WIP in Ancient Philosophy with Allison Piñeros Glasscock (Georgia State University)

Works in Progress in Ancient Philosophy held by Cinzia Arruzza and Marc Gasser-Wingate. The guest speaker for this session is Allison Piñeros Glasscock (Georgia State University). Title: Peril and Courage in Plato's Phaedo (co-authored by Allison Piñeros Glasscock and Juan S. Piñeros Glasscock). Abstract: Plato’s dialogues are well known for their exploration of Socratic Intellectualism, i.e. the thesis that virtue is (a form of) knowledge. One of the challenges of Socratic Intellectualism is that it is difficult to apply to virtues that are suited to non-ideal circumstances. For example, the virtue of courage requires that the courageous person undertake some risk. But in order to truly risk something, one needs to be uncertain about the outcome of one’s action. The problem with an account of courage as requiring knowledge is that this cognitive state eliminates uncertainty. We argue that Plato recognizes the difficulties of intellectualist accounts and that, in the Phaedo, he presents us with an attractive, non-intellectualist account of courage, by introducing a distinctive notion of rational belief. The definition of courage in terms of rational belief, as opposed to knowledge, allows us to understand the way virtuous actions sometimes require risk-taking, but also how these risky endeavors are consistent with (and indeed expressive of) reason. At the same time, it provides novel resources for explaining how we can strive towards perfect virtue, particularly through philosophical inquiry, even while we do not yet possess the knowledge that ideally virtuous agents have.