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Plato's Laches - Selections - Comments

Tr. Benjamin Jowett (1871). In classical times this dialog was also titled"On Courage" (Diog. L. iii, 59).

"And that which we know we must be able to tell [explain to] others" (Laches 190c) is the standard for knowing set by the historical Socrates for philosophy, and it is used by Plato in this dialog. But otherwise it seems that Heraclitus rather than Socrates is directing the discussion.

To see who is wise, and who only thinks that he is, but is not. (Plato, Apology 41b)

"What is courage?" Plato has Socrates cross-question the replies of two Athenian generals to see whether they know or only think they know (but do not). The dialog's thesis that moral virtue is a kind of knowledge (or wisdom) is Socratic in origin ("Moral virtue is knowledge of good and evil"), but removed from its Socratic context that thesis becomes the first of two preconceptions that make Plato's question unanswerable.

Of course as we normally speak, moral virtue is not knowing what is good, but doing what is good, which is deeds, not knowledge. But that is only an observation about the common use of a word. And it does not interest Plato, who wants to know, not about how we normally use the word 'virtue', but about the essential nature of the thing he presumes the word 'virtue' names. (Words as names versus words as tools.)

Outline of this page ...

[Asides. Preface: Wittgenstein, Socrates, and Kant | "Moral virtue is knowledge of the good" is not an idle tautology | Analytic propositions | Wisdom is a virtue, but is virtue a wisdom? (Clarification) | Is any man wise? Setting criteria for determining | Plato's method of antitheses (proofs)]

Supplementary

Note: paragraphs on this page that are gray in background are supplemental, often discussing broader questions in philosophy than questions peculiar to this dialog.

Preface: Wittgenstein, Socrates, and Kant

In Plato's Apology Socrates say that man's wisdom is truly worthless. For example it seems that man does not know what the essence of courage is -- because he is unable to tell others. Wittgenstein says the same about games: "Do we know any more about it ourselves? Is it only other people we can't tell exactly what a game is?" (PI § 69). But since Plato pointed that out 2,500 years before Wittgenstein, in what way has Wittgenstein changed the discussion? He has said: the reason we cannot say what the essence of games is -- is because games do not have an essence. And that is a break with the old way of looking at language, a change in direction: it rejects rather than answers Plato's question as Plato poses it.

Wittgenstein says: "Look at things this way!" (CV p. 61) -- rather than presuming (PI § 107) as Plato does that the meaning of a word is the essence of the thing the word names even though that essence is imperceptible, look at the facts in plain view and from those describe no more than what you see. Ask for the use in the language, which is a convention or rule, rather than the meaning which is presumed, but not proved, to be the essence of the thing the word names. From that point of view, Plato's "the meaning is the essence" is a mistake, because we do not find essences but only myriad similarities when we look.

Presuming that there are essences is a short step away from thinking you know what you don't know, which is the original sin of philosophy. Or, in other words, Socratic philosophy is not speculative. Neither is Wittgenstein's later work: "The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than you know" (BB p. 45).

Apollo's oracle said that no man is wiser than Socrates, because Socrates did not think he knew what he did not know. That does not mean that man should stop seeking wisdom; and there is no more important wisdom than knowing how to live. And so what has Wittgenstein to say about ethics, "no small matter, but how to live" (Plato, Republic 344e), which is the point of Plato's Laches? And so Wittgenstein by his neglect of ethics (due to his notion "absolute value", which is non-rational and therefore not philosophical) does not respond to the philosophical discussions that are philosophy, namely "what is real" (metaphysics) and "how to live" (ethics), although Wittgenstein does respond to the question of "how to reason or think" (logic).

What is the meaning of a word?

Wittgenstein puts up ("grammatical") signposts "to mark off false paths"? But need Plato agree that they are false? The most to the point criticism of Plato's notion of "Forms" is found in Aristotle (and the later Plato); Wittgenstein's account of the grammar of 'games' would be dismissed by Plato as already evident to Socrates and as beside the (Heraclitean) point.

Plato's philosophy is metaphysical speculation (based on preconceptions), which is not what Wittgenstein wants philosophy to be. About philosophy, Wittgenstein wrote: "I destroy [houses of cards]!" (CV p. 21 [PI § 118]) He ought to have written: "I negate [other points of view]!" A philosopher's work is, after all, no more than one way of looking at things -- not the way.

Analytic Propositions

But Wittgenstein's work is helpful for understanding Immanuel Kant's concept "analytic propositions" which one somehow (I don't know how) "analyzes" by somehow (I don't know how) pondering them ... which is 'meaning' defined as whatever seems right to the one who ponders: W.E. Johnson: "If I say that a proposition has meaning for me, no one has the right to day it is nonsense!" (even if I cannot tell others what that sense is -- i.e. explain and defend what I claim to know when cross-questioned in discussion) -- which is indeed a false path, if our interest in logic is, as mine is, to make an objective distinction between sense and nonsense in language (or "logic of language" in my jargon).

Philosophers often speak of analysing the meaning of words. But a word hasn't got a meaning given to it by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. (cf. BB p. 27-28)

"A word has the meaning someone has given to it" (ibid. p. 28), i.e. that the users of a language give it by using that word in their way of life. Language doesn't have a life of its own independent of the human beings who use it. A concept is not an absolute: it is rules for the use of a word which may vary from context to context -- i.e. that is how we often use the word 'concept', how that word can often be defined. The definition of a word is not a metaphysical hypothesis about the nature of the thing the word names, but a convention for using the word. (That is Wittgenstein's logic of language or meaning as Wittgenstein defines the word 'meaning'.)

What Wittgenstein's logic of language, his only contribution to philosophy, does is to rid philosophy of Kant's "analytic propositions" by replacing the meaning of the word 'meaning' used by linguistic analysis with a definition of 'meaning' that makes language meaning objective (verifiable). Which is important because if the meaning of language is irrational ("subjective"), as the meaning-pondering of linguistic analysis is -- i.e. if there is no way to distinguish language with meaning from nonsense other than "whatever seems right" to someone (PI § 258) -- then philosophical knowledge and understanding is not possible, but only an endless, inconclusive night of seeming.

Wittgenstein said about Rationalism that the Rationalists "let the words speak to them", and that is what linguistic analysis does. In contrast, if the meaning of a word DEF.= a word's conventional role in human activity, then any question about what the meaning of a word is, is a question to be verified by experience.

[There are many meanings of the word 'meaning' besides the one Wittgenstein chose for his work in philosophy; many uses are made of that word in the language; however, all other definitions of the word 'meaning' that I am aware of do not make the distinction between sense and nonsense verifiable.]

[Note.--The word 'rational' = 'the thoroughgoing use of reason', but 'Rationalism' = 'reasoning independent of, and not answerable to, experience'. Socratic philosophy has two tests: reason and experience. It is rational. But Plato's own method of thinking is Rationalism, for Plato holds fast to his own preconceptions despite any "appearances" (i.e. facts of experience) that conflict with them.]

Introduction to the Laches

In the Euthyphro Plato will ask for a universal or absolute standard (6d-7d). In this dialog, however, Plato does not introduce the similes of measurement (length, weight, number) of the Euthyphro, for although "a general definition (or the defining common quality or universal nature) of courage" is sought, Plato sets no other criterion for a correct -- or, rather, an incorrect -- answer here than the basic principle of contradiction (which is the logic tool used in Socratic refutation).

Socrates brings to light the inherent contradictions in first one and then the other account (thesis or proposition) his companions offer of what they think they know. Socrates, however, consistent with what he says in Plato's Apology 21d, does not himself give an account of what he knows; for as Plato will have him say in Phaedrus 235c: "As to me, I know only my own ignorance", and therefore he doesn't think he knows what courage is, but only that he doesn't know what courage is (for if he did he could tell others).

The words 'standard', 'rule' and 'principle'

But on the other hand, Aristotle wrote about the historical Socrates that:

Socrates ... thought the virtues were rules or rational principles (for he thought they were, all of them, forms of scientific knowledge) ... (Nicomachean Ethics 1144b28-29, tr. Ross)

Note that the words 'standard' and 'rule' are synonyms; and that what Socrates sought was a universal standard or universal rule. It was Socrates' view that moral virtue is knowledge of the good (vice, conversely, is ignorance of the good), and therefore he was seeking a "rational principle" of judgment, i.e. knowledge arrived at through the test of reason assessing experience.

"Scientific knowledge" may mean: knowledge of causes. What is the cause of moral virtue -- is it knowledge, as Socrates thought? But is it necessary to have that knowledge in order to be morally virtuous? To be courageous is it necessary to know what courage is?

Intent and moral virtue

If intent is irrelevant to moral virtue, then foolhardy acts are objectively not courageous: the man of ethical excellence does not act foolhardily. And yet if his intention is to act courageously, a man may act objectively foolhardily and nevertheless be morally virtuous, because our normal, everyday concept 'virtue' just is ambiguous in this way.

Words as tools versus words as names of things

We are well aware of which acts we call courageous and which not. It is only that, in the view of Socrates and Plato, we do not as yet know what the defining common quality (or essence) of all the phenomena we call courage is.

And in Plato's Laches Socrates does not ask for a list of courageous acts, but he asks "What is courage?" presuming that the meaning of the word 'courage' is the essence of the thing that word names or stands for, namely the phenomenon courage.

But since concepts define -- i.e. set the limits of -- phenomena ("Phenomena without concepts are blind (blurry)"), not vice versa -- we can only examine our concept 'courage', i.e. the rules for using a word, not a phenomenon in itself. Socrates and Plato have the order reversed when they assume that it is phenomena that define concepts (and it is why Plato cannot define -- not ethical terms -- but ethical phenomena, as e.g. justice, piety, courage).

Is there a difference in meaning between the questions "What is courage?" and "What is the meaning of the word 'courage'?" The first question appears to be about the nature of the thing named by the word 'courage' and presumes that the answer is the essence of that thing (Socrates), or the suprasensible independently existing essence of that thing (Plato). The second question, in contrast, does not presume anything; instead it asks for a description of how we use the word 'courage' based on the facts in plain view whatever those facts may be (Wittgenstein).

The "grammatical meaning" of the word 'courage' -- i.e. a description of our normal use of that word (which is logic-philosophy and all that Wittgenstein wants) -- may be different from the knowledge needed to apply the word 'courage' in any and all circumstances where a moral judgment is required. It is the second kind of knowledge -- a guide which must be both objective and universal (applicable in every case) -- that Socrates is seeking for ethics.

And so the word 'definition' in 'Socratic definition' is not the clearest form of expression; 'essential definition' is clearer, but 'Socratic guide' even clearer. What Plato describes in the Euthyphro, namely a universal standard of judgment, is what Plato is looking for in the Laches for courage.

Socratic definition = universal guide

Again, we can make a distinction between the grammatical definition of the word 'courage', which is a description of the use of that word in the language (which is what Wittgenstein seeks), and the absolute guide for ethics = the rules for applying the word 'courage' in any and all circumstances (which is what Socrates seeks).

On the other hand, that is not a distinction Socrates made if we assume, as I did in "Socrates' Logic of Language", that for Socrates 'to define a word' means: to identify the essence of the thing the word names.

And if we cannot give such a definition, then we do not know what we are talking about when we say the word (because for Socrates 'to know' means to be able to explain and defend to others our claim to know).

Companionable dialectic versus Eristic

Making our meaning clear ought to be our aim, not logomachy (wrestling over spoken sounds or marks on paper). The words 'meaning' and 'definition' have various meanings or uses in our language, and it would be foolish to insist on one to the exclusion of others (as e.g. has historically and misleadingly been done with the word 'logic') were it not that our aim is to make an objective distinction between sense and nonsense in the language we use. (Using the method of induction, it is an hypothesis that the meaning of a word is the essence of the thing it names -- but using Plato's method of preconceptions, it is a requirement that words name essences (Requirements belong to metaphysics, not to logic).)

Essential definitions and ethics

When Plato offers a model of what Socrates is seeking, he uses as his example "the quality common to all quickness or everything quick" and states an absolute guide: "the quality which accomplishes much in a little time in any sort of action." That is the kind of definition, namely an identification of the defining common quality or essence, that Socrates is looking for in ethics.

