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2 results

  • Chapter 3 - Virtue, Knowledge, and the Good

  • Lloyd P. Gerson, University of Toronto
  • Book:
    Plato's Moral Realism
    Published online:
    28 July 2023
    Print publication:
    24 August 2023, pp 75-115

  • Summary

    The connection between virtue and knowledge is explored in this chapter. Various accounts of Plato’s ethics attempt to focus on the so-called Socratic paradoxes and then try to show how Plato can be seen to have constructed a psychology of action to defend these paradoxes. What is it that these paradoxes try to teach us about morality (Section 3.1)? What is “Socratic” knowledge knowledge of? How is knowledge of the Idea of the Good supposed to be relevant to morality (Section 3.2)? Virtue is a human good but so are health and wealth, friendship, and pleasure. How does Plato’s moral realism deal with these goods when they conflict (Section 3.3)? What does the practice of philosophy have to do with virtue? Can one be virtuous without being a successful philosopher (Section 3.4)? The gradations of virtue in the dialogues and their metaphysical foundation are discussed (Section 3.5). What does the Idea of the Good add to an account of human virtue or excellence (Section 3.6)? This is followed by a comparison of motivation in Plato and Kant (Section 3.7).

  • 8 - Psychic contingency in the Republic

  • from Part II - Moral psychology in the Republic
  • Edited by Rachel Barney, University of Toronto, Tad Brennan, Cornell University, New York, Charles Brittain, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    Plato and the Divided Self
    Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    16 February 2012, pp 174-208

  • Summary

    The most notorious difference between the Phaedo and Republic is the detailed presentation of the tripartite soul in the latter in contrast with the one-part psychology of the former. This chapter examines what difference this makes for our understanding of the three "types" of virtue namely slavish virtue, political or civic, habituated virtue and genuine or philosophical virtue. In the Phaedo's conception of a philosopher, the chapter argues that Plato opens up conceptual space for a type of virtue that falls short of genuine, complete virtue, but is nevertheless not slavish. In both the Phaedo and Republic what most significantly distinguishes philosophers from non-philosophers is their recognition of and concern with Forms. Philosophers' lack of fear of death and indifference to (or disdain of) the pleasures and pains of the body make Phaedo (a "Phd-philosopher") fit very well the ordinary descriptions of courageous and temperate characters.