Plato & Political dialectic (ongoing)
The chief aim of this project is to reexamine Plato’s political philosophy, with particular emphasis on the form in which it is presented: the dialogue. Its main thesis is that Plato’s dialogues should be regarded as a form of political action, designed to transform the political climate in contemporary Athens, and that Plato, more precisely, developed the dialogue not only to solve certain politico-philosophical problems but also to challenge existing public discourse with a new and improved concept of political deliberation, a concept we label “political dialectic”. The project develops three main arguments: (i) that Plato’s notion of political dialectic was intended as a critical response to three dominating forms of intellectual discourse: poetry, rhetoric and sophistry, which he regarded as manipulative and irrational; (ii) that he envisioned political dialectic as a collaborative and consensus-oriented task, immune to the corrupting forces of the political discussion in fifth century Athens; and (iii) that this concept is grounded in a novel, highly individualized, notion of citizenship. Apart from shredding new light on Plato’s political philosophy and more broadly on ancient thought and history, we believe that the project may help us reflect on, and evaluate, the nature of political deliberation also outside its historic context, and to examine such threats against public discourse that originate in political strife and discursive manipulation.
Plato & Epistemic Authoritarianism (ongoing)
In contemporary social epistemology, epistemic authoritarianism has been defined as false epistemic authority maintained through the maintenance of an unreachable standard for reason’s vindication; a standard that in turn has given rise to a widespread form of epistemic disillusionment, evident, for example, in the implementation of environmental policy in democratic frameworks where the public is reluctant to concede to reasons and facts. One important response has been an attempt to debunk the ideal standards for reason’s vindication and to understand reason as a more practical notion, traceable in concrete conversational situations and, as such, as being, fundamentally, discursive. This suggestion has however been criticized for lacking a sufficient critical appraisal of the discursive conditions of reason in epistemically charged social situations. The purpose of the “Plato and Epistemic Authoritarianism” research project is to supplement recent developments in social epistemology by a detailed study of three debates in ancient philosophy pertaining to the discursive conditions of reason: on language and naming, on epistemic disillusionment and probability, and on authenticity. With the dialectical analysis of reason in Plato’s philosophical dialogues as the point of departure, the proposed research will examine the conceptual roots of epistemic authoritarianism and contribute to understudied areas in contemporary social epistemology.
Consensual Democracy: Securing the Democratic Heritage of African and Ancient Greek Philosophy (ongoing)
The goal of this project is to historically anchor, develop and thereby secure a threatened form of intellectual heritage in African culture: consensual democracy. To accomplish this, we will integrate and assess recent developments in two rarely compared fields with significant theoretical and historical value: Ancient Greek and African philosophy. By focusing on the conditions of codependent dialectical inquiry in Plato’s philosophical dialogues and the theoretical conditions of consensual democratic practice in Akan, Ibo and Shona systems of thought, we will ask three questions, key in both the Greek and the African contexts: (i) What are the discursive foundations of consensual deliberation? (ii) How can consensual deliberation integrate opposing and minority views? And (iii) what conversational norms govern functioning consensual deliberation? There are at least three reasons for why this research is important. First, drawing on Kwasi Wiredu’s seminal work on consensual democracy, recent debates in African democracy theory has concerned strategies to counteract externally caused and uncharitable forms of political contestation evident in many African democracies. Responding to emerging authoritarian enclaves and electoral autocracies, the need to supplement current forms of democratic deliberation with a more consensus oriented practice has been strongly emphasized. Despite these important developments, we still have a limited understanding of the theoretical basis of consensual democracy and its historical underpinnings. Second, even if recent scholarship in ancient philosophy has strongly emphasized the consensual and non-eristic normativity of dialectical enquiry in Plato’s philosophical dialogues, these insights have yet to be to applied to contemporary debates about democratic deliberation. Third, with some rare exceptions, there is no serious contemporary research comparing the intellectual heritage of African and ancient Greek philosophy and the democratic relevance of its shared notion of consensual deliberation. The purpose of this project is fill these lacunas, to ascertain the theoretical conditions of consensual deliberation, to develop a global perspective on consensual democracy, to impact contemporary debates for years to come and thereby to secure the African heritage of consensual democracy.
