λόγος ζῶν καὶ παγκάλη παιδιά : Phaedrus and the contexts of discovery

Sammanfattning: In a short dialogue, philosopher Paul Feyerabend made some remarks regarding the interpretation of Plato’s theory of writing in the Phaedrus, which boil down to the suggestion that written works are didactically valuable when having the right kind of resemblance to “live exchanges”, adding that Plato in this respect resembles modern philosophies of science. In the present thesis, I flesh out and vindicate Feyerabend’s suggestions by a thematic reading of Phaedrus 274c–278b and a subsequent comparison of the interpreted theory with a few relevant modern philosophies of science.  My reading focuses on Plato’s philosophical use of the words ζῆν ‘live’, εἴδωλον ‘idol/image/representation/eidōlon’ and παιδιά ‘play’. Through them I show how Plato constructs a three-tiered value ranking of didactic processes, with live exchanges as the best, traditional monographs in the style of Lysias’ written speech as the worst, and Plato’s own original conception of “playful” writing in the middle: “a kind of eidōlon” of a live exchange that nevertheless does not pretend to be the real thing. Plato’s three tiers correspond well to the modern distinction between everyday scientific work, scientific papers and the different suggestions for in-betweens, such as the one made by Peter Medawar or the one contained in the so-called strong programme of David Bloor. I also identify four characteristics of Plato’s theory, including its emphasis on imitative learning, the necessity of the prescribed didactics, non-propositionality and reflexivity, which are found in the modern philosophies of the just-mentioned authors, as well as in that of Ludwik Fleck.