Ancient Philosophy 12 (1992)

Mathesis Publications

Wh at Laches and Nicias Miss-And Whether Socrates

Thinks Courage Merely aPart of Virtue

Terry Penner

The Laches, like other Socratic dialogues ends negatively-with the conclu-
sion that the principal question of the dialogue has not been answered. But the
Laches is in one respect a special dialogue. For its question-What is courage?-
is given an answer which Socrates himself seems to grant is Socratic: that
courage is a certain wisdom (ao<pLa), the (science, knowledge) of the
fearful and the hopeful. And yet Socrates refutes this Socratic answer ! 1
The prime exegetical question about the Laches is thus: What is Socrates up to
in refuting an account of courage that he should himself accept? Put in another
way, what is Nicias, the proponent of this Socratic account of courage, missing,
that leads to his refutation? Or better, what does Socrates want us to see Nicias as
missing?
But perhaps my ways of elaborating the question what Socrates is up to point
us in the wrong direction. Some scholars have certainly thought so. Perhaps there
is nothing of any degree of specificity that Socrates is trying to get us to see,
other than that he, like Nicias, does not know what has gone wrong in their
attempts to say what courage is?
In this paper I continue to insist that the question about what Socrates wants us
to see Nicias as missing is weIl framed; and I elaborate on an answer to this ques-
tion which I offered earlier in my 'The Unity of Virtue' (Penner 1973). 2 In the
earlier paper, I had argued that what Nicias misses-and what Socrates wants us
to see Nicias missing-is this:
If courage is, as Nicias says it is, a form of knowledge, then it
will turn out not to be just apart of virtue, but the whole of
virtue.
This is the thesis of the unity of virtue, to be explained in a little more detail
below. Nicias' account of courage, while verbally correct as far as it goes, turns

1 In the Charmides, various answers to the question 'What is temperance?' emanate in one way

or other from Critias-each one of them having some claim to being Socratic. And yet in each case
Socrates either refutes the proffered answer, or-as at Ellfhyphro 14b-c-allows Critias to turn away
from it before its real merits can be seen.
2 It is to be reprinted in Benson forthcoming.
2

out to be understood by Nicias far too narrowly.

Since that paper, however, there has appeared a quite strong textual argument
against this interpretation. This is the suggestion, in both VIastos 1981, 418-423
and Kraut 1984, 258-262, that since it is Socrates himself who introduces the
claim that courage is only apart 01 virtue (at 190c8-d1, at the beginning of his
discussion of Laches' first account of courage), it cannot be Socrates' intention
to reduce that claim to absurdity.3 In addition, Kraut has offered a further, more
general, argument that reinforces this one and which also deserves an answer.
This is that if Socrates is sincere earlier in the dialogue in saying that he does not
know what virtue is, then the interpretation I offer cannot be right. For on my
interpretation, Kraut says, Socrates does know both what courage is and what
virtue is: Courage is Virtue, and Virtue is the Knowledge of Goods and Bads. So
my account must be wrong. It must be the case that Socrates does not know what
courage and virtue are; consequently, he does not know what has gone wrong in
the refutation of Nicias' Socratic account of courage.
These two arguments of Kraut and VIastos surely direct us to a more careful
examination of Socrates' introductory suggestion that courage is only apart of
virtue. Obviously, it must be examined in context. This context includes at least
the whole of the discussion of Laches' first account of courage-it being to this
discussion that Socrates' suggestion is prefaced. I shall argue that a closer look at
this discussion will show us that what Socrates is doing, with Laches as weil as
with Nicias, is reducing to absurdity certain far too narrow conceptions of the
scope of courage. With Laches, what Socrates does is, in effect, to draw hirn into
the far too narrow conception of virtue and courage that he knows Laches holds
anyway-standing fast while fighting in heavy armor-and then to reduce to
absurdity that conception of courage as far too small apart of what we are seek-
ing. In so doing, Socrates expands the range of courage not just to cover all mili-
tary courage, nor even just to cover all facing of danger and of pain, but to the
facing of pleasure and desire as weIl. That is, he expands the range of courage to
such a point that it is all but explicitly identified with temperance and, so to
speak, the 'other' virtues. But that is just what my earlier paper (Penner 1973)
had claimed is happening with Nicias in the later passage! Thus, a closer look at
the passage in which Socrates 'introduces' the premiss that courage is only apart
of virtue discloses that there too Socrates aims toward the position that courage is
the whole of virtue.
I shall proceed as follows. In section 1, I introduce the issue about what Nicias
misses. Then, in sections 2-3, I offer a fuller defense of my view of what Nicias
misses than was possible in my earlier account. In sections 4-5, I further defend
this account of what Nicias misses on the basis of an account of what Laches
misses in his first account of courage. In section 6, I go on to examine the ques-
tion of what Laches misses in his second account of courage; and I suggest that

3 This argument is supported by the claim that at 198a7-9 Socrates re-endorses the view that
courage is only apart of virtue. I contest this supporting claim in section 4 below.
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this examination confirms the account of Socrates' strategy that I have been
employing in my accounts of the first refutation of Laches and the refutation of
Nicias. Finally, in section 7, I offer an answer to Kraut' s objection that my inter-
pretation leaves nothing about which Socrates can be sincerely ignorant. This
answer will involve making clear nlY view on the nature of the Socratic 'What is
X?' question. My account of the 'What is X? question, and of the nature of
Socratic ignorance, will, I suggest, be compatible with the following exegetical
maxim for the Socratic dialogues: Always assume Socrates has some particular
thing in mind that he wants us to see, even though his interlocutors do not see it.
(In other words, when an interlocutor has been reduced to aporia, never use
Socratic ignorance as an argument for saying Socrates has no understanding of
what has gone wrong in this passage to aporia.)
I. Nicias' Socratic Account of Courage and its Refutation by Socrates4
The refutation of Nicias' Socratic account of courage, it is generally agreed,
goes like this (197e-19ge):
(1) Courage is the (science or knowledge)5 of the fearful and
the hopeful.
(2) Courage is only apart of virtue.
(3) The fearful and the hopeful are, respectively, future bads and future
goods.
So, (4) courage is the science of future goods and bads. [( 1), (3)]
Now, (5) the science of future things of kind K is the science of all things of
kind K, past, present, and future;
so, (6) courage is the science of all goods and bads. [(4), (5)]
But, (7) virtue is the science of all goods and bads. [cf. (1)]
So, (8) courage, being identical with virtue, cannot be just apart of it, [(6),
(7)]
contradicting (2).
As I have said, interpreters are agreed that this is how the argument goes.
Where they are divided is on the question what premiss or inference Socrates
thinks has led to the contradiction. Now, Socrates presents the argument as if it
were one which showed the account of courage in (1) as contradicting the idea of
courage as only apart of virtue in (2) (19ge3-12). Leaving aside for the moment
Kraut' s suggestion that Socrates does not know what has gone wrong with the
argument, the first possibility one must examine is surely therefore that Socrates
wishes us to choose between (1) and (2). If that possibility seems not to make
good sense of the passage, we can then look to the subsidiary premisses in the
refutation-(3), (5), and (7)-and the subsidiary inferences-from (1) and (3) to

4Much of this section derives from the compressed account in Penner 1973.
5'En- lCJT r1IlTl is perhaps best translated 'science' here. But it sounds strange if we put the well-
known Socratic dictum 'Virtue is knowledge' as 'Virtue is science'. It will be best just to remember
that where we use 'knowledge', what is in quest ion is, or flows from, the idea of a science, art, or
craft-or, perhaps most accurately, an expertise.
4

(4), and from (4) and (5) to (6)-to see whether Socrates might have wanted us to
question one of these.
Now, if we are being asked to choose between (1) and (2), there is very little
doubt that we should find Socrates wanting to keep the account of courage in
(1)-since that was offered by Nicias as Socratic, and apparently accepted by
Socrates as such as weIl. Nicias teIls us explicitly that this account is based upon
a Socratic belief that 'one is good in something to the extent one is wise in it'
(194d 1-9); and Socrates accepts this latter belief as his own (194d3, cf. d6 and
esp. d8-9, where the latter belief is spelled out by Socrates as courage' s being
'some kind of wisdom [science, knowledge]'6). Probably, therefore, Socrates
also accepts that courage is the science (or knowledge) of the fearful and the
hopefu1. 7 For it is hard to see, if courage is a form of knowledge or science, what
else it could be the knowledge or science 01 but the fearful and the hopeful. So
Socrates very likely does accept this account of courage.
The claims of the preceding paragraph are strongly confirmed by the fact that
at Protagoras 359cff., esp. 360c-d, Socrates seems to argue for just this account
of courage. He also argues for the same identity between the fearful and hopeful
on the one hand and future bads and goods on the other (358d5-7)-thus also
making it virtually certain that subsidiary premiss (3) is also not what Socrates
could be objecting to. (In the Protagoras too, Socrates seems to be arguing that
one is temperate or not, and courageous or not, to the extent one has knowledge
of the situation in question-and indeed that temperance is a certain measuring

