Special volume of "Thaumàzein - Rivista di Filosofia" dedicated to the theme of Socratic Eudaimonia and care for others. It is a multilingual volume comprising twenty papers divided into six sections with an introduction by Linda Napolitano. Edited by Santiago Chame, Donald Morrison, and Linda Napolitano. -/- Despite the appearances given by certain texts, the moral psychology of Socrates needs not imply selfishness. On the contrary, a close look at passages in Plato and Xenophon (see Plato, Meno 77-78; Protagoras 358; (...) Gorgias 466-468; Euthydemus 278; Lysis 219; Xenophon, Memorabilia III 9, 4-5) suggests that the “egoist”’s welfare depends upon the welfare of others (i.e. family, friends or the whole city). Since the welfare of his family, friends and city is part of his own eudaimonìa, the “egoist” (phìlautos) has a direct and intrinsic motive to promote the welfare of these others. -/- This multilingual issue explores the role that other peoples’ welfare plays in Socratic ethics. Special attention is paid to test-cases in which the principle that moral action is always good only for the agent seems to have no validity. I.e., under which circumstances is the self-sacrifice for the sake of others (such as the soldier’s self-sacrifice on the battlefield) good for the agent (as in Alcibiades I 115a-116d)? Essays deal with contradictions or tensions of this sort, and relate them to more general views on eudaimonìa held within Socratic literature. Comparison between different Socratic authors is used as a means to identify the distinctive features of Socratic eudaimonìa if compared to other Greek theories of happiness, such as the Aristotelian theory of philautìa (NE IX, 1166a-1166b; 1168a-1169b). (shrink)

Virtue ethics has been charged with being unable to provide solutions to practical moral issues. In response, the defenders of virtue ethics argue that normative virtue ethics exists. The debate is significant on its own, yet both sides of the controversy approach the issue from the assumption that moral philosophy has to tell us what we should do. In this essay, I would like to examine the question regarding the practicality of virtue ethics in a different way. Virtue ethics is (...) an ancient approach shared by both ancient Greek philosophers and classic Chinese Confucians, and indeed, ancient Greeks call ethics practical science. How, then, do the ancients themselves view the issue of practicality? This essay shows that there is a notion of practicality which is prominent in both ancient Greek and ancient Chinese virtue ethics but is neglected in today’s ethics. According to this notion, ethics is to transform one’s life. The essay also raises a prospect of the revival of this notion. (shrink)

The paper is an effort to better understand, through a comparison, how Confucius and Socrates initate their ethical inquiries that have laid down, respectively, the foundations of Chinese and Western ethics. Since both Confucius and Socrates claim to have a divine mission to undertake their investigations, the paper focuses on the issue about how religion and rational philosophy are related when ethics begins. It shows that both have serious religious belief, yet each has secular rational grounds for doing what he (...) is doing. Finally, each philosopher has a different view about how human beings are related to the divine being, and the difference determines their different approaches to ethics. (shrink)

When is it rational to commit suicide? More specifically, when is it rational for a Platonist to commit suicide, and more worryingly, is it ever not rational for a Platonist to commit suicide? If the Phaedo wants us to learn that the soul is immortal, and that philosophy is a preparation for a state better than incarnation, then why does it begin with a discussion defending the prohibition of suicide? In the course of that discussion, Socrates offers (but does not (...) necessarily endorse) two arguments for the prohibition of self-killing, at least in most circumstances, which have exerted a long and powerful influence over subsequent discussion of the topic, particularly in theist contexts. In the context of the Phaedo itself, however, this introductory conversation plays a crucial role in setting the agenda for the remainder of the dialogue and offering an initial discussion of the major concerns of the argument as a whole. In particular, the discussion of the nature of suicide is intimately bound up with Socrates¿ conception of true philosophy as a ¿preparation for death¿, the relationship between soul and body, and the immortality of the soul. My intention is to provide a reading of that passage (61e-69e) which asks whether the Phaedo can offer a philosophically satisfying distinction between suicide and philosophy and how it relates to other ancient philosophical attitudes to self-killing. I argue that Socrates does not think that being dead is always preferable to being alive, and that the religious views expressed in the passage are consistent with his general stance on the benevolence of the gods. (shrink)

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.

