Socrates on self-improvement : knowledge, virtue, and happiness /

Socrates on self-improvement : knowledge, virtue, and happiness /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Smith, Nicholas D., 1949- author.
Imprint:Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2021.
©2021
Description:xix, 182 pages ; 24 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Socrates.
Socrates.
Plato.
Knowledge, Theory of.
Self-actualization (Psychology)
Ethics.
Ethics
Ethics.
Knowledge, Theory of.
Self-actualization (Psychology)
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12707871
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9781316515532
1316515532
9781009025959
9781009027717 (PDF ebook)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:"Few would doubt that Plato intends to portray Socrates as an exemplar of human excellence. In Plato's Apology, Socrates cites the authority of Delphi in support of his claim to be the wisest of men (23b2), if only because he is so well aware of his own ignorance. Later in that same dialogue, we learn that Socrates also realizes that, he has a reputation for being "superior to the majority of human beings"1 (35a1) and the context make clear that the kind of superiority he has in mind is a superiority in virtue (aretê : 35a2) In Plato's other dialogues, as well, Socrates seems clearly to be identified as superior with respect to whatever positive trait or virtue is under discussion"--
Other form:Online version: Smith, Nicholas D., 1949- Socrates on self-improvement Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY 10006, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2021 9781009025959
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
  • P.1 The Origins of This Project
  • P.2 Intended Readership and Structure of the Book
  • P.3 Methodological Issues
  • P.4 Texts, Translations, Acknowledgments
  • Chapter 1 Socrates as Exemplar
  • 1.1 An Inconsistency in Plato's Portrait?
  • 1.2 Plato's Socratic Hagiography: A (Very) Brief Review of the Evidence
  • 1.3 Socratic Virtue Intellectualism
  • 1.4 The Socratic Disclaimer of Knowledge
  • 1.5 A Way Out: It Is Not "All or Nothing"
  • 1.6 Craft and Definitional Knowledge
  • 1.7 The Relative Importance of Different Skills
  • 1.8 Two Alternatives Considered
  • 1.9 Summary and Conclusion
  • Chapter 2 Socrates as Apprentice at Virtue
  • 2.1 Introduction
  • 2.2 Is Socrates Not the First?
  • 2.3 Only Socrates
  • 2.4 Being an Artisan and Performing the Functions of a Craft
  • 2.5 How Socrates Performs the Craft of Politics
  • 2.6 Summary and Conclusion
  • Chapter 3 Socratic Motivational Intellectualism
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Socratic Pragmatism
  • 3.3 Eudaimonism
  • 3.4 Egoism?
  • 3.5 Making Motivational Intellectualism Explicit
  • 3.6 The Denial of Akrasia
  • 3.7 Nonrational Desires
  • 3.8 Emotions and Appetites
  • 3.9 Persuasion
  • 3.10 Punishment
  • 3.11 The Gadfly's Sting
  • 3.12 The Pain of Shame
  • 3.13 The Damage That Is Done by Wrongdoing
  • Chapter 4 Socratic Ignorance
  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Types of Ignorance
  • 4.3 How to Tell That Someone Is Ignorant
  • 4.4 The Sources of Ignorance
  • 4.5 The Socratic Elenchos
  • 4.6 Elenchos and the Rational Remediation of Ignorance
  • 4.7 Definitional Knowledge and the Improvability of Epistemic Success
  • 4.8 Elenchos and the Nonrational Sources of Ignorance
  • 4.9 Deliberation in Ignorance
  • 4.10 Rational Preference
  • 4.11 The Threat of Skepticism (and Practical Paralysis).
  • 4.12 Reining in the Problem of Ignorance
  • 4.13 An Important Text
  • 4.14 What Socrates Believes
  • 4.15 Socrates' Reasons
  • 4.16 The Lesson of Plato's Euthyphro
  • 4.17 Summary and Conclusion
  • Chapter 5 Is Virtue Sufficient for Happiness?
  • 5.1 Prologue
  • 5.2 Did Socrates Accept That Virtue Was Sufficient for Happiness?
  • 5.3 Doing Well in the Euthydemus
  • 5.4 The Luck Factor
  • 5.5 Achieving Virtue
  • 5.6 The Stoic Socrates
  • 5.7 Human Vulnerability
  • 5.8 Moral Harm
  • 5.9 Summary and Conclusion
  • Chapter 6 The Necessity of Virtue for Happiness
  • 6.1 Introduction: Are We All Better Off Dead?
  • 6.2 Death Is One of Two Things
  • 6.3 The Euthydemus Again
  • 6.4 Improvable Knowledge and Virtue Again
  • 6.5 Virtue and Happiness in Other Dialogues
  • 6.6 Just How Skillful Is Skillful Enough?
  • 6.7 Degrees of Demandingness in Skills
  • 6.8 The Teachability of Skills
  • 6.9 Revisiting the Demandingness of Skills
  • 6.10 Contextualizing the Demandingness of Skills
  • 6.11 Returning to Virtue
  • 6.12 Becoming and Being Positively Happy
  • 6.13 Ashes to Ashes ...
  • 6.14 Summary and Conclusion
  • Afterword: Review and Assessment
  • A.1 Charity in Interpretation
  • A.2 Socrates' Motivational Intellectualism
  • A.3 The Craft Model
  • A.4 Socrates on the Connections Between Virtue and Happiness
  • A.5 The Improvability of Knowledge, Virtue, and Happiness
  • References
  • Index of Passages
  • General Index.
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