Words or phenomena

But it is characteristic of ethical terms that e.g. being able to define the word 'piety' as "dealing aright with gods" (Laches 199d-e) or "doing one's duty to God" (Gorgias 507b) does not tell us to which acts and objects we are to apply the word 'pious'. Those two definitions are not a universal standard of judgment; they are not Socratic definitions or guides.

Often it's not clear which type of definition is being asked for, whether verbal or real. Sometimes this appears to be a distinction without a difference. But it has to be thought through, because this is a source of fundamental confusion in philosophy.

"Your passport describes you as a writer, but that is a very elastic term. Who are you, Mr Leyden, and what is your game?" (The Mask of Dimitrios (1944))

The ethical term 'piety' is "very elastic", its definition not unambiguously applicable in every circumstance. Pious acts differ from religion to religion, sometimes diametrically. And there is Stoic piety. In their context, all are "doing one's duty to God".

Is the ethical term 'courage' = "wisely responding to fear" also very elastic? Well, in this way, that whether a response is (1) cowardly, (2) courageous, or (3) foolhardy may be disputed in the particular case. And it seems there is no essential guide to resolve the dispute. About the particular meaning of the word 'courage', we may be at variance and therefore "we might get angry and be enemies to one another" (Euthyphro 7d). So we can't simply dismiss this, as Wittgenstein does, by saying that most words do not have essential meanings, that most concepts have indefinite borders, and that the words of ethics are among these.

Induction and Socratic ignorance

Presumably the historical Socrates saw what induction examining the facts of experience clearly shows -- namely that ethical terms do not have essential meanings that serve as universal standards in ethics. Plato's Socrates does not use induction; instead he cross-questions his companions' theses (i.e. guesses). Whichever method is followed, the absence of wisdom in ethics is not a mere "conceptual muddle", as Wittgenstein says all philosophical problems are, but a grave human dilemma ("we become angry and fall out with one another").

The historical Socrates need not have assumed, as Plato did, that "there must be something common otherwise they would not all be called by a common name", although I did think that when I wrote Socrates' Logic of Language. According to Aristotle, to search for defining common qualities belonged to Socrates' method in ethics, and if Socrates is faithful to the method of induction, then he cannot affirm the truth of what induction does not find -- for that would be to think he knows what he does not know.


Plato's Conceptual Revision (or Not)

If the whole is knowledge, does it necessarily follow that the individual parts are also knowledge?

Even if for no other reason, as a precept the thesis "Moral virtue is knowledge" is useful to ethics because it is a guide to amending one's life -- namely, if anyone wants to be virtuous, he must stop lying to himself: he must stop saying he believes A to be the good when he really believes not-A to be the good.

For there is nothing worse than self-deception -- when the deceiver is always at home and always with you ... (Plato, Cratylus 428d, tr. Jowett)

Of course, the thesis "Virtue is good habits acquired in youth" may also be useful to amending one's life, because habits can be changed even if one is no longer young, if one chooses.

Choose the life that is noblest, for custom can make it sweet to thee. (Epictetus, Fragment, tr. Crossley)

And amending one's life is the most important part of ethics (Epictetus, Manual).

Beyond that, although courage is a moral virtue (an ethical excellence (areté) that is proper to man) -- what would it mean to say that courage is knowledge? For, even if knowledge is (or were) a precondition to being courageous, courage certainly isn't knowledge as we normally use the word 'courage' ("and how else shall we use it?" (PI § 246)).

As we normally use the word 'courage', we do not mean by it e.g. 'knowledge of what is to be feared', as Socrates' discussant Nicias will suggest in this dialog (195d). Again, courage is not "a kind of wisdom", although the wise would have knowledge of what is or is not to be feared. Courage is -- i.e. by the word 'courage' we mean -- not fleeing in the face of fear -- even if that fear is foolish (i.e. even if a wise man would know that what one fears is not to be feared). And that is not knowledge, but intention.

Is Plato "speaking strangely"? (195a)

What relation has knowledge to courage -- i.e. what grammatical connection is there between the concepts 'courage' and 'knowledge'? Courage is a moral virtue -- but that moral virtue is knowledge doesn't seem true in the case of courage.

So it seems that either (1) Plato is speaking "strangely", as Laches says in 195a, by using, or trying to use, a word in a way that is contrary to our normal way -- undertaking a revision of our concept 'courage' (as Wittgenstein does with our concept 'grammar', conceptual revision being, according to Kierkegaard, what philosophers do), or (2) the Greek concept Plato is discussing is imperfectly rendered by the English word 'courage'. To judge by the examples of courage that are given in this dialog, however, of those two possibilities it does not appear that we are seeing the second rather than the first -- if, indeed, we are seeing either of them. Because (3) Plato may simply be trying to determine what the nature of the thing named 'courage' is (because "words are names, and the meaning of a word is therefore, not a convention for using the word, but the thing, or the essence of the thing, the name stands for").

Phenomena and objects. Concepts and phenomena (and definition)

As we normally use the word 'courage' ("and how else shall we use it?" (PI § 246) What reason would we have for using it any other way? Plato: the phenomenon should dictate how a word is used. Well, if 'courage' were the name of an object as the word 'cow' is, that might be true (PI § 43), but it is not: courage like love is, so to speak, invisible. In the case of courage, a concept defines a phenomenon, not a phenomenon a concept (i.e. rule or convention for using words). [Between concepts and phenomena | Concepts and language]

"Courage both is and is not knowledge"

An act of courage consists in (essentially is) DEF.= risking something one fears to lose; nothing else enters into the question of whether it is an act of courage or not.

The wise man knows whether to flee or fight -- i.e. when to fight is objectively foolhardy or to flee is objectively cowardice (Aristotle's ethics) -- and the fool does not know that. Nonetheless, the fool may act courageously if that is his intention -- that is, if we use the word 'courage' as we normally do.

Therefore if specific acts are known to be courageous, it might be said, awkwardly, that sometimes courage is knowledge, meaning that there is objective courage as well as intended courage..... if, that is, it is possible to know if specific acts are courageous or not -- even if and although all that is known is conventions for using words.

Plato is "speaking strangely"

Unless we never called steadfastness in the face of baseless fear courage, or in other words, unless intention were always irrelevant, Plato would have to say "True courage is knowledge". (Plato, if I recall aright, argues differently in the Protagoras: foolhardiness is ignorance; ignorance is the opposite of virtue (because virtue is knowledge); and therefore foolhardiness cannot ever be courageous.... If the essence of moral virtue is knowledge, of course.)

Courage both is not and is intention. But Socrates held that the good for man is rational moral virtue, and foolhardy courage is not rational. Objective virtue (e.g. knowledge of what is and is not courageous) is a reason why wisdom (knowledge of the good) is also a virtue (a natural virtue proper to man, although its pursuit is a moral virtue) -- and why 'wisdom' is actually the concept that Plato wants to discuss in the Laches, as if wisdom (knowledge of the good) were the defining quality of all the virtues (Plato's thesis is that virtue is one thing, always the same, both as a whole and in each of its parts).

Plato wants to classify courage as a kind of knowledge or wisdom independent of intention, but the concept 'courage' can't be revised that way without being changed essentially, i.e. without ceasing to be what it is. Is it possible to "reduce an essence"? Only by causing something to no longer be what it is.

Wisdom is a virtue, but is moral virtue a wisdom? (Clarification)

In Apology 22d-e the skills (know-how) of the artisans, e.g. the crafts of stoneworking, pottery, husbandry, are classified as wisdom. Wisdom (knowledge of any kind) is an excellence (virtue) proper to man. This includes knowledge of the good for man (moral virtue). The wise man knows what the excellence for man is -- that is the connection between the concepts 'virtue' and 'wisdom' (or, in other words, between the grammars of 'excellence' and 'knowledge'). Is there any other?

The proposition 'Moral virtue is wisdom' means that if man knows what is good -- i.e. if his use of thoroughgoing reason (thinking things all the way through) has shown him what is good and therefore also what is wrong -- he will do what is good. It is only ignorance (and its common companion arrogant presumption or conceit: thinking one knows what one does not know) of the good that makes man do what is wrong.

That principle might be discussed in various ways as an hypothesis, but it may also be used as a guide to making oneself and one's companions good human beings (which is what Socrates does in Xenophon's portrait of him). It is, in my experience, useful in that way.

Though someone might say that, on the contrary, in his experience the principle 'Moral virtue is grace' is useful, that he has changed his life through prayer rather than through the use of reason (even silencing thought).

The Socratic way is the way of philosophy ("reason"). And about nothing that can be subjected to reason is it good to say: Here I do not use reason. The Delphic view, "Know thyself", is that one cannot become good, much less grow in goodness, without being wholly philosophically honest with oneself.

Some men have been changed by reason, others by harsh experience, still others by prayer. Different ways of life -- are they philosophy? No. But if the important thing is to be a good human being, is the path that leads there what is most important? What can be said is that only one with knowledge of the good for man is able to judge whether a particular way of life is good or not. But knowledge of the good is wisdom, and the philosopher is merely a lover of wisdom, not a wise man. And, indeed, by the Socratic standard (Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 6, 1), if the philosopher knows, then he can explain and thereby teach others what he knows.

[Two propositions in Xenophon: 'Virtue is knowledge' and 'Knowledge is a virtue' | Ethics is practical (but not in Aristotle's sense)]

Is any man wise? Setting criteria for determining

If anyone knows what the good is, he will do what is good. Because to do otherwise would be irrational; it would be to harm oneself deliberately, which is madness.

But does any man know what the good is for man? In other words , is any man wise? To know DEF.= to be able to tell others (Laches 190c). In Socratic philosophy, if you cannot tell, then you don't know. But what exactly do you have to know to be wise in ethics?

What is knowing what the specific excellence that is proper to man is? Is it simply being able to state what the individual moral virtues are, or must you also be able to state common quality definitions of those virtues?

Classifying anything as belonging to the specific excellence that is proper to man must be justified. Mere "numbers" (184e) -- i.e. consensus concerning "the the five cardinal virtues recognized in ancient Greece" -- is not philosophic proof. If someone knows that courage is a manly excellence, then he must be able to tell why it is.

Plato's method of antitheses (proof)

If cowardice, impiety, unfairness (inequity), unruliness (intemperance), and folly (ignorance) are the good for man, the excellence that is proper to man -- then what is the evil for man? Even Callicles does not claim that when he says that selfishness and unbridled indulgence of appetites is the good for man.

If ignorance is the good for man, what is the evil -- wisdom? (Plato's method might also be called the way of absurdity.) If the good for man is to be ignoble, then what is the bad -- to be noble?

Is it enough to know that self-control is an excellence proper to man, if indeed any man knows that, or must the wise man also know when and in what way man must control himself if what he does is to be in accord (and not discordant) with the excellence of self-control?

By the criteria we set and by the Socratic standard of knowing (or the Socratic definition of 'know'), it may be that few if any men are going to be wise in ethics. And yet it does seem that Socrates knows how to live, always faithful to the good and the life that is noblest -- are we really unable to identify the good and noble for man? The problem is not with the general but with the particular, particularly whether a man can be wise without knowing the why and how of what he himself should do with his own life.

And making all my speakers try
To reason out the How and Why. ("Euripides" in Aristophanes' The Frogs, l. 971)

Socrates believed that his own how and why had been given him by Apollo. (Plato, Apology 28e, 37e) Albert Schweitzer thought of himself as simply answering Jesus's call "Follow me" (Luke 9.59, Matthew 4.19). The direction of other men's lives has been determined by war or other crisis (external events). But for a free man in peace -- what direction is there for him? Is the precept "Know thyself" guide enough? How can a man who doesn't know how to direct his life towards the good for him as an individual man be wise? Well of course he can't. (Wandering and wisdom)


The Setting and Arguments of the Dialog

Lysimachus has asked the military commanders ("generals") Nicias and Laches for help in the education of his son and the son of his friend Melesias. (178a-180a)

180b-c - LACHES: But why, besides consulting us, do you not consult our friend Socrates [son of Sophroniscus (180d)] about the education of the youths? He is of the same deme [Alopece in Attica] with you, and is always passing his time in places where the youth have any noble study or pursuit, such as you are enquiring after.

