The Argument On Virtue In Plato

In the Meno, Plato believes that true beliefs becomes knowledge by the grounding true belief. As mentioned before, if virtue is x, then it can be taught (because knowledge can be taught), therefore virtue (x) is equal to knowledge. Plato's expositions of elements of his own theory of knowledge, yet, the investigation of knowledge is indirect. I believe Socrates states that everyone was born with a knowledge of right and wrong, he / she needed to experience situations where he / she needed to recall this knowledge. He makes reference to the initial knowledge being in the soul.

Plato's theory of forms, also called his theory of ideas, states that there is another world, separate from the material world that we live in called the "eternal world of forms". This world, to Plato, is more real than the one we live in. His theory is shown in his Allegory of the Cave (from The Republic, Book VII), where the prisoners only live in what they think is a real world, but really it is a shadow of reality. According to Plato, to the prisoners in the allegory and to humanity in the material world "truth would be literally nothing but shadows" and he believes us to be as ignorant as the people in the cave. Plato followed the belief that in order for something to be real it has to be permanent, and as everything in the world we

In Plato’s dialogue, Meno, the primary objective is an inquiry of the meaning of virtue. Much debate and several futile attempts to define virtue prompts Meno to inquire whether an answer is even possible. The problem Socrates and Meno have come across is how do you find something, like virtue, when you do not know what it is you are looking for and how will you know when you have found it? This idea is what is known as “Meno’s Paradox”: “[One] cannot search for what he knows—since he knows it, there is no need to search—nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for” (80e3-50). If both premises of “Meno’s Paradox” are accepted as true, then the paradox necessarily implies that searching for any answer is both impossible and unnecessary. Plato demonstrates the veracity behind the his theory of recollection and the concept of all true knowledge being innate through his Socratic dialogues in the text, Meno.

Plato, being a Socratic apprentice, followed and transcribed the experiences Socrates had in his teachings and search of understanding. In Plato’s first work, The Allegory of the Cave, Socrates forms the understanding between appearance vs. reality and the deceptions we are subject to by the use of forms. In the cave, the prisoners’ experiences are limited to what their senses can tell them, the shadows on the walls, and their shackles; these appearances are all that they have to form their ideas. When one of the prisoners begins to question his reality he makes his way out of the cave and into the day light. This prisoners understanding of his reality has now expanded, thus the theory of forms; when he returns to the cave to spread the news, the others do not believe him. They have been deceived by their reality and what

In the Republic of Plato, the philosopher Socrates lays out his notion of the good, and draws the conclusion that virtue must be attained before one can be good. For Socrates there are two kinds of virtue; collective and individual. Collective virtue is virtue as whole, or the virtues of the city. Individual virtue pertains to the individual himself, and concerns the acts that the individual does, and concerns the individual’s soul. For Socrates, the relationship between individual and collective virtue is that they are the same, as the virtues of the collective parallel those of the Individual. This conclusion can be reached as both the city and the soul deal with the four main virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice.

In Chapter 2 of Republic, Glaucon uses the Myth of the Lydian Shepherd to portray a pessimistic view of human nature. Plato, the author of Republic, uses his brother Glaucon to tell the Myth of the Lydian Shepherd. We are led to believe that Plato takes the myth and its implications on human nature very seriously by use of a personal character. The argument, originally given by Thrasymachus, contends that at the root of our human nature we all yearn for the most profit possible. It also contends that any man will act immorally if given free reign. The theory proves unplausible due to circularity in the argument and implications that prove untrue.

Ancient moral theory explains morality in terms that focus on the moral agent. These thinkers are interested in what constitutes, e.g., a just person. They are concerned about the state of mind and character, the set of values, the attitudes to oneself and to others, and the conception of one 's own place in the common life of a community that belong to just persons simply insofar as they are just. A modern might object that this way of proceeding is backwards. Just actions are logically prior to just persons and must be specifiable in advance of any account of what it is to be a just person. Of course, the ancients had a rough idea of what just actions were; and this rough idea certainly contributed to the notion of a just person, and his

