito argument, see Kraut (1984) and Brown (2006).
3
Homologein as to promise to . . . usually takes a future infinitive; homologein as to declare that . . . almost
always takes an accusative and infinitive construction (or simply an infinitive as at Prot 317b4 homologō te
sophistēs einai kai paideuein anthrōpous; I declare/admit that I am a sophist and that I educate people). But
no syntactic marker can distinguish whether ta hōmologēmena are things that have been promised or
things that have been declared or conceded; usually the surrounding context will make this clear.
4
In Brown (2006) I used Raz’s labels cognitive agreement and performative agreement for (1) and
(2) respectively (Raz 1986: 80–2). I now prefer ‘declarative’ to ‘cognitive’ for Greek homologein (1), since
Rethinking Agreement in Plato 19
that the use in question takes a that . . . clause (either expressed or understood, when a
respondent is said to homologein in response to a question or thesis put to him). From
my study of Plato’s usage, I have concluded that in use (1) homologein is always a public
act of asserting (or of indicating assent). This is one respect in which it differs from the
English ‘agree that . . . ’, since we can say ‘Mary agreed with Jane that the decision was
unfair, but she kept her views to herself.’ Here ‘Mary agreed that . . . ’ reports a matching
belief that isn’t declared or made manifest. By contrast, when a person is said to
homologein that such and such, this always records a public assenting or agreeing or
declaring, not a private believing.5
Before pursuing the declarative use, I mention and set aside a third group of uses.
Homologein in use (3) means roughly to be consistent with, or consonant with, or to
correspond to. As such it can be used of persons, theses, words, and so on; its opposite is
diaphōnein (literally, to be out of tune with). In this use homologein does not designate
a speech act.6
Plato uses what I have labelled the declarative homologein with great frequency in
philosophical conversations, both in reported dialogue, where the narrator reports a
speaker’s assent or his declarations, and in the question and answer exchanges of direct
speech, where Socrates (or another questioner) asks ‘do you agree that p?’ or reminds
an interlocutor ‘earlier you agreed that q’ or speaks of ‘what was agreed’. The pages
of Plato abound in such uses of homologein, or (in English) of ‘he agreed’, ‘do you
agree . . . ?’ ‘from what you agreed it follows that . . .’ and so on. At any rate, that is how
translations render the plentiful uses of homologein in these types of exchange; they are
pretty much uniformly rendered with ‘agree’.
But ‘agree’ can, I believe, be misleading as a translation of homologein in its declara-
tive use (homologein that such and such). Here’s why. In English ‘agree that p’ is used in
such a way that it typically conveys ‘agree with the speaker that . . . ’, in its second- and
third-person uses (you agree(d)/he agrees/agreed that . . .). Sometimes the agreeing
described is with a third party. But in English usage, absent any indication of a third
party, if I say ‘you/she agreed that p’ or ask, ‘do you/does she agree that p?’ I imply that
I too hold the belief that p. In the standard case then, the person who reports another as
agreeing that p indicates her own belief that p, and if A asks B ‘Do you agree that p?’ she
indicates that she, A, holds that view.7 So, if we read exchanges between Socrates and
his interlocutors in terms of agreeing, then we are likely to understand Socrates endorsing
Raz’s ‘cognitive agreeing’ covers believing as well as expressing a belief, while homologein (1) is always
expressing a belief.
5
This is something observed from my study of these uses, not a stipulation. Thanks to Christopher
Shields for asking for clarification here.
6
Des Places, Lexique (1970) s.v. homologein offers a triage of uses very similar to that I have offered:
(1) concéder (que); (2) s’engager (à); and (3) s’accorder (avec).
7
For that reason, the originally proposed question for the 2014 Scottish referendum: ‘Do you agree that
Scotland should be an independent country?’ was thought to be biased, and was replaced with the more
neutral formulation ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’
20 lesley brown
the theses that he extracts from his interlocutors.8 But, from investigating the uses of
declarative homologein, I have concluded that it does not convey speaker endorsement.
I present the evidence for this in Section 3.
Why does this matter? It may make a difference to how we read exchanges between
Socrates and his interlocutors, to how we understand the dialectical situation. And it
may have some bearing on the debate over the nature of the Socratic cross-examination,
the debate between a constructive and a destructive reading. I return to this issue
in Section 4.
2. Two Texts Where Much Hangs on the Implications

of Homologein
2.1
In Plato’s Meno, Socrates responds to a complaint from Meno and introduces what has
come to be known as ‘the dialectical requirement’, following Irwin’s influential dis-
cussion.9 Socrates has offered a definition of shape as ‘the only thing that always
accompanies colour’, to which Meno objects: ‘what if someone says he doesn’t know
what colour is?’ In reply Socrates distinguishes two ways of handling such an objec-
tion, that used by controversialists (eristikoi) and the more dialectical way of proceeding.
This is ‘to answer not just by speaking the truth but also through the things that the per-
son questioned first agrees that he knows (prohomologē(i) eidenai)’.10 Some influential
critics understand this form of words, with the verb prohomologein to show that Socrates
requires, not merely that the respondent say that he knows the things in question, but
also that the respondent does know them, if the dialectical requirement is to be satisfied.
For example, Irwin writes, ‘Socrates’ dialectical requirement (DR) implies that if A
defines x for B as yz, and B does not know about y and z, A’s definition is a bad one.’11
Presuming that the dialectical requirement does require knowledge in the interlocutor
(and not merely that the interlocutor say that he knows), critics proceed to discuss what
sort or level of knowledge Socrates credits to his interlocutor. Here is Scott’s comment:
When he requires that the interlocutor agree that he knows such things, what does he (Socrates)
mean by ‘know’? On the evidence of the lines just quoted, we might think that the level of
knowledge required is quite informal.12
8
Not all scholars understand ‘agree that . . .’ to have these connotations; cf. n13. My conclusions relate
to homologein, not to English ‘agree that’, which I cite only for comparative purposes.
9
Irwin 1977: 136–8.
10
Meno 75d5–7, as translated in Scott 2006: 35. Scott reads prohomologē(i), the MSS read proshomologē(i)
(agree in addition), but the choice between them does not affect the issue that concerns me, regarding the
import of homologein. I accept Scott’s choice, since the sense of the passage calls for the prefix pro (in
advance); cf. Ar Top 110b3 for its use as a technical term.
11
Irwin 1977: 136. 12
Scott 2006: 36.
But rather than ask that question, we should ask instead whether the verb prohomologein
does or does not carry the implication that Socrates requires some actual knowledge
in the interlocutor. The lines quoted from Scott show that he takes Socrates’ remark,
with the verb ‘agree in advance’ to imply that Socrates requires actual knowledge in
the respondent. If (as I argue) it doesn’t, then the ‘more dialectical’ way is to proceed by
getting the interlocutor first to say he knows the things which will feature in the defin-
ition to be offered. If that is the right understanding of prohomologein, then Socrates is
not making it essential that the interlocutor actually have any knowledge. On this
reading, the dialectical requirement is a rule in a certain kind of philosophical
exchange: one which requires getting a certain statement from the other party, but not
one that requires actual knowledge of that other person. This approach, embraced by
Gail Fine, has the advantage of avoiding the implication that Meno (the respondent at
the time) has actual knowledge.13
2.2
Aristotle, Soph El 183b7–8 is another passage where much may hang on the implications
of homologein. This is Aristotle’s famous remark about Socrates disclaiming knowledge.
Socrates, says Aristotle, used to ask questions but not answer them, hōmologei gar ouk
eidenai ‘for he used to agree/acknowledge/maintain that he didn’t know’. Can we infer
anything from the choice of verb—hōmologei—about Aristotle’s attitude to the denial
of knowledge? I believe we cannot, but that some have done so. For instance, those who
translate ‘agreed that he did not know’ or ‘acknowledged that he did not know’ may
thereby give the impression that Aristotle is endorsing Socrates’ denial of knowledge,
is regarding it as true.14 A different inference seems to have been drawn by Irwin, who
writes, ‘[Socrates’] repeated disclaimers of knowledge are too frequent and too emphatic
to be dismissed as ironical without strong reason; Aristotle takes them seriously
(SE 183b6–8) and so should we.’15 That is, Irwin seems to take the force of Aristotle’s
chosen verb of reported speech—homologein—to be that Aristotle took the disclaim-
ers to be sincere. But as I shall argue, the use of homologein shows neither that Aristotle
took the remarks to be true—that is, he is not endorsing Socrates’ claim not to know
(Sections 3, 5)—nor that he took them to be sincere and non-ironical (Section 5).
13
Fine 2014: 52–3 ‘A second way of defending the view that, as stated in 75d, DR [the dialectical
requirement] doesn’t require knowledge is to note that Socrates doesn’t actually say that it does. He says
that it requires one to agree that one knows. Perhaps the force of “agree that one knows” is that one must
think one knows.’ At n66 ad loc. Fine references arguments by Brown from an unpublished draft of this
paper. On the main point we concur: Socrates can say ‘X homologei that p’ without endorsing p, though
I am less comfortable than Fine with using ‘agree that’ as a translation without the implication of speaker
endorsement.
14
We would be puzzled by the use of ‘acknowledged’ in the following: ‘She acknowledged that she was
driving the car when it was in the collision, but this was proved false, as her husband was the driver at
the time.’
15
Irwin 1977: 39–40. Cf. idem 1995: 17 ‘According to Aristotle Socrates made no pretence of knowledge
but ‘acknowledged that he didn’t know’ (Top [i.e. S.E.] 183b7–8).
22 lesley brown
Aristotle writes merely that Socrates used to assert that he didn’t know, and we can’t tell
(alas) what attitude he took to the famous disclaimer of knowledge.
3. Texts Where Homologein Does Not Report

