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2348: Collaborative translational workforce development: Standardizing clinical research nursing education in good clinical practice
- Patricia Eckardt, Christine Kovner, Marilyn Hammer, Margaret Barton-Burke, Margaret McCabe, Elizabeth Cohn, Marie Marino, Liza Behrens
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- Journal:
- Journal of Clinical and Translational Science / Volume 1 / Issue S1 / September 2017
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 May 2018, p. 48
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OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The proposed pilot study seek to enhance the network of CTSAs at Rockefeller University, NYU, ISMMS, and other community members to support translational workforce development of clinical research nurses and establish a standardized nurse-specific training curriculum in GCP for use within the CTSA network, in other research centers, and in nursing school curricula. This will be coupled with a rigorous evaluation study to test the impact of the training and a comprehensive dissemination plan to make the training available to all nurses and nursing students via modern e-learning method. Aim 1. To create an integrated network of local CTSAs and community partners to develop, validate, and refine a pilot e-learning GCP educational and training program and content and outcomes dissemination plan. It is vital to integrate the efforts of CTSA leaders, community partners, and nursing educators to develop a pilot e-learning nurse workforce training curriculum and the associated evaluation measures and assessment plan. Delphi methods will be employed, coupled with rigorous assessment of face validity, content validity, and item reliability. The resulting educational training program will then be used for an e-learning educational intervention study in CTSAs, other sites, and nursing schools. Aim 2. To test the effect of the pilot GCP education and evaluation program for practicing clinical research nurses (CRNs) within the collaborating CTSAs and community partners, we will perform a randomized controlled trial using a Solomon 4 group design. For the student nurse population, we will develop a randomized control trial using a Solomon 4 group design blocked on course section. As this is a pilot study, descriptive statistics and confidence intervals around parameter estimates will be constructed. In addition, inferential statistics will be calculated on primary outcome of interest (change scores in knowledge of GCP) and measures of heterogeneity of data, patterns of missing data, and reliability of evaluative tools will be analyzed. Aim 3. To implement a dissemination plan to reach both nurses practicing the CRN specialty within CTSAs and other community settings. We will disseminate the program to other CTSAs through the CTSA network communication resources. To broaden the reach to a population of nurses and student nurses with limited prior education or training in nurse-specific GCP competencies, but who provide care to research participants in nontraditional research settings, we will craft a novel set of dissemination methods, including the CITI Program electronic platform that can be accessed by nurses and nursing students across settings. In addition, dissemination will be at nursing education meetings and in nursing journals.METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: There are several components to this pilot program. The component that includes a research strategy is the testing of the effectiveness of the training and educational interventions on GCP knowledge and efficacy. Study cohort: Recruitment of study subjects will be in coordination with 3 CTSA collaborators and community partners for 2 samples: (1) nurses who provide care to clinical research participants across a variety of settings (health care systems, research hospitals, and care provider networks) and who are already trained according to current standard in GCP, (2) nursing students from the collaborative network of the 3 CTSAs, NYU School of Nursing has agreed to pilot test the introductory student module. The methodological approach will be a random assignment control trial Solomon 4 group design for practicing CRNs within the collaborating CTSAs and community partners. For student nurse population, the methodological approach will be a randomized-control trial Solomon 4 group design blocked on course section. Survey measures of CRN GCP knowledge and efficacy will be obtained pre and post educational intervention. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Aim 1. Expected outcomes are pilot e-learning nurse workforce training modules curriculum, and evaluation measures and plan appropriate for CTSAs, community sites, and nursing schools. Specifically, 14 modules (averaging 30 minutes each) for practicing CRNs, and one 45 minute module for nursing students. The significance of these findings will provide a framework for the e-learning educational intervention study. CITI Program is enthusiastic about the module development and refinement and will provide direction for consistency in formatting with current CITI Program modules, set-up of learner groups for comparison, and evaluative measures such as completion data and scoring. Aim 2. Expected outcomes are an effective pilot educational intervention for practicing nurses and students and valid and reliable evaluation tools and plan that can be generalized to the larger CRN and nursing community. Aim 3. Expected outcomes are an enhanced CTSA dissemination plan that includes non-CTSA resources and reaches non-CTSA employed nurses and nursing students. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The expected outcomes of this pilot study are: (1) an enduring GCP education that can be continually updated and training structure for CRNs, and nurses and nursing students throughout the United States; (2) a reproducible effective standardized basic nurse-specific GCP curriculum for dissemination; (3) assessment tools to evaluate programmatic success, nurse and nursing student knowledge and efficacy on nurse-specific GCP; (4) and a CTSA dissemination plan that to reach non-CTSA nurses and nursing students. Our ultimate goal is the development of a translational workforce educated and competent in GCP at CTSA sites, at non-CTSA sites, and in nursing schools so as to improve the quality of clinical research.
