PRIOR 1998, Plato and The Socratic Fallacy

Plato and the "Socratic Fallacy"
Author(s): William J. Prior

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 97-113
Published by: Brill
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Plato and the "Socratic Fallacy"

WILLIAM J. PRIOR
ABSTRACr
Since Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much discussion
among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." No consensus presently exists on

whether Socrates commits the "Socratic fallacy"; almost all scholars agree, however, that the "Socratic fallacy" is a bad thing and that Socrates has good reason
to avoid it. I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that what
Geach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent conse-
quence of Platonic epistemology.

The "Socratic fallacy" arises from the "Priority of Definition" principle (PD).
Plato is committed to (PD) in the Meno. The Meno also contains a famous discussion of the difference between episteme and doxa (97a ff.). If we understand
what Plato meant by episteme we can see that he must be committed to (PD);
but we can also see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attributes to it.
Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. (PD) is

implausible on this reading of the verb "to know," but not on Plato's. Plato claims
that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever a claim to knowledge
is made. Plato links the concept of episteme explicitly with the concept of logos;
the connection between the terms may have been analytic.
It does not follow from the Platonic conception of knowledge, as Geach

argues, that it is "no use" using examples to establish general definitions. All that
follows is that one cannot know that an alleged example of a term T is a genuine
example until one has a general account of what it is to be T. Without the stronger
conclusion, Geach cannot establish that the "Socratic fallacy" is a fallacy.
I. Introduction
Since Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much dis-
cussion among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." According to Geach, this

fallacy consists of two propositions:
(A) that if you know that you are correctly predicating a given term
"T" you must "know what it is to be a T," in the sense of being
able to give a general criterion for a thing's being T, and

(B) that it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of "T" by giving
examples of things that are T.'

Accepted September 1997
I P.T. Geach, "Plato's Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary," The Monist 50
(1966), 371.
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Phronesis XLI1112
98
WILLIAM
J.
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Geach believed that "(B) in fact follows from (A)."2 He believed that these
two propositions constitute a fallacy because they present an incorrect
view of knowledge:
We know heaps of things without being able to define the terms in which we
express our knowledge. Formal definitions are only one way of elucidating terms;
a set of examples may in a given case be more useful than a formal definition.3
Geach also believed that Socrates is committed to the "Socratic fallacy" in

the early dialogues of Plato.
Geach has had many respondents. All have wanted to show that the
Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues is innocent of Geach's charge. In
general their strategy has been to argue that Socrates is not committed
to Geach's principle (A), which has come to be known as the "Priority of

Definition" principle (PD). This task is made possible by the fact that
Plato nowhere puts (A), in so many words, into Socrates' mouth. He says
many things that suggest that he believes in (A), but Robinson speaks
correctly of "the impression vaguely given by the early dialogues"4 that

he accepts it. Gregory Vlastos, who believed that the early dialogues
represent the views of the historical Socrates, argued that the principle
only emerges in a set of "transitional dialogues" in which Plato's views
were supplanting those of Socrates.5 Other scholars have argued that the
Socrates of the early dialogues is committed not to (PD) but to some
weaker principle or principles that do not have the epistemological con-
sequences of (PD).6 Some scholars have also argued for a distinction in

two kinds of knowledge: for Vlastos, the distinction was between "certain"
and "elenctic" knowledge; for Woodruff and Reeve, it is between "ordi-
2 Ibid.
I Ibid. I think that the general view of knowledge underlying Geach's position,
which I shall discuss further below, bears some resemblance to the view Protagoras
defends in the "Great Speech" (Protagoras 320c-328d), especially at 327e-328a, where
he indicates that eveiy Greek has sufficient knowledge of the Greek language to be
able to teach it. I don't mean to suggest that Protagoras's view and Geach's are iden-
tical, however, or that they have the same roots.
4 Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic (Oxford 1953), 53.

Gregory Vlastos, "Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge," Philosophy 35 (1985), 2326, esp. nn. 54, 56 (which refers to 1, n. 1), 60, and 65.
6 For example, Gerasimos Santas, "The Socratic Fallacy," Journal of the History
of Philosophy 10 (1972), 127-141; Alexander Nehamas, "Socratic Intellectualism,"
Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1986), 275-316
(cf. esp. 277-293); and John Beversluis, "Does Socrates Commit the Socratic Fal-
lacy?," American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1987), 211-223.
PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 99
nary" and "expert" knowledge. Given this distinction it is possible to argue

that (PD) applies only to claims of certain or expert knowledge; Socratic
claims of ordinary or elenctic knowledge do not succumb to the "Socratic
fallacy."7
All of these strategies have been challenged. The most thorough discussion of (PD) is Benson,8 who concludes that the best explanation for
Socrates' acceptance of principles weaker than (PD) is his acceptance of

