What Is Doxa?

I have argued that Plato conceives of doxa first and foremost as cognition of what seems. This may sound like a marginal or technical notion. This chapter argues that it is in fact central to Plato’s thought. Throughout the dialogues Plato is particularly concerned to point out and warn against two cognitive deficiencies: (1) the tendency to mistake images for reality (“dreaming”), and (2) the failure to look beyond particular phenomena to underlying unifying explanations (atheoretical thought). Given his epistemology and metaphysics, Plato holds that these two deficiencies go together, and thus he is concerned with a particular way of thinking that exemplifies both. This way of thinking, moreover, is naturally characterized as cognition of what seems. I show how this view of doxa relates to previous interpretations.

What Is Epistêmê?

I have argued that Plato conceives epistêmê first and foremost as cognition of Being. What sense can we make of this notion, however? This chapter considers precedents in others’ interpretations of Plato, and historical counterparts from Parmenides’ nous to early modern Science. Considering these counterparts helps yield an intuitive characterization of the notion of cognition of Being: the idea is that of a deep grasp of ultimate reality. Then I return to the question of epistêmê’s relation to knowledge as nowadays conceived. The differences are clear: most fundamentally, knowledge is thought of as a relation to true propositions rather than to metaphysically privileged objects. I speculate however that we can think of modern knowledge and Plato’s epistêmê as two developments of a common, basic idea, the idea of an especially good cognitive relation to reality.

Epistemology in the Theaetetus

This chapter offers a brief treatment of the epistemology of the Theaetetus, arguing that in this dialogue—despite obvious and radical differences from the Two Worlds dialogues—we can see the Basic Conceptions very much at work. Socrates’ development and refutation of the first hypothesis, that epistêmê is perception, presupposes an objects-based epistemology on which epistêmê is of Being, and doxa of what seems. His treatment of doxa in the dialogue’s second hypothesis shows that he is here introducing a new notion generic belief, which is nonetheless explicable as an extension of the idea that doxa is of what seems, and the refutation of the second hypothesis, along with the development of the third, arguably involve the idea that epistêmê has its own special object, Being.

Doxa Is of What Seems

What kind of thing is Plato’s doxa? This is a question nowadays rarely asked. It is widely assumed that Plato had in mind something perfectly familiar to us from commonsense contemporary epistemology: belief. I will argue that Plato’s doxa is instead essentially to be understood as the cognition of a special kind of object, what seems. Plato chooses ‘doxa’ rather than some more general or neutral term to name the inferior cognitive condition because of the etymological link with seeming (to dokein), which we find actively exploited in the Presocratics. Plato inflates this link into a substantive theory: what seems is something ontologically distinct from what Is, and when we attend to what seems we have doxa rather than epistêmê. This is particularly evident in Plato’s discussions of rhetoric. Thus the defining object of doxa is what seems.

Epistemology in the Earlier Dialogues

The objects-based epistemology I have attributed to Plato in the Republic and other dialogues depends on a robust metaphysical distinction between ontologically privileged Beings and ontologically inferior seemings, and so we should not expect to see this kind of epistemological view in the absence of a full-blown Two Worlds metaphysics. Nonetheless, the Socratic dialogues and Meno take it as basic principles that epistêmê is primarily or specially of Being, and that there is a widespread inferior cognitive condition which fails to get at Being. Arguably they do not embrace Distinct Objects, but this is precisely what we should expect given their metaphysical differences from the Two Worlds dialogues. In sum, Plato’s views in the earlier dialogues are such that when he comes to develop a more developed epistemology, along with a more inflated metaphysics, the Basic Conceptions of doxa and epistêmê are the natural conceptions for him to adopt.

The Basic Conception of Epistêmê at Work

If epistêmê’s defining object is Being, then cognition of Being constitutes Plato’s basic conception of epistêmê: we should be able to appeal to this in order to see why Plato attributes to epistêmê all the various features that he does. In this chapter I aim to show that this expectation is borne out. The Basic Conception can explain the requirement that epistêmê is of truth, that it involves the ability to give explanations, and that it is clear, precise, and stable. Moreover, it can explain and indeed motivate all the evidence that epistêmê is restricted to Forms. What about the objection, however, that the Republic’s philosophers’ epistêmê qualifies them to rule, and hence must apply to perceptibles? I argue that Plato provides a clear solution: since perceptibles are images of Forms, epistêmê of the Forms enhances one’s cognition of perceptibles without directly applying to them.

Introduction

Throughout the dialogues Plato contrasts epistêmê, a superior kind of cognition, with doxa, an inferior one. It is widely assumed that Plato is discussing knowledge and belief. But many of his epistemological views are so hard to construe as views about knowledge and belief that it is worth questioning this assumption. Moreover, the history of Plato scholarship shows us that the assumption is quite recent. Once we accept that Plato’s central epistemological concepts may be radically different from ours, however, we must reassess his whole project: what is he doing when he does epistemology, and what is his epistemology about? The project of the book is to answer these questions by taking as a starting point what is arguably the most radical difference between Plato’s epistemology and ours: his claim, in the Republic and other dialogues, that epistêmê is of being and doxa of something inferior.

The Basic Conception of Doxa at Work

If doxa’s defining object is what seems, then the Basic Conception of doxa will be cognition of what seems. This chapter argues that this conception can do the work of explaining the various features Plato attributes to doxa, with a focus on the most controversial: the restriction of doxa to the perceptible realm of Becoming. I argue that on Plato’s view Becoming seems, and so we have doxa of it, while Being does not seem, and so we have no doxa of it. I address the philosophical objections to this claim by showing that Plato can nonetheless account for thoughts about Forms which fall short of epistêmê, by appealing to a third, “in between” category in his epistemology: dianoia (“thought”). I then address the apparent textual evidence for Forms seeming, and for doxa of Forms, arguing that it can be accommodated.

Plato’s Objects-Based Epistemology

When we read Plato’s epistemology—both the Republic’s powers argument and other texts—without in any way trying to avoid a Distinct Objects interpretation, we find ample evidence not only for that interpretation, but also for a stronger one. First, cognitive powers and their accomplishments are individuated by their objects. Second, cognitive powers and their accomplishments are defined by their objects: it is the objects that make them what they are (section 2). Finally, cognitive accomplishments—understood as occurrent cognitions—inherit their character from their objects: cognition works on the principle Aristotle calls “like-by-like.” Thus Plato’s epistemology is thoroughly objects-based. Epistêmê is, in essence, the kind of thing one can have only in relation to a special kind of object; doxa is, in its essence, the kind of thing one can have only in relation to a different special kind of object

Plato’s “Two Worlds” Epistemology

How should we set about understanding epistêmê and doxa? Plato in fact offers us explicit instructions, in the famous “powers” argument of Republic V: he seems to say that each is to be defined as the cognition of a special kind of object. But there is a difficulty: over the past half-century, this interpretation—the “Two Worlds” or “Distinct Objects” reading—has been so widely questioned as to now be declared “outrageous.” The aim of this chapter is to shift the burden of proof onto those who reject that reading. I explain the debate, mount textual evidence and, through a survey of Plato scholarship over the past 2400 years, and a brief discussion of Distinct Objects epistemologies in other thinkers, argue that resistance to the Distinct Objects reading is motivated largely by the assumption that Plato must be talking about knowledge and belief as we understand them now.