Plato's Middle Period Dialectic

Abstract

In this thesis I propose an interpretation of Plato's middle period dialectic. I contend that the method of such dialectic has two components, the doctrine of recollection and the method of hypothesis, and that the two are intimately related. In contrast to the orthodox interpretation, which ignores recollection and sees the method of hypothesis as essentially deductive, I suggest that the discovery of knowledge occurs from the recollection of a pre-natal vision of reality (the world of forms), where such recollection is stimulated by dialectical questioning. Recollection is gradual and uncertain. The direction of the dialectical questioning is itself guided by one's intuition, or (incomplete) recollection of reality at the time, thus providing a progressive interaction between recollection and the method of dialectical questioning, reasoning by hypothesis. In this way, one builds a provisional picture of reality, where the prime relation between hypotheses about such reality is one of coherence. The true dialectician will not only develop a complete and coherent picture of reality, but will ultimately verify the accuracy of this picture upon apprehension of the unhypothetical first principle, the form of the good.