From the Beginning to Plato

SOCRATES AND THE BEGINNINGS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 309
removed when the knowledge of the good and bad is lacking (174c9–d1). This
contrast recalls a similar contrast in the Euthydemus between making and
using. 49 Once again, Socrates distinguishes between those expertises that do not
make one happy and fare well, and the one expertise that does: the ruling
expertise he was searching for in the second protreptic of the Euthydemus.
Indeed, as in the Laches, Socrates suggests what it is: the knowledge or expertise
of the good and the bad. 50
Much of this is necessarily speculative. We have at best hints, suggestions,
indications that Socrates takes the knowledge or expertise that makes us happy
and fare well as the knowledge or expertise of the good and the bad. But what is
not speculative is that Socrates takes the knowledge or expertise that makes us
happy and fare well to be virtue, nor is it speculative that that knowledge or
expertise is not the expertise the sophists claim to teach. It is not the eristic
brothers’ expertise in fighting with words, Gorgias’ expertise of persuasion,
Hippias’ diverse expertises, nor whatever Protagoras’ expertise is supposed to be.
For Socrates, virtue is an expertise—contrary to folk morality—but it is not the
expertise of the sophists.
A SKETCH OF SOCRATIC EXPERTISE
If, then, for Socrates virtue is an expertise, the obvious question that arises is,
What is an expertise for Socrates? Fortunately a considerable amount of energy
has already been devoted to this topic. Brickhouse and Smith, for example, list
the following conditions which an expertise must meet: rationality or regularity,
teachability or learnability, explicability, inerrancy, uniqueness, distinctness of
subject-matter, and knowledge or wisdom. 51 Rather than merely rehearsing this
work, I propose to address this question from a slightly different angle. I propose
to ask what sort of thing an expertise is according to Socrates.
To begin an expertise appears to be a power or capacity (dunamis). 52 Early on
in the Euthydemus, Socrates explains that all those present asked the two eristic
brothers to ‘demonstrate the power (dunamis) of their wisdom’ (274c6–d3).
Similarly, at the beginning of the Gorgias, Socrates beseeches Gorgias to teach
him ‘what the power (dunamis) of his expertise is and what it is he advertises and
teaches’ (447c1–3). In both passages the point is the same: in professing to
possess expertise, Gorgias and the eristic brothers are professing to have a power
or capacity, and Socrates wants to know what power or capacity they are
professing to possess. Socrates assumes that if a person possesses knowledge,
wisdom or expertise, that person possesses a power or capacity. 53
That knowledge is understood as a kind of power or capacity is reinforced by
the Prometheus story in the Protagoras. As Protagoras tells the story, the gods
charged Epimetheus and Prometheus with distributing powers or capacities to
each of the mortal creatures as was fitting. Unfortunately, Epimetheus (who was
given the task of making this assignment, while Prometheus agreed to inspect it)
used up all the powers available to him (e.g. strength, speed, winged flight, size,