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A Platonic Model Of The Soul-Body Relationship, Kenneth Dorter

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In presenting a unified overview of Plato's conception of soul I do not intend to suggest that Plato's undogmatic and unsystematic approach to philosophy can be reduced in a systematic dogma. The model I develop is meant to be taken not dogmatically but instrumentally, as a basis for relating to one another the various things that Plato says about the soul. It is furthermore based upon a conviction that the progressive development of Plato's conception …

Plato On Mind And Morality In Nature, Joan Kung

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

The view that values and virtues, whether independently real or merely conventional, are no part of nature and are to be studied in a discipline distinct from sciences which investigate the natural world goes nearly unquestioned in our time. I shall argue that it is challenged by Plato in his criticism of Anaxagoras.

Courage In Plato’S Earlier Dialogues, Nicholas P. White

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

Beginning in his earlier works. Plato attempted to give an account of virtue and of the particular virtues. including courage. which receives special attention in the Laches and the Protagoras. I want to explore a number of aspects of the virtue of courage about which I think that philosophers are still not fully clear. I am afraid that some of our lack of clarity results from the way in which Socrates and Plato began the …

Socrates’ Practice Of Elenchos In The Charmides, W. Thomas Schmid

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

There is a common, but false conception of Socrates' practice of dialectical examination. This conception depicts him as a relentless critic, a "despotic logician" (Nietzsche) guided by a moral purpose. Socrates is said to aim not at truth but at refutation — at proving, step by step, and often with a display of malicious irony, that the interlocutor's thought is inconsistent, that he "doesn't know what he is talking about.' Richard Robinson says that the …

The Inquiry Into Aitiai In Plato’S Phaedo, Michael L. Morgan

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

There is a feature of Socrates' intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo that has not been sufficiently clarified by commentators on that passage. Most students of the dialogue have taken the text to describe Socrates' disenchantment with mechanical reasons or explanations, his disappointment with Anaxagoras' failure to provide sound teleological explanations, and his eventual turning to explanations involving the separated Forms. In very rough terms, to be sure, Socrates' tale is thought to be about his …

Program: 10th Annual Baker Philosophy Colloquium, University Of Dayton

University of Dayton Review

Program listing for the 10th annual Baker Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981. Visiting presiding philosophers: David Gallop of Trent University and Nicholas P. White of the University of Michigan.

Happiness And Function In Plato’S Republic, Richard Mohr

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

The casual reader of the Republic may not notice that the primary purpose of the whole dialogue is to discuss happiness rather than virtue; more precisely the purpose is to discuss what consequences various conceptions of justice or manners of life have for our understanding of what happiness is. This purpose is explicitly stated in Book V just prior to the introduction of the philosopher-king at 472c: "Our purpose was, with these models (of justice …

The Horns Of Dilemma: Dreaming And Waking Vision In The Theaetetus, Rosemary Desjardins

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

With these disarmingly simple words, addressed to Theaetetus towards the end of the dialogue named in his honor, Plato introduces what surely looks like a gratuitous puzzle. Occurring as an apparent digression just before the expected denouement of the discussion, the passage now known as Socrates' Dream is first elaborately developed, then to all intents and purposes elaborately, precisely, and definitively refuted. After which, the thread of the discussion is picked up where it was …

Cover And Table Of Contents, University Of Dayton

University of Dayton Review

No abstract provided.

Socratic Psychotherapy, Anthony Preus

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

Was Socrates a psychotherapist? Attempting to answer this question may lead toward a better understanding of Socrates as reported by Plato (and perhaps by Aristophanes and Xenophon), and it may help to clarify our own notion of psychotheraphy. Contra, it may be argued that psychotherapy as we understand it was invented by Charcot and Freud, so it would be anachronistic to ascribe it to any of the ancients; interpreted, this means that our concept of …

The Two-Worlds Argument And The Development Of Plato’S Metaphysics, William J. Prior

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In the final argument of the first part of the Parmenides, Plato raises an objection to the separate existence of Forms. This argument, which I shall call the "Two Worlds Argument" (TWA), takes up more space than any of the other arguments against the Theory of Forms (TF), occupying almost two Stephanos pages (133a-134e). It is, moreover, the only argument in the series about which Plato permits Parmenides to offer an editorial comment, the …

Birth And Death In Parmenides And Plato, David Gallop

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

At a turning point in the Phaedo (95e) Socrates says that the objections of his interlocutor, Cebes, call for a thorough inquiry into the reason (aitia) for coming-to-be (genesis) and destruction (phthora.) In this paper I wish to explore some philosophical antecedents of this inquiry, with a view to clarifying its significance in the Phaedo context, and ventilating it as a conceptual issue in its own right.

