Jonathan Lavilla (ILCLI (UPV/EHU))
Date: December 18th, 15:00.
Venue: Carlos Santamaria - Room A2.
Abstract:
In my talk I will try to shed light on the way in which Plato understands knowledge and language, in order to focus on their relation. To do so, I will first consider what knowledge consists in for Plato, showing that it is primarily understood as accordance between reality and thought or propositions. Then, I will present dialectic as the correct method to obtain knowledge. Dialectic involves a twofold procedure, namely the gathering of the multiple and scattered realities that share a common and unique essence and the understanding how a single reality can appear in multiple ways. The above makes clear that for Plato obtaining knowledge lies in the correct classification of reality in different genres and species. That means that, for Plato, language is an epistemologically important tool. Not only do we distinguish different objects using different words, but we also gather different things under a single genre by calling them using the same terms. This could lead someone to believe that, according to Plato, one could know what reality is through the correct learning of the language. Quite the opposite, even if Plato considers language a key tool for structuring knowledge —the term “dialectic” clearly suggests that—, we cannot trust language, since terms and language don’t have a natural correctness; that is to say, they are not naturally linked with the objects they refer to. Contrary to some Plato’s contemporaries that held the view that we can learn reality by means of language, Plato holds that the only way to guarantee that our propositions and thoughts are correct is by trying to know reality itself and not reality as represented by our language. Taking that into account, I will defend that, according to Plato, language is a necessary tool for representing and classifying reality, but, due to the fact that its link with reality is conventional, if one aims to know, he/she has to examine reality itself and not just the language or propositions about reality. This is why the one who knows reality is the only one that can correctly judge if the words, but also speeches, accurately represent reality.