Socratic irony is potentially fertile ground for exegetical abuse. It can seem to offer an interpreter the chance to dismiss any claim which conflicts with his account of Socratic Philosophy merely by crying ‘irony’. If abused in this way, Socratic irony can quickly become a convenient receptacle for everything inimical to an interpretation. Much recent scholarship rightly reacts against this and devotes itself to explaining how Socrates actually means everything he says, at least everything of philosophical importance. But the fact (...) that a commentator needs toarguethat Socrates is really serious when he disavows knowledge or claims to be the saviour of Athens is by itself sufficient to establish that there is an abundance of what I will call ‘play’ in the Socratic dialogues. The term ‘play’ refers to occasions when Socrates at leastappearsnot to be speaking straightforwardly. ‘Play’ covers cases of real or apparent humour, mockery, teasing, irony, and sarcasm, without differentiation or further elaboration. When left undefined, as often, the phrase ‘Socratic irony’ seems to be used to refer to what I am calling ‘play’. (shrink)

The dialectic exhibited in Plato’s dialogues assumes different characters throughout the corpus. Nevertheless, it remains always linked to refutation. In this way, like dialectic, refutation assumes different characteristics. The aim of this work is to show how refutation takes a key role in the Sophist, even with unique features: far from facing an opponent of flesh and blood as in Socratic dialogues, the Eleatic Stranger faces hypotheses, and instead of examining consistence within the opponent’s beliefs, he draws upon a radical (...) mechanism that focuses in the conditions of possibility of the discourse. (shrink)

When this study was initiated in 2008, the concept of family social capital was new to the family business discipline. This paper summarizes in-depth qualitative research grounded in owning family experience to understand the nature and source of owning family social capital. _Exploratory research_ began with roundtable discussions among family business owners, advisors, and researchers to understand how owning families sustain positive relationships characteristic of family social capital. These discussions revealed that some family business owners rely on their family faith (...) to sustain and establish ethical norms. A follow-up review in the family studies literature revealed that many families rely on family faith practices and faith-based narratives to reinforce ethical norms that strengthen family relationships. Based on these findings, researchers developed hypotheses to guide additional research. Four owning families affiliated with different Christian denominations participated in _in-depth qualitative research_ that supports hypotheses. Interviews and archival data revealed very similar faith-based practices, beliefs, and values across the four owning families. And additional qualitative evidence indicated positive connections between values-based family social capital and family owner succession, business performance, and community support. Theoretical relationships derived from qualitative data are summarized in a Faith-Based Values Theory of Family Business. (shrink)

In this paper, I clarify and defend a provocative hypothesis offered by Bernard Williams, namely, that modern people are much more likely to speak in terms of master-concepts like “good” or “right,” and correspondingly less likely to think and speak in the pluralistic terms favored by certain Ancient societies. By conducting a close reading of the Platonic dialogues Charmides and Laches, I show that the figure of Socrates plays a key historical role in this conceptual shift. Once we understand that (...) our narrow, reductionist focus on “thin” ethical concepts is a contingent historical development, we are, I claim, in a much better position to evaluate it. (shrink)

The current coronavirus pandemic has presented many scientific disciplines, including philosophy, with various theoretical and practical challenges. In this paper, we deal with three philosophical issues related to the pandemic and specific approaches to them. The first part of the article is dedicated to the analysis of the term?expert,? whose significance was highlighted at the outbreak of the pandemic. By examining Plato?s ancient and Goldman?s modern understanding of this concept, we will try to emphasize the importance of expert opinion in (...) crisis circumstances. In the second part of the paper, we will deal with the issue of public mistrust of scientific authorities as well as the problem of the flourishing of so-called conspiracy theories. Goldenberg?s and Cassam?s approach to this topic will help us see where the source of these problems might lie and what potentially harmful consequences they can produce. In the third part of the text, we list some of the main moral dilemmas we have faced since the beginning of the pandemic. Special attention is paid to Kant?s moral philosophy in which we find advice on how an individual should act in times of crisis. (shrink)