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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Chapter thirteen - The Stoic sage in the Original Position
- from Partiii - The Politics of Value
- Edited by Verity Harte, Yale University, Connecticut, Melissa Lane, Princeton University, New Jersey
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- <I>Politeia </I>in Greek and Roman Philosophy
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- 05 June 2013
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Contributors
- Edited by Verity Harte, Yale University, Connecticut, Melissa Lane, Princeton University, New Jersey
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4 - Is dialectic as dialectic does? The virtue of philosophical conversation
- Edited by Burkhard Reis, Universität Hamburg
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- The Virtuous Life in Greek Ethics
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- 22 September 2009
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Summary
A CHRISTENING?
Republic 7, it appears, is the christening ceremony for dialectic. For here, we might say, is the moment when Plato appropriates the expression ‘dialektikē’ as a term of art, to mark out the pinnacle of his own philosophical method. Indeed, it all seems deliberate, even emphatically technical:
‘So, then, do you call “dialectician” the person who grasps the account of the being of each thing? Surely you will not say that someone who has no account, to the extent that he is unable to give that account to himself and to another, has understanding of it?’
‘How could I say so?’ he said.
‘So likewise for the good: someone who cannot distinguish the idea of the good in account by marking it off from everything else, and who cannot get through all the tests of what he thinks as if through a battle, nor is eager to test it according to the way things are, rather than according to opinion, and who cannot progress through all these things without his account collapsing – such a person you will surely say, knows neither the good itself, nor any other good.’
(534b3–c5)‘So you would legislate, would you, that they should most of all receive that education through which they would be able to ask and answer questions in the most knowledgeable way?’
‘Yes, I would so legislate – and you with me, too.’
‘So do you suppose,’ I said, ‘that dialectic lies at the top for us, like a copingstone on our studies, and that there is no other subject that should rightly be put higher than it, but that it provides now the end to our inquiries into education?’ (534d8–535a1)
6 - Outwitting the cunning man
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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- 15 December 2009
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- 15 August 2000, pp 165-194
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MICROCOSM AND MACROCOSM
God first (I shall come back to philosophy and farming in my final chapter). It is often supposed that all Plato's cosmic teleology is theistic, just as it is often supposed that he will make his theistic claims under the protective custody of a myth. If there are other stories to tell about myth, however, perhaps there are others about god, too. Indeed, if I am right that the Politicus myth invites a contrast between two mythologies, then the absence of god in the mythology of our era tells immediately against unthinking theism on Plato's part (and perhaps against thoughtful theism, too). Even if Plato would earlier have responded to the failings of Anaxagoras by adding to the mechanistic account of the universe an overseeing god (this is, if you like, giving Anaxagoras' Mind a job to do; cf. Phaedo 98b ff.), how far is this cosmological theology what we have in the Politicus and the Philebus?
At Philebus 28–30 Socrates offers an argument which seems at first to encourage a theistic view, that the cosmos is as it is by the agency of god. Socrates has been discussing the nature of limit and the unlimited in order to relegate the life of Philebus – a life which is barely a life, but rather the episodic existence of a mollusc – to what has no measure, to what is characterised by the more and the less.
