Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

by Plato

Hence his celebrated paradox that virtue is knowledge and that when men do wrong, it is only because they do not know any better.

The aim is not to choose the right but to become the sort of person who cannot choose the wrong and who no longer has {x} any choice in the matter. This is what he sometimes expresses as becoming like a god, for the gods, as he puts it in Euthyphro (10d), love the pious (and so, the right) because it is right; they cannot do otherwise and no longer have any choice at all, and they cannot be the cause of evil.

SOCRATES: It is not being seen because it is a thing seen but on the contrary it is a thing seen because it is being seen; nor is it because it is something led that it is being led but because it is being led that it is something led; nor is something being carried because it is something carried, but it is something carried because it is being carried. Is what [c] I want to say clear, Euthyphro? I want to say this, namely, that if anything is being changed or is being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed, but rather it is something changed because it is being changed; nor is it being affected because it is something affected, but it is something affected because it is being affected.10 Or do you not agree?

Socrates is guilty of wrongdoing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and [c] he teaches these same things to others.

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.

Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.”13

It is not difficult to avoid death, [b] gentlemen; it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death.

count compared with the [e] other days and nights. If death is like this I say it is an advantage, for all eternity would then seem to be no more than a single night.

Your present situation makes clear that the majority can inflict not the least but pretty well the greatest evils if one is slandered among them.

They say that the human soul is immortal; at times it comes to an end, which they call dying; at times it is reborn, but it is never destroyed, and one must therefore live one’s life as piously as possible:

And he will know it without having been taught but only questioned, and find the knowledge within himself? — Yes. SOCRATES: And is not finding knowledge within oneself recollection? — Certainly. {78} SOCRATES: Must he not either have at some time acquired the knowledge he now possesses, or else have always possessed it? — Yes.

but I would contend at all costs in both word and deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not [c] know,

This argument shows that virtue, being beneficial, must be a kind of wisdom. — I agree.

Just as for the rest of the soul the direction of wisdom makes things beneficial, but harmful if directed by folly, so in these cases, if the soul uses and [e] directs them right it makes them beneficial, but bad use makes them harmful?

Since the good are not good by nature, does learning [c] make them so? MENO: Necessarily, as I now think, Socrates, and clearly, on our hypothesis, if virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.

That is why knowledge is prized higher than correct opinion, and knowledge differs from correct opinion in being tied down.

am afraid that other people do not realize that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death. Now if this is true, it would be strange indeed if they were eager for this all their lives and then resent it when what they have wanted and practiced for a long time comes upon them.

And indeed the soul reasons best when none of these senses troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor pleasure, but when it is most by itself, taking leave of the body and as far as possible having no contact or association with it in its search for reality.

It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the

body. Only the body and its desires cause war, civil discord, and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire wealth, and it is the body and the care of it, to which [d] we are enslaved, which compel us to acquire wealth, and all this makes us too busy to practice philosophy.

While we live, we shall be closest to knowledge if we refrain as much as possible from association with the body and do not join with it more than we must, if we are not infected with its nature but purify ourselves from it until the god himself frees

In fact, Simmias, he said, those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men. {105} Consider it from this point of view: If they are altogether estranged from the body and desire to have their soul by itself, would it not be quite absurd for them to be afraid and resentful when this happens?

And the quality of moderation which even the majority call by that name, that is, not to get swept off one’s feet by one’s passions, but to treat them with disdain and orderliness, is this not suited only to those [d] who most of all despise the body and live the life of philosophy?

Therefore, it is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice. {106} [e] It certainly is.