In the middle of all the Socratic philosophizing there are questions about moral virtues, qualities, knowledge and wisdom of the person. In essence the teachings of Socrates are the philosophy of morality and ethics. Moral and ethical meaning of human search for truth and the acquisition of knowledge is predetermined by the fact that the sources, wisdom, and morality, according to Socrates, connected with the gods. A measure of human true virtue is a measure of his initiation to the divine wisdom, and knowledge of the process acquires the character of moral action. The path of knowledge is his school of virtue.
True wisdom according to Socratic concept, is available only for some sages, philosophers. Wisdom is knowledge, but a person cannot know everything. “According to Socrates, it is impossible for a person to be wise at everything, therefore what knowledge a person has that is his wisdom”. (Xenophon 86).
“Phaedo” is first of all one of the most striking documents in the history of human culture which deals with the issues that have always been interesting for most of all people: the life and death of the body and the soul, the essence of fate and destiny, the soul of the wise man. “Phaedo” is imbued with the thought of the author of confusion, anxiety and the eternal death of the human body, and on the other hand, it is about the greatness of human ideals, knowledge. Plato is constantly dreaming of dispensation of life, where there would be no suffering and sorrow, mutual hatred and hostility and where eternal truth and true virtue would reign. . . . (Allen 165). All this is embodied in the dialogue of Socrates in a sublime manner, dying for the sake of future bliss. The Death of Socrates, the image of which the dialogue ends, is written in classical colours, when the sublime suppresses all that is vile and when simplicity, brevity, expressiveness and profound ideological content are perfectly combined. There is indispensable material for any literary historian or philosopher. All the features of “Phaedo”: the sublime tragedy of the death of Socrates, the art of penetration of dialogue, his inimitable classical style are still waiting for their deep and subtle researcher.
The moral philosophy of Socrates is based on the clarity and deciding how a person should live. It could be said that Socrates does not leave a person a moral choice: the choice is predetermined by wisdom as a virtue.
The absence of the immortality of the soul, says Socrates, would be a terrible discovery for evil people: with the death of the soul they would easily get rid of the inherent depravity . . . . (Allen 167-168). But the soul is immortal, and therefore human’s responsibility for his own affairs is inevitable.
According to Socrates in “Phaedo”, being immortal, the soul is subject to both improvement and deterioration, depending on the earthly way of life of those to whom it goes to. When a person dies, says Socrates, his wisdom, which he has gained during his lifetime, takes the dead in a special place. . . . (Plato 45).
The main topic of the dialogue “Meno” is the question of true virtue: “Can a person learn the true virtue by exercise, or by training, or it is given to man by nature, or in some other way?” (Plato 20). That was the question that Meno asks Socrates, and forms the subject of dialogue. But before they examined the question of the possibilities, or the inability of learning true virtue, Socrates offers a companion to define what a true virtue is.
Meno makes the first attempt to determine what is virtue and lists virtues of the men who are to cope well with the public affairs; women control the house and are to be obedient to their husbands; children virtues have their own virtues: boys have one virtues, girls have others and older people also have separate virtues. . . . (Plato 21).
Socrates says that this definition does not apply to the basic question concerning the virtues, because, Meno lists “a swarm of virtues” when Socrates asks to define the essence of virtue, i.e. the question is: What is the general idea of virtue? At the same time, he argues that in fact there is no virtue peculiar to men, or women, or children, or the elderly, but the virtue is one for all, as it pursues justice and judgment. Everyone who acts justly and reasonably obviously is virtuous, whether it is a man or a woman, an old man, or a child.
Meno offers another definition: “Virtue is the ability to command people” (Plato 34). Socrates proposes to add to this definition the word “fair”. Socrates, however, ironically observes, how a child or a slave can command people.
The difficult question is: is it possible to teach virtue, or not? Many believe that the virtue by training is available, but it does not always work. Socrates remembers Theognis words, who said in one of the elegy, that virtue can be learned, and in another one says quite the opposite. From this only one conclusion follows: if someone has doubts about the virtues, whether it can be taught or not, then it cannot be taught. . . . (Allen 170).
And, indeed, after a brief interlude in which Socrates gives concrete examples to show how the soul recalls it previously obtained knowledge there is another prerequisite. Virtue is a reasonable activity and that harmful things are the ones that committed recklessly. So, courage without reason is a simple impudence, just and chastity, and other virtues. Therefore wisdom as a true virtue dwells because of the reason. And if it is true that the mind is a virtue itself, or a part of it or as a whole, therefore, the people are virtuous not by nature, they are virtuous due to their wisdom. But it is this knowledge which cannot be learned from people who do not have decent teachers.
Works Cited
Plato. Meno and Phaedo. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2010. Print.
Allen, R.E. “Anamnesis in Plato's Meno and Phaedo”. The Review of Metaphysics. Sep. 1959: 165-174. Print.
Xenophon. The Memorabilia: Recollections of Socrates. London: Floating Press, 2013. Print.
