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Chapter 3 - Early Learning in Plato, Republic 7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2024

Gábor Betegh
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Voula Tsouna
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Summary

In ‘Early Learning in Plato’s Republic 7’, James Warren provides an analysis of Socrates’ account of the sort of early learning needed to produce philosopher-rulers in Republic 7 (521c–525a), namely a passage describing a very early encounter with questions that provoke thoughts about intelligible objects and stir up concepts in the soul. Warren explains how concepts of number, more specifically the concepts ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘a pair’, and so on, play an essential role in these very early stages of the ascent towards knowledge, and he stresses the continuity between the initial and very basic arithmetical concepts and the concepts involved in more demanding subjects taught in later stages of the educational curriculum. On this account, Socrates is prepared to ascribe to more or less everyone an acquaintance with some, albeit elementary, intelligible objects. This, in turn, can shed some light on broader debates in Platonic epistemology about the extent to which all people – not just those whom Socrates calls philosophers – have some conceptual grasp of intelligibles.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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