During this week’s intro to Plato’s Meno and the idea of inputting a portion of the first few pages to improve life I stumbled across an interesting topic. This was what I call differences in species and matter or like Sacrates described it by asking, “… you think it is only in the case of virtue that there is one for a man, another for a woman and so on.” (2). There, we can see that he wants to make sure that Meno knows that “virtue” is no different for man than for a female than for a child. Therefore, this becomes the first anti-racial argument that was established. They talk about how bees have different attributes, this being my state of matter, from one another, yet because they are all bees, the same specie, we call them and categorize them as bees and nothing else. If that is the case, we are all humans. Life can be better if we avoid an everyday pre-judgment state

My first read through of the text left me confused and irritated but upon multiple reads I feel as though I grasped some content on it. I think he is addressing human ignorance. We cannot fully see life and all it’s events/organisms so the little things that we do see, in the pretext of making sense of them our minds connect it to words. It doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever name/meaning we give to something is correct, it just means that is all we know and by categorizing that object we can demystify its existence. It’s like when someone grows up in a small neighborhood their whole life that is all they know but then for some reason they venture out of that comfort zone, everything is strange and almost unreal. But within time the veil

“No one willingly chooses to rule […]; but he asks for wages, because the man who is doing anything fine by art never does what is best for himself nor does he command it, insofar as he is commanding by art, but rather what is best for the man who is ruled. It is for just this reason, as it seems, that there must be wages for those who are going to be willing to rule— either money, or honor, or a penalty if he should not rule (346e, 347a).”

In Protagoras by Plato, the question “what is virtue?” is being assessed. They come to many definitions of virtue but one definition that is being discussed is that virtue has five different components, this can be seen on page 46 at 349d of Plato’s Protagoras. Protagoras states, “What I am saying to you, Socrates, is that all these are parts of virtue, and that while four of them are reasonably close to each other, courage is completely different from all the rest. The proof that what I am saying is true is that you will find many people who are extremely unjust, impious, intemperate, and ignorant, and yet exceptionally courageous” (Plato 46). In order to understand this quote we need to assess: why it is significant, how courage is

In modern moral philosophy there are four major points. The first is Relativism, which is the doctrine that morals are a matter solely of personal opinion. There is an objection to it that is to society, it is freighting to have someone live by this concept. There is also the moral point of view. With this there can be some common consent. Most modern philosophers look for the same thing as Plato, the common reason moral principle. The first idea about this is that we must at least be capable of non-selfish motives. Kant, a German philosopher, was from the 1800s. He proposed that the moral principle could be built from a widely accepted religious belief. For instance, the Golden Rule, which means act the way you want to be treated. There is a flaw to that rule though. The Sado Masochist is a person who enjoys to be hurt. If they would follow the Golden Rule, they would be treating others by inflicting pain. Kant notes that motives should then be focused on. To do this the motives would need to be universalized. Consider a Sado and possible his girlfriend. The Sado would want the girlfriend to cause him pain but the girlfriend would possible want to be kind and affectionate. Another way of viewing this would be using the veil of ignorance. By using this, the difference between the victim and the aggressor is indistinguishable and that way you could be put into someone else’s shoes.

In this dialogue we see Socrates in intellectual argument with a fellow philosopher: Protagoras who claims to be Sophists (professional expert in wisdom) they both use various arguments and counter arguments to prove their arguments on the topic of piety and virtue. Socrates believed that Virtues is something that could not be taught or learned, where Protagoras claimed that he can teach people “good judgement” in both personal affairs, civil issues and teach political science so that his students will become good citizens.

“As far as I am concerned, the result is that I know nothing, for when I don 't know what justice is, I 'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy” (Republic 354c)

In the Meno, Plato tries to define virtue (arete), meaning virtue in general and not just particular virtues like justice or temperance, by going over three central philosophical questions regarding this topic which are if it’s taught or inborn, if we can know it before actually undergoing it, and finally the distinction between having the knowledge of it and having the exact correct belief of it. While searching for the truth, Meno challenges the possibility of inquiry by asking those questions about knowing and not knowing and providing supporting arguments against that possibility, turning the dialogue into a profound discussion (Fine, The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’ Paradox from Socrates to Sextus, 1). He even suspects knowledge recollection. This deep discussion is what is known as “Meno’s Paradox, or Paradox of Inquiry” (Westacott,