Socratic Paradox Research Articles

Rationalizing: Kant on Moral Self-Deception

Abstract Kant’s moral philosophy is challenged by the so-called “Socratic Paradox”: If free will and pure practical reason are to be identified, as Kant argues, then there seems to be no room for immoral actions that are to be imputed to our individual freedom. The paper argues that Kant’s conception of rationalizing (“Vernünfteln”) helps us to avoid the Socratic Paradox, and to understand how immoral actions can be imputed to our individual freedom and responsibility. In rationalizing, we misuse our capacity of reason in order to construct the illusion according to which we are not bound to the absolute demand of the moral law, but rather subject to exceptions and excuses. Finally, the paper interprets the three rules of “common sense” (sensus communis) in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment in terms of an antidote to rationalizing.

Knowledge and Voluntary Injustice in the Hippias Minor

Abstract Plato’s Hippias Minor proposes a thesis that I call the Superiority of the Voluntary Wrongdoer (SVW), which states that the person doing something wrong voluntarily is better than the person doing it wrong involuntarily. This claim has long unsettled scholars, who have tried to determine whether Socrates is serious about SVW or disavows it. The primary strategy among interpreters is to appeal to Socrates’ prior commitment to the “Socratic paradox” that no one does injustice voluntarily; with the Socratic paradox in the background, it is argued, we can better understand how Socrates treats SVW. In this paper, I aim to show that the Hippias Minor points us towards a different understanding of SVW and the Socratic paradox, with implications for their role both in the dialogue and in Plato’s philosophy as a whole. My first step towards this understanding is to consider the distinctive methodology of the Hippias Minor. Socrates’ attitude towards his and Hippias’ arguments is characterized by πλάνη, or wavering; I argue that this wavering shows that Socrates wants to determine how he might accommodate what is compelling about both his and Hippias’ positions, rather than choosing one over the other. To that end, I look more closely at what each interlocutor proposes in the dialogue, concluding that many of their primary commitments are shared by both interlocutors and do not contradict. We do not, then, need to throw out SVW, and we can grasp the true role of the Socratic paradox: it is not axiomatic but a conditional conclusion of the dialogue, and Socrates’ attempt to reconcile SVW with Hippias’ arguments provides reasons and motivation for accepting it. Accordingly, we cannot assume that the Socratic paradox will be in place, and we should look for some indication in the Hippias Minor as to why it could hold. I argue that the dialogue provides a framework for doing so, by taking steps towards a new understanding of knowledge (epistēmē) that can support the Socratic paradox. These moves put the Hippias Minor in the position of beginning to examine and develop key ideas in Plato’s ethics and epistemology.

Aristotle contra Plato on the Voluntariness of Vice: The Arguments of Nicomachean Ethics 3.5

AbstractAristotle’s arguments in NE 3.5 target Plato’s position that vice is not blameworthy but to be pitied because involuntary, i.e. contrary to our wish for our good—not the ‘Socratic paradox’ that wrongdoing is involuntary. To this end, Aristotle develops a causal account of voluntary action based on Plato, Laws 9, but replaces Plato’s character-based classification of actions with his own distinction between performing actions of a certain type and having a character of that type. This distinction, central to Aristotle’s account of character-formation by habituating actions, allows Aristotle to show how character, whether vicious or virtuous, can be voluntary.

Psychiatry, spirituality, and quantum science

It would be impossible to comprehend the complexity of a human brain by a single cell organism; similarly, it would be impossible to understand the complexity of “Reality ”or “Ultimate Truth ”by a human brain hampered by limitations. At best, it can arrive at approximations of truth, which would vary from a person to person and a being to being. That is why, Jain philosophy while explaining Truth stresses on “Anekāntavāda” multiple aspects of Truth or Reality. Vedas too, while explaining Truth says, “Ekam sat vipraa bahudhaa vadanti” which is literally translated as “Truth is one, but the learned ones refer to it in different names. ”If a human mind is made to understand that what it claims as sole truth may be an aspect of truth or a truth distorted by its understanding, then it would be humble enough to respect and accept the opinions of other minds. This Socratic paradox (The only thing I know is that I know nothing.) may keep our mind open and flexible enough to discover the deeper truth of psychiatry, spirituality, and quantum science and may lead to their synthesis into some deeper science or truth.

Akrasia and conflict in the Nicomachean Ethics

ABSTRACTIn Nicomachean Ethics VII, Aristotle offers an account of akrasia that purports to salvage the kernel of truth in the Socratic paradox that people act against what is best only through ignorance. Despite Aristotle’s apparent confidence in having identified the sense in which Socrates was right about akrasia, we are left puzzling over Aristotle’s own account, and the extent to which he agrees with Socrates. The most fundamental interpretive question concerns the sense in which Aristotle takes the akratic to be ignorant. The received view in the literature has been the intellectualist interpretation, which takes akratic agents to be so ignorant of the wrongness of what they do as to be unaware of it. In recent decades, many scholars have identified serious problems in this interpretation and have moved towards the non-intellectualist reading, the strong version of which takes clearheaded akrasia to be possible. There is, however, a glaring shortage of discussion of the difficulties facing the strong non-intellectualist reading. In this paper, I present what I take to be the most salient reasons for rejecting strong non-intellectualism, and argue that Aristotle’s text supports a moderate non-intellectualism, according to which clearheaded akrasia is impossible.

