[From The Continuum Companion to Plato, ed. by G. A. Press.

New York: Bloomsbury

Publishing, 2012, 192-194.]

Platos Logic
Charles M. Young
Department of Philosophy
Claremont Graduate University

Logic (following Quine 1986) is the systematic study of logical truth (or,
equivalently, valid argument). A logical truth is a sentence true in virtue of its logical
form. Logical form is relative to a set of grammatical categories. Logical systems may be
classified in terms of the categories they take to matter for logical form. Since Frege 1879,
the set of categories that matter begins with sentence and sentential operator, definitive of
sentential logic, and goes on to include term, predicate, and quantifying expression,
definitive of predicate or quantificational logic. From there one may go on, in various
ways, to develop temporal, modal, conditional, relevantist, and intuitionist systems. (See
Burgess 2009 for a helpful survey and sharp assessment of such developments.)
Plato has the ideas of logical form and logical truth. Republic 436b9, for example,
affirms:
Exclusion: It is not possible for the same thing to do or to suffer contraries in
the same respect, in relation to the same thing, or at the same time.
This is a kissing cousin of our:
Non-Contradiction: It is not possible for both a sentence and its negation to be
true.

But whereas Non-Contradiction appeals to the grammatical category of sentence to tell

us, e.g., that if Helen is beautiful is true, then Its not the case that Helen is beautiful is
not, Exclusion appeals to the grammatical category of contrary to tell us, e.g., that if
Helen is beautiful and Helen is ugly are both true, then she is beautiful and ugly in
different respects (appearance vs. character, say), in relation to different things
(Quasimodo vs. Aphrodite, say), or at different times (youth vs. old age, say). The
divergence between Plato and Frege emerges sharply if we focus on (e.g.) If justice is a
virtue, then injustice is a vice, presumptively a logical truth in a logic of contrariety, but
not in any obvious way a logical truth in sentential or predicate logic.
Plato wrote dialogues and not treatises, and he does not engage in any systematic
study of logical form and logical truth, in the manner, say, of Aristotles Prior Analytics
(or even the Topics), and thus cannot be said to have a logic in the sense specified above
(and hence logic does not appear in the index of Kraut 1992). What we get instead is a
congeries of insights and speculations about what might matter for logical form and
logical truth, often expressed in difficult Greek, that may or may not be capable of
systematization. To give a sense of what we have and the problems we face, I take up three
texts that deal in abstract and various ways with predication.
Socrates says at Euthyphro 6e3-6 that if he learned what the idea of piety is, he
would be able to use that idea as a standard and say that an action or person conforms to
[it] is pious. Here conforms to [it] is a stab at translating the Greek toioutos, a
combination of the indefinite pronoun toios ( = of some sort) and the demonstrative
pronoun houtos ( = this); other tries include of that kind (Grube 2002), resembles [it]
(Cooper 1974), and agrees [with it] (Fowler 1999). Whatever the translation, the idea
2

seems clear enough. Socrates thinks that if

1. Piety is (say) doing what the god wants done,
and if Socrates is conforms to [it] if, that is,
2. Socrates is doing what the god wants done,
then it follows that
3. Socrates is pious.
If we note that is marks identity in (1) and predication in (2) and (3), and that doing is
a gerund in (1) and a participle in (2), then it follows that
4. If piety is doing what the god wants done, and Socrates is doing what the
god wants done, then Socrates is pious.
This evidently expresses a logical truth connecting noun phrases mentioning properties
with terms mentioning things that have those properties.
So far, so good. Consider now Charmides 169e1-5, where Critias, with Socrates
endorsement, states that [one] conforms to what he has: he who has quickness is quick, he
who has beauty is beautiful, he who has knowledge will know, and he who has knowledge
that is of itself will know himself. Here [one] conforms to what he has is very close to a
generalization of the logical truth of the Euthyphro. But two points might give one pause.
First, the inference from [one] conforms to what he has to he who has quickness is
quick arguably presupposes quickness is quick, not unlike this English exchange:
Youll have to be quick to do that Quick? Im quickness itself! But quickness arguably
is not the sort of thing that can be quick. Second, we might balk, though again Socrates
does not, at the inference to he who has knowledge that is of itself will know himself.
Anyone still on the bus will surely get off faced with Republic 438a7-b2:
3

Regarding things that are such as to be of something, those that are of certain sorts are of
something of a certain sort, and those that are just themselves are of something that is just
itself, a principle that appeals to the grammatical category of relative term to support the
thought that thirst as such is for drink as such, and not for good drink, even though all
desire is for the good. The translation in Shorey But I need hardly remind you (of the
particles alla mentoi with which Socrates introduces the principle) anticipates the
incomprehension that Glaucon immediately expresses. The principle requires over forty
lines for its elucidation.
Whether Platos various scattered remarks on contrariety, predication, and
relation can be brought under control and organized into a coherent system of ideas
remains to be seen. Some worthwhile work has been done e.g., Robinson 1966, Smith
1973, Johnson 1977, Lloyd 1992, and, most recently and systematically, Dancy 2007. But
there is still much to do.

Bibliography
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