1 Cf. Irwin, Terence, Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977)Google Scholar; Kube, Jörg, APETH und TEXNH (Berlin: de Gruyer 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Brien, Michael J., The Socratic Paradoxes and the Greek Mind (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press 1967)Google Scholar; Schaerer, René, EΠIETHMH et TEXNH (Macon: Protat Fnères 1930)Google Scholar; Sprague, Rosamond Kent, Plato's Philosopher King (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press 1976)Google Scholar.

2 By “early dialogues’ I shall mean the Socratic dialogues (Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Hippias Minor, Euthydemus, Ion) and the transitional dialogues (Protagoras, Gorgias, Cratylus, Hippias Major). Cf. Irwin, 291, n. 33.

3 Cf. Gould, J., The Development of Plato's Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1955)Google Scholar, 16ff; Lyons, J., Structural Semantics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1963)Google Scholar, 139 ff Lyons says that ‘the field of έπιστήμη is divided by the fields of τέχνη and γνῶσιζ´ (178). But he is talking about the whole Platonic corpus; the present qualified claim is about the early dialogues only. Cf. Charm. 165c4-el; Eud. 281a1-b2.

4 There are minor comparisons which compare, or attempt to compare, a virtue and a kind of craft on one point only; there is no attempt to develop the points of comparison further. Cf. Eu. 13a2-c10; Rep. 334b7 ff; Prot. 345al-8.

5 Other, less physical. assets are mentioned, e.g., temperance, Justice, courage, and wisdom (279b4-c2). It is puzzling to include virtues, especially wisdom, among the previously mentioned instrumental goods. But in the sequel, Socrates makes only the physical assets the instrumental goods to be used by wisdom. Cp. Meno 88a6-c4 where the other virtues are not really virtues unless they are guided by wisdom.

6 Various parts or features of the analogy can be found in other dialogues. Cf. La.195bl ff. In the Meno (87e5 ff) there is an outline remarkably close to that in the Euthydemus except that wisdom is not explicitly said to be a craft, nor is happiness said to be its outcome. Neither omission is significant. Wisdom is still seen as a knowledge of right use; and a subsequent passage (93b7 ff) shows that Plato is still capable of comparing virtue and skill.

7 Only in the Protagoras,in the dialogues under consideration, is happiness explicitly identified with pleasure. But this is not Socrates’ position (cf. Plato's Protagoras, Vlastos, G., ed., [New York: Bobbs-Merrill 1956)Google Scholar, xl, n. 50.) If this were, moreover, Socrates’ real position, its discovery would be a breakthrough in the elaboration of the craft analogy. Yet pleasure is not the goal of virtue in the craft analogy in any other dialogue under consideration.

8 The therapeutic crafts benefit their objects by providing for their welfare and their good (Rep. 342al-c9); they include medicine, gymnastic, and ruling. Socrates understands this welfare in a narrow sense; the welfare of an object is its perfection according to its excellence (Apo. 20a6-b2; Rep. 335b5-c3). Socrates’ reply to Thrasymachus (Rep. 345b10-e4) takes on a plausibility it does not otherwise have if to beltiston means excellence - as it does surely in the Gorgias (464b2 ff; 503d6 ff).

9 In this last passage ruling is compared to the crafts of carpentry, brassworking, and farming. Ruling is said not to be any of these crafts, not because it is not a craft, but because its object is the good of the whole state; the other crafts are too particular.

10 Rep. 488al ff shows that Plato still thinks of ruling as a craft in Book VI. I am indebted to Professor Vlastos for reminding me of this last example. Also cp. Rep. VI, 500c9.

11 This order is proper and specific to the soul. This is a theme which begins with the Gorgias (506el-5) where the order brought by the good orator - the craftsman of the souls of others - is proper and specific to the soul; it is also what virtue in the soul is. Socrates is quite emphatic about the unique relation between a soul and its order; what I have called ‘proper’ is in Greek οἰχϵίοζ The construction for specific possession is: χαὶ ψυχή ἄρα χόσμον ἔχοντα τὸν ἑαυτῆζ ἄμϵινον τῆζ ἀχοσμήτου The ‘proper and specific’ notion turns up in Republic I as well. While in the Gorgias, excellence is explained in terms of a proper and specific order, in Republic I excellence is itself called proper and specific (353cl-7). In leading up to this epagogical conclusion, he usesthe emphatic construction reminiscent of the passage in the Gorgias Just referred to; in Republic I the construction is: ἔχοντα τὴν αὐτῶν οἰχϵιάν ἀρϵτήν. According to Book IV, the order which is established and preserved in the soul is also proper and specific; it is the only order which accords with what Plato clearly thinks is the nature of the soul. Any other arrangement brings ruin and decay (cf. Rep. 445c4 ff).

