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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'>Lorenzo Giovannetti</span><span class='pcAffil'>, University of Roma 'Tor Vergata'; University of Sussex</span></p> <p class='pcTitleD'>Time, Knowledge and the <i>telos</i>. Jaakko Hintikka interpreter of Plato</p><p class='tcSumma'>Jaakko Hintikka (1929-2015) was a leading philosopher whose work in logic, epistemology and semantics has had a wide influence. In addition, he was a fine interpreter of some of the major figures of the history of philosophy, e.g. Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein. However, he also devoted some of his efforts, which have not been properly scrutinised by the critics, to Plato s work.<br />This paper deals with three articles of Hintikka s, namely <I>Knowledge and its Objects in Plato </i>(H1), <I>Plato on Knowing how, Knowing that, and Knowing what </i>(H2) and <I>Time, Truth and Knowledge in Ancient Greek Philosophy </i>(H3). The objective of the present paper is not just to survey the content of the three works, it also aims to understand in each case the core of Hintikka s articles and why it is worth taking into account today. To put it briefly, H1 and H2 converge in that they both appear to be an attempt to understand knowledge in relation to the concepts of <i>techne </i>and <i>telos</i>. Not only, Hintikka argues, are not »doing¼ and »making¼ clearly distinguished, but also the difference between process and outcome blurs. This view is labelled »telic¼, and its epistemological and ontological implications will be considered in the paper.<br />H3 deals with a different order of problems because it looks into the peculiar link between time and linguistic truth. It must be said that it is mostly an interpretation of Aristotle, and yet what is argued there significantly sheds light on Plato as well. The main argument of the article is that for the Ancient Greek mind-set there can be eternal truths only insofar as they concern changeless objects. This entails that occasional sentences like »it is raining¼ are, for instance, true today and false tomorrow, as what they are about varies, and then the theoretical option that today s sentence is one and tomorrow s sentence is another, even if they have the same linguistic form, is not considered at all. This core argument shows itself to be crucial to better understanding Plato s problematic horizon in matters of ontology and epistemology, as will be developed in the paper.<br />To conclude, focusing on these three works the present paper attempts to arouse interest both in this philosophical figure who was able to display considerable historical insightfulness and in his results, which turn out to be an important key to comprehending some aspects of Plato s philosophy.<br /><br />References<br /><br /><br />J. Hintikka, <I>Knowledge and its Objects in Plato</i>, in J. M. E. Moravcsik (ed.), <I>Patterns in Plato s Thought</i>, Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht 1973, pp. 1-30.<br />J. Hintikka, <I>Plato on Knowing how, Knowing that, and Knowing what</i>, in <I>Knowledge and the Known</i>, The New Synthese Historical Library (Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy), vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht 1991, pp. 331-49.<br />J. Hintikka, <I>Time, Truth, and Knowledge in Ancient Greek Philosophy</i>, «American Philosophical Quarterly», 4 (1967), pp. 1-14.<br /></p><br /> <p class='hcAbstract'>Introduction&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Jaakko Hintikka is one of the key figures of the last century s logic, epistemology and philosophy of mathematics. One of his most renowned theoretical outputs is the Game-theoretical semantics. His work ranges from the logic of epistemology to modal logic with an high degree of technicality. He was also quite active as exegete of some major figures in the history of philosophy, e.g. Kant, Wittgenstein, Aristotle. In spite of the broader attention devoted to logic, he never neglected the historical aspect of the reflections of the philosophers he found himself interpreting. To be more precise, he does say that some philosophical theories of the past prove to be incorrect, but at the same time, he makes the effort of understanding why the theories he takes to be incorrect looked so appealing to the authors who put them forward. In this way, his logic informed analysis does not lack historical sense and shows some interesting insight into the ancient texts. &nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>In his historiographical investigations, Hintikka analysed some aspects of Plato s philosophy. In this paper, three articles will be discussed. The first is on both Plato and Aristotle, whereas the other two are exclusively on Plato. Hintikka s articles are: <I>Time, Truth and Knowledge in Ancient Greek Philosophy</i>,<i> Knowledge and its Objects in Plato</i>,<i> Plato on Knowing how, Knowing that, and Knowing what</i>.<sup><a name='ret38_1' href='#ftn38_1' class='ftnLink'>1</a></sup><i> </i>The main goal of the present paper is to highlight for each article what s the core argument and why it is relevant to Plato s scholarship.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'><I>Time, Truth and Knowledge in Ancient Greek Philosophy</i>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The article deals with the notion of time and how it is related to sentences.