ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><!-- InstanceBegin template="/Templates/Base.dwt" codeOutsideHTMLIsLocked="false" --> <head> <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="head" --> <link href="../../SpryAssets/SpryCollapsiblePanel.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="tabs.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="cpstyl.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script src="../../SpryAssets/SpryCollapsiblePanel.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <link href="base.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="ovr.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- InstanceEndEditable --> <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="doctitle" --> <title>PLATO HODIE - " !/</title> <!-- InstanceEndEditable --> <style type="text/css"> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Tahoma; panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:"Arial Black"; panose-1:2 11 10 4 2 1 2 2 2 4;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0mm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; color:#1A1A1A;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:saddlebrown; text-decoration:underline;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:saddlebrown; text-decoration:underline;} table.MsoNormalTable td p a { text-decoration:underline !important; } table.MsoNormalTable td p a { ; } p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate {mso-style-link:"Balloon Text Char"; margin:0mm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; color:#1A1A1A;} span.BalloonTextChar {mso-style-name:"Balloon Text Char"; mso-style-link:"Balloon Text"; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; color:#1A1A1A;} p.msochpdefault, li.msochpdefault, div.msochpdefault {mso-style-name:msochpdefault; margin-right:0mm; margin-left:0mm; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; color:#1A1A1A;} .MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:20.0mm 42.5pt 20.0mm 30.0mm;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} p.LPar { font-family:Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size:11pt; } div.MsoNormal1 {margin:0mm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; text-align:center; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";} div.aff1 {mso-style-name:!5:F8O; margin-top:18.0pt; margin-right:0mm; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:14.2pt; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-variant:small-caps;} div.aff2 {mso-style-name:>45@0B>@K; margin-top:0mm; margin-right:0mm; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:14.2pt; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-variant:small-caps;} li.MsoNormal1 {margin:0mm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";} li.aff1 {mso-style-name:!5:F8O; margin-top:18.0pt; margin-right:0mm; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:14.2pt; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-variant:small-caps;} li.aff2 {mso-style-name:>45@0B>@K; margin-top:0mm; margin-right:0mm; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:14.2pt; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-variant:small-caps;} p.MsoNormal1 {margin:0mm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";} p.aff1 {mso-style-name:!5:F8O; margin-top:18.0pt; margin-right:0mm; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:14.2pt; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-variant:small-caps;} p.aff2 {mso-style-name:>45@0B>@K; margin-top:0mm; margin-right:0mm; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:14.2pt; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-variant:small-caps;} --> </style> <link href="../2014/tabs.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="../../design/plato.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <!-- SPBU top panel loader --> <script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var sc = document.createElement('script'); sc.type = 'text/javascript'; sc.async = true; sc.src = '//topbar.spbu.ru/loader.js'; var ls = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; ls.parentNode.insertBefore(sc, ls); })(); </script> <!-- /loader --> <table class="Pwrapper"> <thead> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <a href="../../index.htm">;0B>=>2A:>5 D8;>A>DA:>5 >1I5AB2></a></td> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td class="Pmenu"> <a href="../../index.htm"><img src="../../design/logo.gif" width="166" height="74" alt="Plato" /></a> <div><a href="../../ABOUTUS/index1.htm"> =0A</a></div> <div><a href="../../AKADEMIA/index2.htm">:045<88</a></div> <div><a href="../index3.htm">>=D5@5=F88</a></div> <div><a href="../../SUMMERSCHOOL/index4.htm">5B=85 H:>;K</a></div> <div><a href="../../PROJECTS/index5.htm">0CG=K5 ?