Socratic Moral Psychology

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

Get Book

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: 1139488422
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book

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: 9780521198431
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book

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 : 240

Get Book

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 Virtue

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

Get Book

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.

Virtue Is Knowledge

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

Get Book

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.

Socrates on Self-Improvement

Socrates on Self-Improvement PDF Author: Nicholas D. Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009027522
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Get Book

Book Description
What model of knowledge does Plato's Socrates use? In this book, Nicholas D. Smith argues that it is akin to knowledge of a craft which is acquired by degrees, rather than straightforward knowledge of facts. He contends that a failure to recognize and identify this model, and attempts to ground ethical success in contemporary accounts of propositional or informational knowledge, have led to distortions of Socrates' philosophical mission to improve himself and others in the domain of practical ethics. He shows that the model of craft-knowledge makes sense of a number of issues scholars have struggled to understand, and makes a case for attributing to Socrates a very sophisticated and plausible view of the improvability of the human condition.

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

Get Book

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

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

Get Book

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.

Plato's Socrates

Plato's Socrates PDF Author: Thomas C. Brickhouse
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195101119
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book

Book Description
Socrates, as he is portrayed in Plato's early dialogues, remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of philosophy. This book concerns six of the most vexing and often discussed features of Plato's portrayal: Socrates' methodology, epistemology, psychology, ethics, politics, and religion. Brickhouse and Smith cast new light on Plato's early dialogues by providing novel analyses of many of the doctrines and practices for which Socrates is best known. Included are discussions of Socrates' moral method, his profession of ignorance, his denial of akrasia, as well as his views about the relationship between virtue and happiness, the authority of the State, and the epistemic status of his daimonion. By revealing the many interconnections among Socrates' views on a wide variety of topics, this book demonstrates both the richness and the remarkable coherence of the philosophy of Plato's Socrates.

Wisdom Won from Illness

Wisdom Won from Illness PDF Author: Jonathan Lear
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674973631
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book

Book Description
Can reason absorb the psyche’s nonrational elements into a conception of the fully realized human being? Without a good answer to that question, Jonathan Lear says, philosophy is cut from its moorings in human life. He brings into conversation psychoanalysis and moral philosophy, which together form a basis for ethical thought about how to live.