


The dialogue “Theaetetus” has once again become famous due to discussion on the concept ‘knowledge’ in analytic philosophy. In my paper, I provide a novel interpretation of this dialogue and demonstrate how it can be applied for a specification of hermeneutics. For this, I revisit this dialogue and argue, against the dominant view, that Plato achieves a positive result concerning the concept of knowledge. I show that this kind of knowledge can be interpreted as a special kind of ‘practical knowledge’ and used for the reconstruction of a hermeneutic tradition à la Dilthey. I then demonstrate the main characteristics of this kind of knowledge analysing the relationship between the concepts ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief ’ and between the concepts ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’, and challenging the standard definition of knowledge as a true justified belief from the hermeneutic perspective. One methodological implication of my paper may be to challenge the dominant and sometimes eliminative projects assuming that all knowledge can be somehow reduced to propositional knowledge.



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Maja Soboleva
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Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge
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Maja Soboleva
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Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge
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                                                         trópos • anno X • numero 1 • 2017 – ISBN 978-88-255-0482-8
                                                             DOI 10.4399/97888255048283 – pag. 33-51 (giugno 2017)




                            Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge
                                                                                   Maja Soboleva⇤




    abstract: The dialogue “Theaetetus” has once again become famous due to discus-
       sion on the concept ‘knowledge’ in analytic philosophy. In my paper, I provide a
       novel interpretation of this dialogue and demonstrate how it can be applied for a
       specification of hermeneutics. For this, I revisit this dialogue and argue, against
       the dominant view, that Plato achieves a positive result concerning the concept
       of knowledge. I show that this kind of knowledge can be interpreted as a special
       kind of ‘practical knowledge’ and used for the reconstruction of a hermeneutic
       tradition à la Dilthey. I then demonstrate the main characteristics of this kind of
       knowledge analysing the relationship between the concepts ‘knowledge’ and
       ‘belief ’ and between the concepts ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’, and challenging the
       standard definition of knowledge as a true justified belief from the hermeneutic
       perspective. One methodological implication of my paper may be to challenge
       the dominant and sometimes eliminative projects assuming that all knowledge
       can be somehow reduced to propositional knowledge.

    keywords: hermeneutics; knowledge; Plato; Theaetetus; practical knowledge;
       intellectual perception; belief; truth.

Knowledge is a fundamental epistemological term right at the centre of
permanent philosophical debates, and until today no generally accepted defi-
nition of knowledge has been found. As a rule, contemporary epistemology
diVerentiates between two main kinds of knowledge: propositional and
practical. Propositional knowledge has a formula ‘know that’ and concerns
the truth–value of sentences. Practical knowledge is usually regarded as
a skill set and underlies the formula ‘know how’. In this paper, I provide
a further specification of the concept ‘practical knowledge’ and add a less
familiar variety using a hermeneutic approach. Thus, the term ‘practical
knowledge’ has to be distinguished from the above mentioned. Another
distinction must be drawn between this kind of practical knowledge and
the practical knowledge as the most notably required for praxis, understood
in the Aristotelian sense of deliberative action. In hermeneutics, the term
‘practical knowledge’ was explicitly introduced by Georg Misch and Josef
König. It means ‘knowing one thing as something of a certain kind through
    ⇤
      Private Lecturer (Privat–Dozentin) at Philipps–University of Marburg (soboleva@mailer.uni
–marburg.de).


                                                                                                               33
34        Maja Soboleva


productive articulation’. The word ‘practical’ should indicate that this kind
of knowledge emerges through the transformation of everyday experiences
into symbols. In this sense, this kind of practical knowledge can be under-
stood in the more usual sense, as the opposite of the theoretical knowledge.
The hermeneutic character of this practical knowledge consists in that that
it shapes and forms human reality.
    The origin of the knowledge I call ‘hermeneutic practical knowledge’
can be already found in Plato. An alternative interpretation of the dialogue
“Theaetetus” allows us to argue against the common view that Plato achie-
ves a positive result concerning the concept of knowledge in this text. It
is then possible to show that the specific kind of knowledge the dialogue
deals with has become the basic or paradigmatic kind of knowledge in the
hermeneutic tradition of Georg Misch, Martin Heidegger and Josef König,
who challenged the traditional theory of knowledge which was oriented to
discursive thinking. The characteristic features of this type of knowledge
can be reconstructed through the analysis of relationships between the
concepts ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief ’ and between the concepts ‘knowledge’
and ‘truth’ from the hermeneutic perspective.
    One methodological implication of my paper may be that, by applying to
the history of philosophy, it is not only possible to demonstrate an alternative
approach to the concept of practical knowledge, but also to challenge the
dominant and sometimes eliminative projects assuming that propositional
knowledge is the only kind of knowledge and that all apparently other kinds
of knowledge must be reduced to propositional knowledge or otherwise
integrated into it.1


1. Plato’s Approach to the Concept ‘Knowledge’

The central question in the dialogue “Theaetetus” is “what is knowledge?”
After rejecting an ostensive definition of knowledge through listing diVerent
domains of knowledge such as geometry, astronomy, harmony, arithmetic
(145a–c) as well as an account of knowledge as practical skills (shoemaker,
carpentering) (146d–e), Socrates explains that his task is to clarify the term
‘knowledge’. According to the dominant interpretation of this dialogue,
he discusses three definitions of knowledge, namely knowledge as percep-
tion, knowledge as a true belief and knowledge as a true belief with an
account.2 Against this view, it should be stressed that Socrates’ discussion
       1. Cp. e.g. „As usual, ‘knowledge’ is understood as propositional knowledge”. (Williamson 2000:
185)
   2. For example, Timothy Chappell (2013) writes: “The Theaetetus reviews three definitions of
knowledge in turn; plus, in a preliminary discussion, one would–be definition which, it is said, does
                                                        Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge            35


