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Socrates’ Moral Intellectualism
Author(s) -
Rickless Samuel C.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0114.00068
Subject(s) - socrates , virtue , philosophy , intellectualism , epistemology , doctrine , theology
In the Protagoras, Socrates appears to affirm and defend a paradoxical doctrine: the unity of virtue. Plato scholars do not agree on how the doctrine should be understood. Some, following Vlastos (1972), take Socrates to hold that the virtues are biconditionally related, i.e. that anyone who has one of the virtues has them all. Others, following Penner (1973), take Socrates’ position to be that the names of the virtues all refer to the same thing, namely virtue. In this paper, I argue that both of these interpretations are mistaken: the main thesis of the Protagoras is, very simply, that each of the virtues is a kind of knowledge or wisdom.