@>5:BK</a></div> <div><a href="../../DISSERTATION/index6.htm">8AA5@B0F88</a></div> <div><a href="../../TEXTS/index7.htm">"5:ABK ?;0B>=8:>2</a></div> <div><a href="../../RESEARCH/index8.htm">AA;54>20=8O ?> ?;0B>=87<C</a></div> <div><a href="../../COMPANIONS/index11.htm">!?@02>G=K5 8740=8O</a></div> <div><a href="../../PARTNERS/index9.htm">0@B=5@K</a></div> <!-- <div><a href="../../INFO/index10.htm">=B5@=5B-@5AC@AK</a></div> --> <hr width="70%" /> <div><a href="../../pfsforms/index.html"> &laquo;;0B>=>2A:>5 D8;>A>DA:>5 >1I5AB2>&raquo;</a></div> </td> <td> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> function SetBodyProps() { document.body.onresize="BodyResized()"; document.body.onload="BodyResized()"; } var tInit = SetBodyProps(); </script> <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="MainContent" --> <blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'> <p align="right" style='text-align:right'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt; font-family:&quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;'><a href="../index3.htm">  !!# $ &</a></span></b></p> </blockquote> <div style="text-align: center;"> <center> <table> <tr> <td> <img src="IMAGES/PPhS.png" border="0" alt="" /> </td> <td style="text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: middle;"> <span style="text-align: center; font: Georgia; font-size: 40px; font-weight: bold; font-variant: small-caps;">The Universe of Platonic Thought<br /> #=825@AC< ?;0B>=>2A:>9 <KA;8</span><br /> <span style="text-align: center; font: Georgia; font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; font-variant: small-caps;">26th International Conferecne&nbsp;&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;XXVI 564C=0@>4=0O :>=D5@5=F8O</span><br /> <span style="text-align: center; font: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal">28&ndash;30 August 2018&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;St Petersburg, Russia&nbsp;&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;28&ndash;30 023CAB0&nbsp;2018&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;!0=:B-5B5@1C@3, >AA8O</span> </td> <td> <img src="IMAGES/pla150.png" border="0" alt="" /> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </div> <hr /> <div class="d1"> <table class="ovrBtn"> <tr> <td class="c1" style="vertical-align:bottom !important;"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_11.png" alt="" /> </td> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_12.png" alt="" /> </td> <td class="c7"> </td> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_15.png" alt="" /> </td> <td class="c1" style="vertical-align:bottom !important;"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_16.png" alt="" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_18.png" alt="" /> </td> <td colspan="3" class="c8" > <a href="upt26en.htm">Back to the Conference Program</a> </td> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_19.png" alt="" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_23.png" alt="" /> </td> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_24.png" alt="" /> </td> <td class="c9"> </td> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_26.png" alt="" /> </td> <td class="c1"> <img src="IMAGES/ovrbrd_27.png" alt="" /> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td><img src="tabs/tii_48.png" border="0" /></td> <td style="background:url(tabs/tii_45a.png) repeat-x"></td> <td><img src="tabs/tii_56.png" border="0" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="background:url(tabs/tii_68.png) repeat-y"></td> <td width="100%" bgcolor="#F0FFF0"> <div style="text-align:right;font-family:Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><span style="color:#555">5B @CAA:>9 25@A88</span></div> <div style="font-family:Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><p class='pcAuthor'><span class='pcName'>Eric James Morelli</span><span class='pcAffil'>, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA</span></p> <p class='pcTitleD'>An Invitation to Interiority: Plato and the Ancient Problem of Rational Opinion</p><p class='tcSumma'>For many, Platonism is synonymous with a pronounced, even excessive, objectivity according to which objects and rules of knowing exist prior to, apart from, and, as it were,  outside of the subjects who would know, employ, and instantiate them. Plato s alleged affirmation of <i>universalia a parte rei </i>earned him Aristotle s scorn. His alleged insistence on a duality in knowing, the distinction between knower and known, earned him Plotinus approbation. Lately, many in the Anglo-American tradition have found in Plato much of the logical, conceptual, and linguistic analysis they favor and none of the psychological introspection and creative speculation of the earlier British and German tradition they have renounced. However, at critical junctures in the history of philosophy, even recently, thinkers have turned to Plato to effect a turn to the subject, interpreting him, first and foremost, not as a philosopher of objectivity or exteriority, but rather as a philosopher of subjectivity or interiority.