Plato and the Socratic Fallacy - W. J. Prior

8/12/2019 Plato and the Socratic Fallacy - W. J. Prior

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Plato and the "Socratic Fallacy"Author(s): William J. PriorSource: Phronesis, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 97-113Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182581 .Accessed: 27/03/2014 19:37

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Plato and the Socratic Fallacy

WILLIAM J. PRIOR

ABSTRACrSince Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much discussionamong scholars of the Socratic fallacy. No consensus presently exists onwhether Socrates commits the Socratic fallacy ; almost all scholars agree, how-ever, that the Socratic fallacy is a bad thing and that Socrates has good reason

to avoid it. I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that whatGeach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent conse-quence of Platonic epistemology.

The Socratic fallacy arises from the Priority of Definition principle (PD).Plato is committed to (PD) in the Meno. The Meno also contains a famous dis-cussion of the difference between episteme and doxa (97a ff.). If we understandwhat Plato meant by episteme we can see that he must be committed to (PD);but we can also see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attrib-utes to it.

Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. (PD) isimplausible on this reading of the verb to know, but not on Plato's. Plato claims

that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever a claim to knowledgeis made. Plato links the concept of episteme explicitly with the concept of logos;the connection between the terms may have been analytic.

It does not follow from the Platonic conception of knowledge, as Geachargues, that it is no use using examples to establish general definitions. All thatfollows is that one cannot know that an alleged example of a term T is a genuineexample until one has a general account of what it is to be T. Without the strongerconclusion, Geach cannot establish that the Socratic fallacy is a fallacy.

I. Introduction

Since Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much dis-cussion among scholars of the Socratic allacy. According o Geach, thisfallacy consists of two propositions:

(A) that if you know that you are correctly predicating a given termT you must know what it is to be a T, in the sense of being

able to give a general criterion or a thing's being T, and(B) that it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of T by giving

examples of things that are T.'

Accepted September 1997I P.T. Geach, Plato's Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary, The Monist 50

(1966), 371.

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Phronesis XLI1112

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98 WILLIAM J. PRIOR

Geach believed that (B) in fact follows from (A). 2He believed that thesetwo propositions constitute a fallacy because they present an incorrectview of knowledge:

We know heaps of things without being able to define the terms in which weexpress our knowledge. Formal definitions are only one way of elucidating terms;a set of examples may in a given case be more useful than a formal definition.3

Geach also believed that Socrates s committed o the Socratic allacy nthe early dialogues of Plato.

Geach has had many respondents. All have wanted to show that theSocrates of the early Platonic dialogues s innocent of Geach's charge. Ingeneral their strategy has been to argue that Socrates is not committedto Geach's principle A), which has come to be known as the Priority fDefinition principle (PD). This task is made possible by the fact thatPlato nowhere puts (A), in so many words, into Socrates' mouth. He saysmany things that suggest that he believes in (A), but Robinson speakscorrectly of the impression vaguely given by the early dialogues 4 hathe accepts it. Gregory Vlastos, who believed that the early dialogues

represent he views of the historical Socrates, argued that the principleonly emerges in a set of transitional ialogues n which Plato's viewswere supplanting hose of Socrates.5 Other scholars have argued hat theSocrates of the early dialogues is committed not to (PD) but to someweaker principle or principles hat do not have the epistemological con-sequences of (PD).6 Some scholars have also argued for a distinction ntwo kinds of knowledge: or Vlastos, the distinction was between certainand elenctic knowledge; or Woodruff and Reeve, it is between ordi-

2 Ibid.I Ibid. I think that the general view of knowledge underlying Geach's position,

which I shall discuss further below, bears some resemblance to the view Protagorasdefends in the Great Speech (Protagoras 320c-328d), especially at 327e-328a, wherehe indicates that eveiy Greek has sufficient knowledge of the Greek language to beable to teach it. I don't mean to suggest that Protagoras's view and Geach's are iden-tical, however, or that they have the same roots.

4 Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic (Oxford 1953), 53.Gregory Vlastos, Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge, Philosophy 35 (1985), 23-

26, esp. nn. 54, 56 (which refers to 1, n. 1), 60, and 65.

