RCGP AA, Lecture Dominic Bailey, 22.05.2024, 18:00-20:00

INVITATION

The Research Centre for Greek Philosophy at the Academy of Athens

invites you to the lecture by Dominic Bailey,

Associate Professor of Philosophy (Colorado-Boulder),

which will take place on Wednesday 22 May 2024, 18:00-20:00,

at the "Elli Lambridis" Philosophical Library (9 Hypsilantou str., Athens).

Topic: "Naming and Sufficiency in the Phaedo's Final Argument".

The lecture will not be broadcast online.

Abstract

Readers of Phaedo 102b8-103a3 have taken Socrates to be saying: one cannot explain a contingent fact, such as that of a being taller than b (a > b), by resorting to the metaphysical features of a: either her self-identity, or other properties she has of necessity, or, if she has one, her essence. Such readers are quite right that the metaphysics of identity, necessity and essence will not explain that a > b. But that is not what Socrates says, and in any event, such readings do not account for his explicit claim that the sentence ‘a > b’ is false. I offer an alternative reading, based on what the Final Argument says about causes, and what is said in the dialogue throughout about names, the correctness and incorrectness of which are a major and hitherto untapped source for understanding the Phaedo. Although my argument will not turn on this, I will conclude with some observations about how much more successful Plato is than Kripke at making a case for the necessary a posteriori.