Socrates Major Thinkers Of Ancient Philosophy

Cover Letter This paper was written for the “Major Thinkers of Ancient Philosophy” course that I took in the Fall of 2015. The assignment was to survey the works of Plato and the works of Aristotle that had been read in class and provide a paper arguing for an interpretation of our chosen selections. More than just providing our own thoughts on the passage, however, we were challenged to engage with relevant scholarship in order to produce an informed interpretation of the passage. I chose to write my paper on various segments of Plato’s Protagoras (lines 329c-e, 331b, 333a-c and 349b-c) in order to provide an interpretation of the Unity of Virtues thesis. Throughout the Protagoras Plato portrays Socrates as advocating for the stance that

This dialogue is primarily concerned with justice, but when Euthyphro is ready to give up on the discussion, Socrates turns the discussion towards piety and its relation to justice (Euthyphro 11e). Socrates provides Euthyphro with a choice on how to understand it: “And then is all that is just pious? Or is all that is pious just, but not all that is just pious, but some of it is and some is not?” (Euthyphro 11e-12a) Euthyphro prefers to argue the second option, and a dialogue exploring this view follows. Euthyphro holds that piety is a part of justice, but when the exploration turns to how these things may be distinct, Euthyphro turns from answering (Euthyphro 14a-b). Applying the unity of virtues, where Euthyphro went wrong was in his placement of piety under the umbrella of justice instead of placing piety and justice both under the umbrella of a united virtue. Euthyphro is correct in differentiating the contextual differences between justice and piety (Euthyphro 12e), but he is incorrect in his understanding of virtue and justice. Justice is application of the knowledge of goods and evils in the realm of relating to others, and piety is the application of the knowledge of goods and evils in the realm of relating to the gods. Both are one in that they derive from one source, but they are distinct in the way that the knowledge is

Vlastos tried to articulate an understanding which understood the unity of virtues as claiming that possessing one virtue entailed possession of all of the virtues. Penner tried to articulate a “face-value” reading of the Protagoras, which reading saw all virtues as knowledge of good and evil. Neither of these readings proved satisfactory. If, however, the bi-leveled soul concept is accepted, it seems clear that Socrates argues for a unity of virtues dependent on knowledge of goods and evils and application of this knowledge into various contexts and situations. Such a reading solves many of the complexities raised by the interpretations of Vlastos and Penner, and such a reading has contextual support in the Protagoras and other dialogues. For Socrates, then, it appears that the life of the virtuous person is a life lived as one in varying