Glenn Lesses

Greek eudaimonists often discuss the nature and value of friendship. The prominence of such discussions results from the utility of the conception of friendship in formulating and testing central ethical doctrines. As they engage in a radical revision of ordinary ethical concepts, the Stoics challenge us to relinquish conventional beliefs about friendship. Ideal Stoic moral agents are passionless and austere. Yet, the Stoics not only contend that these relatively affectless temperaments have friends but that, in fact, friendship is possible for no one else. Their extraordinary detachment from the external world also seems to disqualify sages from real friendship. This essay examines the Stoic conclusions about friendship and the coherence of their distinctive view

Commentators too often have failed to locate Plato's epistemology in a historically sensitive interpretation. Michael Morgan's Platonic Piety makes this charge and seeks to address it by incorporating Plato's attitude toward Greek religion in his reading of Plato's middle dialogues. In particular, he examines the consequences of "human aspiration to divine status". Morgan has two main objectives. First, he wishes to consider how religious assumptions affect Plato's treatment of political, metaphysical, and especially epistemological issues from the Meno to the Phaedrus. Second, through his focus on the notion and setting of religious aspiration Morgan attempts to "treat the historical context as an important consideration that significantly shapes or directs an interpretation". Thus, Morgan sets for himself ambitious, provocative tasks. Nonetheless, even in the early stages of his discussion we hope for Morgan to be more precise about both his objections to current scholarship as well as his own aims. In what specific ways do the best contemporary philosophical scholars neglect historical context? Morgan never makes their shortcomings explicit. Morgan also needs to refine his own objectives. For instance, does his interpretive thesis concern the historical factors that gave rise to Plato's philosophical positions or is it primarily about our understanding of the content of Plato's thought? We require a much fuller account of how Morgan takes the causal origins of belief to be related to matters of content.

Chapter VI is an extended sketch of Plato 's psychological theory found in the Republic, especially Book IV. Plato, unlike Socrates, distinguishes among three kinds of desire, corresponding to the three parts of the soul. Plato, however, still agrees with Socrates that all desires are belief-dependent. Furthermore, because Plato is much clearer than Socrates about the nature of goods, he is able to distinguish among three distinct kinds of beliefs about what is good. So Plato also agrees with Socrates that all desires are for the good, if we speak properly of what is believed to be good. The picture of Plato 's views that emerges in this study is a fundamentally Socratic one and a development of Socratic psychology. This picture is somewhat contrary to what recent commentators have claimed about how the positions of Socrates and Plato are related. Plato, it is said, rejects the Socratic proposal about desire and its role in human motivation. It is argued in this study, however, that such a view rests upon certain misconceptions of both the Socratic and Platonic positions. ;This study has the following structure. Chapter I discusses the methodology of this dissertation and the chronology of Plato 's dialogues. Chapters II-V develop the central features of Socratic psychology. In chapter II, we establish that virtue is a craft. This is particularly important because, unlike other Socratic crafts which are merely cognitive, virtue has affective characteristics also. Virtue, moreover, aims at producing goods. Chapter III examines the nature of Socratic desire. We argue by examining both linguistic evidence and texts where there is some suggestion to the contrary that Socrates does not distinguish among kinds of desire. It is also shown that desire has two key features for Socrates. All desire is belief-dependent and, in particular, involves beliefs about what is good. Because of these features, chapter IV is concerned with the Socratic analysis of the structure of goods. We find in such dialogues as the Lysis, Euthydemus, Gorgias, and Meno a record of some confusion about the nature of goods. Finally in chapter V, we show how Socrates applies his account of desire to problems in philosophical psychology. He holds that knowledge is necessary and sufficient, not only to achieve a certain psychological state, but also for certain kinds of action. He provides an alternative explanation for what is commonly held to be weakness of will. There are also suggestions which we explore that Socrates has original views, deriving from his account of desire, about the nature of action and psychological freedom. ;Both Socrates and Plato attempt to demonstrate that moral behavior is rational, by grounding it in the structure of human wants. This study examines the accounts of desire to which they appeal and shows how desire so conceived is related both to human rationality and to human motivation. Much of what is said here bears upon ethical questions, but our principal concern is not ethics, but moral psychology--the psychological underpinnings for the Socratic and Platonic ethical views