Any Matching Belief
The following texts use declarative homologein to describe an expression of belief
(a saying) that does not match the speaker’s (X is not agreeing with the speaker that . . .)
and that is not an agreeing with anyone else. The first is from a play of Menander, The
Samian Woman, c. 320 bce.
3.1
Menander, Samia at line 524 (cf. 651). Here the context makes crystal clear that the use
of homologein does not signify a shared belief, or one that the speaker endorses. The
Samian woman, Chrysis, wants to help a pair of lovers, and pretends that the girl’s baby
is her own. When the young man eventually explains the situation to his father, he says
‘Chrysis is not the child’s mother, she’s doing this as a favour to me, “homologous’
hautēs” declaring that the baby is hers’. The speaker plainly does not endorse what
Chrysis is declaring, nor is he saying that Chrysis is concurring with anyone else in
making the claim. In this use of homologein to report Chrysis’ utterances, the usual
force of ‘homo’—together with—has been lost; a point I return to in Section 5. It just
means: she’s declaring (or claiming or asserting) that the child is hers (a well-meant
but false claim, as the speaker has indicated).
Next, some passages in Plato where the speaker uses homologein to report the other
party’s claim but without endorsing it, and where no other party is indicated as sharing
the belief in question.
3.2
Theaetetus 171a9. Socrates is trying to show Theodorus how Protagoras’ thesis (that
whatever X believes is true for X) is self-refuting.16
Socrates: Secondly, it has this most exquisite feature: as regards the opinion of those who hold
a belief contrary to his opinion (namely the belief that his is false) Protagoras—I presume—
concedes (sunchōrei) that theirs is true, seeing that he claims that all men judge what is
(homologōn ta onta doxazein hapantas). Theod: Undoubtedly. Soc: And if he agrees (homologei)
that the opinion of those who think him wrong is true, then wouldn’t he be conceding
(sunchōroi) that his own opinion is false? Theod: Necessarily. Soc: But the others don’t concede
(sunchōrousin) that theirs is false? Theod: Indeed not. Soc: But Protagoras, for his part, admits
(homologei) this judgement to be true, given what he’s written. (Theaetetus 171a6–b8)
16
I pass over issues of text and interpretation of this argument. Cf. Castagnoli 2010.
It is the first use of homologein, in bold, which provides my evidence. Socrates describes
Protagoras as homologōn ta onta doxazein hapantas, ‘seeing as he claims that all men
judge what is’ (that is, he claims that all beliefs are true). Now Socrates has just sug-
gested that no one apart from Protagoras holds the thesis that all beliefs are true
(170e9–171a2). Hence what he indicates by the phrase in bold is that Protagoras claims
or maintains that all beliefs are true. Given what preceded, there can be no implication
that anyone shares the belief, despite the use of homologōn. And, of course, Socrates
himself does not share the belief; he is not endorsing it.
3.3
Symposium 201b9, part of the so-called ‘elenchus of Agathon’. Socrates is challenging
Agathon’s description of Love as beautiful. He has got Agathon to admit that Love
desires what is beautiful and that one loves what one lacks and does not possess; so
Agathon will have to admit that Love is not beautiful. Next Socrates asks:
So do you still maintain (homologeis) that Eros is beautiful, given this is so? (201b9)
To translate ‘agree’ here could well be misleading, if it is thought to imply a shared

belief. K.J. Dover in his commentary has noticed a problem, but his comment shows
that he clings to the assumption that homologeis marks a shared belief.17 Discussing the
line quoted, and specifically Socrates’ question framed with homologeis he writes:
‘“agree (sc. with popular belief)”; Socrates himself does not believe that Eros is kalos’.
Troubled by the usage of homologeis, when Socrates evidently does not share the view,
Dover takes Socrates’ use of homologein to require that there is some other party with
whom the question implies Agathon shares the view. But this is both implausible
and unnecessary. This passage shows that Socrates uses ‘homologeis’ simply to ask if
Agathon still gives it as his opinion that Eros is beautiful, not if he agrees with Socrates,
or anyone else.
4. Implications for Interpreting Socratic Questioning