This article offers a new formulation of the Socratic principle known as the Principle of the Sovereignty of Virtue. It is divided in three sections. In the first section I criticize Vlastos’ formulation of the PSV. In the second section I present the weighing model of practical deliberation, introduce the concepts of reason for action, simple reason, sufficient reason and conclusive reason that were offered by Thomas Scanlon in Being realistic about reasons, and then I adapt these concepts so as (...) to render them apt to be used in the formulation I intend to offer. In the third section I present my formulation of the PSV using the concepts introduced in the second section and explain why I believe this formulation is better than the one offered by Vlastos. (shrink)

Readers who are introduced to philosophical analysis by reading the early Platonic dialogues may be puzzled to find that Plato, in his middle and late periods, largely abandons the style of analysis characteristic of early Plato, namely, the 'Socratic elenchus'. This paper undertakes to solve the puzzle. In contrast to what is popularly called 'the Socratic method', the elenchus requires that Socrates, the lead investigator, not have a satisfactory answer to his 'What is F-ness?' question. Here is the bind. Part (...) of what motivates the elenctic inquiry is the natural assumption that one cannot identify F-things unless one has a satisfactory analysis of what it is to be F. But to test the adequacy of suggested analyses of F-ness one needs to be able to identify counterexamples. Together these two points present us with a 'catch-22', which is something the 'paradox of inquiry' in the Meno brings out. In the Theaetetus Plato makes clear that, although the elenchus, including Socratic ignorance, can refute philosophical theses arrived at by other means, it cannot, by itself, give birth to viable philosophical theses. Its legitimate role is therefore only propaedeutic. (shrink)

In the Gorgias, Plato has Polus ask Socrates if he would rather suffer injustice than perform it. Socrates’ response is justly famous, affirming a view that Polus himself finds incredible, and one that even contemporary readers find difficult to credit: “for my part, I would prefer neither, but if it had to be one or the other, I would choose to suffer rather than do what is unjust”. In this paper, we take up the part of Socrates’ response that Polus (...) never engages and that has also been completely neglected by contemporary scholars, namely, Socrates’ explicit aversion to being a victim of injustice. We show that this same aversion—though one not nearly as strong as his aversion to doing injustice—appears in several texts, and we argue that the best explanation of such an aversion derives from two important features of Socratic philosophy, both of which have only recently been recognized in Socratic scholarship: his virtue intellectualism, which conceives of virtue as a kind of craft that can be achieved in different degrees, and his conception of moral psychology, which allows for non-rational influences on how we perform the cognitive functions required for proper deliberation. (shrink)

Incorporating Gadamer and other thinkers from the continental tradition, this essay is a close and detailed hermeneutic, phenomenological, and ontological study of the dialectic practice of Plato’s Socrates—it radicalizes and refutes the Socrates-as-teacher model that educators from scholar academic ideology embrace.

In some of Plato’s early dialogues we find a concern with correctly ascertaining the contents of a particular kind of one’s own psychological states, cognitive states. Indeed, one of the achievements of the elenctic method is to facilitate cognitive self-knowledge. In the Alcibiades, moreover, Plato interprets the Delphic injunction, ‘know yourself’, as crucially requiring cognitive self-knowledge, and ending in knowing oneself as subject to particular epistemic norms. Epistemic authority for self-knowledge is, for Plato, conferred on the basis of correct application (...) of norms to cognitive self-ascriptions, and not confined to the first-personal perspective. This implies first-personal plural epistemic authority for self-knowledge. (shrink)

Can Artificial Intelligence be more effective than human instruction for the moral enhancement of people? The author argues that it only would be if the use of this technology were aimed at increasing the individual's capacity to reflectively decide for themselves, rather than at directly influencing behaviour. To support this, it is shown how a disregard for personal autonomy, in particular, invalidates the main proposals for applying new technologies, both biomedical and AI-based, to moral enhancement. As an alternative to these (...) proposals, this article proposes a virtual assistant that, through dialogue, neutrality and virtual reality technologies, can teach users to make better moral decisions on their own. The author concludes that, as long as certain precautions are taken in its design, such an assistant could do this better than a human instructor adopting the same educational methodology. (shrink)

