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1 results

  • Chapter 1 - Accounts and Accountability

  • from Part I - Self-Determination
  • Edited by Olof Pettersson, Uppsala Universitet, Sweden, Pauliina Remes, Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
  • Book:
    Platonic Autonomy
    Published online:
    07 August 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025, pp 19-42

  • Summary

    It is natural to see in the Republic’s concern with self-mastery a Platonic account of autonomy. But Plato’s understanding of self-rule in the Republic has more to do with cognition, and rather less to do with independent agency. Indeed, in the ethically motivated epistemology of the Republic, it is aiming at ideal knowledge that transforms one ethically and engenders many of the features centrally associated with the notion of ‘autonomy’. Being able to explain reality independently makes one independent of the illusions and confusions caused by pleasure, pains, and public pressures, and even restructures the desires, pleasures and other affects liable to arise. Moreover, the ability to give accounts is what makes us accountable to one another for our cognitive condition — and for the judgements, feelings and actions based on this.