My reason for this investigation is the belief that readers may make a wrong inference
from Plato’s uses of homologein. Readers are prone to infer from such uses that the
speaker or questioner endorses the theses in question. One reason for this may be that
the verb is standardly translated ‘agree’, which (to many people’s ears) conveys that the
one who is said to agree . . . is thereby said to share either the speaker’s belief that . . . ,
or to share the belief with a third party. Another reason is the prefix homo typically
does indicate something shared or common; see Section 5 for further discussion. Now
it is a matter of considerable importance for the understanding of Plato’s presenta-
tions of Socratic questioning which theses he presents Socrates himself accepting, as
I discuss presently.
17
Dover 1980.
24 lesley brown
Sometimes it is clear from the context that Socrates shares the views on which he
is asking his interlocutors questions. The exchanges early on in the Crito (48–9) are
a good example. Socrates reminds Crito of what was ‘agreed by us often in the past’
(hōmologēthē) and asks if all those earlier agreements/homologiai have been washed away
in the last few days. Here, whatever the force of the homolog terms, the surrounding
text makes it clear that Socrates is referring to theses both parties accepted in earlier
conversations. Note how Socrates goes on to ask if they share the views, using terms
which make it clear that beliefs of both of them are in question.18 Laches 198c is a further
passage where the surrounding text makes clear what Socrates’ own view is.19
But often it is unclear where, in Plato’s presentation, Socrates stands. There is a well-
known controversy about the nature of many of Socrates’ inquiries, especially in the
so-called elenctic dialogues. Does Socrates believe he can derive positive conclusions
from his cross-examinations? On the constructive view (defended in different ways by
Vlastos and by Irwin), the answer is yes. Constructivists hold that Plato indicates
which premises in a Socratic examination are accepted by both parties, and indicates
that they ‘deserve to be accepted’, to use Irwin’s apt phrase.20 Here is Vlastos’ four-step
procedure for the constructive elenchus:21
(1) The interlocutor asserts a thesis, p, which Socrates considers false and targets
for refutation.
(2) Socrates secures agreement to further premisses, say q and r. The agreement is
ad hoc; Socrates argues from q and r, but not to them. (Vlastos refers to these
as ‘the agreed-upon premisses’ at n30.)
(3) Socrates argues, and the interlocutor agrees, that q and r entail not-p.
(4) Thereupon Socrates claims that not-p has been proved true, p false.
The well-known problem is this: what entitles Socrates to single out the interlocutor’s
original thesis, p, as the one to be rejected, on the basis of the interlocutor’s acceptance
of the further premises q and r? This is not the place to discuss the different solutions
offered by Vlastos and by Irwin. Instead I want to suggest that in Vlastos’ presentation,
illicit support for the constructive view may come from what I regard as a mistaken
inference from the very common use of homologein when Socrates invites or records
submissions from his interlocutor. At Step 2 Vlastos writes about Socrates securing
agreement to the extra premises. And on p. 40 he writes: ‘Socrates does of course have
reasons for q and r, but he doesn’t bring them into the argument. He asks the interlocutor
if he agrees, and if he gets agreement he goes on from there.’ Later in the article, following
18
Crito 49d: So, consider very carefully whether we have this view in common and whether you share
my belief (koinōneis kai sundokei).
19
Laches 198b, Socrates asks Nicias if he speaks of the same virtues as he, Socrates. (Yes, Nicias does)
‘So we admit these (tauta men homologoumen), but now see if you hold a different view from me on the
following’. It is not the mere use of ‘we agree/admit’ or ‘our admissions’ (because Socrates is prone to say,
‘we claim . . .’ when what he really means is ‘you claim . . .’) but the surrounding context that establishes what
Socrates is endorsing.
20
Irwin 1995: 20. 21
Vlastos 1983: 39.
his ambitious attempt to argue that ‘The set of moral beliefs held by Socrates at any
given time is true’, he writes, ‘from which it follows that q and r are true, since Socrates
has agreed to them’ (p. 55, my emphasis). At this point Vlastos makes clear that that what
he called ‘the agreed-upon premisses’, the ones Socrates ‘secures (the interlocutor’s)
agreement to’ (Step 2), are ones that—on his interpretation—Socrates as well as the
interlocutor has agreed to.
On the destructive or negative view, once the prevailing interpretation and defended
in recent years by Benson, Frede, and others, the aim of a Socratic examination is
simply to show the interlocutor that the theses he has admitted form an inconsistent
set, to show him that he has contradicted himself and holds inconsistent beliefs.22 On
this destructive reading, when Socrates introduces extra premises into an argument,
it doesn’t matter whether or not Socrates himself believes them. All that matters is
that the interlocutor professes belief in the premises. They do not need to be self-
evident, or generally believed, or believed by Socrates.23 This is Benson’s so-called
doxastic constraint.24
My aim is not to adjudicate between these interpretations, but to make a small con-
tribution to the discussion through my reflections on the implications of homologein.
As already noted, there are indications that Vlastos may have assumed that, when
Socrates asks an interlocutor if he homologei a certain thesis, Plato presents Socrates
as seeking agreement for his own view. Or so the passages previously quoted show
(Vlastos pp. 40, 55). Now I cannot be sure that Vlastos is relying on a mistaken infer-
ence from the frequent use of homologein in Socratic questioning—relying on the idea
that the term is used to mark a shared belief—but on the basis of the remarks quoted
I suspect it to be so. But there is a small piece of evidence that critics can be misled (as
I believe) by the use of homologein even in Benson, who defends a destructive reading.
He considers a problem for his view, the worry that by using ‘we agree (homologoumen)
that q’ or ‘it is agreed that q’ Socrates ‘is thereby making available to the interlocutor his
beliefs’.25 He evidently thinks he has to explain away Socrates’ use of the language of
homologein when introducing or referring to extra premises, since it is crucial to his
interpretation that in the elenchus the extra premises introduced need not be believed
by Socrates. But if my line is correct, Benson need not be troubled by Socrates’ use of
homologein to ask for or record an interlocutor’s views, since it carries no implications
whatever for what Socrates believes.
22
Benson 2000; M. Frede 1987: 203–4; cf. idem 1992: 209–14. 23 Cf. Frede 1992: 212.
24
Benson 2000 introduces the ‘doxastic constraint’ at 37. Irwin 1993 has a valuable discussion of some
rare occasions (chiefly in Prot and Gorg) where Socrates relaxes the ‘say what you believe’ rule to explore a
thesis believed by others but not the interlocutor.
25
Benson 2000: 47n52: ‘It might be thought since Socrates frequently introduces the premises of the
elenchus with such phrases as “we agree (homologoumen) that q, don’t we” or “it is agreed that q, isn’t it?”
(see for example Laches 198b2) that he is thereby making available to the interlocutor his beliefs’. Benson
goes on to reply to this worry. Here’s my reply. We can explain the use by Socrates of ‘we agree’ by noting it
as a polite use, meaning simply you agree (i.e. you declare). As to ‘it was agreed’, if this is a passive of
homologein, then Socrates does not thereby make available to the interlocutor his own belief, but
records what the interlocutor has earlier maintained.
26 lesley brown
I do not claim that my reflections damage the case for a constructive reading,
especially not one so carefully argued as Irwin’s.26 I am simply cautioning against
taking Socrates’ uses of homologein as asking for or recording agreement with his,
Socrates’, views.
5. Confrontation Rather Than Consensus?

