Elenchus and the Problem of Truth

Abstract

Vlastos raised "the problem of the elenchus", assuming that a passage in Gorgias, 472b2-c2, contains two mutually conflicting claims, i.e., that Sokrates would have to give Polus a proof that the conclusion is true, and that he would reject to regard its premisses as self-certifying truths or endoxa. But, as the context shows, these two claims are not incompatible at all, but the latter is required by the former. Then we must reconsider the "personal character" of the elenchus, and will find that in the absence of "moral-experts" the only method for acqiring episteme is the elenchus that cannot be otherwise than personal.