of perception includes the discussion not only of sensual, but also (a kind
of ) intellectual perception (doxazein) (184b–187a)3 ; and, on my account, it
is his understanding of knowledge as intellectual perception that gives an an-
swer to the ultimate question of the dialogue. Thus, the dialogue discusses
four definitions of knowledge and rejects only three of them: “knowledge
is neither perception nor true judgement, nor an account added to true
judgement” (210a–b). To strengthen my position with which I am pretty
much alone among my contemporary colleagues, I refer to Paul Natorp.
He also believed that Plato “prefers, in the form of a mere supplement to
the hereby completed first part of the study, to give a short, but very direct
and positive explanation of the function of thought that forms the centre of
the whole exposition and, though psychologically introduced, in fact, reveals
the deepest foundation of Plato’s logic” (Natorp 1921: 111)4 . To prove my thesis,
let us consider this dialogue in more detail.

1.1. Knowledge as Sensual Perception

Plato (in the person of Socrates) rejects the sensualistic theory of perception
both in the form of subjective relativism represented by Protagoras, according
to whom a man is the measure of all things, and in the form of objective
relativism represented by Heraclitus’ theory of the flux of all things. In Plato’s
view, the main flaw in understanding knowledge as sensual perception is
either a situation when “neither a dog nor ‘the man in the street’ is a
measure of anything at all” (171 c), or a situation when a common belief is
true “at the time when it seems that way and for just as long as it so seems”
(172 b). Thus the account of knowledge as sensual perception leads either
to epistemological scepticism and anarchism or epistemological authoritarianism.

1.2. Knowledge as Intellectual Perception

Plato’s alternative proposal is to replace a sensory perception with an in-
tellectual. According to him, what is encountered is experienced not with

not really count. Each of these proposals is rejected, and no alternative is explicitly oVered. Thus we
complete the dialogue without discovering what knowledge is. We discover only three things that
knowledge is not (Theaetetus 210c; cp. 183a5, 187a1).” Cp. McDowell 1973, Burnyeat 1990, Williams
1992, Brown 1993, Hardy 2001, Becker 2007.
      3. Cp. to Kurt von Fritz (1945: 242) who in his analysis of pre–Socratic usage of the term ‘nous’
pointed out that “the intuitional element is still present in Plato’s and Aristotle’s concepts of noos”.
      4. According to Paul Natorp, Plato prefers „in Form eines bloßen Nachtrags zum hiermit abge-
schlossenen ersten Teil der Untersuchung eine kurze, doch ganz direkte und positive Ausführung
der Denkfunktion zu geben, die in der Tat das Zentrum der ganzen Darlegung bildet und, wiewohl
psychologisch eingeführt, wirklich das tiefste Fundament der platonischen Logik enthüllt.“ (Natorp 1921:
111).
36       Maja Soboleva


the senses, but through them (184 c). The perceiving organ is not the sen-
sorium, but the soul, or, using modern terminology, the consciousness.
The senses are just tools, instruments for the soul. They are not strictly
necessary for knowledge “while the soul considers some things through
the bodily powers, [but — M.S.] there are others which it considers alone
and through itself ” (185 e). Among those things are being and not–being,
likeness and unlikeness, sameness and diVerence (185 d). The soul is also
able to distinguish numerical as well as qualitative characteristics (even/odd
or beautiful/ugly, just/unjust, cow/horse) (190 b–c). It is the function of the
soul to define “the common features of everything” “through itself ” (185
e), to compare things, to investigate being bringing “the past and present
in relation to the future” (186 b). Based on these considerations, one can
conclude that the soul gives conceptual structure to the perceived, be it of
sensual or intellectual nature, material or ideal things. Thus, the function
of the soul consists in providing categorial distinctions. As John Burnet puts
it: “We have the beginning of a theory of what were afterwards called
Categories.” (Burnet 1964: 200)
    Plato connects this specific faculty of the soul with its ability to perceive
some one thing as something definitive. “To mean some one thing” is for him
analogous to sensual perceptions such as seeing, hearing or touching some one
thing which is (189 a–c).5 To express this, he uses the direct object constructions.
To mean something is, hence, to take one thing as being something of a certain
kind. Through the meaningful reference to the thing the soul objectivizes it
as being such–and–such. What one perceives through the soul, one directly
and immediate knows. This knowledge, based on understanding or grasping
one object — thing or quality — as something in and through the meaning and
on distinguishing it from other things can be considered as basic or primary
knowledge. Plato calls this form of knowing “doxazein” (187a).

      5. There are a lot of contemporary scholars who assume that Plato thinks of knowledge as a sort of
grasping. However they don’t draw the conclusions from this fact. For example, Myles Burnyeat (1990)
argued that Plato’s conception of knowledge is primarily concerned with understanding rather than
justification. Nevertheless, he sees the understanding as a necessary condition of knowledge, but not
as the knowledge itself. Jörg Hardy (2001: 156) writes for example: „Was den epistemischen Status des
Wahrnehmens anbetrifft, so verfügen wir nach Platons Auffassung offenbar über ein potenzielles Wissen
über das ‘Was–es–ist’ einer Sache, das auf dem Wege der Wahrnehmung erworben wird.“ (“Regarding
the epistemic status of perception, we have, according to Plato, at our disposition the potential knowledge
of ‘what–it–is’ of a thing, which we acquired through perception.”). He does not develop this outcome,
but sticks with the traditional view identifying belief with propositional judgement and therefore
treats Plato’s arguments against the second definition of knowledge as “error–paradoxes”. Alexander
Becker concludes (Platon 2007: 316): „Wissen muß nämlich, so hatte sich herausgestellt, Produkt der
verknüpfenden Tätigkeit der Seele sein, und ‘meinen’ sei der Ausdruck für die Tätigkeit der Seele, wenn
sie sich ‘für sich selbst mit dem beschäftigt, was ist’ (187a5f.)“ (“Namely, knowledge must be. . . the
product of activity of the soul and ‘to mean’ is the expression of this activity of the soul ‘when it is busy
by itself about the things which are.’”) But he does not accept this concept of knowledge because he
considers the latter as having a propositional structure.
                                                           Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge              37


