Socratic Midwifery and Noble Sophistry: An Intertextual Reading

Zina Giannopoulou

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Chapter 7 Socratic Midwifery and Noble Sophistry: An Intertextual Reading

于New Explorations in Plato's Theaetetus

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Zina Giannopoulou

Zina Giannopoulou
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类型:: 章节

Page Range:: 163–176

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004516014_009

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Abstract

In the sixth definition of the sophist in Sophist 226b–231b, the Eleatic Stranger defines noble sophistry as (1) the art of cleansing the soul of (2) those who think they are saying something though they are saying nothing with a view to (3) eliminating via refutation the empty belief in their own wisdom (doxosophia). Given the prima facie similarities between Socratic elenchus and sophistic refutation, scholars have long been divided between those who see the noble sophistry as a species of sophistry (e.g. Kerferd 1954) and those who see it as an oblique reference to Socrates’ elenctic method (e.g. Cornford 1935: 177–83, Hackforth 1946: 118–20, Trevaskis 1955: 36–49). In an earlier article (2001), I argued that the definition of noble sophistry is ambiguous in relation to its practitioner because it makes no mention to the cross-examiner’s epistemic qualifications and fails to distinguish between the inducement of genuine aporia, associated with Socrates, and that of forced mental confusion, a sophistic staple. In this article, I argue that an intertextual reading between the Socratic midwifery of the Theaetetus, an art that has many similarities with the Socratic elenchus of the early dialogues, and noble sophistry shows that the noble sophist is not the obstetric/early Socrates by engaging all three elements of the definition of noble sophistry above and clarifying the obstetrician’s epistemic qualifications and production of genuine aporia in the interlocutor. After a brief overview of the relevant material in the Sophist, I examine the midwifery section and other methodological moments in the Theaetetus – moments where Socrates reflects on his obstetrics by pitting it against sophistically inflected practices – in order to prove the decisive difference between Socrates and the noble sophist.

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New Explorations in Plato's Theaetetus

Belief, Knowledge, Ontology, Reception

丛编： Brill's Plato Studies Series, 卷： 10

Cover New Explorations in Plato's <i>Theaetetus</i>

ISBN:: 9789004516014

出版社:: Brill

印刷出版日期:: 13 May 2022

Subjects
- Classical Studies
  - Ancient Philosophy
- Philosophy

Front Matter

Section 1 The Theaetetus and Plato

Section 2 Relativism between Ontology and Epistemology

Section 3 Maieutics, Sophistry, Philosophy

Section 4 Images of the Cognitive Soul

Section 5 Belief, Knowledge, Ontology

Section 6 The Theaetetus beyond Plato

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Chapter 7 Socratic Midwifery and Noble Sophistry: An Intertextual Reading

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New Explorations in Plato's Theaetetus

Belief, Knowledge, Ontology, Reception

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