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Socrates and the Acquisition of Knowledge*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
Extract
It has been accepted since antiquity that one of the basic principles of the philosophy of Socrates was ‘virtue is knowledge’; that this was so is made abundantly clear by both Plato and Aristotle. It has also been assumed by scholars ancient and modern that Socrates, who believed that in this knowledge lay happiness, spent his life looking for it. In the early dialogues Plato represents Socrates as frequently professing either partial or total ignorance, but as always more or less confidently searching for the truth. The traditional interpretation continues with the belief that somewhere near the time of his first visit to Sicily Plato’s thought began to develop beyond that of his master, and that one of his first advances was his theory of knowledge by recollection, which he developed presumably because of dissatisfaction with Socrates’ ideas on how knowledge could be attained.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1969
References
1 Burge, E.L. ‘The Irony of Socrates’, Antkhtkon 3 (1969), 5–17.Google Scholar
2 Burge, op. cit. 7.
3 Plato, Protagoras, introd. Gregory Vlastos (New York, 1956), p.30.Google Scholar
4 Gulley, NormanThe Philosophy of Socrates (London, 1968), pp. 62–74.Google Scholar
5 The evidence of Xenophon and Aristotle, to go no further, is strongly against the possibility that the historical Socrates was a sceptic.
6 Fr. 34 DK.
7 Fr. 18 DK.
8 For a discussion of this subject see Snell, B.The Discovery of the Mind (Oxford, 1953), ch. 7.Google Scholar
9 I disagree with Burge’s somewhat tendentious translation (op. cit. 9) of σοφώτατός έστιν as ‘has reached the height of wisdom’.
10 Hugh Tredennick, in the Penguin translation.
11 While Socrates himself may not consider the word a term of abuse, he realizes that others use it as one. On the other hand, one imagines that no Athenian would have objected to its application to Apollo.
12 Apology 18 b 4–c I.
13 I assume that at least one reason for the condemnation of the two philosophers was their alleged impiety.
14 Apology 19 c 5–8.
15 Apology 22 c 9–d 4.
16 This passage, if no other, sufficiently demonstrates the impossibility of distinguishing between σοφία and έπιστήμη and their respective cognates.
17 See the appropriate articles in LSJ.
18 E.g. 3 d, 4 b, 5 b.
19 Laches, 194 d–195 a.
20 E.g. 197 d, 200 a, c.
21 E.g. 309 d, etc. Cf. also Charmides 161 c, i6a b, Hippias Major 281 a, 282 d, Hippias Minor 364 a and the opening pages of the Euthydemus.
22 Protagoras 350 c-e.
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26 This confusion makes it easier to understand Socrates’ belief that knowledge of ethical definitions inevitably entails ability to act correctly.
27 There are many other passages where τέχνη is associated with the verb έπίστασθαι, or where the actual noun τέχνη must be supplied.
28 For a fuller account of the breakdown of the analogy, see Gould, op. cit., pp. 37–45.
29 The first suggestion of a sceptical position seems to be the εριστικός lλόγος at Meno 80 d-e, and as this is the cue for the admittedly Platonic doctrine of recollection it is presumably seen as a cogent argument by Plato himself.
30 Op. cit., p. 73.
31 Op. cit., p. 72.
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35 A somewhat similar argument occurs at Laches 185 c ff.
36 The distinction was grasped by Plato: hence the need for the anamnesis theory to provide a sound basis for knowledge.
37 As, apparently, did Plato, as late as the Parmenides (147 d).
38 Op. cit., p. xxxvii, commenting on Protagoras 350 a.
39 lbid.
40 This may be inferred from Laches 199 d, Protagoras 352 c and Charmides 174 b–c.