Colin C Smith
Ohio State University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. My research is in anci... moreI am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. My research is in ancient Greek philosophy, and particularly metaphysical and epistemological issues in Plato, as well as the Presocratics and Aristotle.edit
In this article, I consider the Eleatic Stranger’s account of being as communing (κοινωνεῖν), an under-recognized aspect of the well-known “dunamis proposal” and Plato’s unfolding of the notion of being in the Sophist. The Stranger calls... more
In this article, I consider the Eleatic Stranger’s account of being as communing (κοινωνεῖν), an under-recognized aspect of the well-known “dunamis proposal” and Plato’s unfolding of the notion of being in the Sophist. The Stranger calls being “the power to act upon or be affected” (247d7-e3), and shortly thereafter describes “being affected or acting upon from a certain power” (248b6) as “communing” (248b2). This marks a shift away from understanding being as 'capacity' toward understanding it as 'activity.' I identify two functions of the “being-as-communion” account: (1) a critical response to the previous competing quantitative and qualitative ontologies, and (2) a new ontological notion that plays a key role in the great kinds discussion and what follows, capturing the sense in which to be is to engage actively in relations with structuring, causal kinds. I conclude by speaking to the account’s valuable insight into the meaning of being as being-with and being-through.
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Scholars debate whether ‘apeiron’ (unlimited) is univocal or multivocal in Plato’s 'Philebus.' Offering a ‘middle path,’ I argue that the term is univocal, but used with respect to two senses of unlimited continua. The term appears... more
Scholars debate whether ‘apeiron’ (unlimited) is univocal or multivocal in Plato’s 'Philebus.' Offering a ‘middle path,’ I argue that the term is univocal, but used with respect to two senses of unlimited continua. The term appears early in two dense passages on ontological structure: the descriptions of the ‘god-given method’ (16b-18d) and ‘the fourfold division of beings’ (23c-27c). I consider each passage and argue that they respectively concern the eidetic continua of being that the knower comes to understand and the fluxing continua of opposed and co-constitutive bodily elements from which spatiotemporal objects derive their natures. They also indicate two major influences on Plato, respectively the Pythagorean and Heraclitean as recorded in Aristotle’s 'Metaphysics,' and I draw on these resources to develop my account. I conclude by considering some important Platonic lessons that we learn from thinking through this distinction between the related senses of the unlimited.
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I here revive and support the hypothesis that Plato’s 'Cratylus' is set in 399 BCE, on the day of 'Theaetetus' and 'Euthyphro' and before that of 'Sophist' and 'Statesman.' To revive it, I suggest that the cases for competing dramatic... more
I here revive and support the hypothesis that Plato’s 'Cratylus' is set in 399 BCE, on the day of 'Theaetetus' and 'Euthyphro' and before that of 'Sophist' and 'Statesman.' To revive it, I suggest that the cases for competing dramatic dates are weaker. To support it, I show that the connections between 'Cratylus' and 'Euthyphro' warrant reconsideration, and I consider neglected dramatic details, the role of etymology in religious esotericism, and some missed connections between the philosophical concerns of the two dialogues. I conclude by suggesting ways in which this hypothesis yields promising new horizons to explore.
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I argue that the fallacy concerning false speech (283e-284c) in Plato’s 'Euthydemus' does not entail conflation of the alleged ‘existential’ and ‘veridical’ senses of ‘einai’ (‘to be’), but instead confusion regarding predicative... more
I argue that the fallacy concerning false speech (283e-284c) in Plato’s 'Euthydemus' does not entail conflation of the alleged ‘existential’ and ‘veridical’ senses of ‘einai’ (‘to be’), but instead confusion regarding predicative statements. My ultimate goal is to refute the claim that this passage demands an existential ‘einai.’ I do so by advancing interpretations of nonbeing and the structure of true and false speech developed in the 'Sophist.'
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The strange and challenging stretch of dialectic with which Plato's 'Sophist' begins and ends has confused and frustrated readers for generations, and despite receiving a fair amount of attention, there is no consensus regarding even... more
The strange and challenging stretch of dialectic with which Plato's 'Sophist' begins and ends has confused and frustrated readers for generations, and despite receiving a fair amount of attention, there is no consensus regarding even basic issues concerning this method. Here I offer a new account of bifurcatory division as neither joke nor naive method, but instead a valuable, propaedeutic method that Plato offers to us readers as a means of embarking upon the kind of mental gymnastics that will stretch us properly in preparation for further, more challenging dialectical work. Considering several interpretive issues, I argue that bifurcatory division is a process of collective inquiry into the common through which an account, both definitional and taxonomical, is discovered. Depending on the level of understanding exhibited by the inquirers, this account may or may not allow for noetic understanding of the object in the deepest sense.