    On my reading, it is this kind of knowledge which Plato examines further
on in the dialogue, rejecting the knowledge definitions as true belief and as
true belief with an account. Because of this negative strategy, his intention was
not understood and the dialogue is traditionally regarded as a failed attempt
of defining knowledge.6 It also contains, many scholars claim, numerous
“inconsistencies” (Bostock 1988; Hardy 2001; Becker 2007). However, the
novel assumption that the dialogue advocates the knowledge of ‘something
as something’ sheds new light on it and provides a satisfying explanation
of its apparent ‘puzzles’. In general, the acceptance of this starting point
allows for restructuring of the dialogue as concerning the main properties
of basic knowledge. They can be deduced from Plato’s analysis of the false
beliefs.7 I shall demonstrate that to these properties of knowledge belong
its absolute certainty (188a–c), the distinctness (188d–191c), the necessity for
judgments (191d–199d), the origin from personal experience (199e–200d), and
the evidence (200d–209b). Below, the main arguments are briefly outlined.

1.3. The Absolute Certainty (188a–c)

In the dialogue, Socrates analyses the sensual perceptive experience under
the so–called ‘normal conditions’ and assumes that one either knows or
does not know what one perceives, and that it is impossible both to know
and not to know it at the same time. He examines four possibilities of how
one can refer to a perceived object: one mistakes something one knows for
something else one knows; one mistakes something one does not know
for something else one does not know; one mistakes something one does
not know for something else one does know; one mistakes something
one knows for something else one does not know. Since none of these
combinations can take place because of everything it is true that either one
     6. The typical view is that the dialogue “ends in an impasse” (Chappell 2013). But another reading
of this dialogue is possible. Cf., e.g., with Paul Natorp’s view who writes: „Für den, der zu lesen weiß,
ist der Theaetet keineswegs ohne positives und in gewissem Sinne abschließendes Ergebnis; man soll
es nur nicht in platter Formulierung am Ende suchen.“ (“For those who know how to read, Theaetetus
is by no means without a positive and in a certain sense final outcome; one should only not look for
the platitudinous formulation at the end.” (Natorp 1921: 91) He points to the difficulty which consists in
that „daß die Untersuchung ganz vom Gegenpol des Gesuchten ausgeht“ (“that the study begins with
the opposite pole to the sought–after.” (Natorp 1921: 91) Rosemary Desjardins (1990) and Ron Polansky
(1992) find also a positive outcome in the dialogue, even if their interpretations are very different.
     7. Much has been written on the discussion of false belief. The helpful overview of the most
representative interpretations is given by Timothy Chappell 2005 and Alexander Becker 2007. These
interpretations share one common feature, namely they analyse the false beliefs from the perspective of
refutation of the definitions of knowledge as true belief and true belief with an account. Some authors
claim that Plato’s models of the mind “are designed to explain how it is possible to make mistakes”
(Rowett 2012: 151). In my view, the discussion of false beliefs is rather an integral part of Plato’s defence
of his understanding of knowledge as a meaningful reference to the world; and his models are directed
to demonstrate that regarding this kind of knowledge it is rather impossible to make mistakes.
38      Maja Soboleva


knows it or one does not know it, it is impossible to have false knowledge
about the perceived object. Hence, we can conclude, this kind of knowledge
is absolutely certain.8
    This passage has controversial interpretations, most of which share a
view that it is about the factual sensory perception. However, this construc-
tion encounters logical inconsistency which sometimes is attributed to Plato.
According to Crombie (1963: 111), for example, Plato fails to see the diVeren-
ce between “being acquainted with X” and “being familiar with X”. Such
reproaches can be avoided if we assume that Plato wants to demonstrate
the structure of sensory perception in this passage. He wants to show that
sensory perception is not a verifiable process of absorbing and interpreting
‘data’, but, on the contrary, the meaning of the perceived phenomena lies
already in this experience. Thus, there is no logical distinction between the
subject to be identified and the concept under which it is identified. When
we say that we see or hear something, we are expressing the fact that a
specific meaningful perception is apparent to us, wherein no alternative
perceptions are relevant. This sensual perception can be understood as a
simple non–predicative act which has conceptual character.

1.4. Distinctness (188d–191c)

Further on in the dialogue Socrates asks whether the source of error can lie
in the meaning of something that is not. His answer is that one who means
something means something that is and cannot mean anything that is not.
He develops, hence, the alternative that one either means something or
does not mean at all because there can be no beliefs about nothing. From
this follows that there is no thinking without what is thought; thinking and
what is thought belong together. Taking into account these considerations,
the asked question should be answered negatively.
    In line with it, Socrates claims that allodoxia — the confusion of known,
simultaneous representations in mind — is impossible. Someone who means
both of two representations cannot mean that the one representation is the
other. This text section has also elicited intense discussions. In my view, the
metaphor of the dialogue which the soul conducts with itself provides the
key to a proper understanding of it. This metaphor can be interpreted in the
sense that the inner dialogue is a condition for a categorially diVerentiated
perception, whereby each meaning is strictly identified within the entire
categorial network and subordinated to the logical–semantic unity of the
     8. Cp. Bernard Williams who concludes, that “the upshot of the argument, in eVect, is that it is
a necessary condition of mistaking two items for one another that one should know both of them,
but this is also a suYcient condition of knowing them apart — that is to say, of not mistaking them”
(Plato 1992: XV).
                                                      Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge          39


soul.9 Otherwise, the soul would contradict itself and would not be able
to serve as a resource of knowledge. The metaphor of the inner dialogue
shows that one knows what one is directly aware of, and this knowledge is
distinct. One can only think X as X (and not as Y); any mistake is ruled out.