6 Devereux 1977 denies that Socrates here accepts the inference from our being good at some-

thing to the extent we are wise at it, to goodness is some kind 0/ wisdom. It is true that in this inference
Socrates is spelling out what Nieias says; but what he is spelling out is an explanation of something
Nicias said which Socrates has just accepted as being Socratic. For most of the discussion between
Laches and Nicias, Socrates gives the impression of shepherding Nicias through a clear exposition to
Laches of the views Nicias is said to have gotten from Socrates (194d-e) or from Damon (197d, 180c,
200a-b). (Darnon, we should remember, is represented as a friend whom Socrates also recommends to
others as a teacher [180c, 197d].) It is therefore sensible to accept the inference as also Socratic.
Of course, to say Nicias got his views from Socrates and Damon is not to say he does not under-
stand quite a lot about those views. (In this he contrasts sharply with Critias in the Charmides [n 1
above], who gets exceedingly rough treatment for his pains in trying to be Socratic-being shown
really to understand nothing of what he may have picked up from Socrates.) In section 6, I give Nicias
high marks for his performance in the Laehes.
7 In denying this, Devereux must also deny that the Socrates of the Laehes thinks virtue is
knowledge. In fact, Devereux (1977, 132) seems to find the only real Socrates in Xenophon and Aris-
tode! Devereux's suggestion (like similar ones of Paul Shorey and Michael J. O'Brien) that Laches
and Nicias each get apart of the account of courage right---eourage involves both a non-intellectual
element (endurance) and an intellectual element (knowledge)-is a worthy starting suggestion. But it
needs some backing other than just literary symmetry. As for the suggestion that Socrates must think
that endurance is an element of courage (if taken together with wisdom), Devereux does not consider
the possibility that for the Socrates of the Laehes, as for the Socrates of the Protagoras, there is no
more to (wise) endurance than just wisdom. That is, there is after all no non-intellectual element to
courage. (In the Protagoras, Socrates insists that knowledge [or wisdom] is itself something strong,
which, in the form of the measuring art, holds out against the short term perspectival blandishments
of pleasure [356c-357b].)
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art, and that courage too is a certain knowledge: cf. 356c-357e and 358b-360e
respectively, as weIl as n29 below.) Again, if it is Socratic that courage is some
sort of science, it will also be Socratic that virtue is some sort of science-as if
we needed evidence for the claim that 'Virtue is knowledge' is Socratic!8 And
what could such a science be the science ofbut of all goods and bads? So the sub-
sidiary premiss (7) is also almost certainly Socratic, and therefore not what
Socrates is likely to be objecting to here. No one who accepts (1) is easily able to
reject (7).
So, then, if we are to choose between (1) and (2), it must be (2) that Socrates is
rejecting-the claim that courage is only apart of virtue. Is it plausible to repre-
sent Socrates as rejecting such a claim? In Penner 1973, I suggest that it iso That
courage is the whole of virtue is precisely what we should expect in the Laches,
given the doctrine of the 'unity of virtue' in the Protagoras. In this latter dia-
logue, Socrates says that 'courage', 'temperance', 'wisdom', 'justice', and
'piety' are five different names of the same thing (329c6-d1, 349b2-3). He also
says, in these same passages, that virtue is one [thing].9 I argue in Penner 1973
that in both these remarks, Socrates is saying exactly what he thinks. He is not
saying-as VIastos had supposed10-that courage, temperance, wisdom, justice,

8 As pointed out in the previous note, Devereux is committed to denying that the Socrates of the
Laehes would hold that virtue is knowledge.
9 329c7 can be usefully contrasted with the idea of mere generic unity at 329d4, which Protago-
ras seems eager enough to accept. Protagoras' earlier remarks about the unity of virtue (or the unity of
the virtues) had very much wavered over the kind of unity involved with virtue (the virtues). He had
talked strongly about virtue as one thing (324e3-325a3: cf. the 'this' at a3), but had also spoiled the
impression of sharpness and clarity by throwing in the 'collectively' at al (cf. 323e3-324a 1). So
Socrates tries to force Protagoras to be clear: You say justice, temperance, piety, and so forth are c01-
lectively one; but tell me more accurately what you intend: are these (a) things different parts of one
thing, or (b) is there rather just one thing with five different names (lTclVTa TOV aUTOV Evas
VTOS)? The generic unity fudge at 329d4, Socrates simply will not accept. The alternative is put
again at 349a6-c5, esp. b3, b6,: either (b*) we have five different names for one thing (lTEVTE VTa
ElTl EVl EGnv) or (a*) we have five parts each with a distinct function. (The 'parts
like parts of gold' move is a rejected sub-alternative to [a*].) The implication seems clear: Protagoras
holds to (b) and (b*) and Socrates to (a) and (a*). For this interpretation of 'virtue is one thing' as say-
ing that 'courage', 'temperance', 'wisdom', 'justice', and 'piety' are five different names of one and
the same thing, notice the use of the Greek singular for 'one' and 'same' in the argunlent at 332a-
333b, esp. 333b4-5. (Folly can have only one opposite, since one thing is opposite to one thing; but
folly is opposite to wisdom, and also opposite to temperance, therefore wisdom and temperance are
one.) This surely cannot be interpreted as saying that wisdom and temperance are two---different and
equivalent-things which are the one thing which is opposite to the one thing (332c8-9, d2, e7,
333a2-5, a8-b2), folly? Cf. also the singular 'the same thing' at 331 b4, 350d5, 351 al, 4. (I should
mention that VIastos 1981, 225-226 has Socrates rejecting (b) lTclVTa TOV aUTov EVos VTOS
in favor of the virtues being parts in the manner of parts of gold, and accepting (b*) TfEVTE VTa ov6-
ETfl EVl EGTlV as identical with the parts of gold thesis. Vlastos's assumption that
Socrates must have intended (b) and (b*) to be radically different theses seems to me strained in the
extreme. As far as I can see, VIastos would have done better to have Socrates accept (b) as weIl, and
read 'being one' everywhere as being one in genus.]
10 In his introduction to VIastos 1956, liv nl 0 and xxxv. In later works, VIastos perseveres in this

view: See VIastos 1981, 221-269, 410-433.

6

and piety are Jive-different and equivalent-things: things of such a sort that
whoever has the one has the other. He is saying that there is just one virtue. I
argued in my ealier paper that the one thing named by these five different virtue-
names is the science (or knowledge) of good and bad-the knowledge in which
Socrates thinks virtue consists. Courage and temperance are no more two things
than the Morning Star and the Evening Star are two things. It may be more natu-
ral to caIl that science of good and bad 'courage' in situations of danger, and
'temperance' in situations of temptation-just as it is n10re natural to speak of
'The Morning Star' in the morning, and of 'The Evening Star' in the evening. ll
Butjust as it is a single thing, the planet Venus, that is named in the morning and
the evening, so it is the same science of good and bad that enables one to do weIl
in situations of danger and that enables one to do weIl in situations of tempta-
tion-the same steady ability, in spite of the blandishments of pleasures, fears, or
whatever, to see (or measure) what is worth trading for what. 12
If this interpretation of the unity of virtue in the Protagoras is correct, it is easy
to see why Socrates would have wanted, in the Laehes, to reduce to absurdity the
claim that courage is only apart of virtue. 13
But there is a second reason for thinking that this interpretation represents the
argument better than any of the alternatives. This is that it can be maintained that
aIl of the subsidiary premisses and inferences are either clearly Socratic or else
clearly correct. Accordingly, reading the argument as reducing to absurdity the
claim that courage is only apart of virtue gives it its simplest, strongest reading.
Let me now show this point about the subsidiary premisses and inferences.