(PD). Benson also questions the strategy of restricting (PD) to the transi-
tional dialogues. Lesher9 has criticized the strategy of granting to Socrates

two kinds of knowledge or two senses of "knowledge." No consensus presently exists on whether Socrates commits the "Socratic fallacy"; almost
all scholars agree, however, that the "Socratic fallacy" is a bad thing and
that Socrates has good reason to avoid commitment to (PD).'0
I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that what
Geach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent

consequence of Platonic epistemology. If we understand what Plato meant
by episteme we will see that he must be committed to (PD); but we will
also see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attributes
to it. I hope to show both of these things in this paper.
II. Interpretive Strategy

Before I begin discussion of the "fallacy" itself, however, I want to note
a limitation that all of the above strategies share. They attempt to remove
the "fallacy" from the early dialogues, or at least from the pre-transitional,
Vlastos, op. cit., 1-31 (cf. esp. 23-26); Paul Woodruff, "Expert Knowledge in the
Apology and Laches: What a General Needs to Know," Proceedings of the Boston
Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 3 (1987), 79-115, and "Plato's Early Theory
of Knowledge," in Stephen Everson, ed., Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 60-84; and

C.D.C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis 1989), 37-62.
8 Hugh H. Benson, "The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchus," Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1990), 19-65.
9 James Lesher, "Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge," Journal of the History of

Philosophy 25 (1987), 275-288.
10 See Beversluis, op. cit., 212, who describes the result of accepting Geach's
premises as "a hopeless epistemic impasse," Woodruff, who writes that "the trouble
with believing in priority of definition is that it would paralyze inquiry if it were true"
("Expert Knowledge," 91; Woodruff may only be interpreting Geach, not endorsing
his conclusion; however, he says Geach "represents a fairly broad consensus") and
Santas, op. cit., 129. Exceptions to this general rule are Terence Irwin, Plato's Moral
Theory (Oxford 1977), 40-41, and Benson, op. cit.
100
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elenctic dialogues, but not from the transitional dialogues, the dialogues
in which, according to a common account, Plato first introduces his own
views through the character of Socrates. This strategy is one of isolation
and containment: it attempts to keep the Socratic dialogues free of the

philosophical assumptions that give rise to the "fallacy." It attempts to
remove the fallacy from the elenctic dialogues, and thus from Socratic
philosophy, only to inflict it upon Plato. It attempts to save Socrates from
an infection that Plato carries.

Now I have little sympathy with the project that underlies this strategy,
the project of isolating a "pure Socratic" phase of thought within the early
dialogues that is free from epistemological and metaphysical assumptions,
whether or not that first stage is taken to be a faithful record of the views
of the historical Socrates." But even if we accept the assumptions that

mark this project, it is hard to imagine a scenario that offers a convincing explanation of how Plato could have come to commit the "Socratic
fallacy" in some dialogues but not in others. If commission of the "Socratic fallacy" is a blunder, how could Plato have carefully avoided com-
mitting this blunder in the early, elenctic dialogues (while asserting things
very much like it), only to embrace it in the transitional dialogues? Even
if his role in composing the early dialogues was more that of Socrates'
biographer than that of an original philosopher, is it reasonable to assume

that Plato simply recorded the views of Socrates without understanding
them? If Socrates avoided (PD) because he realized that its adoption
would have the disastrous epistemological consequences Geach claims it
has, is it reasonable to think that Plato did not realize this, and that, like
a fool, in the transitional dialogues he rushed in where his angel had previously feared to tread? Given what we know about Plato's philosophical
abilities, this seems highly unlikely.

Now it seems clear that Plato is committed to (PD) in the Meno. Beversluis distinguishes two forms or aspects of Geach's (A):
(Al) If you do not know the definition of F, you cannot know that anything is an F, and
(A2) If you do not know the definition of F, you cannot know any-
thing about F (e.g. that F, say Justice, is Y, say beneficial).'2
I I find the critique of this project found in Charles H. Kahn's classic essay, "Did
Plato Write Socratic Dialogues?," Classical Quarterly 31 (1981), 305-324, and later
works completely convincing, though I do not agree with his alternative account of
the relations among the dialogues or his chronological placement of the Gorgias.
12 Beversluis, op. cit., 211-212; cf. Benson, op. cit., 20, n. 2.
At Meno 71b Socrates states, "I have no knowledge about virtue at all.
And how can I know a property of something when I don't even know
what it is?" The question clearly invites a negative reply; and, a negative
reply would commit Plato to Beversluis' (A2). He is not so clearly committed to (Al); however, as Benson has put it, the best explanation for
his acceptance of (A2) is his acceptance of (PD). Whether Socrates in this
dialogue represents the historical Socrates, Plato, or a combination of
both, he seems committed to the principle that gives rise to the "Socratic
fallacy."
The Meno also contains a famous discussion of the difference between

