Tom Brickhouse

This book is without doubt the most meticulously researched, carefully argued, and comprehensive study of Socratic religion to date. When McPherran refers to the religion of Socrates, he means the religion of the historical Socrates. Like many contemporary scholars, McPherran thinks that Plato’s early dialogues are generally reliable sources for the views of the historical Socrates. With uncommon clarity, the author develops the philosophical and religious commitments of this Socrates and shows how they are really complementary parts of a single outlook. Not surprisingly, the very nature of the project generates a multitude of puzzles. McPherran does a masterful job of developing these paradoxes and showing how Socrates was prepared to disarm them.

This paper argues against the view favored by many contemporary scholars that corrective justice in the Nicomachean Ethics is essentially compensatory and in favor of a bifunctional account according to which corrective justice aims at equalizing inequalities of both goods and evils resulting from various interactions between persons. Not only does the account defended in this paper better explain the broad array of examples Aristotle provides than does the standard interpretation, it also better fits Aristotle’s general definition of what is just. In the last section, the paper argues, again against the standard interpretation, that proportional reciprocity, the kind of justice discussed in Nicomachean Ethics V.5, has two forms and is closely linked to corrective justice. Although corrective justice and proportional reciprocity are conceptually distinct and do different work in Aristotle’s political philosophy, instances of proportional reciprocity are instantiated by instances of corrective justice. This linkage, the paper concludes, helps to explain why Aristotle would assign corrective justice such a prominent place in his theory of justice.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato's Apology of Socrates: A Literary and Philosophical Study with a Running CommentaryThomas C. BrickhouseEmile De Stryker and S. R. Slings. Plato's Apology of Socrates: A Literary and Philosophical Study with a Running Commentary. Leiden, New York, and Koln: E. J. Brill, 1994. xvii + 405 pp. Cloth, $103 (US). (Mnemosyne Supplement 137)Most of this book was written by Father E. de Stryker over a period of some thirty years and had not been completed when he died in 1978. After de Stryker's death, one of his students, Ferdinand Bossier, worked on the manuscript for several years only to abandon it when a publisher could not be found. Apparently, the manuscript sat untouched for some time until, in 1988, Professor S. R. Slings of the Free University at Amsterdam agreed to finish the project. Slings' contribution was to revise, edit, and, in places, correct de Stryker's research. Slings also added some forty pages of text and a number of footnotes. This brief account of how this book came into being helps to explain one of its [End Page 487] primary defects: much of the book, particularly the discussions of the philosophical views expressed in the Platonic Apology, is not informed by the many enormously helpful studies in Socratic studies published in the last quarter century. In fairness, Slings did revise certain sections in the light of recent work. But, in general, he saw little need to improve upon de Stryker's analyses. Of the one hundred and ten works Slings lists as "cited more than once," only fifteen were published since 1978. Of those fifteen, nine bear on Apology, and most of those only tangentially.According to his "Preface," de Stryker set out to produce a "supplement" to Burnet's edition of Plato's Apology (Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito, with Notes, Oxford University Press, 1924), which de Stryker regarded as the single greatest work on Socrates' famous speech. Nevertheless, de Stryker thought Burnet's otherwise excellent notes needed updating and expanding. Moreover, existing commentaries failed in three key respects. They did not adequately explore the rich philosophical implications of the text; they did not appreciate the Platonic Apology as a magnificently crafted piece of fourth–century literature; and they did not understand that the importance of Apology as a philosophical work is inseparable from the literary qualities of the speech. To remedy these defects, de Stryker sought to provide a careful analysis of the "composition" of Apology, the composition being "... the way in which the structure is worked out in detail: each idea gets its proper place and emphasis, and the relations of the parts to one another give the whole its articulation on the one hand, and its unity on the other" (6). For de Stryker, one must first understand the speech's composition if we are to understand why it is so compelling.Slings remained faithful to de Stryker's general approach and his central assumption about the importance of the speech's composition to its persuasiveness. As de Stryker had intended, the book is divided into two parts. The first part consists of an introductory chapter followed by ten chapters of analysis and interpretation. These essays carry the burden of proving our authors' thesis that Apology is a philosophical and a literary masterpiece. The second part consists of ten sections of notes in which some aspect of virtually every line of the speech is discussed. Many of the notes draw comparisons between constructions in Apology and in other Platonic writings as well as in other fifth– and fourth–century works.The most significant inference de Stryker and Slings draw from their analysis of the composition of the Platonic Apology is that the work is largely, though not entirely, the product of Plato's imagination. Although they never make clear just how much of the work is fiction, it is enough in their judgment to falsify what is often called the "historicity thesis," according to which Plato's version is, in some sense, a report of what the historical Socrates actually said to the jury at his trial. Against the historicity thesis, de Stryker and Slings...

HOW ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VICE in Aristotle’s ethics? As many commentators have noted, it is by no means obvious that Aristotle’s scattered remarks about vice really add up to a coherent account. In several places Aristotle clearly assigns the leading role in the explanation of vicious action to reason. We see this, for example, in the unequivocal claim that acts expressing intemperance are “in accordance with choice”. This is important, in part because it provides a basis for the distinction between vice and akrasia. Although both the intemperate and the akratic do what they ought not, the intemperate pursue their goal guided by reason and with “little or no appetite”, whereas the akratic act from appetite. What both pursue—and what both ought not pursue—is bodily pleasure. The difference is that the vicious pursue bodily pleasure because they think it is the central component in the good life. Thus, they choose pleasure as a good, indeed as the most important good. The akratic, on the other hand, pursue bodily pleasure as such and do so contrary to their conception of the good.

This text provides an introduction to Socrates—both the charismatic, controversial historical figure and the essential Socratic philosophy. Written at a beginning level but incorporating recent scholarship, The Philosophy of Socrates offers numerous translations of pertinent passages. As they present these passages, Nicholas Smith and Thomas Brickhouse demonstrate why these passages are problematic, survey the interpretive and philosophical options, and conclude with brief defenses of their own proposed solutions. Throughout, the authors rely on standard translations to parallel accompanying assigned primary source readers. Each chapter concludes with an annotated bibliography of suggested readings.