6 For example, Gerasimos Santas, The Socratic Fallacy, Journal of the Historyof Philosophy 10 (1972), 127-141; Alexander Nehamas, Socratic Intellectualism,Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium n Ancient Philosophy 2 (1986), 275-316(cf. esp. 277-293); and John Beversluis, Does Socrates Commit the Socratic Fal-lacy?, American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1987), 211-223.



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PLATO AND THE SOCRATIC FALLACY 99

nary and expert knowledge. Given this distinction it is possible to arguethat (PD) applies only to claims of certain or expert knowledge; Socraticclaims of ordinary or elenctic knowledge do not succumb to the Socraticfallacy. 7

All of these strategies have been challenged. The most thorough dis-cussion of (PD) is Benson,8 who concludes that the best explanation forSocrates' acceptance of principles weaker than (PD) is his acceptance of(PD). Benson also questions the strategy of restricting (PD) to the transi-tional dialogues. Lesher9 has criticized the strategy of granting to Socratestwo kinds of knowledge or two senses of knowledge. No consensus pre-sently exists on whether Socrates commits the Socratic fallacy ; almostall scholars agree, however, that the Socratic fallacy is a bad thing andthat Socrates has good reason to avoid commitment to (PD).'0

I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that whatGeach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocentconsequence of Platonic epistemology. If we understand what Plato meantby episteme we will see that he must be committed to (PD); but we willalso see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attributesto it. I hope to show both of these things in this paper.

II. Interpretive Strategy

Before I begin discussion of the fallacy itself, however, I want to notea limitation that all of the above strategies share. They attempt to removethe fallacy from the early dialogues, or at least from the pre-transitional,

Vlastos, op. cit., 1-31 (cf. esp. 23-26); Paul Woodruff, Expert Knowledge in theApology and Laches: What a General Needs to Know, Proceedings of the BostonArea Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 3 (1987), 79-115, and Plato's Early Theoryof Knowledge, in Stephen Everson, ed., Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 60-84; andC.D.C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis 1989), 37-62.

8 Hugh H. Benson, The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchus, OxfordStudies in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1990), 19-65.

9 James Lesher, Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge, Journal of the History ofPhilosophy 25 (1987), 275-288.

10 See Beversluis, op. cit., 212, who describes the result of accepting Geach'spremises as a hopeless epistemic impasse, Woodruff, who writes that the trouble

with believing in priority of definition is that it would paralyze inquiry if it were true( Expert Knowledge, 91; Woodruff may only be interpreting Geach, not endorsinghis conclusion; however, he says Geach represents a fairly broad consensus ) andSantas, op. cit., 129. Exceptions to this general rule are Terence Irwin, Plato's MoralTheory (Oxford 1977), 40-41, and Benson, op. cit.



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100 WILLIAM J. PRIOR

elenctic dialogues, but not from the transitional dialogues, the dialoguesin which, according o a common account, Plato first introduces his ownviews through he character f Socrates. This strategy s one of isolationand containment: t attempts to keep the Socratic dialogues free of thephilosophical assumptions hat give rise to the fallacy. It attempts toremove the fallacy from the elenctic dialogues, and thus from Socraticphilosophy, only to inflict it upon Plato. It attempts o save Socrates roman infection that Plato carries.

Now I have little sympathy with the project hat underlies his strategy,the project of isolating a pure Socratic phase of thought within the earlydialogues that is free from epistemological and metaphysical ssumptions,whether or not that first stage is taken to be a faithful record of the viewsof the historical Socrates. But even if we accept the assumptions hatmark this project, t is hard to imagine a scenario that offers a convinc-ing explanation of how Plato could have come to commit the Socraticfallacy in some dialogues but not in others. If commission of the So-cratic fallacy s a blunder, how could Plato have carefully avoided com-mitting his blunder n the early, elenctic dialogues (while asserting hingsvery much like it), only to embrace t in the transitional ialogues? Evenif his role in composing the early dialogues was more that of Socrates'biographer han that of an original philosopher, s it reasonable o assumethat Plato simply recorded he views of Socrates without understandingthem? If Socrates avoided (PD) because he realized that its adoptionwould have the disastrous epistemological consequences Geach claims ithas, is it reasonable o think that Plato did not realize this, and that, likea fool, in the transitional ialogues he rushed n where his angel had pre-viously feared to tread? Given what we know about Plato's philosophicalabilities, this seems highly unlikely.

