Hi All,
Here is an abstract that Paul Carron and I worked up for the Midwest Christian Philosophers meeting.
Here is an abstract that Paul Carron and I worked up for the Midwest Christian Philosophers meeting.
“Advice to a Christian
Philosopher – Pray like Socrates!”
Anne-Marie Schultz
and Paul E. Carron
Honors College,
Baylor University
Anne_Marie_Schultz@baylor.edu
In this
essay we make two related claims: the first is that Socratic knowledge consists
of more than cognitive assent to propositional truth claims: as Hadot states,
“When Socrates said that virtue is knowledge, he was not using ‘knowledge’ to
mean pure, abstract knowledge of the good. Rather, he meant knowledge which
chooses and wants the good—in other words, an inner disposition in which
thought, will, and desire are one.”[1] The second related claim is the main focus of
this essay: cultivating this unified inner disposition requires practices
alongside discourse – indeed, it demands extra-rational sources of
knowledge. Many religious traditions
include the idea that knowledge is more than cognitive assent and therefore have
other means (besides just rational discourse) to attaining that knowledge. For instance, strains in the Buddhist and
Christian traditions include prayer and other meditative techniques as methods
of coming to a greater understanding of reality and the self. The Socratic dialogues also contain hints of
a number of “extra-rational” prayer-like sources of knowledge such as: intense
dialectical philosophical discussion; taking the Delphic oracle seriously
through inquiry (which we argue is a display of piety and not anti-religious
rationalism contra Vlastos); spiritual exercises such as mediation as
illustrated in Socrates’ moments of silence in the Symposium and the Phaedo;
the intense concentration required to even briefly glimpse true beauty in the
assent passage in the Symposium;
indications of the longer way in the Republic;
qualifications about complete discursive knowledge of the good in numerous
dialogues; and the turn to myth at the end of the Republic, Phaedo, and Gorgias. We argue that taken together
these various instances demonstrate that Socratic knowledge is not acquired
through rational discourse alone, but through a number of prayer-like methods
that help the self to cultivate a unified disposition of love for the
good. Furthermore, the Socratic model
offers productive ways of thinking about philosophical Christian experience in
the contemporary world, thereby illustrating what is at the heart of Platinga’s
exhortations to Christian philosophers: Be like Socrates.
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