Revelation and Knowledge in Socratic-Platonic Philosophy

Shafibeik, Iman

doi:10.22059/jop.2017.62949

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Iman Shafibeik

https://doi.org/10.22059/jop.2017.62949

Abstract

Abstract
In Plato’s dialogues, we find various “revelations” including Socrates’ customary divine voice or sign (i.e. his daimonion), his communication with divine realm through dreams and oracles, and the oracular and poetic divinations. Plato’s portrait of Socrates shows that Socratic revelations are monitions directing him according to divine wisdom throughout his life. However, his mantic powers do not make him cognizant of their epistemic source(s); thus, Socrates cannot remain independent of his philosophical way of searching knowledge. Furthermore, the prognostications of soothsayers and poets indicate their inspirations by the divinity; but they are not conscious of their prophecies, since they must enter an ecstatic and trancelike state before they become inspired. Through these prophetic predictions, people are forewarned in some important circumstances, but never partake of gods higher knowledge. Thus, in Socratic-Platonic view, there is a divine source for revelations and the human beings are led through them in the face of their problems; but none of the revelations bring the highest level of knowledge which the philosopher is looking for

Keywords

Main Subjects

philosophy

References

شفیع‌بیک، ایمان (1392)، «معرفت شهودی در فلسفه‌ی افلاطون»، جاویدان خرد 24: 81–104.

——— (1393)، «جهل سقراطی: معنای حقیقی یا مجازی؟»، شناخت 70: 195–224.

——— (1395)، «سقراط: اصلاح‌گرِ اخلاقی»، پژوهش‌های فلسفی 19: 231–252.

لطفی تبریزی، محمدحسن (مترجم) (1367)، دوره‌ی آثار افلاطون (ج 1–3، ترجمه‌ی ج 1 با همکاری رضا کاویانی)، خوارزمی.

Avni, A. (1968), ‘Inspiration in Plato and the Hebrew Prophets’, Comparative Literature 20: 55–63.

Brickhouse, T. C. and Smith, N. D. (1994), Plato's Socrates, Oxford University Press.

Burnet J. (ed.) (1900–1906), Platonis opera (vols i–iv), Oxford University Press.

Bussanich, J. (2006), ‘Socrates and Religious Experience’, in S. Ahbel-Rappe and R. Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates, Blackwell: 200–13.

Büttner, S. (2011), ‘Inspiration and Inspired Poets in Plato's Dialogues’, in P. Destrée and F.-G. Herrmann (eds.), Plato and the Poets: 111–29.

Cooper, J. M. (ed.) (1997), Plato: The Complete Works, D. S. Hutchinson (assoc. ed.), Hackett.

Dodds, E. R. (1945), ‘Plato and the Irrational’, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 65: 16–25.

(1973), The Greeks and the Irrational, University of California Press.

Gulley, N. (1952), ‘Ethical Analysis in Plato's Earlier Dialogues’, The Classical Quarterly 2: 74–82.

Guthrie, W. K. C. (1971), Socrates, Cambridge University Press.

Hamilton, E. and Cairns,H.(eds.) (1973), The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Pantheon Books.

Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R. (1996), A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented by H. Stuart Jones, with the assistance of R. McKenzie and with the co-operation of many scholars, Oxford University Press.

Long, A. A. (2006), ‘How Does Socrates' Divine Sign Communicate with Him?’, in S. Ahbel-Rappe and R. Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates, Blackwell: 63–74.

McPherran, M. L. (1996), ‘Socratic Reason and Socratic Revelation’, in W. J. Prior (ed.), Socrates: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers (vol. ii), Routledge: 167–94.

(2011), ‘Socratic Religion’, in D. R. Morrison (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Socrates, Cambridge University Press: 111–37.

Robin, L. (trad.) (1968), Platon: Œuvres complètes (2 vols, avec la collaboration de M.-J. Moreau), Paris.

Sedley, D. and Long, A. (eds.) (2011), Plato: Meno and Phaedo, A.Long (trans.), Cambridge University Press.

Tarrant, H. (2006), ‘Socratic Method and Socratic Truth’, in S. Ahbel-Rappe and R. Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates, Blackwell: 254–72.

Revelation and Knowledge in Socratic-Platonic Philosophy

References

References

Volume 14, Issue 2 - Serial Number 27March 2017Pages 85-102

Volume 14, Issue 2 - Serial Number 27
March 2017
Pages 85-102