11 The Morning Star / Evening Star example is of course from Frege (see Black and Geach 1960,
62). (The 3rd edition confusingly translates Bedeutung as 'meaning' rather than 'reference'.)
12 For 'steady', see Protagoras 356d7-e2. For 'trading' see the remarks about measurement

throughout 356c-357e, as weB as n34 below. We should not be put off from this reading of Socrates
by the objections in the puritanical passage at Phaedo 67eff., esp. 68d-69c. These are, of course,
objections to a conception of virtue which involves knowing what is worth trading for what. But this
passage, like the rest of the Phaedo, I take to be Platonic-and to be as anti-Socratic as the Republie' s
parts-of-the-soul doctrine. For more on Socrates vs. Plato, see Penner forthcoming.
13 Over the years this reading of the Protagoras and the Laehes has come to be accepted by quite

a few scholars-most notably by Taylor 1976 and by Irwin 1977. But Gregory VIastos, principal pro-
ponent of the interpretation I was here rejecting, never accepted it; and in a number of articles he
attacked my interpretation (1981,410-433). I did not respond to these articles in print, partly because
I was not moved by the attacks they contained. Nevertheless, it has recently become clear to me that
some response is necessary. For in arecent discussion of my book, The Aseent from Nominalism:
Some Existenee Arguments in Plato 's Middle Dialogues (1987), Martin Tweedale rather implies that
because I have not responded in print to Vlastos's criticisms, I am therefore granting them (1989,
693). But I do not grant them. Since Tweedale's review article, I have replied to several of Vlastos's
arguments in Penner forthcoming. I have also something to say below about the dispute between
VIastos and myself about the 'What is X?' question: in section 4, and in n23, and cf. section 7. I have
not elsewhere replied, however, to the Vlastos-Kraut criticisOl that is the subject of the present article.
 7

11. The Subsidiary Premisses and Inferences of Socrates' Argument

Gf the subsidiary premisses, we have already seen that (3) and (7) are almost
certainly Socratic. 14 That leaves only (5) as (from Socrates' point of view) a pos-

14 While not objecting to the Soeratie character of (3), Santas 1971 has interestingly objected to

the truth of (3), saying that the fearful should not be identified with future bad things, but only with
future bad things of a certain restricted sort: those bad things which are mixed with good. Imagine
someone wondering whether or not to take such and such vitamins in such and such quantities. Are
not the consequences of such an act entirely harmless, and do they not constitute a future good? But
what have they to do with fear or hope? To take such vitamins does not take courage: just good sense.
Similarly, staying outside, given the coming rainstorm and the fact that it will ruin my suit, is a future
bad thing. But what has this future bad thing to do with fear or danger? Where is the danger if one is
sensible? It is just sensible to go inside, not courageous. (lf the good is unmixed with bad, or thc bad
unmixed with good, where, Santas asks [nIl], is courage involved?) Consequently, although Socrates
has a right to infer that courage is the knowledge of all goods and bads, past, present, and future,
where good is mixed with bad, he has no right to the move to 'Courage is the knowledge of all goods
and bads whatever'.
Although this objection affects no exegetical claims I am making-since it is agreed on all hands
that Socrates is fully committed to the identity of the fearful and the hopeful with future goods and
bads-I am nevertheless loath to see Socrates' theory fail on this point. Yet I have not found it easy to
construct a satisfying response. \Vhat follows is the best I can do for the moment.
One idea that occurred to me was that every future bad thing is potentially an objeet offear.
Looked at in one way, this might seem a sufficient reply-so long as the future is never fully known,
I will never know that the future bad thing is unmixed with good. (Fear and hope will always prove
relevant to coping with what is partly unknown.)
But what if we were to have a bad thing unmixed with good that is known to be unmixed with
good? If I do have to deal with such a case, can I still say that every future bad thing is still potentially
an object of fear? In these circumstances, such a claim might seem to be a mere type/token confusion.
(Individual future bad things are not aetually objects of fear; and talk of them being potentially
objects of fear might seem to be just to say that the kind these individual future bad things belong to is
such that some instances of it are actually objects of fear.) For such a case, a little more will need to
be said.
First, I suggest that even if Santas is right that individual known unmixed goods and individual
known unmixed bads are not fearful or hopeful, it is still the case that the identity Socrates intends is
an identity between the kind feaiful and the kind future bad thing. If this is granted, then I think I can
show at least that knowledge of the kinds feaiful and hopeful is identical with knowledge of the kind
future goods and bads. (This would at least get us [4], which was the only reason for stating [3], in
either the wehes or the Protagoras.) My argument is this: The kind to which belongs an individual
bad thing that happens, in a particular context, to be unmixed (say, today ruining one's suit by staying
out in the rain), may show up in another context where the instance of that bad thing is mixed with a
future good thing (say, saving a child from a certain amount of misery). It follows that to know what
the fearful is in the latter context, one must know how much of a bad thing ruining one's suit is, what-
ever context one is in. If that is so, then one could not have knowledge of the kind fearful and hopeful
without knowledge of all kinds of future goods and bads (including the kind ruining one 's suit).
Since this argument, by getting me (4), gets me everything I need for purposes of endorsing
Socrates' over all argument, it is perhaps a sufficient reply to Santas. But I must concede that it still
leaves Santas in possession of the point that the kinds feaiful and future bad thing are not identical
since their extensions differ, the former including, and the latter excluding known unmixed goods.
(Compare the treatment of [5] that follows directly in the main text: the kinds future bridgebuilding
and bridgebuilding past, present, and future seem clearly to be non-identical even though the science
of future bridgebuilding is identical with the science of all bridgebuilding past, present, and future.)
8

sible source of error among the subsidiary premisses. Now the principle that a
science of future K' s is the same science as a science of all K' s, past, present, and
future, seems to me to be not only Socratic, but even true. Other things being
equal, a subsidiary premiss that is true should be thought to be Socratic. 15 So let
me begin by saying why I think the premiss is true.
Consider the science of, say, future bridgebuilding. According to (5), this will
also be the science of all bridgebuilding, past, present, and future. The science of
bridgebuilding needed to investigate failure of an old bridge is, technological
advance aside, the science of all bridgebuilding, past, present, and future. The
same applies to considerations of future bridges.
Socrates' point may be clearer if we shift from bridgebuilding to physics. The
science of physics is, if we may be excused some anachronistic terms, the science
of the laws of physics; and those laws, it is reasonable to suppose, do not change
over time. So the laws of past physical phenomena are the sanle as the laws of all
physical phenomena, past, present, and future. lust so for the laws that govem the
building of bridges. (The talk of unchanging laws removes the question of tech-
nological advance that might not have concerned Socrates.) This can be made
clearer if we simply re-state (5) more fully in terms of laws:
(5*) the science of future bridgebuilding = the science of the laws of
future bridgebuilding = the science of the laws of all bridgebuild-
ing, past, present, and future = the science of all bridgebuilding,
past, present, and future.
The reason why the apparent object of the science of future bridgebuilding gets
broadened to all bridgebuilding is the same as the reason why the science of the
health of red-haired people is the science of the health of all people whatever. In
these contexts, 'future' and 'red-haired' are, as it were, accidental predicates.
Future bridge-building and health for redheads are not, as it were, natural kinds.
What the science is most properly the science of is the natural kind for which
there are discoverable generalIaws. This is why courage, if it is the knowledge of
future goods and bads, will also be the knowledge of all goods and bads: What
one needs to know in balancing future goods and bads against each other
includes the relative goodness and badness of various kinds of things to be risked

Here, we need to return to the thought three paragraphs ago-that the kind to which an individ-
ual act of ruining one's suit belongs is such that it can show up in some situations as an object of fear.
One might argue here that the kind fea rfu I should be taken as the kind fearable rather than the kind
feared. Then it could be argued that this individual act of ruining-one' s-suit-when-no-good-thing-is-
involved is still of the kind that is fearable (since that kind of act is to be feared in other circum-
stances, in which some good thing is involved, such as saving a child some misery). Then the kind
future bad thing would be the kindfearable things.
The strategies described above will not work if there is a relevant kind: ruining one 's suit when
there is no good involved. (Here one would have to argue that, like the supposed kind health red-
heads-discussed immediately below in the main text--this is not itself a kind [natural kind], but
merely an accidental collocation of two kinds. This does not seem to me an impossible argument to
make.) At any rate, this is all I can say about Santas's difficulty for the moment.
15 See Penner 1987, xiv-xvi, and the remarks on interpretation in the Ion in Penner 1988.
 9