Now it seems clear that Plato is committed o (PD) in the Meno. Bevers-luis distinguishes wo forms or aspects of Geach's (A):

(Al) If you do not know the definition of F, you cannot know that any-thing is an F, and

(A2) If you do not know the definition of F, you cannot know any-thing about F (e.g. that F, say Justice, s Y, say beneficial).'2

I I find the critique of this project found in Charles H. Kahn's classic essay, DidPlato Write Socratic Dialogues?, Classical Quarterly 31 (1981), 305-324, and laterworks completely convincing, though I do not agree with his alternative account ofthe relations among the dialogues or his chronological placement of the Gorgias.

12 Beversluis, op. cit., 211-212; cf. Benson, op. cit., 20, n. 2.



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At Meno 71b Socrates states, I have no knowledge about virtue at all.And how can I know a property of something when I don't even knowwhat it is? The question clearly invites a negative reply; and, a negativereply would commit Plato to Beversluis' (A2). He is not so clearly com-mitted to (Al); however, as Benson has put it, the best explanation orhis acceptance of (A2) is his acceptance of (PD). Whether Socrates n thisdialogue represents the historical Socrates, Plato, or a combination ofboth, he seems committed o the principle hat gives rise to the Socraticfallacy.

The Meno also contains a famous discussion of the difference betweenepisteme and doxa (97a ff.), which I shall discuss below. It seems rea-sonable to assume that the concept of episteme Socrates employs whenhe denies that he has any knowledge of virtue s the same as that he useswhen he distinguishes episteme and doxa, and that therefore we mayuse the later discussion of knowledge to illuminate his meaning in theformer.'3 That is what I shall attempt o do below. It is possible that Platowrote both passages without connecting them to each other; but this isunlikely in so careful a writer as Plato. Even if he were unaware of theconnection between the two passages, however, we can fairly take both,occurring as they do within a single dialogue, as indicative of his thoughton the Socratic allacy at a certain period of his life.

It seems to me, then, that if the Socratic allacy is indeed a fallacy,it is committed n the Meno. If the person who commits it is Plato andnot Socrates, that really doesn't matter; what matters s the commissionitself. If these principles eally do constitute a fallacy, they undermine, rat least threaten o undermine, ome central aspects of Plato's epistemol-ogy. Let us consider, hen, whether or not this pattern of reasoning reallyis a fallacy.

13 Irwin has used the distinction between episteme and doxa, though without specifi-cally invoking the Meno passage, in developing his own answer to Geach's problem.Irwin accepts the standard English translations of these terms as knowledge and

belief ; his solution is, in a nutshell, that Socrates denies he has knowledge but nottrue belief. This solution is, of all the published responses to Geach I am aware of,the closest to the one I propose below; unlike Irwin, however, I have serious reserva-tions about the adequacy of the usual translations, and as will become clear below Ido not accept the claim that the alternative to Platonic episteme is a cognitive statesimilar to what we would describe in English as true belief. Beversluis (op. cit., 217ff.)discusses the Meno passage in the course of a critique of the true belief theory; hisdiscussion is an excellent example of the project of purifying the early dialogues fromthe epistemology of middle Platonism. Since this paper concems a dialogue in whichthat epistemology emerges, his comments do not have a direct bearing on it.



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102 WILLIAM . PRIOR

III. Knowledge and DefinitionFirst of all we must ask what Geach means when he labels (A) and (B)a fallacy. I think he does not mean what logicians mean by a fallacy,namely an invalid pattern f argument. For, though Geach thinks hat thereis an inference rom (A) to (B), he does not think that the inference s in-valid, for he states that (A) entails (B). Rather, think that Geach regards(A) and (B) together as expressing a false conception of the nature ofknowledge, a style of mistaken thinking about knowledge. As notedabove, Geach's response o the Socratic allacy s to claim that we know

heaps of things we can't define.Geach's view is indebted o Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, and

is based in part on the Wittgensteinian laim that one need not have ex-plicit knowledge of the definition of a term to be justified n one's use ofthat term. According to the slogan that once characterized his position,

meaning s use. This slogan conceals an ambiguity, however. It maymean that in order to be justified n saying that a is F one need not havedefinitional knowledge of F-ness, but only the ability to apply the term

F to various objects in various situations. In this case what we know,in Geach's terms, is how to apply F ; and this might be a skill that hasno explicit knowledge of a semantic nature attached to it. This skill ishardly different, f it is different at all, from the practical ability to iden-tify F things. It is semantic knowledge only in a very minimal ense. Alter-natively, the slogan might mean that in order to be justified in applyingthe term F to various things one must be able to give an account ofhow F ' s used, but that this account need not take the form of an ex-plicit definition or a set of necessary and sufficient onditions or its appli-cations. The second claim is less radical, and perhaps hus more plausible,than the first. I suspect, however, that the first, stronger view is behindGeach's objection.

