L'articulation entre le rapport de Socrate aux dieux et son rapport à la raison : le cas du signe divin
To very few philosophers the history of the Western thought granted a place  as significant as to Socrates: we quite naturally learn how to identify him as a hero of  rationality and to recognize in him the very figure of the critical philosopher. In  several respects, this representation of praise appears justified to us, although, from  another point of view, it can make us sink in confusion, since our glance carries  simultaneously, and like producing a contrast, on the image of Socrates obeying to  the daimonion, his uncanny divine sign. How can we justify, starting from the  Platonic corpus, both the engagement of Socrates with respect to rationality and his  subordination to a seemingly irrational phenomenon?  From this disconcerting question was born the present study which is thus  devoted to the problem of the articulation between the relation of Socrates to the  gods and his relation to the critical reason. More precisely, we sought to determine if  there existed, on the epistemological level, a hierarchy between the daimonion and  the method of rational investigation peculiar to Socrates, the elenchos. Such an  exegetic study required, initially, a systematic and thorough analysis of the few  passages related to the divine sign. We then adduced two paradigmatic solutions, that  of G. Vlastos as well as that of T.C. Brickhouse and N.D. Smith. Lastly, we added to  this second part besides a specific examination of Phaedrus and Timaeus, also a  broad survey of the modes of divination, satisfying a triple aim: to make sense of the  divine sign in comparison with the traditional art of mantic, to determine the role  allotted by Plato to the reason in the divinatory process, and thus to be able to solve  our principal question.
Platon Socrate Divination Daimonion Elenchos Plato Socrates Greek religion Rationalism Epistemology Divination Divine sign Daimonion Elenchos