Many contexts show that the practice of asking for or recording an act of homologein
from another is not invariably the friendly pursuit of consensus.
First, it is clear that the term often has a forensic ring, as if the setting is like a law
court, and indeed the term is often found in orators’ speeches.27 We find many texts
where ‘deny’ (exarnon einai) is the alternative to homologein.28 In such exchanges, the
purpose is to pin the interlocutor down, to extract some affirmations or denials, not to
reach a consensus. The orator who asks for or records a homologein from the accused is
not revealing anything about his own beliefs; he is not endorsing what he records the
accused as having said.
Second, the plentiful uses of homologein terms in Euthydemus provide evidence for
my thesis. The bulk of the dialogue consists of Socrates’ narration of the eristic tricks
played by the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus on Socrates and his compan-
ions, while in the protreptic interludes Socrates discusses serious matters in a serious
and non-eristic manner. The verb homologein is used with great frequency in both the
eristic and the protreptic stretches, but it is the uses in the eristic parts that provide my
evidence. There are, as we expect in a narrated dialogue, many uses of the verb (usually
in the imperfect, hōmologei) to report a subject’s saying yes to a question.29 But we also
find it used in direct speech; the remarks of the brothers bristle with demands that their
interlocutor homologei—make a claim—one way or another, or triumphant remarks
that the interlocutor made a certain claim, using homologein.30 Now it is perfectly plain
in Euthydemus that the brothers’ aim is to get their victim to contradict himself, or to
give voice to a shocking or absurd claim. There is no attempt to reach a consensus, and
the brothers are not even interested in finding out what the interlocutor really believes.
To illustrate the point, I turn first to 295a, where we find the ‘Know everything
always’ fallacy. Socrates has already reported how the brothers haven’t shied away from
declaring that they know (homologountes eidenai, 294d7) all sorts of shocking things.
26
For example, in Irwin 1995, ch. 2.
27
For frequent use of homologein, with its antonyms exarneisthai and antilegesthai, in forensic speeches
see Demosthenes Or 27: 30.
28
Protagoras 317b6, Protagoras speaking: I admit that I am a sophist and that I educate people; I think
that’s a better way of protecting myself than that other one—admitting it rather than denying it.
Charmides 178c Socrates speaking: Charmides said that it wasn’t easy either to admit (homologein) or to
deny (exarnon einai) what I’d asked him (viz. whether he is self-controlled).
29
E.g. 276a–277c has six occurrences of Hōmologei reporting that Cleinias said yes to the brothers.
30
Between 295a and 302e there are 15 occurrences of a form of homologein in direct speech, in questions
and answers, as the brothers question Socrates and Ctesippus.
Next the tables are turned; and Euthydemus tries to get Socrates to homologein that he
knows everything always. The questioner does not allow him to enter the appropriate
qualifications (as when Socrates wants to say: I always know everything I know with
the same thing—the soul). ‘If you’ll answer me, I’ll display you too homologounta these
amazing things’ (295a5): Euthydemus thus boasts that he will make Socrates utter
words which commit him to the absurd claim. No one actually thinks Socrates knows
everything, or that he believes he does. And for sure Euthydemus, in trying to get
Socrates to homologein, to give voice to this claim, is not trying to get him to agree with
any belief he (or anyone else) holds, for the obvious reason that no one believes that
Socrates knows everything always.
Here’s one more example. At 301c–d Dionysodorus tricks Socrates by misconstruing
his answer—that a butcher is the person to cut up and skin—as saying it is appropriate
to cut up and skin a butcher (the trick involves reversing subject and object).31 ‘Did you
admit/declare this (hōmologēsas) or not?’ Socrates: ‘yes, I admitted it (hōmologēsa);
forgive me’. Of course, neither party believes that one should cut up a butcher, or
that Socrates was sincerely expressing that belief. Getting Socrates to homologein is
getting him to commit himself to something that can be construed as an assertion to
that effect.
It may be objected that one should not liken the sophistical refutations that the
brothers in Euthydemus delight in to Socratic questioning. One important difference is
that Socrates standardly demands that his associates are sincere when giving their
answers.32 Without denying that difference, I appeal to the frequent use of homologein
by all the questioners (as well as by the narrator) in Euthydemus to back up two claims.
First, the language of homologein should not be taken as indicating or inviting consensus
or agreement with the questioner (or with anyone else). Second, the verb can be used
of a statement that all present know is not the sincere opinion of the one who is said to
homologein such and such. Indeed, it is clear also from Crito 49d1 that to describe
someone’s avowal in terms of homologein is not to treat it as sincere; there Socrates
warns Crito ‘be careful not to homologein these things against your own belief ’.33
Objection: what about the homo- prefix of homologein? Does that not indicate that
the belief whose avowal is reported is shared by someone else? Or that the one who
homologei says the same as someone else? Standardly the force of the prefix homo- is
indeed that of ‘together’, or ‘alike’. No doubt in origin that was the effect of the prefix in
all uses of homologein, and the homo- prefix certainly retains its force in other uses of
the verb, notably in what in Section 1 I labelled use (3), when a person or thing is said
to correspond to or be in harmony or consistent with another. And there are many
31
Dionysodorus: prosēkei de ge, hōs phēis, ton mageiron katakoptein kai ekderein; hōmologēsas tauta ē
ou; Soc: hōmologēsa, ephēn, alla suggnōmēn moi eche (301d2–4).
32
Exceptions to the sincerity requirement are discussed by Irwin 1993 and by Kahn 1992: 255–6.
I return to the issue in Section 6.
33
kai hora, ō Kritōn, tauta kathomologōn, hopōs mē para doxan homologēis. (The verb kathomologein
occurs twice in Plato, here and at Gorgias 499b4. It evidently means: say yes again and again.)
28 lesley brown
other verbs where the prefix homo-retains the force of jointly or together with, such as
homodoxein and homonoein, both meaning roughly to believe the same as someone
else. But I take the passages cited in Section 3 to show that when A says that B
‘homologei’ in what I have labelled the declarative use, A does not imply that the view
expressed by B is shared by A or by anyone else. It seems that, in the declarative use of
homologein, the homo- prefix has entirely lost its force. This is undoubtedly the case in
later writers, and, if I am right, it is so already in Plato.34 Alternatively, in the uses I am
exploring, the only force the prefix retains is that one who homologei says/expresses
belief in/the same as the logos says (but not necessarily the same as someone else says
or believes).35
How then, it may be asked, can we tell whether Plato is indicating mutual agreement
between speakers, if (as I claim) the mere use of homologein does not do so? As already
noted, Plato has a variety of ways of making it clear when he is representing his speakers
as sharing a belief.36 And we find mutual agreement indicated by middle voice forms of
anomologeisthai or of diomologeisthai; the latter is prevalent in Republic and Sophist,
where many of the conversations are explicitly represented as shared searches for
the truth.37
6. Homologein as Declaring, and as Promising:

