Nicholas D Smith
Biographic Data
| ID | 1234537 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicholas D Smith |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicholas D |
| FAMILY NAME | Smith |
| SIGNATURE | SMITH N D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lewis & Clark College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7410-6914 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Caring and other kinds of conation in Plato’s Apology
Platonic Autonomy: Self-Determination, Unity, and Cooperation
Socrates on Self-Improvement: Knowledge, Virtue, and Happiness
Socrates on Why the Belief that Death is a Bad Thing is so Ubiquitous and Intractable
Contextualism and closure
Skepticism confronts us with a paradox (sometimes known as “the skeptical trilemma”), a version of which follows: (1) I know that I am working on a computer right now; (2) I know that knowing that I am working on a computer right now logically implies that I am not being deceived or manipulated in the way that skeptical hypotheses imagine. (This implication is called “closure under known logical implication”); (3) I do not or cannot know that I a…
Summoning Knowledge in Plato's Republic
Nicholas D. Smith presents an original interpretation of the Republic, considering it to be a book about knowledge and education. Over the course of Summoning Knowledge in Plato's Republic, he argues for four main theses. Firstly, the Republic is not just a work that has a lot to say about education; it is a book that depicts Socrates as attempting to engage his interlocutors in such a way as to help to educate them and also engages us, the reade…
What the Ancients Offer to Contemporary Epistemology
Plato’s Book of Images
Socrates’ Aversion to Being a Victim of Injustice
Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy: The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History Volume I
Divided chronologically into four volumes, The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History presents the history of one of Western philosophy's greatest challenges: understanding the nature of knowledge. Each volume follows conceptions of knowledge that have been proposed, defended, replaced, and proposed anew. Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy covers roughly 700 years of ancient epistemology, starting with the earliest Greek philosophers and covering all of…
Aristophanes' Acharnians 591–2: A Proposed New Interpretation
Kenneth Dover proposes an explanation of this joke in which the gist is to be understood in terms of ‘homosexual rape as an expression of dominance’, so that Dicaeopolis is offering himself up for use as a pathic by Lamachus. Dover believes that the joke becomes ‘intelligible if the assumption is that the erastēs handles the penis of the erōmenos during anal copulation’. Others have seen a circumcision joke here. Alan Sommerstein explains how the…
Socrates on the Human Condition
Socrates on the Emotions
In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates clearly indicates that he is a cognitivist about the emotions—in other words, he believes that emotions are in some way constituted by cognitive states. It is perhaps because of this that some scholars have claimed that Socrates believes that the only way to change how others feel about things is to engage them in rational discourse, since that is the only way, such scholars claim, to change another’s beliefs. But …
Philosophical Reflection on Petitionary Prayer
If God actually answers prayers that petition him for something, then it seems he is willing to withhold some good(s) from the world unless and until someone prays for those goods. But how is this compatible with His benevolence? On the other hand, if God is dedicated to providing every good to us that we may need, it would seem that He would provide these to us even if we did not pray for them. But if so, it would appear that petitionary prayer …
Plato on the Power of Ignorance
In Book V of Plato’s Republic, Plato has Socrates distinguish between three distinct cognitive powers (dunameis): knowledge (epistēmē), opinion (doxa), and ignorance (agnosia). Powers, Socrates goes on to explain, are distinguished in virtue of what they are related to and what they accomplish (eph hōi te esti kai hō apergazetai --477d1). In this section of the dialogue, the second of these two differentiae is not invoked again; instead, all of t…
Socratic Teaching and Socratic Method
This article offers a nuanced account of Socratic teaching and Socratic method. It discusses Socrates' reasons for disclaiming being a teacher and denying that anyone ever learned from him. It mentions some instances of Socrates' profession of ignorance and suggests that the teaching profession played a strategic role that has led some scholars to doubt Socrates' sincerity. It analyses three Platonic versions of Socratic philosophizing and identi…
Socratic Moral Psychology
Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers …
Partnership with God: A partial solution to the problem of petitionary prayer
Why would God make us ask for some good He might supply, and why would it be right for God to withhold that good unless and until we asked for it? We explain why present defences of petitionary prayer are insufficient, but argue that a world in which God makes us ask for some goods and then supplies them in response to our petitions adds value to the world that would not be available in worlds in which God simply supplied such goods without our a…
Socrates On Akrasia, Knowledge, And The Power Of Appearance
In the Protagoras discussion it is not clear just why some things have the power of appearance at all. Nor is it clear in what way the metretike techne ‘makes the appearances lose their power.’ This chapter tries to clarify both issues and in doing so criticizes two different ways of understanding Socrates’ moral psychology. It argues, contrary to what is usually said, that, for Socrates, ‘the power of appearance’ is tied to the psychological age…
Socrates on How Wrongdoing Damages the Soul
Socrates and the Laws of Athens
The claim that the citizen's duty is to "persuade or obey" the laws, expressed by the personified Laws of Athens in Plato's Crito, continues to receive intense scholarly attention. In this article, we provide a general review of the debates over this doctrine, and how the various positions taken may or may not fit with the rest of what we know about Socratic philosophy. We ultimately argue that the problems scholars have found in attributing the …
Socrates' Daimonion and Rationality
Did Plato Write the Alcibiades I?
Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates
Reel Women: Women and Angling in Eighteenth-Century England
Socrates and the Unity of the Virtues
Aristotle's Theory of Natural Slavery
IN BOOK 1 OF THE POLITICS, Aristotle develops a theory of natural slavery that is supposed both to secure the morality of enslaving such people and to provide the foundation for the uses of slaves he advocates in later books. But modern commentators have been nearly unanimous in finding that Aristotle's proffered theory does neither of these things. Specifically, critics have argued that the theory he offers is itself incoherent and that many of …
Contextualism and closure
Skepticism confronts us with a paradox (sometimes known as “the skeptical trilemma”), a version of which follows: (1) I know that I am working on a computer right now; (2) I know that knowing that I am working on a computer right now logically implies that I am not being deceived or manipulated in the way that skeptical hypotheses imagine. (This implication is called “closure under known logical implication”); (3) I do not or cannot know that I a…
Reel Women: Women and Angling in Eighteenth-Century England
He Mantike Techne: Statesman 260el and 290c4-6
Knowledge by Acquaintance and 'Knowing What' in Plato's Republic
In this paper, I will attempt to interpret Plato's concept of knowledge as he presents it in the very end of Book V of the Republic. An adequate interpretation of Plato's concept of knowledge must be able to account coherently for the following, (I) According to Plato, knowledge is not a state of mind, but an ability or power of the mind (δύναμις) and is therefore, formally analogous to sight (477C ff.). This analogy is presented explicitly and i…
Knowledge by Acquaintance and 'Knowing What' in Plato's Republic
In this paper, I will attempt to interpret Plato's concept of knowledge as he presents it in the very end of Book V of the Republic. An adequate interpretation of Plato's concept of knowledge must be able to account coherently for the following, (I) According to Plato, knowledge is not a state of mind, but an ability or power of the mind (δύναμις) and is therefore, formally analogous to sight (477C ff.). This analogy is presented explicitly and i…
The Objects ofDianoia in Plato's Divided Line
Justice and Dishonesty in Plato's Republic
Aristotle's Theory of Natural Slavery
IN BOOK 1 OF THE POLITICS, Aristotle develops a theory of natural slavery that is supposed both to secure the morality of enslaving such people and to provide the foundation for the uses of slaves he advocates in later books. But modern commentators have been nearly unanimous in finding that Aristotle's proffered theory does neither of these things. Specifically, critics have argued that the theory he offers is itself incoherent and that many of …
The Origin of Socrates' Mission
Socrates and Obedience to the Law
A Matter of Life and Death in Socratic Philosophy
Listening to the Cicadas: A Study of Plato's Phaedrus
Socrates’ Elenctic Mission
At the heart of Socrates’ defence in Plato’s Apology is the claim that the very activities for which he has been brought to trial constitute what is actually a religious mission. As he presents his case to the jury, it becomes clear just how complex his mission is: he must free people from their pretence of wisdom (23 B 7, 37E 5–38A 6), exhort them to care for actually attaining wisdom by concerning themselves foremost with truth and the perfecti…
Oxford Studies In Ancient Philosophy
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is an annual publication which includes original articles on a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy, and review articles of major books. In this supplementary volume, a number of renowned scholars of Plato reflect upon their interpretative methods. Topics covered include the use of ancient authorities in interpreting Plato's dialogues, Plato's literary and rhetorical style, his arguments and characters, …
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Supplementary Volume 1992
Socrates' elenctic psychology
Socrates on Trial
He Mantike Techne: Statesman 260el and 290c4-6
Plato’s Socrates
Socrates, as he is portrayed in Plato’s early dialogues, remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of philosophy. This book concerns six of the most vexing and often discussed features of Plato’s portrayal: Socrates’ methodology, epistemology, psychology, ethics, politics, and religion. Brickhouse and Smith cast new light on Plato’s early dialogues by providing novel analyses of many of the doctrines and practices for which Soc…
Plato’s Divided Line
The Problem of Punishment in Socratic Philosophy
Dans le cadre du colloque sur Socrate qui s'est tenu les 23, 24 et 25 fevrier 1996 a l'universite de l'Arizona (Tuscon, Etats-Unis), l'A. etudie le probleme de la punition dans la philosophie socratique qui semble contredire la conception de l'intellectualisme developpee dans l'«Apologie». Examinant la fonction educative de la punition, en general, et le role du plaisir dans la motivation, en particuler, l'A. montre que l'acceptation par Socrate …
Socrates and the Unity of the Virtues
Images, Education, and Paradox in Plato's Republic
Plato's Analogy of Soul and State
Plato on Knowledge as a Power
Plato on Knowledge as a Power1 Nicholas D. Smith At 471C4 in Plato’s Republic, the argument takes a sudden turn when Glaucon becomes impatient with all of the specific prescriptions Socrates has been making, and asks to return to the issue Socrates had earlier set aside—whether or not the city he was describing could ever be brought into being. In response to Glaucon’s impatient question, Socrates articulates his “third wave of paradox” (472ag–7)…
Reason and Religion in Socratic Philosophy
This volume brings together mostly previously unpublished studies by prominent historians, classicists, and philosophers on the roles and effects of religion in Socratic philosophy and on the trial of Socrates. Among the contributors are Thomas C. Brickhouse, Asli Gocer, Richard Kraut, Mark L. McPherran, Robert C. T. Parker, C. D. C. Reeve, Nicholas D. Smith, Gregory Vlastos, Stephen A. White, and Paul B. Woodruff.
The Socratic Elenchos?
Reel Women: Women and Angling in Eighteenth-Century England
Did Plato Write the Alcibiades I?
Philosophy (43 works) · Epistemology (39 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (38 works) · SOCRATES (20 works) · Political science (12 works) · Art (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Medieval and Classical Philosophy (11 works) · Socratic method (10 works) · Literature (9 works)