The Unity of Virtue

Abstract

T HE THESIS of this paper is highly unusual, yet it is perfectly straightforward. It is that when Socrates said Virtue is one, he meant it quite literally! True, the conventional philosophical wisdom-which has infected classicist interpreters of Socrates as well as philosophical interpreters-renders a literal reading of the doctrine quite impossible. But the conventional philosophical wisdom is both mistaken as philosophy and anachronistic as exegesis of Socrates.So there is every reason to look around for an alternative interpretation of Socrates-and what more natural than that he meant what he said? My task, then, is both philosophical and exegetical. I concentrate on the philosophical half of the task in Sections I and II of the paper, setting forth the philosophical assumptions which have traditionally been made and showing that it is unnecessary to make them, and sketching in by contrast the alternative interpretation I am proposing. In Section III, I show how, on the literal interpretation, Socrates' arguments in the Protagoras purporting to show that Virtue is one are much improved over what they have usually been supposed to be. In Section IV, the literal interpretation is extended to the Laches and the Charmides, and the single entity in question, virtue, identified with the knowledge (science) of good and evil. The further characterization of this single entity, and of its place in a Socratic theory of action and motivation, is promised for a later paper.