Preface
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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Summary
This book had its origins in the W. B. Stanford Memorial Lectures at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1996; I am extremely grateful to John Dillon and Kathy Coleman both for the honour of their invitation and for the warmth of their hospitality, then and thereafter. My audiences in Dublin were very generous and their various comments and questions most illuminating. In particular, Vasilis Politis and John Cleary made me clarify a good deal that had been unclear; whatever opacity there remains – and I fear there may be far too much – is despite their best efforts.
In a form close to the present one Chapter 2 was delivered at the Southern Association for Ancient Philosophy in September 1996, and again at Queen's University, Belfast; and it is published in Dialogos 1998. I am grateful to the editors for permission to reprint that material here. A French version of some of Chapters 5 and 6 was delivered at the Sorbonne in 1996, and is published as ‘Téléologie et Autonomie dans le Philèbe de Platon’ in La fêlure du plaisir et la pensée. Études sur le Philèbe de Platon vol. I, ed. M. Dixsaut. Some of the same material was delivered at University College Cork and at King's College London. On all these various occasions I was fortunate in my audiences, whom I should like warmly to thank. In addition John Dillon, Verity Harte, Alan Lacey and Vasilis Politis have all read and commented upon a draft of the whole book; I am extremely grateful to them, both for their patience and for their insights. As reader for the Press, John Cooper made extensive comments on the whole manuscript with his customary care and incisiveness.
4 - Can the Heraclitean live his Heracliteanism?
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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HERACLITUS' EARLY APPEARANCES
[Plato], first being acquainted from his youth with Cratylus and the opinions of the Heracliteans, that all perceptible things are always flowing and that there is no knowledge of them, later indeed held these very opinions himself.
(Aristotle, Metaphysics 987a32–b1)Heraclitus' influence on Plato from early on is evident, although it is not evident that it was the flux of the sensible world which was Plato's dominant problem. Instead, it seems that in the middle dialogues Plato was more interested in Heraclitus' logic, or his methodology. Consider Socrates' exhortation to his companions:
And each time you must give an account of the hypothesis itself, you will do so in this fashion: you will posit a new hypothesis, choosing from the higher ones the one which seems to you to be the best, until you reach something sufficient. You will not muddle yourself up, as the controversialists do, by discussing the premiss and the conclusions that follow from it both at the same time, at least so long as you want to find something of the things that are. For this these characters have not one account nor one thought. For they think themselves sufficient as to wisdom by making a posset of everything together, to be able to please themselves. But you, if you would be a philosopher, will do, I think, as I say.
(Phaedo 101d–e)
8 - The sufficiency of reason
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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REASON AND SELF-DETERMINATION
Let us return, first of all, to the Politicus. The judgement of lives suggested that philosophy, the inquiring sort, is, at least in the conditions of the golden age, sufficient for happiness; and possibly necessary as well. Astonishingly, Young Socrates makes a similar point (indeed, this is his only point). The Stranger argues that the best state is one where the statesman is present to exercise the judgement which is his alone. Failing that, a state will have fixed laws, protected by fierce legislation. But in this state (from which the experts have departed) there would be no experts and no investigation into new knowledge, for fear of the overthrow of the fixed laws. Young Socrates is horrified:
It is clear that all kinds of expertise should be destroyed for us, and they would never be recovered if there were an embargo on inquiry. As a result life, which is hard enough as it is, would become at that time completely unliveable.
(299e)If the cosmological myth makes inquiry sufficient for happiness in the golden age, Young Socrates supposes it to be necessary in this one. And yet this is in sharp contrast to the dramatisation of the dialogue itself, which makes it hard to see how the process of philosophy could be vital for a life that is worth living (would you want to be Young Socrates?). Why might men in the golden age fail to do philosophy? And why should they be worse off if they do? And why should the life of the ordinary citizen be utterly diminished by an embargo on inquiry?
3 - Missing persons
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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A MURDER MYSTERY
Parmenides' influence on Plato is both obvious and acknowledged. Parmenides claimed that there is no such thing as what is not, so all there is is one, single, uniform and self-identical entity, unchanging and imperishable, eternal and complete:
Only one story of a way remains yet, that it is; on that way there are very many signs, that being ungenerated and imperishable it is, whole, single-natured and immovable and complete: it never was nor will be, since it is now all together one and continuous.
