George Hilding Rudebusch

Paul Hoffman argues that Kripke’s Wittgenstein fails in his solution to his own sceptical paradox. I argue that Hoffman fails to see the importance for Kripke’s Wittgenstein of the distinction between agreement in fact and judged agreement. Hoffman is right that no solution to the sceptical paradox can be based on agreement in fact, but the solution of Kripke’s Wittgenstein depends upon judged agreement. An interpretation is given: by ‘judged agreement’ Kripke’s Wittgenstein does not mean understanding oneself to judge agreement but having a feeling of agreement. On this interpretation Hoffman’s argument fails.

Intellectualism about human virtue is the thesis that virtue is knowledge. Virtue intellectualists may be eliminative or reductive. If eliminative, they will eliminate our conventional vocabulary of virtue words-'virtue', 'piety', 'courage', etc.-and speak only of knowledge or wisdom. If reductive, they will continue to use the conventional virtue words but understand each of them as denoting nothing but a kind of knowledge (as opposed to, say, a capacity of some other part of the soul than the intellect, such as the will or the appetites). Virtue intellectualists may be pluralists or monists. If pluralist, they identify the virtues with distinct kinds of knowledge. If monist, they identify all the virtues with one and the same kind of knowledge. In a number of dialogues-including the Euthyphro, Apology, Charmides, Euthydemus, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, and Republic I-Socrates gives arguments that support Reductive Monist Intellectualism (RMI) about human virtue. I disarm an influential objection to RMI as the correct interpretation of Socrates.

After defining dramatic prefiguration, I show how (1) the initial meeting between Polemarchus's party and the smaller group of Socrates and Glaucon prefigures the Republic's theme of how to install the philosophical element in its proper place as ruler in the soul; (2) the relay race of torches carried on horseback prefigures the theory of the soul as tripartite, containing reason, spirit, and appetite; and (3) the opening image of Socrates descending to the Piraeus prefigures the descent of the reasoning element back from the forms to give birth to works of wisdom

The success of relativism as a solution to skeptical problems depends upon the relativist's object of knowledge being invulnerable to the same skeptical doubts which we might have about the undiscovered world. Naturally, therefore, a traditional Platonic response is to argue that the relativist's selected object of knowledge cannot be known apart from knowledge of the undiscovered world. This indeed is the Platonic thesis of this article, as it applies to tradition. I begin by giving a philosophical analysis of tradition.

Paul Hoffman argues that Kripke’s Wittgenstein fails in his solution to his own sceptical paradox. I argue that Hoffman fails to see the importance for Kripke’s Wittgenstein of the distinction between agreement in fact and judged agreement. Hoffman is right that no solution to the sceptical paradox can be based on agreement in fact, but the solution of Kripke’s Wittgenstein depends upon judged agreement. An interpretation is given: by ‘judged agreement’ Kripke’s Wittgenstein does not mean understanding oneself to judge agreement but having a feeling of agreement. On this interpretation Hoffman’s argument fails.