SOCRATES says that he will try to advise Lysimachus "as far as I can in this matter", but he says that he is younger and not so experienced as Laches and Nicias, and that he would prefer to hear what they have to say first. Afterwards he says that he will "venture to give my opinion" to all (181d), although, in the event, his opinion will turn out to be quite different from the one his companions expect (200e-201b).

NICIAS, if I understand his speech (181e-182d) aright, says that the best education for a youth is those activities that tend to improve bodily health and have military application (such as gymnastics and "the art of riding"). And the best of these is to learn "how to fight in armor" [hoplomachy, which is the art or skill of the hoplite, i.e. heavy-armed infantryman]. (182b)].

LACHES does not agree with Nicias, for he says that even the Athenian fighters in armor avoid the territory of Laconia and go around it rather than face the Spartan army. But if those who had learned how to fight in armor were the best type of warriors, then it would be precisely the Spartans they would want to face in battle rather than the weaker armies of Sparta's neighbors [just as the best sportsman wishes to test his skills against the strongest, not the weakest, opponents]. And, further, he has once seen a highly reputed hoplite serve as "a marine on board ship" and make himself ridiculous through his ineptness. Laches, however, does not seem to advocate an alternative art as the best for youth to learn. (182e-184c)

LYSIMACHUS now says that he wants to hear from Socrates whether Socrates agrees with Nicias or with Laches. (184c-d)

Knowledge or majority opinion?

184d-185a - SOCRATES: What, Lysimachus, are you going to accept the opinion of the majority?

LYSIMACHUS: Why, yes, Socrates. What else am I to do?

SOCRATES: ... [but] a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers? ... then, must we not first of all ask whether there is any one of us who is an expert in that about which we are deliberating? If there is, let us take his advice, though he be only one, and not mind the rest [cf. Crito 44b-c]; if there is not, let us seek further counsel. Is this a trifle which you [Melesias] and Lysimachus have at stake? Are you not risking the greatest of your possessions?

The greatest of your possessions

Well, but Plato in the Phaedo has Socrates say that the greatest of man's possessions is his ethical self or "soul" (the man himself as an ethical personality). Socrates chose to be faithful, to live according to the specific excellence that is proper to man, namely rational moral virtue, and be put to death rather than live unethically, although that meant that he would be unable to educate his own sons, saying only that if his friends educated his sons the way Socrates had instructed his companions (daily inquiring into what is the good for man, how man should live), then his sons would be fine (and that no one could do better for them than that, not even their own father) (Phaedo 115b; cf. Crito 54a-b).

Throughout the dialogs this view of the Socrates of Plato's Apology is constant, that the best education for youth is to learn to live an examined life, the life that daily inquires into what is good (what human excellence is and how it may be attained) as in Apology 37e-38a. In Crito 49a-d the most beneficial art for youth to learn is the art of being good, pursuing virtue and philosophy, always doing what is good, never what is harmful to oneself or to others.

In the Laches, however, it is not made explicit that some other art (skill) or science (knowledge), e.g. hoplomachy, is not what the youth who seeks to live in accord with the specific excellence that is proper and unique to man should pursue when Socrates speaks of "the soul of the youth" (185d-e).

[The word 'soul' in Socrates and Plato]

[By 'soul' Socrates means the ethical aspect of mind without reference to Plato's metaphysical (speculative) picture of the soul as a spirit-ghost (because to mean more than that would be for Socrates to think he knows what he doesn't know). To 'care for the soul' means to live in accord with the moral excellence (virtue) that is proper to man, which we call ethics.]

What is the final aim of the counsel that Laches, Nicias, and Socrates have been asked to provide?

185b-e - [SOCRATES asks which counselor should be selected.] Should we not select him who has learned and practiced the art, and had good teachers?.... But would there not arise a prior question about the nature of the art of which we want to find the teachers?

MELESIAS: I do not understand.

SOCRATES: Let me try to make my meaning plainer then. I do not think that we have as yet decided what that is about which we are consulting, when we ask which of us is or is not skilled in the art, and has or has not had teachers of the art.

Socrates questions not only in order to accept or refute claims to knowledge but also to clarify their meaning. Indeed, in the order of questioning clarifying meaning comes first.

NICIAS: Why, Socrates, is not the question whether young men ought or ought not to learn the art of fighting in armor?

SOCRATES: Yes, Nicias, but there is also a prior question ... when [a person] considers anything for the sake of another thing, he thinks of the end and not of the means? [Socrates has given the example that] when [a person] considers whether he shall set a bridle on a horse and at what time, he is thinking of the horse and not of the bridle?... And at present we have in view some knowledge, of which the end is the soul of the youth?

The end must be identified before the way to attain it can be considered. And now either they must all agree to the proposition that their end concern is for "the soul of the youth" or they must try to refute it; however, none of them wishes to refute it. And so they decide to consider what the best means are for benefiting rather than harming the youth's soul. "And when you call an advisor, you should see whether he too is skillful in the accomplishment of the end that you have in view?"

Care of the soul

185e-186b - SOCRATES: And we must inquire whether any of [the three of] us is skillful or successful in the treatment of the soul, and which of us has had any good teachers?

LACHES: Well, but, Socrates, did you never observe that some persons who have had no teachers are more skillful than those who have, in some things?

SOCRATES: Yes, Laches, I have observed that, but you would not be willing to trust them if they professed to be masters of their art, unless they could show you some proof of their skill or excellence in one or more works.

LACHES: That is true.

[SOCRATES say that the three of them, then, should say who their teachers were, and if they had gone on themselves to teach others.] Or if any of us says that he has had no teacher, but that he has works of his own to show, then he should point out to them what Athenians or strangers, bond or free, he is generally acknowledged to have improved. But if we can show neither teachers nor works, then we should tell them to look out for other advisors; we should not run the risk of spoiling the [souls of] children of friends ...

186b-d - SOCRATES: I am the first to confess that I [myself] have never had a teacher of the art of virtue [moral excellence], although I have always from my earliest years desired to have one. But I am too poor to give money to the Sophists, who are the only professors of moral improvement, and to this day I have never been able to discover the art myself, though I should not be surprised if Nicias or Laches had discovered or learned it; for they are far wealthier than I am, and they may therefore have learned of others [i.e. acquired the art from or been taught by others], and they are older too, so they have had more time to make the discovery. And I really believe that they are able to educate a man, for unless they had been confident of their own knowledge, they would never have spoken thus unhesitatingly of the pursuits which are advantageous or hurtful to the young man.

That is also what Socrates says to Euthyphro when Euthyphro is going to court to indict his own father for murder: "If you did not think you knew exactly what holiness is, you would have feared the anger of the gods too much if you chose wrongly." (Plato, Euthyphro 15d-e)

186e - 187b - SOCRATES: I would have you [Lysimachus] say to them [Nicias and Laches], Socrates avers that he has no knowledge of the matter -- he is unable to decide which of you speaks truly -- neither discoverer nor student is he of anything of the kind. But you, Laches and Nicias, should each of you tell us who is the most skillful educator whom you have ever known, and whether you have invented the art yourselves, or learned of another ... But if you are yourselves original discoverers in that field, give us some proof of your skill. Who are they, having been worthless persons, have become under your care good and noble? [Otherwise] you may be trying the experiment [i.e. your first attempt at education] on your own sons and the sons of your friends ... Tell us, then, what qualifications you claim or do not claim.

Plato has Socrates subtly mock Laches and Nicias, suggesting that they, like Euthyphro, think they know what they do not know, the cardinal sin against wisdom (philosophy). And, indeed, by the end of the dialog (195a-b), both Laches and Nicias have shown themselves to be rather foolish old men.

[This would be an instance of "Socratic irony" or "Platonic irony" -- it is not found in Xenophon or elsewhere -- if Socrates were pretending not to know what he does know. Plato's rejects "admonition (rough reproof)" in Sophist 230a.]

Virtue, philosophy, station in life

The full text of Laches 187a-b: "There is a danger that you may be trying the experiment, not on the vile corpus of a carrion slave, but on your own sons or the sons of your friends ..." That is the aristocrat Plato's literary invention speaking, because Socrates did not speak that way about slaves, and indeed, at least one of his companions, Phaedo, had been a slave. Nobility of character, thirst for moral virtue and wisdom, is not a function of a man's station in life.

Nicias was, by our lights, a notorious slave owner, even having slaves working in the silver mines at Laurium. He was also extremely superstitious: Athens's war against Syracuse was lost because Nicias deferred to an omen.

"To be questioned by Socrates is really to be questioned about oneself"

187b-d - [LYSIMACHUS says that Laches and Nicias must determine whether or not they are willing to be questioned by Socrates.] Well then, if you have no objection, suppose that you take Socrates into partnership, and do you and he ask and answer one another's questions, for as he has well said, we are deliberating about the most important of our concerns.

187c-188b - NICIAS: ... anyone who is close to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument, and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life, and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him.... And I think that there is no harm in being reminded of any wrong thing which we are, or have been, doing; he who does not fly from reproof will be sure to take more heed of his afterlife [i.e., in this context, the rest of his life]. As Solon says he will wish and desire to be learning so long as he lives and will not think that old age of itself brings wisdom [Solon, fr. 10]. To me to be cross-examined by Socrates is neither unusual nor unpleasant. Indeed, I was fairly certain all along that where Socrates was, the subject of discussion would soon be ourselves, not our sons ...

In this dialog, however, there will be no examination of the men's past or present ways of life, no "sifting", but rather the examination will be limited only to the state of their wisdom about how man should live, specifically whether or not they know what courage is, because all agree that courage is part of the excellence that is proper to man. (But how is man to practice courage if he cannot "define courage", i.e. if he does not even know what courage is. If he does not know what the essence of courage is, then how can man know whether any particular act is courageous or not?)

To not think you know what you don't know

In Nicias's speech, if the word 'afterlife' (188b) means 'life after death', then "Socrates" is speaking for Plato, because the Socratic way of thinking is not to suppose you know what you don't know, and about an afterlife we don't know (Apology 40c-41c). It was Plato who believed that man's soul faces judgment after death, although he did not claim knowledge of that (Gorgias 526d-527b).

Further, even if Socrates had shared that belief, whether death is a sleep without dreams or a transfer of the soul to some other place, it has no effect on the way Socrates reasons that man should live his life, for that question is decided only by considering what the specific excellence (virtue, areté) that is proper to man is.

(A way of life needn't have a punishment or reward to make it the way that man should live; in any case, as Epictetus asked: "Does it seem to you so small a thing, and worthless, to be a good human being?" What "reward" could possibly be more desirable than that, or what "punishment" worse than the punishment of being a bad man, one who lives a life that is not in accord with the excellence that is proper to man, but instead lives a life of wrong-doing (viciousness).)

Plato introduces (or alludes to) the myth that after death in this world the soul faces judgment in another. The Socrates of the Apology does not say this about death, because although one may believe that there will be a judgment after death, that picture does not affect Socratic philosophy because it is not the kind of belief that can be tested by reason and experience in discussion, and therefore it is not philosophy.

"Amicus quidem Socrates sed magis amica veritas"

Presuming the historical record to be correct (which there is no reason to presume) in saying that Socrates was not only Plato's teacher but also his companion and friend (Plato wrote he had been present at Socrates' trial (Apology 38b) although not at his death (Phaedo 59b)), then Plato's treatment of Socrates does seem to me impious (That our concept 'piety' does not concern only our relationship to God is shown by our concept 'filial piety', and that makes the Greek concept being discussed in the Euthyphro not entirely clear). Reverence for truth is always and everywhere. If Plato believed that the truth is found in the teacher of his youth, Heraclitus, then Plato had to follow Heraclitus -- but why then does Plato make Socrates express Heraclitean ideas (doctrines)?

I well remember what I thought some fifty years ago when, shortly after reading Plato's Apology, I read the Phaedo. I thought then that Plato had betrayed Socrates. And that is what I still think, that Plato's Phaedo is the philosopher Plato rather than the philosopher Socrates.

