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INTRODUCTIONinspire in his audiences the recognition of philosophical truth. Through
careful analysis and comparison of a number of interesting cases, the
essay shows that Plato employs a kind of method in his quotations and
misquotations of Homer.
The image of Socrates as a midwife presented in the Theaetetus is
one of the most striking and famous in the Platonic corpus. This phi-
losopher claims to be able to do no more than help others give birth to
their own ideas. But Benjamin Grazzini shows how Plato uses the image
of Socrates as a psychic maieute (midwife) to set up a series of questions
about how it is possible to account for knowledge in the face of confl ict-
ing appearances. On the one hand, on its own terms, Socrates’ account
of psychic maieutics assumes that he is the “measure” of the soul and its
conceptions. The ensuing conversation, however, appears to deny the
possibility of attaining measured knowledge at all. “Of Psychic Maieu-
tics and Dialogical Bondage in Plato’s Theaetetus” goes on to argue that
the account of psychic maieutics sets up the more explicitly epistemo-
logical problems with which the Theaetetus is concerned. On the other
hand, insofar as Socrates is so easily recognized in the image of the
psychic maieute, the essay claims that Plato uses the caricature to show
how easy it was for the Athenians to recognize Socrates in the charges
brought against him, and that it would have been extremely diffi cult for
Socrates to defi ne himself or his practice of philosophy in such a way as
to distinguish himself from that public image. Grazzini concludes that
the account of psychic maieutics also bears on the more explicitly politi-
cal problems surrounding Socrates’ trial and death.
In the Philebus, Plato’s Socrates says he will need “a different de-
vice, different armament,” while also noting that some of the previous
methods will still serve (23b– c). As Martha Woodruff argues in chap-
ter 7, the “different device” (alles mechanes) of the fourfold division of
all that is (the limited, the non-limited, the mixture, and the cause)
revives and reinterprets the other methodological contribution of the
Philebus, the “heavenly gift” of division and classifi cation, thus uniting
two crucial parts of the dialogue. By enacting a mode of differentiating,
revising, and reconciling apparent opposites, the Philebus practices what
it preaches, exemplifying the Doric harmony of logos and ergon. Put oth-
erwise, we might say that the Philebus “shows us something” at the same
time as it “tells us something.” The “one/many” problem plays itself
out in the language we use: the identifi cation of the one and the many
proves to be “ ‘an immortal and ageless’ condition that comes to us with
discourse” (15d– e). By both distinguishing and connecting terms, the
essay shows how the language of the Philebus allows for a differentiated