Event Detail

Thu Oct 3, 2013
Dwinelle 7205
5–7 PM
Working Group in Ancient Philosophy
Justin Vlasits (UC Berkeley)
The Structure Behind Platonic Collection and Division

In several of Plato’s middle and late dialogues, he develops two methods that together are meant to constitute important kinds of scientific inquiry, which he calls collection and division. These methods were taken to constitute some of Plato’s greatest contributions to dialectic by later generations, but is currently not well understood. I argue against the dominant view in the literature that the methods are best thought of as having a minimal structure, and that this minimal structure is the key to resolving an important question about the Sophist.