Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

2-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Philosophy

Advisor

Iakovos Vasiliou

Committee Members

Rosemary Twomey

Gary Ostertag

Jessica Moss

Subject Categories

Epistemology | Ethics and Political Philosophy | History of Philosophy

Keywords

Plato, The Republic, epistemology, social epistemology, epistemic communities, truth

Abstract

Up till the late twentieth-century, many had assumed that Plato’s epistemological distinction between epistêmê, often translated as ‘knowledge’ or ‘understanding’, and doxa, often translated as ‘belief’, ‘opinion’, or ‘judgment’, tracked his ontological distinction between the intelligible realm of the Forms and the perceptible world. Given the relation Plato held between the Forms and Truth, it follows that one has to turn away from the perceptible world and towards the Forms in one’s cognitive endeavors, so as to get at Truth through epistêmê. However, Plato sometimes speaks of true doxa, i.e., alêthês doxa and other variants, where ‘Truth’ (used in the technical sense in connection with the Forms) is an adjective attributed to doxa.

In this dissertation, I ask and answer: what is the relation between doxa and Truth, so as to account for true doxa in Plato’s view? While many prominent accounts of ‘true doxa’ within analytic Plato scholarship today take for granted that true doxa is explained as a deficient grasp of the Forms in one’s cognitive endeavors, I defend the traditional view that one cannot get at the Forms—and therefore the Truth—through doxa.

Building on recent work on Plato’s doxa in Jessica Moss’s Plato’s Epistemology: Being and Seeming, this dissertation argues that the best epistemic position one can achieve with respect to perceptibles is simply a response to a good image of the Forms—‘good’, as evaluated by those with epistêmê of the Forms, and especially the Form of the Good. If so, Plato’s use of ‘true doxa’ in the Republic is primarily achieved by those in ideal epistemic communities, which I define as epistemic communities within which those who have epistêmê of the Forms are recognized as experts on account of their epistêmê. Upon achieving epistêmê, Plato’s Philosophers are to establish such ideal epistemic communities in the perceptible world, doing so by establishing and maintaining good images of the Forms in the perceptible world. In so doing, they are able to guide those within their epistemic communities toward true doxai. In turn, by placing their trust in the epistêmê of Philosophers, those under their rule are able to act in ways that preserve the order and harmony in their souls, which is reflected in the order and harmony of the ideal epistemic community as a whole.

In Chapter 1, I focus on Moss’s argument that the objects of doxa are images—‘what seems’ or ‘seemings’—to be contrasted with the Forms, that which are True. This problematizes doxa’s relation to Truth, such that there is no Truth that one can ‘get at’ in the perceptible world.

In Chapter 2, I argue that the achievement of true doxa within the Kallipolis is a reflection of the images of ‘what seems’ or ‘seemings’ allowed into the epistemic community of the Kallipolis. Although these images are not True, I submit that they are nevertheless epistemically valuable for reasons other than getting at Truth (such as cultivating behaviors that ensure one acts in the city’s best interests), and are for that reason evaluated as valuable or useful by the hypothetical founders of the Kallipolis—namely, Socrates and his interlocutors.

Chapter 3 discusses the epistemic position of Socrates and his interlocutors as founders of the hypothetical Kallipolis, namely dianoia, which Moss characterizes as an intermediate power between epistêmê and doxa set over ‘images of the Forms recognized as images’. While Moss allows for one to grasp the Forms in a deficient way through dianoia, I maintain that dianoia does not allow Socrates and his interlocutors to get at Truth in the perceptible world.

Finally, in Chapter 4, I turn to the ethical and political consequences of never attaining Truth in the perceptible world. Although Philosophers’ epistêmê remains restricted to the Forms, I argue that their grasp of the Truth allows them to establish ideal epistemic communities, within which the achievement of true doxa allows even those who lack epistêmê to live virtuous or excellent lives. This is because those under the rule of Philosophers are able to act in ways that preserve the order and harmony of their souls, only because they place their trust in the epistêmê of Philosophers and act on the doxai that they accept as seeming true (despite not getting at Truth).

To conclude, while epistêmê of the Forms remains a lofty ideal towards which one should strive, then, this dissertation suggests that cognitive endeavors in the perceptible world should be aimed toward identifying Philosophers who are in the position to establish ideal epistemic communities—thereby granting true doxa a more central position than hitherto discussed in the literature. This is a novel approach to Plato’s epistemology in the Republic, which has thus far been centered on epistêmê rather than doxa.

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