Terry Penner

I examine here a wide array of interlocking Socratic doctrines, especially as they show up in the ideas of Socratic Ignorance and the Examined Life —along with such other Socratic claims as the following. First, that No one errs willingly. Second, that, in acting intentionally, everyone is always seeking their own greatest available good, given their present circumstances, where that greatest good is taken over the rest of their lives. Third, that those who don’t see that harming others will not, over the rest of their lives, serve their own greatest good, deserve not punishment but instruction. I conduct this examination with my eye on two blatant contemporary inequalities across race and class. The first is that involved in differentially funding different schools and thereby shortchanging the ability of those of our children who need it most to work out better means to their own greatest good over the rest of their lives; the second is that across race, class, and educational background in our extensive incarceration practices. In the longest part of this essay, I argue that a principal philosophical presupposition of punishment practices can be shown to be well wide of the mark by the Socratic theory I explore here. This is the presupposition that there is some kind of philosophical justification—for example, in modern “under the description” theories—for the decidedly questionable view that we can almost always determine quite sufficiently what a person’s intentions are for purposes of justifiably and usefully punishing supposed malefactors.

This chapter contains sections titled: The “What is X?” Question, the Sciences, Virtue, and the Forms Plato's “Argument from the Sciences” for the Existence of Forms, as Apparently Represented by Aristotle, and Aristotle's Criticism of that Argument Plato the Parmenidean Sciences and Pseudo‐Sciences The Good and the Sciences A Proposal: The Forms are Attributes; and There are No Attributes that are not Forms What about Plato's Other Reasons for Believing in Forms (Logical, or Mystical‐Metaphysical‐Theological)? And Won't These Reasons Make of Forms Something Rather More than Simply Attributes? Objections to the Theory of Forms The Theory of Forms in Later Dialogues Note.

This chapter contains section titled: On What the Forms Are: the Present State of the Question Sketch of the View to be Offered Here Plan of this Discussion of the Forms The Republic's Project as a Whole The First Group of Passages on the Forms (V.472b—e with 454a–456c) The Second Group of Passages (X.596a–602b) The Third Group of Passages on the Forms (V.475e–480b, VI.484b–485b, 486d‐e, 490a—b, 493e–494a, 500b–502d) The Fourth Group of Passages (VI.502c‐VII.541b: Sun, Line, and Cave) as Describing the “Longer Road”: Plato's Identification of the Good with the Form of the Good The Anti‐reductionism of the Sun, Line, and Cave about the Real Natures of Things that Structure the Universe Conclusion.