At Protagoras 353de, Socrates gives three possible reasons for calling some pleasures `wrong'. Scholarly attention has focused on the second of these, according to which pleasures are `wrong' when they have negative consequences. This paper argues that the first reason (the pleasures are fleeting) corresponds to beliefs held by Democritus, among others; and that the third reason (the pleasant things “give pleasure in whatever way and for whatever reason“) is the view adopted by Socrates in the dialogue.

This article offers a new formulation of the Socratic principle known as the Principle of the Sovereignty of Virtue. It is divided in three sections. In the first section I criticize Vlastos’ formulation of the PSV. In the second section I present the weighing model of practical deliberation, introduce the concepts of reason for action, simple reason, sufficient reason and conclusive reason that were offered by Thomas Scanlon in Being realistic about reasons, and then I adapt these concepts so as (...) to render them apt to be used in the formulation I intend to offer. In the third section I present my formulation of the PSV using the concepts introduced in the second section and explain why I believe this formulation is better than the one offered by Vlastos. (shrink)

Such is John Stuart Mill's succinct exposition of the core of utilitarian theory. A contemporary philosopher has aptly described utilitarianism as ‘the combination of two principles: the consequentialist principle that the rightness, or wrongness, of an action is determined by the goodness, or badness, of the results that flow from it and the hedonist principle that the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure and the only thing bad in itself is pain. Although the consequentialistprinciple has attracted the (...) most attention in modern discussions of utilitarianism, it is the second principle which invites immediate comparison with the views of Plato. I propose therefore to start by comparing the Platonic and the utilitarian conceptions of the good in the hope that this will enable us to see too in what sense Plato's position is consequentialist, and whether his ethical and political theories in general can properly be described as utilitarian. (shrink)

Such is John Stuart Mill's succinct exposition of the core of utilitarian theory. A contemporary philosopher has aptly described utilitarianism as ‘the combination of two principles: (1)the consequentialist principlethat the rightness, or wrongness, of an action is determined by the goodness, or badness, of the results that flow from it and (2)the hedonist principlethat the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure and the only thing bad in itself is pain. Although the consequentialistprinciple has attracted the most attention (...) in modern discussions of utilitarianism, it is the second principle which invites immediate comparison with the views of Plato. I propose therefore to start by comparing the Platonic and the utilitarian conceptions of the good in the hope that this will enable us to see too in what sense Plato's position is consequentialist, and whether his ethical and political theories in general can properly be described as utilitarian. (shrink)

There are two basic ways in which the phenomenon of learning is explicated in the Platonic dialogues: First, by means of an analogy with vision, and second, by arguing that the acquisition of knowledge is really anamnesis. The analogy with vision is the more common of the two and occurs throughout the dialogues. The passage in the Republic comparing the sun and the good is the best known instance of this approach to the clarification of learning. The basic point of (...) this explication is that the mind, like the eye, in order to discover truth must be turned in the right direction and be trained to apprehend and distinguish the characters of the objects it beholds. In this context, the acquisition of knowledge is clearly a discovery of that which was not previously known, just as the man who escapes from the cave sees what he had not previously seen, and at the end of the ascent of the heavenly ladder one “begins to see” what he has not seen before. (shrink)

I advocate an ad hominem reading of the hedonism that appears in the final argument of the Protagoras. I that attribute hedonism both to the Many and to Protagoras, but my focus is on the latter. I argue that the Protagoras in various ways reflects Plato’s view that the sophist is an inevitable advocate for, and himself implicitly inclined toward, hedonism, and I show that the text aims through that characterization to undermine Protagoras’ status as an educator. One of my (...) objectives in the course of my arguments is to explore connections between the final argument of the Protagoras and the Man-Measure Doctrine as it is developed in the Theaetetus. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the first part of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics A-33, 88b30-89a10. I claim that Aristotle is not concerned with an epistemological distinction between knowledge and belief in general. He is rather making a contrast between scientific knowledge (which is equivalent to explanation by the primarily appropriate cause) and some explanatory beliefs that falls short of capturing the primarily appropriate cause.

In this dissertation, I focus on the hedonism in Plato's Protagoras and Gorgias, paying close, but not exclusive, attention to the recent discussion by Terence Irwin in his Plato's Moral Theory and his translation of and commentary on the Gorgias. ;I argue that there is a genuine ethical hedonism discussed in the Protagoras, but that we are not forced by considerations in the Protagoras to ascribe that hedonism to Socrates. Furthermore, I argue, contra Irwin, that Socrates is not committed to (...) hedonism by his earlier ethical views. In fact, I suggest, hedonism plays no real role in the logical structure of the main argument in the dialogue ;In the Gorgias Socrates is clearly out to attack some version of hedonism. This attack consists of two arguments: one attempting to show that pleasure has a property which goodness lacks, the other attempting to show that the identification of goodness and pleasure has unacceptable ethical consequences. When properly formulated, neither argument is successful against hedonism, but at best only against an identification of the good person with the pleased person, a doctrine which is logically independent from the first. There are, however, some passages in the Gorgias which suggest an argument whereby Plato may have supposed a refutation of this latter doctrine constituted a refutation of hedonism. I examine a number of ways in which the resulting argument is unsuccessful. ;In general, I argue that Socrates is not committed to accepting hedonism in the Protagoras, and hence, that there is no need to view these two dialogues as reflecting a fundamental change in Platonic ethics. We need not say that Plato's ethical views were based on hedonism in the Protagoras and based on its rejection in the Gorgias. Rather, both dialogues work toward standard Socratic doctrines such as the unity of the virtues and the happiness of the good person. (shrink)

A discussão nos livros dos Tópicos giram em torno dos debates dialéticos e seus elementos. Aristóteles discorre sobre os gêneros, as propriedades e os chamados acidentes e suas relações predicativas em categorias. Interessa-nos, sobretudo, compreender o papel desempenhado pela Definição e qual sua relação com os demais instrumentos para a dialética.