Reverence for the truth must be greater than reverence for Socrates (Phaedo 91b), but that does not explain how reverence for the truth would allow Plato to have Socrates express Plato's ideas and world-picture rather than his own. It seems to show irreverence towards Socrates despite Plato believing that what he has Socrates say is the truth. Although on the other hand someone might say that Plato showed reverence for Socrates by having Socrates speak for the truth rather than for Socrates. What decides the question of which is the pious act, of whether Plato's act was an act of piety or of impiety?

Of Aristotle there are "three biographies of Neoplatonic or Byzantine date". In one of those, namely the Vita Latina, is found this: "Amicus quidem Socrates sed magis amica veritas" (Guthrie, Aristotle (1981), p. 18, 25n2).

Laches: to some I may appear to be a misologist

Next Nicias suggests to ask Laches whether he is willing to be questioned by Socrates.

188c-189a - LACHES: Some would think that I am a lover, and to others I may seem to be a hater, of discourse ... [for] a man whose actions do not agree with his words is an annoyance to me, and the better he speaks the more I hate him, and then I seem to be a hater of discourse [misologist]. As to Socrates, I have no knowledge of his words, but of old, as appears, I have had experience of his deeds [181b - LACHES: He was my companion in the retreat from Delium, and I can tell you that if only others had been like him ... the great defeat would never have occurred], and his deeds show that he is entitled to noble sentiments and complete freedom of speech. And if his words accord, then I am of one mind with him, and shall be delighted to be interrogated by a man such as he is, and shall not be annoyed at having to learn of him, for I too agree with Solon, "that I would fain grow old, learning many things" [fr. 10]. But I must be allowed to add "from the good only".

Both Nicias and Laches say that they are willing to be questioned by Socrates, and if they are refuted they shall not become angry with him on that account (unlike the politician Socrates speaks of in Apology 21c).

Philosophy and authority (of any kind)

Laches does not understand the spirit of philosophy = its method since he is given to accepting authority of one kind or another, in this case the authority of deeds (Wittgenstein had a similarly strange idea about character and truth). But, on the contrary, the good teacher is the one who teaches you -- i.e. the one from whom you learn. What you think of him as a human being is of no importance from that point of view; it is simply not enough for a teacher to share his humanity with his students (That may make him a good companion, but it does not in itself make him a good teacher).

Variation: Laches imagines that authority, in this case harmony of words and deeds (which he calls "the Dorian mode"), has a place in philosophy, which it does not: a philosophical thesis must stand or fall to the tests of reason (i.e. question and cross-question) and experience (i.e. consistency with verifiable facts) -- and to no other.

"The mind in old age"

In 189c-d Lysimachus describes the mind in old age, saying of himself: "I am old, and my memory is bad, and I do not remember the questions which I intend to ask, or the answers to them, and if there is any digression I lose the thread." And so Lysimachus says that he and Melesias will listen to the other three discourse and then "act upon your conclusions".

And that which we know, we can tell others?

189d-190c - SOCRATES: There will be no harm in asking ourselves the question which was proposed to us just now. Who have been our instructors in this sort of training [of the soul to virtue], or who have we ourselves made better? But another mode of carrying on the inquiry will bring us equally to the same point, and perhaps starts nearer to first principles.... are not our two friends, Laches, at this very moment inviting us to consider in what way the gift of virtue may be imparted to their sons for the improvement of their minds [in ethics]?

LACHES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then must we not first know the nature of virtue? For how can we advise anyone about the best mode of attaining something of whose nature we are wholly ignorant?.... We say then, Laches, that we know the nature of virtue.

LACHES: Yes.

190c - SOCRATES: And that which we know we must surely be able to tell?

LACHES: Certainly.

That is as in Xenophon (Memorabilia iv, 6, 1) where Socrates says that: If a man knows anything he can give an account of what he knows to others (or, in other words, if he knows, he can tell). To 'give an account' (logos) means: to set forth, explain or define.


Tell me, if you know, what is courage?

Rather than about the whole of virtue, Socrates and his companions will inquire about only one part of virtue, namely courage.

190c-e - SOCRATES: I would not have us begin ... with inquiring about the whole of virtue, for that may be more than we can accomplish. Let us first consider whether we have a sufficient knowledge of a part; inquiry will thus probably be made easier for us.... Then which of the parts of virtue shall we select? Must we not select that to which the art of fighting in armor is supposed to conduce? And is that not generally thought to be courage?

LACHES: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Then, Laches, suppose that we first set about determining the nature of courage, and in the second place proceed to inquire how the young men may attain this quality by the help of studies and pursuits [words and deeds]. Tell me, if you can, what is courage.

Laches states, not an absolute definition of courage, but only a specific example of courage

190e-191e - LACHES: Indeed, Socrates, I see no difficulty in answering. He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights the enemy. There can be no mistake about that.

SOCRATES: ... I fear that I did not express myself clearly, and therefore you have answered not the question which I intended to ask, but another.... For I meant to ask you not only about the courage of the heavy-armed soldiers, but about the courage of the cavalry [the rider on horseback] and every other style of soldier -- and not only who are courageous in war, but who are courageous in perils by sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again in politics [cf. Apology 32b-d], are courageous and not only who are courageous against pain or fear, but mighty to contend against desires and pleasures, either fixed in their rank [as the heavy-armed soldier in the line] or turning upon their enemy. There is this sort of courage -- is there not, Laches?

LACHES: Certainly, Socrates.

SOCRATES: ... I was talking about courage and cowardice in general. And I will begin with courage, and once more ask what is that common quality, which is the same in all these cases, and which is called courage. Do you now understand what I mean?

LACHES: Not overwell.

If you are going to say that there is courage with respect to everything ("courageous in war, in perils by sea, in disease, in poverty, in politics, against pain or fear, against desires and pleasures"), if you are going to apply the word 'courage' that broadly, you are never going to define the word 'courage' in any way that it not too general to be useful, if at all.

As an example of what Socrates seeks, he offers a common quality (or common nature) definition of quickness

What is the defining quality common to all quickness or everything quick?

192a-b - SOCRATES: I should say that the quality which accomplishes much in a little time -- whether in running, speaking, or in any other sort of action.

LACHES: You would be quite correct.

SOCRATES: And now, Laches, do you try and tell me in like manner, What is that common quality which is called 'courage', and which includes all the various uses of the term when applied both to pleasure [the courage of one who resists temptation to excess or to harmful pleasures] and pain [the courage of one who endures pain] ...

"... when applied both to pleasure and pain." We don't normally use the English word 'courage' that way, except maybe figuratively: we make comparisons: the courageous soldier does not abandon his assigned post (Phaedo 62b).

In Theaetetus 147a-c, Plato gives a general (common quality or common nature) definition of clay as his example: "clay is earth mixed with moisture."

Laches: courage is an endurance of the soul

192b-c - LACHES: I should say that courage is a sort of endurance of the soul, if I am to speak of the universal nature which pervades them all.

SOCRATES: [Speak of the universal nature of courage] is what we must do if we to answer our own question. And yet I cannot say that every kind of endurance is, in my opinion, to be deemed courage.

Even if what Laches identifies is a quality common to everything we call courage, Socrates now objects that this quality (or that this quality alone) does not define 'courage' because it does not distinguish courageous endurance from all other kinds of endurance of the soul, because as Socrates has just said, in his opinion, not every kind of endurance is to be deemed courage (192c). And if Socrates is correct, then the thesis (definition) Laches states is refuted or needs revision.

The two requirements for a Socratic definition, according to Aristotle: (1) it must identify the essential common quality or universal nature of some class of things, and (2) it must distinguish the things of that class from all things that do not belong to that class.

Wise endurance is good, but foolish endurance is bad. But courage is good, not bad

192c-e - SOCRATES: Hear my reason [why not every kind of endurance is to be deemed courage]. I am sure, Laches, that you would consider courage to be a very noble quality.

LACHES: Most noble, certainly.

SOCRATES: And would you say that a wise endurance is also good and noble?

LACHES: Very noble.

SOCRATES: But what would you say of a foolish endurance? Is that not, on the other hand, to be regarded as evil and hurtful?

LACHES [replying to Socrates' suggestion]: True.

But the antithesis of 'good and noble' is 'evil and ignoble', not 'evil and hurtful'. And thus the unasked question at this point is whether foolish endurance may not be noble and in that way good, even though foolishness (ignorance) is evil. That question would introduce the question of intent.

At this point the danger to the discussion is that it lose itself in vague concepts: 'noble, 'wise', 'foolish', 'evil', 'hurtful'. A sea of words in which to drown. Without examples to define these words, we do not know what we are talking about. And thus, by that standard, in this discussion Socratic step-by-step agreement skips too many steps.

So far it appears that here the word 'noble' means nothing other than 'good'; 'wise' = 'knowledgeable' or 'knowing'; 'foolish' = 'ignorant' or 'unknowing'; 'evil' = 'bad' or 'not good'; and 'hurtful' = 'harmful' or 'not beneficial' or, in other words, 'not good'. If that is correct, then Laches has simply said that wise endurance is good, and ignorant endurance is bad. But since courage is good and not bad, ignorant endurance cannot be courage, because ignorance is bad; it is indeed the opposite of wisdom. But is ignorant endurance always bad? That is one question Socrates will go on to ask.

192d - SOCRATES: And is anything noble which is evil and hurtful?

LACHES: I ought not to say that.

SOCRATES: Then you would not admit that sort of endurance to be courage -- for it is not noble, but courage is noble?

LACHES: You are right.

SOCRATES: Then, according to you, only the wise endurance is courage?

LACHES: It seems so.

The uncovering of contradictions (Socratic refutation)

Having been presented with a definition by Laches, Socrates must now accept (agree to) or refute that definition.

But is foolish endurance cowardly?

But, specifically in warfare, Laches will soon accept the proposition Socrates suggests (193a-b), that the man who is without wisdom of warfare [knowledge of the art or skill of warfare] and is poorly prepared for the fight, but nonetheless endures at his post in war is not cowardly (the opposite of courageous) but is indeed braver than the man who with knowledge of warfare endures at his post. But the first is ignorant endurance, foolish in comparison with the second? But Laches had agreed to the proposition that only wise endurance, in contrast to ignorant endurance, is noble (i.e. good).

193c-e - LACHES: Why, Socrates, what else can a man say [but agree with that proposition]?

SOCRATES: Nothing, if that be what he thinks.

LACHES: But that is what I do think.

SOCRATES: But foolish boldness and endurance appeared before to be base and hurtful to us?

LACHES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Whereas courage was acknowledged to be a noble quality.... And now on the contrary we are saying that the foolish endurance, which was before held in dishonor, is courage..... And are we right in saying so.

LACHES: Indeed, Socrates, I am sure that we are not right.

SOCRATES: Then according to your statement, you and I, Laches, were not attuned to the Dorian [musical] mode, which is a harmony of words and deeds, for our deeds [bravery in war] are not in accordance with our words [our definition of courage].

But is every kind of endurance of the soul courageous?

192e - SOCRATES: But as to the epithet [i.e. characterization of endurance as] "wise" -- wise in what? In all things small as well as great?

Laches and Socrates agree that the man who increases his wealth through spending his money wisely shows the quality of endurance, but that such endurance is not courageous (192e). And thus again, 'courage' cannot be defined as "endurance of the soul".

193e-194b - SOCRATES: Suppose, however, that we admit the principle of which we are speaking to a certain extent?

LACHES: To what extent and what principle do you mean?

SOCRATES: The principle of endurance. If you agree, we too must endure and persevere in the inquiry, and then courage will not laugh at our faintheartedness in searching for courage, which after all may frequently be endurance.

LACHES: I am ready to go on, Socrates, and yet I am unused to investigations of this sort. But the spirit of controversy has been aroused in me by what has been said, and I am really aggrieved at being thus unable to express my meaning. For I fancy that I do know the nature of courage, but, somehow or other, she has slipped away from me, and I can't get hold of her and tell her nature.