episteme and doxa (97a ff.), which I shall discuss below. It seems reasonable to assume that the concept of episteme Socrates employs when
he denies that he has any knowledge of virtue is the same as that he uses
when he distinguishes episteme and doxa, and that therefore we may
use the later discussion of knowledge to illuminate his meaning in the
former.'3 That is what I shall attempt to do below. It is possible that Plato
wrote both passages without connecting them to each other; but this is
unlikely in so careful a writer as Plato. Even if he were unaware of the
connection between the two passages, however, we can fairly take both,
occurring as they do within a single dialogue, as indicative of his thought
on the "Socratic fallacy" at a certain period of his life.
It seems to me, then, that if the "Socratic fallacy" is indeed a fallacy,

it is committed in the Meno. If the person who commits it is Plato and
not Socrates, that really doesn't matter; what matters is the commission
itself. If these principles really do constitute a fallacy, they undermine, or
at least threaten to undermine, some central aspects of Plato's epistemology. Let us consider, then, whether or not this pattern of reasoning really
is a fallacy.
13 Irwin has used the distinction between episteme and doxa, though without specifically invoking the Meno passage, in developing his own answer to Geach's problem.
Irwin accepts the standard English translations of these terms as "knowledge" and
"belief"; his solution is, in a nutshell, that Socrates denies he has knowledge but not
true belief. This solution is, of all the published responses to Geach I am aware of,
the closest to the one I propose below; unlike Irwin, however, I have serious reservations about the adequacy of the usual translations, and as will become clear below I
do not accept the claim that the alternative to Platonic episteme is a cognitive state
similar to what we would describe in English as true belief. Beversluis (op. cit., 217ff.)
discusses the Meno passage in the course of a critique of the "true belief" theory; his
discussion is an excellent example of the project of purifying the early dialogues from
the epistemology of middle Platonism. Since this paper concems a dialogue in which
that epistemology emerges, his comments do not have a direct bearing on it.
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III. Knowledge and Definition

First of all we must ask what Geach means when he labels (A) and (B)
a fallacy. I think he does not mean what logicians mean by a fallacy,

namely an invalid pattern of argument. For, though Geach thinks that there
is an inference from (A) to (B), he does not think that the inference is invalid, for he states that (A) entails (B). Rather, I think that Geach regards
(A) and (B) together as expressing a false conception of the nature of
knowledge, a "style of mistaken thinking" about knowledge. As noted

above, Geach's response to the "Socratic fallacy" is to claim that we know
"heaps of things" we can't define.
Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, and
is based in part on the Wittgensteinian claim that one need not have explicit knowledge of the definition of a term to be justified in one's use of
that term. According to the slogan that once characterized this position,
"meaning is use." This slogan conceals an ambiguity, however. It may

mean that in order to be justified in saying that a is F one need not have
definitional knowledge of F-ness, but only the ability to apply the term
"F" to various objects in various situations. In this case what we know,
in Geach's terms, is how to apply "F"; and this might be a skill that has
no explicit knowledge of a semantic nature attached to it. This skill is
hardly different, if it is different at all, from the practical ability to identify F things. It is semantic knowledge only in a very minimal sense. Alternatively, the slogan might mean that in order to be justified in applying
the term "F" to various things one must be able to give an account of
how "F"' is used, but that this account need not take the form of an explicit definition or a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for its applications. The second claim is less radical, and perhaps thus more plausible,
than the first. I suspect, however, that the first, stronger view is behind
Geach's objection.
Philosophers who accept this dictum and the philosophical framework
out of which it arises will think that Plato has made a straightforward and
simple error in demanding explicit definitional knowledge from his interlocutors. They may also argue that the error is not simply an error in the
philosophical theory of meaning, however, but an error in the philosoph-
ical conception of knowledge. It is then open to them to claim that, as

Wittgenstein's predecessors in the English-speaking philosophical commu-
nity shared a mistaken understanding of the ordinary use of "knowledge"

in English, so the Greek philosophers shared a mistaken understanding of
the ordinary use of episteme. Thus, the issue becomes not simply one
involving the use of certain Greek or English terms, but one of the legit-
imacy of certain epistemic criteria. Followers of Wittgenstein might also
argue that the enormous influence of the Greek philosophers, including

Plato, on later philosophy is partially responsible for the perpetuation of
this erroneous view.
Geach's labeling of (A) and (B) a fallacy is thus tendentious: it depends

on the correctness of the Wittgensteinian semantics and epistemology that
underlie it. These were far from universally accepted when Geach wrote
in 1966, and they are less so today. But if the Wittgensteinian view, or
something like it, is not correct, it may not be the case that we know heaps
of things we can't define; and if that is so, the Socratic view would not
be a fallacy. It would not be a mistaken account of criteria for knowledge

of the meaning of terms, whether we are speaking English or Greek. In
other words, (PD) is implausible only on a certain reading of the verb "to
know"; if we have reason to think Plato was committed to (PD) we have

reason to think that he did not understand the corresponding Greek verb
in that way.'4
Now it is tempting to respond that Plato was not talking about knowledge but about episteme, and that neither Plato nor the Greek philosophers
in general thought that we can have episteme of things we can't define;

