PHIL 309(S) Plato's Metaphysics
Plato is probably the earliest Western philosopher from whom we can still learn today, and this claim seems particularly true of his metaphysics, even though many of its aspects undoubtedly strike us at first as alien and difficult to understand. We shall concentrate in this course on the central part of Plato's metaphysics, the "classical" Theory of Forms of his middle period, as expounded in his dialogues such as the Phaedo, the Symposium, the Republic, the Phaedrus, and the Parmenides. The entire range of Plato's arguments for the existence of Forms will be carefully reconstructed and subjected to critical examination, with a view to showing that they often rest on two demands which philosophers typically impose on our various claims to knowledge and the two associated claims that these demands in fact are, or at least in principle could be, met. The two demands are (a) the demand for objectivity, and (b) the demand for intelligibility, i.e., amenability to rational explanation; unless these two demands are met, and according to Plato they can only be met if there are Forms, genuine knowledge (episteme), he claims, is impossible. In trying to understand Plato's claims about the Forms and the structure of his support arguments, we shall also consider some of the most important interpretations of his theory, including those of I. M. Crombie, Gregory Vlastos, J. C. B. Gosling, Gail Fine and Alexander Nehamas. Prerequisites: Philosophy 101, 102.