<br />Plato is elusive. His works are multifaceted; difficult to interpret; and, it seems, impossible ever to pin down once and for all. The history of his reception reflects this. It is just as varied, a testament both to the hermeneutic challenge he poses and to the apparent boundlessness of the riches he has to offer anyone who would grapple with that challenge at all seriously. But, while some divergences in the history of the interpretation of Plato seem relatively minor, due to rather insignificant points of obscurity in Plato s works or to idiosyncrasies of his interpreters, the discrepancy between objectivist and subjectivist readings of Plato seems, by its subject matter, its starkness, and the fact of its continual resurgence, fundamental. It seems to cut to the core of Plato s philosophy, what Plato understands as philosophy, and philosophy itself.<br />Is Plato a philosopher of interiority? What role did the interpretation of Plato play in later philosophers turns to the subject? What did these later philosophers see in Plato? What might they have overlooked? And what, if anything, might Plato s ambiguous status in the history of philosophy as its premier objectivist and premier subjectivist reveal about the nature of the subject-object relation that has defined and driven philosophy to this day? To address these questions, I will examine the ways in which five philosophers turned to Plato to turn inward: Plotinus, Augustine, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, and Lonergan. Through these thinkers, Plato has played a consistently pivotal, inward-turning role in the history of philosophy. Each exposes different aspects of Plato s inwardness. Each points to a sort of subjectivity that is, not at odds with, but rather essential to objectivity; and Lonergan, with his notions of stages of meaning and differentiations of consciousness notions he develops through reference to Plato offers a way of explaining Plato s enduring appeal to philosophers of interiority as a consequence of the standpoint Plato attained by virtue of his position between and, therefore, in a sense, beyond the object-oriented worlds of common sense and theory.</p><br /> <p class='hcAbstract'>The history of the reception of Plato s works presents an anomaly. On one hand, Plato is read as a philosopher of objectivity and exteriority, as affirming the independent existence of universals, as conceiving knowledge as a confrontation, vision, or contact of a knower with something fundamentally different. On this reading, Plato is primarily a metaphysician;  Plato s philosophy is, as Kozlov asserted,  first of all, <i>naïve realism</i> <sup><a name='ret36_1' href='#ftn36_1' class='ftnLink'>1</a></sup>; the modern, critical turn to the subject seems to be a turn from Plato and the tradition of philosopher he initiated; and the turn to the subject is a problem to be solved, as Kireevskii and Solov ev would have it, by re-turning to Plato and recovering through fideism, intuitionism, and mysticism a realistic or idealistic sort of objectivity, through an anti-epistemology.<sup><a name='ret36_2' href='#ftn36_2' class='ftnLink'>2</a></sup> On the other hand, thinkers like Plotinus, Augustine, Schleiermacher, and Kierkegaard appealed to and relied upon Plato in turning to the subject. What did they see in Plato? If we consider just one issue, Plato s position on our cognition of sensibles, we will find that a <i>locus</i> <i>classicus</i> for the metaphysical reading of Plato contains within it a long-overlooked invitation to turn inward and pursue an interior study of the soul and its cognition. &nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>In book five of the <I>Republic</i>, Socrates and Glaucon distinguish knowledge and opinion as powers. Socrates explains what he means by <i>powers</i> and how he distinguishes them:&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'><p class='hcQuote'>We say powers are a class of the things that are that enables us or anything else for that matter to do whatever we are capable of doing. Sight, for example, and hearing are among the powers. . . .&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>A power has neither color nor shape nor any feature of the sort that many other things have, the sort to which I look to distinguish those things from one another for myself. In the case of a power, I look only to what it is set over and what it does, and by reference to these I call each the power it is: What is set over the same things and does the same I call the same power; what is set over something different and does something different I call a different one (477c-d).