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Here I interpret a central passage in Plato’s 'Sophist' by focusing on understudied elements that provide insight into the fit of the dialogue’s parts and of the 'Sophist'-'Statesman' diptych as a whole. I argue that the Eleatic... more
Here I interpret a central passage in Plato’s 'Sophist' by focusing on understudied elements that provide insight into the fit of the dialogue’s parts and of the 'Sophist'-'Statesman' diptych as a whole. I argue that the Eleatic Stranger’s account of what the dialectician “adequately views” at 'Sophist' 253d1–e3 involves 'both' division 'and' the communion of ontological kinds, not just one or the other as has usually been argued. I also consider other key passages and the turn throughout the dialogue from imagistic opining toward noetic understanding.
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In this paper I challenge the orthodox view regarding the number of routes of inquiry in Parmenides’ poem. The narrating goddess in Fragment 2 identifies ‘the only routes of inquiry there are for knowing,’ (i) guided by the ‘[…] is […]’... more
In this paper I challenge the orthodox view regarding the number of routes of inquiry in Parmenides’ poem. The narrating goddess in Fragment 2 identifies ‘the only routes of inquiry there are for knowing,’ (i) guided by the ‘[…] is […]’ and (ii) guided by ‘what-is-not as such.’ In Fragment 6, the goddess considers (iii) taking ‘both to be and not to be’ to be ‘the same and not the same,’ and most modern commentators hold that this constitutes a third route. I argue instead that this entails missing the routes’ fundamental interconnections, and that the goddess describes only two. To show this, I consider Fragments 2 and 6 before turning to key notions in Doxa, particularly the constitutive ontological kinds ‘light’ and ‘night,’ to account for the second, mortal route. Mortals have missed the being of these two, and I develop an account of the inquiry that is guided by this insight.
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Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman exhibit several related dialectical methods relevant to Platonic education: maieutic in Theaetetus, bifurcatory division in Sophist and Statesman, and non-bifurcatory division in Statesman,... more
Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman exhibit several related dialectical methods relevant to Platonic education: maieutic in Theaetetus, bifurcatory division in Sophist and Statesman, and non-bifurcatory division in Statesman, related to the 'god-given' method in Philebus. I consider the nature of each method through the letter or element (στοιχεια) paradigm, used to reflect on each method. At issue are the element's appearances in given contexts, its fitness for communing with other elements like it in kind, and its own nature defined through its relations to others. These represent stages of inquiry for the Platonic student investigating into the sources of knowledge.
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In Plato's Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger leads Socrates the Younger and their audience through an analysis of the statesman in the service of the interlocutors' becoming " more capable in dialectic regarding all things " (285 d 7). In... more
In Plato's Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger leads Socrates the Younger and their audience through an analysis of the statesman in the service of the interlocutors' becoming " more capable in dialectic regarding all things " (285 d 7). In this way, the dialectical exercise in the text is both intrinsically and instrumentally valuable, as it yields a philosophically rigorous account of statesmanship and exhibits a method of dialectical inquiry. After the series of bifurcatory divisions in the Sophist and early Statesman, the Stranger changes to a non-bifurcatory method of dividing to account for the statesman, but does not explain the reason for this change. I argue that the change is prepared by the elements discussed in the digression from 277 a 2 to 287 b 2. Here the Stranger makes use of four concepts that are crucial for understanding this change: the notion of paradigm, the paradigms of care and the weaver, and the notion of due measure. I claim that the notion of paradigm clarifies the nature of dialectical inquiry, care and weaving act as paradigms appropriate to dialectical practice, and an account of due measure offers insight into the constitutive ratios that govern the composition of kinds pursued through dialectical inquiry. I suggest that the non-bifurcatory method is intended to articulate knowledge in the strictest sense, or knowledge of the forms, presenting a method of inquiry into being and its structure that will foster the turning of the soul from things to forms that Socrates describes in the Republic.
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Introduction to 'Presocratic Metaphysics,' special issue of 'Ancient Philosophy Today: Dialogoi'
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Chapter 1 (Introduction) of 'Being and Structure in Plato's' Sophist, dissertation, University of Kentucky (2019)
