Tag: moral wisdom

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

2,865 words

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates does battle with the art (techne) of rhetoric, which in democratic Athens touted itself as the key to political power. We have a word for rule by techne: technocracy. Socrates regarded technocracy as a dangerous counterfeit of philosophy.

In Plato’s Charmides, Socrates deals with another counterfeit of philosophy, which I shall call “epistemology,” meaning the theoretical study of knowledge. Like philosophy, epistemology is comprehensive. It is knowledge of all forms and branches of knowledge, which correlate to pretty much the whole world. (more…)

Statue of Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, at the Austrian Parliament.

1,871 words

Part 9 of 14 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 8 here, Part 10 here)

There is a deeper problem with Plato’s account of justice in the Gorgias. He treats it as an art (techne). But is justice really an art like medicine? In such dialogues as the Laches, Charmides, and Euthydemus, Plato explores the problems of treating moral wisdom as a techne. This is the error of the sophists. (more…)