Two Kinds of Belief in Plato

Abstract

pins down the sophist as an imitator of the wise man (μιμητὴς τοῦ σοφοῦ) (268c1). The sophist's art is defined as "the contradiction-making art of the insincere and ignorant part of belief-forming art belonging to the appearance-making kind, derived from the image-making art, of the not divine but human art of production, which is distinguished in words as the wonder-making portion" (268c8-d2). The entire dialogue is devoted to laying down the prerequisites for this final definition of the sophist's art. 3 The dialogue thus displays a movement from the unconsidered belief, based on the appearance of the sophist, that he is a wise man, to the reasoned belief, based on considerations of his real being, that he is not.As far as the characterization of phantasia as a belief "through sense perception" is concerned, I will argue that it picks out sense perception as a power which can provide for the 2 content of beliefs independently of thinking. Hence, the two characterizations "according to thinking" and "through sense perception" are exclusive in the sense that they distinguish between two kinds of belief, which come about either by means of thought or through sense perception. Hence, I will take issue with the view that phantasia is a species of belief on the assumption that all beliefs, including phantasia, require thinking. 4 The qualification "through sense perception" is commonly held to distinguish a particular kind of beliefs, namely perceptual ones, which derive their content from sense perception.More precisely, the idea is that a phantasia is a belief, the predicate of which picks out a perceptible property. On this view, all beliefs are dependent on thinking, but some beliefs, like "Socrates is pale" or "Socrates is walking," count as phantasiai, whereas "Socrates is wise" or "Wisdom is a virtue" count as non-perceptual beliefs.The historical root of this reading is Aristotle's influential discussion of Plato's notion of phantasia. At De anima 3.3, 428 a 24-b 2, Aristotle specifies the content of Platonic phantasia as that which is perceived non-incidentally (μὴ κατὰ συμβεβηκός), that is sensible qualities such as white and warm. Aristotle's understanding of Plato's notion of phantasia is likely to be based on Theaetetus 152c1-2, and to some extent on 184d7-185a3. Taken together they may be taken to suggest that phantasia is a belief, the content of which is confined to sensible qualities. But using Socrates's saying at 152c1-2 that "Appearing and sense perception, then, are the same in respect of hot things, and all things of that sort" 5 as direct evidence for Plato's view on phantasia and sense perception disregards the dialectical nature of this passage.Socrates is involved in providing a theoretical underpinning for Protagoras's "man the measure" doctrine. It would take an argument, to say the least, to establish that Socrates (and Plato) is committed to the conflation of sense perception and phantasia, and to the Heraclitean theory of sense perception. 6 Moreover, if the account at Theaetetu...