Similarities and Differences
Many scholars have seen analogies between agreeing as declaring or asserting, and
agreeing as promising. They compare what Socrates expects of his interlocutors when
in answer to a question they declare that such and such with what is expected of one
who makes a promise to do something. Indeed, Plato’s text seems to encourage such
reflections. In Crito 49aff. Socrates starts by recalling the declarative agreements Crito
has made in the past, when he has accepted certain ethical principles, and he then
turns to agreeing as promising (49e6–7, recalled at 50a2–3).38 At 51e Plato makes the
34
In the New Testament homologein standardly means to profess or profess belief in, with no impli-
cation of agreement in the sense of a shared belief.
35
For a later case where a similar prefix has lost its original force, cf. sugkatatithesthai, whose original
meaning was to deposit (e.g. an opinion) together with someone else, as at Gorg 501c. By the time sugka-
tathesis is used for ‘assent’ sc. to impressions in Stoicism, the sun prefix has lost that original meaning:
perceiving subjects accept the content of an impression, but don’t cast their lot or vote together with someone.
(Thanks to Tobias Reinhardt for the point.)
36
Sec. 4, with n18 and n19.
37
The verb sugchōrein might be thought suitable to indicate mutual agreement, and some uses of sunechōrei
to indicate assent in Euthydemus seem to bear this out, as when it is used to record Cleinias’ assent to theses
Socrates puts to him (280a5, 281a1, 281c8). However, at 286c9 it indicates Ctesippus’ conceding an outra-
geous thesis (that in all cases either one says the truth or says nothing). Thus, like homologein, it is used to
indicate an interlocutor’s conceding a thesis. Adorno 1996 argued that homologein indicates rational assent
while sugchōrein has emotional or affective overtones, but the evidence does not bear this out.
38
49e6–7 poteron ha an tis omologēsēi tōi dikaia onta poiēteon ē apatēteon; should one do the things he
has promised to another, provided they are just, or should one play false? See Brown 2006: 76 n6 for a
defence of this construal.
Laws argue that Socrates has agreed to obey the laws of Athens by remaining in his
birthplace. And Plato uses the same verb, emmenein, for sticking to what one has
agreed, both for continuing to assert what one has previously asserted (e.g. at Crito
49e3–4) and for keeping a promise (at Crito 50a2).
Here (from Irwin) is one example of a critic using an analogy between agreeing as
promising and agreeing as declaring one’s beliefs. Discussing the Crito, he writes: ‘The
citizen is free to make or withhold agreement to the laws, and free to cancel agreement
by emigration, whenever he likes . . . . Socrates imposes only this sort of obligation on
Crito: Crito must accept conclusions only if he thinks they follow from premises he
accepts, but he is free to reject the premises or inferences as he pleases. Argument
requires only the sort of good faith required of a good citizen . . . The interlocutor is not
coerced, but simply required to abide by his agreements.’39 The point that interests me
is that of the obligation to ‘abide by one’s agreements’ in the two different cases.
We find Vlastos too relying on an analogy between giving up a premise one had
asserted (‘agreed’) and failing to keep a promise, in his discussion of the elenchus. He
writes: ‘Whenever Socrates proved to his interlocutors that the premisses they had
conceded entailed the negation of their thesis, why couldn’t they hang on to their thesis
by welshing on one of the conceded premisses?’40 Thus Vlastos, using a now discredited
term for refusing to pay money one owes, likens changing one’s mind in argument
to failing to keep a contract or promise.41 Kraut (restating Vlastos’ query) uses a less
colourful expression to make the same point: ‘Why can’t the interlocutor simply renege
on his agreement to accept this or that premise? Or why can’t another interlocutor . . .
refuse to make the same agreements?’42 All these discuss the interlocutors’ ‘agreements’
(that is, their declarations) in terms drawn from the sort of commitments made by one
who promises.
However, I want to argue that there is an important disanalogy between the two
situations—changing one’s mind about what one believes, and failing to keep a
promise—and that Plato is fully alive to it. We noted that he uses the language of stick-
ing to or abiding by what one has agreed (emmenein) in both cases. But the difference
Plato rightly signals is this. The mere fact of not keeping your promise is prima facie
wrong, and to do so is to play false, exapatan (Crito 49e7). But failing to abide by what
you have declared you believe is not in itself wrong or deceitful. Indeed, Socrates often
makes it clear to the interlocutor that he is free to change his mind if things now appear
differently to him.43 What Socrates warns his interlocutor against is an undeclared change
of mind, as in Republic 345b7–9, where Socrates tells Thrasymachus: Stick to (emmene)
39
Irwin 1986: 57. 40
Vlastos 1983: 49–50.
41
OED Welsher: a bookmaker at a race meeting who takes money for a bet and absconds or refuses to
pay if he loses.
42
Kraut 1983: 61.
43
Crito 49de; Prot 349c7–d2. This is another respect in which Socrates’ practice differs from eristic
confrontations, where a respondent may not withdraw a concession.
30 lesley brown
the things you said, or, if you change position (the verb is metathesthai), do so openly
and don’t deceive us (mē exapata).
The reason why there is typically a moral difference between changing one’s mind
(failing to stick to one’s beliefs) and not keeping a promise is related to the different
‘direction of fit’ with the truth in each case. To promise is to undertake to make some-
thing true in future, while to affirm (‘agree’ in the declarative use) is to express a belief
that something is true. Here’s the difference. A belief (or expression of belief) is at fault
if it doesn’t match the truth. But a promise does not have to reflect reality as it is now;
rather, the job of the one who agrees/promises is to make things come out as promised,
to do what they promised to do. When someone has made a promise, they cannot just
say: I have changed my mind and it no longer seems a good idea to do what I promised.
But it’s different with expressions of belief. To change one’s belief is not in itself repre-
hensible, quite the reverse if one has seen good reasons to do so. Pace Vlastos, to change
one’s mind about what to believe should not be likened to reneging on an agreement
(in the sense of a promise or contract), and Plato is quite alive to the important difference,
as the citation from Republic 345b shows.
7. Conclusion
My focus has been on how Plato uses homologein and its cognates when he represents
(whether in a narration or in direct speech) those situations when a questioner seeks
the opinions of the respondents, asking for answers, recording them, harking back
to answers already given, and so on. Sometimes Plato uses the plain legein or phanai to
phrase the questions or reports: do you say/did you say/earlier you said and so on. But
very often his verb of choice is homologein, almost always translated ‘agree’. It is natural
to expect that the prefix homo-adds something to the plain legein: not just ‘do you
say . . . ’, but ‘do you say together with . . . ’, or ‘do you say the same as . . . ’? But in this
essay, I have marshalled evidence that speaks against that expectation. Section 3 pre-
sented some texts which indicate that the effect of homologein is (in that respect) no
more than plain legein, to say.44 That is, we find it used in contexts where the speaker,
in saying that X homologei that such and such, is not implying that the belief X expresses
thereby is shared by the speaker or by anyone else.
It might be proposed that the uses cited in Section 3 are exceptions, and that standardly
homologein is used to mark someone’s expressing agreement with the speaker or with
someone else. Examination of the plentiful uses of homologein in Euthydemus has
suggested otherwise. In Section 5, I showed how when the brothers invite their opponent
to homologein one way or another, or predict that he will homologein that such and
44
The choice of homologein, in place of the plain legein, may be to add weight, to convey that more is at
stake than mere saying. The verb is used to mark declarations that the speaker (whether in a law court, or
in a philosophical discussion) is supposed to stand by. The perfect tense hōmologēkas (frequent in Euthyd)
is used to remind an interlocutor of what he is committed to, given what he has already maintained.
such, they are simply requiring the opponent to make a claim or predicting that he
will claim that . . . . They are asking the other person to say something and to stand
by it, not to say something in agreement with themselves or anyone else. The inter-
locutor is required to agree to one thesis or another, but not thereby to agree with
anyone.45 And there is no warrant for assuming that anything different is implied
when Socrates uses the term to record or to request answers from his interlocutors.
This point is unaffected by the well-known and important differences between Socratic
questioning and eristic practice, already touched on: viz., that unlike the eristic brothers,
Socrates generally demands sincere answers, and he allows his interlocutors to withdraw
their answers if their beliefs have changed (cf. Section 6). For all those differences,
the implications of (declarative) homologein are identical in any context of use, or
so my investigations suggest.
When an interlocutor is asked to homologein, or when he declares that he has agreed
to a thesis (hōmologēsa), no one else’s beliefs are indicated thereby. Nothing can be
inferred, from the use of homologein, about the beliefs of anyone other than the person
who has made the claims or concessions; the use of the term does not imply any other
person who shares the belief in question.46 There are some indications that readers of
Plato have thought otherwise (as indeed I once did myself), and have used what I take
to be unwarranted assumptions in their interpretations of Socratic questioning. Hence
this exercise in rethinking agreement—or to be precise, in rethinking the implications
of declarative homologein—in Plato.47
References
Adorno, F. (1996) ‘Appunti su omologein e omologia nel vocabolario di Platone’. In: Adorno, F.,
Pensare Storicamente, Firenze: L. S. Olschki, pp. 49–65.
Benson, H. (2000) Socratic Wisdom. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, L. (2006) ‘Did Socrates agree to obey the Laws of Athens?’ In: Remembering Socrates
(eds L. Judson and V. Karasmanis) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bury, R.G. (1932) The Symposion of Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Castagnoli, L. (2010) Ancient Self-Refutation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
45
Section 5, last paragraph, notes that middle forms of the verb are used to express mutual agreement.
R.Geiger, Dialektische Tugenden (2006), pp. 80–1 notes that one should observe the distinction between ‘einer
Aussage zustimmen’ and ‘einer Person zustimmen’, and again between Zustimmung and Übereinstimmung.
He does not, however, tie these to specific Greek expressions.
46
One more instance: at Symp 223d2–6 it is related that, at the end of a long night’s drinking, the sober
Socrates forced Agathon and Aristophanes to homologein that to know how to write comedies and to write
tragedies belongs to one and the same man. The narrator’s term homologein indicates that the drunken
poets were forced to assent to that thesis, but not that it was one Socrates himself accepts (pace many com-
mentators on the passage, for example Bury 1932: 171 ‘the thesis here maintained by Socrates’).
47
This paper offers a segment of my research on agreement terms in Plato, versions of which have been
presented at University College, London (2012), at symposia in Bordeaux and in Pisa (International Plato
Symposium 2013) and at Cornell’s colloquium to honour Gail Fine and Terry Irwin (2013). I am very grateful
to audiences at all those places for their questions, to Gail Fine for her unfailingly helpful comments on an
earlier version, and to Christopher Shields whose comments incited me to clarify many points.
32 lesley brown
Des Places, E. (1970) Platon, Oeuvres Complètes, Tome XIV, Lexique. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1970.
Dover, K.J. (1980) Plato, Symposium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fine, G. (2014) The Possibility of Inquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frede, M. (1987) ‘The skeptic’s two kinds of assent’. In: Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 203–4.
Frede, M. (1992) ‘Plato’s arguments and the dialogue form’. In: J. Klagge and N. Smith (eds)
Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 201–19.
Geiger, R. (2006) Dialektische Tugenden. Untersuchungen zur Gesprächsform in den Platonischen
Dialogen. Paderborn: mentis-Verlag.
Irwin, T.H. (1977) Plato’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Irwin, T.H. (1986) ‘Coercion and Objectivity in Plato’s Dialectic’. Revue Internationale de
Philosophie 40 (56/7), 47–74.
Irwin, T.H. (1993) ‘Say what you believe’. Apeiron 26 (3), 1–16.
Irwin, T.H. (1995) Plato’s Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kahn, C. (1992) ‘Vlastos’ Socrates’. Phronesis 37, 233–58.
Kraut, R. (1983) ‘Comments on Vlastos’. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy I, 59–70.
Kraut, R. (1984) Socrates and the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Raz, J. (1986) The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scott, D. (2006) Plato’s Meno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vlastos, G. (1983) ‘The Socratic Elenchus’. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy I, 27–58.
2
Plato’s Theory of Knowledge
Ralph Wedgwood
0. Introduction
In his middle-period dialogues, Plato worked out at least the rough outlines of a
distinctive theory of knowledge. According to the chronology that seems most
plausible, he first sketched the outlines of this theory in Meno; then he revised and
developed the theory further in Phaedo and the Republic; and finally, in Theaetetus, he
probed the theory in depth, by subjecting it to a series of searching questions. In this
essay, I shall propose an interpretation of the version of the theory that is presented in
Phaedo and the Republic, although I shall also consider what seems to be the slightly
earlier version of the theory that we find in Meno. Unfortunately, I shall not be able to
pay more than the most glancing attention to Theaetetus.
My interpretation will focus, as narrowly as possible, on Plato’s view on the question,
‘What is knowledge?’. I shall touch only briefly on Plato’s views on related questions,
such as ‘What is belief?’ and the like. My interpretation of Plato’s view on this question
will be at least in part conjectural: although I shall show that it fits much of the textual
evidence, I shall not be able in the available space to check this interpretation against
all the relevant textual evidence, nor shall I be able to argue in detail that this interpret-
ation is preferable to all alternatives. The primary goal of this essay is just to put this
interpretation forward for consideration.
No contemporary scholar of ancient philosophy has studied Plato’s epistemology in
greater depth than Gail Fine.1 The debt that my interpretation owes to her work is both
obvious and immense. I shall admittedly disagree with her on one crucial point: I shall
accept a version of the traditional interpretation of Republic 476e–480a, according to
which what in that passage is called ‘knowledge’ (epistēmē or gnōsis) consists in a kind
of grasp of the Forms, whereas what in that passage is called ‘opinion’ (doxa) consists—
at least in a sense—in a kind of grasp of perceptible concrete things. On many other
points, however, I shall accept Fine’s interpretation. Moreover, I shall also follow her
methodology—which involves not just the most rigorous philosophical analysis,
based on a painstakingly close reading of the primary texts, but also an attempt to
1
See the papers collected in Fine (2003), and also Fine (2004, 2008).
34 Ralph Wedgwood
bring Plato into a dialogue with contemporary epistemologists, in a way that looks
more for continuities between Plato’s thinking and that of our contemporaries than for
contrasts or dissimilarities. While it is agreed on all sides that it is important to avoid
anachronism, I strongly agree with Fine’s belief that a consideration of such contem
porary ideas is often helpful in understanding Plato’s thought.
Briefly, my interpretation of Plato’s theory of knowledge is the following.
1. Plato is a kind of contextualist about words like ‘knowledge’. The heart of Plato’s
theory is an account of four different levels of cognitive mental states, which he
illustrates with the image of the four segments of the Divided Line (Republic
509d–511e). But as Plato explicitly admits, sometimes he uses his principal
term for ‘knowledge’ (epistēmē) to cover both of the upper two levels, and some-
times just for the highest level. There are also indications that his usage of other
Greek words for ‘know’ (such as eidenai and gignōskein) and of the term doxa
(‘belief ’ or ‘opinion’) varies with context as well. I shall explain the sense in
which this makes Plato a contextualist in the next section.
2. Plato assumes that knowledge is a factive mental state, belonging to the inclusive
genus of cognitive states that also includes all kinds of belief or opinion. As
I shall argue, one distinguishing feature of knowledge, in his view, is that it
must satisfy the condition that contemporary epistemologists call ‘adherence’.
Indeed, he may think that genuine knowledge must satisfy adherence to the
highest degree—that is, in effect (as I shall explain), genuine knowledge must be
utterly indefeasible. If he does think this, it would explain why he also holds that
all genuine knowledge is a priori—which, he speculates, is best explained by the
Theory of Recollection.
3. It is also plausible that Plato thinks that every truth that can be known is neces-
sary. Together with the explanation of knowledge that is based on the Theory of
Recollection, this guarantees that genuine knowledge also satisfies the condi-
tion that contemporary epistemologists call ‘safety’. Indeed, knowledge is safe to
the highest degree—that is, infallible. If, as seems plausible, Plato assumes that
all truths that are necessary in this way are in some sense aspects of the Forms,
this vindicates the traditional interpretation that he holds that all genuine
knowledge consists in a grasp of some aspect of the Forms.
4. For Plato, knowledge always requires at least some grasp of the explanation of
the truth that is known. The truth about the Forms constitutes an intelligible
explanatory system of necessary truths; and the different levels of knowledge
correspond to the different degrees to which the thinker grasps this explanatory
system of necessary truths. It may be that all adult human beings have at least
a rudimentary grasp of some fragments of this system of these necessary
truths. But no human being has yet achieved the highest level of knowledge,
which would consist in a coherent synoptic grasp of the whole system of
necessary truths.
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The cave
dwellers of Southern Tunisia

