MINISTERIO DE AMBIENTE Y ESPACIO PÚBLICO

The question of the unity of virtue is explicitly addressed in the Protagoras, where Socrates argues against Protagoras’ claim of separability. Unlike in the Laches,

sophia is counted among the virtues. Interestingly enough, it is Protagoras who adds sophia to the list. Initially Socrates introduces temperance, justice, and piety to

which Protagoras adds courage and sophia, recognising the latter as the greatest

146 _{As Stokes notices, ‘the words here used for “wisdom” and “knowledge” overlap sufficiently in}

Greek usage for Laches to go on using “wisdom” without (apparently) noticing any difference’(1986, p. 93).

(megiston) part (330a2). In an attempt to prove the unity of virtue, Socrates first identifies sophia with temperance (332a3).147

But the question is not much discussed until they address the case of courage, for, according to Protagoras, courage is unlike all the other virtues (349d8).

The discussion of whether courage is a part of virtue like or unlike the other virtues attracts especial interest because it engages an analysis about the power and value of knowledge and sophia. The initial examination shows that Protagoras believes that some men are confident while ignorant, thereby challenging Socrates’ conclusion that courage and sophia are the same (350c6). This reveals that Socrates and Protagoras stand in different positions regarding the identity between courage and

sophia. However, they seem to stand in the same position regarding the importance

of sophia. We must remember that it is Protagoras who adds sophia to the list of virtues, considering it ‘the greatest part of all’. Thus sophia is championed by Protagoras as one of the greatest virtues; yet he is not ready to accept that virtue (or a part of it) is governed by sophia. This raises the question of whether their conceptions of sophia are actually aligned. Rival conceptions of sophia ultimately reveal their different stances on the ideal of a good life and education.148

To test Protagoras’ position, Socrates opens a discussion about the place of knowledge in a good and happy life, in which he contests the position attributed to most people (hoi

polloi), according to which pleasure governs our actions over knowledge.149

Socrates asks Protagoras: ‘What do you think about knowledge [πῶς ἔχεις πρὸς ἐπιστήμην;]? Do you go along with the majority or not?’ (352b1). They both agree that knowledge of good and bad is a principle ruling a person’s life for the good, being action-guiding and sufficient for virtue (352c). Interestingly, Socrates, at this point, incorporates other cognitive terminology. Grouped together with epistēmē are

gignōskein (352c4), and then phronēsis (352c7). Protagoras reaffirms his position by

147 _{The argument goes as follows: (i) aphrosunē opposes both sophrosunė and sophia; (ii) one thing}

has only one opposite, therefore (iii) sophrosunē and sophia must be the same. It is worth noticing how Socrates uses the term: sophia is here closer to ‘prudence’ as is drawn in opposition to aprhōn and not amathia. Taylor (1976, p. 122) sees this association as an unjustified move, and Stokes (1986, p. 292) contends his view by saying that sophia here assimilates the moral and the intellectual.

148 _{As Kahn observes, ‘Plato has chosen to explore here the connections between knowledge and the}

good in the context of a debate on moral education between Socrates and Protagoras that is, I suggest, to be read in the light of his own educational project’ (1996, p. 252).

149 _{Woolf (2002) offers a way to explain why Socrates uses an impersonal interlocutor to develop his}

saying that ‘sophia and knowledge [σοφίαν καὶ ἐπιστήμην] are anything but the most powerful forces in human activity’ (352d1-3). Importantly, throughout the argument sophia and epistēmē are interchangeable.

The discussion Socrates holds with the many, traditionally read as an attempt to deny the possibility of akrasia, contests the claim that one can act contrary to what one believes is good, being ‘overcome’ by pleasure.150 _{Socrates argues that it is not a} case of someone’s good judgement being overcome by pleasure, but rather that someone is confused or deceived by appearances which results in an error of judgement, i.e. ignorance. It is by knowledge, Socrates declares, specifically the art of measurement (metrētikē technē; 356d3), that these appearances lose their power. From here, Socrates concludes that to lose control, which the many call ‘being overcome by pleasure’, is no other than ignorance (amathia), and ‘to control oneself’ is nothing other than sophia’ (358c2-3). The argument allows Socrates to reconnect knowledge with courage, and therefore with sophia. Men are courageous by knowledge, because they are able to judge as good what the coward judges as fearsome or bad. Interestingly enough, they reach the same definition that in the

Laches is dismissed on the grounds of being too broad. ‘So the sophia about what is

and is not to be feared is courage and is the opposite of this ignorance [ἀμαθίᾳ]?’ (360d4-5). Socrates restates his position by saying that all virtues are knowledge (epistēmē), and he names justice, temperance and courage (361b1), but not sophia.

Sophia is initially listed among other virtues, but finally asserted as the ruling

principle of the good and happy life, and inseparable from other virtues. What do we make of this shift? While it is clear that Socrates is defending the unity of virtue, we cannot be sure whether sophia here is conceptualised as a virtue among others or as the whole of virtue. While most scholars support the former, there is also room to interpret sophia simply as epistēmē, as for example, Guthrie does in his translation.151 _{‘The identity of courage with knowledge is also put by Socrates—} though this does not emerge in Guthrie’s translation, unfortunately—as an identity of courage with wisdom’ (Penner 1997, p. 141).

150 _{Penner (1997) proposes that Socrates’ thesis defends the strength of knowledge, and not the}

strength of belief (even true belief), supported, among others, by Vlastos (1969) and Irwin (1977). This was also have been discussed by Taylor (1976, p. 171).

151 _{See Devereux (1992; 2006), Irwin (1977), Taylor (1976) and Penner (1973). Cf. Guthrie (1975, p.}

I believe that in the Protagoras it is clear that sophia has a different status from the other virtues, so we should think of it as either a capital virtue or the whole of virtue, although there seems to be more grounds to support the latter. As Devereux says, there are two reasons for Socrates’ claim that sophia is the whole of virtue: ‘(a) like other wholes in relation to their parts, the possession of wisdom guarantees possession of the other virtues; (b) while the other virtues are manifested in some but not all virtuous actions, wisdom is manifested in all virtuous actions’ (2006, p. 334). But I think that it is still significant that no answer is provided to the question about the kind of knowledge sophia is, especially considering that Socrates’ initial position defends, against Protagoras, the unteachability of virtue (and therefore its unattainability).

For the purpose of the present study, I would like to draw attention to the rhetorical advantage Socrates gets from using sophia in this context. This advantage is reflected in the fact that at the beginning of the discussion it is undisputedly identified with virtue (by Protagoras) and at the end it is undisputedly identified with

epistēmē. As Stokes claims, ‘the interchangeability of ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’

has become dialectically acceptable since early in the dialogue’ (1986, p. 346).152 Thus sophia allows Socrates to make the connection between virtue and epistēmē. This is important because it tells us something about the correspondence between

sophia and knowledge, namely that it is not two-way. While sophia can take the

place of epistēmē, epistēmē cannot take the place of sophia (surely epistēmē could not have been listed initially among the virtues). Hence sophia brings both an epistemological and a moral component, sometimes distinctly moral, and sometimes indistinctly epistemological.153

152 _{Cf. 330a1, b4.}

153 _{I agree with Denyer, who says that there is evidence to argue that sophia and epistēmē are the}

same, but also to argue that sophia ‘should be reserved for specially important or valuable sort’ of

epistēmē. ‘Behind this looseness of language lurks a substantive issue: to what extent does the ideal