Philosophy Essay Exampe: Socrates' View That Virtue Is Knowledge

Socrates believed that virtue is knowledge and for one to do good things then the person must also be good. He also takes to account the difficulty people find in endorsing the doctrine even as he seeks to offer further supportive evidence to the claim. Therefore, the paper gets premised on a critical essay which seeks to determine the explanation of the strong belief of Socrates in the truth of the doctrine when people are opposed to the opinion and argue of it as being false. The essay will also explore my defense to Socrates view, criticism, and justification of whether the view is correct or not and finally giving reasons for the opinion.

The evidence put forward by Socrates to support the claim of virtue being knowledge gets derived by him viewing all living things to draw their primary objective on the perceived good. He claims that no individual can do well by not knowing what is good. A person can only do good after knowing the significance of the action. Plato speaks to Protagoras and argues on two perspectives; he argues that if virtue refers to one rather than many, then the equivalence of it is the knowledge of good. He also argues that in the event of it referring to many rather than one then virtues gets depicted as the knowledge of the good. Either way of the argument, Plato who drew his teachings and inspirations from Socrates, supports the claim that virtue is indeed knowledge. Socrates goes further to explain that knowledge is what creates understanding and from knowledge, a person can learn and develop the understanding lifes happenings (Pangle, 2). In most events, the life understandings are what most people misinterpret thus the negative eventualities. Socrates believed that when one gets the right instructor, knowledge can as well mean virtuous. Therefore, the main idea of the knowledgeable and well-informed teacher is the manifestation of the true virtue to the students. He argued that there exist no substitute for teaching virtue that virtue can only be taught by itself. The image, therefore, goes a long way in expounding on Socrates claim about virtue being knowledge.

I would also go about defending the view of Socrates from two perspectives. The first point of view is through the analysis of the relevance of his claim and the second aspect through the response to the critics of his claim. When Socrates thought of virtue being knowledge, he thought of the people doing good and evil. Indeed it is difficult for somebody to be knowledgeable and fail to be virtuous. Most of the people who find themselves committing wrongs, do so, based on the ignorance of the right thing to be done. Socrates claim is thus correct since good can only get equated with good, and as Plato claim to Protagoras, both knowledge and virtue means the same thing regardless of the existence of different perceptions. Some critics like Pangle fails to agree with the opinion and offers a radical and unconventional approach to the argument that virtue is not knowledge and instead, agree on the true virtue being wisdom (Pangle, 4). My response to the claim as a way of supporting Socratic viewpoint gets drawn on the perception of the relationship between virtue and knowledge existing at the heart of Socrates opinion on excellence.

Other critics also argue that the claim brought forth by Socrates got informed by him being aware of the difficult course of human actions and the power drawn from irrationality rather than other cursory readings. According to them, Socrates was responding to human experiences and their way of life rather than being genuine on the importance of the equation between virtue and knowledge (Pangle, 5). The analysis of Pangle also argued that the claim of Socrates meant to explore the factors which make it difficult for persons to realize the virtue of rationality. In consideration of my defense on the claim of Socrates and the criticism brought forth by other critics, it gets important to realize that there exists a need for further elaboration on what Socrates meant when he claimed that virtue is knowledge. Even as I agree with the claim, it remains somewhat difficult to get interpreted by some of his critics.

Lastly, I think Socrates is correct in his view about virtue being knowledge. It is difficult to find a good person failing to do right things. The failure can only represent nothing short of ignorance. People who are virtuous will also know the impact of their actions. They will get informed of the importance of doing good things and why they should avoid actions which may lead to negative virtuous. I also think that the people who are opposed to Socrates views are mainly driven by the controversial manner in which he presented his ideas. Most of his views were not direct like those of Plato and Aristotle hence some of the critics argue that he aimed at exploring the irrationality of human beings when he claimed that virtue is knowledge.

Works Cited

Pangle, Lorraine S. Virtue Is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Internet resource.