and various kinds of things it is worth risking other things for. And such knowl-
edge applies indifferently to past, present, and future. Human good and bad are,
as it were, the natural kinds of the science which is virtue.
So much then for why I regard the principle (5) as true. But there are further
reasons for regarding the principle as Socratic as weIl. For, in the Ion, Socrates
uses a precisely parallel principle about the identity of the sciences which is yet
more striking than this one. There (531a-532b, 532e-533c) Socrates argues that
(5a) the science of whether Homer speaks well on divination (arith-
metic, diet, painting, sculpture) = the science of whether Hesiod
speaks well on divination (etc.) = the science of speaking well on
divination (etc.), whoever the speaker might be.
The considerations adduced in the preceding paragraph are precisely those
involved in (5a).
Going beyond (5a), Socrates also argues for an even stronger principle:
(5b) the science of speaking well on divination (etc.) = the science of
divination (etc.) tout court.
(The considerations involved here are in turn not dissimilar to those involved in
[5*]. Socrates uses [5b] extensively against sophists and rhetoricians.)16
There is yet another principle concerning the identity of the sciences at Ion
536e-538b:
(5c) What we know by one science, we don't know by another;
so that if charioteering is a different science from Ion' s supposed science of
speaking well on Homer, and the charioteer knows whether or not Homer speaks
well on charioteering, it will not be for Ion' s supposed science of speaking well
on Homer to know that. And similarly for medicine, fishing, divining (538b-
539d), and indeed all sciences (arts, knowledge). (Similar intuitions about the
identity of the sciences are used to substantial effect at Republic i 345c-346e: to
argue that money-making is no part of the sciences of medicine, shepherding, or
ruling.)
I shall not here follow Ion trying to get hirnself out of trouble by urging that his
science has knowledge of whether Homer speaks well on any science whatever,
so that he has the same universal knowledge as is found in the wide-ranging
architectonic science of the general: 539b-542b. 17 My aim here is simply to make
two points. First, as (5a), (5b), and (5c) show, Socrates has very strong intuitions
about the identity of the sciences; and he takes them very scriously indeed. Sec-
ond, the pattern in (5a) is exactly parallel to that in (5): The apparent object of the
science of whether Homer speaks well on divination gets broadened to speaking
well on divination on anyone' s part. In the light of this parallel and the intensity
with which Socrates focusses on issues of the identity of the sciences, we cannot

16 Protagoras 311 b-314c, espe 312d-e; Gorgias 447c-461 b, espe 449d-450d, 451 a-452e, 453e-

454a; and cf. Republic i 332d-333e. For the thought that lies behind the princip1e, see Penner 1988,
289-302, with 263-276.
17 Subordinate and superordinate sciences of course provide easily accomodated exceptions to
the princip1e (5c).
10

really doubt, I think, that the principle (5) on the identity of the sciences is
Socratic. 18
I conclude that (5) is not a subsidiary premiss Socrates would be likely to want
us to reject. Since we have already shown the same for (3) and (7), it remains that
if Socrates were to question anything other than (2), it would have to be one of
the subsidiary inferences-either that from (1) and (3) to (4), or that from (4) and
(5) to (6). Might he have questioned one of these? Both involve the substitution
of identicals in the context 'the science (or knowledge) of... ' . In the first case, we
substitute into 'the science of the fearful and the hopeful' the identities between
(a) the fearful and future bads, and (b) the hopeful and future goods. In the sec-
ond case we instantiate 'the science of.. .K ... ' as 'the science of... goods and bads
... '. Now, it is hard to see how either of these substitutions can be objected to,
unless by suggesting that Socrates thought of 'the science of. .. ' as an 'opaque' or
'oblique' context. Aside from my own doubts that we do weIl so to regard it, it
seems to me quite implausible to suppose Socrates would have thought it such. 19
So I cannot see us questioning that these inferences are Socratic.
There is another possible doubt about the subsidiary inferences. This is Vlas-
tos' s suggestion that there might be one or more fallacies of equi vocation
involved in them. 20 The basis for this suggestion I take up in the next section. For
now, I want to notice something else about (5) that will bear upon the question of
the simplicity and clarity of the overall argument against Nicias, and therefore
also on the question of whether there are equivocations involved. This has to do
with the 'is' in (5)-the science of future K's is the science of all K's, past, pre-
sent, and future. That 'is' is an 'is' of identity. And the identity is an identity of
reference, not an identity of meaning (let alone identity of meaning and refer-

18 It could of course be objected that in the Ion, Socrates is not endorsing (5a), (5b), or (5c). But

I do not think the objection will stand. For they are used precisely to show that Ion does not have
knowledge, only an unknowing divine gift. And this is a conclusion Socrates seems very much to
want to get to. In any case, there can be little doubt that Socrates is fully committed to (5b) in his
exploiting of analogues to it against Protagoras and Gorgias (n 16 above).
19 To say that the context is 'opaque' or 'oblique' is to say that we cannot unrestrictedly substi-

tute for identicals within the context. If we switch from the use of of 'knowledge' for science or
expertise that is our present concern (n5 above) to propositional knowledge (knows that p, where 'p'
stands in for a declarative sentence) we see why modern philosophers want to block such substitu-
tions when propositional knowledge is involved. For from the two true premisses:
Oedipus knows that he is married to Jocasta, and
Jocasta is Oedipus' mother,
we get the false conclusion
Oedipus knows that he is married to his mother.
Roughly, to call a context 'opaque' is to say that no substitutions are warranted, while to call it
'oblique' is to say that no substitutions are allowed other than for expressions that are identical in
meaning (for example, 'mother' for 'female parent').
A great deal could be said here about how differently Plato and Socrates treat such topics as sub-
stitution of identicals, false belief, non-existence, and even knowledge that from the way modern
philosophers treat them. It is perhaps enough in this case sinlply to point out that here we are not con-
cerned with knowledge that, but with the use of 'knowledge' for science or expertise.
20 See the next two notes.
 11

ence): Plainly 'future K's' does not have the same meaning as 'all K's, past, pre-
sent, and future' So 'science of future K' s' will not have the same meaning as
'science of all K' s, past, present, and future' .
Notice further that it is the same 'is' of identity of reference (and not identity of
meaning) that is involved at (3)-the fearful are future bad things-and therefore
at (4) and (6) as weH-courage as the science of future bads and goods, and
courage as the science of all bads and goods. Certainly no one would regard the
identity between the science of future bads and goods and the science of all bads
and goods as an identity of meaning. I would even want to discourage anyone
from thinking that (7)-virtue as the science of all goods and bads-could have
been seriously intended as an identity of meaning. Thus every single one of the
identity claims from (3) through (8) is a claim about identity of reference, and
none is a claim about identity of meaning. Surely, then, it is most reasonable to
take (1) also as intended to give an identity of reference and not an identity of
meaning?
The relevance of my insistence that Nicias' proposed account of courage is not
taken, either by Nicias or by Socrates, as an identity of meaning, will emerge in
the next section.
111. Objections to the 'Unity of Virtue' Interpretation: Identity Conditions for
the Sciences and the 'What is X?' Question as aRequest for the Meaning
Throughout the first six or seven decades of this century, Anglo-American
philosophers tended to suppose that Socrates' 'What is X?' question was a
request for meanings, arequest for a conceptual analysis. On such a view, if
answer Al differed in meaning from answer A2, even if it was the same in refer-
ence, it would have to be the case that at most one of these answers could be
right. But since if there are any meanings at all, 'courage' and 'temperance' dif-
fer in meaning, it would follow that it could not be the case that the answer to the
question 'What is courage?' was the same as the answer to the question 'What is
temperance?' But, by contrast with such a position, on my reading of the Laehes
passage it would be. Both courage and temperance would be the whole of virtue.
So interpreters like VIastos, who take this meaning-view of the 'What is X?'
question, must necessarily reject my reading of the refutation of Nicias in the
Laehes. Instead of reading each of the occurrences of the 'is' or 'are' of identity
in (1), (3), (4), (5), (6), and (7) as identities of reference, VIastos must read (1),
and possibly some premisses inferred from it, as identities of meaning. And it is
easy to see that this is likely to force VIastos to render the argument invalid by
reason of messy equivocations on some of the premisses.
VIastos actually gives two accounts of the argument, in each of which he finds
it committing a fallacy of equivocation. In one place,21 VIastos reads (4) as
ambiguous. When inferred from (1) and (3), he reads it as an identity of meaning
(or of meaning and reference); and, when used for geuing us, via (5) to (6), he

