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‘Beyond reality’: Plato's Good revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

David Evans
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Extract

In our post-modern cultural climate we are often told that reality is value-free. Indeed sometimes it is even said to be fact-free. Yet almost all philosophers have been deeply concerned with matters of value, in addition to their other main pre-occupation: that is the nature of truth and our knowledge of it. The question therefore arises: why should these two – good and truth – be so powerfully connected? And why should this business of value continue to exert the hold on philosophers that it evidently does?

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 47 , September 2000 , pp. 105 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2000

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References

1 Speusippus, frr. 34–5 (Lang); Aristotle EN A6. See Cherniss, Harold, The Riddle of the Early Academy (New York: Russell & Russell, 1944), pp. 33–43Google Scholar.

2 Plotinus,Enneads 17.

3 Murdoch, I.,The Sovereignty of Good London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970)Google Scholar. Another contemporary philosopher who has explored these ideas in more sober, analytical vein is Morris, Michael, The Good and the True (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A542–57/B570–85; David Hume, Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix 1.

5 There is a brief discussion in Irwin, T. H., Plato's Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 272–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Between my Royal Institute lectureand this publication, I saw Annas, Julia, Plato's Ethics: Old and New (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. Like Irwin and most other modern commentators, Annas does not derive moral enlightenment from the discussion of The Good in Republic, 5–7. I shall review her book in Philosophical Books (forthcoming).

6 Republic, 537c

7 Friedman, Milton,Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp.133–6Google Scholar. See also Carr, Albert Z., ‘Is business bluffing ethical?’, Harvard Business Review, 46 (1968), pp. 143–53Google Scholar.

8 This semi-serious attribution is suggested by Singer, Peter and Dawson, Karen ‘IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential’, in Singer, Peter et al. (eds) Embryo Experimentation (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 88CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 1 ‘The new reproductive technology makes it necessary to think again about how our established views about the potential of the human embryo should be applied to the embryo in the laboratory.’

9 Nichornachean Ethics, A6, 1096a, 19–34. The idea has been revived in modern discussion by Geach, Peter,‘Good and Evil’, reprinted in Foot, Philippa (ed.), Theories of Ethics(Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 64–73Google Scholar.

10 E.N. A6, 1096b35–7al4.

11 See further,Kraut, R., Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 312–47Google Scholar; Sparshott, F., Taking Life Seriously (University of Toronto Press, 1994), pp. 136–49Google Scholar.

12 The line of thought suggested here has some affinities with Plato. See Philebus, 25–6.

13 The importance of the unity of Good in Plato's conception is well emphasised by White, N. P., A Companion to Plato's Republic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), pp. 46–9Google Scholar.

14 Republic 509b; McCabe, M. M., Plato's Individuals (Princeton University Press, 1994), p.72Google Scholar.

15 Joseph, H. W. B, Knowledge and the Good in Plato's Republic (OxfordUniversity Press, 1948), pp.23–4Google Scholar.

16 De Generatione et Corruptione B1O, 336b28–9.

17 Textes Inédits, quoted by Adams, R. M., Leibniz: Determinist, Idealist, Theist (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 171Google Scholar.

18 The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts, p. 99. Iris Murdoch died on February 8, 1999.