Aiming at Virtue in Plato

Logos & Episteme, 2014

1984

Arete in Plato and Aristotle, 2022

When thinking of Plato’s discussions of virtue, many dialogues come to mind, but, assuredly, the Phaedrus does not. The word ἀρετή is used only six times in the dialogue. Unlike other dialogues, the Phaedrus thematizes neither the general concept of virtue nor any of the particular virtues. Given the centrality of virtue to Plato’s ethics and politics, it is surprising to see little reference to virtue in a dialogue devoted to love and to rhetoric, topics that have deep ethical and political significance. I argue that the Phaedrus makes important contributions to our understanding of virtue in Plato despite the infrequency of references. First, the dialogue juxtaposes competing conceptions of virtue: the “urbane” (cf. 227d) capacity to make things conform to one’s happenstance desires, championed by Lysias, and the “manic” capacity to conform oneself to reality, championed by Socrates. After clarifying that enslavement to pleasure-lust is the underlying condition of soul for Lysianic virtue, Socrates reveals that the non-lover’s “virtue” is, in truth, virtue in name only. Rather, true virtue emerges only when the soul becomes harmoniously ordered under reason’s guidance, a condition which is achieved through the soul’s encounter with beauty. Second, in the process of articulating how true virtue comes to be in the soul, Socrates gives grounds for distinguishing it from “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), a condition of soul whose outward aspect may be indistinguishable from that of virtue. While a soul in which reason does not take the reins may act from self-restraint, it does not yet act from virtue. Third, the dialogue gives us resources for seeing how other people, such as artful rhetoricians, can influence one’s cultivation of virtue. At first glance, Socrates’s claim that artful rhetoricians can “hand over” virtue (270b) seems incompatible with his claim that virtue is unteachable (cf. Meno 86d-99e). However, the dialogue offers some resources for seeing that the unteachability of virtue and the capacity for rhetoricians to “hand over” virtue are not, in fact, incompatible. From these three points, we will see that the Phaedrus offers an intellectualist account of virtue reminiscent of what we see in other dialogues. The intellectualist vision here, however, is one that includes a positive role for the subrational elements of the soul rather than one that excludes them from relevance or actively seeks to suppress them.

Nnamdi Azikiwe Journal of Political Science A journal of the Department of Political Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. , 2014

Systematic investigations into the nature of and interface between the human person, the state and questions of relevant virtues and goals thereof; particularly in Western normative political thought, are oftentimes associated with three notable Greek political thinkers: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Of the trio, Plato’s treatise provides unique and interfacial profile. Besides the credit for documenting largely the thoughts of Socrates; the corpus of Aristotle’s views appear to revolve largely on the body of knowledge canvassed or worked upon by Plato. This paper explores the personae and social context of Plato, his essential virtues and the essence of good state in the cosmology of Plato’s political thought. Our findings reveal that despite obvious shortcomings, particularly in his allegorical frames, a handful of the issues harped upon and views canvassed by Plato, over two thousand years ago, are by and large, still relevant in contemporary statecraft.

Philosophy Compass, 2014

I begin by describing certain central features of a prominent Anglophone approach to Platonic virtue over the last few decades. I then present an alternative way of thinking about virtue in Plato that shifts central concern away from moral psychology and questions about virtue's relationship to happiness. The approach I defend focuses on virtue, both as a supreme aim of a person's actions and as something whose nature needs to be determined.

R. Barney, T. Brennan, and C. Brittain (eds.) Plato and the Divided Self , 2011

Meno is a Platonic dialogue in which Socrates, Meno, one of the slave-boys and Anytus inquire into the nature of virtue (areté-excellence) in relation to knowledge (ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē). Meno, a young aristocrat from Thessaly, asks Socrates how virtue is acquired, a question with presumed answers (a) Teaching (b) Learning (c) Practice (d) Nature(e) Any other way. However, Socrates is not used to such questions with ready-made answers, instead, in his Socratic astuteness, he changes the question from the ‘How’ to the ‘What’ of virtue. Within the Meno-Socratic definition struggle, Plato embraces the elenchus not as a negative tool to paralyze typical Socratic interlocutors, but as a positive tool that works in the framework of the hypothesis to stimulate rational inquiry. In this paper I discuss, (a)Virtue & Knowledge; (b) Paradox, Recollection & Immortal Soul; (c) teachability of virtue, and (d) I conclude by arguing that despite a deadlock in defining 'virtue', Socrates identifies it with a kind of knowledge as opposed to opinion.

PLATO, The electronic Journal of the International Plato Society, 2012

Plato’s dialogue Meno presents a deceptively simple surface. Plato begins by having the character Meno ask Socrates how virtue is acquired. Instead of having Socrates respond directly, Plato has him divert the conversation to the question of what virtue is. But Plato’s Meno isn’t accustomed to the rigors of Socratic inquiry. So after a series of false starts and frustrations, Plato ends his dialogue with his characters unable to define virtue or to supply a persuasive answer as to how it is acquired. The Meno has been called a perfect example of the essential points of Platonism. If the dialogue is characteristic of Plato, however, it has as much to do with what it shows the reader about virtue as with what it tells. Though the aggressively confident Meno certainly ends unable to define virtue and Plato’s Socrates is often said to do so, I shall argue that Plato is in no doubt as to what virtue is or the means by which virtue is acquired. I shall organize my argument around what we find in two key passages—and crucially, what we find missing. In them, Plato provides clues to the meaning of the whole, drawing a crucial connection between the perplexity of the dialogue’s characters and the most promising route toward the acquisition of virtue, a route that is surprisingly neglected over the course of the dialogue. Plato’s art in the Meno is that he illustrates essential lessons about virtue not just despite the apparent perplexity of its characters, but by means of it.