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eBook.
Title: The cave dwellers of Southern Tunisia

Recollections of a sojourn with the Khalifa of Matmata
Author: Daniel Bruun
Translator: L. A. E. B.
Release date: September 7, 2023 [eBook #71585]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: W. Thacker & Co, 1898
Credits: Galo Flordelis (This file was produced from images

generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAVE

DWELLERS OF SOUTHERN TUNISIA ***
THE BEY OF TUNIS.
THE
C AV E D W E L L E R S
OF
SOUTHERN TUNISIA
RECOLLECTIONS OF A SOJOURN WITH THE

KHALIFA OF MATMATA
TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF

DANIEL BRUUN
BY
L. A. E. B.
London: W. THACKER & CO., 2 Creed Lane, E.C.

Calcutta: THACKER, SPINK, & CO.
1898
[All Rights Reserved]
P R E FA C E
My journey among the cave dwellers of Southern Tunisia was

essentially one of research, since I was entrusted by Doctor Sophius
Müller, Director of the Second Department of the National Museum,
with the honourable task of purchasing ethnographical objects for the
said museum.
On submitting this work to the public, it is incumbent upon me to
offer my sincere thanks to all those who afforded me support and
help in my travels: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at whose
recommendation Cubisol, the Danish Consul in Tunis, addressed
himself to the French Regency, and obtained permission for me to
travel through the country, and also an escort, guides, etc. Doctor
Müller and Chamberlain Vedel, whose respective introductions,
given from the National Museum and the Society concerned with
ancient manuscripts, and addressed to other similar institutions,
introduced me not only to these, but also to those remarkably
scientific men, Gauckler and Doctor Bertholon, whose friendship I
have to thank for much information and assistance.
England’s Representative in Tunis, Drummond Hay, may be said
to have traced my path through Tunisia, as, on the basis of his
remarkable knowledge of both individuals and of relative
circumstances, he sketched a plan of my journey, from which I
required to make little or no deviation. The Government and officers
in El Arad, the officials, both military and civilian, showed me the
greatest hospitality, and assisted me in the highest degree; Colonels
Billet and Gousset especially claim my warmest gratitude.
Much of what I have recorded has been left in its original form,
namely, as letters written home, some to my wife, some to other
persons, as, for instance, to the publisher, Herr Hegel. I have not
altered these lest they might lose the fresh impression under which
they were written. Several portions were composed with a view to
publication in the French journal the Revue Tunisienne, and in the
Parisian magazine Le Tour du Monde.
The illustrations were obtained from various sources. Albert, the
photographer in Tunis, obligingly allowed me to make use of a
number of photographs, from which were chiefly drawn the views of
the town and of the sea-coast. With a detective camera I myself took
some instantaneous photographs on the journey from Gabés to the
mountains, of which a number are introduced. Besides these, Mr.
Knud Gamborg has engraved some drawings of my own. Mr.
Gauckler also gave me the free use of the sketches already
published in his Collection Beylicale, from which were selected the
pictures of the villages in the Matmata mountains. Lastly, from the
wife of Consul Henriksen at Sfax I received two paintings, which are
reproduced.
When, in the spring, I made an expedition to Greenland, I left my
manuscript with my friend Doctor Kragelund, of Hobro, who had
already afforded me his assistance, and gave him full powers to
arrange the somewhat heterogeneous materials. In my absence he
corrected the proofs as they came from the press, and has therefore
taken a very important part in my work, and enabled it to be
published in its present form. For this act of friendship I tender him
my warmest thanks.
Daniel Bruun.
November 1894.
Note.—The fact of three years having elapsed since the Danish

original of the Cave Dwellers was published, renders the letter form
of which the author speaks somewhat unsuitable for translation. It
has been necessary, therefore, in many cases to modify that form,
and also to omit certain passages in the work as being of little or no
interest to English readers.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. WITH DRUMMOND HAY IN TUNIS 1