This article contends that Socratic wisdom (sophia) in Plato's Apology should be understood in relation to moderation (sophrosune), not knowledge (episteme). This stance is exemplified in an interpretation of Socrates' disavowal of knowledge. The god calls Socrates wise. Socrates holds both that he is wise in nothing great or small and that the god does not lie. These apparently inconsistent claims are resolved in an interpretation of elenchus. This interpretion says that Socrates is wise insofar as he does not believe (...) himself to know what he does not know. Whether one knows is demonstrated through elenchus, which moderates between knowledge claims. Thus, elenchus is productive of a kind of wisdom even if it does not produce knowledge. This claim, if true, forms a suitable basis for Socrates' defense of himself. That it does so serves as further evidence for the interpretation of sophia as sophrosune. (shrink)

Two challenges have lately been posed to the importance of sincerity for our public discourse. On the one hand, it has been suggested that because sincerity is so difficult to identify, a preoccupation with the inner lives of others distracts us from the substance of what people say. On the other hand, some worry that making sincere statements can sometimes undermine the very deliberation that advocates of sincerity are so concerned to protect. In light of these challenges, I attempt to (...) analyze our interest in sincerity in terms of a concern for solidarity with our fellow citizens. I then argue that focusing on the sincerity of various assertions is not a good way to promote social cohesion and that this concern is better addressed by looking at the commitment that others have to the process of democratic deliberation. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to understand what Socrates says about expertise and virtue in Plato’s dialogue Laches in the light of Socrates’ idea of “human wisdom” in the Apology of Socrates. Conducting a good life requires both “knowledge about good and bad things”, that is, knowledge about human well-being, and “human wisdom”. Socrates aspires to epistemic autonomy: Trust in your own reason, and don’t let any expert tell you anything about your own happiness.

One puzzling feature of Plato’s Republic is the First City or ‘city of pigs’. Socrates praises the First City as a “true”, “healthy” city, yet Plato abandons it with little explanation. I argue that the problem is not a political failing, as most previous readings have proposed: the First City is a viable political arrangement, where one can live a deeply Socratic lifestyle. But the First City has a psychological corollary, that the soul is simple rather than tripartite. Plato sees (...) this ‘First Soul’ as an inaccurate model of moral psychology, and so rejects it, along with its political analogue. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that in the digression in Plato’s Theaetetus godlikeness may be construed as Socrates’ ethical achievement, part and parcel of his art of mental mid­wifery. Although the philosophical life of contemplation and detachment from earthly affairs exemplifies the human ideal of godlikeness, Socrates’ godlikeness is an inferior but legitimate species of the genus. This is the case because Socratic godlikeness abides by the two requirements for godlikeness that Socrates sets forth in the digression: first, it is (...) a kind of escape from the phenomenal world; and second, it allows Socrates to become just and pious with wisdom. The crucial difference between Socrates and the philosopher that prevents the former from being as godlike as the latter is his epistemic barrenness, on account of which he cannot define the constitutive virtues of godlikeness, i.e., justice, piety, and wisdom. As a barren midwife of the intellect, Socrates practices godlikeness but does not have a philosophical understanding of its nature. Nevertheless, by extolling the life of the philosopher he urges others to aspire to what he can never attain, philosophical godlikeness. (shrink)

Dans leLachèsde Platon, Socrate attribue à son interlocuteur la connaissance du courage et tente de reconstruire cette connaissance sous forme discursive. Son attribution de connaissance à Lachès détermine son comportement discursif dans le dialogue, nécessitant qu’il s’abstienne de juger erronés les propos son interlocuteur, qu’il interprète l’erreur apparente comme une erreur de discours plutôt que de connaissance, et qu’il cherche la vérité sous-jacente au contenu manifeste des paroles de Lachès. La méthode de Socrate dans cet elenchos peut être décrite comme (...) une sorte d’«exégèse épistémique», qui cherche à extraire et à donner une forme discursive à la connaissance de la vertu dont elle suppose que l’interlocuteur est déjà possesseur. (shrink)

The concept of human wisdom is fundamental for an understanding of the Apology. But it has not been properly understood. The received interpretations offer insufficient resources for explaining how Socrates could have been humanly wise before Apollophilosophiaeven though he did not know that he did. The analysis is confirmed by its resolution of some enduring difficulties in the interpretation of Apology, in particular, the question of why Socrates continued to search for knowledge he thought impossible to attain.