1.5. The Necessity for Judgments (191d–199d)

Socrates’ comparison of the soul with a wax tablet on which perceptions
and thoughts have left their marks is another obstacle for the consensus
about the interpretation of the dialogue. On my reading, this metaphor
illustrates the idea that the origin of knowledge is to be sought in the
intentionality of meaning. Analogous to seeing or hearing something, one can
mean something as something. This process of meaning–formation which
involves referring to and identifying a thing, not saying something else about
it produces the primary knowledge that enables discursive judgements.
Using the model of the wax tablet, Socrates shows that the one possible
way to form a wrong belief is the incorrect application of the representation
stored in the soul to the actual sensory perception. However, even in this
case the subject who applies the current perception to the content of his
memory possesses already the knowledge of them both.
    The metaphor of the aviary (197c) continues the topic of wrong belief and
serves finally to show that one has to distinguish between two mental states,
namely “to possess knowledge” and “to have knowledge”. The first can
be interpreted as the acquired and buVered knowledge, the second as the
operative, actual knowledge.10 To be able to operate with knowledge, one
must already possess it. It can happen that one possesses true knowledge,
but makes mistakes by using it. Nevertheless, knowledge is a necessary
condition both for true and false beliefs.11

1.6. The Origin from Personal Experience (199e–200d)

Using the jury example Socrates shows the diVerence between direct know-
ledge of eye witnesses and correct beliefs of judges which are achieved via
testimony “without knowledge” (201c). The assumption that the dialogue
advocates the knowledge of ‘something as something’ puts a new spin on

     9. Cp. Natorp who interprets the passage 189c as follows: „Hiermit ist klar die Bewußtsein-
seinheit als Grundfunktion der Erkenntnis ausgesprochen.“ (“Hereby is clearly expressed the unity of
consciousness as a basal function of cognition.”) (Natorp 1921: 91)
    10. Cp. to Bernard Williams, who calls these forms of knowledge „dispositional“ and „knowledge
in action“ (Plato 1992: XVI)
    11. Cp. to Bernard Williams who has the same opinion: “knowledge is necessary for error” (Plato
1992: XVII)
40      Maja Soboleva


this text part. This passage can be interpreted in the sense that knowledge
necessarily emerges from the personal experience of the subject, from her
acquaintance with the phenomenon, while true belief can be a result of
reflection (inference, conjecture).12 This kind of experiential knowledge is
directed towards things and states of aVairs rather than propositions.

1.7. The Evidence (200d–209b)

The so–called Dream Theory which seeks to construct knowable complexes
(“whole”, “sum” and “totality”) from unknowable elements is refuted by
Socrates in two steps. If the complex represents a whole without parts, it
can be seen as a single element which is unknowable. This contradicts the
original assumption that complexes are knowable. Or, one can argue that
a knowable complex is constructed of the sum of unknowable parts. But
this is an absurd idea. It follows from this that elements have to be known.
Socrates claims that “the elements are much more clearly known, and the
knowledge of them is more decisive for the mastery of any branch of study
than knowledge of the complex” (206 b). According to him, the knowledge
of an element consists in its distinction from other elements; an element is,
hence, a definite unit.
    After the rejection of the Dream Theory, Plato shows that a definition
of knowledge as a true belief with explanation is unsustainable. The three
possible forms of explanation — an expression of thought, an enumeration
of the parts of a thing and a detection of distinguishing characteristics what
marks the thing oV from another — do not contribute to the understanding
of the term ‘knowledge’. The first and the final explanations appear to be
redundant: They only articulate the distinction that de facto has already been
done. Besides, the final definition — knowledge being a true belief combined
with the knowledge of the distinguishing property — is formally incorrect,
since the term ‘knowledge’ is used both in the definiendum and the definiens.
The explanation based on an enumeration of all elements of a whole is
discarded because the knowledge of elements is diVerent in comparing with
the knowledge of a whole and contributes little to it, even though without
the knowledge of the elements the knowledge of the whole is impossible.
    The proposed new reading of the dialogue prepares the following con-
clusion: through the rejection of the Dream Theory and the definition of
knowledge as true belief, Plato points out that knowledge of a thing as
such–and–such is evident and does not need any theoretical verification.

    12. Cp. Tamer Nawar (2013: 1053) who has the same opinion: “that if it is to be knowledge, then
it has to be something the agent has achieved for themselves and as a result of their own agency (and
not the agency of another)”.
                                           Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge   41


    To sum up, the assumption that the dialogue concerns knowledge as a
kind of intellectual perception allows us to re–read it as having a consistent
logical structure. Within the larger picture of the dialogue as a whole, this
structure looks as follows: rejecting the definition of knowledge as a true
belief, Plato shows that neither the comparison of current perceptions nor
the comparison of actual mental representations with each other can lead to
an error. Mistakes are possible about the incorrect application of the repre-
sentations to the sensual phenomena or about logical interrelations of the
mental representations. In both cases, the knowledge in form of knowing
the concepts has already existed. Refuting the definition of knowledge as a
true belief with explanation, Plato shows that any explanation is superfluous:
it either explicates what is already known or misses its target.
    This negative strategy leads not to the conclusion that Plato could not
clarify the concept of knowledge, but rather to the conclusion that it offers a
carefully developed account of knowledge. The knowledge in the analyzed
dialogue has to be understood as the simple experiential knowledge of one
thing as a something being such–and–such. It is knowledge of unitary objects,
knowledge of particular things and states of affair. In this sense, to know a
phenomenon means to have a mental representation or a concept of it, since,
unless one distinguishes a thing from other things, one cannot even think of it.
    In spite of the negative strategy, the dialogue, in fact, elaborates the main
characteristics of this basic knowledge as the certainty, the distinctiveness,
and the evidence which can be reconstructed in virtue of Socrates’ analysis
of mistakes. On this reading, the dialogue has a positive outcome: kno-
wledge arises from the intellectual perception as a meaningful reference
to phenomena that precedes the propositional judgment and enables it.
We can assume that due to this kind of knowledge the world becomes
semantically structured.


