Article Posted – “On Two Socratic Questions” (On Plato’s Euthypro)

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Under the research section, I’ve posted a link to my new article on Plato’s Euthyphro, which I consider to be an examination of the possibility of posing Socrates’ famous question, ti esti touto. It was just published in The St. John’s Review.

In lieu of an abstract, here’s a shortened version of the first paragraph:

The most famous Socratic question—ti esti touto?—is often preceded by a far less famous, but more fundamental question—esti touto ti? Though this question is posed in many dialogues with respect to myriad topics, in every instance it receives but one answer: it is something, namely something that is. The dialogue devoted to why this question always meets with an affirmative answer would appear to be the Parmenides, for there Parmenides throws into question whether the eidē are, only to establish that, if we have opinions that there is some unity in being, such unity must be. Nevertheless, the dramatic setting of the Parmenides is the quarreling of the Pre-Socratic schools, and the popular dismissal of philosophy that their quarreling engendered. For a dialogue that establishes that the object of inquiry is simply because we have opinions about it, we must, as I hope to show, turn to the Euthyphro.