II. SUSA 5
III. FROM SFAX TO GABÉS 17
IV. FROM GABÉS TO THE MATMATA MOUNTAINS 32
V. RETURN TO GABÉS 59
VI. OF THE MATMATA MOUNTAINS AND THEIR INHABITANTS 93
VII. FROM GABÉS TO THE OASIS OF EL HAMMA—THE SHOTTS 116
VIII. THE OASIS OF EL HAMMA 129
IX. OVER AGLAT MERTEBA TO THE MATMATA MOUNTAINS 152
X. BRIDAL FESTIVITIES IN HADEIJ 158
XI. OVER THE MOUNTAINS AND ACROSS THE PLAIN FROM
HADEIJ TO METAMER 197
XII. METAMER AND MEDININ 217
XIII. SOUTHWARDS OVER THE PLAIN TO TATUIN 233
XIV. DUIRAT 243
XV. THE TUAREG 253
XVI. BACK TO TUNIS 274
XVII. TUNIS 285
SUPPLEMENT—THE TRIBES OF TUNISIA: A SYNOPSIS 292
COSTUMES—THE DRESS OF THE COUNTRYWOMEN 324
POSTSCRIPT 334
L I S T O F I L L U S T R AT I O N S
PAGE
THE BEY OF TUNIS Frontispiece

DRUMMOND HAY, BRITISH CONSUL-GENERAL AT TUNIS 3
SUSA 8
TWO KHRUMIR WOMEN 13
AT SFAX 20
TOWER IN THE VILLAGE OF MENZEL 24
JEWESSES AT MENZEL 25
ON THE OASIS OF GABÉS 28
WASHERWOMEN AT THE JARA BRIDGE 30
MAP OF SOUTHERN TUNISIA 33
PLOUGHING—GABÉS 37
JEWISH FAMILY IN A CAVE DWELLING IN HADEIJ 43
CAVES IN MATMATA 45
A CAVE DWELLING, MATMATA 46
THE BRIDAL FESTIVITIES 49
HOLD UP! 59
EXCAVATED STABLE 62
BERBER WOMAN OF THE VILLAGE OF JUDLIG 65
A CAVE INTERIOR 66
FALCONERS 77
MANSUR 100
SECTIONS OF DWELLING IN MATMATA WHERE I LIVED—
PLAN 103
MEDININ 112
BEDOUIN WOMEN GROUPED BEFORE THEIR HUT 113
AT GABÉS 117
IN THE MOUNTAINS—ON THE ROAD TO AIN HAMMAM 120
REARING 156
CAMEL WITH CANOPY 169
THE BRIDE ESCORTED OVER THE MOUNTAINS 176
FANTASIA 179
A STREET IN BENI BARKA 219
MEDININ 224
DUIRAT 245
SHENINI 248
A HALT IN THE DESERT—TENT OF A TRIBAL CHIEF 251
A TUAREG 254
A TUAREG 262
MOORISH WOMEN IN A STREET IN TUNIS 289
THE CAVE DWELLERS OF
SOUTHERN TUNISIA
CHAPTER I
With Drummond Hay in Tunis
Though the midday sun still shone bright and hot, I sat at my ease
and breathed again in the pleasant atmosphere of a cool drawing-
room, from which the stifling air and the flies were excluded by
closely drawn blinds.
I had just arrived from Tunis by rail, over the scorching hot plain,
and past the milky-white shallow lagoon known as the Lake of Tunis.
Beyond Goletta the blue hills seemed to quiver beneath the rays of
the sun, and my eyes were blinded by the dazzling white walls of the
cathedral standing on the heights, where, in olden days, Byrsa, the
fortress of Carthage, stood, defying the invader and the storm.
As we sped over the traces of the mighty circular wall, which
formerly enclosed the town, I caught a glimpse of a white roof
amongst the green trees of a wood, and requested the conductor to
stop the train at the English Consul’s summer abode.
Down a pretty shady avenue I walked to the white summer
palace, with its beautiful columned portico, the finest in all Tunisia.
It is a proud name that my host bears,—a name associated with
unfailing honour in the history of Morocco. His late father, Sir J. H.
Drummond Hay, as England’s Representative, practically led
Morocco’s policy during the past forty years. He represented
Denmark also, and under him his son won his diplomatic spurs.
My host had invited me that we might quietly arrange a plan for
my intended expedition to visit the Berber tribes of Tunisia.
I was aware that in the south-west mountains of the Sahara I
should meet with Berbers of a pure race such as are scarcely to be
found elsewhere. Our country’s excellent Representative, Consul
Cubisol, had procured me a French permit for the journey, without
which it would be difficult for a lonely traveller to visit regions
unfrequented by Europeans.
In the spring, Drummond Hay had made a tour on horseback over
the greater part of Southern Tunisia; he was therefore acquainted,
not only with the localities, but also with several of the native chiefs
who would be able to assist me. He understands the people and
their country thoroughly, for he speaks Arabic like a native, and is
quite conversant with the life, opinions, manners, and customs of the
inhabitants. His wife had travelled far and wide with him in Morocco
when he was serving under his father, and accompanied him to the
capital of Morocco; so she also is well versed in Oriental life.
Together we traced the plan of my
journey, which, in the main, I
afterwards followed. Here I will not
anticipate what I shall relate later; only
premising this—that I owe first and
foremost to Drummond Hay the fact of
having comprised in my journey those
regions which no traveller has as yet
described. To him I was also
afterwards indebted for the elucidation
and explanation of what I had seen
and heard.
Both my host and hostess had
resided for many years in Stockholm,
when Drummond Hay was Consul
there. The north has great attractions
for them, as Drummond Hay’s mother
was a Dane, a Carstensen, being
daughter of the last Danish Consul- DRUMMOND HAY, BRITISH
General at Tangier. CONSUL-GENERAL AT TUNIS.
England has great interests in
Tunis, not only directly on account of the many Maltese living there
under British protection, but also indirectly, more especially since the
French settled in the country; it will therefore be understood that the
post of British Representative is one of confidence.
CHAPTER II
Susa
“A happy journey until our next meeting, and may Allah preserve you
from cholera!”
These were the parting words of my friend Gauckler, Inspector of
Antiquities and Arts, who bade me a last farewell at the Italian
railway station of Tunis.
Numbers of flamingoes stalked along the shores of the lagoon,
showing like white patches on the blue-grey expanse of water. Out
on the horizon, where the lake ended, I could see Goletta’s white
houses, and beyond them a deep, dark blue line—the
Mediterranean.
At midday the heat was stifling, but after we reached Goletta Bay
the sun sank rapidly, and the air grew cooler as a little steamer took
us through the entrance to the harbour, past the homeward-bound
fishing-boats. Just at sunset we reached our large steamer. To the
north, Carthage’s white church on the heights near Marsa appeared
on the horizon, and, in the south, the blue mountains of Hammamlif.
Amid the noisy whistling of the steamer, mingled with screams
and shouts, I tumbled on board with my numerous bundles and
packages; finding my way at last to the saloon, where a frugal dinner
awaited us.
Next morning, when I went on deck, the coast lay like a flat, grey
stripe ahead of us. I went forward and enjoyed the fresh sea breeze
for which I had so longed in Tunis. Near the bows of the ship were
two dolphins. One of them rose to the surface of the water and
spouted a stream of spray through the little orifice in its head, then
sank again. The other then rose in its turn.
The white bundles on the fore part of the deck now began to stir
into life, and each as it rose threw back its burnous, and showed a
dark face. One Arab had with him his whole family. He had spread a
rush mat on which, amongst their numerous belongings, lay, closely
packed, husband, wife (perhaps wives), several children and a large
poodle. A roguish little girl came to discover what I was
contemplating. She was sweet, brown, and clean, and peeped up at
me, hiding her face the while with one hand, evidently conscious of
wrong-doing. The tips of her fingers and toes were stained red with
henna, which was not unpleasing. Soon after, a closely veiled figure,
apparently the mother, came to fetch the little one. I had just time to
perceive that she was pretty, as she threw back a fold of her haik to
wrap round her child and herself. What a charming picture they
made as they leant against the bulwarks and gazed towards the
land!
Upon a slope, quite near, lay Susa—white, white, everything was
white.
On the summit of the slope were some towers and a crenelated
wall, and on the seashore beneath, yet another wall. Below lay the
harbour, too shallow, however, for our ship to enter; we had therefore
to lie out in the open.
A boat took me to the quay, where some twenty black-eyed boys
of all ages, with gleaming teeth and red caps, lay watching for their
prey. As the boat drew alongside, they rushed down to seize my
luggage. The boatmen attempted to push them aside, but,
nevertheless, one caught up my little handbag, another my umbrella,
and a third my photographic apparatus. There was nothing for me to
do but to jump ashore and chase the thieves. It was long before I
could collect everything under the charge of one lad. Then, with a
couple of smart taps right and left, my little guide and I marched up
to the Kasba, where the Commandant lives. Here are the magazines
and barracks, and here, too, I knew that I should find a collection of
antiquities.
Susa was originally a Phœnician colony, and played no small part
in the Punic Wars. Trajan called it “Hadrumetum,” and made it the
capital of the province. It was laid waste by the Vandals, rebuilt by
Justinian, and destroyed by Sid Obka, who utilised the greater
portion of its ancient materials to build the holy city of Kairwan. Later
the town was rebuilt by the Turks, who had here for a long time one
of their hiding-places for their piratical fleets. The town was therefore
assaulted by Charles V. in 1537, and again by Andreas Doria in
1539, and, lastly, was occupied without a struggle on the 10th of
September 1881, by a force under General Etienne. It is, after Tunis,
the most important town in the Regency, and is governed by a
Khalifa in the name of the Bey.
SUSA.
Numerous remains of all these periods are to be found in Susa. In