That is another way of saying that Laches does not know what he thought he knew, but whether Laches accepts that he "really" doesn't know is another matter. (Note that Laches has already agreed that "what we know we must be able to tell" others (190c), and therefore if he cannot tell, he must accept that he does not know. But he seems not to do that here, by only saying that he is "unable to express his meaning".)

"I can't tell what I don't know"

"If you do not ask me," says the philosopher, "I know". Laches was in the position of Saint Augustine when asked about time: Before Socrates asked him (and cross-questioned him in dialectic) Laches thought he knew what courage is: "What is courage? If no one asks me, I know. But if someone asks me to tell him, I can't." And therefore do I know myself? Not according to the standard, the definition of 'know', Socrates chose for philosophy. (Wittgenstein assumes that Augustine really does know what time is, but does he?)


Nicias: Courage is the knowledge of what inspires fear or confidence

194b-d - SOCRATES: Shall we then invite Nicias to join us?

NICIAS: I have been thinking, Socrates, that you and Laches are not defining courage in the right way, for you have forgotten an excellent saying which I have heard from your own lips.... I have often heard you say that "every man is good in that in which he is wise, and bad in that in which he is unwise".... And therefore if the brave man is good, he is also wise.

LACHES: [says that he does not] very well understand Nicias.

SOCRATES: I think that I understand him, and he appears to me to mean that courage is a sort of wisdom.

If granted that moral virtue is wisdom (knowledge of the good and bad for man), then, according to Plato, courage, which is a moral virtue, must also be a wisdom (knowledge). But exactly which wisdom courage is, now becomes the subject of this dialog.

194d-e - LACHES: What sort of wisdom, Socrates?

SOCRATES: That is a question you must ask of him.... Tell him then, Nicias, what sort of wisdom you think courage to be, for you surely do not mean the wisdom which plays the flute?... Nor the wisdom which plays the lyre?

NICIAS: Certainly not.... No.

The "wisdom which plays that flute" is of course not knowledge of the good and bad for man, but only of how to play the flute. Which again shows (as in the Apology which speaks of the "wisdom" of the artisans) that the English word 'wisdom' does not translate Plato's Greek (whether that word is sophia or some other). Because we do not in English classify the knowledge of how or ability to play a musical instrument wisdom.

194e-195b - SOCRATES: But what is this knowledge then, and of what?

NICIAS: I mean to say, Laches, that courage is the knowledge of that which inspires fear or confidence in war, or in anything [else].

LACHES: How strangely he is talking, Socrates.... Why, surely courage is one thing, and wisdom another.

SOCRATES: That is just what Nicias denies.

LACHES: Yes, that is what he denies; that is where he is so silly [i.e. foolish].

SOCRATES: Suppose that we instruct instead of abusing him? [Sophist 230a-d]

NICIAS: Certainly, Socrates, but having been proved to be talking nonsense [i.e. not knowing what he is talking about, but thinking he knows what he doesn't know: 'nonsense' = 'foolish speech'] himself, Laches wants to prove that I have been doing the same.

Between concepts and phenomena

Words can be defined objectively, "things" only hypothetically. That is the difference between clarity in philosophy and inconclusive vagueness. Logic-philosophy defines words not things (objects, phenomena), although metaphysics-philosophy may (but speculation is not knowledge; it is not clarity and understanding). Concepts -- i.e. rules for using words -- define (i.e. set the limits of) phenomena; phenomena do not define concepts (How could they when phenomena without concepts are cloudy, indefinite, without limits?) For example, the question (combination of words) 'What is courage?' is like a blunt instrument, numbing the intellect.

[Between phenomena and objects. Concepts and phenomena (and definition) | Words as tools versus words as names of things ]

Laches cross-questions Nicias, seeking to refute Nicias's definition of courage

195b-d - LACHES: Very true, Nicias, and you are talking nonsense, as I shall endeavor to show. Let me ask you a question. Do not physicians know the dangers of disease? Or do the courageous know them? Or are the physicians the same as the courageous?... No more ... than other craftsmen, who have a knowledge of that which inspires them with fear or confidence in their own arts, and yet they are not courageous a whit the more for it.

SOCRATES: What do you think of Laches' argument, Nicias? He appears to be saying something of importance.

NICIAS: Yes he is saying something, but it is not true ... because he thinks that the physician's knowledge of illness extends beyond the nature of health and disease. But in fact the physician knows no more than this. Do you imagine, Laches, that he knows whether health or illness is the more terrible to a man? Had not many a man better never get up from the sickbed? I should [i.e. would] like to know whether you think that life is always better than death. May not death often be the better of the two?

But whether it is better to live or to die is not something that any man knows. It does appear -- but only within the context of life in this world -- that sometimes death is not to be feared, but it is indeed preferable to life. But, knowing nothing of the nature of a possible afterlife, man does not know whether death is to be feared or not (Apology 29a: "The fear of death is only an instance of thinking oneself wise when one is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know" (tr. Guthrie)), for if death is to be feared then maybe it is better for man to live in this world under any circumstances rather than to die.

Although, how would man be better off living a life of wrong-doing in this world rather than dying, unless of course after death he did even worse wrong-doing than he does in this world.

Nevertheless Socrates did judge it better to die if one had reason to believe that clinging to life in this world would be wrong-doing and harmful to one's soul (These are not two different things, but aspects of the same thing). It is rational to decide based on what one knows, not on what one doesn't know and in ignorance fears or hopes for.

When Laches refers (195d) to Nicias's "way of speaking", he means: according to what Nicias says the nature of courage is.

What does emerge, however (195e-196a), is that it follows from what Nicias has said that, if courage is wisdom, then no man is wise (As in Apology 23b, man's wisdom -- i.e. the type of knowledge that man has or, apparently, is able to have -- is not knowledge of things that are important to know), and therefore, paradoxically, no man is courageous.

In 196a Laches will suggest that, on Nicias's account, only a god could be courageous, because only the gods are wise.

On the other hand, note that if man knows what the excellence that is proper to man is (following the precept "Know thyself"), then he does know how he ought to live, and therefore his wisdom is not worthless. Nonetheless, to know which excellence man ought to make his life accord with, in this case courage, is not worth so much if he is not able to say -- and therefore does not know (according to Socrates' standard or definition of 'know' (190c)) -- what courage is in every set of circumstances (never mistaking cowardice [for prudence] or foolhardiness for courage).

195d-196b - NICIAS: May not death often be the better of the two?... And do you think that the same things are terrible to those who had better die, and to those who had better live?... And do you suppose that the physician knows this, or indeed any other specialist, except the man who is skilled in the grounds of fear and hope? And him I call the courageous.

SOCRATES: Do you understand his meaning, Laches?

LACHES: Yes, I suppose that, in his way of speaking, the soothsayers are the courageous men. For who but one of them can know to whom to die or to live is better? And yet, Nicias, would you allow that you yourself are a soothsayer, or are you neither a soothsayer nor courageous?

NICIAS: What! Do you mean to say that the soothsayer ought to know the grounds of fear and hope?

LACHES: Indeed I do. Who but he?

NICIAS: Much rather I should [i.e. would] say he of whom I speak, for the soothsayer ought to know only the signs of things that are about to come to pass, whether it be death or disease, or loss of property, or victory, or defeat in war or in any sort of contest. But whether the suffering or not-suffering of those things will be best for a man is a question which is no more for a soothsayer to decide than for anyone else.

LACHES: I cannot understand what Nicias would be at, Socrates, for he represents the courageous as neither a soothsayer, nor a physician, nor in any other character -- unless he means to say that he is a god. My opinion is he does not like honestly to confess that he is talking nonsense, but that he shuffles up and down in order to conceal the difficulty into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might have practiced a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to avoid the appearance of inconsistency [contradiction].... But why should a man deck himself out with vain words at a meeting of friends such as this?

Which is absurd

Nicias has said that the courageous man is the one who knows the reasons for fear and hope, specifically whether it is better for him to live or to die. But Nicias then says that no man knows this (implying that only God has this knowledge). But then no man is courageous, not even the military commander Nicias himself, not unless Nicias is a god. Which is absurd.

And so according to Laches, Nicias is unwilling to admit that he has been refuted, as earlier Laches and Socrates had admitted (192e). Therefore Laches refuses to further question Nicias; but Socrates has asked Laches to continue to think along with them in the discussion, and Socrates himself will do the questioning of Nicias for both of them.

Courage is the knowledge of the grounds of (the reasons for) hope and fear

196b-d - SOCRATES: I quite agree with you, Laches, that he should not. But perhaps Nicias is serious, and not merely talking for the sake of talking. Let us ask just to explain what he means and if he has reason on his side we will agree with him; if not, we will instruct him [Sophist 230a-d].... Tell me then, Nicias, or rather tell us, for Laches and I are partners in the argument, do you mean to affirm that courage is the knowledge of the grounds of hope and fear?

NICIAS: I do.

Would Nicias's thesis that "Only the one who knows the grounds of hope and fear is courageous" be a universal standard of courage (to use the form of expression of Plato's Euthyphro), one which would tell us who is and who is not courageous?

But how are we to know if anyone knows those grounds except by asking him to render an account (tell us) of what he knows (or, in any case, thinks he knows)? But if even Plato himself could not tell us what those grounds (which would be the essence of courage) are, then who can?

But then as a standard, if the thesis is correct, it does not seem of much help to man as a guide to how he should live his life: "Seek to know, what apparently no one knows, namely the grounds for hope and fear, because that knowledge is courage, and when you know what courage is, then you will be courageous."

But is that knowledge so far away, if, as Socrates says, wrong-doing is what is to be feared? That is "the grounds of hope [good] and fear [evil]" (198c), and therefore the courageous man will be the one who knows and therefore does the opposite of wrong-doing. But can that be correct if courage is only one kind of good, only one virtue, not all virtues? (Or, as Plato thought, is moral virtue "one thing rather than many"?)

196d-e - SOCRATES: And not every man has this knowledge ... and they will not be courageous unless they acquire it -- that is what you were saying?

NICIAS: I was.

SOCRATES: Then this is certainly not a thing which every sow would know, as the proverb says, and therefore she would not be courageous.... I think that he who assents to your doctrine ['doctrine' = 'thesis', and in this case, 'real definition'] cannot allow that any wild beast is courageous, unless he admits [that a wild beast] has such a degree of wisdom that he knows things which but a few human beings ever know by reason of their difficulty.

Platonic Preconceptions

That is the question asked by Wittgenstein's philosophy: Is it "by reason of their difficulty" that "few men ever know", or is it by reason of the logic of our language being misunderstood, e.g. of the relationship between concepts and phenomena being misunderstood, and this misunderstanding making us mistake questions about concepts (i.e. our language) for questions about (non-language) facts (RPP i § 949)?

As we normally use the word 'courage' we mean: facing whatever one fears, regardless of whether that fear is rational or irrational -- in other words, regardless of what one knows or doesn't know, regardless of whether one is wise or entirely without wisdom. It is Plato's preconception -- the requirement he brings to the investigation, not takes from it -- that moral virtue is knowledge and that therefore courage is knowledge, that stands in the way of his defining 'courage' as we normally use that word (It is that use that sets the concept's and therefore the phenomenon's limits, nothing else). Plato's preconceived idea willfully blinds him to the facts in plain view.

... this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest [the theory which I judge to be soundest], and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this ... and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue. (Phaedo 100a, tr. Jowett [Tredennick])

Nothing could be farther away from the historical Socrates's two tests: reason and experience.

If the solution to life's problem ("we are discussing no small matter, but how to live") is the wisdom that is most important for man to have, then knowing whether the "difficulty of knowing what courage is" (Laches 196e) originates in misunderstood logic or in the subject itself clarifies where the solution would be found.

There are things to be said about this problem and whether it is or is not irresolvable in all respects.

As to what Laches says next, Socrates has already contrasted "numbers" = the consensus with knowledge (Laches 184e). Taking a vote -- is that how you learned to apply the words 'true' and 'false'?

