The Moral Language in the Socratic Dialogues

Abstract

In the Socratic Dialogues, as it is well known, trying to figure out what virtue is, Socrates progressively establishes a certain identification between virtue and knowledge. Virtue is referred as epistēme, sophia or technē, giving rise to several interpretations of its nature and the knowledge in which it consists, and frequently entailing a leading understanding of virtue, among others, as a propositional knowledge or as a skill. In this context, I will hold that using Socrates interchangeably these wording to grasp what virtue is, a linguistical analysis on this interchangeability conveys to an understanding of virtue as a plural and inclusive knowledge, entailing a non-exclusive sense. Analyzing the interchangeability of words on which Socrates designates virtue and the proper semantic field that it entails – revealing semantic properties like common conceptual evolution, overlapping significances and shared identity –, I will argue that assuming fully this moral language determines the suitable coordinates that a philosophical understanding of Socratic virtue is able to assume, and on which it would be conveniently taken forward. I will hold that it is not only possible to assume Socratic virtue as a plural-integrative and non-excluding knowledge on the existent textual basis and Socratic Dialogues passages and their non-opposition each other – like some interpreters suggest –, but on the very same words and their interchangeable use by which Socrates tries to capture what virtue is and on which the diversity of epistēmes’ senses are apprehended.