<sup><a name='ret38_2' href='#ftn38_2' class='ftnLink'>2</a></sup> This means at least two things: either the time at which a sentence is uttered or the time reference given within the sentence. Hintikka proposes the following example: according to Aristotle if one says  it is raining both today and tomorrow when today is rainy and tomorrow is sunny, then the same sentence is true today and false tomorrow. What is unsound to the modern ear with this view is that uttering the sentences which have the same grammar in two distinct days makes the two utterances differ in content. This because the facts that make them true (or false), i.e. today s rainy day and tomorrow s sunny day, are different. Instead, Aristotle and the Greeks consider the two as the <i>same </i>sentence and take its truth-value to vary, as Hintikka convincingly argues from some pieces of textual evidence.<sup><a name='ret38_3' href='#ftn38_3' class='ftnLink'>3</a></sup>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The first fundamental outcome of this view is that there can only be knowledge of what is eternal and thoroughly changeless. This is so because once one states how a certain thing truly is, if that thing cannot change, the truth-value of the sentence describing it cannot change either. In a world where every day it rains by necessity, the sentence  it is raining is always true. Of course, this example is not genuinely Greek in that for Plato and Aristotle, and especially for the former, sensible things essentially <i>change</i>. In this way the eternality of the truth value of a sentence does not depend on the completeness of the time reference, but rather on the specific ontological status of what the sentence is about: if and only if something does not change at all, all the sentences describing it correctly can be granted indefeasible truth. Furthermore, this argument is related to the observational nature of knowledge in such a way that what is seen by the knower is actually known (in the strongest sense) only insofar as it does not change by its own nature. What can reunite the apparently contradictory claims that knowledge is a special sort of immediate awareness (similar to perception) and that there can only be knowledge of changeless eternal things (which are no experienced particulars) precisely is interpreting truth in terms of temporally indefinite sentences. Semantics and epistemology are insightfully led back to ontological matters: only in virtue of a specific ontological nature, cognitive phenomena such as knowledge and belief acquire their own nature. This way of interpreting the relation between sentences, time and reality is correctly applied to Plato as well: the very epistemological role of Forms comes with their peculiar ontological status, i.e. their being absolutely immutable. This is so true that the difference between sensible particulars and Forms is first understood through the different ways they can be cognised. Accordingly, Hintikka recognises that the tenseless value of the present-tense is the linguistic device found by Plato and Aristotle to state that things are always as stated by the sentence.<sup><a name='ret38_4' href='#ftn38_4' class='ftnLink'>4</a></sup>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>What can be drawn from this? And how can it be developed? Hintikka s account seems to be quite convincing, especially in the case of Plato, because it makes clear at least two important facts. Firstly, as we have seen, it provides a new way to understand how ontology bears on the epistemic and linguistic dimensions. If Plato expects knowledge to have some specific characters (being of something that is and being unerring)<sup><a name='ret38_5' href='#ftn38_5' class='ftnLink'>5</a></sup> this can only derive from ontological traits of the known object. Secondly, the objectivity that the modern view ascribes to truths, whichever they might be about (given proper temporal and spatial references, if it is true today that <i>today</i> it is raining it will always be true that the day <i>x</i> it rained) belongs instead to the <i>sort</i> of object referred to within the sentence. That is why this account seems to best fit with Plato s philosophy given the peculiar relation between logical and ontological <i>aletheia</i>. Not only does the degree of certainty of knowledge depend on the known object, but also the actual truth of single sentences or statements is somehow deriving from the truth characterising the object itself. In this sense, the stable truth required by any knowledge can never be found by means of reference devices such as precise temporal reference. This squares very well with the conception of knowledge as direct contact because eternal entities grants the constant possibility to get in contact with them, whereas transitory being cannot. The first conclusion to be drawn from this is that this is a strongly pragmatic view: only that which can <i>actually</i> be known can be known at all.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'><I>Knowledge and its Objects in Plato</i>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The second article directly addresses the issue regarding how knowledge is related to its object in Plato s thought. This article is particularly rich and puts the basis of many theses commonly accepted by later interpreters.