Philosophers who accept this dictum and the philosophical rameworkout of which it arises will think that Plato has made a straightforward ndsimple error n demanding xplicit definitional knowledge from his inter-locutors. They may also argue that the error s not simply an error n thephilosophical heory of meaning, however, but an error n the philosoph-ical conception of knowledge. It is then open to them to claim that, asWittgenstein's predecessors n the English-speaking hilosophical ommu-nity shared a mistaken understanding f the ordinary use of knowledgein English, so the Greek philosophers hared a mistaken understanding fthe ordinary use of episteme. Thus, the issue becomes not simply oneinvolving the use of certain Greek or English terms, but one of the legit-



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PLATO AND THE SOCRATIC ALLACY 103

imacy of certain epistemic criteria. Followers of Wittgenstein might alsoargue that the enormous influence of the Greek philosophers, ncludingPlato, on later philosophy s partially responsible or the perpetuation fthis erroneous view.

Geach's labeling of (A) and (B) a fallacy is thus tendentious: t dependson the correctness f the Wittgensteinian emantics and epistemology hatunderlie t. These were far from universally accepted when Geach wrotein 1966, and they are less so today. But if the Wittgensteinian iew, orsomething ike it, is not correct, t may not be the case that we know heapsof things we can't define; and if that is so, the Socratic view would notbe a fallacy. It would not be a mistaken account of criteria or knowledgeof the meaning of terms, whether we are speaking English or Greek. Inother words, (PD) is implausible only on a certain reading of the verb toknow ; f we have reason to think Plato was committed o (PD) we havereason to think that he did not understand he corresponding Greek verbin that way.'4

Now it is tempting o respond hat Plato was not talking about knowl-edge but about episteme, and that neither Plato nor the Greek philosophers

in general thought that we can have episteme of things we can't define;and that indeed will be part of my response o Geach. I want to say some-thing about the general problem, however, that does not depend on thepeculiarities of the Greek terms Plato uses.

An examination of rival philosophical accounts of meaning and knowl-edge is beyond the scope of this paper (and beyond the competence of itsauthor). do want to note, however, hat the Wittgensteinian osition gainscredibility as the explicitness and precision of the knowledge demandedby rival theories ncreases. t is not plausible hat a mathematician's nowl-

edge of the nature of the number 2 is required or an English speaker oclaim justifiably that he or she knows that certain sentences containingthat term are true (for instance, hat 2 + 3 = 5). On the other hand, t seemsreasonable o demand some account of the meaning of a term or the truthof a statement containing that term from a person who claims to knowthat the statement s true. That is, to use a Socratic example, if Lachesclaims to know that this person or that type of conduct is courageous, tseems reasonable o ask him what he means by courage and what hetakes the condition for the ascription of courage to be.

This, at any rate, is the way Plato and his Socrates understand he mat-ter. They assume that a demand or an explanation s appropriate herever

14 I owe this formulation of the point to Hugh Benson.



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a claim to knowledge is made. That is, when someone claims to knowthat a is F, they think that it is always in order o ask for general criteriafor the application of F, or for a general account of the meaning of F.This is the substantive ssue on which Geach disagrees with them. Geachneed not reject the idea that any account is inappropriate, ut he mustreject the idea that a general semantic account is always in order. Hemight say, in other words, yes, it's appropriate o ask someone how heor she knows that a is F, but it isn't appropriate o ask for a definition of'F'. This response s quite reasonable n those cases where we are think-ing of perceptual r memory knowledge of particular tates of affairs. Theright response o the question How do you know it's raining? might be,

I'm looking out the window at the rain coming down right now. Theright response to How do you know Susan lives on this street? mightbe, I've given her a ride home dozens of times.

