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COMMENTARY ON KELSEY

COMMENTARY ON KELSEY Sean Kelsey's interpretation of the Phaedo's Recollection Argument (hereafter 'RA') is an attractive one for at least two main reasons. Firstly, it is an interpretation that seeks to make the RA rest by and large on assumptions that any reflective person (not just paid-up Platonists) might accept. The exception, perhaps, is the assumption that there are Forms, and I shall have more to say about this issue below. But secondly, it is an interpretation which commits the Socrates of the Phaedo to the radical claim that the ordinary objects we take to be equal, just, beautiful, and so on - in short, to possess properties or attributes of various kinds - do not really possess those properties or attributes at all: they are not equal, just, beautiful and so on (or indeed unequal, unjust or ugly). This aspect of the interpretation is attractive not just because the attribution of such a claim is a stimulus to dogmatic interpretative slumbers,' but because it clearly answers to something that we find in the Phaedo, namely the idea that somehow the Form of Equal, by contrast with equal particulars, has a proprietary claim on the designation 'is equal,' and so on, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy Online Brill

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References (22)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright 2001 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1059-986X
eISSN
2213-4417
DOI
10.1163/2213441700X00105
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Sean Kelsey's interpretation of the Phaedo's Recollection Argument (hereafter 'RA') is an attractive one for at least two main reasons. Firstly, it is an interpretation that seeks to make the RA rest by and large on assumptions that any reflective person (not just paid-up Platonists) might accept. The exception, perhaps, is the assumption that there are Forms, and I shall have more to say about this issue below. But secondly, it is an interpretation which commits the Socrates of the Phaedo to the radical claim that the ordinary objects we take to be equal, just, beautiful, and so on - in short, to possess properties or attributes of various kinds - do not really possess those properties or attributes at all: they are not equal, just, beautiful and so on (or indeed unequal, unjust or ugly). This aspect of the interpretation is attractive not just because the attribution of such a claim is a stimulus to dogmatic interpretative slumbers,' but because it clearly answers to something that we find in the Phaedo, namely the idea that somehow the Form of Equal, by contrast with equal particulars, has a proprietary claim on the designation 'is equal,' and so on,

Journal

Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy OnlineBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2000

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