21 In the Appendix to VIastos 1981,266-269.

12

reads (4) as an identity of reference only. Thus on this reading, the argument is
guilty of equivocating on (4). In another place (where he rejects the preceding
version),22 VIastos somewhat more plausibly locates the ambiguity in the first
premiss-the very account of courage under investigation. As an answer to the
'What is courage?' question, it can only be giving us an identity of meaning. But
when Socrates argues from it and (3) to (4), it has to be an identity of reference.
Of course VIastos does not think Socrates would have been aware of such an
equivocation. And this drives hirn into the camp of Kraut: The failure of this
account of courage must show that Socrates genuinely does not have an opinion
on wh at went wrong with this argument. The contradiction with which the
Laches ends is, on this showing, an exemplification of Socratic ignorance.
This last line of thought I take up in section 7. For now, I am concemed with
the suggestion that (1) is to be taken as an identity of meaning when first pre-
sented, and then, when used to infer (4) from (3), as an identity of reference
which is not an identity of meaning.
We have seen at the end of the preceding section that we can hardly read (3),
(4), (5), (6), and (7) otherwise than as identities ofreference. Surely the most nat-
ural supposition is that (1) too is to be read as an identity of reference-even
when giving an answer to the question 'What is courage?'
This natural supposition is also supported by the following consideration. We
have seen, in effect, that in the Ion, where questions arise as to what a particular
science is-for example, as to what science lon's science of interpreting Homer
is-the answers are all identities of reference and precisely not identities of
meaning. We should surely therefore expect the same to be true of Socrates'
question at the beginning of the Gorgias, 'What is rhetoric?'23 But now, virtue
too is, for Socrates, a science. And courage is a science. So why should not the
questions 'What is virtue?' and 'What is courage?' asked about virtue and
courage also be requesting identities of reference?
VIastos 's reading of the argument, by contrast, makes both Nicias and Socrates
messily equivocate on the very first premiss-and both of them sublimely igno-
rant that they are doing so. Why not take the simpler, clearer reading?
A final point from a different direction: Suppose we were to leave aside the
argument that Socrates' identity criteria for the sciences work against taking the
question 'What is courage?' as arequest for an identity of meaning. Would we
not still feel that Socratic ignorance-so constantly insisted upon by Socrates-

22 In the 'Starred notes' to the Appendix, VIastos 1981,443-445.

23 In Penner forthcoming, I point out that most accounts of the Socratic 'What is X?' question
tend to suggest that Socrates was only interested in asking 'What is X?' questions about the virtues-
or at most the virtues and friendship; they fai1 to notice two extreme1y prominent 'What is X?' ques-
tions. The first is,'What is (the supposed science of) rhetoric?' in the first part of the Gorgias. (Cf.
also Protagoras 311 b-312e; and notice that the Ion is, in effect, an examination of the question: What
is this (supposed) science of intepreting Homer which Ion has?) The second is, 'What is the experi-
ence of being overcome by pleasure?' at the end of the Protagoras. This last question is certainly not
arequest for the meaning of the expression in question. Nobody in Socrates' time thought that 'being
overcome by p1easure' meant ignorance.
 13

should be a more serious and self-conscious business than merely being tripped
up by unnoticed equivocations?
IV. The Vlastos-Kraut Objection: That Socrates Holds
that Courage Is merely aPart of Virtue
VIastos argues (1981, 418ff., esp. 422-423) that Meno 71e-76e shows Socrates
committed to the view that courage, temperance, wisdom, and so forth are dis-
tinct parts of virtue. This is certainly a tempting reading of the passage: the unity
on which Socrates immediately afterwards insists (77a-b) being then taken to be
merely a unity of genus. I have responded to this elsewhere (Penner forthcoming,
n21, and see n24 below), observing at Meno 88b that unless courage is a courage
which 'is not knowledge but like a certain boldness', it cannot be distinct from
wisdom. Thus the unity of courage with wisdom cannot be merely a generic
unity. It is identity. (Compare the unity discussed at 77a-b and then 79a-b with
that found at 87b-89b. In the latter passage, we have a unity which is not just
generic. For here the point is that there is just one thing which is good or prof-
itable, namely, wisdom. But that is also the point we find in the Euthydemus: the
one thing good in itself is wisdom, by contrast with that 'courage' which is not
beneficial: 281d-e with 279b, 281c. Courage proper can therefore only be identi-
cal with wisdom. lust so, justice is the whole of virtue at Lesser Hippias 375d-
376c and Republic i 353e, and temperance [construed as the knowledge of good
and bad] is the whole of virtue in the Charmides and at Gorgias 506d-507c.)24

24 Though in Penner 1973, 43 I was sidling up to the point that the Euthydemus really shows us

that courage proper (as opposed to courage as sometimes conceived: cf. Meno 88b) is identical with
wisdom, so that wisdom is the whole of virtue; and though I was anxious to use parallel passages in
the Lesser IJippias and the Republic identifying justice with the whole of virtue, and (arguably) in the
Charmides and Gorgias identifying temperance with the whole of virtue; I neglected to press horne
this point about the Euthydemus. As for the Meno, I was so anxious to dissociate the unity of virtue
from the Meno-because of (what I thought of as) the damaging passage at 73dff.-that I also failed
to exploit the parallel of Meno 87b-89b. The credit for seeing that we should use the Euthydemus pas-
sage and the later Meno passage together against the earlier Meno passage belongs to Irwin 1977,
301 n7 and (4c) in 305n3. (The argument against Irwin in Ferejohn 1984, 111-112 fails through
assuming that, in the Euthydemus, Socrates would grant that wisdom on its own could not bring about
happiness. This, I think, cannot be right, since Socrates says that wisdom is eutuchia. (And eutuchia
can hardly be anything here other than eudaimonia.) That amazing identity may need explanation and
defense. (I shall be offering my own explanation elsewhere.) But whatever Socrates has in mind by it,
it will block his having thought that wisdom cannot on its own bring about happiness. What he
thought was that, on its own wisdom is happiness.]
I should add here that I was wrong, in Penner 1973, 43 to leave the suggestion that there is any
such thing as demotic virtue in the Socratic dialogues. The so-called courage we find in Meno 88a-b
and Euthydemus 281d-e are not taken by Socrates to be cases of courage at all-any more than the
supposed courage of animals at Laches 196e-197c, or the boldness of Protagoras 350a-c. By contrast,
the demotic courage of the military in Republic iv is taken by Plato to be genuine courage, even
though the wisdom that guides it is not itself present in the military dass, but only in the intellectual
dass. (The inadequacy of the book 4 account of the virtues [435d, 504b-d] does not reside in its being
the case that the courage of the military is not genuine courage. It resides rather in the fact that book 4
made no reference to the Form of the Good upon which is based both the wisdom of the intellectuals
14

But there is another passage about which VIastos can make more strongly the
claim that Socrates endorses the idea of distinct parts of virtue. This is the pas-
sage that introduces the discussion with Laches at Laches 190c8-d3. VIastos
quotes this passage in his article:
Let us not start off... by inquiring into the whole of virtue ...
Let us first see if we have a proper understanding of apart of
it. .. So which of the parts of virtue should we pick?
The part in question seems to be courage: 190d4-5 with d5, d8 with the reference
back to this passage at 198a1-2. So, VIastos says, the passage quoted is being
viewed by Socrates as suggesting that we look at the question, 'What is that part
of virtue which is courage?' This leads VIastos to remark (with some justice),
Penner in his analysis of the terminal argument in the
Laches ... [simply ignores what Socrates says at 190c8-d3 and
then again at 198a I-b2]: he speaks of the proposition that
courage is apart of virtue as a 'premise Socrates elicits from
Nicias' ... This simply misdescribes the text: what Socrates
elicits from Nicias is not apremise, but concurrence with it.
Having introduced it hirnself, entirely on his own initiative,
earlier on in his dialogue with Laches, he re-introduces it now
and reasserts it unambiguously in propria persona. ('For I say
that temperance, justice ... are parts of virtue, along with
courage .. .50 far we are in agreement'). From the hopeful start
of the search for courage at 190c down to its aporetic denoue-
ment in the terminal argument of the dialogue, it is Socrates
hirnself who maintains, and induces his interlocutors to concur,
that courage is 'a part' of virtue.
The case here is very powerful. VIastos is right that I had ignored 190c and that I
need to deal with it.
On the other hand, VIastos rather overstates the content of the later passage at
198al-b2, even (surprisingly) reading into his translation of the text a quite
unwarranted explicit reference to parts of virtue. All 198a7-9 has Socrates saying
is that 'in addition to courage I speak of temperance and justice and other such
things'. Now, I do not think there is any mileage to be gotten fron1 this remark in
addition to what can be gotten without it. If Socrates hirnself has already
endorsed courage's being only one part of virtue, then this passage confirms it.
But if he has not already endorsed it, but n1erely attributes it to Nicias, then he is
merely saying here that since we speak of 'temperance' and 'justice' in addition
to 'courage', anyone like Nicias who thinks courage only a part will also have to
think temperance and justice just parts. So 198a-b provides no independent evi-
dence of Socrates' believing that courage is only apart of virtue. 25 The whole

and also the courage of the military, as they carry out the orders of the intellectuals.)
25 I note here that in this passage, when at 198b8 Socrates speaks of courage and temperance in
addition to courage, he does not mention wisdom. Hut wisdom was mentioned at 195a4-5, where
Nicias agrees that wisdom is not separate from courage. Why not mention wisdom if, as VIastos sup-
 15