These responses aren't appropriate n the cases that Plato is interestedin, however. As Socrates points out in the Euthyphro 7b ff.), the knowl-edge he is seeking concerns erms about which there s disagreement, ndfor which there s no universally ecognized method or resolving the dis-agreement, erms of moral evaluation (right and wrong, noble and base,good and bad, and the names of the various virtues). As the early dia-logues demonstrate epeatedly, t is not possible to give an ostensive defi-nition of any of these terms. Piety and courage are not transparent moralproperties, which only need to be observed n a select number of cases inorder to be understood. Thus, it would seem that the Socratic method ofseeking an account of the nature of these terms is well founded.

Let us consider the matter from a slightly different perspective. OnGeach's view it is possible for a person to say, correctly, I know how touse the word X but I don't have any idea how to define X, or say whatX essentially s. For some terms, such as color terms and terms for com-mon substances uch as water or salt, this seems unproblematic; ut evenhere we must be aware of the problem of the borderline ase. Is that colora dark shade of yellow or a light shade of orange? The liquid n the glasslooks like water and tastes like water, but how can we be sure it is water?How can we answer such questions if we lack criteria for determiningwhere yellow leaves off and orange starts, or what water is? If one can'tdeal with the contentious cases, the borderline or disputed cases, it is

tempting o think that one doesn't know how to use the term in questionafter all, or at least that one's knowledge s incomplete; nd if that is truein the case of terms ike yellow and water, t would seem a fortiori tobe true of terms like brave and holy. Indeed, even if one finds the



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problem of borderline ases unconvincing n the case of physical concepts,one might find it persuasive n the case of moral concepts, such as thosewith which Plato is concerned.

Geach might respond that his point holds at least for obvious anduncontroversial ases of the term in question. Wittgenstein notes that theanswer to the question How do I know that this colour is red? may be

I have learnt English. '5 t is possible to respond hat, until one is in pos-session of explicit criteria or the application f a term, one cannot be cer-tain of its application n apparently lear cases. This response has littleplausibility n the case of terms ike red but somewhat more in the caseof terms like brave, where the applicability of the term depends on theattribution o some agent of a psychological state he may or may not pos-sess. Laches may be unable to tell whether a given hoplite who stands hisground n battle is truly brave unless he can determine hat hoplite's moti-vation for so standing.'6 don't want to push skepticism about examplesthis far, however. Doubtless it was fear of reaching ust such a conclu-sion that led Geach to object to principle A) in the first place. Nor do Ithink that Plato would want to do so. Though he might harbor doubtsabout the ordinary hoplite, I'm sure he would agree with Laches thatSocrates' behavior n the retreat rom Delium was brave, and that we canbe certain t was (cf. Laches 18la-b). The question he would raise in suchsituations s not whether the concept applied to the case but whether thecognitive certainty on the part of the observer amounted o knowledge.

Now if we take seriously the account given in the Meno of the distinc-tion between knowledge and right belief, I think t is clear that what Platorequires or knowledge is something very close to what Geach attributesto him in (A). According to Meno 97e-98a, what converts right opinioninto knowledge s the tethering f opinion, ts stabilization, by a reason-ing out of the explanation (aitias logismoi). In other words, the personwho has knowledge s able to offer a reasoned explanation of the item inquestion, whereas the person with true opinion is not. As the Meno indi-cates, the opinions of this person are no less true than those of the personwith knowledge, and no less reliable a guide to action. Plato might haveadded that the person with right opinion might be no less certain of thetruth of a given judgment than the person with knowledge. Though hegenerally thought hat opinion was less stable than knowledge because it

'' Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3d ed. (New York 1958), Part 1,para. 381, 117e.

16 1owe this point to Roslyn Weiss.



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PLATO AND THE SOCRAnC FALLACY 107

must be able to give an account of what he knows (cf. Phaedo 76b), andquite another to require complete knowledge, expressed in essential de-finitions of a Form reached through he process of Recollection. But itdoes not follow from the fact that the metaphysical and epistemologicalelaboration Plato gives to the simple criterion may be unreasonable hatthe criterion tself is; and it should be remembered hat it is the simplecriterion, and not its metaphysical laboration, hat Geach objects to.