<sup><a name='ret38_6' href='#ftn38_6' class='ftnLink'>6</a></sup> The present section will focus on the core of the article, that is, how Hintikka interprets what he calls  Plato s implicit teleology (p.5). This should not be taken as the providential sense of teleology, namely some kind of fate that takes care of human purposes. It is rather the deep-rooted mind-set that any cognitive act is essentially goal-directed where the goal has conceptual primacy. This is true for any faculty (<i>dynamis</i>)<sup><a name='ret38_7' href='#ftn38_7' class='ftnLink'>7</a></sup> and not just for knowledge or belief in such a way that any faculty and its result seem to be confused. Still more generally, Hintikka asserts this principle in relation to events, things and phenomena: the <i>telos</i> or <i>ergon</i> (end, goal, outcome, effect) is what really matters. This telic way of thought can be interpreted along the lines of the previous article. There is so a strict connection between a cognitive faculty and its specific object that: i) one cannot think of the faculty regardless the respective object since the latter is precisely that which distinguishes that very faculty from the others; ii) as we as seen above, the nature of the object towards which the faculty is directed determines its relevant character (this is particularly pertinent in the case of belief/knowledge dichotomy). If applied to technical knowledge, the priority of the outcome over the process appears to be quite comprehensible. The fact of possessing technical knowledge actualises in the functional existence of the product. Which means, one really knows how to make something when one actually brings it about and it works. What about the kind of knowledge that puts in contact with reality without producing anything? Plato assimilates the outcome of theoretical knowledge with the objects it is of. This is consistent with the direct relation model of knowledge discussed in the previous section, which Hintikka calls  knowledge by acquaintance (p.18). Therefore, what is produced in instances of genuine knowledge is a fully transparent connection with the peculiar object that constitutes the goal of the knowing activity. Article goes on to discuss how this view is at the basis of the more common issues of propositional knowledge and possibility of meaningful falsity.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The present paper limits itself to exposing and developing the core concepts of Hintikka s articles. Therefore, only some specific points of interest will be considered here. Firstly, the problem of connecting two different dimensions, namely cognition and external reality, does not arise within this conception. That is so because what knowledge is directly issues from what sort the cognised object in turn is. For Plato, reality is at the same time objective and intelligible. In modern terms, this does not arouse categorial problems in that the object of knowledge is, as it were, ready-to-be-known. Plato s ontology is so epistemological in character that it assumes the kinship between or the being of the same gender of (<i>syngeneia</i>)<sup><a name='ret38_8' href='#ftn38_8' class='ftnLink'>8</a></sup> knower and being. In this way, what needs to be justified is falsehood and error. There is no matter of how mind is to latch onto the world, it is rather about <i>what sort</i> of reality can be fully known. Obviously, this is linked to what has been stated in the first section. The relation between time, truth and reality is Plato s privileged setting for working out metaphysical questions. Secondly, Hintikka s proposal of telic structure can be further applied to ontology, which means understanding the way Forms constitute the goal and the completion of the things partaking of them. Each From is a fully determined being such that any sensible thing appears by tending towards the relevant Forms. This second point is just a hint at further work that is actually in progress. For now, it is important to recognise the extent to which Hintikka s interpretation is fascinatingly heuristic and innovative.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'><I>Plato on Knowing how, Knowing that, and Knowing what</i>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>This third article aims to correctly interpret Plato s notion of <i>episteme</i>. It might be taken as a further development of the major ideas of the other two. It is recognised there to what extent the concept of <i>episteme</i> is multifaceted and cuts across diverse possible logical employments. At first, e<i>pisteme</i> is associated with technical endeavour on historical reasons, on the grounds that in the archaic period there is quite a number of textual evidence. However, according to Hintikka, the concept of <i>episteme</i> is at the interface between propositional knowledge (knowing-that), practical skill (knowing-how) and immediate quasi-perceptual acquaintance (knowing-what). Moreover, <i>episteme</i> is that form of cognition of which one must be aware (as one has it) and must be able to give an account. This means that the <i>episteme</i> is governed by rational principles and can be taught and learned. At this point, the article s main innovative claim stands out. Bearing in mind the similarities <i>episteme</i> has with technical/productive knowledge, one actually knows how to do or make something if one knows of what one is doing or making actually is. Hintikka is asserting that knowing-how and knowing-what are inseparably connected. Since what is known is known by defining its essence, and definitions are in themselves propositionally articulated, knowing-what is in turn connected to knowing-that. All this is overtly thought of as knowledge of ends, goals and outcomes retaining what is significant in the second article analysed in this paper. Any act of knowledge or belief is so object-centred that it makes sense so long as its object comes to be or is. The parallel with technical skill has another aspect of interest insofar as for Plato genuine knowledge either truly grasps its object or it is not knowledge at all. This bear significant resemblance to technical production because if one crafts a shuttle (knowing what it is) either it is a shuttle or it is not, which amounts to saying: either the thing works (has an effect) in some determinate way or it does not. Furthermore, Hintikka very importantly recognises the peculiar nature of Plato s presentation of the alleged omnipotence of the sophists: for Plato, when the sophists affirm to know everything, it amounts to saying that they are actually able to <i>produce</i> everything.