Colloquium 2 “God is Not To Blame”: Divine Creation and Human Responsibility in Plato’s Timaeus

When Timaeus claims that all vice is involuntary, and that it is not individual human beings but their “nurturers” and begetters” who must be assigned causal responsibility for human vice (Timaeus 86b-87b), he is extending the grand cosmological discourse he has been offering to include the causes of human vice, and he is presenting a novel twist on the Socratic paradox familiar from earlier works, that no one does wrong voluntarily. He is not, however, contradicting his earlier claims (42d-e) that human beings, rather than the gods, are responsible for human evils. This is because (a) 86b-87b does assign responsibility to human causes and (b) responsibility for individual actions is not under discussion there.

Tēn Tou Aristou Doxan: On the Theory and Practice of Punishment in Plato’s Laws

The penal code of the Laws has attracted scholarly attention because it appears to advance a coherent theory of punishment. The Laws’ suggestion that legislation follow the model of ‘free doctors’, as well as its discussion of the Socratic paradox, leads one to expect a theory of punishment that recommends kolasis and nouthetēsis rather than timōria In practice, however, the Laws makes use of the language of timōria and categorizes some crimes as voluntary. While the Laws provides a searching criticism of contemporary Greek penal practices rooted in anger and retribution, Kleinias’ dramatic participation in the discussion forces the qualified inclusion of these common beliefs.While the Laws provides a philosophic intervention intended to reform the injustices of contemporary penal practices, it ultimately suggests that educated doxa, not theoretical completeness, is the proper standard for establishing a workable penal code.

The Socratic Paradox and its Enemies - Roslyn Weiss

The Socratic Paradox and its Enemies - Roslyn Weiss

The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies

The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies

Philosophy - (R.) Weiss The Socratic Paradox and its Enemies. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2006. Pp. xii + 235. £22.50. 9780226891729.

Philosophy - (R.) Weiss The Socratic Paradox and its Enemies. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2006. Pp. xii + 235. £22.50. 9780226891729.

The Socratic Paradox and its Enemies (review)

The Socratic Paradox and its Enemies (review)

The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies. By Roslyn Weiss

The Heythrop JournalVolume 48, Issue 4 p. 615-617 The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies. By Roslyn Weiss Robin Waterfield, Robin Waterfield Lakonia, GreeceSearch for more papers by this author Robin Waterfield, Robin Waterfield Lakonia, GreeceSearch for more papers by this author First published: 06 June 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2265.2007.00333_1.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume48, Issue4July 2007Pages 615-617 RelatedInformation

The Socratic paradox and its enemies

In Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies, Roslyn Weiss argues that the Socratic paradoxes - no one does wrong willingly, virtue is knowledge, and all the virtues are one - are best understood as Socrates' way of combating sophistic views: that no one is willingly just, those who are just and temperate are ignorant fools, and only some virtues (courage and wisdom) but not others (justice, temperance, and piety) are marks of true excellence.In Weiss' view, the paradoxes express Socrates' belief that wrongdoing fails to yield the happiness that all people want; it is therefore the unjust and immoderate who are the fools. The paradoxes thus emerge as Socrates' means of championing the cause of justice in the face of those who would impugn it. Her fresh approach - ranging over six of Plato's dialogues - is sure to spark debate in philosophy, classics, and political theory.

Punishment and the physiology of theTimaeus

It hardly needs to be said that the parallel between mental and physical health plays an important part in Plato's moral philosophy. One of the central claims of theRepublicis that justice is to the soul what health is to the body (443b–444e).1 Similar points are made in other dialogues.2 This analogy between health and sickness on the one hand and virtue and vice on the other is closely connected to the so–called Socratic paradoxes. Throughout his life Plato seems to have clung in some sense to the ideas that justice is our greatest good, that the unjust man is correspondingly miserable and that no one is therefore willingly unjust. It follows from these ideas that the unjust man, like the sick man, is in a wretched state which is not of his own choosing.

In What Way is "the Socratic Paradox" Paradoxical?

In What Way is "the Socratic Paradox" Paradoxical?

