Discuss the role of wisdom in true virtue according to Meno and the Phaedo - Essay Example

d therefore she abstains from bodily pleasures-not from a desire of having more or greater ones, but because she knows that only when calm and free from the dominion of the body can she behold the light of truth.” (Plato (b)10) A unique concept of good and evil is put forward in Phaedo. The author discounts courageous acts if they are performed to avoid bigger dangers. Similarly, author plays down temperate behavior if there is an accompanying desire to achieve sensual pleasures because of such temperance (Plato (b) 7).

Phaedo propagates the idea of life beyond death by distinguishing between body and soul and how virtues applied wisely can lead to liberation of soul. In Meno, Socrates is referred pondering over the question what can be considered the goods of the soul. According to Socrates, they are ‘temperance,’ ‘justice,’ ‘courage,’ ‘quickness of apprehension,’ ‘memory,’ ‘magnanimity’, and the like. Interesting to note is the observation that such good qualities are not knowledge, but of ‘another sort’.

They are sometimes ‘profitable’ and sometimes ‘hurtful’. Socrates says that when a man has no sense he is hurt by courage, and when man applies courage with sense, he is profited. Socrates opines that the same logic of applying sense can be stretched to other good qualities like ‘temperance’ and ‘quickness of apprehension’. Socrates remarks that activities learned or done with the application of sense are ‘profitable,’ without sense are ‘hurtful.’ (Plato (a) 37) Socrates holds forth that all efforts and endurance under the supervision of wisdom have a happy ending and under the influence of folly, the opposite.

Taking forward his argument, Socrates examines that if ‘virtue’ is a characteristic of soul and is. In Phaedo, it is contended that when alive, the soul should try to control pleasures related with the sense organs and body in which it is rebuked to be animate and from which it seeks to liberate itself.Phaedo makes distinction between souls that are not liberated. Some who are used to ‘violence’ and ‘extreme sensuality’ takes the form of likes of an ‘ass’ or’ wolf.’ However, for someone seeking liberation, even such gentle forms making eligible for some earthly happiness is not acceptable.

A unique concept of good and evil is put forward in Phaedo. The author discounts courageous acts if they are performed to avoid bigger dangers. Socrates in Meno contends that after deep thought, he has come to a believe there are perhaps no teachers of virtue. According to Socrates those who want to learn any skill takes course to a teacher who is expert in that field. If one wants to learn flute playing, one takes recourse to a teacher who is expert in flute playing. In Meno, it is argued that true opinion is as good a model to rectify action as knowledge.

Socrates makes a distinction between knowledge and opinion by giving an example that if someone knows the location of Larisa and leads other people to Larisa, then he is a good guide.Also, if a person has a right judgment about the means, but had never been to Larisa (the destination to be reached) should also be a good guide.