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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
Does Socrates believe that virtue is necessary for happiness? If so, those who lack virtue cannot be happy. But virtue, Socrates also believes, is a kind of knowledge. Yet Socrates himself persistently disclaims having the kind of knowledge that seems to be required. If Plato’s exemplar of a human being lacked knowledge, he must therefore also have lacked virtue. Accordingly, some scholars have concluded that neither Socrates nor any other human being can have any positive happiness – just relative degrees of wretchedness – in life. Provides a much more optimistic account of the Socratic view in which the craft model allows for self-improvement in knowledge and virtue, to such a degree that some positive happiness is possible for even very imperfect human beings. Undertakes detailed analyses of important texts in which Socrates attributes some achievement in craftsmanship and argues that positive achievement does not entail a perfection standard or anything like mastery of a craft – including the most important craft of virtue.
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