The Socratic Argument Against Akrasia In The Protagoras, Donald Zeyl

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In a famous argument at the end of the Protagoras Socrates undertakes to show (a) that the thesis that one can act contrary to what one knows to be best is "absurd," given the explanation of such actions as being due to the agent's being "overcome by pleasure," and given the hedonistic standards of evaluation to which most people are committed; and (b) that the correct explanation of such actions is that they are due …

Plato’S Theaetetus As Dialectic, Ronald Polansky

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

Plato's Theaetetus, having episteme (knowledge or science) as its principal topic, attracts considerable interest. Two lines of interpretation dominate the literature. Each provides a way for explaining the two most prominent features of the dialogue — that it fails to define knowledge and that Socrates refrains from introducing the forms to help himself out. The majority of commentators, adhering to the standard view of Plato — that he has a doctrine of forms which …

Logical Truth In Plato, Robin Smith

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In his works on the history of logic, I.M. Bochenski passes rather harsh judgment on Plato's practical competence in logic. His earlier Ancient Formal Logic claims that the dialogues are so full of "elementary blunders" that "the reading of them is almost intolerable to a logician." Some of the harshest censure has been removed from the later History of Formal Logic, but Bochenski still regards Plato as struggling inordinately hard to " solve logical …

Introduction, Jane S. Zembaty

University of Dayton Review

In the spring of 1981, the Philosophy Department of the University of Dayton held its 10th annual colloquium. The topic was Plato. Following its usual procedure, the department invited two prominent philosophers, David Gallop of Trent University and Nicholas P. White of the University of Michigan, to serve as Visiting Presiding Philosophers. It also sent out a call for papers. The eighty-plus papers submitted were subjected to blind reviewing; nine were selected for reading at the colloquium.

The Analysis Of “Being” In Plato, Henry Teloh

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

While ancient philosophers do not thematize the notion of existence, medieval philosophers do. Aristotle, for example, thinks that to be is to be in some category; it is to be predicatively something. Aquinas, on the other hand, because of a scriptural commitment to creationism, radically distinguishes necessary and contingent existents.

Cover And Table Of Contents, University Of Dayton

University of Dayton Review

No abstract provided.

Can Corporations Have Moral Responsibility?, Richard T. De George

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

The notion of collective moral responsibility has received relatively little treatment in the Anglo-American philosophical literature. This is surprising, given the increasingly widespread practice of ascribing moral responsibility to groups, peoples, and other collections of individuals. After World War II it was common for people to speak of the moral responsibility of the German people for Nazi atrocities; during the Viet Nam War many people accused America of immorality in carrying on an immoral war and using immoral tactics such as defoliation …

Collective Responsibility And The Nursing Profession, James L. Muyskens

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

Members of the nursing profession, for a variety of reasons including the nature of the profession but also economic exploitation and sexism, have been "caught in the middle." On the one hand, for example, the nurse is hired to carry out the directives of the physician and to support the policy of the hospital administration. The system cannot function as presently constituted without such co-operation and support in carrying out the decisions and policies of those higher up in the hierarchy. Yet, …

Three Models Of Responsibility For The Health Care Profession, Lawrence Ulrich

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

This paper will attempt to examine the various facets of the notion of responsibility as it applies to the interactions involving health care. Three parties can be identified in these interactions and their responsibilities are frequently interwoven to the point that it makes little sense to talk of one without the others. Of these three parties, two are generally individuals while the third is frequently designed as an abstract collective. The first party we can identify as the patient, the individual who …

Professional Responsibility And The Responsibility Of Professions, Kenneth Kipnis