<sup><a name='ret36_3' href='#ftn36_3' class='ftnLink'>3</a></sup></p>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Socrates and Glaucon agree that knowledge is set over being and that it enables one to know what is as it is. Unless one knows something that is, one doesn t know. Ignorance, the lack of knowledge, is set over what is not. Opinion they distinguish as a power intermediate between knowledge and ignorance. It does enable one to think something, but it is fallible and not as clear as knowledge. They agree they must find that over which opinion is set. They figure it must be intermediate between being and non-being just as opinion is intermediate between knowledge and ignorance. They figure it must be and not be. They realize becoming is, is not, and is intermediate between being and non-being, and they confirm their distinction: being, the knowable, can be known but not opined; becoming, the opinable, can be opined but not known.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The passage is significant. Socrates and Glaucon distinguish knowledge and opinion, being and becoming to define <i>the philosopher</i>, to clarify Socrates notion of philosophic rule, and to navigate or ride the third wave of Socrates interlocutors challenges to his political theory. They distinguish knowledge and opinion to show that a philosopher could bring the ideal ÀÌ»¹Â into being.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Further, Plato strikingly presents what has been regarded as his main contribution to the history of philosophy and what quickly became and has remained a key component and defining problem of Platonism, what Sedley has called his  cognitive dualism. <sup><a name='ret36_4' href='#ftn36_4' class='ftnLink'>4</a></sup>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Socrates and Glaucon note their distinction s strangeness and consider how difficult it would be to get people to accept it. But the problem runs deeper. The philosopher knows but primarily loves and comes to know being. But how can one come to know if ignorance does nothing and opinion only opines becoming? Socrates and Glaucon distinguish knowledge and opinion to show that a philosopher could bring the ideal ÀÌ»¹Â into being, that a lover of knowledge could make the knowable opinable, that a lover of being could make a being become. But how can one apply one s knowledge to becoming if one only knows being? Socrates and Glaucon actually distinguish knowledge and opinion twice in Republic 5. Initially, they say the knower knows being and becoming as they are in themselves and in relation to each other while the opiner thinks becoming is it. Socrates and Glaucon distinguish and relate being, becoming, knowledge, and opinion. But, if one only knows being and only opines becoming, how can one grasp their similarities, differences, and relations? How can one grasp knowledge, ignorance, and opinion, their natures, similarities, differences, and relations to each other and their objects?&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Socrates and Glaucon s distinction creates the <I>Parmenides</i>  greatest difficulty , the epistemological side of the problems of psyche and demiurgy and what Aristotle deemed Plato s philosophic legacy, the problem of the meaning of participation. The distinction threatens to undermine the philosophic project it defines and is meant to further the possibility of ascent and descent, an explanation of reality, an aesthetics, an ethics, and a politics.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Plato knows there s a problem. He poses it with the corpus. He treats knowledge and opinion in several divergent ways throughout, ironically juxtaposing them but never explicitly commenting on them or resolving the ambiguities. On one hand, opinion is false and true, unintelligent and intelligent, knowledgeable and ignorant, unlikely and likely, opaque and accurate, unstable and stable, potential knowledge and grasp of being and grasp, not of being, but of becoming; mortal and divine; a work of the irrational part of psyche and a work of the rational part. In <I>Republic 6</i>, in the wake of distinguishing knowledge and opinion, Socrates gives his opinion of the form of the good, calling it most knowable. On the other hand, knowledge is hindered by and requires the senses, grasps becoming grasps being and becoming and just being. It is automatically useful and useless without opinion. The philosopher doesn t simply know being and becoming upon returning to the cave but must  acclimate. Then, she  recognizes. In the <I>Philebus</i> Socrates and Protarchus have a good laugh about the dialectician who knows the circle itself but no circles and conclude true opinion is necessary for the good life, to find your way home. It certainly makes Timaeus cosmos happy. In <I>Republic 6 </i>and<i> 7</i>, Socrates distinguishes two types of knowledge, opinion, being, and becoming and suggests four, two of each ascending and descending. In the <I>Timaeus </i>there s a potential for an infinite series of kinds of opinion and becoming.