Book contents
- Platonic Autonomy
- Platonic Autonomy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Self-Determination
- Part II Motivational Challenges to Self-Rule
- Part III Internal and External Authorities
- Chapter 4 Dialectic and Rational Agency
- Chapter 5 Socrates and Conflicting Epistemic Requirements
- Chapter 6 Awakening Autonomy
- Part IV The Limits of Autonomy and Self-Rule
- Part V Reconciling between Freedom, External Authority, and Nature
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 4 - Dialectic and Rational Agency
Establishing Self-Rule in the Republic and Hippias Major
from Part III - Internal and External Authorities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2025
Book contents
- Platonic Autonomy
- Platonic Autonomy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Self-Determination
- Part II Motivational Challenges to Self-Rule
- Part III Internal and External Authorities
- Chapter 4 Dialectic and Rational Agency
- Chapter 5 Socrates and Conflicting Epistemic Requirements
- Chapter 6 Awakening Autonomy
- Part IV The Limits of Autonomy and Self-Rule
- Part V Reconciling between Freedom, External Authority, and Nature
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the Republic, Socrates sets up rational self-rule, archein hautou, as the ideal state, with what we might call rational other-rule as second best (590d3-5). This paper will focus on the role of dialectic in the process of establishing self-rule from two perspectives: an agent having been raised by an educational program under ideal political conditions, focusing on the Republic; and an agent trying to engage in philosophical self-improvement under non-ideal political conditions, focusing on the Hippias Major. This may be seen as a contrast between a top-down and a bottom-up approach to establishing rational self-rule. My thesis is that, in both cases, an intermediate or provisional form of rational self-rule needs to be established in order to achieve full self-rule, and that, in both approaches, the provisional state of rational self-rule shares some important features of the final state of rational self-rule, what we might call wisdom, but these are different features in the two cases.
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- Platonic AutonomySelf-Determination, Unity, and Cooperation, pp. 83 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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