Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T07:56:43.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Aristophanes and Socrates on learning practical wisdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2011

Get access

Summary

‘Well then,’ said I, ‘when a man of this kind is met by the question, “What is the honorable?” and on his giving the answer which he learned from the lawgiver, the argument confutes him (exelenchēi), and by many and various refutations (pollakis kai pollachēi elenchōn) upsets his faith and makes him believe that this thing is no more honorable than it is base, and when he has had the same experience about the just and the good and everything that he chiefly held in esteem, how do you suppose that he will conduct himself thereafter in the matter of respect and obedience to this traditional morality?’

‘It is inevitable,’ he said, ‘that he will not continue to honor and obey as before.’

Plato, Republic 538d–e (tr. P. Shorey)

Two conceptions of moral and civic education confronted each other in the Athens of the late fifth century, competing for the allegiance of parents and young men. On one side (observes the Stranger from Elea in Plato's Sophist) was

the time-honored (archaioprepes), traditional (patrion) way, which men used to adopt with their sons, and still do adopt very often. It consists partly in anger and partly in a gentler sort of exhortation, and the best name for it as a whole is admonition (nouthetētikēn).

On the other is the claim of the expert: moral education is useless unless it is guided by a precise practical skill, akin to scientific knowledge.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×