and that indeed will be part of my response to Geach. I want to say something about the general problem, however, that does not depend on the
peculiarities of the Greek terms Plato uses.
An examination of rival philosophical accounts of meaning and knowledge is beyond the scope of this paper (and beyond the competence of its
author). I do want to note, however, that the Wittgensteinian position gains
credibility as the explicitness and precision of the knowledge demanded

by rival theories increases. It is not plausible that a mathematician's knowl-
edge of the nature of the number 2 is required for an English speaker to

claim justifiably that he or she knows that certain sentences containing
that term are true (for instance, that 2 + 3 = 5). On the other hand, it seems
reasonable to demand some account of the meaning of a term or the truth

of a statement containing that term from a person who claims to know
that the statement is true. That is, to use a Socratic example, if Laches
claims to know that this person or that type of conduct is courageous, it

seems reasonable to ask him what he means by "courage" and what he
takes the condition for the ascription of courage to be.
This, at any rate, is the way Plato and his Socrates understand the matter. They assume that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever
14 I owe this formulation of the point to Hugh Benson.
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a claim to knowledge is made. That is, when someone claims to know

that a is F, they think that it is always in order to ask for general criteria
for the application of F, or for a general account of the meaning of "F."
This is the substantive issue on which Geach disagrees with them. Geach
need not reject the idea that any account is inappropriate, but he must
reject the idea that a general semantic account is always in order. He
might say, in other words, "yes, it's appropriate to ask someone how he
or she knows that a is F, but it isn't appropriate to ask for a definition of
'F'." This response is quite reasonable in those cases where we are thinking of perceptual or memory knowledge of particular states of affairs. The
right response to the question "How do you know it's raining?" might be,
"I'm looking out the window at the rain coming down right now." The
right response to "How do you know Susan lives on this street?" might
be, "I've given her a ride home dozens of times."
These responses aren't appropriate in the cases that Plato is interested
in, however. As Socrates points out in the Euthyphro (7b ff.), the knowl-
edge he is seeking concerns terms about which there is disagreement, and

for which there is no universally recognized method for resolving the disagreement, terms of moral evaluation (right and wrong, noble and base,
good and bad, and the names of the various virtues). As the early dialogues demonstrate repeatedly, it is not possible to give an ostensive definition of any of these terms. Piety and courage are not transparent moral
properties, which only need to be observed in a select number of cases in

order to be understood. Thus, it would seem that the Socratic method of
seeking an account of the nature of these terms is well founded.
Let us consider the matter from a slightly different perspective. On
Geach's view it is possible for a person to say, correctly, "I know how to
use the word X but I don't have any idea how to define X, or say what
X essentially is." For some terms, such as color terms and terms for common substances such as water or salt, this seems unproblematic; but even
here we must be aware of the problem of the borderline case. Is that color
a dark shade of yellow or a light shade of orange? The liquid in the glass
looks like water and tastes like water, but how can we be sure it is water?
How can we answer such questions if we lack criteria for determining

where yellow leaves off and orange starts, or what water is? If one can't
deal with the contentious cases, the borderline or disputed cases, it is
tempting to think that one doesn't know how to use the term in question
after all, or at least that one's knowledge is incomplete; and if that is true
in the case of terms like "yellow" and "water," it would seem a fortiori to
be true of terms like "brave" and "holy." Indeed, even if one finds the
problem of borderline cases unconvincing in the case of physical concepts,

one might find it persuasive in the case of moral concepts, such as those
with which Plato is concerned.
Geach might respond that his point holds at least for obvious and
uncontroversial cases of the term in question. Wittgenstein notes that the

answer to the question "How do I know that this colour is red?" may be
"I have learnt English."'5 It is possible to respond that, until one is in possession of explicit criteria for the application of a term, one cannot be certain of its application in apparently clear cases. This response has little
plausibility in the case of terms like "red" but somewhat more in the case
of terms like "brave," where the applicability of the term depends on the
attribution to some agent of a psychological state he may or may not possess. Laches may be unable to tell whether a given hoplite who stands his
ground in battle is truly brave unless he can determine that hoplite's motivation for so standing.'6 I don't want to push skepticism about examples
this far, however. Doubtless it was fear of reaching just such a conclusion that led Geach to object to principle (A) in the first place. Nor do I
think that Plato would want to do so. Though he might harbor doubts
about the ordinary hoplite, I'm sure he would agree with Laches that
Socrates' behavior in the retreat from Delium was brave, and that we can
be certain it was (cf. Laches 18la-b). The question he would raise in such
situations is not whether the concept applied to the case but whether the
cognitive certainty on the part of the observer amounted to knowledge.
Now if we take seriously the account given in the Meno of the distinction between knowledge and right belief, I think it is clear that what Plato
requires for knowledge is something very close to what Geach attributes
to him in (A). According to Meno 97e-98a, what converts right opinion