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Plato seems to know what he is doing. He doesn t abandon his philosophic project he doesn t renounce his cognitive dualism; he repeatedly, deliberately, and provocatively poses the resulting problem; and often, in depictions and accounts, he seems to rely upon and indirectly exhibit its solution.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The Academics and Platonists had a bit to say on the matter. Speusippus introduced the notion of an <i>epistemonikos</i> <i>aesthesis</i>, which is like a skill and seems to involve a study and understanding of formal principles, deliberate training, muscle memory, and possibly the epistemic information of one s perception of opinables the example being a musician s control of her instrument. Xenocrates defined opinion as a combination of sense and intelligence and said it grasps superlunary phenomena while sense alone grasps sublunary phenomena; and knowledge grasps intelligibles. Commenting on the <I>Timaeus</i>, Crantor explained that psyche is a compound of intelligible nature and  that which exercises opinion about sense-objects and that its task is to judge both intelligibles and sensibles and to grasp all their differences, similarities, and relations. It is composed of all things so it can cognize all things. Antiochus reproduces Socrates and Glaucon s distinction between knowledge and opinion with a Stoic addendum: intelligence applies itself to sensibles and empirically develops its concepts. According to the <I>Didaskalikos</i>, <i>noesis ouk aneu epistemonikou logou </i>judges primary intelligibles, transcendent ideas; the <i>epistemonikou logou ouk aneu noeseos</i> judges secondary intelligibles, immanent ideas; aesthesis ouk aneu doxastikou logou judges primary and secondary sensibles, proper sensibles and sensible qualities, and the <i>doxastikos logos ouk aneu aistheseos</i> judges composite bodies. Plotinus held that sense-perception receives imprints, <i>tupoi</i>, from sensibles and passes them along to <i>dianoia</i>, which compares them to <i>tupoi</i> of ideas grasped by and contained within nous. If it asks a question like  What is this? it then responds with a judgment that the sensible does or does not participate in a certain form. Proclus distinguished a rational opinion that receives the <i>logoi</i> of sensibles from nous and dianoia, contains them within itself, and recollects them upon the reception of primary sensibles, enabling one to recognize the accidentally sensible, intelligible unities of which they are an appearance the apple that unites a manifold of reds, browns, yellows, and greens.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>In general, they take a similar approach. They proceed metaphysically, in terms of parts or powers and objects. Parts and powers combine, interact, grasp, contain, exchange, compare, question, judge, recollect. Exactly how they combine and interact isn t always clear, and exactly what the knower does when she opines knowledgeably remains obscure. The focus is the knower s ability to opine knowledgeably. Additionally, the addition of powers and parts, their combination, and the notion of their interaction, merely adds new dimensions to the original problem. Besides having to account for the similarities, differences, and relations of knowledge, opinion, and their objects, one must account for the similarities, differences, and relations of <i>nous</i>, <i>dianoia</i>, <i>doxa</i>,<i> </i>and their objects; <i>noesis</i>, the <i>epistemonikos logos</i>, <i>aesthesis</i>, the <i>doxastikos logos</i>,<i> </i>and their objects; and so on. What s more, in accounting for rational opinion in terms of parts, powers, and objects, one presupposes, not only that rational opinion exists, but also that one has achieved it, not merely in general, but with respect to all the particulars of one s account of becoming; its relations to being; and the powers set over them.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Generally, Plato s successors followed the method for distinguishing powers Socrates lays out in <I>Republic 5</i>. But, let s return to that passage. Socrates and Glaucon don t actually follow Socrates method to distinguish opinion. He says that he distinguishes powers through reference to that over which a power is set and what the power does. But he and Glaucon distinguish opinion from knowledge and ignorance as fallible, clearer than ignorance, and darker than knowledge and then search for that over which opinion is set through reference to opinion s features as a power.