<sup><a name='ret38_9' href='#ftn38_9' class='ftnLink'>9</a></sup>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Once again, the priority of ontology over the epistemic dimension is maintained. Also, the peculiar relation between cognition and reality is telic, i.e. the process is comparable to aiming at something where that something constitutes the perfect fulfilment of the aiming act. This way of putting the matter is orthogonal to the modern ways of interpreting the logic of  know , merging knowledge of objects analogue to perception with propositional knowledge and operative knowledge.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>Conclusions&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>It is now time to recapitulate what is innovative and worth considering in Hintikka s work on Plato. The first point is methodological. The three articles surveyed here remarkably show historical sensibility and competence. This is not just the non-obvious fact that the interpreter needs to understand the problematic horizon of an author and his contemporaries even if it implies that the interpreter s theories or views, and above all theoretical instruments, do not fit with the interpreted texts. More insightfully, Hintikka articles are first of all attempts to understand Plato s assumptions which are historically sedimented and which he neither openly nor directly addresses. Proceeding this way can turn out rather insidious, but helps disclose new relevant facts about Greek philosophy and the history of ideas.&nbsp;</p> <p class='hcAbstract'>The second point of interest is that the main theses exposed in these articles seem to be convincing and help clarify some fundamental tenets of Plato metaphysics and epistemology. As seen several times, the being of the object is what determines any possible cognitive relation to it. Not just this, it determines also the kind of cognition one has of it. This reverberates also on the linguistic side: the truth of the statements can only be granted by the way the object is and changes. In addition, the type of connection is telic, that is, takes the object as aim and outcome. What follows is not literally what Hintikka himself argues, yet it looks like deepening his approach. Firstly, there seems to be a two-way connection between cognition and reality: on the one hand, reality determines the kind of cognition; on the other hand, reality is the perfect outcome of the cognitive activity. This view somehow presupposes the continuity between mind and world without running into categorial differences: knowledge and language do not need internal criteria to determine their validity but rather issue naturally from how reality is structured. This also lets better understand Hintikka s claim that the object is the <i>outcome</i> of knowledge. Secondly, in some respects, the concept of telic structure should be applied to Plato s ontology as well: Forms are the goals of sensible particulars because they represent the latter s perfection (required by an authentically unerring <i>episteme</i> and any stable linguistic truth). These are of course just lapidary suggestions, which cannot be further developed in this paper. However, they are an attempt to make use of Hintikka s endeavour which is definitely worth considering again. <p class='pcEndnotesSection'>&nbsp;</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_1' href='#ret38_1' class='ftnLink'>1</a></sup>&nbsp; J. Hintikka, <I>Time, Truth, and Knowledge in Ancient Greek Philosophy</i>, «American Philosophical Quarterly», 4 (1967), pp. 1-14; J. Hintikka, <I>Knowledge and its Objects in Plato</i>, in J. M. E. Moravcsik (ed.), <I>Patterns in Plato s Thought</i>, Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht 1973, pp. 1-30; J. Hintikka, <I>Plato on Knowing how, Knowing that, and Knowing what</i>, in <I>Knowledge and the Known</i>, The New Synthese Historical Library (Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy), vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht 1991, pp. 331-49.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_2' href='#ret38_2' class='ftnLink'>2</a></sup>&nbsp; Since the paper is concerned only with a theoretical outline of the core of Hintikka s articles, many interesting secondary aspects will be left aside.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_3' href='#ret38_3' class='ftnLink'>3</a></sup>&nbsp; <I>Cat</i>. 4a24-4b2; <I>Metaph</i>. 1051b13 ff.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_4' href='#ret38_4' class='ftnLink'>4</a></sup>&nbsp; Cf. also G. E. L. Owen, <I>Plato and Parmenides on the Timeless Present</i>, «The Monist», 50 (1966), pp. 317-40.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_5' href='#ret38_5' class='ftnLink'>5</a></sup>&nbsp; Cf. <I>Theaet</i>. 152e.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_6' href='#ret38_6' class='ftnLink'>6</a></sup>&nbsp; I am thinking in particular at the problem of meaningful falsehood in the <I>Sophist</i> and how it can be resolved thanks to the genus of difference. He also considers the highly debated topic of the propositional nature of knowledge.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_7' href='#ret38_7' class='ftnLink'>7</a></sup>&nbsp; Main Hintikka s reference is clearly the end of <I>Republic</i> V (475-80).</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_8' href='#ret38_8' class='ftnLink'>8</a></sup>&nbsp; Cf. <I>Phaed</i>. 79c2-d6; <I>Resp</i>. 490a8-b7.</p> <p class='pcFootnote'><sup><a name='ftn38_9' href='#ret38_9' class='ftnLink'>9</a></sup>&nbsp; Cf. <I>Resp</i>. 596; <I>Soph</i>. 233-5.</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>