ABSTRACTThe goal of this paper is to challenge the standard view that Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues is an intellectualist with respect to virtue. Through a detailed analysis of the educational theory laid out in the early dialogues, it will be argued that Socrates believes that the best way to cultivate virtues in his interlocutors is not to convince them of ethical truths by way of reason and argument alone, but to encourage them to participate in the practice of (...) virtue. Habit and practice are essential to the cultivation of virtue because they mould the desires and dispositions of the agent and promote a kind of knowledge that cannot be achieved discursively – craft-knowledge. Only when agents have achieved craft-knowledge can they be counted on to act virtuously on every occasion; and craft-knowledge can only be achieved by way of practice and habituation. (shrink)

This paper examines whether Socrates provides his interlocutors with good reasons to seek knowledge of what virtue is, reasons that they are in a position to appreciate. I argue that in the Laches he does provide such reasons, but they are not the reasons that are most commonly identified as Socratic. Socrates thinks his interlocutors should be motivated not by the idea that virtue is knowledge nor by the idea that knowledge is good for its own sake, but rather by (...) the idea that knowledge is needed to recognize what to aim at. His argument reaches the potentially life-altering conclusion that we should all seek knowledge of what virtue is. It is powerful precisely because it relies on uncontroversial premises that his interlocutors could be expected to accept. In laying out this argument, I distinguish different ways in which someone could count as a teacher of virtue. At the end of the article, I situate the argument within the debate about whether virtue is teachable. (shrink)

The present paper attempts to throw some light on the conundrum of Socrates’ political views in the Apology and Crito. The problem resides in that the Socrates of the Apology evidently undermines the authority of Athenian democracy, whereas the Socrates of the Crito argues that his escape from prison would be tantamount to disrespecting the state, which would in turn threaten the prosperity of the entire πόλις. The article suggests that in the two dialogues, the young Plato examines the possibility (...) of steering a middle course between embracing relativism, on the one hand, and encouraging civil disobedience, on the other. Thus, the philosopher focuses primarily on investigating the two options, without either totally subordinating the citizen to the state, or unreflexively accepting any crude pragmatism. (shrink)

This article is about a relationship between the Socratic practice of philosophy and the aesthetic practice of watching and appreciating film. The conclusion that I defend is that certain narrative films, like the elenctic method in the hands of Socrates, are philosophical tools for examining our cognitive and emotional life and thus for gaining insight into aspects of our character. In the early sections of the article I construct an analogy between the practice of watching narrative film and the practice (...) of self-examination through dialogue and reflection. I argue that good aesthetic practice in film appreciation is analogous to good philosophical practice in the manner of Socrates, and I treat the elenchus as a method of self-examination rather than of conceptual analysis and Socrates himself as an examiner of people rather than of abstract concepts. In the later sections I discuss three films directed by Christopher Nolan—Memento, The Prestige, and Inception —as paradigm cases of Socratic film. I argue that these films show us something about ourselves by prompting extemporaneous emotional responses and cognitive judgments that we come, reflectively, to reject. (shrink)

As a cognitivist about emotions, Socrates takes the fear of death to be a belief that death is a bad thing for the one who dies. Socrates, however, thinks there are reasons for thinking death is not a bad thing at all, and might even be a blessing. So the question considered in this paper is: how would Socrates explain the fact that so many people believe death is bad?

