Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Socrates and the supremacy of virtue
- Chapter 2 Determining virtue in the here and now: Socrates in the Apology and Crito
- Chapter 3 The supremacy of virtue in the Gorgias
- Chapter 4 Trying (and failing) to determine what virtue is
- Chapter 5 Socrates and Thrasymachus: Republic 1
- Chapter 6 The benefits of injustice
- Chapter 7 Early education and non-philosophers in the Republic
- Chapter 8 Aiming at virtue and determining what it is
- Chapter 9 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Chapter 3 - The supremacy of virtue in the Gorgias
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Socrates and the supremacy of virtue
- Chapter 2 Determining virtue in the here and now: Socrates in the Apology and Crito
- Chapter 3 The supremacy of virtue in the Gorgias
- Chapter 4 Trying (and failing) to determine what virtue is
- Chapter 5 Socrates and Thrasymachus: Republic 1
- Chapter 6 The benefits of injustice
- Chapter 7 Early education and non-philosophers in the Republic
- Chapter 8 Aiming at virtue and determining what it is
- Chapter 9 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
THE GORGIAS AND SV
Unlike the Apology and Crito, the Gorgias is not concerned with determining what a person or people should do in a particular situation. In the Apology, Socrates not only cites various specific actions of his own and explains how they were always done in accordance with SV, but he is also engaged in attempting to persuade the jury to perform a particular action. The jury must make concrete decisions then and there about what is to be done with Socrates and he calls on them to hold to the standard of SV as well. In the Crito, as we have seen, Socrates attempts to persuade Crito that to escape is to do an injustice, while to remain in prison is not. There again a concrete decision about what the virtuous action is must be made in the hic et nunc of the dialogue. No such context is present in the Gorgias. Nor, at least at the beginning, does the heavy atmosphere of Socrates' impending execution weigh over the dialogue.
Although there are these differences between the Apology and Crito on the one hand, and the Gorgias on the other, there are even more important similarities. Although usually considered “early” or “Socratic” dialogues, all three lack some typical criteria for inclusion in that group: none ends in aporia and none attempts to determine in general terms what virtue or a virtue is.
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- Information
- Aiming at Virtue in Plato , pp. 91 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008