2. Practical Knowledge as Hermeneutic Knowledge

There is much discussion concerning the concept of knowledge in Plato’s
“Theaetetus”. The scholars committed to analytic philosophy are apt to consi-
der it as propositional knowledge (McDowell 1973, Bostock 1988, Hardy 2001,
Chappell 2005, Becker 2007), while the scholars committed to hermeneutics
construe it as non–propositional knowledge. For example, Schleiermacher
used the term ‘Vorstellung’ (representation) by translating this dialogue and
not the term ‘Urteil’ (judgment) to escape false associations with the pro-
positional structure of the knowledge that the dialogue handles. Heidegger
understood Plato’s term “episteme” in this dialogue as “grasp of being”
(Heidegger 1988, 159). Some scholars like Chappell propose a middle way
42      Maja Soboleva


claiming that “Greek idiom can readily treat the object of propositional
knowledge. . . as an object considered as having a quality. We may always
say that Greek treats what is known in propositional knowledge as just one
special case of what is known as objectual knowledge.” (Chappell 2005: 32).
    On my account, this discussion is provoked through the somehow ‘am-
bitious’ understanding of knowledge as inferential and as operating with
existing concepts.13 This ‘ambitious’ concept of knowledge can be confron-
ted with a ‘modest’ one that has a focus on non–discursive concept–building.
Using Plato’s metaphor of discursus, we can say that in the first case ‘to know
something’ means ‘to say something about something else’; in the second
case it means just ‘to say what is’. While the former deals with the analysis
of things, the latter constitutes things as such. In this sense, Heidegger inter-
prets Plato’s concept of ‘knowledge’ as „Präsent–haben der Dinge“ (“to have
things in their actuality”). According to him, to know something in Plato’s
sense means „das Seiende in seinem Sinn zu begreifen“ (“to grasp being in
its essence”) (1988: 160). Heidegger considers this knowledge to be evident,
distinct and necessary for propositional knowledge. Even if his ontological
approach is somehow suspect, it is nevertheless a remarkable attempt to
dissociate Plato’s theory of knowledge from its Aristotelian reception, still
dominant today, which sees the “doxazein” as a judgment (logical reaso-
ning) and, hence, as a proposition. As a side note, it is worth to mention that
Platonism forms a background for Heidegger’s own conception of meaning.
    A hermeneutic reading of “Theaetetus” may be that to know a certain
thing means to have a grasp of it; to grasp a thing means to give it a name;
and to give a name to a thing means to explicate and generalize a special
cognitive experience toward it. That is what results in Plato’s concept of
a thing (doxa).14 The latter is logos, “one statement made not with a voice
addressing to an Other, but silent within itself ” („eine Aussage, nicht zu
einem Andern mit der Stimme, sondern schweigend bei sich selbst getan“)
(Natorp 1921: 112). Being taken in this original sense (and not in the sense
of ‘belief ’ or ‘opinion’), ‘doxa’ which is the inherent part of any perception
stipulates ‘what is’ as truth. This ‘doxa’ can be interpreted in the sense that
one thinks not about things, but one thinks things. ‘Doxa alethes’ meets the
requirement that knowledge is always right about the thing it knows. Yet,
‘doxa’ is not identical with a process of logical deduction in the sense of
formal logic; it is still its primary function to be in direct touch with ultimate
reality. It reaches this reality not as a result of discursive, logical process and

    13. The most common translation of the Greek term ‘doxazein’ into English is “judgment”.
This word gives an impression that it is all about the operating with ready concepts. Recently, some
attempts were made to escape the usage of this word. For example, Catherine Rowett (2012) proposes,
instead, the term “discernment”.
    14. The term ‘thing’ includes material and ideal things, properties, etc.
                                                      Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge          43


pure contemplation, but in a practical–hermeneutic way through which
things uncover themselves through articulation.
    This discussion on the tern “knowledge” is of more than merely histo-
rical, antiquarian interest. It is possible to show that this Plato’s line was
continued in modern hermeneutics.15 Moreover, if we define the knowing
“what something is” as practical hermeneutic knowledge, we can show that
this kind of knowledge was the main concern of hermeneutics in the twen-
tieth century represented by such philosophers as Georg Misch, Martin
Heidegger and Josef König. These philosophers have in common that they
tried to reform the traditional logic and the traditional theory of knowledge
which was oriented to the formalism and propositionalism. For it, they
proposed diVerent approaches aimed at the explanation of how knowledge
originates. These theories can be called hermeneutic theories of meaning. The
starting point for their criticism and for their ‘extension’ of logic in the
direction of theory of meaning was the reflection on the knowledge of
“what something is”. Their explanative models are the theory of “evocative
discourses” (Misch), the theory of the “hermeneutic as” (Heidegger) and
the theory of “know as” (König). Below, I am giving a brief overview of
these theories from the perspective of this paper.
    Georg Misch challenged the traditional theory of knowledge with his
project of a “hermeneutic logic” founded on a philosophy of life. He identi-
fied life with articulation (Ausdruck) and considered it as a set of multiple
forms of knowledge reflecting diVerent forms of rationality. In turn, he un-
derstood knowledge as the form of “self–representation” of life. In particular,
human life — “the world of words” (Misch) — articulates itself in two kinds
of language: the “pure discursive” and the “evocative” languages which have
diVerent logical foundations. The “evocative” utterance reflects creative
hermeneutic productivity, while the “discursive” utterance is directed to
analysis of existing phenomena. The “discursive” knowledge is based on the
formal logical reflection. By contrast, the evocative concepts or, in terms
of Misch, “hermeneutical constructions” (“hermeneutische Gestaltungen”)
are products of the immediate articulation of cognitive experience incorpo-
rated in practical activity of the individual. The “evocative” discourse can
be interpreted as hermeneutic practical knowledge, for it emerges from the
articulation of lived experience (Erlebnis) by an individual.

