In this thesis I discuss the epistemological problems Socrates' faces as he inquires in the early Platonic dialogues into the nature of virtue , the way these problems are brought to a head in the Meno, and the way in which Plato resolves them in the Phaedo. ;I argue that Socrates conducts his investigation on the assumption that a human being will be virtuous, and happy, if and only if he is successful in instilling in his soul the arrangement that (...) is objectively proper for it. To do that he must improve his epistemic standing in quite a specific way: he must come to know in a substantive and practically efficacious way what is good and bad in general. Possession of this knowledge, in addition to being what it is to instill virtue in one's soul, is also the necessary and sufficient condition for one's happiness. ;I then argue that recent claims that Socrates distinguishes between different epistemic standards and that he disavows knowledge in a strict, but not in a weaker, sense are versions of the Insincerity Thesis . The Insincerity Thesis lacks philosophical motivation, and textual support. ;In the light of this, Meno's challenge in the Meno becomes a real, not a sophistical, problem, given the Socratic connections between being virtuous, knowing what virtue is in a substantive way, and being able to give in account of what one knows. The final solution is delivered in the Phaedo: There is an ontological affinity between us qua souls and the constitutive elements of the world, the ethical world included, on the basis of which we are epistemically able to carve the world at its natural joints. (shrink)

"Plato's Statesman reconsiders many questions familiar to readers of the Republic: questions in political theory - such as the qualifications for the leadership of a state and the best from of constitution (politeia) - as well as questions of philosophical methodology and epistemology. Instead of the theory of Forms that is the centrepiece of the epistemology of the Republic, the emphasis here is on the dialectical practice of collection and division (diairesis), in whose service the interlocutors also deploy the ancillary (...) methods of myth and of models (paradeigmata). Plato here introduces the doctrine of due measure (to metrion) and a conception of statecraft (politikē) as an architectonic expertise that governs subordinate disciplines such as rhetoric and the military - doctrines later developed by Aristotle. Readers will find a sustained defence of the importance of expertise (technē or epistēmē) in the conduct of affairs of state, a robust (although not unqualified) defence of the rule of law, and an unsparing but nuanced critique of democratic government. The chapters in this volume provide a comprehensive and detailed philosophical engagement with the entirety of Plato's wide-ranging dialogue, with successive chapters devoted to the sections of the dialogue as it unfolds, and an introduction that places the dialogue in the context of Plato's philosophy as a whole. While not a commentary in the traditional sense, the volume engages with Plato's Statesman in its entirety" -- Publisher's description. (shrink)