Birth of Epistemology in Greek Philosophy
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle played a big role in the inception and systematisation of Epistemology, the theory of knowledge.
What makes a study of Plato and Aristotle relevant even today is that it is here that we see the birth of knowledge in its most articulate form. For the first time in Western Philosophy, they sparked a debate on the question — what are the objects of knowledge? Who is it that is knowing, or is the subject of the act of knowing? Understanding their thought helps one understand the inception of Epistemology and its development, as this question is what Epistemology is concerned with.
Quest for truth versus quest for interest
In Theaetetus, Socrates speaks about the difference between philosophers and statesmen trained by sophists, people who charged a fee for teaching the art of rhetoric. The former’s quest is the quest for Eidos (essence) or the quest for truth. But for the latter, the quest is to master the art of persuasion. The quest had as its intentions the manifestation of their own interests. There is universality in Eidos but interests can be, and are, multiple. So, interests are not concerned with the truth. Socrates is anticipating here the post-truth world (the one in which we live now), in which there are two kinds of people — interest-driven and Eidos-driven. In a way, the intended takeaway that Socrates intends for one is that one must not (naively) assume that everyone is concerned with truth. Most people are concerned only with interest. Understanding this helps in evaluating intentions — which is especially relevant in the socio-political and economic sphere.
Move Towards Abstraction
In Plato’s Theaetetus, there is a sharp insistence that the body is not concerned with knowledge. The knower has a body, but it is inconsequential to the process and product of knowing. Hence, perception cannot be knowledge, as Socrates makes clear through dialogue. Plato, or Plato’s Socrates, made a subtle attack on Protagoras, by interpreting that he propagated his ‘false’ doctrine to others but spoke the ‘truth’ about his work to his own followers. For the uninitiated (ones not engaging with philosophy), the objects of knowledge are those that can be grasped with the hand and, hence, are material. But for philosophers, the object of knowledge is not merely material, but can also be abstract. In Plato’s Republic, this part attribution to the possibility of knowledge of material objects is completely eliminated and knowledge is only restricted to the abstract. The shift from material to abstract is also notable in the praise of Theaetetus for his mind rather than his appearance (as it was described to be as unappealing as Socrates). It is also worth noting that it is this need for abstraction that manifested in the interest of the thinkers of that time in the domain of mathematics and later led to the birth of algebra.
Development of the concept of an Epistemic Knower or Soul
Socrates claims that he is a ‘midwife’ of the psuche/soul. By this, he means to say that even though he himself is barren (does not possess knowledge), he attempts to guide others to it, through the means of discussion. In saying so, he relates the notion of knowledge/wisdom with something that is not the body, just like Heraclitus and Parmenides did, before him. Here, an insistence on knowledge as something that cannot be confined or grounded in the body is seen. Knowledge, in its definition, does not include the body.
For Plato, reason is a faculty of the soul. It should be the apex governor in actualising the potentiality of knowledge and eidos (essence) which is within us. He believed that animals do not have a soul, entailing that they are not capable of governing themselves and do not have access to knowledge. Plato believed that the soul of God is perfect or just. Aristotle picks up the idea of the soul or the epistemic knower from Plato and takes forward his discovery. For Aristotle, the soul is nothing but the principle of movement or motion. Movement is the movement towards knowledge. The seat of knowledge in the epistemic knower is the soul. This principle of movement is the rational element in us or the essential property that gives access to Eidos.
Acceptance of Parmenides
Definition presupposes ‘being’ as when you ask ‘what is’, it is stable. Eidos implies being. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (and thinkers in general) accepted the truth of Parmenides’s doctrine. The problem was of accommodating Heraclitus in their thought. For Parmenides, the material world is false, but for Plato, it is not false. It is based on (or has a relation of dependency with) the world of forms. The world of forms can be known; it is where eidos or episteme is. If one confines oneself to the material world, one will never arrive at knowledge.
Read more about Parmenides in ‘Being’ is all there is.
Plato’s epistemology tried to answer the question of how to accommodate desire when lack implies non-being, which, as shown by Parmenides, is impossible. The Parmenidian problem is that desire demands non-being, which is impossible as it is inconceivable. In the Parmenidean Being, differentiation and diversity are not possible, and lack necessarily implies an ‘another’. This called for a need to invoke the concept of ‘void’. Void is different from non-being. It is a Being devoid of characteristics. Aristotle also agreed that non-being is not acceptable. He came up with his own framework — the ‘schemata’ of truth, which had both logical and rational forms. Accepting Parmenides’ philosophy would mean admitting a loss of agency, so it is interesting how both Plato and Aristotle navigated around it and added their own theories and arguments to it.