Laches: Nicias is denying the truth of what all men say is true

197a-b - LACHES: ... I hope, Nicias, that you will tell us whether you really mean that those animals which we all admit to be courageous are in fact wiser than mankind, or whether you will have the boldness, in the face of universal opinion, to deny their courage.

NICIAS: Why, Laches, I do not describe as courageous animals or any other creatures which have no fear of dangers because they are devoid of understanding, but only as fearless and senseless. Do you imagine that I should call all little children courageous, who fear no dangers because they have no understanding? [The small child touches a flame not from courage but from ignorance, not from fear conquered but from the absence of fear.] There is a difference, to my way of thinking, between fearlessness and courage. I am of opinion [Is there any difference in meaning between 'I am of [the] opinion' and 'I think' and 'It seems to me'? What is the meaning, the use in the language, of these expressions?] that thoughtful courage is a quality possessed by very few, but that rashness and boldness, and fearlessness which has no forethought, are very common qualities possessed by many men, many women, many children, many animals.

Socrates tells Laches that Nicias has derived this wisdom from a companion of Prodicus, "who, of all the Sophists is considered to be the best at analyzing the meaning of words of this sort". (197d)

Although Plato refers ironically to Prodicus, Xenophon writes: "Socrates never gave up considering with his companions what any given thing is. To go through all his definitions would be an arduous task ..." (Memorabilia iv, 6, 1). Socrates is there known for "the art of words" (i.e. logic or dialectic) (ibid. i, 2, 31) -- but the principal part of dialectic for Socrates is defining words (as the names of things (phenomena)).


Socrates and Nicias begin again, step-by-step. Courage is a part of virtue

198a-b - SOCRATES: ... I must beg of you, Nicias, to begin again. You remember that we originally considered courage to be a part of virtue [190c-d].

NICIAS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And you yourself said [i.e. agreed with Laches and me] that it [courage] was a part, and there were many other parts, all of which taken together are called virtue [the excellence that is proper to a thing, e.g. to man].... Do you agree with me about the parts? For I say that justice [if that is the apt translation of the Greek], temperance [self-control], and the like, are all of them parts of virtue as well as courage [i.e. just as courage is a part of virtue]. Would you not say that same?

NICIAS: Certainly.

Throughout this discussion there has been step-by-step agreement, regardless of who the disputants were, although I have not recorded every "Certainly", "Very true" or other indicator of agreement.

Knowledge is independent of time: it is knowledge of all times, a science

The Platonic axiom (preconception) that knowledge is only possible of what is eternal (not in flux) comes from Heraclitus, not Socrates.

198b-199a - SOCRATES: Well then, so far we are agreed. And now let us proceed a step, and try to arrive at a similar agreement about the fearful and hopeful [which is what Nicias has said courage is the knowledge of (195d)]. I do not want you to be thinking one thing and us another. Let me tell you our opinion [Again, Socrates is speaking as if he were speaking also for Laches], and if I am wrong you shall set us right. In our opinion the terrible and the hopeful are the things which do and do not create fear, and fear is not of the present nor of the past, but of future and expected evil.... The terrible things, as I should [i.e. would] say, are the evils which are future, and the hopeful are the good or not-evil things which are future.... And the knowledge of these things you call courage?

NICIAS: Precisely.

SOCRATES: And now let me see whether you agree with Laches and myself as to a third point.... He and I have a notion that there is not one knowledge or science of the past, another of the present, a third of what may and will be best in the future, but that of all three there is one science only ... that the same science has understanding of the same things, whether future, present, or past?

NICIAS: Yes, indeed, Socrates, that is my opinion.

By 'science' Plato means 'knowledge', and, according to Heraclitus, knowledge is only possible of what is unchanging, and what is unchanging is eternal (i.e. of the past, present and future). So that if courage is knowledge, then it must be knowledge of all times, not only of the future.

199a-b - SOCRATES: And courage ... is, as you say, a knowledge of the fearful and of the hopeful?... And the fearful, and the hopeful, are admitted to be future goods and future evils?... And the same science has to do with the same things in the future or at any time?

NICIAS: That is true.

But "knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful" is knowledge only about the future. But then that cannot be what courage is.

199b-c - SOCRATES: Then courage is a science which is concerned not only with the fearful [evil] and the hopeful [good], for they are future only. Courage, like all the other sciences, is concerned not only with good and evil of the future, but of the present and past, and of any time.

NICIAS: That, as I suppose, is true.

Courage as the knowledge of every good and evil, without reference to time

199c-d - SOCRATES: Then the answer which you have given, Nicias, includes only a third part of courage, but our question extended to the whole nature of courage. And according to your view -- that is, according to your present view -- courage is not only the knowledge of the hopeful and the fearful, but seems to include nearly every good and evil without reference to time. What do you say to that alteration of your statement?

NICIAS: I agree, Socrates.

"Courage is the knowledge of good and evil"? But that is the definition of 'moral virtue', Socrates and Plato say, but courage is only a part, not the whole of virtue.

[Note: W.K.C. Guthrie's view of the relation of Plato's thought to the thought of the historical Socrates is very different from mine | Plato, Socrates, and the visitor from Elea]

Heraclitus versus Socrates in Plato's thought

There is a requirement Plato brings to this inquiry (for it is not the result of the inquiry), and that requirement concerns, not courage, but knowledge (or wisdom) itself, namely that nothing changeable -- as everything perceptible to the senses is -- can be an object of knowledge. Knowledge is timeless because its object is timeless (time is a measure of change). That is what Plato has taken from Heraclitus, that only what is unchanging can be known, as Plato has also taken from Parmenides that what is unchanging is not perceived by the senses.

The role of Socratic definition in Plato's early philosophy

If we take into account that, according to Aristotle, Socrates was not Plato's primary teacher in philosophy, but instead Heraclitus was ("In his youth Plato had been familiar with Cratylus and the Heraclitean doctrines, according to which all things perceived by the senses are in incessant flux and there is no such thing as scientific knowledge of them, and to this part of the doctrine he remained true through life" [Metaphysics 987a]), and thus if we begin with Plato's conviction that only what is unchanging can be an object of knowledge, then we see how Plato might latch on to Socratic definition -- (although Plato uses Socrates' method differently from what Aristotle's definition suggests that Socrates himself did) -- as a method (or means) in the earlier dialogs for determining what these objects of knowledge are, objects which Plato takes to be the defining qualities or essences of the various phenomena of experience to which names are given (when names have been correctly given).

And to discover what these imagined objects of knowledge are is Plato's concern in philosophy; it is what lies behind his arguments and (maybe) makes clear the "why" of his character Socrates' questions that may so often appear strange (Why does he make these suggestions, e.g. 198d?) Plato is trying to make reality fit into a preconceived picture (Plato's method of preconceptions). Plato's Rationalism does not set phenomena aside -- nor, if it uses Socrates' method of definition, can it (although Socrates' method begins with induction, i.e. the gathering of examples, the part of that method which Plato's Socrates does not use) -- but instead of trying to learn from an examination of the phenomena as Socrates did, Plato tries to make the phenomena conform to a picture of reality of his own creation. [cf. Aristotle, On the Heavens 306a5]

Socrates replaced by the visitor from Elea

And further, when Socrates' method of defining a word as the essence of the thing the word names no longer serves Plato's purpose, because Plato finds that there is no essence of knowledge (Philebus 13e-14a), he drops Socrates as a character in the dialogs, as he does in the Sophist and Statesman where he replaces "Socrates" with the "visitor from Elea" (or "stranger") and replaces essential definition with definition by division, although Plato continues to use Socrates' method of dialectic. (In the Laches Socrates maybe could have been replaced by the visitor from Ephesus, the birthplace of Heraclitus.)

[Note.--The reference to Aristotle's On the Heavens is from Guthrie's Aristotle: an encounter (1981), p. 95, although I have applied Aristotle's general remark to my own examples. (Guthrie also quotes On Generation and Corruption 316a6 (p. 94-95).)]

A false premise leads to no conclusion

If the discussion begins with Plato's axiom (preconception) that "courage is a kind of wisdom or knowledge", it is impossible for the discussion to arrive at a Socratic definition of courage. In this case a false premise does not lead to a false conclusion but instead to no conclusion at all.

"If any man knows what the good is, then he does what is good." But "If any man knows what courage is, he acts with courage" -- can we say that? That seems like a very different proposition. Or does knowledge of courage = knowledge of good? i.e. does courage = the good? But surely courage is only one kind of good, because e.g. courage ≠ piety.

The wise man is the one who knows what the specific excellence that is proper to man is (and therefore what the good for man is), and therefore he lives in accord with that excellence, not in discord with it. But does knowledge = deed? (The problem of self-deception (insincerity).)

But is that equivalent to saying that the excellence that is proper to man is wisdom, or in other words, that wisdom (knowledge) = rational moral virtue?

But it does not follow from A is the cause (or source) of B that A = B.

According to Guthrie, wisdom was one of he five "cardinal virtues recognized in Greece" (Plato ... earlier period, p. 69), but normally we would call wisdom a virtue only if we were using the English word 'virtue' to mean 'excellence' (areté) regardless of whether that excellence is natural or moral excellence. But Socrates was concerned above all with 'excellence in ethics' or 'rational moral virtue' in English. Wisdom or knowledge is a natural virtue, but is it also a moral virtue? (The pursuit of wisdom, of virtue and philosophy, is a moral virtue, but is wisdom itself a moral virtue? Has the combination of words 'wisdom is a moral virtue' any meaning?)

If the essence of virtue is knowledge of every good, then can courage be part of virtue without also being knowledge of every good?

If we take the proposition 'Moral virtue is a kind of knowledge, namely knowledge of good and evil' to be a factual statement about the essence of virtue (as Plato does), then like Plato we will identify each of the virtues with knowledge -- because if that is essence of virtue, then any particular part of virtue must also be knowledge. Is that virtue has parts an illusion, mere appearance?

Only if moral virtue and courage are identical need courage be knowledge of all good; but if courage is only part of virtue, then it can be knowledge only of what is to be feared (of that aspect of the good only). Moral virtue can be one rather than many if the individual virtues are like the faces of a child's block (one cube, but six faces). Of course this is only a metaphor. But we do call many unidentical things knowledge, e.g. geometry and history, and yet they are all parts of knowledge.

Or is courage the essence of virtue plus something? It certainly cannot be the essence of virtue minus something (essence = that without which a thing would not be what it is). (Plato will later say that some phenomena appear to be a "blend of Forms (essences)", but like "participating in the Forms" that looks like what Aristotle calls "empty words and poetical metaphors" (Metaphysics 991a).)

But Plato says that moral virtue is knowledge of all good and evil, whereas courage is only knowledge of what is to be feared and what is not to be feared -- which is a limited knowledge of good and evil.

So that courage appears to be a subclass of virtue (as in a tree chart). But Plato does not "think in those terms" at this point; his thinking is still Socratic rather than Eleatic: he is not yet using the method of definition by division but instead seeking essences.

Seeing the facts in plain view

Plato is a very imaginative philosopher (e.g. Sophist 257c-258e), but he is also a philosopher of blinding preconceptions. I would rather have the Socratic dialogs written by Socrates' friends Phaedo and Simon the shoemaker which show the historical Socrates rather than the literary character Socrates who is at the service of Plato. Why? Because the thought of Socrates is down to earth (This can be also be said about Wittgenstein's later logic of language); a preconception is a pretension -- it is thinking you know what you don't know.

What kind of knowledge would a wise man have? (Laches 199d-e)

If courage were knowledge of how to produce good outcomes, then it would be a science for determining how to live -- but we would not call that science 'courage'. When we talk about 'courage' we are talking about acts undertaken without knowing what the outcome will be, or in other words: If a man knew that he could accomplish his end without doing harm either to himself or to others, then there would be nothing courageous about his proceeding.

Who can deal aright both with gods and with men?

199d-e - SOCRATES: But then ... if a man knew all good and evil, and how they are and have been and will be produced, would he not be perfect, and wanting in no virtue, whether justice or temperance or holiness [piety]? He alone would be competent to distinguish between what is to be feared and what is not, whether it be supernatural or natural, and would take the proper precautions that all should be well, for he would know how to deal aright both with gods and with men.

