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that if I had tried to do politics …". Generally speaking, he saw in
this Socrates an unshakable concern with the question how one
should conduct one's life. He elucidated the Socratic stable inclination
to the elenctic method which would span aspects such as
questioning set of beliefs, evaluating judgements and attitudes. The
prevalent philosophical path of the ancient Athenian is the “know
how" to live question. The “episteme which Socrates envisaged was
a form of knowing how, knowing, that is, how to be moral". 15 In
fact, the ancient philosopher did “take the 'know how' sense for
granted all along". 16 The “important question concerns precisely the
nature and content of [the] moral principles themselves and the conditions
of their implementation. We can take for granted that these
great philosophers [Socrates, Plato and Aristotle] were deeply committed
to moral principles, and that they honestly regarded these
principles as universally valid. They would be uninteresting if they
were merely pamphleteers, party hacks, or liars". 17 The “What is…"
question dominates the Socratic philosophical inquiry in a special
way. The ancient Athenian raises this question searching for “ ‘what
is this or that knowledge?' (e.g., Charm. 165c; Euthyd. 282e, 288d-e,
292d), and the answer he expects is one that will distinguish areas
of knowledge (by their specific object and use), not modes of
knowing". 18 The “unexamined life is not worth living by man"
(Apology, 38a) [o de anexetastos vios ou viotos anthropo] and “the
15 J. Gould, The Development of Plato's Ethics, New York, 1955, p. 7.
16 G. Vlastos, Socratic Knowledge and Platonic “Pessimism", The Philosophical
Review, 66, 2 (1957), p. 229.
17 E. Meiksins Wood and N. Wood, “Socrates and Democracy: A Reply to
Gregory Vlastos", Political Theory, 14, 1 (1986), p. 76.
18 G. Vlastos, Socratic Knowledge and Platonic “Pessimism", p. 229, note 7.
It has to be noticed that Charmides especially belongs to the early Platonic writings.
The Euthydemos dialogue is regarded as one of his middle works (period
386—367 B.C.). Regarding knowledge in early and maturer Platonic works, Vlastos
clarifies that “what is said at Charm. 165e3—166a2 is far from making the distinction
between practical and theoretical knowledge, and I would add that if Plato
had wished to ascribe this important distinction to Socrates, he would not have put
it into the mouth of Critias, whose role in this dialogue is that of a pretentious and
unclear thinker. Plato himself does not get at this distinction until much later (Polit.
258d, e)". See ibid. Regarding the view that Socrates goal was not to enter into
modes of knowledge and its counterpart, that Socrates did not form a moral theory,
see J. M. Moravcsik, “Socrates; Ironist and Moral Philosopher by Gregory Vlastos",
Mind, New Series, 102, 405 (1993), p. 209: “if we view Socratic ethics as an
attempt to form a moral theory, then we will have to say that the result is incomplete.
Alternatively, we can suppose — especially in view of his claims of ignorance
— that he did not attempt what we would call today a moral theory, but
rather wanted to use the purgatory nature of his teaching and questioning to defend,
indirectly, a certain way of life".
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