An essay on belief and acceptance

What is the difference? Purposive explanation What cognitive state does indicative speech express? Does knowledge imply belief or acceptance? Self-deceit and the Socratic paradox

The Unity of the Virtues in Plato's Protagoras and Laches

perhaps most striking of Socratic paradoxes is claim that being a good person is strictly a matter of intellect. As Aristotle remarks, Socrates seems to take no account of character in his conception of virtue. 1 In Plato's early dialogues, Socrates argues that a certain type of (knowledge of good and evil) is sufficient for being a just, courageous, and temperate person, and for behaving in way such a person would behave. But this claim does not capture what is most paradoxical about his view of relationship between virtue and knowledge. Even soberminded Aristotle held that a certain type of knowledge-phrone~sis or practical wisdom-is sufficient for virtue. But being a good person is not simply a matter of having a certain kind of for Aristotle, since he also believed that one could not be practically wise without having a good character. Socrates made further claim that all virtues are knowledge; that is, he held that each of virtues is definable simply in terms of either a single type of or several types corresponding to several virtues.2 It is this stronger view that people have in mind when they speak of Socrates' intellectualism; there is no need to tame unruly passions-knowledge of good ensures that one will have right aims and intentions, and will act accordingly. In Protagoras, Plato has Socrates argue not only that all virtues are knowledge, but also that they somehow form a unity. Exactly what sort of unity Socrates has in mind is a matter of controversy. According to one interpretation, Socrates regards different virtues as distinct parts of a whole-distinct in sense that each has its own separate definition.3 The thesis that the virtues are knowledge is understood as claim that each virtue

Lawrence Kohlberg's Socratic Paradox

Paradoxes between the substance and procedure of moral education are examined from a societal perspective.

Ignorance, Involuntariness, and Innocence: A Reply to McTighe

In a most valuable recent article, on Desire for the Good and the Involuntariness of Wrongdoing: Gorgias 466a-468e,' Kevin McTighe challenges a misguided but widely accepted interpretation of the Socratic paradox 'No one does wrong voluntarily'. According to McTighe, this interpretation has the paradox rely on the blatantly counterintuitive notion that what one desires is distinct from what seems good to one (when that is not in fact good). McTighe dubs this notion 'DG'.2 The interpretation, by assuming DG, disallows the possibility of desiring what is not in fact good here, injustice thereby rendering all wrongdoing involuntary. Whereas there can be no doubt that Socrates does conclude from his discussion with Polus that ul&Eva Pouko6REvov &6tXEiV (Gorg. 509e6), McTighe contends convincingly that Socrates' argument with Polus is to be understood ad hominem, as purgative in the sense elaborated in the Sophist,3 and therefore not as expressive of the Socratic position.4 McTighe's own view, which I share, is that the paradox 'No one does wrong voluntarily' does not assume DG. On the contrary, the paradox accepts that people desire what seems good to them and that what seems good to them is sometimes unjust. The task at hand, then, is to interpret the paradox without recourse to DG, i.e., to give content to involuntary wrongdoing that is nevertheless desired wrongdoing. McTighe takes up this task in Section VI of his paper.5 It is with the claims of this section that I wish to take issue, in particular with the claims (a) that 'involuntary' wrongdoing means wrongdoing that is exempt from blame,6 and (b) that Socrates (Plato) in fact regards all wrongdoing as exempt from blame. For McTighe, claims (a) and (b) are linked: the Socratic paradox states that wrongdoers are blameless, Socrates is committed to the paradox, hence Socrates is committed to wrongdoers' blamelessness. By challenging McTighe's interpretation of the paradox, however, I simultaneously challenge the

Socrates on Desire for the Good and the Involuntariness of Wrongdoing: Gorgias 466a-468e

In the Gorgias Socrates forces his interlocutor Polus to agree that neither orators nor even the tyrants whom they emulate have any great power at all. I would like to examine the logic and dramatic context of the argument for this rather strange claim. Doing so will help clarify (1) Plato's thesis that all men desire the good and (2) the role this thesis plays in the Paradox 'No One Is Voluntarily Unjust.' The argument runs as follows (466a9-468e5). Tyrants (or orators) are typically able to do whatever they please: e.g., they can expropriate, banish, or even murder their opponents. Thus they do what seems good to them (& Boxci avcrots). Doing what seems good, however, must be distinguished from doing what one desires (a& iovXovTaL). For all men desire the good. And so if a particular action, either in itself or in its consequences, happens actually to be bad (i.e., harmful to the agent), how can it be what one desires to do? In accordance with the familiar argument of the Republic, Socrates claims that the kind of action characteristic of the tyrant unjust action is in fact always harmful to the agent (cf. 460e6,481b5). Granted this claim it seems to follow that the tyrant doesn't desire to do the thing he typically does do; or, put another way, doesn't do what he desires to do. Hence he is powerless. For how can anyone who (typically) fails to do what he desires be considered powerful?' Now it seems to follow from the above considerations that unjust action is never what any agent desires to do, tyrant or no. Isn't that to say, then, that the unjust agent always acts against his desire, or against his will which is to say involuntarily? The view that no one is voluntarily unjust is, of course, a Socratic Paradox.2 Does the foregoing argument constitute