IV. Episteme and Logos

If it is reasonable o expect that someone claiming knowledge should beable to provide some rational explanation of the fact known, it is evenmore reasonable o expect this of someone claiming episteme. The conceptof episteme s explicitly linked with the concept of logos, rational accountor explanation, n Greek philosophy. Fine'8 mentions Meno 98a, Phaedo76d, Republic VII, 53le and 534b as passages in which Plato links thepossession of episteme to the ability to give a logos of what one knows;

and, thoughthe

attempt o define episteme as true opinion with the addi-tion of an account in the Theaetetus ends in apparent ailure, the con-nection between episteme and logos seems reaffirmed n the rhetoricalquestion at 202d: how can there ever be knowledge without an account?One may well think that the connection between episteme and logos wasfor Plato analytic.

Nor is Plato's connection between episteme and logos idiosyncratic.When Aristotle defines episteme n Posterior Analytics 2, he says that wehave episteme of a fact when we know the cause on which the factdepends, as the cause of that fact and no other, and further, hat the factcould not be other than t is. (71blO ff.) As he defines the faculty of epis-teme in Nicomachean Ethics VI.3, it is the capacity to demonstrate(1139b3 1). Aristotle imits the scope of episteme to necessary truths, anddemands for these not just a rational account but a demonstration hatshows their necessity. These restrictions are so different rom those weplace on knowledge that translators re prone to mark them by translat-ing episteme as scientific knowledge ather han simply as knowledge.

18 Gail Fine, Knowledge and Belief in Republic V-VII, in Stephen Everson, ed.,Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 106. For a detailed discussion of the relation betweenepisteme and logos, with many additional references to passages in the Platonic corpus,see Jon Moline, Plato's Theory of Understanding Madison 1981), ch. 2, esp. 33-43.



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This is not the place to discuss the propriety f this translation; simplynote that the term on which Aristotle places these restrictions s the sameterm that translators ranslate s knowledge n Plato: episteme. Epistemeis the state with which Geach's principle A) is concerned.

We are now in a position to understand what Plato meant to affirmwhen he affirmed A) or, more precisely, when he affirmed he more spe-cific statements hat have led scholars o attribute A) to him. Consider hequestion rom the Meno: how can I know a property f something whenI don't even know what it is? (71b) What this implies in context s that

Socrates does not believe that he can know whether virtue is teachablewithout knowing what the nature of virtue s. I suggest that what this im-plies is that Socrates thinks he can have no logos, no rational account ofthe teachability f virtue without a logos of the nature of virtue. n general,he can have no rational account of the properties of an object withouthaving a rational account of the nature of the object.

Is this a false view of the nature of knowledge? It certainly seems tohave been a feature of ancient essentialist epistemology that knowledgeof something begins (logically, not temporally) with knowledge of the

thing's essence, proceeds to knowledge of properties hat follow neces-sarily from the essence, and concludes with whatever accidental proper-ties may be knowable. It does not seem to me to be a relevant objectionto this scheme to say that there is a perfectly good use of the Englishword know n which I can say I know that the apple is red withoutbeing able to give an account of the nature of an apple; for if a rationalaccount s demanded hat explains why this apple, or apples of this kind,are red, then I think I can't know what that account would be withoutknowing the nature of the apple.

Similarly, t does not seem to be a relevant objection o Socrates' claimthat he can't know whether virtue s teachable unless he knows what it isthat there is a perfectly good use of the English word know n which Ican claim to know that virtue can be taught without being able to give anaccount of the nature of virtue, namely that in which I say, I know virtuecan be taught, or I've seen it done. X passed on his virtue o Y by teach-ing; I don't know how he did it, but he did it nonetheless. For again,what Socrates s looking for is a rational account hat explains how virtuecan be taught, and it seems reasonable to think that such an account

requiresan account of what virtue is. It does not matter hat there is a

sense of know n English that dispenses with the rational account, forthat sense isn't the one Socrates has in mind. He is not waiting for infor-mation about cases of successful teaching of virtue; rather, he is seekingto understand ow those instances could have taken place.