    15. Of course, there are also earlier candidates who can be named. Nietzsche who saw the
concepts as “merely the residue of a metaphor” (1966: 315) and signified his philosophy as “reversed
Platonism” (1988: 199) had contributed most to the development of hermeneutics. Dilthey’s herme-
neutic investigations focused on the so–called “concrete concepts” and were aimed to deduction
of logical categories from the ‘real’ categories of life. Instead of formal analysis of phenomena he
concentrated on their ‘genetic’ analysis and intended to develop a general theory of knowledge
which would embrace both propositional and non–propositional forms of thinking and cognition.
44       Maja Soboleva


    Misch’s main attention belongs to the “evocative” utterances whose
“hermeneutic logic” he tried to develop. This logic comprises “the logic of
things, the logic of creativity, the logic of the heart, and the logic of life”
(Misch 1999: 29). It includes not only discursive thinking, but also intuition
and insight. Beside causality, it accentuates significance (Bedeutsamkeit) as a
principle of meaning–making. The premise for his analysis of the “evocative”
utterances is the understanding of human mind as logos in Plato’s sense
which combines language and thought. This assumption allowed him to
separate word from concept (BegriV ) and meaning (Bedeutung) from logical
judgment (Urteil) and to introduce a wide concept of knowledge including
propositional and non–propositional forms.16
    Heidegger’s ‘destruction’ of Aristotelian metaphysics in “Being and Time”
can be interpreted as replacement of the theoretical sentences through
the practical. Under the theoretical sentences I understand Heidegger’s
apophantic sentences that describe things as objective and independent of
a human being, and having a truth–value. The objective being as a corre-
late of the theoretical sentences that Heidegger called “das Vorhandene”
(“present–at–hand” or “extant” being) is opposed to the form of being cal-
led “das Zuhandene” (“ready–to–hand” or “available” being). This second
kind of being results from the sentences whose structure is based upon
the “hermeneutic as” (das hermeneutische Als). These sentences can be
called ‘practical’ sentences since they reflect the human pre–discursive un-
derstanding of being. This understanding is not an explicit reasoning based
on formal–logical inference, but is integrated into practical activity and
emerges from it as reflecting significance of things and processes from the
perspective of humanity. Besides, they refer to the world not by means of
predication, but through articulation.
    Heidegger shows that it is the covering up of the “hermeneutic as” that
turns the sentences I call ‘practical’ into apophantic, theoretical sentences.
The consequence is that the non–discursive and non–predicative grasp of
things has been taken for the discursive, predicative judgment; the pheno-
menological understanding of things as relating to the being–there (Dasein)
has transformed itself into the objectivist approach to the world. Reflecting
on these processes, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is aimed to disclose
the illusion of the objectivity as a “view from nowhere” (Nagel) and to
re–activate a living connection between (wo)man and world. It is the onto-
logy of the practical sentences continuing Plato’s line with which he tried
to replace the ontology of the theoretical sentences continuing Aristotle’s
line. Introducing this project, Heidegger searched to provide an adequate,
i.e. more complicated, understanding of the human being–in–the–world

     16. More about Misch’s hermeneutic theory of meaning in: Soboleva 2014.
                                              Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge   45


and to re–think the traditional concept of knowledge as a sum of verifiable
propositions.
    König’s major contribution to epistemology is the extension of the con-
cept of knowledge. He distinguished between “know that” and “know as”17 .
The first form is propositional knowledge based on causality and langua-
ge conventions. The second form is the immediate, “coinciding with the
perception knowledge” (König 1994: 165) of a thing as something definitive.
To give one example: by the “knowledge that” one knows that the thing
in front of her is a dog, i.e. it belongs to the species “dog”. In contrast, by
the “knowledge as” one knows that the thing in front of her is a particular
thing, namely “dog”, i.e. this thing is individually grasped through and in
the concept “dog” (König 1994: 148). This kind of knowledge can be called
basic, since it cannot be justified by giving reasons.
    To explain the “knowledge as” König falls back on the term “idea”.
Akin to Plato, he interprets the “idea” not as a result of discursive judg-
ment, but as an insight into a thing. However, in contrast to Plato, the
“idea” reflects for him the “original” behavior of the human toward a thing.
The word ‘original’ refers to the typical behavior which is relevant for
conceptual diVerentiation which proceeds, to use König’s exact words, as
“Sich–Innerwerden” (“awareness”) of the thing (König 1994: 185). To have
“knowledge as” means to be aware of a thing and, hence, to constitute it for
the first time at the very moment of speaking.
    The “knowledge as” reflects a selective process of “meaningful” relation-
ships of the human being to the world and, therefore, it reflects the forms
of human cognitive activity, and the forms of human life. This kind of kno-
wledge is not a catalog of ‘objective’ forms of being, but rather it manifests
the human attitude to the world, the preoccupations and the biases. Since
König’s “knowledge as” is not founded in the formal–logical reflection,
but has the transcendental–pragmatic foundations, it can be interpreted as
practical hermeneutic knowledge.
    The hermeneutics of Misch, Heidegger and König refer explicitly or
implicitly to Plato who was “preparing to attack the problem of predication
in his own way” (Burnet 1964: 203). It is characteristic for them that they, like
Plato in “Theaetetus”, explain primarily the genesis of knowledge and are not
concerned with the problem of knowledge justification. Misch’s “evocative”
knowledge, Heidegger’s knowledge based on the “hermeneutic as” and Kö-
nig’s “knowledge as” can be construed as the forms of practical hermeneutic
knowledge. To have this type of knowledge means to see a thing (a quality, a
state of affair) as something of a certain kind. This kind of knowledge has
Platonic background since it can be interpreted in the sense that one thinks