into knowledge is the "tethering" of opinion, its stabilization, by a reasoning out of the explanation (aitias logismoi). In other words, the person
who has knowledge is able to offer a reasoned explanation of the item in

question, whereas the person with true opinion is not. As the Meno indi-
cates, the opinions of this person are no less true than those of the person
with knowledge, and no less reliable a guide to action. Plato might have
added that the person with right opinion might be no less certain of the
truth of a given judgment than the person with knowledge. Though he
generally thought that opinion was less stable than knowledge because it
'' Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3d ed. (New York 1958), Part 1,
para. 381, 117e.
16 1owe this point to Roslyn Weiss.
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was subject to persuasion, whereas knowledge was not, there is nothing
inconsistent in a person with true opinion stubbornly sticking to that opinion through all attempts to persuade him to change his mind. What makes
for knowledge, then, is not certainty or practical reliability but the ability
of the person who has knowledge to give a reasoned explanation of what

he or she knows. If the knowledge were knowledge of the meaning of a
term (the case with which Geach is dealing), this explanation might very
well involve the ability to give criteria for the application of the term in
question. Thus, Plato's own account of the difference between knowledge

and right opinion would seem to commit him to Geach's (A).
Is this requirement a reasonable one? It seems to me that it is, at least
if we confine it to those cases of knowledge that don't admit of demonstration through some simple method like ostension. It can easily be made
to seem unreasonable by placing various constraints on the nature of an
acceptable account. Socrates says in the Euthyphro (6e) that he is look-
ing for something he can use as a standard to judge all cases of piety,
and this sounds very much like what Geach describes in (A). But he also
says there (6d) that this standard is a form; and, though scholars differ as
to whether that term commits Socrates to a theory of Forms, there is no
doubt that Plato does develop such a theory in the middle dialogues, and
that in the Phaedo he explicitly invokes Forms as principles of explanation. The Meno passage links the ability to give an account with the
Doctrine of Recollection (98a). Although earlier in the Meno Plato sug-
gests that the specification of a distinguishing mark is sufficient for a

definition (as at 75b, where Socrates defines shape as what always accom-
panies color), in the Euthyphro he rejects such a definition of piety (piety

is what is dear to all the gods) because it gives only an attribute of piety,
not its essence. In the Meno, Phaedo and Republic Plato indicates that he
believes that knowledge is a unified whole, so that one has adequate
knowledge of a Form only when he has understood its relation to others.'7

This would mean that knowledge had to meet some pretty stringent criteria of completeness. It is one thing to say that a person with knowledge
17 At Meno 81d Socrates states that, since all nature is akin, when one has recollected a single item of knowledge one may eventually recollect everything else. At
Phaedo lOld he suggests that the hypothesis that there are Forms is to be justified by
appeal to higher hypotheses, and that one must continue to ascend the hypothetical
ladder until one reaches "something adequate." In the Republic (VI, 51 lc-d) it is made
clear that the unhypothetical first principle that puts an end to the ascent is the Form
of the Good.
PLATO AND THE "SOCRAnC FALLACY" 107
must be able to give an account of what he knows (cf. Phaedo 76b), and
quite another to require complete knowledge, expressed in essential definitions of a Form reached through the process of Recollection. But it
does not follow from the fact that the metaphysical and epistemological
elaboration Plato gives to the simple criterion may be unreasonable that
the criterion itself is; and it should be remembered that it is the simple
criterion, and not its metaphysical elaboration, that Geach objects to.
IV. Episteme and Logos
If it is reasonable to expect that someone claiming knowledge should be

able to provide some rational explanation of the fact known, it is even
more reasonable to expect this of someone claiming episteme. The concept
of episteme is explicitly linked with the concept of logos, rational account
or explanation, in Greek philosophy. Fine'8 mentions Meno 98a, Phaedo
76d, Republic VII, 53le and 534b as passages in which Plato links the
possession of episteme to the ability to give a logos of what one knows;
and, though the attempt to define episteme as true opinion with the addition of an account in the Theaetetus ends in apparent failure, the connection between episteme and logos seems reaffirmed in the rhetorical
question at 202d: "how can there ever be knowledge without an account?"
One may well think that the connection between episteme and logos was
for Plato analytic.
Nor is Plato's connection between episteme and logos idiosyncratic.