issue must turn on the earlier passage at 190c-d. I take up what Socrates is doing
in 190c-d in the next section.
V. What Laches Misses in his First Account of Courage
VIastos is right to say that Socrates hirnself introduces the idea that they should
be inquiring into apart of virtue only. He does so in setting up the question 'What
is courage?' which he asks Laches in pursuit of the larger question how best to
educate the sons of Melesias and Lysimachus. But does Socrates' way of intro-
ducing this idea inspire confidence (in the way VIastos suggests it should [VIas-
tos 1981, 422]), that here Socrates is laying down apremiss (courage is only a
part of virtue) that is to be 'regulative' of the discussion that follows-that is to
form a part of the framework of the discussion that is not itself to be questioned?
There are two reasons for viewing VIastos's suggestion with suspicion. The
first has to do with the way the premiss is actually introduced. The second has to
do with the way Socrates later (twice) accuses hirnself of setting up badly for
Laches the question 'What is courage?'
A first suspicion of the way Socrates introduces the restriction of their question
to apart of virtue arises precisely from the way Socrates introduces this restric-
tion. What part is suggested? The part that has to do with fighting in armor-
'which seems to the many to be courage'. Already there is a fly in the ointment.
The part in question is not immediately identified as courage, but, rather, indi-
rectly specified as the part of virtue having to do with a certain very limited
sphere of operation. 26 Furthermore, Socrates does not so much proceed to iden-
tify this part with courage as to identify it with what seems to the many to be
courage. There is thus a worry that what Laches is being invited (or at least
allowed) to consider is not so much courage as it is a conception of courage had
by the many. If Socrates is, in a perfectly straightforward way, introducing
courage itself here (and. not just a certain conception of courage had by the
many), why does he introduce it as the part of virtue that has to do with fighting
in heavy armor?27
WeIl, it is true that it has been the exhibition of fighting in heavy armor that

poses, Socrates thinks courage, wisdom, justice, temperance, and piety are separate parts of virtue-
that courage and wisdom are XWPLS'? My answer will be apparent from the preceding sentence: Nicias
has already conceded that courage is not separate from wisdom. (Besides 194a4-5, cf. also a7 with
dIO; also n34 below. Cf. also Meno 88a-b and Euthydemus 279a5, 28Ic6-7, where wisdom is not
mentioned; by contrast with 279cI, 280a6-b3, 28 Id6-e5-where wisdom is mentioned only to bring
out that if any of these things such as courage or temperance really is to be a virtue, it will be identical
with wisdom.)
26 As (5), (5a), and (5b) all show, there is nothing wrong with such an indirect specification in
itself. On my interpretation of the Laches, Nicias gives just such an indirect specification in his
account of courage as the science of the fearful and the hopeful. Such an account is fully compatible
with courage's being the science of all goods and bads. The worry about an indirect specification is
that it may be revealing an underlying conception of courage which is far too narrow. Upon further
questioning, that worry turns out to be as well-founded in the case of Laches as it does (on my read-
ing) in the case of Nicias.
27 Cf. also 'perhaps' (lCJWS') at I90c9, and 'probably' (wS' Ta ELKOS') at d 1.
16

stimulated the whole discussion of the education of the sons of Melesias and
Lysimachus. But we cannot rest content with this answer. For it simply raises the
question why Plato the author chose that display to be the way he introduced the
accounts Laches and Nicias offer of what courage iso
1 suggest that the explanation of Socrates' peculiar way of introducing courage
here is this: Since the primary way in which Socrates identifies the part of virtue
he wants to narrow the inquiry down to, is as the part that has to do with fighting
in heavy armor, he must be wickedly trying to lure Laches into giving the
account of courage he knows Laches is itching to give anyway, namely:
wanting to stay in one' s position and ward off enemies while
not running away. (190e5-6)
To this account, Socrates replies, in mock dismay-here we come to the second
suspicious feature of the way Socrates introduces the idea of taking up only apart
of virtue-that he, Socrates, is responsible for Laches' not answering the ques-
tion asked (190e7-9). The heavily armed soldiers just described are courageous,
but what of those who fight with their enemies while fleeing, like the Scythian
horsemen Homer praises (191 a I-b2)? That is the courage of cavalry, Laches
says; but the courage of heavily armed soldiers is what 1 said it is (191 b4-7). (I
have still given apart of courage, Laches is in effect saying.) No, says Socrates,
you are forgetting the Spartan heavily armed soldiers who won at Plataea by flee-
ing and then turning on the Persians (191 b8-c5). (You have not even given the
part of courage that has to do with fighting in heavy armor, Scrates is in effect
saying.) So you see, Socrates repeats, 1 really am responsible fr your answering
badly: for 1 asked badly (191 c8-9). 1 wanted to learn from you not just who are
brave in heavy arms, or in cavalry, or even just in war generally, but also who are
brave towards the dangers of the sea, and who are brave towards sickness, who
towards poverty, who towards politics (191 c7 -d6]-and again not only those
who are brave towards pains or fears, but also those who are formidable in com-
batting desires (ETTL8VIlLUS') or pleasures. And as for those who combat desires
and pleasures (Socrates wickedly adds), we need to give an account that will
cover both those who remain at their posts and those who turn and run (191 d6-
e2).
What is the 'bad way of asking' to which Socrates refers here? Not just invit-
ing the confusion between the questions 'What is courage?' and 'What humans
are courageous?' (as at Greater Hippias 287dff.), since Socrates hirnself puts
what Laches misses in ternlS of his not addressing the question what humans are
brave in such and such situations (191c7-e7). The point is therefore surely some-
thing like this: My way of asking invited you to give too snlall apart of
courage-as in your reference just to heavily armed soldiers. 1 want to go beyond
heavily armed soldiers and even cavalry to those who face the sea, sickness,
poverty, and politics! 1 want to consider not only those who face fear (and pain)
but also those who face desire and pleasure! Laches, you are givingfar too partial
an account of what courage is! And it is my way of asking that has led you to
give this far too partial account. (The justification for Socrates' thus badly ask-
 17

ing, to repeat, is that he saw in advance that Laches wanted to give an account of
courage in terms of heavily armed soldiers anyway.)
We can go even further here on the question of Socrates' deliberately inviting
too narrow an answer to the question 'What is courage?'. For is Socrates not sug-
gesting that even the sort of account of courage which might commend itself to
modern philosophers like VIastos will be too narrow? The modern account might
well find a place for courage in facing the sea, illness, poverty, and even some
political situations. But it would surely also find it to be essential to courage that
there be a reference to something like danger or fear. 28 But we have seen
Socrates here extending the range of courage to include not just fear (and pain),
but also desire and pleasure! Is courage perhaps even less partial than the cor-
rected account moderns will offer to enable Laches' account cover alt dangers
and fears?
As if to drive horne the point that courage does not just have to do with fear,
Socrates summarizes the difficulties for Laches' first account of courage as fol-
lows (191e4-7):
Surely all the above are brave, but some acquired their virtue
amid pleasures, some amid pains, some amid desires, some
amid fears; while others acquired cowardice in these same
things?
If courage is only apart of virtue, then Socrates is certainly telling us here that it
is not the part confined to fear or even fear and pain. It covers also areas one
might have thought to be proprietary to temperance, namely, desires and plea-
sures. (In fact, by 192b6, fear is dropped altogether, and we find courage as the
power with which we face pleasure and pain! Cf. n29 below.) May one not sus-
pect here that we are being prepared to see, in a later argument, that courage is
not just apart of virtue?
To sum up, I do not believe we should accept VIastos 's claim that the premiss
that we should seek only apart of virtue-that having to do with heavy arms
which the many think is courage-is 'regulative', and not to be questioned in the
seque!. Socrates tells us twice that there is something wrang with the way he
introduced the question 'What is courage?'. I suggest that what is wrong with it is
its inviting too narrow a conception of courage such as the nlany have. And not
only is military courage too narrow; so is the facing of fears and even pains too
narrow. Socrates hirnself broadens courage far beyond the natural division which
should be accepted by those like VIastos, who think that courage is distinct from

