Retrieving Knowledge: A Socratic Response to Skepticism

by Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton

Retrieving Knowledge: A Socratic Response to Skepticism is an exercise in retrieval philosophy, using philosophical principles from the past to address contemporary challenges. The book begins with first philosophy’s search for a logos, a source of explanation of the order and rationality in the world, and the failure to ground the logos in being. The story picks up with the skepticism of the Sophists and Socrates’ attempt to address the epistemological and metaphysical sources of the skepticism of his day in Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus. Through this dialogue, we come to grapple with the definition of knowledge and the problems inherent with first philosophy’s materialism. Knowledge is defined as a true belief with a logos (or an account). The theme of the logos is continued from first philosophy to Socrates and then to the Modern period of philosophy where we encounter a similar skepticism that Socrates addresses, a skepticism arising from metaphysical naturalism and empiricism. The moderate naturalism and empiricism of the Modern philosophers become the radical naturalism and empiricism of Nietzsche and the post-Nietzschean philosophers. The radical naturalism and empiricism of the post-Nietzschean philosophers lead to a contemporary negative nihilism carried out by the continental postmodernists, and a positive nihilism carried out by the Pragmatists and the “willing out beyond” of new values after Nietzsche’s transvaluation of all values. Retrieval of the arguments of Socrates from the Theaetetus is used to address contemporary skepticism in the same way that Socrates addressed the skepticism of his day. Post-Nietzschean philosophy poses challenges beyond what Socrates faced; thus, a new direction for the future of philosophy is needed. The epilogue provides a blueprint for how the original search for the logos as the heart of philosophy may continue today.

Genres: Philosophy

344 pages, Paperback

Published December 21, 2018

Reviews

[Christine Norvell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s call things what they are.

Reason. Knowledge. Perception. Not one term is easy to define, and more significantly, most of us are reluctant to come to a shared understanding of any definition because individualism, and thus opinion, pervades our culture.

Burton maintains we cannot reason together if we do not share the same terms, the same knowledge, or the same Good. We must know what knowledge is. Is it just relative to each person? These same questions are posed by philosophers like Socrates and Pythagoras, and it is their claims and refutations that Burton expertly probes for the answer in the Theaetetus.

The Theaetetus alone contains many elements. For instance, if we drop assumption and hearsay, what do we really know? If mankind “goes by what is subjectively true for them,” living through perception and senses, then where is fixed knowledge, the logos?

Burton insists, “This inability to know the world, or to be sure that others experience the world as we do leads to skepticism.” From Gorgias to Nietzsche, “The view that we cannot have knowledge — certainty — about anything is the essence of skepticism.” Ancient or modern then, skepticism and materialism are very real dangers, but Socrates is king here and states, “Knowledge becomes impossible if the knower and the object to be known are continually changing. Some permanent being is necessary for knowledge.” The Good is knowable.

And this is everything to understanding contemporary skepticism. Socrates’ ability to reason through, to refute, to define set a precedent for us today. Burton’s question resonates—can the ancient model help us all reconcile terms and engage in fruitful discourse?

[Marilynn Spiegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skepticism is prevalent in our universities, and has filtered down into every aspect of our culture. Sensory perception and personal experience have become the basis for perspective and popular phrasing of 'your truth', 'agreeing to disagree' and the way we understand the imago dei. Are you tired of the general, pragmatic, short-term, accommodating solutions we find coming out of our academic, political, and religious institutions?

Grab your philosophical dictionary, work your way through the language, and then get refreshed and renewed in the epilogue. It's not who is to say, it's what is to say.
This book will get you through the muddy waters of discourse. It will help plant the seeds of correct interpretation regarding what all men are capable of knowing in any situation, throughout time. Philosophy is for everyone, it can be tamed.

Well done.