When Aristotle defines episteme in Posterior Analytics 2, he says that we
have episteme of a fact when we "know the cause on which the fact
depends, as the cause of that fact and no other, and further, that the fact
could not be other than it is." (71blO ff.) As he defines the faculty of episteme in Nicomachean Ethics VI.3, it is "the capacity to demonstrate"
(1139b3 1). Aristotle limits the scope of episteme to necessary truths, and
demands for these not just a rational account but a demonstration that
shows their necessity. These restrictions are so different from those we
place on knowledge that translators are prone to mark them by translating episteme as "scientific knowledge" rather than simply as "knowledge."
18 Gail Fine, "Knowledge and Belief in Republic V-VII," in Stephen Everson, ed.,
Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 106. For a detailed discussion of the relation between
episteme and logos, with many additional references to passages in the Platonic corpus,
see Jon Moline, Plato's Theory of Understanding (Madison 1981), ch. 2, esp. 33-43.
108
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This is not the place to discuss the propriety of this translation; I simply
note that the term on which Aristotle places these restrictions is the same
term that translators translate as "knowledge" in Plato: episteme. Episteme
is the state with which Geach's principle (A) is concerned.
We are now in a position to understand what Plato meant to affirm

when he affirmed (A) or, more precisely, when he affirmed the more specific statements that have led scholars to attribute (A) to him. Consider the
question from the Meno: "how can I know a property of something when
I don't even know what it is?" (71b) What this implies in context is that
Socrates does not believe that he can know whether virtue is teachable
without knowing what the nature of virtue is. I suggest that what this implies is that Socrates thinks he can have no logos, no rational account of
the teachability of virtue without a logos of the nature of virtue. In general,
he can have no rational account of the properties of an object without
having a rational account of the nature of the object.
Is this a false view of the nature of knowledge? It certainly seems to
have been a feature of ancient essentialist epistemology that knowledge

of something begins (logically, not temporally) with knowledge of the
thing's essence, proceeds to knowledge of properties that follow necessarily from the essence, and concludes with whatever accidental properties may be knowable. It does not seem to me to be a relevant objection
to this scheme to say that there is a perfectly good use of the English
word "know" in which I can say "I know that the apple is red" without
being able to give an account of the nature of an apple; for if a rational

account is demanded that explains why this apple, or apples of this kind,
are red, then I think I can't know what that account would be without
knowing the nature of the apple.
Similarly, it does not seem to be a relevant objection to Socrates' claim

that he can't know whether virtue is teachable unless he knows what it is
that there is a perfectly good use of the English word "know" in which I
can claim to know that virtue can be taught without being able to give an
account of the nature of virtue, namely that in which I say, "I know virtue
can be taught, for I've seen it done. X passed on his virtue to Y by teaching; I don't know how he did it, but he did it nonetheless." For again,
what Socrates is looking for is a rational account that explains how virtue
can be taught, and it seems reasonable to think that such an account
requires an account of what virtue is. It does not matter that there is a
sense of "know" in English that dispenses with the rational account, for
that sense isn't the one Socrates has in mind. He is not waiting for information about cases of successful teaching of virtue; rather, he is seeking
to understand how those instances could have taken place.
Plato restricts episteme to matters for which we possess a rational
account. Nothing in this restriction requires him to deny that we might be

in a cognitive state, on the question, say, of the teachability of virtue, that
possesses many of the other features of knowledge. I might be, as in the
case mentioned above, familiar with instances of the successful teaching
of virtue. I might therefore be certain that virtue could be taught. I might

be so certain that virtue could be taught, and so certain that the cases I
had observed were instances of the teaching of virtue, that I was imper-
vious to argument or evidence of any sort to the contrary. When Plato

denies that, for all that, the state I'm in is that of episteme, he need not
be taken to deny' that I might be in a state that English speakers might

correctly identify as empirical knowledge. I think that people have found
(A) unreasonable because they thought that it committed Plato to the view
that we couldn't be morally certain of some feature of a thing without a
rational account of its nature.19 But (A) is not a claim about the certainty,20
or the empirical basis of our beliefs; it is about the kind of account
required to turn a belief, even an empirically grounded and dogmatically
held belief, into episteme. It may in the end turn out to be a mistaken
principle, but it doesn't seem to me to wear its falsity on its face. It isn't
so obviously false a principle that I'd want to label it a fallacy.
V. The Use of Examples
The reader might well object at this point that showing that (A) is not as
harmful a principle as Geach suggested is only half the battle; for it is

(A) and (B) together that constitute the fallacy, and Geach believes that
(A) entails (B). Let us turn, then, to an examination of (B). It states "that
it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of 'T' by giving examples
of things that are T." Now scholars have noted that Socrates' actual practice in the dialogues is not in accord with this principle: he uses examples
1' This seems to be what Geach means when he suggests that the principle is
morally harmful because someone who proved unable after repeated attempts to
explain why swindling is unjust might come to doubt that it was unjust (372). It is
true that someone might come to that conclusion, but there is nothing in (A) to suggest that he or she should. Note that Socrates, who sees more definitions go down in
flames than anyone, never succumbs to such moral uncertainty.
20 As Woodruff notes, in "Plato's Early Theory of Knowledge," 65, "You can

be quite certain in the ordinary way of any number of things, without being able to
give a Socratic definition." Note also Aristotle's claim in Nicomachean Ethics VII.3,
1146b26-7 that "Some people have no doubts when they have an opinion, and think
they have exact knowledge.
110 WILLIAM J. PRIOR
frequently to develop, refine, and critically assess definitions. As Beversluis notes,

