Jenks, Rod

Rod Jenks teaches at the University of Portland. He obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California at San Diego.

Contribution of Socratic Method and Plato’s Theory of Truth to Plato Scholarship

2001 0-7734-7361-0
In Plato’s early dialogues, Socrates typically draws from his interlocutors definitions of moral terms, then demonstrates that these positions or their consequences are inconsistent with the definitions they have offered. On numerous occasions in the early dialogues, Socrates claims that this method will yield truth. This study argues that Plato entertains a theory of truth according to which consistency is sufficient for truth, rescuing him from the charge of having confused consistency with truth, and solving the puzzle of Socratic ignorance. It also suggests a new theory of Plato’s philosophical development: Middle and Late Plato did not abandon Socratic philosophy; rather, he sought to secure its foundations. The late Plato returns to Socratic method in the penultimate work of the corpus, Philebus.

How Plato’s Theory of Truth Explains the Socratic Method. Consistency is the Test of Truth

2010 0-7734-3701-0
This book argues that Plato’s Socrates subscribes to a coherence theory of truth, and according to that theory, there is only one fully consistent set of beliefs: the set which contains all and only true members. Thus, not only does inconsistency between two beliefs indicate that at least one of them is false, but the consistency of a belief with the other beliefs in the system suffices for its truth.

How the Images in Plato’s Dialogues Develop a Life of Their Own

2011 0-7734-3934-X
An explanation of how Plato’s use of imagery in his dialogues affects his philosophy.