Socratic Moral Psychology

Socratic Moral Psychology PDF Author: Thomas C. Brickhouse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107403925
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed.

Socratic Moral Psychology

Socratic Moral Psychology PDF Author: Thomas C. Brickhouse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107403925
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed.

Plato's Moral Psychology

Plato's Moral Psychology PDF Author: Rachana Kamtekar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192519387
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Plato's Moral Psychology is concerned with Plato's account of the soul and its impact on our living well or badly, virtuously or viciously. The core of Plato's moral psychology is his account of human motivation, and Rachana Kamtekar argues that throughout the dialogues Plato maintains that human beings have a natural desire for our own good, and that actions and conditions contrary to this desire are involuntary (from which follows the 'Socratic paradox' that wrongdoing is involuntary). Our natural desire for our own good may be manifested in different ways: by our pursuit of what we calculate is best, but also by our pursuit of pleasant or fine things - pursuits which Plato assigns to distinct parts of the soul. Kamtekar develops a very different interpretation of Plato's moral psychology from the mainstream interpretation, according to which Plato first proposes that human beings only do what we believe to be the best of the things we can do ('Socratic intellectualism') and then in the middle dialogues rejects this in favour of the view that the soul is divided into parts with some good-dependent and some good-independent motivations ('the divided soul').

Socratic Moral Psychology

Socratic Moral Psychology PDF Author: Thomas C. Brickhouse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139488422
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed.

Socratic Virtue

Socratic Virtue PDF Author: Naomi Reshotko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139458078
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 5

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Book Description
Socrates was not a moral philosopher. Instead he was a theorist who showed how human desire and human knowledge complement one another in the pursuit of human happiness. His theory allowed him to demonstrate that actions and objects have no value other than that which they derive from their employment by individuals who, inevitably, desire their own happiness and have the knowledge to use actions and objects as a means for its attainment. The result is a naturalised, practical, and demystified account of good and bad, and right and wrong. Professor Reshotko presents a freshly envisioned Socratic theory residing at the intersection of the philosophy of mind and ethics. It makes an important contribution to the study of the Platonic dialogues and will also interest all scholars of ethics and moral psychology.

An Image of the Soul in Speech

An Image of the Soul in Speech PDF Author: David N. McNeill
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Investigates what Nietzsche called the "problem of Socrates," as that problem manifests itself in Plato's work. In particular, the book demonstrates how Socrates' own confrontation with this problem is the key to understanding the distinctively mimetic, dialogic, and reflexive character of Socratic philosophy.

The Oxford Handbook of Plato

The Oxford Handbook of Plato PDF Author: Gail Fine
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0190639733
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 793

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Book Description
Plato is the best known, and continues to be the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The updated and original essays in the second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato provide in-depth discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues, all serving several functions at once: they survey the current academic landscape; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the man many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history. This second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato differs in two main ways from the first edition. First, six leading scholars of ancient philosophy have contributed entirely new chapters: Hugh Benson on the Apology, Crito, and Euthyphro; James Warren on the Protagoras and Gorgias; Lindsay Judson on the Meno; Luca Castagnoli on the Phaedo; Susan Sauvé Meyer on the Laws; and David Sedley on Plato's theology. This new edition therefore covers both dialogues and topics in more depth than the first edition did. Secondly, most of the original chapters have been revised and updated, some in small, others in large, ways.

Virtue Is Knowledge

Virtue Is Knowledge PDF Author: Lorraine Smith Pangle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613668X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
The relation between virtue and knowledge is at the heart of the Socratic view of human excellence, but it also points to a central puzzle of the Platonic dialogues: Can Socrates be serious in his claims that human excellence is constituted by one virtue, that vice is merely the result of ignorance, and that the correct response to crime is therefore not punishment but education? Or are these assertions mere rhetorical ploys by a notoriously complex thinker? Lorraine Smith Pangle traces the argument for the primacy of virtue and the power of knowledge throughout the five dialogues that feature them most prominently—the Apology, Gorgias, Protagoras, Meno, and Laws—and reveals the truth at the core of these seemingly strange claims. She argues that Socrates was more aware of the complex causes of human action and of the power of irrational passions than a cursory reading might suggest. Pangle’s perceptive analyses reveal that many of Socrates’s teachings in fact explore the factors that make it difficult for humans to be the rational creatures that he at first seems to claim. Also critical to Pangle’s reading is her emphasis on the political dimensions of the dialogues. Underlying many of the paradoxes, she shows, is a distinction between philosophic and civic virtue that is critical to understanding them. Ultimately, Pangle offers a radically unconventional way of reading Socrates’s views of human excellence: Virtue is not knowledge in any ordinary sense, but true virtue is nothing other than wisdom.

Xenophon’s Socratic Works

Xenophon’s Socratic Works PDF Author: David M. Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000382257
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Xenophon’s Socratic Works demonstrates that Xenophon, a student of Socrates, military man, and man of letters, is an indispensable source for our understanding of the life and philosophy of Socrates. David M. Johnson restores Xenophon’s most ambitious Socratic work, the Memorabilia (Socratic Recollections), to its original literary context, enabling readers to experience it as Xenophon’s original audience would have, rather than as a pale imitation of Platonic dialogue. He shows that the Memorabilia, together with Xenophon’s Apology, provides us with our best evidence for the trial of Socrates, and a comprehensive and convincing refutation of the historical charges against Socrates. Johnson’s account of Socrates’ moral psychology shows how Xenophon’s emphasis on control of the passions can be reconciled with the intellectualism normally attributed to Socrates. Chapters on Xenophon’s Symposium and Oeconomicus (Estate Manager) reveal how Xenophon used all the literary tools of Socratic dialogue to defend Socratic sexual morality (Symposium) and debate the merits and limits of conventional elite values (Oeconomicus). Throughout the book, Johnson argues that Xenophon’s portrait of Socrates is rich and coherent, and largely compatible with the better-known portrait of Socrates in Plato. Xenophon aimed not to provide a rival portrait of Socrates, Johnson shows, but to supplement and clarify what others had said about Socrates. Xenophon’s Socratic Works, thus, provides readers with a far firmer basis for reconstruction of the trial of Socrates, a key moment in the history of Athenian democracy, and for our understanding of Socrates’ seminal impact on Greek philosophy. This volume introduces Xenophon’s Socratic works to a wide range of readers, from undergraduate students encountering Socrates or ancient philosophy for the first time to scholars with interests in Socrates or ancient philosophy more broadly. It is also an important resource for readers interested in Socratic dialogue as a literary form, the trial of Socrates, Greek sexual morality (the central topic of Xenophon’s Symposium), or Greek social history (for which the Oeconomicus is a key text).

The Cambridge Companion to Socrates

The Cambridge Companion to Socrates PDF Author: Donald R. Morrison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521833426
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
Essays from a diverse group of experts providing a comprehensive guide to Socrates, the most famous Greek philosopher.

Plato's Symposium

Plato's Symposium PDF Author: Frisbee Sheffield
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191536822
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Frisbee Sheffield argues that the Symposium has been unduly marginalized by philosophers. Although the topic - eros - and the setting at a symposium have seemed anomalous, she demonstrates that both are intimately related to Plato's preoccupation with the nature of the good life, with virtue, and how it is acquired and transmitted. For Plato, analysing our desires is a way of reflecting on the kind of people we will turn out to be and on our chances of leading a worthwhile and happy life. In its focus on the question why he considered desires to be amenable to this type of reflection, this book explores Plato's ethics of desire.