12 Irwin, 8. A significant part of Irwin's instrumentalist account of the craft analogy depends on his reliance on productive instead of therapeutic craft as an analogue for virtue. When he says that ‘the virtuous man does not reject the non-virtuous man's choice of the ultimate end, but only his choice of instrumental means to it’ (8) he seems to be taking the craft of virtue to be like carpentry (82). Both carpenter and non-carpenter agree about the end to be produced, e.g., a table; whatever disagreement there might be arises about means. However, therapeutic craft does not so easily fit Irwin's model of instrumentality. Even Irwin admits this when he compares virtue and medicine. Patient and doctor will not have the same understanding of health; but their variance is only verbal, according to Irwin (83). However, the latter relation between patient and doctor is not the one Socrates attributes to medicine. For Socrates, physician and patient are not talking the same language. The physician is talking about an underlying physical condition, whose usual manifestation to the patient might be a certain sense of well-being. The patient is talking about these manifestations themselves. But the patient's being healthy is not his having this sense since he may have this sense and be very sick (cf. Gor. 464al-bl). Moreover, in the example from Gorgias 521a3-522a6 in which physician and pastry cook contend before a Jury of children, it is not as though the physician can win over the children by redescribing health for them. According to Socrates the physician has nothing to say to the accusation after the children scoff at his plea that he did all for their health. Craft, according to Irwin's instrumentalist interpretation of the craft analogy, is supposed to be a model of rationality (86). However, in the Gorgias, we see that therapeutic craft is itself caught in the breakdown of rationality.

13 Irwin, 185

14 cf. Schiller, Jerome, ‘Just Men and Just Acts in Plato's Republic,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy, 6 (1968) 6–10Google Scholar; White, Nicholas P., A Companion to Plato's Republic (Indianapolis: Hackett 1979). 133-5; 236-7Google Scholar.

15 Of course, that ‘justice’ in (B) does not refer to each part's doing its own does not mean that (B) does not instantiate (A). where ‘justice’ does refer to each part's doing its own.

16 Cf. Foster, M.B., ‘A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic,’ Mind, 46 (1937) 386-93Google Scholar; Mabbott, J.D., ‘Is Plato's Republic Utilitarian?', Mind, 46 (1937) 468-74Google Scholar; Foster, M.B., ‘A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic: A Rejoinder to Mr. Mabbott,' Mind, 47 (1938) 226-32Google Scholar; Crombie, I.M., An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, vol. 1 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1962), 85-8Google Scholar; Cross, R.C. and Woozley, A.D., Plato's Republic (London: Macmillan and Co. 1964), 65-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Cf. Foster, , ‘A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic,’ 392-3Google Scholar.

18 The successful exercise of an achievement disposition like seeing can be viewed in two independent ways. It can be seen from the point of view of what is achieved - the inherent consequences - or from the point of view of the process of achievement. The latter is the correct functioning - i.e., according to its nature - of the entity underlying the disposition. For example, the eyes underlie the disposition of seeing; the correct functioning of the eyes is due to the disposition of seeing well (d. Rep. 352d8 ff). When one's eyes function correctly one has visual information and vice versa. But ‘the eye's functioning correctly' does not mean the same as ‘having visual information.’ It is logically possible to have correct visual images even if one's eyes are not functioning correctly. The correct function of the underlying entity is intrinsic good and the inherent consequences of the achievement disposition is consequential good.

19 Cf. Foster, , ‘A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic,’ 387-8Google Scholar; White, 78-9.

20 Foster, 388

21 Mabbott (469-70), confessing to find the relevant passages ambiguous on the distinction, still believes that Socrates argues that Justice is good in itself.

22 τοῦτ´ οῦν αὐτὸ ἐπαίνϵσον διχαιοσύνηζ, ὅ αὐτἠ δί αὑτὴν τὸν ἔχοντα ὀνίνησι. The translation I have offered preserves the ambiguity of this sentence; Justice may benefit either by its presence alone or by conferring a benefit other than itself. Justice may either constitute (intransitive) the benefit or constitute (transitive) the benefit. Grube's recent translation preserves this ambiguity in a different way. Cf. Plato's Republic, Grube, G.M.A., trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett 1974), 38Google Scholar.

23 Cf. ‘A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic,’ 390.

24 Mabbott, 63. Moreover, the monitoring need not even be a separate occurrence within the correct functioning of the parts, not an observing, e.g., of oneself in action. The agent's non-observational knowledge of his action is discussed in Ryle's Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble 1949), 141-8; d. my amendments to the account in The Agent's Knowledge of His Action,' The Personalist, 55 (1974) 44-52.

25 This account of the intrinsic good of Justice in the soul helps to explain the connection between virtue and happiness in one famous problematic passage. In the Gorgias (507c1-5) Socrates says that the virtuous life is doing well, and that, if the virtuous man does well, he will be happy (cf. Rep. 353e1-354a2). What is usually taken to be the problem in this argument is pointed out by E.R. Dodds; he notes the active and passive senses of ‘doing well’ and charges that Socrates is buying plausibility by trading on an ambiguity (Plato: Gorgias, E.R. Dodds, ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press 1959], 335-6). Just because one does well, in the sense of being virtuous, it does not follow that one will do well, in the sense of being happy. However, if doing well is intrinsically good in the way the above account maintains, the ambiguity disappears. ‘Doing well' means one's soul is functioning correctly, according to the nature of the soul - and, of course, knowing that the soul is functioning correctly. To function at one's best and to know that one is doing so is an important part of what happiness is.

26 Cf. Aristotle's account of the pleasure of activity, Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics. As well, Urmson, J.O., ‘Aristotle on Pleasure,’ in Moravcsik, J.M.E., ed., Aristotle: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City: Anchor 1967), 323-33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 This understanding of the craft of virtue, however, does not make the Republic utilitarian or egoistically hedonistic. The end of the craft is the perfection of the object; this perfection is good in itself and the primary goal of the craft. That the exercise of this perfection is also a good for the virtuous man does not imply that this aspect is the goal of the craft. See Kelly, Jack, ‘Virtue and Pleasure,' Mind, 82 (1973) 408Google Scholar. The author makes a similar point to this one, but it is about virtue in Aristotle's ethics.