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Plato restricts episteme to matters for which we possess a rationalaccount. Nothing in this restriction equires him to deny that we might bein a cognitive state, on the question, say, of the teachability of virtue, thatpossesses many of the other features of knowledge. I might be, as in thecase mentioned above, familiar with instances of the successful teachingof virtue. I might therefore be certain that virtue could be taught. I mightbe so certain that virtue could be taught, and so certain that the cases Ihad observed were instances of the teaching of virtue, that I was imper-vious to argument or evidence of any sort to the contrary. When Plato

denies that, for all that, the state I'm in is that of episteme, he need notbe taken to deny' hat I might be in a state that English speakers mightcorrectly dentify as empirical knowledge. I think that people have found(A) unreasonable ecause they thought hat it committed Plato to the viewthat we couldn't be morally certain of some feature of a thing without arational account of its nature.19 ut (A) is not a claim about he certainty,20or the empirical basis of our beliefs; it is about the kind of accountrequired o turn a belief, even an empirically grounded and dogmaticallyheld belief, into episteme. It may in the end turn out to be a mistaken

principle, but it doesn't seem to me to wear its falsity on its face. It isn'tso obviously false a principle hat I'd want to label it a fallacy.

V. The Use of Examples

The reader might well object at this point that showing that (A) is not asharmful a principle as Geach suggested is only half the battle; for it is(A) and (B) together that constitute he fallacy, and Geach believes that(A) entails (B). Let us turn, then, to an examination of (B). It states that

it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of 'T' by giving examplesof things that are T. Now scholars have noted that Socrates' actual prac-tice in the dialogues s not in accord with this principle: he uses examples

1' This seems to be what Geach means when he suggests that the principle ismorally harmful because someone who proved unable after repeated attempts toexplain why swindling is unjust might come to doubt that it was unjust (372). It istrue that someone might come to that conclusion, but there is nothing in (A) to sug-gest that he or she should. Note that Socrates, who sees more definitions go down inflames than anyone, never succumbs to such moral uncertainty.

20 As Woodruff notes, in Plato's Early Theory of Knowledge, 65, You canbe quite certain in the ordinary way of any number of things, without being able togive a Socratic definition. Note also Aristotle's claim in Nicomachean Ethics VII.3,1146b26-7 that Some people have no doubts when they have an opinion, and thinkthey have exact knowledge.



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110 WILLIAM . PRIOR

frequently to develop, refine, and critically assess definitions. As Bevers-luis notes,

the dialogues of search abound with passages in which he not only unproblem-atically accepts examples of the virtue under discussion from interlocutors whomanifestly lack a definition of it but heartily endorses examples as the primarydata from which the definition is to be extracted.2'

But Geach might respond, So much the worse for Socrates' practice. If(B) follows from (A), Socrates is not entitled to make use of examples inany of these ways. To answer this challenge we must attempt to discoverwhether (B) does indeed follow from (A). Before we investigate this ques-tion, however, I want to note that, even if some general prohibition on theuse of examples did follow from (A) that would not mean that the searchfor general criteria was pointless. A process such as recollection might putone directly in touch with general criteria, bypassing examples entirely;and if the metaphysics of recollection seems too extravagant to offer muchhope in this regard, there might be other less implausible methods of directapprehension of general semantic criteria.

Still, it seems intuitively obvious that the quest for general criteria is im-measurably aided by the use of examples, so let us ask how the prohibi-tion of the use of examples is supposed to follow from (A). Here is Geach'sargument:

If you can already give a general account of what T means, then you need noexamples to arrive at the meaning of T ; if on the other hand you lack such ageneral account, then, by assumption (A), you cannot know that any examplesof things that are T are genuine ones, for you do not know when you are pred-icating T correctly.22

But is Geach right about this? (A) says that one cannot know that a termT is correctly predicated unless one can give a general criterion for the

correct predication of T. When applied to examples, this means that onecannot know that an alleged example of T is a genuine example until onehas a general account of what it is to be T. If Geach were to say onlythis about examples, he would be quite correct. But he says more; he saysit is no use trying to reach a general criterion by the use of examples;and it seems to me that this is not the case.

It is not necessary for me to know that an alleged example of a gen-

eral term T is a genuine example n order o use this example n my search21 Beversluis, op. cit., 212. Cf. Santas, op. cit., 129-134.22 Geach, op. cit., 371.