Does this answer the question of my what kind of knowledge or wisdom it is that a wise man would have, namely "knowledge of how to deal aright both with gods and with men"? having timeless knowledge of every good and evil and thus, because moral virtue is knowledge, possessing every moral virtue or excellence (199c-d; cf. 200a) in every circumstance of our life?

But as we normally use the word 'virtue'

If moral virtue is knowledge, it must be knowledge of what is good and what is bad (evil), for if a man is to live a virtuous life -- i.e. a life that is in accord with the ethical excellence that is proper to man -- then he must know what the good for man is.

On the other hand, according to our way of thinking (way of using language), a foolish (i.e. not wise) man may be brave, because although his ignorance directs him towards the wrong things, his intention is to do good. His ignorance of the good does not affect whether he is virtuous or not -- because he thinks that what he is doing is the good for man (Within limits: we don't call just anything virtuous: e.g. the cruel man is not virtuous, regardless of what he believes).

We shouldn't overlook the sense and nonsense difficulties of the thesis that "Moral virtue is knowledge". Nicias would call the foolish man "fearless" [197a-b] rather than courageous, because he says that courage is knowledge, which the ignorant man does not have. But as we normally use the word 'courage', courage is not knowledge but intent; and that is a description of our use of language, not a theory about what the true nature of courage is (as if there were such a thing as a phenomenon named 'courage' independent of all concepts, "an unconceived but not blind percept").

But if courage were knowledge of every good, then courage would be the whole rather than only a part of virtue. Nicias is refuted.

199d-e - SOCRATES: ..... he would know how to deal aright both with gods and with men.

NICIAS: I think, Socrates, that there is a great deal of truth in what you say.

SOCRATES: But then, Nicias, courage, according to this new definition of yours, instead of being only a part of virtue, will be all [the whole of] virtue?

NICIAS: It would seem so.

SOCRATES: But we were saying that courage is one of the parts of virtue?

NICIAS: Yes, that was what we were saying.

SOCRATES: And that is in contradiction to our present view?

NICIAS: That appears to be the case.

SOCRATES: Then, Nicias, we have not discovered what courage is.

NICIAS: It seems not.

According to the principle of contradiction (which is the tool of refutation in this dialog), Nicias's thesis (hypothesis) that courage is that part of virtue which is "knowledge of the grounds of hope and fear" [196d] (in contrast to "the knowledge of all good and evil") has been refuted (falsified). This is an example of Socratic refutation (elenchus).

Philosophy is Socratic Dialog

Today's discussion (set of questions and answers) is not the only possible discussion (set of questions and answers)

Sometimes readers of Plato's dialogs are not happy with the responses of Socrates' companions to his questions and cross-questions (sometimes they are not happy with Socrates' questions), imagining that his companions are not worthy challengers of Plato's ideas. However, that is the inherent limit of the method of dialectic. For dialectic requires step by step agreement, and for there to be step by step agreement both the one who questions and the one who answers must be present. And so Plato could only describe one way that an argument might go in the discussion of a subject, not every direction in which it might go if at some step along the way someone disagreed with Socrates and his discussant.

And therefore Plato's dialogs must be seen as discussions that took place at a particular time on a particular day, not the only possible discussions, nor need even the same discussion that the participants would have on the days to come, as new theses, different agreements and disagreements arose. But that is Socrates' method of dialectic, and that is one limitation of the method of question and answer, of step-by-step agreement, of acceptance or refutation. Or maybe that is not a limitation, because recall that in the Apology [37e-38a], Socrates says that these subjects -- which are all part of "no small matter, but how to live" (ethics) -- should be discussed every day of our life.


Plato's conclusion of the dialog

Laches directs more derisive remarks at Nicias because Nicias has, apparently, been shown not to know what he thinks he knows. Nicias replies that so has Laches.

200a-c - NICIAS: I perceive, Laches, that you think nothing of having displayed your ignorance of the nature of courage, but you look only to see whether I have not made a similar display. And if we are both equally ignorant of the things which a man with any self-respect should know, that, I suppose, will be of no consequence. You certainly appear to me very like the rest of the world, looking at your neighbor and not at yourself....

LACHES: You are a philosopher, Nicias; of that I am aware. Nevertheless I would recommend Lysimachus and Melesias not to take you and me as advisors about the education of their children, but, as I said at first, they should ask Socrates and not let him off ...

With Laches' suggestion Nicias agrees. And then Lysimachus asks Socrates if he will take charge of the youths' education in virtue. (200c-d)

200e-201b - SOCRATES: I should be very wrong in refusing to aid in the improvement of anybody. And if I had shown in this conversation that I had a knowledge which Nicias and Laches had not, then I admit that you would be right in inviting me to perform this duty, but as we are all in the same perplexity ["Philosophy begins in wonder" (Theaetetus 155c-d), according to Plato], why should one of us be preferred to another?... I maintain, my friends, that everyone of us should seek out the best teacher whom he can find, first for ourselves who are greatly in need of one, and then for the youths, regardless of expense or anything. But I cannot advise that we remain as we are. And if anyone laughs [Gorgias 484c; cf. Plato, Euthydemus 272b-272c] at us for going to school at our age, I would quote to them the authority of Homer [But poets have no authority in philosophy (Republic 339a)], who says "Modesty is not good for a needy man" [Odyssey 17.347]. Let us then, regardless of what may be said of us, concern ourselves both with our own education and that of the youths, together.

That is related to what is said in Apology 37e-38a, that a life without this sort of education -- which one must continue throughout one's life by questioning both oneself and others -- is not worth living. And in Euthyphro 15c, to never give up seeking to know.


A few notes from W.K.C. Guthrie's Plato: the man and his dialogues: earlier period (1975) and other comments

One scholar, H. Gauss, thought the Laches to be "clearly the first of the group of "definition-dialogs"" (p. 124). In Guthrie's opinion, "its philosophical simplicity suggests an earlier work than the Euthyphro", but he says that his is only one conjecture among many others. (p. 125)

Guthrie says that Laches was killed at the battle of Mantinea in 418 B.C. and that the battle of Delium had been in 424, and therefore if we regard the Laches as a play, it would take place when Socrates is between the ages of 45 and 50; all the characters in it are historical figures. (ibid.) (The "Dialogs of Plato" might be called the "Plays of Plato".)

Guthrie translates the word 'hoplomachy' as "heavy-armed fighting" (p. 126). For Laches 194a, rather than 'controversy' as Jowett has it, Guthrie has 'fighting spirit' (p. 130). Rather than "a sort of endurance of the soul" [192b-c], Guthrie has "a kind of perseverance of the soul" (p. 128), although he does use the word 'endurance' as well in his account of the Laches (p. 132).

Guthrie thinks there is an allusion to Nicias's failed leadership in the Sicilian expedition "where Socrates says that a general should not allow himself to be influenced by soothsayers":

As to the military art, you yourselves will be my witnesses that it makes excellent provision for the future as the well as the present, and that the general claims to be master and not the servant of the soothsayer, because he knows better what is happening or is likely to happen in war, and accordingly the law places the soothsayer under the general, and not the general under the soothsayer. (Laches 198e-199a, tr. Jowett)

"Placing the general under the soothsayer" is what Nicias did by regarding an eclipse as a bad omen with disastrous consequences for Athens' Sicilian expedition. (p. 125-126) In Laches 195e-196a Plato has Nicias say that the soothsayer has knowledge of victory or defeat in war.

When Laches says that he is willing to listen only to a good man discoursing on goodness (188c-189a), Guthrie has the Greek word areté in parenthesis as what Laches means (p. 126). Laches says that Socrates "may go ahead and confute him as much as he likes" (p. 127). (What does Guthrie mean by the word 'confute' -- does it contrast with 'refute'? No, those two words are synonyms.)

The Greek "wise", another meaning

Apropos of the saying that Nicias quotes, "Everyone is good at that in which he is wise" [194d], Guthrie says that rather than 'wise' it could be 'well-versed', or 'in what he understands'. (p. 129, 129n1)

Guthrie's view of the relation of Socrates to Plato's thought

In the context of what I wrote above about Heraclitus giving direction to Plato thinking, Guthrie gives a very different account (p. 132-133) from mine. But in my opinion Guthrie believes that we can know far more about the views of the historical Socrates than I think we can -- and, furthermore, in this particular case Guthrie's beliefs apropos seem in contradiction to one another.

For according to Guthrie, for Socrates "all the so-called virtues are ultimately reducible to one thing only, to the knowledge of good and evil", because "virtue is a unity, not a collection of separate parts" (p. 132); Guthrie has as evidence of this view that:

At 191d, by including in courage the ability to withstand pleasures and pains, he [Socrates] tacitly equates it [courage] with another of the recognized virtues, temperance or self-control (sophrosyne). (Plato ... earlier period, p. 133. [In the Charmides, Plato seeks to identify self-control with wisdom, which is "another of the recognized virtues".])

But then Guthrie writes:

Plato will have more to say about courage [in later dialogs] and its relation to the whole of virtue ... At the end of his life, in the Laws [963c-e], he retains substantially the same view of this relationship ... (p. 134)

And that is long after Plato set aside his literary character Socrates. Who did the idea "the unity of virtue" originate with? Thoughts: first, it is possible to be both one and many; second, we shouldn't assume that the historical Socrates rather Plato is speaking in the Laches; third, is that "tacit equation" really an equation -- if you are going to expand the concept 'courage' that widely, most any act can be characterized as courageous -- and so this appears to be adduction, Plato shaping reality to fit his preconception -- or in my view it is all too close to thinking you know what you don't know (which is the opposite of Socrates' philosophy and method, as in Plato's Apology 21d, 23a-b).

Of course Guthrie is a scholar and I am not (both parts of which are important to remember). But maybe my view of the relation between Socrates' ideas and Plato's philosophy is a thoughtful alternative to Guthrie's view.

"The master of those who don't think they know what they don't know"

Theory, like preconception, may be a sanctuary from cross-questioning for ignorance

The danger is that the theory may seem so satisfying that we become convinced that the theory isn't merely a theory, merely one way of organizing a selection of conceived facts rather than another -- but that instead "The theory is the true explanation of the facts; the theory is reality itself; the theory is the fact." (The danger of speculation)

The temptation is to imaginatively paint in the blank spaces and then mistake the paint for reality. Speculation becomes thinking one knows what one doesn't know. (Ancient portraits of Socrates)

When in Phaedo 99d-100a Plato elevates his own principles ("theories") over any evidence of sense perception which might falsify them, that is thinking oneself wise when one is not, thinking one knows what one does not know, which Socrates in Xenophon says is next to madness (Memorabilia iii, 9, 6 ). It is Heraclitus and Parmenides speaking.

Whether it is called "speculative" or "the mystical", what you don't know, you don't know. Only a fool worships ignorance, although only a fool does not wonder.

Socrates and "Virtue is a unity, one thing, not many"

Would Socrates have made Plato's claim that all things called moral virtue (courage, piety, justice, temperance) are not essentially different despite their different names? Is the essence of justice the same as the essence of piety -- is to do one's duty to God the same as to do one's duty to men? Well, I don't think Socratic induction shows that. Sometimes may not one's duty to God and one's duty to men be opposed to one another, when as in Antigone's words "Thy writ, O king, hath not such potence as to overweigh the laws of God"? It is only Platonic preconception that could exclude that possibility and identify the virtues with one another. And although a preconception may be an hypothesis (although in Plato it seems not: Plato will not take No for an answer), it may as easily be thinking you know what you don't know.

Socrates often argued by analogies (which is a method that can be used to show how virtue can be both one and many (Protagoras 329d)). But although an analogy -- a possible comparison of like to like -- may be made between A and B in order to suggest what the nature of B may be, an analogy is not proof that B's nature really is what the analogy suggests it is. An analogy only suggests a thesis to be cross-questioned (and possibly refuted) in discussion. It does not itself prove anything beyond the possibility of a particular comparison being made.

