The Riddle of Plato’s Dialectic and the Role of Refutation

Abstract

The riddle of Plato’s dialectic derives from its metaphorical description in the Republic and from the obscurity about the way of reaching the superior principle which must give reason of the hypotheses. Given that the principle cannot be deduced from nothing, some scholars have assigned to intuition the role of the apprehension of the principle, but this would imply a duality or even a breakdown in the dialogic character of Plato’s dialectic. Nevertheless, “the footings and springboards” as well as the steps down to the consequences which follow from the principle means an entirely discursive process. The dialectic justification of a philosophical hypothesis implies its inclusion in a system of propositions coherently connected within un order of logical priority. We do not find any allusion to intuition in all this process, but an absolute emphasis on the necessity of being able to defend the principle against all the refutations and objections, which constitutes the procedure for attaining a principle free of assumptions.