Socratic Virtue

Socratic Virtue
Author: Naomi Reshotko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 5
Release: 2006-08-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139458078

Socrates was not a moral philosopher. Instead he was a theorist who showed how human desire and human knowledge complement one another in the pursuit of human happiness. His theory allowed him to demonstrate that actions and objects have no value other than that which they derive from their employment by individuals who, inevitably, desire their own happiness and have the knowledge to use actions and objects as a means for its attainment. The result is a naturalised, practical, and demystified account of good and bad, and right and wrong. Professor Reshotko presents a freshly envisioned Socratic theory residing at the intersection of the philosophy of mind and ethics. It makes an important contribution to the study of the Platonic dialogues and will also interest all scholars of ethics and moral psychology.

Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life

Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life
Author: Daniel Russell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2005-09-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199282846

Daniel Russell examines Plato's subtle and insightful analysis of pleasure and explores its intimate connections with his discussions of value and human psychology. Russell offers a fresh perspective on how good things bear on happiness in Plato's ethics, and shows that, for Plato, pleasure cannot determine happiness because pleasure lacks a direction of its own. Plato presents wisdom as a skill of living that determines happiness by directing one's life as a whole, bringing aboutgoodness in all areas of one's life, as a skill brings about order in its materials. The 'materials' of the skill of living are, in the first instance, not things like money or health, but one's attitudes, emotions, and desires where things like money and health are concerned. Plato recognizes thatthese 'materials' of the psyche are inchoate, ethically speaking, and in need of direction from wisdom. Among them is pleasure, which Plato treats not as a sensation but as an attitude with which one ascribes value to its object. However, Plato also views pleasure, once shaped and directed by wisdom, as a crucial part of a virtuous character as a whole. Consequently, Plato rejects all forms of hedonism, which allows happiness to be determined by a part of the psyche that does not direct one'slife but is among the materials to be directed. At the same time, Plato is also able to hold both that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that pleasure is necessary for happiness, not as an addition to one's virtue, but as a constituent of one's whole virtuous character itself. Plato thereforeoffers an illuminating role for pleasure in ethics and psychology, one to which we may be unaccustomed: pleasure emerges not as a sensation or even a mode of activity, but as an attitude - one of the ways in which we construe our world - and as such, a central part of every character.

Plato's 'Republic': An Introduction

Plato's 'Republic': An Introduction
Author: Sean McAleer
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2020-11-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1800640560

It is an excellent book – highly intelligent, interesting and original. Expressing high philosophy in a readable form without trivialising it is a very difficult task and McAleer manages the task admirably. Plato is, yet again, intensely topical in the chaotic and confused world in which we are now living. Philip Allott, Professor Emeritus of International Public Law at Cambridge University This book is a lucid and accessible companion to Plato’s Republic, throwing light upon the text’s arguments and main themes, placing them in the wider context of the text’s structure. In its illumination of the philosophical ideas underpinning the work, it provides readers with an understanding and appreciation of the complexity and literary artistry of Plato’s Republic. McAleer not only unpacks the key overarching questions of the text – What is justice? And Is a just life happier than an unjust life? – but also highlights some fascinating, overlooked passages which contribute to our understanding of Plato’s philosophical thought. Plato’s 'Republic': An Introduction offers a rigorous and thought-provoking analysis of the text, helping readers navigate one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory. With its approachable tone and clear presentation, it constitutes a welcome contribution to the field, and will be an indispensable resource for philosophy students and teachers, as well as general readers new to, or returning to, the text.

Six Questions of Socrates

Six Questions of Socrates
Author: Christopher Phillips
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780393051575

Considers the questions posed by Socrates using group discussions from around the world in an effort to show universal commonalities.

Meno

Meno
Author: Plató
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781511939546

Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of a general definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman, and in the words of a poet, 'that virtue is to delight in things honourable, and to have the power of getting them.' This is a nearer approximation than he has yet made to a complete definition, and, regarded as a piece of proverbial or popular morality, is not far from the truth. But the objection is urged, 'that the honourable is the good, ' and as every one equally desires the good, the point of the definition is contained in the words, 'the power of getting them.' 'And they must be got justly or with justice.' The definition will then stand thus: 'Virtue is the power of getting good with justice.' But justice is a part of virtue, and therefore virtue is the getting of good with a part of virtue. The definition repeats the word defined

The Republic

The Republic
Author: By Plato
Publisher: BookRix
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2019-06-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3736801467

The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BCE, concerning the definition of justice, the order and character of the just city-state and the just man. The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it must take place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned". It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city (Kallipolis) ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.

Socrates, Pleasure, and Value

Socrates, Pleasure, and Value
Author: George Rudebusch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 1999-08-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198029500

In the past quarter century, enormous philosophical attention has been paid to Plato's "Socratic" dialogues, as interpreters have sought to identify which dialogues are truly Socratic and interpret and defend the moral theories they find in those works. In spite of this intellectual energy, no consensus has emerged on the question of whether Socrates was a hedonist--whether he believed pleasure to be the good. In this study, George Rudebusch addresses this question and the textual puzzle from which it has arisen. In the Protagoras, Plato has Socrates appeal to hedonism in order to assert his characteristic identification of virtue and knowledge. While in the Gorgias, Socrates attributes hedonism to his opponent and argues against it in defense of his own view that doing injustice is worse than suffering it. From the Apology and Crito, it is clear that Socrates believes virtue to be the supreme good. Taken together, scholars have found these texts to be incoherent and seek to account for them either in terms of the development of Plato's thinking or by denying that one or more of these texts was meant to reflect Socrates' own ethical theory. Rudebusch argues instead that these texts do indeed fit together into a coherent moral theory as he attempts to locate Socrates' position on hedonism. He distinguishes Socrates' own hedonism from that which Socrates attacks elsewhere. Rudebusch also maintains that Socrates identifies pleasant activity with virtuous activity, describing Socrates' hedonism as one of activity, not sensation. This analysis allows for Socrates to find both virtue and pleasure to be the good, thus solving the textual puzzle and showing the power of Socratic argument in leading human beings toward the good. Tackling some of the most fundamental debates over Socratic ethics in Plato's earlier dialogues, Socrates, Pleasure, and Value will generate renewed discussion among specialists and provide excellent reading for courses in ancient philosophy as well as ethical theory.

Sophistry and Political Philosophy

Sophistry and Political Philosophy
Author: Robert C. Bartlett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2016-09-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 022639428X

It was Nietzsche who first identified the similarities between the radical sophistry of antiquity and the contemporary relativism that has come to characterize modern thought. The anti-foundationalism of contemporary thought can be said to have been born with the Sophists, and, of all the Sophists who have come down to us, Protagoras is the most famous and challenging of them. Robert Bartlett s masterful book is the first to examine Plato s Protagoras and Theaetetus together to uncover what lies at the heart of Protagoras teaching, both its moral and political components and its theoretical and epistemological groundings. His superb exegesis of these two dialogues allows one to see more clearly the power of radical relativism: its strengths and its deficiencies. Bartlett notes that political philosophy has been supplanted in the modern era either by the study of the history of political philosophy or by relativism. Although "Understanding Political Philosophy and Sophistry" can certainly be taken as an example of the former, it is much more than that. It seeks to uncover what Socrates, in responding to that teaching, begins to reveal of his own understanding and characteristic activity. It helps us begin to understand, in other words, the phenomenon of philosophy, not just as a system of thought, but as Socrates lived it."