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The method Socrates lays out is not the only way to distinguish knowledge and opinion. In fact, the method Socrates lays out seems geared specifically to people unused to dealing with the non-sensible. Recall the talk of looking, Socrates use of sight and hearing as examples of powers, and his characteristically self-deprecating and probably ironic claim that he needs things like color and shape to draw distinctions. His method would seem to cater to unconverted opiners: identify the kind of sensible object the visible, the audible, etc. and infer from that the non-sensible activity that apprehends it and from that, in turn, the non-sensible power that enables one to apprehend it. (Glaucon is playing the role of an everyday opiner in this passage.) Note, however, that, of the powers in question, only opinion s objects are sensible; knowledge, ignorance, their non-sensible objects, and the non-sensible qualities of infallibility, fallibility, and cognitive clarity and opacity are identified quite readily; and opinion s sensible objects are identified last.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Socrates says powers also can be distinguished through reference to what they do. Psyche is present to itself in the performance of some of these activities or motions. They are not sensible but are an intimately familiar ongoing experience. Indeed, one could even dispense with the appeal to powers altogether and pursue an account of the motions in which psyche is present to itself purely in terms of those motions an account of psyche s interior activity.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>No account of psyche would be complete without an account of parts and powers. A metaphysics and an interior account of psyche would complement each other. To the metaphysical account of psyche s being and becoming, an interior account of its activity would add an account of what psyche is doing when it is opining and knowing. It should render a metaphysics more concrete, critical, and instructive.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'> Plato reverses the order of Socrates stated method. In the <I>Timaeus </i>and elsewhere, he has characters affirm psyche s ability and responsibility to reflect on its motion. And he reliably, often ironically alludes to the psychic motions indicated by and reflected in the dialogues drama. Plato doesn t just allow for an interior approach. He invites and virtually requires it. Following Crantor, Mohr has argued that the moral of the <I>Timaeus</i> is that we are able to form stable, true opinions about the world and that we are able to do so because the demiurge made us and the world in such a way that we can.<sup><a name='ret36_5' href='#ftn36_5' class='ftnLink'>5</a></sup> Timaeus would agree, but Plato has the almost certainly fictional Timaeus reach that conclusion on the basis of a distinction between knowledge and opinion, being and becoming that he draws  according to his opinion and according to which the account of the demiurge, psyche, and world is at best an opinionative and therefore likely mythos or logos. One can address the problem head-on by accounting for the opining and knowing in terms of opining and knowing rather instead of in terms of the opined and known.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'> Plato s successors followed Socrates stated method for discerning powers for the most part. Occasionally, some wandered. Crantor affirmed that, in opining and knowing, psyche judges as a unity. The <I>Didaskalikos </i>leans heavily on <i>logos</i>. And Plotinus appeals to <i>dianoia</i>, which asks a question and answers with a judgment. In these cases, Crantor, the author of the <I>Didaskalikos</i>, Plotinus seem to have strayed into interiority. In any case, they seem to have hit on elements that would be central to an account of interior psychic motion: the unity of the psyche, <i>logos</i>, <i>dianoia</i>, question<i> </i>and<i> </i>answer, judgment.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'> The <I>Timaeus-Critias </i>provides a fuller sense of what an account of psyche s interior motion would be like and could do. Plato draws a series of analogies in the <I>Timaeus-Critias</i>. The drama, myths, speeches, and their objects seem to exhibit the same structure. In a fraught political context, political enemies Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias reconvene. Socrates notices that a fourth interlocutor is missing and asks Timaeus where he is. Timaeus appeals to the principles of Socratic intellectualism, and concludes that the fourth is sick. Yesterday, Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and the fourth asked Socrates to give an account of the ideal polis. Socrates asked them to give an account of it displaying its excellence in a proper struggle and competition. Critias proposes bringing the myth to reality by establishing the similarities between the ideal city and ancient Athens. Socrates agrees and prepares to judge their performances. Socrates