28 So VIastos at 1981, 231, where he insists-apparently contrary to this passage in the Laches-
that if it is a question of endurance of appetite instead of endurance of fear, then it cannot be courage.
Here VIastos seems to be taking back what he apparently noticed in this passage at 1981, I-li nIl,
where he says Socrates 'extend[s] enormously the range of. .. application' of courage.
Santas 1979, 185-187, does not fail to notice, and complain of, this enormous extension of the
notion courage in this passage-an over-broadening by Santas's lights. (Cf. also his objection in n14
above.) In a way, what my article is doing is standing Santas's arguments on their heads. (As Smart
once remarked, one person' s modus ponens is another person' s modus tollens.)
18

temperance. I suggest that what Laches misses in his first account of courage is
precisely what Nicias misses in his otherwise rather superior Socratic account of
courage: Courage is not just apart of virtue. It is identical with the temperance
the many appeal to in describing the virtue for dealing with desires and plea-
sures. 29 It will be, we may reasonably suspect, the whole of virtue.
VI. What Laches Misses in his Second Account of Courage
So far I have offered interpretations of Socrates' refutations of Laches' first
account of courage and of Nicias' account of courage. In doing so, I have sug-
gested that Socrates knew what he was doing throughout. He was exposing the
deficiencies of certain far too narrow conceptions of courage. More generally, in
my interpretations of these two arguments, Socrates deliberately draws both
Laches and Nicias into inadequate accounts of courage. Is this unfair of Socrates?
Not, I suggest, if these are the accounts Laches and Nicias would have been
likely to give anyway. 30 But can I be right thus to find Socrates so remorselessly
exposing what Laches and Nicias miss in order to get us to see better?
A consideration of the question what Laches misses in his second account of
courage may hearten those tempted by my suggestion. For while the refutation of
Laches' second account is not directed towards too narrow a conception of
courage, it does show Socrates tempting Laches into an account of courage as
involving knowledge, and then exposing Laches' misapprehensions about the

29 lust so, the 'measuring art' of the Protagoras is identical not only with temperance (knowl-

edge of the more and less good, or the more and less pleasant: 356c-357e) but also with courage (cf.
35ge3ff., esp. 360a3-8: courage involves knowing what pleasures and pains are worth trading for
what). See Taylor 1976, 213f.
30 The situation is not too different in the Euthyphro, where starting from the question whether it
is pious of Euthyphro to prosecute his father for murder, Socrates asks what the holy and the unholy
is with respect to murder and other things (5c-d). It is true that having introduced the question in the
way he does, Socrates emphasizes that he is looking for something that is the same in every pious
action and that is opposite to what is in impious actions. But the invitation to Euthyphro to say what
Socrates thought he was going to say anyway, namely,
the pious is what I am now doing-prosecuting the person who errs, whether
about murder or about stealing from temples or anything else (5d-e),
is clear enough. It is worth noting that Euthyphro' s response here is not actually as narrow a
response as Socrates represents it as at 6d-e ('what you are doing now, prosecuting your father for
murder' ), even if it is still too narrow. Thus Socrates has not only invited too narrow an answer by the
way he asks the question; he also distorts the answer that Euthyphro gives and makes it more nanow
than it was in Euthyphro' s actual statement.
How can we justify this unfair setting up of the question, and this distortion of Euthyphro's
answer? The answer is fairly dear, I think. Whatever the strict rights and wrongs, fairnesses and
unfaimesses, of Socrates' treatment of Euthyphro, it is evident that Euthyphro has not really thought
much beyond the idea that (a) his act is pious, and that (b) other acts like it are pious (say prosecuting
temple-robbers). He certainly has not thought out (c) what it is that makes other acts be like his act-
that being what Socrates is really looking for (5d-e, 6d-e, 10a-Il b). The treatment of Euthyphro is
justified, I suggest, because it is dear that what Euthyphro really wants to say is merely: the pious is
anything like what I am doing now. No further thought has gone into any such question as what
makes other pious acts like my acL It is as if all Euthyphro has done is to give us one or two of the
many pious acts.
 19

knowledge involved-and in such a way that we can see (as indeed Nicias sees)
what Laches misses in this, even though Laches does not himself see it. 31
At the end of the refutation of Laches' first account of courage, Socrates teIls
Laches he wants to know what it is that is the same in all the cases of courage that
have been discussed so far. He gives a discussion of 'quickness' as an example of
what it is to say what is common to many cases-a (power, faculty) in
running, harping, speaking, learning and so forth. So what is that which
is the same whether facing pleasure or pain (192b6-7)?32 This elicits Laches' sec-
ond account of courage:
a certain natural endurance in all things (192b9-c 1).
Socrates replies that courage cannot be all endurance, since whatever is coura-
geous must be fine or noble 192c3-7. Surely then courage 11lust be
endurance with knowledge (<PPOVllGL S'), since endurance with ignorance will be
harmful and bring about bad things (AUE pa KUl KUKODpyoS': 192c8-d11).33
But here Laches' problems begin. In what is the knowing
endurance of courage knowing? Surely in all things great and smalI, Socrates
says wickedly (192el-2)? For example, is it not courage to endure in spending
money knowingly, knowing one will benefit? Or for a doctor to endure in refus-
ing water to a patient whom water will harm? Or for those to endure in fighting a
batde who know they have superior forces and position? No, says Laches, none
of these cases of knowing endurance are cases of courage. On the contrary, the
person who does not have the science of horsemanship may often be more coura-
geous that the person who has it-and similarly for the sciences of slinging,
archery, and well-diving. It is the person who does not have the science of well-
diving and still dives into the weIl who shows courage, not the person with the
science of well-diving (192e2-193c8). A child has fallen into the weIl, let us say.
Helen has the science of weU-diving. It is no particular act of courage for her to
jump in and save the child. But Barbara does not have the science of well-diving.
She can only just barely swim. For Barbara, without the sciences of well-diving
and swimming, to jump in and save the child will show great courage.
So then, the modification Socrates introduces into Laches' account of courage
as endurance-changing it to knowing endurance-seems precisely to lead to the

31 In the end, of course, Nicias has still, on my view, some residual nlisapprehensions abollt the
knowledge involved, namely, that the knowledge involved in courage is onlj apart of the knowledge
of goods and bads. Cf n34 below.
32 VIastos 1981, 412-416 finds in the example of quickness the certainty that the 'What is X?'
question seeks the meaning of 'quickness'; for he suggests that dunamis here refers to meanings. But
it is far more likely to refer to dunameis of the sort referred to in the Protagoras: 330a4-7, 349b5, c5.
The dunamis of apart of thc face is not a meaning. (I speak further against this suggestion of Vlas-
tos' s at Penner forthcoming n. 21.)
33 Being KUAOV seems to be more often connected in Socrates with being straightforwardly
advantageous and not harmful than it does with being 'noble' or 'fair': See, besides this passage,
Charmides 159b-160d, and Protagoras 34ge-350c. (In the latter passage, I take Socrates to be saying
that to rush into situations without technical knowledge, where the situation calls for technical knowl-
edge, is rash and not courageous because it will result in harm.)
20

defeat of Laches' account. Contrary to the claim that knowing endurance is

courage, we now have that those who endure without knowing are braver than
those who endure with knowledge, and Laches' second account of courage is
refuted (193c9-193d7).
What has happened here? Did not Socrates precisely draw Laches into this
contradiction? (In just the way I suggest he drew Laches into the too narrow con-
ception of courage in the first account? And also in the way I suggest he drew
Nicias into another too narrow conception of courage in the climactic argument
of the dialogue?) Socrates first draws Laches into the idea of the endurance hav-
ing to be knowing, and then shows hirn that if the knowing is taken unrestrict-
edly, it will give us exactly the wrong result. Is this not a case of Socrates
self-consciously exposing the deficiencies of Laches' understanding of courage?
But Plato the author also allows us to see what Laches misses. For as soon as
Nicias enters the conversation, he, Nicias, proceeds to explain precisely what
Laches has missed (though Laches still does not see it). Nicias picks up the very
thing that has been Laches' downfall: knowledge. Courage is a form of knowl-
edge, he says-in this, we have already seen, offering an account of courage
which he says is Socratic, and which Socrates accepts as being Socratic (194c2-
d9).
Laches can hardly believe his good fortune in his rivalry with Nicias. He
pounces on the suggestion that courage might be a form of wisdom: What wis-
dom? he asks (194d 10). Socrates begins the further inquiry. Is it the science of
flute-playing? The science of lyre-playing? If not, then of what is courage the sci-
ence? Here is where Nicias introduces his account of courage as the science of
the fearful and the hopeful (194ell-195al).
Laches rejects this view: courage is separate from wisdom (195a4). 34 And,
having evidently taken note of Socrates' refutation of hirnself on well-diving,
Laches embarks upon a precisely parallel assault on Nicias (195b2-5). In matters
of disease, will it not be the doctors who have the knowledge of the fearful? So
will it not be the doctors who are on your account courageous? And similarly for
knowledge of the fearful in farming: Will that not belong to the farmers, and so
will it not be farmers and experts in all the other arts who are the courageous
(195b2-c2)? Laches here urges against Nicias the very point that Socrates used in
refuting Laches' own account of courage as knowing endurance.
Socrates turns to Nicias to see if Nicias sees his way out of the difficulty that
torpedoed Laches' second account of courage (195c3-4). And he does indeed. In
one of the best moves of any Socratic interlocutor in the whoIe of the early dia-
logues, Nicias points out that while doctors may be experts on the question

