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 4 - Trying (and failing) to determine what virtue is
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
This chapter treats five dialogues, all of which attempt to answer determining questions about what virtuous actions are in general as opposed to what the virtuous action is in the here and now. Three of these – the Laches, Charmides, and Euthyphro – are so-called “dialogues of definition” in which Socrates asks a specific “What is F?” question, where F is a specific virtue: courage, temperance, and piety, respectively. The other two, the Protagoras and Euthydemus, do not present a “What is F?” question so starkly, although I shall argue that they too attempt to determine what virtue in general is. It is to be expected that Socrates turns to the question of what virtue is, given that he is committed to, argues for, and claims to know SV. It should also come as no surprise that these dialogues contain the majority of Socrates' disavowals of knowledge, and that, consistently with such disavowals and with Cleitophon's criticism of Socrates, these dialogues never succeed in successfully answering the question for virtue in general or for any particular virtue. The Apology, Crito, and Gorgias, by contrast, do not end in aporia – typically considered one of the hallmarks of “early” or “Socratic” dialogues – because they are primarily concerned with SV and/or determining what the virtuous action is in the here and now.
I proceed in this chapter as follows. I begin with a brief general discussion of these five dialogues, highlighting two of their common features (4.1).
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- Aiming at Virtue in Plato , pp. 137 - 165Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008