The essay examines the description of virtue as a craft that governs the proper use of possessions in Plato’s Euthydemus and Stoicism. In the first part, I discuss Socrates’ parallel between wisdom and the crafts in the Euthydemus, and the resulting argument concerning the value of external and bodily possessions. I then offer some objections, showing how Socrates’ craft analogy allows one to think of possessions as good and ultimately fails to offer a defense of virtue’s sufficiency for happiness. In (...) the second part, I examine the Stoics’ craft analogy and note a number of differences from Socrates’ account in the Euthydemus. These include the Stoic claim that external advantages never make any contribution to happiness, even when properly used, and the claim that, unlike other crafts, wisdom does not require any external possessions in order to be exercised and yield benefit and happiness. I then place these differences against the backdrop of the debate regarding virtue’s sufficiency for happiness and argue that the Stoic craft model of virtue fares better than its Socratic antecedent. (shrink)

It seems an odd claim that knowing could be itself of intrinsic worth. Knowledge appears heavily, perhaps entirely reliant for its worth on the value of the objects known and the value of the ends...

The framework of this paper is a defence of Burnet's construal ofApology30b 2-4. Socrates does not claim, as he is standardly translated, that virtue makes you rich, but that virtue makes money and everything else good for you. This view of the relation between virtue and wealth is paralleled in dialogues of every period, and a sophisticated development of it appears in Aristotle. My philological defence of the philosophically preferable translation extends recent scholarly work on εἶναι in Plato and Aristotle (...) to γίγνεσθαι, which is the main verb in the disputed sentence. When attached to a subject, both verbs make a complete statement on their own, but a statement that is further completableby adding a complement. The important point is that the addition of a complement does not change the meaning of the verb from existence to the copula. Proving this is a lengthy task which takes me into some of the deeper reaches of Platonic and Aristotelian ontology, and into discussion of whether Greek ever acquired a verb that corresponds to modern verbs of existence. I conclude that even when later authors such as Philo Judaeus, Sextus Empiricus and Plotinus debate what we naturally translate as issues of existence, none of the verbs they use can be said to have existential meaning. (shrink)

What role, if any, does dialectic play in Aristotle’s epistemology in the Topics? In this paper I argue that it does play a role, but a role that is independent of endoxa. In the first section, I sketch the case for thinking that dialectic plays a distinctively epistemological role—not just a methodological role, or a merely instrumental role in getting episteme. In the second section, I consider three ways it could play that role, on two of which endoxa play at (...) least a co-starring role. But in the third section, I argue that endoxa don’t play that co-starring role, by arguing for a deflationary account of what endoxa are. For that reason, the third view emerges as the most plausible; but the third view is, I’ll suggest, Platonic. (shrink)

Plato's Philebus contains an intricate difficulty. Plato seems to hold both (a) that all pleasures are processes of becoming, a crucial premise in the argument that no pleasure is good (53c?55c) and (b) that some pleasures contribute in their own right to the goodness of the best life (64c?67b). Since it seems also plausible that only things which are good can contribute to the goodness of the best life in their own right, Plato's view seems to be inconsistent. Interpreters usually (...) reject either (a) or (b). As Plato seems firmly committed to both (a) and (b), I propose a third way of dealing with the inconsistency. The apparent inconsistency highlights a vital contrast between what is independently good (good per se), what is dependently good (good through participating in what is independently good), and what is derivatively good (good through standing in a certain relation to dependent goods). I argue that while pleasure's being a process of becoming marks it out as derivatively good, some kinds of pleasure are also dependent goods in virtue of their objects ? irrespective of their being processes of becoming. (shrink)

In this article, I approach some phenomena seen predominantly on social-media sites that are grouped together as cancel culture with guidance from two major themes in Plato’s thought. In the first section, I argue that shame can play a constructive and valuable role in a person’s improvement, just as we see Socrates throughout Plato’s dialogues use shame to help his interlocutors improve. This insight can help us understand the value of shaming people online for, among other things, their morally reprehensible (...) views. In the second section, I argue that it is required for the proper functioning of democratic institutions that some views be excluded from the public sphere, which follows some Platonic ideas from the Laws. In neither case do I argue that this approach is good in an unqualified sense or even ultima facie good. However, I maintain that these important insights from Plato’s dialogues illuminate crucial aspects of how we should think about cancel culture. (shrink)