the dialogues of search abound with passages in which he not only unproblematically accepts examples of the virtue under discussion from interlocutors who
manifestly lack a definition of it but heartily endorses examples as the primary
data from which the definition is to be extracted.2'
But Geach might respond, "So much the worse for Socrates' practice. If
(B) follows from (A), Socrates is not entitled to make use of examples in
any of these ways." To answer this challenge we must attempt to discover

whether (B) does indeed follow from (A). Before we investigate this question, however, I want to note that, even if some general prohibition on the
use of examples did follow from (A) that would not mean that the search
for general criteria was pointless. A process such as recollection might put
one directly in touch with general criteria, bypassing examples entirely;

and if the metaphysics of recollection seems too extravagant to offer much
hope in this regard, there might be other less implausible methods of direct
apprehension of general semantic criteria.

Still, it seems intuitively obvious that the quest for general criteria is im-
measurably aided by the use of examples, so let us ask how the prohibition of the use of examples is supposed to follow from (A). Here is Geach's
argument:
If you can already give a general account of what "T" means, then you need no
examples to arrive at the meaning of "T"; if on the other hand you lack such a
general account, then, by assumption (A), you cannot know that any examples
of things that are T are genuine ones, for you do not know when you are predicating "T" correctly.22
But is Geach right about this? (A) says that one cannot know that a term
"T" is correctly predicated unless one can give a general criterion for the
correct predication of "T." When applied to examples, this means that one
cannot know that an alleged example of T is a genuine example until one
has a general account of what it is to be T. If Geach were to say only

this about examples, he would be quite correct. But he says more; he says
it is no use trying to reach a general criterion by the use of examples;
and it seems to me that this is not the case.
It is not necessary for me to know that an alleged example of a general term T is a genuine example in order to use this example in my search
21 Beversluis, op. cit., 212. Cf. Santas, op. cit., 129-134.
22 Geach, op. cit., 371.
for a general criterion of meaning for "T." It is a perfectly intelligible pro-
cedure, one followed in all forms of classificatory endeavor, to consider

many alleged examples of a given term in the hope of coming up with a
general criterion or general criteria of classification. Once one has developed or discovered such criteria, one can then use them to sort through
the initial set of alleged examples and separate those that truly belong to
the class from those that merely appear to. It is not necessary to know
beforehand that all of the putative examples in the initial set are genuine.
It is not necessary to know, in the case of any particular example, that it
is genuine. It is not even necessary to know that any of the examples in

the initial set is genuine (though if one's initial choice of putative examples is that unfortunate the classificatory project is unlikely to reach a successful conclusion). All that is necessary is that one have a reasonable
amount of confidence that at least some of the examples in the initial set
are genuine. It is the discovery of general criteria, which is the aim of the
classificatory project, that will convert this confidence into knowledge; so

it is hard to see how one could know, in advance of the discovery of these
criteria, that a given example is a genuine one.
I think that this is in fact the procedure followed by Socrates in the

early dialogues. Consider as a single example the passage in the Laches
wherein Socrates is attempting to expand Laches' understanding of the
scope of courage. Laches had identified courage with the behavior of the
hoplite who remains in his position in battle. Socrates first points out that
other forms of behavior in combat may be courageous, then mentions
those
who are courageous in perils at sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again
in politics, are courageous, and not only who are courageous against pain or fear,
but mighty to contend against desires or pleasures. .. (191d-e; Jowett, trans.)
Is Socrates committed to the claim that he knows, in advance of having

a general definition of courage, that it can be found in all these settings?
I think not. He is committed at most to the view that these provide plau-
sible environments in which instances of courage can be sought. To pursue his investigation he needs nothing more than this.
As we have seen, Plato is willing to say that someone knows something only when that person is able to give an account of what he knows.
When the case is that of predicating a term of an alleged example, the
kind of account required is an account of the meaning of "T," which for

Plato means the formulation of a general criterion for the application of
that term. If one is searching for such a general criterion, one obviously is
112
WILLIAM
J.
PRIOR
not in conscious possession of it, and in that sense one cannot know that
the alleged example is a genuine one. As I also argued above, however,

the absence of an account need not lead to uncertainty about the fact
in question. In this case, the lack of an account of what makes something
a T need not produce a lack of confidence in alleged examples of T. It
certainly need not lead an investigator to doubt his or her ability even provisionally to identify examples of T.
I think that, for Geach's objection to hold, and for (B) to follow from
(A), it would have to be the case that a lack of a general criterion for
what it is to be a T must produce in the investigator such a degree of confusion that he or she is unable even tentatively to identify examples of T.
We have seen that this is not the case. Therefore, (B) does not follow
from (A). Plato may, without logical error, make use of examples in seeking general definitions of terms. It seems clear also that he may, without
logical error, follow another practice that he constantly employs in the
early dialogues: he may propose alleged examples as counterexamples to
definitions proposed by his interlocutors.
The procedures by which Socrates attempts to discover general criteria
for the use of terms in the early dialogues are not purely inductive ones;
he does not simply attempt to assemble a sufficient sample of instances
of the term and then abstract from these examples a set of necessary and
sufficient conditions for the application of the term. Rather, examples are
used to stimulate rational reflection on the nature of the things denoted by

