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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
This paper has been prompted by the conviction that a number of ethical and political doctrines in Plato remain obscure and somewhat unintelligible unless related to the contemplative experience of the Platonic philosopher.1 I shall concentrate here on one such doctrine, the distinction between philosophic and popular virtue, especially as it appears in the Phaedo and the Gorgias. But in order first to clarify our conception of the relationship between contemplation and virtue, I shall examine the fourteenth-century English classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, which is mainly concerned with the practice of contemplation and only remotely connected with Plato.2 One finds in The Cloud a perceptive account of the contemplative's acquisition of ‘perfect’ virtue which enables us to see the distinction between philosophic and popular virtue in Plato in a fresh light. After discussing the important passage in the Phaedo (69A–C) where the distinction is drawn, I shall criticise the account of virtue in Plato given by D. Z. Phillips and H. O. Mounce in Moral Practices where the contemplative context is minimised by their endeavour to see morality wholly in terms of conventions (albeit, for Plato, ‘non-conventional’ conventions).3 In this section, the argument between Socrates and Polus in the Gorgias will be discussed in light of the way Phillips and Mounce distinguish their respective ethical positions. The object of the paper is not only to point to the significance of contemplation in Plato's ethics which has been overlooked by many modern philosophers, but also to note the way our understanding of the dialogue form in Plato depends on the unique perspective of the contemplative philosopher.
page 85 note 1 The importance of contemplation in Plato's thought and its influence on Christian contemplative thought and practice is, of course, well known. See, for example, Festugière, A. J., Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1950Google Scholar). But it is generally believed that Plato's ethical and political doctrines can be intelligibly discussed apart from the contemplative side of his thought.
page 85 note 2 The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. Wolters, C. (London, 1961Google Scholar). The author is unknown.
page 85 note 3 (London, 1969).Google Scholar
page 86 note 1 The Cloud, pp. 58–9.Google Scholar
page 86 note 2 ‘Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her”.’ ( Luke, 10: 38–42Google Scholar), Revised Standard Version.
page 86 note 3 The Cloud, p. 80.Google Scholar
page 86 note 4 Ibid. p. 66.
page 87 note 1 Ibid. p. 79.
page 87 note 2 Ibid. p. 100.
page 87 note 3 Ibid. p. 70.
page 87 note 4 Ibid. pp. 83–4.
page 87 note 5 Ibid. p. 84.
page 88 note 1 Ibid. p. 85.
page 88 note 2 Pieper, J., The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1966), p. 54.Google Scholar
page 88 note 3 The Cloud, p. 100.Google Scholar
page 89 note 1 See Plato's Phaedo, trans. Hackforth, R. (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 50–1Google Scholar; Plato's Phaedo, trans. Bluck, R. S. (London, 1955), pp. 144–5.Google Scholar
page 91 note 1 Gorgias 470D ff.Google Scholar
page 91 note 2 Phillips, and Mounce, , pp. 28–31.Google Scholar
page 92 note 1 Arendt, H., The Human Condition (Chicago, 1958), Doubleday Anchor edition, p. 15.Google Scholar
page 93 note 1 Phillips, and Mounce, , p. 29n.Google Scholar
page 93 note 2 Phillips, and Mounce, , pp. 28–31.Google Scholar
page 93 note 3 It is true that the rhetorician and sophist occasionally fall into popular disrepute, a point which Gorgias himself makes when he complains to Socrates that teachers of rhetoric are punished for the misuse of their art by their pupils (456C ff.). But this tendency for the rhetorician or sophist to suffer popular disfavour only impels him to mirror more closely popular moral opinion.
page 93 note 4 Cf. 461 B–C and 482C ff.
page 93 note 5 474C.
page 94 note 1 What Phillips and Mounce say of their own version of moral practices might be said of the version of popular morality found in Plato: ‘…there are a multiplicity of moral practices, some of them opposed to each other’ (p. 44Google Scholar). That popular morality is also concerned with personal advantage is irrelevant; philosophic virtue, as we have seen, serves the interest of the contemplative philosopher.
page 94 note 2 See Gorgias 485B ff.Google Scholar; Phaedo 64Google Scholar A–B; Republic 335E, 375C.Google Scholar
