Ranking Knowledge in the Philebus

Abstract

Socrates’ concise examination of intelligence in the Philebus is framed with the odd ambition to discover which knowledges are more closely related to knowledge. If we take Plato’s epistemology here to be ‘paradeigmatist’, this and other oddities of the passage disappear; we can then read it as articulating that paradigm, setting procedural as well as objectual constraints on perfect knowledge. While all cognitive disciplines, however lowly, aim at this perfect knowledge, most necessarily fall short of this ideal. This explains Socrates’ extraordinary inclusiveness and simultaneous ambivalence about the cognitive value and success of ordinary crafts, for the paradeigmatist can grant or withdraw knowledge-claims flexibly, but not arbitrarily, and without equivocation on ‘knowing’. In the Philebus, this provides an understanding of everyday cognitive practices as beneficial and good, apart from their practical usefulness, and it illuminates one aspect of the Philebus’ claim that pleasures are themselves truth-apt, and truth-aiming.