In a message dated 5/28/2015 1:06:21 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
wokshevs@xxxxxx writes:
Isn't "Socratic ignorance" accurately captured in the view:
--- I do not know anything about moral virtue that I can teach to
others.---
Is this not a view we can justifiably attribute to Socrates?
Textual references in replies pro and con most appreciated.
Well, the second quotation in the post that originated the thread, from the
Meno, runs,
"So now I do not know what virtue is; perhaps you knew before you contacted
me, but now you are certainly like one who does not know."
So I would think that Walter O.'s exegesis may be deemed correct at the
level of the implicature.
I love an imaginary conversation.
MENO: Do you know anything, then, about moral virtue that you can teach to
others?
SOCRATES: "I do not know what virtue is" "And neither do you, since you
are asking others!"
But again, the Socratic paradox (against perhaps the Popper-Bartley-McEvoy
view) has something good to it: it is GENERAL. There is no mention about
the alleged _topic_ of knowledge or ignorance involved, so the addition of
'moral virtue' (Greek arete) seems like it would need to be expanded via
implicature. Anti-realists and anti-cognitivists do however think there is
such
a thing as virtue even if it not something that you KNOW.
Note, also, that there is an exhibitive-protreptic distinction. A man may
display moral virtue (arete). I.e.
i. Smith is morally virtuous.
It is quite different yet from
ii. Smith knows something (some proposition?) about moral virtue.
To be morally virtuous may be more a matter of knowing how than knowing
what. In which case, we would have
iii. Smith knows HOW TO BE morally virtuous.
This all seems to belong to the exhibitive. You observe Smith, or Smith
observes himself, and the observer finds Smith morally virtuous. It is yet a
different dimension, which is the protreptic dimension, of having Smith
TEACHING what he knows (knows-that, propositional knowledge or know-how,
practical knowledge) to others. It may be argued that an observer, call him
Jones, may LEARN something about moral virtue by merely observing Smith being
morally virtuous. In which case, we may be implicating that
iv. Smith teaches Jones to be morally virtuous.
But again, (iv) seems to hold true even under the circumstances where,
like anti-cognitivists do, deny that there is anything epistemic
(knowledge-that or knowledge-how) as applied to moral virtue itself.
It is as if we would have another imaginary conversation:
PHAEDO: Well, I'm morally virtuous now!
MENO: Who taught you that?
PHAEDO: Socrates!
MENO: Socrates? But he told me, "So now I do not know what virtue is;
perhaps you knew before you contacted me, but now you are certainly like one
who does not know."
PHAEDO: I know, but I learned moral virtue from him and, granted, from
Grice.
MENO: Grice?
PHAEDO: Well, yes, because by admitting his ignorance, Socrates is
following Grice, "Do not say what you believe to be false", "Do not say what
you
lack adequate evidence for". All those moral virtues I learned from his man
Socrates.
MENO: Bless you, and, into the bargain, bless Grice!
PHAEDO: And bless Socrates.
Cheers,
Speranza
References:
-- Socrates: The Greek Grice -- truthfulness in conversation in the
"Protagoras".
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