   17. Lectures from the 50’s (König 1994).
46    Maja Soboleva


not about things, but one thinks things: one thinks “in the accusative” (König).
This kind of knowledge results in that one becomes aware of things and states
of affair through articulation and, these things, in turn, become for the first
time explicit, objective and communicable. This kind of knowledge arises
not out of theoretical contemplation, but out of the cognitive activity of
the practically acting subject who is ‘situated’ and ‘embodied’. Despite the
fact that the level of reflection is mostly propositional, the first immediate
contact to the world proceeds by articulation of phenomena, circumstances,
situations, processes, etc. that can be either real or ideal. Similarly to Plato’s
position in “Theaetetus”, rather than supposing that articulation is a medium
through which an independently existing world is observed, the hermeneu-
tic approach in question accepts that phenomena are seen not through the
articulation, but in it. From this Platonic view, articulation is not a description
of phenomena, but, in the opposite, these phenomena themselves derive
their very identity through articulation.


2.1. The Relationship between ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Belief ’

Some significant characteristics of the hermeneutic practical knowledge
introduced by the Platonic hermeneutic tradition can be illuminated due to
analysis of the relationship between the concepts ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief ’.
According to the common view on knowledge, we know what is proved as a
true belief. Regarding the practical hermeneutic knowledge, we can say, on
the contrary, that we believe what we know.
     The practical hermeneutic knowledge works according to the following
scheme: The awareness of the entity F results in the knowledge of F that
is or makes possible the belief F. In this case, there is no belief without
knowledge. It is only because human knowledge is usually verbalized by
means of subject–predicate structure, one talks about ‘belief ’ in the sense
of discursive judgment even if the subject merely articulates her knowledge
and does not ‘mean’ (or believe) anything in the sense that she would assert
it, or would be convinced of it, or would doubt about it, etc. In this case, the
discursivity is a characteristic of language, not of thought.
     Hermeneutics teaches us that in order to avoid confusion between the
terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief ’ one should distinguish the belief as awareness
of something in the process of life from the belief as mental attitude to the
attained knowledge. In the first case, ‘to believe something’ means ‘to
become aware of something’ due to verbalisation. Here, the term ‘belief ’
coincides with the term ‘knowledge’, for the belief is nothing else than the
articulation of knowledge which constitutes this very knowledge for the first
                                                       Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge            47


time.18 For example, ‘to believe that it is cold’ means to know this through
the articulation of the physical condition. Thus, the hermeneutic position
asserts that articulation does not translate the given experience into words;
on the contrary, speaking constitutes experience: it comes into being for
the first time. By contrast, in the second case, the terms ‘knowledge’ and
‘belief ’ have a diVerent meaning: ‘belief ’ is a kind of conscious action of taking
a position to the attained knowledge. For example, someone learns from a
textbook on geography that the earth is a sphere. She can either share this
knowledge and believe it in the sense that she consciously argues for it, or
she can doubt about this knowledge.
    Another significant characteristic of practical hermeneutic knowledge is
that it is not the knowledge of propositions, but the knowledge of things or
states of aVair. This claim can be illustrated with the following examples:
if one expresses a sentence that she is seeing a red rose and I do not agree
with it, I will question not the belief, but the person’s faculty for identifying
this colour or that one. Analogically, if one asks for the way to Larissa
(Plato’s “Meno”), one asks not for one’s belief, but for the path itself. It
would be strange to hear a following answer to this question: “Do you
want to know the way or what I believe about it?” Who claims to know
the way, knows the way itself — the way as being such and such — and
not the truth–value of the corresponding proposition. Either one knows
the way — from personal or interpersonal experience — or one does not.
What one believes in this case is either knowledge or one doesn’t have
a belief at all (what Plato has clearly demonstrated in “Theaetetus” and
Josef König has showed in his investigations of the practical and theoretical
sentences). Who contests the answer, does not contest the truth of the
proposition, but the fact of the person’s knowledge. The circumstance that
the verbally articulated knowledge can be represented in discursive form
does not change its content and adds nothing to it.
    The hermeneutic theory of meaning has clearly demonstrated the fact
that not every verbal expression is or can be reduced to a proposition. It
showed, for example, that the sentences like “the landscape is beautiful”
can be either a proposition if it is a judgement about the landscape or
a non–proposition if it articulates (or constitutes) the knowledge of the
landscape as beautiful or the knowledge of the beauty of the landscape
(König 1937: 159). Thus, it diVerentiates between the proposition and the
articulation, and between the discursivity of thought and the discursivity of

