James Frederick Ferrier is probably best known for the idealism he presents in An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness and Institutes of Metaphysic, in which Ferrier critiques and offers an alternative to Common Sense Realism – the dominant school of thought in Scotland in the 18thand early 19thcenturies – spearheaded by Thomas Reid and his followers. What has received significantly less attention in the literature, however, is Ferrier's 1866 Lectures on Greek Philosophy, which serves as an important point of (...) connection between the moral philosophy that Ferrier develops in the Introduction and Institutes and what Ferrier takes to be the ethics that Socrates taught and according to which he lived. In this paper, I examine Plato's early dialogues in order to demonstrate that Ferrier's ethics should be understood as a descendent of Socratic ethics insofar as both Ferrier and Socrates endorse the view that individual freedom is only possible through a life of thought that transcends the particularities of sensation. (shrink)

The only reference to the Athenian general Lamachus in the Platonic corpus is atLaches197c6 where Nicias compares Laches to him. In response to Laches' criticism that Nicias is embellishing himself with his words (κοσμεῖ τῷ λόγῳ,La.197c3), and trying to deny that those agreed to be courageous are indeed courageous, Nicias says:Οὔκουν σέ γε, ὦ Λάχης, ἀλλὰ θάρρει‧ φημὶ γάρ σε εἶναι σοφόν, καὶ Λάμαχόν γε, εἴπερ ἐστὲ ἀνδρεῖοι, καὶ ἄλλους γε συχνοὺς Ἀθηναίων. (La.197c6–8).