recalls the ideal city. At each stage of the account, he asks Timaeus if his recollection is correct. Timaeus answers again and again in the affirmative. In his proem Timaeus adverts to the experience of sense-perception, applies definitions of being, becoming, knowledge, and opinion, and concludes that the world came to be. The Demiurge looks to the chaos and traces of forms, looks to the forms, and then uses forms and numbers to bring the chaos and traces into shape. When the circle of the same contacts being and moves in its natural orderly fashion, it makes an announcement and knowledge comes to be. When the circle of the different contacts becoming and moves in its natural orderly fashion, under the sway of the circle of the same, it makes a declaration and stable true opinions and beliefs come to be. The cosmos is the product of the union of <I>Ananke</i> and <I>Nous</i>.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'><I>Aisthesis</i>, <i>noesis</i>, <i>krisis</i> this structure runs throughout the <I>Timaeus-Critias</i>. It is similar to the structure of psychic motion Socrates sketches in the <I>Philebus</i>, but, unlike that dianoetic sequence of questions and answers, sensing, remembering, judging, and imagining, the sequence in the <I>Timaeus-Critias</i> involves <i>noesis</i>, a grasp of being, despite being about becoming. This complicates the distinction between knowledge and opinion and the notion of powers. To be able to opine in this manner, one must be adequately sensitive, inquisitive, intelligent, critical, and reasonable. But, if one can find a structure of rational opining that involves <i>noesis</i> and yet still concerns becoming, one may be able to discern a structure of knowing that is distinct from rational opining but still shares motions with it. An interior account of psyche s activity may complicate the account of powers, but it does not complicate it abstractly. It renders it concrete, familiar, recognizable. It could provide a basis for understanding the relations between and complementarity of opining and knowing, sorting out the ambiguities in Plato s epistemology, and gaining concrete insights into psychology, metaphysics, physics, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and every other product of psyche s interior motion. Finally, if one uncovered an immanent normative principle psyche s natural way of moving one would have an interior dynamic criterion for determining what is true and good, for orienting oneself and finding one s way home. Plato invites us to turn inward, to do epistemology in a critical, interior fashion, but he does not seem to find this to be at odds with metaphysics. Rather, he invites us to an interiority that can ground and clarify metaphysics.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'> <p class='pcEndnotesSection'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn36_1' href='#ret36_1' class='ftnLink'>1</a></sup>&nbsp; Quoted in Frances Nethercott, <I>Russia s Plato: Plato and the Platonic Tradition in Russian Education, Science and Ideology (1840-1930) </i>(Aldershot, England: 2000), 65.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn36_2' href='#ret36_2' class='ftnLink'>2</a></sup>&nbsp; Ibid., 61-71.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn36_3' href='#ret36_3' class='ftnLink'>3</a></sup>&nbsp; Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997). Plato, Platonis Rempublicam, Oxford Classical Texts, ed. S. R. Slings (Oxford: Oxford U P, 2003).</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn36_4' href='#ret36_4' class='ftnLink'>4</a></sup>&nbsp; Quoted in Charles Brittain,  Plato and Platonism in The Oxford Handbook of Plato, ed. Gail Fine (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011): 526-52, 544 n. 73.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn36_5' href='#ret36_5' class='ftnLink'>5</a></sup>&nbsp; Richard D. Mohr, God and Forms in Plato (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2005).</p></p> </div> </td> <td style="background:url(tabs/tii_69.png) repeat-y"></td> </tr> <tr> <td><img src="tabs/tii_72.png" alt="" /></td> <td style="background:url(tabs/tii_74.png) repeat-x"></td> <td><img src="tabs/tii_79.png" alt="" /></td> </tr> </table> <p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style='text-align:right'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:&quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;'>© ;0B>=>2A:>5 >1I5AB2>, 2018 3. </span></p> <p align="right" style='margin-top:0mm;margin-right:3pt;margin-bottom: 0mm;margin-left:-36.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:right'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:&quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;'><a href="../index3.htm">  !!# $ &</a></span></b></p> <!-- InstanceEndEditable --> </td> </tr> </tbody> </body> <!-- InstanceEnd --></html>