Rational Self-Government: An Investigation of Personal Autonomy and Its Platonic Origin (2016-2020)
Personal autonomy is reasonably described in terms of the ability to determine one’s own thoughts and actions unaffected by external coercion. One common understanding of this is that autonomy is the unimpeded and self-sufficient capacity to satisfy one’s own wishes and desires. Qualified in preferentialist terms, this means that to respect someone’s autonomy is to respect what that person prefers. This idea has an important rival in the rationalist view: Conditioned by the linguistic means of distanced self-reflection, personal autonomy is identified as the ability to ground one’s thoughts and actions in a higher order deliberative evaluation. The platonic tradition in general and plato’s own works in particular provides a robust framework for an inquiry into this field in a non-preferentialist and relational setting. His unprecedented notion of self-government establishes a link between personal autonomy and moral integrity. The platonic demand for self-knowledge and a critical appraisal of the means of discursive deliberation suggest ways in which language, reason and autonomy relate. Yet the ancient debate is significantly absent in the contemporary discussion. One of the two goals of this project is to mend this flaw; the other is to deepen our understanding of the ancient discussion. By means of a thorough investigation of the conceptual origins of autonomy and self-government in the platonic tradition, the project aims to produce new historical knowledge and to show how this knowledge is fruitful for philosophising about autonomy today. Read more at http://rationalselfgovernment.se/
Poetry and Philosophy (2013-2016)
In 2013, after the defense of my dissertation in Uppsala, I was employed as Postdoctoral researcher for the international research project “Poetry and Philosophy: A Research Project on Poetical and Argumentative Elements in Plato’s Philosophy” at the department of philosophy, University of Bergen (Norway). The purpose of this project was to “study the Platonic conception of philosophy as a separate genre, in opposition to and in cooperation with other ancient literary genres, such as epic and lyric poetry, tragedy and comedy, and historiography.” My contribution was to use the ancient material to investigate fundamental questions about the discursive conditions of rational deliberation. By tracing how the intergeneric fabric of the philosophical dialogue was developed in relation to rival types of authoritative discourse – with a particular emphasis on jurisprudence (or the genre of court-room speeches), rhetoric (or politics) and poetry (understood as the literary genre represented by Homer and Hesiod) – I explored to what extent language and discursive deliberation conditions our understanding of reality and its fundamental nature. This resulted in a number of publication with the shared purpose of emphasizing Plato’s large-scale attempt (i) to demarcate the scope of discursive reasoning, (ii) to isolate and identify the material conditions of human rationality, and (iii) to analyze the consequences of an overoptimistic assessment of its scope. Read more at https://www.uib.no/node/30897
Multiform Desires: A Study of Appetite in Plato’s Timaeus, Republic and Phaedrus(2007-2013)
My dissertation was a study of appetite in Plato’s Timaeus, Republic and Phaedrus and can be summarised in this way: “In recent research is it often suggested that Plato considers appetite (i) to pertain to the essential needs of the body, (ii) to relate to a distinct set of objects, e.g. food or drink, and (iii) to cause behaviour aiming at sensory pleasure. Exploring how the notion of appetite, directly and indirectly, connects with Plato’s other purposes in these dialogues, this dissertation sets out to evaluate these ideas. By asking, and answering, three philosophically and interpretatively crucial questions, individually linked to the arguments of the dialogues, this thesis aims to show (i) that the relationship between appetite and the body is not a matter of survival, and that appetite is better understood in terms of excess; (ii) that appetite is multiform and cannot be defined in terms of a distinct set of objects; and (iii) that appetite, in Plato, can also pertain to non-sensory objects, such as articulated discourse. Chapter one asks what the universe can teach us about embodied life. It argues that Plato, in the Timaeus, works with an important link between the universe and the soul, and that the account of disorder, irrationality and multiformity identifying a pre-cosmic condition of the universe provides a key to understanding the excessive behaviour and condition of a soul dominated by appetite. Chapter two asks why the philosophers of the Republic’s Kallipolis return to the cave, and suggests that Plato’s notion of the noble lie provides a reasonable account of this. By exploring the Republic’s ideas of education, poetry and tradition, it argues that appetite – a multiform and appearance oriented source of motivation – is an essential part of this account. Chapter three asks why Socrates characterizes the speeches of the Phaedrus as deceptive games. It proposes that this question should be understood in the light of two distinctions: one between playful and serious discourse and one between simple and multiform. It argues that the speeches of the Phaedrus are multiform games, and suggests that appetite is the primary source of motivation of the soul addressed, personified by Phaedrus.” Read it here: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:572632/FULLTEXT01