Interpreting Philosophical Preconceptions
This paper examines the interpretation of philosophical preconceptions as a central activity of teaching philosophy. Complementing approaches that focus primarily on learners’ preconceptions as starting points of inquiry, it develops an account of the epistemic structure of the teacher’s interpretive activity. Drawing on Plato’s dialogues as a systematic resource, the paper argues that interpreting preconceptions is a structured practice through which learners’ views are articulated, related, and made explicit in their semantic, logical, and epistemic dimensions. The analysis reconstructs key features of dialectical inquiry, including the elenchus, the dialectical requirement, and the role of agreement (homology). It is shown that interpretation not only reveals the structure of preconceptions but contributes to their progressive differentiation and epistemic grounding. In this sense, interpretation itself constitutes a form of philosophical teaching.