the terms in question. As the Doctrine of Recollection has it, examples
serve to remind us of the metaphysical originals from which they are de-
rived. Though the Platonic procedure differs from the more familiar induc-
tivist model familiar to students of philosophy of science, it is a procedure

in which examples play a legitimate role, or in fact, more than one legitimate role.
VI. Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that the "Socratic fallacy" is not a fallacy. I
have argued that Geach's (A), which has come to be known as the Priority
of Definition principle (PD), is not part and parcel of a "style of mistaken

thinking" about knowledge and definition but a specific case of a general
Platonic principle of epistemology: the principle that episteme requires a
logos. The fact that this principle emerges explicitly for the first time in
a transitional dialogue, the Meno, means that we ought to be suitably cautious about attributing it to Socrates in the early dialogues. On the other
hand, I have also argued that Plato's acceptance of (A) does not commit
him to (B), so that the consequences Geach feared do not arise. Thus,
there is no reason not to use (PD), as Benson has argued, as a unifying
principle behind many specific Socratic remarks in the early dialogues
about what we can know, and under what conditions we can know it.23
Santa Clara University
23 I thank Hugh Benson and Elizabeth Radcliffe for their comments on an earlier
draft of this paper.

PRIOR 1998, Plato and The Socratic Fallacy

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PRIOR 1998, Plato and The Socratic Fallacy

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Plato and the "Socratic Fallacy"

Author(s): William J. Prior

Plato and the "Socratic Fallacy"

among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." No consensus presently exists on

quence of Platonic epistemology.

Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. (PD) is

that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever a claim to knowledge

It does not follow from the Platonic conception of knowledge, as Geach

cussion among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." According to Geach, this

able to give a general criterion for a thing's being T, and

examples of things that are T.'

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Phronesis XLI1112

Geach also believed that Socrates is committed to the "Socratic fallacy" in

to Geach's principle (A), which has come to be known as the "Priority of

correctly of "the impression vaguely given by the early dialogues"4 that

sequences of (PD).6 Some scholars have also argued for a distinction in

tical, however, or that they have the same roots.

4 Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic (Oxford 1953), 53.

lacy?," American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1987), 211-223.

PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 99

nary" and "expert" knowledge. Given this distinction it is possible to argue

Socrates' acceptance of principles weaker than (PD) is his acceptance of

tional dialogues. Lesher9 has criticized the strategy of granting to Socrates

Geach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent

II. Interpretive Strategy

of Knowledge," in Stephen Everson, ed., Epistemology (Cambridge 1990), 60-84; and

9 James Lesher, "Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge," Journal of the History of

views through the character of Socrates. This strategy is one of isolation

and containment: it attempts to keep the Socratic dialogues free of the

an infection that Plato carries.

of the historical Socrates." But even if we accept the assumptions that

biographer than that of an original philosopher, is it reasonable to assume

abilities, this seems highly unlikely.

thing about F (e.g. that F, say Justice, is Y, say beneficial).'2

12 Beversluis, op. cit., 211-212; cf. Benson, op. cit., 20, n. 2.

PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 101

The Meno also contains a famous discussion of the difference between

It seems to me, then, that if the "Socratic fallacy" is indeed a fallacy,

III. Knowledge and Definition

a fallacy. I think he does not mean what logicians mean by a fallacy,

knowledge, a "style of mistaken thinking" about knowledge. As noted

"meaning is use." This slogan conceals an ambiguity, however. It may

ical conception of knowledge. It is then open to them to claim that, as

nity shared a mistaken understanding of the ordinary use of "knowledge"

PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 103

imacy of certain epistemic criteria. Followers of Wittgenstein might also

argue that the enormous influence of the Greek philosophers, including

Geach's labeling of (A) and (B) a fallacy is thus tendentious: it depends

be a fallacy. It would not be a mistaken account of criteria for knowledge

know"; if we have reason to think Plato was committed to (PD) we have

in general thought that we can have episteme of things we can't define;

author). I do want to note, however, that the Wittgensteinian position gains

credibility as the explicitness and precision of the knowledge demanded

edge of the nature of the number 2 is required for an English speaker to

reasonable to demand some account of the meaning of a term or the truth

claims to know that this person or that type of conduct is courageous, it

14 I owe this formulation of the point to Hugh Benson.

a claim to knowledge is made. That is, when someone claims to know

edge he is seeking concerns terms about which there is disagreement, and

properties, which only need to be observed in a select number of cases in

How can we answer such questions if we lack criteria for determining

PLATO AND THE "SOCRATIC FALLACY" 105

problem of borderline cases unconvincing in the case of physical concepts,