2025 Theses Doctoral

Appearance and Reality—Plato and the Psychological Difficulties of Inquiry

Cao, Qian

This dissertation takes as its starting point that for Plato, genuine learning is rooted in inquiry. That is to say, coming to know reality is not simply about absorbing facts or passively receiving information from an external authority. Instead, it requires an active process of questioning and examining ideas with fellow inquirers. When this process unfolds successfully, the inquirer comes to see reality for what it is—and this understanding, in turn, enables her to live well. In terms of Plato’s famous metaphor of education as “turning the soul around,” inquiry reorients the soul so that it comes into cognitive contact with what truly is. Viewed in this way, education and inquiry emerge as among the most essential human activities.

However, inquiry is neither straightforward nor easy. Plato is explicit that inquiry is a long and arduous process, even demanding “courage” from the inquirer (Meno 81d), implying that it is not just an intellectual exercise but also a psychological and ethical undertaking. The question I am interested in is the following: what, for Plato, makes inquiry difficult? This question has been explored with a view towards Plato’s metaphysical commitments. In particular, it has been widely acknowledged that for Plato, our engrossment in the sense perceptible domain—characterized by its instability and deceptiveness—makes it difficult for us to attend to intelligible reality and often leads us astray.

Shifting away from the traditional emphasis on metaphysics and sense perception, this dissertation analyzes the nature of the difficulty of inquiry from the perspective of the psychology of the inquirer. Four aspects are highlighted: the dogmatic and defective nature of doxa (opinion), the psychology of projection in relativism, the role of distinctive kinds of imagination in poetry, and the psychology of play in mathematical education. While these themes have traditionally been interpreted through the lens of Plato’s metaphysics, I argue that they are just as illuminating when viewed as expressions of Plato’s concern with the psychological obstacles to seeing the world as it is.

In “Two Principles of Mental Functioning,” Freud offers an account of how an essentially pleasure-seeking psyche comes to be regulated by the reality principle. Plato, I argue, is similarly interested in how a psyche that starts off embedded in appearances comes to appreciate the distinction between appearance and reality, and to acquire a desire to see reality for what it is. Both Freud and Plato, in different ways, investigate how true and false judgments, that is, the capacity to decide whether an idea is in agreement with reality, emerge in human cognition. Drawing on Freud’s insight that this is a developmental milestone that could come undone when the psyche is under strain, I argue that Plato, too, is interested in moments where the distinction between appearance and reality becomes tenuous, if not non-existent, to the effect that it is difficult for the cognizer to see reality for what it is.

Methodologically, I engage with psychoanalytic theories to the extent that they illuminate Plato’s own views, particularly shedding light on aspects of his moral psychology that have been relatively overlooked thus far. In terms of the range of dialogues, I focus on the Cratylus and Theaetetus, which showcase Plato’s extensive engagement with relativism, and the Republic, which articulates his revisionist idea of education as “turning the soul around.”

Chapters 1 and 2 examine Plato’s diagnosis of the tenuous distinction between appearance and reality, as it manifests in the defective nature of doxa and in the psychological appeal of relativism. Chapters 3 and 4 then consider his account of how the right kind of education—through imitative poetry and mathematics, respectively—might facilitate the psyche’s movement beyond appearance toward intelligible reality. I argue that imitative poetry and mathematics each have a unique role to play in holding the psyche steady in the midst of conflicting appearances, especially about values.