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for a general criterion of meaning or T. It is a perfectly ntelligible pro-cedure, one followed in all forms of classificatory endeavor, to considermany alleged examples of a given term in the hope of coming up with ageneral criterion or general criteria of classification. Once one has devel-oped or discovered such criteria, one can then use them to sort throughthe initial set of alleged examples and separate hose that truly belong tothe class from those that merely appear to. It is not necessary to knowbeforehand hat all of the putative examples in the initial set are genuine.It is not necessary to know, in the case of any particular xample, that itis genuine. It is not even necessary to know that any of the examples inthe initial set is genuine (though f one's initial choice of putative exam-ples is that unfortunate he classificatory project s unlikely to reach a suc-cessful conclusion). All that is necessary is that one have a reasonableamount of confidence hat at least some of the examples in the initial setare genuine. It is the discovery of general criteria, which is the aim of theclassificatory project, hat will convert this confidence nto knowledge; soit is hard o see how one could know, in advance of the discovery of thesecriteria, hat a given example is a genuine one.

I think that this is in fact the procedure ollowed by Socrates in theearly dialogues. Consider as a single example the passage in the Lacheswherein Socrates is attempting o expand Laches' understanding f thescope of courage. Laches had identified courage with the behavior of thehoplite who remains n his position in battle. Socrates first points out thatother forms of behavior in combat may be courageous, then mentionsthose

who are courageous in perils at sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again

in politics, are courageous, and not only who are courageous against pain or fear,but mighty to contend against desires or pleasures. .. (191d-e; Jowett, trans.)

Is Socrates committed o the claim that he knows, in advance of havinga general definition of courage, that it can be found in all these settings?I think not. He is committed at most to the view that these provide plau-sible environments n which instances of courage can be sought. To pur-sue his investigation he needs nothing more than this.

As we have seen, Plato is willing to say that someone knows some-thing only when that person s able to give an account of what he knows.

When the case is that of predicating a term of an alleged example, thekind of account required s an account of the meaning of T, which forPlato means the formulation of a general criterion or the application ofthat term. If one is searching or such a general criterion, one obviously s



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not in conscious possession of it, and in that sense one cannot know thatthe alleged example is a genuine one. As I also argued above, however,the absence of an account need not lead to uncertainty about the factin question. In this case, the lack of an account of what makes somethinga T need not produce a lack of confidence n alleged examples of T. Itcertainly need not lead an investigator o doubt his or her ability even pro-visionally to identify examples of T.

I think that, for Geach's objection o hold, and for (B) to follow from(A), it would have to be the case that a lack of a general criterion orwhat it is to be a T must produce n the investigator uch a degree of con-fusion that he or she is unable even tentatively o identify examples of T.We have seen that this is not the case. Therefore, B) does not followfrom (A). Plato may, without ogical error, make use of examples n seek-ing general definitions of terms. It seems clear also that he may, withoutlogical error, follow another practice that he constantly employs in theearly dialogues: he may propose alleged examples as counterexamples odefinitions proposed by his interlocutors.

The procedures y which Socrates attempts o discover general criteriafor the use of terms in the early dialogues are not purely nductive ones;he does not simply attempt o assemble a sufficient sample of instancesof the term and then abstract rom these examples a set of necessary andsufficient onditions or the application of the term. Rather, examples areused to stimulate ational eflection on the nature of the things denoted bythe terms in question. As the Doctrine of Recollection has it, examplesserve to remind us of the metaphysical riginals rom which they are de-rived. Though he Platonic procedure iffers rom the more familiar nduc-tivist model familiar o students of philosophy of science, it is a procedurein which examples play a legitimate role, or in fact, more than one legit-imate role.

VI. Conclusion

In this paper I have argued that the Socratic allacy is not a fallacy. Ihave argued hat Geach's (A), which has come to be known as the Priorityof Definition principle PD), is not part and parcel of a style of mistakenthinking bout knowledge and definition but a specific case of a generalPlatonic principle of epistemology: he principle hat episteme requires alogos. The fact that this principle emerges explicitly for the first time ina transitional ialogue, the Meno, means that we ought to be suitably cau-tious about attributing t to Socrates n the early dialogues. On the other



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hand, I have also argued that Plato's acceptance of (A) does not commithim to (B), so that the consequences Geach feared do not arise. Thus,there is no reason not to use (PD), as Benson has argued, as a unifyingprinciple behind many specific Socratic remarks n the early dialoguesabout what we can know, and under what conditions we can know it.23

Santa Clara University

23 I thank Hugh Benson and Elizabeth Radcliffe for their comments on an earlierdraft of this paper.

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Plato and the Socratic Fallacy - W. J. Prior