Assertion: virtue | /r/HasProperty | some kind of knowledge
Facets:
value: really
type: DEGREE
Source sentences:
text: When the conversation returns to Meno’s initial question of whether virtue can be taught, Socrates introduces another manner of investigation, a method of “hypotheses,” by which he argues that virtue must be some kind of knowledge, and so it must be something that’s taught.
text: Therefore virtue is a kind of knowledge
text: But this dialogue gets no further than arguing that virtue is some sort of wisdom, “in whole or in part” (89a).
text: Socrates replies that, even assuming virtue to be a kind of knowledge or wisdom (as suggested at 88d), the fact that it cannot be taught does not mean that people cannot act rightly.
text: He seeks definitions of virtues like courage, moderation, justice, and piety, and often he suggests that each virtue, or virtue as a whole, is really some kind of knowledge.
text: He seeks definitions of virtues like courage, moderation, justice, and piety, and often he suggests that each virtue, or virtue as a whole, is really some kind of knowledge.
text: In this whole inconclusive conversation, the most important Socratic proposal is that “virtue” (aretê in Greek) must be some kind of knowledge.
text: Next, Socrates offers an independent argument (based on a different hypothesis) that virtue must in fact be some kind of knowledge, because virtue is necessarily good and beneficial, and only knowledge could be necessarily good and beneficial.
text: So Socrates could be quite serious in his lengthy argument that virtue must be some kind of knowledge (87c-89a), while reluctantly making use of the unsupported hypothesis that knowledge must be taught because, in effect, Meno insists upon it.
text: The idea that virtue is a kind of knowledge, however, does seem to have been a central tenet of Plato's moral philosophy.
text: Meno’s assumption that knowledge must be taught, and taught by mere verbal instruction, prevents a fuller investigation in this dialogue of Socrates’ hope that virtue is a kind of knowledge.