(DK 28B8.1–6)Proper reasoning and accurate speech should be directed at this entity alone; belief, which tries to talk about plurality, is fraught with contradiction and (so) unreason:
It is the same thing to think and the thought that it is. For you will not find thinking without what is, in which it is expressed. For nothing is nor will be other than what is, since Fate has bound it to be whole and immobile. In respect of this everything is named which men have posited, convinced it is true, becoming and perishing, being and not-being, and change of place and alteration of bright colour.
(DK 28B8.34–41)Plato's own account of the nature of forms (single-natured, eternal, unchanging) appears deeply indebted to Parmenides' account of the One, even if Plato allows the plural world of sensation to be quite satisfactorily real, and even if his forms are themselves plural. Plato's own account of reason, moreover, has an Eleatic origin; both Parmenides and Plato suppose that reason can deliver its conclusions without the benefit of sense-perception.
Frontmatter
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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Index locorum
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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1 - Introduction
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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Bibliography
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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Contents
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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7 - Tracking down the philosopher
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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2 - Measuring sincerity
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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SOCRATES' METHODS
The early dialogues present Socrates in conversation with various people – sophists, religious experts, generals, old friends and new adversaries. Socrates insistently questions his interlocutors, about what they are doing and why. He asks because he wants to know and because he claims to be ignorant himself. Ironically he commends his interlocutor's expertise and then, by careful analysis, shows his interlocutor to be in an even worse cognitive case. For when the interlocutor defines some ethical notion Socrates elicits from him a whole collection of his sincere beliefs and assumptions, and then shows that those beliefs are inconsistent with the proposed definition. This, famously, results in dismay, irritation, even apoplectic horror on the part of the interlocutor.
You can see why they gave Socrates the hemlock. His methods are not only maddening for his victims; they also seem pretty destructive. For showing a set of propositions inconsistent shows that at least one of them must be false; but it does not show which one. The elenchus does not seem to offer positive progress unless the exposure of inconsistency is itself positive (e.g. Gorgias 482b–c). So the elenchus may be barren and negative. Matters may be made worse when Socrates insists that he knows nothing anyway (e.g. Apology 21b–c; Euthyphro 5a–b; Charmides 165b–c). Why does he do that? Does he intend to undermine anything his interlocutor believes, and thus save him from the horrors of doxosophy? Then Socrates' arguments may be therapeutic; but are they any more productive than sophistry? Or does Socrates have some knowledge himself which protects the argument from the waste of scepticism? If he does, how is that knowledge immune from the elenchus?
General index
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Book:
- Plato and his Predecessors
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- 15 December 2009
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- 15 August 2000, pp 301-310
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5 - Myth and its end
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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- 15 August 2000, pp 141-164
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9 - Meeting Socrates' challenge
- Mary Margaret McCabe, King's College London
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- Plato and his Predecessors
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- 15 December 2009
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- 15 August 2000, pp 263-290
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Summary
PROTARGHUS AND SOCRATES
Protarchus' attack on the negative ways of the elenchus at Philebus 19c seems to be accepted by Socrates, so that the Philebus ends – at least from Socrates' point of view – with some sort of positive conclusion. So perhaps also the dialectic of question and answer has been laid to rest; perhaps Plato no longer supposes there to be value in the investigation of someone's beliefs for consistency or in the exposure of confusion in someone's opinions. Perhaps even the preliminary activities of the noble sophist should be put aside, in favour of setting out some subject in the manner prescribed by (broad) collection and division (or if, as Protarchus allows, not by collection and division, then in some other productive way). It may be, therefore, that by the time the Philebus draws to a close, the significance of person to person dialectic has receded in favour of – what might seem – more analytic methods of philosophy, which require neither the personal engagement of any of the participants, nor that philosophical progress should be made by dialogue itself. By this time, that is to say, we may no longer need to search for the sincerity of an interlocutor, since propositions and theories and principles may be entertained and considered irrespective of whether they are believed. By this time, furthermore, we may no longer need to ask whether the dialogue form is significant to the philosophical content of the dialogue, since by now it has receded into a mere formality.