DoisPontos (Oct 2007)
O Sócrates de Platão e os limites do intelectualismo na ética
Abstract
My intention is to show how a sceptical reading of Plato’s Socratic dialogues allows one to explain some deadlocks which result from a dogmatic interpretation of these dialogues. I list here elements which suggest that in the early dialogues, Plato developed a logic which leads to a strong position on the limits of knowledge and of intellectualism. This interpretataion is inspired by the dominant traces of scepticism in Arcesilau. I will show that Plato’s dialogues can be read as Arcesilau’s inspiration when the latter asserts that judgement should be suspended and, lacking certainty, that one should follow what is reasonable. On the one hand, the study of the paradoxical character of Socratic ignorance and of the oracular role of the Apology allows one to discern a logic suitable for generating aporias. On the other, the analysis of the problem virtue-knowledge in Protágoras and Laches shows the mechanisms of a way of arguing whose conclusion is the impossibility of defending hic and nunc a strictly intellectualist ethic.
