Plato’s epistemology

Plato's Epistemology: Being and Seeming presents an original interpretation of one of the central topics in Plato's work: epistemology. Jessica Moss argues that Plato's epistemology is radically different from our own.

Going against the grain of recent scholarship, and drawing on ancient interpretations of Plato, Jessica Moss argues that Plato is not best understood as studying...

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Plato's Epistemology: Being and Seeming presents an original interpretation of one of the central topics in Plato's work: epistemology. Jessica Moss argues that Plato's epistemology is radically different from our own.

Going against the grain of recent scholarship, and drawing on ancient interpretations of Plato, Jessica Moss argues that Plato is not best understood as studying what we now call knowledge and belief. Instead, Moss proposes that the central players in his epistemology, epistêmê and doxa, are each essentially to be understood as cognition of a certain kind of object. Epistêmê is cognition of what Is - where this turns out to mean that it is a deep grasp of ultimate reality. Doxa is cognition of what seems - where this turns out to mean that it is atheoretical thought that mistakes images for reality. The book defends these characterizations by arguing that they explain important features of Plato's epistemology. In particular, it shows that they underlie and make sense of a view which was long attributed to Plato but has recently been deemed "outrageous": that there is no doxa of Forms, and no epistêmê of perceptibles. Finally, Moss contends that Plato's epistemology is so different from modern epistemology because it is motivated by his central ethical and metaphysical views. As the Cave allegory illustrates, he holds that the goal of life is to be in contact with genuine Being, and that the greatest obstacle to this goal is our tendency to rest content with appearances. Therefore, when Plato turns to epistemological investigations, the distinction he finds most salient is that between cognition of what Is and cognition of what seems.

Jessica Moss is a Professor of Philosophy at NYU. She received her PhD from Princeton in 2004, and has held positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Balliol College, Oxford. She is the author of numerous articles on ethics, moral psychology, and epistemology in Plato and Aristotle, and of the book Aristotle on the Apparent Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire (...

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Jessica Moss is a Professor of Philosophy at NYU. She received her PhD from Princeton in 2004, and has held positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Balliol College, Oxford. She is the author of numerous articles on ethics, moral psychology, and epistemology in Plato and Aristotle, and of the book Aristotle on the Apparent Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire (Oxford, 2012).

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: What Is Plato’s Epistemology About? 1
1. Epistêmê and doxa versus knowledge and belief 4
2. The plan 8
1. Plato’s “Two Worlds” Epistemology 13
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: What Is Plato’s Epistemology About? 1
1. Epistêmê and doxa versus knowledge and belief 4
2. The plan 8
1. Plato’s “Two Worlds” Epistemology 13
1. The Two Worlds debate 18
2. The prima facie case for Distinct Objects 26
3. A brief history of the Distinct Objects interpretation 35
4. Distinct Objects beyond Plato 42
5. A new starting point 48
2. Plato’s Objects-Based Epistemology 50
1. Powers and their accomplishments are individuated by
their objects 52
2. Powers and their accomplishments are defined by their objects 61
3. Powers and their accomplishments resemble their objects:
cognition of like-by-like 67
4. Distinct Objects confirmed 79
5. Objects-Based Epistemology 82
3. Epistêmê Is of What Is 86
1. Epistêmê and what is 88
2. Which sense of ‘being’? 93
3. Being as the ontologically superior 96
4. What is ontological superiority? 101
5. Epistêmê and the ontologically superior 105
6. Epistêmê is of what is, revisited 107
7. The Basic Conception of epistêmê 111
4. The Basic Conception of Epistêmê at Work 113
1. Truth 114
2. The explanatory requirement 115
3. Clarity, stability, and precision 116
4. Restriction to Forms 119
5. Objection: philosopher-rulers’ epistêmê 122
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viii Contents
5. What Is Epistêmê? 132
1. Extant interpretations 133
2. Counterparts 134
3. A deep grasp of ultimate reality 136
4. Epistêmê and knowledge 137
5. Why epistêmê? 138
6. Doxa Is of What Seems 140
1. Doxa and seeming 143
2. What seems 146
3. Being-seemed-to 149
4. The Basic Conception of doxa 153
7. The Basic Conception of Doxa at Work 155
1. Truth and falsity 155
2. Inferiority 157
3. Instability 158
4. Persuasion 158
5. Restriction to perceptibles 161
6. Objections: Doxa of Forms? 180
8. What Is Doxa? 196
1. Doxa as dreaming 197
2. Doxa as atheoretical thought 199
3. Counterparts and extant interpretations 202
4. Doxa and belief 205
5. Why doxa? 206
9. Epistemology in the Earlier Dialogues 207
1. Epistêmê in the earlier dialogues 208
2. Doxa in the earlier dialogues 213
3. Distinct Objects and objects-based epistemology in the
earlier dialogues 214
10. Epistemology in the Theaetetus 219
1. Theaetetus’ first definition 220
2. Refuting Theaetetus 225
3. Theaetetus’ second definition: two senses of doxa? 227
4. Theaetetus’ third definition 230
5. Epistemology beyond the Two Worlds Dialogues 233
Conclusion: Plato’s Ethical-cum-Metaphysical Epistemology 234
Bibliography 243
Index Locorum 249
Index 254
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