The Historical Socrates

These comments show what I believe we can know about the historical Socrates, and that we can adapt Dante's description of Aristotle, to call Socrates "il maestro di color che non sanno": the master of those who don't know -- i.e. the master of those who don't think they know what they don't know (il maestro di coloro che non pensano sapere ciò che non sanno).

Ways to distinguish the historical Socrates from the literary Socrates: that the historical Socrates wants only to distinguish what he knows from what he does not know, that he allows himself no preconceptions: "I make no hypotheses" (because that would be to think he knows what he does not know), but is instead guided solely by reason (logic) and (verifiable, public) experience; and that he confines his philosophical investigations to ethics, seeking the wisdom of "no small matter, but how to live" as it may be known in this world.

According to Aristotle, Socrates' method was rational induction -- i.e. thoroughgoing natural reason applied to verifiable experience and going no further than what can be known by that method. In contrast there is Platonic Rationalism (Phaedo 99d-100a), which has the form "Despite any evidence of sense experience to the contrary, the moral virtues are essentially one." Of course Plato does not claim to know that, only to state that based on the principles that he holds fast to regardless of any "apparent" -- (but if the word 'apparent' is to have any meaning, then objective evidence is not merely apparent) -- evidence to the contrary, that is his opinion.

Plato's opinion that the meaning of an ethical term is a suprasensible Form (Archetype) is mysticism -- i.e. the view that "what is visible has its reality in what is not visible" (as in Plato's myth of the cave in Republic 515c; cf. Hebrews 11.3, which is the foundation of supernatural religion). It is metaphysical speculation.

In my view of philosophy, it is life or death to the understanding to distinguish between the first principles (limits and methods) of the Socratic and Platonic philosophies.

"Moral virtue is knowledge of the good" | General definitions

"If a man knows what is good, he will do what is good; but if he does not know what is good, he cannot do what is good, because all living things aim for their perceived good, which they may misperceive and thereby aim for something other than the good." Is that proposition contrary to human experience, as Aristotle says it is? Well, but it is possible for someone to give mere mouth honor to a proposition by saying 'I know p to be true', while believing something else to be true. In other words, the logical form of 'I say I know such-and-such, but I think I know something else' is (p and not-p).

The argument is tautological, but not all tautologies are idle.

Part, if not the whole, of piety is "dealing aright with God" (Laches 199d-e). That may be a general definition of the word 'piety' acceptable to a dictionary, but it is not "a definition of piety" of the kind sought in Plato's Euthyphro -- because it does not tell anyone what specifically to do in all circumstances.

There are many meanings or definitions of the word 'definition' (just as there are many meanings of the word 'meaning'), not only one, but not all are serviceable from the point of need of Plato's philosophy, e.g. definitions that give only general orientation.

In Gorgias 507b Plato says that piety is correct conduct towards God, as justice is correct conduct (doing one's duty) towards men. But those are very general definitions, not guidance in the particular case.

Cf. "What should I do?" -- "Do your duty." That is not very helpful guidance.

Defining things (phenomena): 'definition' in its philosophical-metaphysics sense

Guthrie calls the proposition 'Moral virtue is knowledge of good and bad' a thesis, which I think means a "real definition" -- i.e. an hypothesis about the nature -- of moral virtue that may be true or false. But if that is what it is, then as a thesis about the English language -- an hypothesis about how we use a word, because what else would it be an hypothesis about? -- it can be refuted (indeed, it is false) because we do not normally use the word 'virtue' that way.

To be morally virtuous is not to know what is virtuous, but to act virtuously, and therefore if by 'virtue' we mean 'the excellence that is proper to a thing' -- i.e. knowledge rather than deed -- then we are not using the word 'virtue' as we normally use that word (and if we allow ourselves to play with linguistic-signs that way, then "virtue" may be anything at all). A wise man would be one who knows what is beneficial, what harmful to man; but such knowledge is not what we call 'virtue', but what we call 'wisdom'. (Maybe the source of the confusion is simply this: that the English words 'virtue' and 'excellence' are not adequate renderings of the Greek word areté, that 'Areté is knowledge' ≠ 'Virtue is knowledge'? Well, no, I don't think so, but rather that both propositions are nonsense.)

Aristotle's philosophical-metaphysics definitions

On the other hand, can't there be a "real definition" of moral virtue, an hypothesis about the nature of the phenomenon named by the words 'moral virtue'? If as Aristotle says "to know the cause of a thing is to know that thing's essence", then a real definition might be: "The cause of moral virtue is knowledge of the good, and therefore the essence of moral virtue is knowledge of the good, and therefore moral virtue is knowledge of the good."

But Aristotle notwithstanding, we don't normally use the word 'definition' to mean 'the cause = the essence' of a thing. But maybe that might be called the meaning of 'definition' in a metaphysical (in contrast to a logical) sense?

But when Plato "defines man" as being essentially his soul, and Aristotle "defines man" as being essentially a rational animal, they do not seem to be saying what the cause of man's existing is.

"Care of the soul"

[Guthrie sees] the references at Laches 185e to education as tendance of the soul (as in Apology 36c) and the fact that this and the following sentences amount to an injunction to know thyself and a challenge to account for one's life [as] Socratic touches. (p. 133)

But as to the last, is "to account for one's life" Socratic or only Platonic? If it alludes to Plato's picture of this life as a preparation for an afterlife in which the soul will be judged and wrong-doing punished (as presented by the myth in Gorgias 522e-524b, which Plato says he is convinced by (ibid. 526d-e)), then maybe it is only Platonic, because Socrates does not claim to know what death is, and he does not presume to think he knows more than his own ignorance, and in the case of death Plato does turn speculation into presumption.

But, on the other hand, can an individual know his limits (which is the second part of "Know thyself", the first part being to know the specific excellence that is proper to man as man) if he does not "make an account" of his life to see where he has over-reached or under-reached his abilities or done right and wrong (good and evil)?

And, furthermore, there is the reply Socrates made to Hermogenes when asked if he was not preparing for his trial. Socrates answered: "Do you think I have not been preparing for it all my life?"

But neither of these "on the other hands" alludes to Plato's picture of an afterlife.

I spend my whole life in going about and persuading you all to give your first and greatest care to the improvement of your souls, and not till you have done that to think of your bodies or your wealth. (Plato, Apology 30a-b, tr. Church, rev. Cumming)

Plato, Socrates, and the "visitor from Elea"

Two related reasons why I do not think it possible to know as much about the historical Socrates as Guthrie does: (1) Plato's concern was philosophical truth, not the historical Socrates (Phaedo 91b); when Plato finds Socratic definition (the early Plato identified the common natures of things with suprasensible Forms or Archetypes) unserviceable, he replaces Socrates with the "visitor [stranger] from Elea"; and (2) Plato was a creative writer (Socrates as a literary character). For example, the Socrates of Plato's Republic, after Book One, is an aristocratic snob of many opinions, which is very different from the Socrates of the Apology, the stonecutter's son who knows only his own ignorance and commends philosophy to every man; and if the historical Socrates is to be found anywhere in Plato it is in the Apology because that Socrates is consistent with Xenophon, Aristotle, and Diogenes Laertius.

"Only his own ignorance"

But even in the Apology Plato is writing philosophy, and although it may be accepted as a portrait of the historical Socrates, that acceptance is a question of discretion rather than of necessity. Did the historical Socrates assign the same meaning to the oracle's words "No man is wiser than Socrates" that Plato does in the Apology? The statement in Diogenes Laertius that "Socrates used to say that he knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance" (Diog. L. ii, 32) and Aristotle's "Socrates used to ask questions but not to give answers, because he confessed that he did not know" (Soph. el. 183b6-8) maybe suggest, but only suggest, that Socrates may well have done. Nonetheless, that statement is not found in Xenophon.

What else it seems we can know about Socrates is that he used the method of induction to define "things" by identifying their common natures, but that Socrates concerned himself only with definitions in ethics (a subject he first introduced into philosophy) and not in nature philosophy, and that Socrates did not separate common natures from sensible things (as Plato was to do), because that is the testimony of Aristotle, who wrote, in this instance, as a critical historian of philosophy.


Are soothsayers like the poets in Apology 22b-c?

What were soothsayers in Plato's eyes, or the oracle at Delphi for that matter? In Phaedo 81c-d Plato speaks of the ghosts which hover "above tombs and graveyards", and which have "actually been seen there", as being the souls not of the good but of the wicked. (But whether Plato himself believed in those ghosts or only alludes to them to illustrate the metaphorical consequences of a life of wrong-doing, I don't know.)

Nothing whatever, including the words of soothsayers and oracles, is to be assumed to be understood without questioning. That was how Socrates responded to the oracle's words "Of all men living Socrates most wise" (Apology 21a), that even the words of a god must be tested by reason, within the range of which everything must be brought, in order to figure out in which sense they are true, in which false.

Socrates, the oracle, belief and reason

It might well be that Apollo had spoken through the oracle -- "Well, well, we won't dispute that" (as Sherlock Holmes would say), Socrates might have thought. Or quite the contrary, Socrates may have believed implicitly that Apollo did speak through the oracle at Delphi. Regardless of whether he believed in the genuineness of the oracle or not, the question for Socrates was the same: if the oracle's words are true, in what sense are they true? And that is a question for reason (logic, "dialectic"), working on experience, to answer.

Socrates responded to his "divine sign" the same way; it was not allowed to take the place of reason, even in the case of whether death is to be feared or not, something which no man knows. (That Plato has that Socrates' sign did not warn him against death is as historical as the final words of the Phaedo (118a); both these are Plato's world-picture speaking.)

Is the soothsayer like the poets in Apology 22b-c? The oracle surely is, and even more so than the poets, for she can give no account whatever of what she knows, the truth she speaks, for she is, rather, "inspired" by the god. Could the soothsayer, if he were willing, explain to others how he knows what he claims to know -- is there a science of soothsaying?


The concept 'courage' (Animals, Man)

Apropos of what Nicias says about beasts and courage (197a-c), recall that it was suggested that courage, being a moral virtue, is a kind of knowledge (or wisdom). And what is known can be told (190c), but then no animal, no "beast wanting discourse of reason", is courageous -- because if a beast knew, then it could tell others what it knew. (That is the way Socrates defines the word 'know' for philosophy.)

The proposition 'Moral virtue is knowledge of the good'

How is that proposition verified or falsified? You don't know, and haven't any idea. Is the difficulty that the proposition is not a statement of fact, not an hypothesis about the nature of moral virtue? Has the combination of words 'Moral virtue is knowledge' any clear meaning? Out of any context, no.

If the proposition 'Moral virtue is knowledge' is true, is it a tautology? Can it be "significantly negated", i.e. is the combination of words 'Moral virtue is not knowledge' nonsense?

As a statement about how we normally define the word 'virtue', the combination of words 'Moral virtue is not knowledge' is not only not nonsense, but true (within limits).

The proposition 'Moral virtue is knowledge' is not an hypothesis about the nature of moral virtue, because that proposition hasn't any meaning except as a tautology -- or, rather, a step in a tautology -- when it is placed in the Socratic context (argument) -- indeed, outside that context, it is a mere undefined combination of words.

Is 'Moral virtue is knowledge of the good' a frame of reference, a way of looking at things (specifically ethics)? (And how do you know whether the proposition is a point of view rather than a statement of fact?) What would it mean to call that proposition a way of looking at things or frame of reference? "If you frame the question this way ..." it belongs to the guide to how to live which begins with "know thyself": seek to know excellence that is proper to man and to yourself as an individual because the good for a thing is the excellence proper to that thing and all living things seek what they perceive to be their good.

If we are going to categorize moral virtue as knowledge or wisdom, then we cannot (according to the Socratic definition of 'know') say that an animal is courageous nor that a small child is. But all virtue, i.e. "excellence" or areté, is not knowledge if we recall the distinction between natural and moral virtue. And is courage exclusively a moral virtue, or is Nicias correct when he says that animals are only fearless, not courageous (197a-b)? In the Socratic context, where ethics is thoroughgoingly rational ("discourse of reason"), Nicias is correct.

But that is merely a "grammatical reminder". It is not philosophy: it does not advance our knowledge or understanding in ethics. It is the sum of what Wittgenstein has to offer, though.


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