The Virtues And ‘Becoming Like God’

Alcinous To Proclus

Bibliographic Data

ID23135299
AuthorsDirk Baltzly (0000-0003-2469-6199, corresponding author)
Year2004
Pages297-321
Publication date2004-03-25
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Summer 2004 Volume XXVI (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780199272495.003.0011
OpenAlexW2778907680
ISBN9780199272495
LanguageEN
Citations received15

Recent work in virtue ethics owes much to the moral philosophy of Aristotle and that of the Hellenistic schools. It cannot be said to be similarly indebted to Platonic moral philosophy. Doubtless this is partly because Plato’s dialogue form does not 1end itself to the construction of a ‘Platonic virtue theory’ in quite the same way that Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics lends itself to the project of constructing an Aristotelian theory of virtue. But it is not just a matter of the form of Plato’s writings. Later Platonists such as Alcinous, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus sought to extract what they took to be Plato’s eudaimonist moral philosophy from the dialogues and present it in formats not utterly dissimilar to that of Aristotle’s treatises. I do not propose to address the question of whether the expositions of these later Platonists misrepresent Plato’s moral philosophy-or, indeed, whether he had a moral philosophy to misrepresent. Instead, this paper addresses an objection that Platonic moral philosophy of this sort could not provide us with much valuable insight because the Platonist conception of the goal of living is not only implausible but also deeply ambiguous. Let us consider the charge levelled against the moral philosophy of Plato as it was developed by these Platonists.

Epistemology · Moral philosophy · Virtue · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy

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