Socrates’ admirers and successors in the fourth century and beyond often felt the need to explain Socrates’ reputed relationship with Alcibiades, and to defend Socrates against the charge that he was a corrupting influence on Alcibiades. In this paper I examine Plato’s response to this problem and have two main aims. First, I will argue in Section 2 that (...) central points: that motivations associated with the spirited part of the soul play a decisive role in moral education, particularly in the case of exceptionally ambitious and talented individuals; and that the democratic Many themselves, not Socrates, are primarily responsible for the corruption of promising young men like Alcibiades. These points are connected, moreover: the Many exert a moral influence on the young by shaping and exploiting their spirited motivations. I aim to show that Plato develops and dramatizes this diagnosis of the problem of Alcibiades in three earlier dialogues—Protagoras, Gorgias, and Symposium—as well as in Book 6 of the Republic. My second main claim will be that the psychological and educational theories of the Republic are informed by Plato’s diagnosis of the problem of Alcibiades, and that they are conceived, at least in part, as a solution to that problem. (shrink)

En el ámbito de la acción moral, el principio socrático de que nadie yerra voluntariamente implica que toda vez que un agente elige algo lo hace por considerarlo, al mismo tiempo, como bueno o, al menos, preferible a otra cosa: su elección es internamente racional. La tesis socrática sobre la conexión estructural entre error y autoengaño constituye, sin duda, uno de los aportes más decisivos al pensamiento filosófico occidental. De esta concepción en torno a la naturaleza y estructura del error, (...) en general, y de su aplicación específica al caso del error moral, se siguen importantes consecuencias para el modo en que Sócrates considera el fenómeno del conflicto motivacional. Asimismo, se muestra la importancia decisiva que tuvo la concepción socrática para la discusión de la estructura de la conciencia moral tanto en Platón y Aristóteles como en Tomás de Aquino. In the realm of moral action, the socratic principle nobody errs willingly implies that the rational agent always chooses to do what he/she takes to be good or better for himself/herself: his/her choice is internally rational. Socrates' view of the connection between error and self-deception is a major contribution to western philosophy. The application of this view to the particular case of moral error has important consequences concerning the possibility of motivational conflict. Not only Plato and Aristotle but also Aquinas are strongly influenced by Socrates in their views concerning the structure of moral conscience. (shrink)

I argue that Plato’s account of hunger and thirst in Republic IV, 437d–439a uncovers a general feature of desire: desire has an unqualified and a qualified dimension. This proposal, which I call Two Dimensions, captures recognizable motivational phenomena: being hungry and aiming to determine what one is hungry for, or wanting to study and still figuring out what field it is that one wants to study. Two Dimensions is a fundamental contribution to the theory of desire. It is compatible, I (...) argue, with the better known premise that desire is for the good, because the objects of paradigmatic desires are inherently valuable. (shrink)

It is argued that the recent revival of theakrasia problem in the philosophy of mind is adirect, albeit unforeseen result of the debate onaction explanation in the philosophy of science. Asolution of the problem is put forward that takesaccount of the intimate links between the problem ofakrasia and this debate. This solution is basedon the idea that beliefs and desires have degrees ofstrength, and it suggests a way of giving a precisemeaning to that idea. Finally, it is pointed out thatthe (...) solution captures certain intuitions of bothSocrates and Aristotle. (shrink)