Aiming at Virtue in Plato

by Iakovos Vasiliou

• ISBN13: 9780521862967
• ISBN10: 0521862965
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This innovative study of Plato's ethics focuses on the concept of virtue. Based on detailed readings of the most prominent Platonic dialogues on virtue, it argues that there is a central yet previously unnoticed conceptual distinction in Plato between the idea of virtue as the supreme aim of one's actions and the determination of which action-tokens or -types are virtuous. Appreciating the 'aiming/determining distinction' provides detailed and mutually consistent readings of the most well-known Platonic dialogues on virtue as well as original interpretations of central Platonic questions. Unlike most examinations of Plato's ethics, this study does not take as its centrepiece the 'eudaimonist framework', which focusses on the relationship between virtue and happiness. Instead Aiming at Virtue in Plato argues that the dialogues themselves begin with the idea of the supremacy of virtue, examine how that claim can be defended, and address how to determine what constitutes the virtuous action.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Aiming and determining	p. 1
Virtue, aims, and eudaimonia	p. 4
Disputes about virtue and its supremacy	p. 6
Socrates and Plato on virtuous actions and virtuous characters: A standard account	p. 10
A brief overview of some central principles	p. 15
A note on reading Plato (I): The significance of the dialogue form	p. 18
A note on reading Plato (II): Doctrines and developmentalism	p. 20
Socrates and the supremacy of virtue	p. 22
Introduction	p. 22
The supremacy of virtue in the Apology	p. 24
Socrates and moral knowledge	p. 27
SV and the priority of definition	p. 36
Socrates' criticism of his fellow Athenians	p. 39
Socratic incontinence	p. 42
Determining virtue in the here and now: Socrates in the Apology and Crito	p. 46
Ill-fitting remarks in the Apology	p. 48
The role of Socrates' divine sign and his decision to avoid public life	p. 51
Crito's appeal	p. 56
Socrates' response	p. 63
SV in the Crito	p. 71
The Laws' starting assumptions	p. 74
The arguments of the Laws	p. 77
The supremacy of virtue in the Gorgias	p. 91
The Gorgias and SV	p. 91
Socrates and rhetoric in the Gorgias	p. 93
Gorgias, Socrates, and SV	p. 98
Polus and SV	p. 108
Callicles and his conception of justice	p. 117
Callicles' protreptic	p. 122
Callicles' hedonism	p. 128
Socrates as rhetor	p. 133
Trying (and failing) to determine what virtue is	p. 137
Two commonalities	p. 138
The dialogues of definition and the "What is F?" question	p. 140
Aiming and determining in the Euthyphro	p. 145
Aiming and determining in the Protagoras and Euthydemus	p. 160
Socrates and Thrasymachus: Republic I	p. 166
Socrates, Cephalus, and Polemarchus	p. 167
Thrasymachus' initial account of justice	p. 172
Thrasymachus' "definitions" of justice	p. 175
Cleitophon's recommendation	p. 178
Aiming and determining in the "Thrasymachus episode"	p. 182
Socrates' defense of SV in Republic 1	p. 187
The benefits of injustice	p. 192
Defining justice and the project of the Republic	p. 192
The classification of goods	p. 194
Understanding Glaucon's example	p. 201
The origin of justice according to the many	p. 203
The benefits of injustice	p. 206
Early education and non-philosophers in the Republic	p. 212
Overview	p. 212
The significance of early education	p. 215
A tension in the account of early education	p. 219
Philosophers and non-philosophers in the Republic	p. 232
Aiming at virtue and determining what it is	p. 247
Just actions and the just soul in Republic 4	p. 247
Just persons	p. 254
The virtue of non-philosophers	p. 259
The promise of an answer to determining questions	p. 267
The role and significance of Books 8 and 9	p. 272
Epilogue	p. 282
Bibliography	p. 286
Index locorum	p. 295
General index	p. 305
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