From the Beginning to Plato

SOCRATES AND THE BEGINNINGS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 301
‘in any given dialogue Plato allows the persona of Socrates only what he (Plato)
considers true’. 16
The conclusion of Vlastos’s argument results in an interpretation of the
Platonic portrait of Socrates that can be summed up in the following three theses:
1 The philosophical views advanced by Socrates in the early dialogues are
distinct from the philosophical views advanced by that character in the
middle dialogues (interpretation derived from Vlastos’s ten theses).
2 The philosophical views advanced by Socrates in the early dialogues
represent the philosophical views of the historical Socrates (thesis based on
the independent testimony of Aristotle and Xenophon).
3 The philosophical views advanced by Socrates in the early dialogues
represent the philosophical views of Plato before he adopted the classical
Platonism of the middle dialogues (thesis based on Vlastos’s grand
methodological hypothesis).
I believe that this interpretation of the Platonic Socrates is generally correct. 17
Consequently, my answer to the question with which this section began is as
follows. When I use the name ‘Socrates’ in the course of this essay I am referring
to the actual historical individual who goes by that name, was the mentor of
Plato, an associate of Xenophon, Alcibiades and Chaerephon, and a general pest
on the streets and in the gymnasia of fifth-century Athens. I take as my primary
source of evidence for the philosophical views of this individual the early
dialogues of Plato, but I also take these views to be confirmed in part by the
portraits of Aristotle and Xenophon. 18 This is the Socrates of this essay.
FOLK MORALITY
We can now turn to the task with which this essay began: coming to grips with
Socratic moral philosophy. Since according to the Ciceronian tradition Socrates
is doing something very unusual in advancing a moral philosophy, we can begin
by turning to those views with which Socrates contrasts his own: common or folk
morality and sophistic morality. Let me begin with folk morality and a passage in
the Protagoras (319b3–319d7).
The main conversation in the Protagoras begins when Socrates asks
Protagoras what he professes to teach. When Protagoras answers that he
professes to teach virtue (aretē), Socrates expresses surprise. 19 He had always
believed that virtue could not be taught—or so he says —and one of his arguments
for this is that the Athenians are wise, but they don’t think that virtue can be
taught. 20 Evidence that the Athenians don’t believe that virtue can be taught is
derived from their behaviour in the Assembly. When they are faced with a
decision regarding the building of temples, the building of ships, or any other
technical matter (en technēi), they are unwilling to listen to the advice of anyone
other than the relevant experts: temple-builders, shipwrights, etc. But when they