The Unity of Virtue: Plato’s Models of Philosophy

Abstract

Plato gives us (at least) two model philosophical figures, apparently in contrast with each other—one is the otherworldly philosopher who sees truth and reality outside the cave and has the knowledge to rule authoritatively within it; the other is the demotic figure of Socrates, who insists that he does not know but only asks questions. I consider Plato’s contrasting idioms of seeing and asking or talking , and argue that the rich account of perception that is represented in the Republic requires both idioms, and both models, to explain the development of epistemic virtue. Furthermore, the conditions he places on the giving and taking of reasons show how Plato takes intellectual virtue to be inseparable from moral virtue (in ways that Aristotle rejects). That integrated picture of virtue may—however disposed we may be towards the role of virtue in either ethics or epistemology—have something to say to us about how philosophy might best be carried on.