   18. The predication should be distinguished from the articulation. The former implies that one
describes fixed properties of the given things; the latter explicate these properties within a concrete
context of activity. For example, my view on the hammer being a heavy hammer results not from
the predicative judgment coupling the concepts (ideas) ‘hammer’ and ‘heavy’, but from handling
and manipulation with it (cp. Heidegger 2006: 155).
48     Maja Soboleva


language. While language is per se discursive, thought can be either discursi-
ve or non–discursive. The concept of discursivity is, therefore, heterogenic,
and demands a selective analysis of its parts.
    The speech figures like ‘I think that the way. . . ’, ‘I believe that the way. . . ’
are not indications for the propositional structure of thought. They are merely
markers that express the speaker’s attitude to her own mental state. They are,
therefore, of interest for cognitive science, not for epistemology. Hermeneu-
tics challenges the propositionalism as the main principle of cognition and
the paradigm of knowledge and stresses the role of immediate objectivization
without intellectualization. It has pointed out the importance of “thinking in
the accusative” (König) — of the “doxa” as the “it–thinking” — for compre-
hending the nature of human thought. In contrast to the traditional theory of
knowledge, its analysis focuses on productive, explicative articulation consti-
tuting knowledge, but not on predication which presupposes operating with
the already existing concepts. The point is to approach something outside
oneself that is available as a series of more or less illuminating insights that
never coalesce into the entire and final truth about that thing.

2.2. The Relationship between ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Truth’

The analysis of the relationship between the concepts ‘knowledge’ and ‘tru-
th’ can shed light on some further properties of the practical hermeneutic
knowledge. According to the traditional definition of knowledge as a justi-
fied true belief, truth appears to be the constitutive part and the criterion
of knowledge. On the contrary, to recognize the truth in relation to the
practical hermeneutic knowledge means to recognize how something is
for us. Correspondently, the term ‘truth’ is not a correlative term here. In this
primary sense the concept of ‘truth’ was understood by Plato, by the repre-
sentatives of hermeneutics mentioned above and many others. For example,
Heidegger understands the truth in this original sense of Platonic “doxa”
when he writes: “To say that an assertion ‘is true’ signifies that it uncovers
entity as it is in itself. Such an assertion asserts, points out, ‘lets’ the entity
‘be seen’. . . in its uncoveredness. The Being–true of the assertion must be
understood Being–uncovering. Thus the truth has by no means the structure
of an agreement between knowing and the object in the sense of a likening
of one entity (the subject) to another (the object).” (Heidegger 2006: 218)
That means: the things have to be already known as something definitive
before any analysis, any logical relation to them and any judgement about
them.
    We can say that the hermeneutic knowledge is to some extent indiVerent
to the truth–value if one construes the truth traditionally as the correctness
of beliefs. For example, I know my brother’s being in Munich (he told me
                                            Plato, Hermeneutics and Knowledge   49


this on the phone) (König 2005: 165–169). König argues that even in the case
that my brother was no longer in Munich this original knowledge does not
cease to be knowledge for me. Moreover, this knowledge, in contrast to
propositions, cannot be discursively justified, because this knowledge is not
about things, but is the knowledge of things.
   In fact, a normal situation of a human being is a situation of a knowing
being: we acquire, produce, correct, test, use and lose knowledge. All hu-
man cognitive eVorts result in knowledge. Of course, our use of the term
‘knowledge’ conveys the meaning of possessing ‘true knowledge’. Never-
theless, regarding the practical hermeneutic knowledge, truth appears to
be just a claim (Anspruch). This claim is intrinsically connected with the
concept ‘knowledge’ and implicitly integrated into it. We just want to have
knowledge and we mean, of course, ‘true knowledge’, even though we are
usually aware of the fact that our knowledge is fallible and can be erroneous.
   In contrast, for the propositional form of knowledge, truth becomes the
explicit criterion of knowledge. The critical analysis of beliefs that function as
propositions requires examination of the conditions of their truth. Thereby
the concept ‘truth’ has to be formulated and justified in dependence on
the type and the sphere of knowledge as correspondence–, coherence– or
consensus–theoretical concept. It becomes problematic; and the analysis
of the concept ‘truth’ and the conditions of truth becomes a special field
of research. The dependence of the concept of truth on the concept of
knowledge shows that the latter has a more fundamental role in epistemology.



3. Conclusion

Much of the twentieth–century literature on the analysis of knowledge took
the definition of knowledge as justified, true belief, which Plato has rejected
in “Theaetetus”, as its starting–point. However, it was in particular hermeneu-
tics that made use of Plato’s account for knowledge as the doxa understood
as a direct grasp of a thing. According to this view, any thought of a par-
ticular thing or person or state of affair that identifies it is knowledge. For
hermeneutics, this kind of knowledge makes something existing by connec-
ting a non–symbolic realm with a symbolic realm of meaning. “To mean
something” is considered equivalent to “being aware of something” and, vice
versa, “being aware of something” means “to give meaning to something”.
Thus, hermeneutics considers non–propositional knowledge not as a deficient
mode, or as a kind of “proto–rationality”, but as a genuine human cogni-
tive capacity for objectual thinking which characterizes the human mode of
cognition as such and makes the human being able to systematic knowledge.
50    Maja Soboleva


    The hermeneutic approach to the concept of knowledge serves to bring
Plato’s relevance to contemporary epistemology into an alternative focus
by continuing a Platonic line of argumentation as it is developed in the
“Theaetetus” and showing that a two–valued predicative logic is not norma-
tive for all areas of cognitive experience. In fact, a theory of meaning that
restricted itself to deductive und referential procedures would be radically
incomplete. It would exclude from the scope of knowledge the entire range
of meaningful and significant relationships, structural influences of social
action, and the interpretative activity of the human being which are based
upon another form of logic — practical significance, metaphor, analogy,
emotional value, intuition, etc.
    The anti–theoretical stance that is inherent in philosophical hermeneu-
tics does not exclude that hermeneutics is becoming more analytic. But,
for instance, in contrast with the analytic philosophy of language, the her-
meneutic analysis begins not with semantical analysis, but with analysis of
forms of human cognitive activity and types of knowledge. In this way, the
hermeneutic approach gives a fascinating resource for re–thinking some
significant epistemological concepts and stimulates new discussions.


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