The Relation Between Wisdom and Virtue in Phaedo 69a6-c3

The Relation Between Wisdom and Virtue in Phaedo 69a6-c3 PAUL WM. GOOCH IT IS SOCRATES'CONTENTIONin the opening pages of the Phaedo that the philosopher alone has genuine virtue. Other people's virtues are only apparent, and come through the vices opposite to those virtues. They are "brave" in a given situation only because they fear some alternative more; they are "self-controlled" with respect to one pleasure only because to give in to it will mean that another more desirable pleasure will be foregone (68e f.). After stating this position, Socrates introduces a long and problematic string of clauses (69a6-c3) in which he tries to sharpen the distinction between true and spurious virtue. It turns out that genuine virtue bears some important relation to wisdom (~vv~,~), but the precise nature of this relation has puzzled commentators.1 Some see here the famous "Socratic paradox" that virtue is knowledge.2 This would identify virtue and wisdom, but the sentence also apparently treats the latter as means to the former; so that Hackforth remarks, "This running together of the two ideas is, it seems to me, the chief source of difficultyboth in this particular sentence and in the passage as a whole.''a I hope in this paper to do something towards the sorting out of the metaphors and concepts of this complex ,sentence. But first we must clarify the issues raised by the commentators and appreciate the impasse at which they have left us. I. Though it is not easy to find a satisfactory translation of our sentence, Hackforth's version will enable us to begin our discussion. 69a6 bl Yes, my dear good Simmias: for I fancy that that is not the fight way to exchange things for virtue, that exchanging of pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, fears for fears, small ones for great and great ones for small, as though they were coins; no, there is, I suggest, only one right sort of coin for which we ought to exchange all these things, and that is intelligence; and if all our buying and selling is done for intelligence and with its aid, then we have real courage , real temperance, real justice; and true virtue in general is that which is accompanied by intelligence, no matter whether pleasures and fears and all the rest of such things be added or subtracted. But to keep these apart from x The lierature discussed in the following pages includes Burnet's edition, Plato's Phaedo (Oxford, 1911);R. S. Bluck's commentary, Plato's Phaedo (London, 1955);R. Hackforth's commentary , Plato's Phaedo (Indianapolis, N.Y., 1955); and J. V. Lute, "A Discussion of Phaedo 69a6--c2," Classical Quarterly 38 (1944), 60--64. -" Lute, p. 62. a Hackforth, p. 193. [1531 154 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY b5 intelligence and merely exchange them for each other results, I fear, in a sort of illusory fafade of virtue, veritably fit for slaves, destitute of all sound substance and truth; whereas the true virtue, whether it be of temperance, of cl justice, or of courage, is in fact a purging of all such things, intelligence itself being a sort of purge. 4 It can be readily seen that Plato is employing in this passage two metaphors about wisdom and virtue: an economic metaphor, in which wisdom is the true coin for which all pleasurable and painful states should be exchanged in order to have virtue; and a medical metaphor, in which wisdom is a purifying agent, bringing about a state of virtue. If we are to know how Plato relates wisdom and virtue in this sentence, then we need to break apart these two metaphors and examine them with care. It is somewhat easier to begin with the second metaphor, at b8 and cl ft,, where medical language is used with religious overtones. 5 Of interest here is the fact that Plato uses distinct terms for what Hackforth has translated as "purging" and "purge." These are K~Oap~,~ and ~,,0r respectively; the former refers to the state of genuine virtue while the latter is attached to wisdom. Luce's comment on these terms is helpful, for he demonstrates that dream** is not...