Dominic Scott

Plato's Critique of the Democratic Character

This paper tackles some issues arising from Platos account of the democratic man in Rep. VIII. One problem is that Plato tends to analyse him in terms of the desires that he fulfils, yet sends out conflicting signals about exactly what kind of desires are at issue. Scholars are divided over whether all of the democrats desires are appetites. There is, however, strong evidence against seeing him as exclusively appetitive: rather he is someone who satisfies desires from all three parts of his soul, although his rational and spirited desires differ significantly from those of the philosopher or the timocrat. A second problem concerns the question why the democrat ranks so low in Platos estimation, especially why he is placed beneath the oligarch. My explanation is that Plato presents him as a jumble of desires, someone in whom order and unity have all but disintegrated. In this way he represents a step beyond the merely bipolarised oligarch. The final section of the paper focuses on the democrats rational part, and asks whether it plays any role in shaping his life as a whole. For the disunity criticism to hold, Plato ought to allow very little global reasoning: if there were a single deliberating reason imposing a life plan upon his life, the fragmentation of life and character discussed earlier would only be superficial. I argue that Plato attributes very little global reasoning to the democrat. Aside from the fact that the text fails to mention such reasoning taking place, Platos views on the development of character and his use of the state-soul analogy show that the democrats lifestyle is determined just by the strength of the desires that he happens to feel at any one time.

Platonic Anamnesis Revisited

The belief in innate knowledge has a history almost as long as that of philosophy itself. In our own century it has been propounded in a linguistic context by Chomsky, who sees himself as the heir to a tradition including such philosophers as Descartes, the Cambridge Platonists and Leibniz. But the ancestor of all these is, of course, Platos theory of recollection or anamnesis. This stands out as unique among all other innatist theses not simply because it was the first, but also because it is in some respects the strangest: Plato proposed not just a theory of innate knowledge, but of forgotten knowledge, and this, of course, goes hand in hand with his interest in the pre-existence of the soul. But my concern here is with another difference that makes Platos theory unique, though it is not as clear as the previous one: in fact it has been for the most part over-looked by commentators and scholars. I wish to argue that while other theories of innate knowledge or ideas hold that much of what is innate in us is realized automatically and with ease, be it knowledge of moral principles, the idea of cause and effect or linguistic competence, anamnesis is concerned only with the attainment of hard philosophical knowledge, which most of us never reach.

The Digital Humanities

In the last 25 years digital technologies have changed the humanities. The question is: by how much? Is the digital revolution transforming the humanities intellectually? Or has it just sped up processes and access in ways that are certainly faster but not essentially different? Are we asking new research questions or are we just using new tools? Furthermore, do the digital humanities require new skillsets, which could cause us to think of universities and research training in fundamentally new ways, or is it sufficient to rely on established ways? This chapter explores these questions.

Aristotle On Well‐Being And Intellectual Contemplation: Dominic Scott

In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods.

The Value of the Humanities

What is the value of the humanities? This is a question that guides us throughout this report as we seek conceptual clarity and credibility for practices in digital humanities, knowledge exchange, globalisation, interdisciplinarity, infrastructure and public policy In this chapter, however, we address the question head-on as we report on how humanities researchers themselves articulate the value of their work. This chapter reveals that humanists across the globe more often than not identify a social value to humanities research.

Funding and Infrastructure

This chapter is concerned with the questions: Is funding for the humanities adequate? Do we have adequate infrastructure for humanities research? Are the institutional parameters of the humanities fit for the challenges of the 21st century? The chapter will not look into general questions of university frameworks, relevant as that would be, but it will focus on the perspectives of humanistic researchers themselves, as evidenced by our interviews, and how they experience financial and infrastructural support for their research and how these are conditions changing. Not surprisingly, we found that there are huge levels of inequality within the world of the humanities and that different regional funding systems, even within the developed world, may have hitherto neglected consequences for humanities research practices.

Translating the Humanities

This chapter explores the different ways in which research’s insights and results are communicated and translated to beyond university boundaries. First we outline the flow of academic knowledge from researcher to end user. Second, we look into how this translation takes place, according to current national reports, and identify what senior academic researchers and academics in leading positions believe is happening and what they recommend. We find that the knowledge pool of the humanities is tapped in haphazard and entirely contingent ways. The way forward is to ensure that translational practices are valued and resourced adequately. The flip side of that coin is that problems of academic freedom and ethics must be addressed.

The Culture of Humanities Research

This chapter covers a cluster of issues to do with the culture of humanities research. We found broad institutional and technological changes are affecting the way the humanities operate: Internationalisation: there are more global networks, international collaborations and funding opportunities; increasingly, research is happening outside national and regional boundaries. Interdisciplinarity: there is an established trend for major funding bodies in Europe and the US to insist that projects be interdisciplinary, involving the collaboration of scholars from different fields.

Plato's Meno : Virtue is teachable: 87c–89c

In 87c–89c, Socrates pursues the line of argument from the previous section to establish the conclusion that virtue is teachable. Since they have agreed that it is teachable if and only if it is knowledge, he spends most of this section arguing that it is indeed a form of knowledge (87d–89a). But before drawing the conclusion that it is teachable, he also pauses to reject the possibility that it comes by nature (89a–b), something suggested by Meno at the very beginning of the dialogue. VIRTUE AS KNOWLEDGE (87d–89a) Socrates begins by laying down the hypothesis that virtue is good. Since all good things are beneficial, virtue must be beneficial. He then turns to consider the sorts of things often considered beneficial, starting with bodily or material assets such as health, strength, beauty and wealth. Although these sometimes benefit us, they only do so when used correctly; otherwise they harm us. Next he considers qualities of the soul, e.g. temperance, justice, courage, mental agility and magnificence. If any one of these is not some sort of knowledge, it may be either beneficial or harmful. If courage, for example, is not actually knowledge, it amounts to some sort of ‘daring’ ( tharros ), which results in good or harm, depending on whether it is used wisely. In sum, all qualities of the soul apart from knowledge itself end in happiness when guided by knowledge, but in the opposite when guided by ignorance. On their own, they are neither beneficial nor harmful.