Plato’s Socrates is famous for claiming that “I know one thing: That I know nothing”. There is one subject that Socrates repeatedly claims to have expertise in, however: ta erôtika. Socrates also refers to this expertise as his erôtikê technê, which may be translated as “erotic expertise”. In this dissertation, I investigate Socrates’ erotic expertise: what kind of expertise is it, what is it constituted by, where is it put into practice, and how is it practiced? I argue that the (...) purposes this expertise serve are, to a significant extent, educational in nature. After first having clarified the dissertation’s topic and aim, as well as my methodological approach, I present an initial account of erôs and Socrates’ erotic expertise. While discussing what constitutes Socrates’ erotic expertise, I account for two erotic educational methods: midwifery and matchmaking. I further argue that these methods tend to be accompanied by two psychological techniques, namely charming and shaming. I argue that these methods and techniques are systematically applied by Socrates when he puts his erotic expertise into practice. In the dissertation, three dialogues where Socrates practices his erotic expertise are scrutinized: Lysis, Charmides, and Alcibiades I. I focus on Socrates’ encounters with the eponymous youths of the dialogues, and each dialogue is devoted a chapter of its own. I show how these dialogues are erotically charged, and also how Socrates in these dialogues demonstrates his erotic expertise. I argue that Socrates’ expertise on erôs plays an essential role in his attempts to engage the three youths in the processes of self-cultivation, learning, and the very practice of philosophy. In the final chapter of the dissertation I turn to some questions that arise in light of my readings, and summarize the results of my investigation. (shrink)

According to G. E. Moore, moral expertise requires abilities of several kinds: the ability to factor judgments of right and wrong into (a) judgments of good and bad and (b) judgments of cause and effect, (2) the ability to use intuition to make the requisite judgments of good and bad, and (3) the ability to use empirical investigation to make the requisite judgments of cause and effect. Moore’s conception of moral expertise is thus extremely demanding, but he supplements it with (...) some very simple practical guidance. (shrink)

This paper contrasts Socrates’ attitude towards poetry in the early dialogues with the sharply critical view of poetry expressed in Plato’s Republic. The difference between these two views constitutes further evidence for a developmentalist interpretation of Plato.

This paper argues that Socrates does not claim to be a political expert at Gorgias 521d6-8, as many scholars say. Still, Socrates does claim a special grasp of true politics. His special grasp (i) results from divine dispensation; (ii) is coherent true belief about politics; and (iii) also is Socratic wisdom about his own epistemic shortcomings. This condition falls short of expertise in two ways: Socrates sometimes lacks fully determinate answers to political questions, and he does not grasp the first (...) principles of politics. (shrink)

There is a wide consensus among scholars that Plato’s Socrates is wrong to trust in reason and argument as capable of converting people to the life of philosophy. In this paper, I argue for the opposite. I show that Socrates employs a more sophisticated strategy than is typically supposed. Its key component is the use of philosophical argument not to lead an interlocutor to rationally conclude that he must change his way of life but rather to cause a certain affective (...) experience, one that can be effective at changing his beliefs about how best to live. (shrink)

This essay adopts a Continental philosophical approach to reading Plato’s Socrates in terms of a “third way” that cuts a middle path between doctrinal and esoteric readings of the dialogues. It presents a portrait of Socratic education that is at odds with contemporary views in education and curriculum that view Plato’s Socrates as either the teacher of a truth-finding method or proto-fascist authoritarian. It argues that the crucial issue of attempting to foster an ethical disposition is a unique form of (...) education, in terms of “care of the soul,” that unfolds only within the context of sustained dialectic interrogation. Education is a “difficult” process that entails the “turning” of the soul back to itself in an enlightened form, which is bound up with an ontological relationship of distance to the so-called “truth” of the virtues that appear in limited and dissembling ways to Socrates and the interlocutors. Ultimately, it is shown that “care of the soul” is grounded in the attunement that locates the human being in the world in such a way that “not-knowing” is the most original way in which our Being-in-the-world unfolds, and to embrace this “difficult” truth is to at once set oneself on the arduous but rewarding educative path toward the potential development of an ethical disposition. (shrink)