In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates argues that ‘the many’ are confused about the experience they describe as ‘being overcome by pleasure’. They think the cause is ‘something other than ignorance’. He argues it follows from what they believe that the cause is ‘ignorance’ and ‘false belief’. I show that his argument depends on a premise he does not introduce but they should deny: that when someone is overcome by pleasure, the desire stems from a belief. To explain why Plato does not (...) make Socrates introduce this premise, the account I construct is speculative. It starts from the assumption that Plato is thinking through an understanding of human beings and what they must do to live good lives that he takes the historical Socrates to set out. (shrink)

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates says to Callicles that “your love of the people, existing in your soul, stands against me, but if we closely examine these same matters often and in a better way, you will be persuaded” (513c7–d1). I argue for an interpretation that explains how Socrates understands Callicles’s love of the people to stand against him and why he believes examination often and in a better way will persuade Callicles.

There is a set of texts in the history of ancient skepticism that have not been widely understood. Michael Frede has done much to set these texts in their proper context, but his work has not gotten the appreciation it deserves. Historians have tended to think that ancient skepticism in the Clitomachian-Pyrrhonian tradition is the suspension of belief on all matters and that Frede’s attempt to show otherwise is confused. This may turn out to be correct, but Frede’s interpretation, as (...) I think it should be understood, is more plausible and interesting than is usually thought. Frede has made it possible to see the skeptics in the Clitomachian-Pyrrhonian tradition as taking some of the first steps in working out the philosophical view that epistemic justification is a matter of whether a belief is the sustained outcome of a correct cognitive process and that correctness here need not and perhaps should not be understood in terms of modal reliability. (shrink)