the houses, mosques, and in the surrounding country, antiquities and
ancient ruins abound. From the Commandant I learnt that the
foundations of the Kasba date from the time of the Phœnicians.
Later, the Romans, as also those conquerors who followed them,
built over these.
In the salle d’honneur are arranged many earthen vessels of
Phœnician origin found in tombs, together with other objects of the
same period.
From Roman times remain magnificent mosaics, partly buried in
the walls; vessels, vases, and broken fragments of marble figures.
The Kasba itself, with its many arches, gateways, turrets, and walls
inlaid with tiles, dates from the days of the Arabs or Turks.
In nearly every instance the mosaics depict horses, their names
being introduced beside them. Evidently, in those days, this was
already deemed an important mart for horses bred in the country.
The breeding of Barbs appears to date further back than is generally
believed, and, in fact, to be older than the Arabian conquest of this
land. One sees horses depicted with red head-stalls, decorated on
the top with tufts of feathers, and with their near quarters branded,
exactly as seen on the troop horses of to-day.
The outlines of the horses on the mosaics prove that the Barbs of
that period were the same in type as those of the present age; also
that their careful treatment is not of recent date. Even the same class
of flat iron shoes is used now, as then, on the horses’ forefeet.
I inquired of the Commandant whether particularly fine horses
were reared in this region. He replied in the affirmative, and that in
the direction of Kairwan there are nomad tribes whose horses are of
noble race.
I climbed the high tower of the Kasba,—now used as a lighthouse,
—whence I overlooked the town which lay below me encircled by its
protecting wall. Over the country, on all sides, olive woods met my
view, and far away on the horizon I could catch a glimpse of villages,
looking like white specks. There dwell the ill-disposed tribes who, in
1881, held out against the French. They never ventured on an open
engagement, but at night assembled in their hundreds and kept up
an incessant fire on the French lines; killing a number of both officers
and men. These were avenged by heavy levies and fines on the
inhabitants. Poor people, they had only defended their hearths and
homes.
My boy guide followed me through the streets, where drowsy lazy
Moors crouched, half asleep in their shops, waiting for purchasers.
The loveliest small boys and girls were lying about in the streets,
much to the obstruction of traffic, here conducted by means of small
donkeys and large mules.
Stepping into a little Moorish coffee-house, I found, to my
astonishment, that the interior resembled in construction an old
Byzantine basilica, its dome being supported on arches and pillars.
The whole was white-washed, but well preserved. The coffee-house
was named “el Kaunat el Kubba,” which may be translated Church
Café.[1] Nothing could be more artistic than the cooking utensils,
mats, and pottery scattered here and there about this very old
building.
At five o’clock it was dark. The stream of wayfarers diminished,
and the streets were deserted and empty. I dined at the Hotel de
France on the seashore, not far from the esplanade, and sat after
dinner reading my papers, till I heard a frightful noise outside, and,
peering out, saw a crowd of Arabs gathered behind an unfurled
banner. They shouted and yelled in measured time. One of them
said a few words which all the others repeated. I was told that they
were praying to Allah for rain. They halted a few paces from a kubba,
called Bab el Bahr, and the procession dispersed, the banner being
taken into the kubba.
I went for a turn on the seashore by the road which leads along
the walls to Bab el Jedir. The sun was melting hot. Against the walls
were built a number of mud huts and sheds, in which, amongst
carriages and carts, horses and donkeys were stabled.
Outside were piles of pottery, vessels of all shapes and sizes,
from the largest receptacles for wine or water—reminding one of
those found belonging to the Roman age—to cups and jars of spiral
or other strange forms, such as I have seen in the museum at
Carthage.

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Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge: Themes

from the Work of Gail Fine and Terence

Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

Notes on Contributors vii

14. Richard Price on Virtue 253

Bibliographies of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin 293

Julia Annas is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.

viii notes on contributors

Paula Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Classical and

Verity Harte is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Yale University. She

Richard Kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in the Humanities, in

Susan Sauvé Meyer is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2017), ‘Vice in the Nicomachean Ethics’, Phronesis

2 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

4 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

6 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

kinds of knowledge escape this regress: some knowledge is privileged, qualifying as a

8 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

10 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

12 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

14 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

16 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

should be constrained by human nature. Aristotelian naturalism implies that the

The Influence of Irwin and Fine

1. Introduction: Varieties of ‘Agreeing’

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 19

2. Two Texts Where Much Hangs on the Implications

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 21

3. Texts Where Homologein Does Not Report

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 23

To translate ‘agree’ here could well be misleading, if it is thought to imply a shared

4. Implications for Interpreting Socratic Questioning

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 25

5. Confrontation Rather Than Consensus?

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 27

6. Homologein as Declaring, and as Promising:

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 29

Rethinking Agreement in Plato 31

dwellers of Southern Tunisia

Title: The cave dwellers of Southern Tunisia

Author: Daniel Bruun

Release date: September 7, 2023 [eBook #71585]

Original publication: United Kingdom: W. Thacker & Co, 1898

Credits: Galo Flordelis (This file was produced from images

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAVE

RECOLLECTIONS OF A SOJOURN WITH THE

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF

London: W. THACKER & CO., 2 Creed Lane, E.C.

My journey among the cave dwellers of Southern Tunisia was

Note.—The fact of three years having elapsed since the Danish

I. WITH DRUMMOND HAY IN TUNIS 1

THE BEY OF TUNIS Frontispiece

Numerous remains of all these periods are to be found in Susa. In

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Notes on Contributors vii

14. Richard Price on Virtue 253

Bibliographies of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin 293