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

If one studies the statements emerging from those organizations which undertake to speak for professions, one is struck by the codes of ethics and canons of professional responsibility which appear so frequently as to make them seem almost the hallmark of professionalism itself These codes appear to be based on the assumption that some actions can merit one assessment if undertaken by a certain professional, but another assessment if undertaken by some other person. For a philosopher, perhaps the most interesting thing …

Elements In A Theory Of Collective Responsibility, George F. Sefler

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

"Collective responsibility" is a term subject to various interpretations. Some seemingly pose philosophical problems; whereas, others are more readily acceptable. For example, assume that all the students in a classroom each cheated on an examination; collectively, then, the class is held responsible for cheating. Or, suppose three people decide to rob a bank. One masterminds the crime, another executes the robbery, and a third drives the getaway car. Here also, these men are collectively responsible for wrong-doing. These instances provide little room …

An Analysis Of Collectivity, H. James Nersoyan

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

It may be argued along Hobbesian and Benthamite lines that a collectivity is an abstraction and can therefore be responsible only in a metaphorical sense. When we speak of collective responsibility we in fact refer, this argument would run, to the responsibility of each individual within the collectivity. When, for example, we speak of the moral obligations of the medical profession we are speaking of the moral obligations of each physician as physician. One may continue to argue in the same vein …

Introduction, Michael A. Payne

University of Dayton Review

This issue of the University of Dayton Review presents ten papers focusing on the theme of "Collective Responsibility in the Professions." This was the theme of the Eighth Annual Philosophy Colloquium of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Dayton held in March 1979. The first nine articles in this issue comprise all of the papers read at the Eighth Annual Philosophy Colloquium, while the last article has been added to the collection because it complements the others and rounds out the issue.

The Justice Of Collective Responsibility, Joesph S. Ellin

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

We are sometimes tempted to make attributions of collective responsibility to the professions. We say, "The legal profession is responsible for Watergate"; "The medical profession has failed to provide adequate health care in the nation's ghettos"; "Economists are responsible for the appalling ignorance of economics among the general public". Do such claims make sense? Is it ever fair or just to attribute responsibility to a profession? If so, can responsibility be attributed to each and every member of that profession?

Physicians And The Community Of Physicians: An Account Of Collective Responsibilities, H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr.

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

In the course of this paper, I will first present a sketch of some of the cardinal characteristics of professions, as these characteristics bear upon understanding their collective responsibilities. After a brief review of these distinguishing characteristics, I will compare the different senses of obligations that one can attribute to professions and then to their members. I will first examine what is involved in simply being a member of a profession, then a member of a profession within a particular governmental organization …

Formal Organizations, Economic Freedom And Moral Agency, Patricia Hogue Werhane

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

In this paper I shall make three arguments. First, I shall argue that while society tends to hold corporations morally responsible, and while one might argue that corporations should be morally accountable, corporations, as formal institutions, are so structured that such accountability is philosophically inappropriate. I shall criticize certain recent suggestions offered to make sense out of corporate moral responsibility because these suggestions either confuse corporations with other kinds of institutions, or they tend to confuse the concept of social responsibility with …

Collective Responsibility In Engineering, John Fielder

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the eighth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1979.

Although the concept of collective responsibility adopted by the engineering profession is essentially the same as that of other professional groups, there are special difficulties that attend the realization of that concept. A large majority of engineers are employed by organizations rather than engaged in independent practice and, as a consequence, their ability to exercise collective responsibility is greatly limited. Since collective responsibility is an important characteristic of professionalism, this result raises serious questions about the status of engineering as a profession. …

Skepticism, Psychology, And Philosophical Criteria, Kristin Shrader

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: This paper was read at the fourth annual University of Dayton Philosophy Colloquium, held in 1974.

Throughout the ages, philosophers seem to have attempted to steer a course between the Scylla of dogmatism and the Charybdis of relativism or skepticism. Perhaps this course has been stormy because philosophical dogmatism and the making of ontological and evaluative commitments can be easily caricatured into closed-mindedness. On the other hand, the relativism sometimes implicit in the jargon of philosophical neutrality threatens to collapse Sophia into sophistry. My solution to the problem of philosophical neutrality rests on three theses, the substantiation of …