Topics Philosophers

Question I notice that Socrates, for all his claims to know nothing, never concedes anything to an opponent. He never stops in his tracks and says to an interlocutor, "You're right. I never thought of that! Well, that's given me second thoughts, for sure. Thank you." Apart from Wittgenstein, is there any other known case of a philosopher who has undertaken a major revision of his thoughts?

Accepted:
November 11, 2007

Comments

With regard to Socrates, the thing to remember is that we're not reading his own works -- because, by all accounts, he never actually wrote any. Plato's Socratic dialogues, although they probably do have some connection with things that the historical figure of Socrates said and did, are principally designed as means for Plato to present his own philosophy. If the character of Socrates is portrayed as arguing in a certain manner, we should regard this primarily as a rhetorical device of Plato's design. Now, it's quite true that Socrates (the character), notwithstanding his regular insistence that he's only asking questions in hopes of being enlightened by his interlocutor, is often presented as dominating and leading the discussion. But this isn't always the case. In some of the dialogues (Timaeus, for instance), he's just sitting back and passively receiving instruction from another character. In others (such as Parmenides), he does challenge his interlocutors, but he actually backs down when the response comes back -- saying pretty much what you quite reasonably suggest he ought to be saying from time to time.

As to why Plato chose to present his various dialogues, and Socrates' role therein, in these different ways, it would take a greater Plato scholar than I to answer that. But perhaps the more interesting question is that which touches on real people. You mention Wittgenstein, and he certainly is an excellent example of someone whose opinions did change quite substantially between the early and later periods of his career. Among current philosophers, Hilary Putnam is often cited as an example of someone who is more willing than most to subject his views to re-examination and, where necessary, to substantial revision. But I think the best historical example of what you're after would be Immanuel Kant. Kant received his initial philosophical training in what he called the 'dogmatic' tradition of Leibniz and Wolff. And he worked within that tradition for a good two or three decades, even publishing this work and building up a reputation for himself on the German philosophical scene. But eventually, already in middle age, he discovered the works of David Hume, and he realised that his earlier position had simply been wrong. Whereas the shift in Wittgenstein's thought seems to have stemmed primarily from his own great genius, in Kant we have a clear example of someone who was convinced by the force of someone else's argument that the work he'd been doing for many years was effectively worthless. And, to his credit, he was willing to admit it. Hume, as Kant famously put it, interrupted his dogmatic slumbers, ushering in his 'Critical' period and leading (eventually) to the works for which he is nowadays remembered. He's also a good illustration of the fact that it's never too late for any of us. We can muddle along for a while, publishing humdrum work, but still clinging to the hope that one day we might suddenly start to do truly great things.