34 Here, it seems apparent, Socrates is with Nicias: courage is not separate from wisdom. If so,
then, those who follow me on the refutation of Nicias will conclude, Nicias too should have seen that
if Courage and Wisdom are not separate, they are not two separate parts of virtue, but the same thing.
This is accordingly the first passage in which Nicias fails to see what will lead hirn into contradiction
in the end. Here we see that Nicias-like Laches, though Nicias is at a far more profound level-is
also under some misapprehension about the wisdom that courage iso
 21

whether someone will live or die, they are not experts on the question whether or
not it is better for someone to live or die. Is it always better for a patient to live
rather than die? Laches grants that it is not. Then are the same things to be feared
by those for whom it is better to die and by those for whom it is better to live
(195c7-d6)? Evidently not. WeIl, then, it is the lmowledge of the fearful in con-
nection with such things as whether it is better to live or die that is courage-not
the doctor's knowledge or the farmer's knowledge (195d7-9). Barbara, who
swims less weIl, needs more knowledge of what is worth trading for what in
order to jump into the weIl to save the child. That is why, though Helen has more
knowledge of swimming, Barbara will have to be braver.
Thus here we have Nicias seeing what Laches missed in his second account of
courage and conclusively overcoming the difficulty by means of which Socrates
refuted that second account of courage. 35 Is it then unreasonable to suppose that
in this refutation of Laches, Socrates wants us to see what Laches misses, just as,
according to the accounts I have offered of the first refutation of Laches and the
final refutation of Nicas, he wants us to see what Laches and Nicias miss?
Two more points about Laches and Nicias in this particular exchange before
we leave it. First, even after Nicias explains the point about the knowledge of
goods and bads not being the same as the sciences of medicine or of farming,
Laches does not get the idea. As if the courageous were soothsayers(!) he jeers
(195e1-4), with none too tactful a reference to one of Nicias' partialities which
will in Sicily land hirn in big trouble. Are you a soothsayer now? Or neither
courageous nor a soothsayer? Nicias is amazed that Laches has not gotten the
point, even though Nicias hirnself has a little trouble explaining it. The sooth-
sayer judges the signs of things that will be-death, disease, loss of possessions,
victory, or defeat-not whether it will be better for those things to be: precisely
in parallel with the way in which the doctor judges whether or not the patient will
die, but not whether it will be better for the patient to live or die. 36 Socrates tries
to explain gently to Laches that Nicias has not been refuted in exact parallel to
the way Laches was refuted (196c I-d1). But to no apparent avail.
Second, on the question of Nicias' astuteness amongst Socratic interlocutors, it
is worth noting how weIl he also faces the difficulty about animals being coura-
geous. Socrates puts it to Nicias that if courage is a form of knowledge or sci-
ence, then animals will not be courageous (196d9-e9). But surely, Laches says,
jumping in enthusiastically, we all admit that lots of animals are courageous

35 It must be pointed out here that what Nicias sees, Aristotle does not. See Aristotle' s exceed-
ingly disappointing reading of this argument in the Laehes at Nieomaehean Ethies iii 8.1116b3-23.
No wonder Aristotle seems to have understood the Socratic account of the unity of virtue so ill (vi
13.1144b17-30: like Aristotle thinks the Socratic virtues a plurality of sciences).
36 1 cannot agree with Santas (1979, 196 with 193) that this is a matter of value rather than fact.
For Socrates, what is good (what will lead to happiness) is, just as much a matter of fact as whether a
patient will live or die. Notice that the soothsayer is not an expert on just anything in the future: just
whether certain major events (such as the gods send) will occur, such as victories or defeats, deaths,
diseases, losses of possessions, and so forth (195c9-196a1). So he cannot be expected to be an expert
on whether the victories, deaths, and so forth will turn out to be better for given participants.
22

(197al-5). But Nicias wisely stays in line in the face of this assault, distinguish-
ing courage and foresight from fearlessness, rashness, daring, (8 paeJlJTllS,
and so forth (197a6-c4). In this he is again showing hirnself to have something of
a grasp on what Socrates thinks--even though Socrates has put the question of
animals to hirn in a way that invites hirn to miss this turn in the Socratic dialectic.
Nicias' distinction is strictly in line with that which Socrates elsewhere makes
distinguishing courage from mere boldness (8cippos: Meno 88b4-5, Protagoras
350b2; cf. 34ge2, 350a1, 3,7, and espe cl-5; 359b8-9, 360a8-d5; as weIl as, prob-
ably, the reference to courage when it is not used wisely at Euthydemus 281 c-e).
So in spite of Socrates' invitation to Nicias to give up the idea of courage as a
fornl of science in favor of the tempting idea of declaring some animals coura-
geous-an invitation Laches heartily accepts-Nicias holds firm. Here again, we
are being invited to see Nicias seeing something that Laches does not.
VII. The Suggestion that Socrates Does Not Know
What Has Gone Wrong in the Refutation of Nicias
I come to the last point on which I wish here to defend my account of what
Socrates wants us to see Nicias missing in the final refutation. This is the
extremely general, and powerful, objection put by Richard Kraut to my account.
Socrates insists that he is not an expert about virtue (185e4-
186c5), and he requires that such an expert be able to say what
virtue is (190a1-c6). So he must mean that he no more has a
definition of virtue than he has of courage. (Kraut 1984, 260)
More generally. if Socrates' claims to know only that he knows nothing are sin-
cere, we should surely be able to see this Socratic ignorance exposed somewhere
in the dialogues. So in some places, Socrates must be ignorant of where his inter-
locutors have gone wrong.
Now, presumably Kraut will not be tempted by a more extreme version of this
suggestion: that Socrates never knows what has gone wrong in the failures of his
interlocutors to answer Socratic questions. (Though if he is not, he will need to
make clear on just what principles his account of Socratic ignorance stops short
of this.) So in the Laches, for example, he will }je unlikely to claim that Socrates
does not know what has gone wrong with Laches' two failures to say what
courage iso Instead, Socratic ignorance will only show up in the refutation of
Nicias.
Now, as to the refutation of Nicias, I have argued above that the only premiss
or inference it would be reasonable to suppose Socrates was singling out and
rejecting is the premiss that courage is apart of virtue. But Kraut suggests the
possibility that Socrates does not know which premiss to reject. As we see in the
passage just quoted, he thinks also that if Socrates did know that courage is the
science of the fearful and the hopeful (= the science of all goods and bads), then
he would know not only what courage is but also what temperance is, and also
what virtue iso (As the passage quoted shows, Kraut takes it that to know what
courage is is to have adefinition of courage-a verbal formula of some appropri-
 23

ate kind.) But if Socrates knows what courage is and what virtue is, what else
would there be for hirn to know? And if there is nothing else for hirn to know,
how can he sincerely claim to know only that he knows nothing?
My reply to this is twofold. First, it is a small poini against Kraut's position
that his argument is of such a high level of generality. It is surely hard to attribute
very great weight to it if it is in conflict with a more specific interpretation that
accounts in detail for particular features of the argument against Nicias-or
against an interpretation that also gives a unified account of significant detail in
the two refutations of Laches as weIl as in the refutation of Nicias. But I claim to
have given such a unified interpretation. Second, and more seriously, Kraut' s
general argument presupposes that knowledge that a certain substantive proposi-
tion about courage is true will count as knowledge of what courage iso I have
responded to such apresupposition in more detail elsewhere (Penner forthcom-
ing, VI), so I simply sun1marize my response here. The idea that knowing what
courage is is knowing to be true some substantive true proposition about
courage, comes dangerously close to supposing that the 'What is courage?' ques-
tion seeks the meaning of 'courage' . (Remember that, indexicals aside, a proposi-
tion is the meaning of a sentence.) But I have argued in section 3 above that
Socrates does not seek the meaning of 'courage', he seeks the reference.
Very weIl, but how am I to claim-as I evidently must-that Socrates does not
have knowledge of the reference of 'courage'? Does he not, on my account,
know that courage is the science of the fearful and the hopeful, or that it is the
science of (all) goods and bads? Does not even Nicias know that courage is the
science of the fearful and the hopeful?
These questions ask us again to accept knowledge of certain propositions as
knowing something about courage. I want to suggest that what Socrates seeks is
not to know something about courage-that is, to know some true propositions
about courage (if there are such things as propositions to be known). It is to know
what courage iso Let me explain that distinction a little.
The treatment of knowledge within much modern epistemology is devoted
almost exclusively to propositional knowledge (amazingly, given the suspicion
with which propositions have been regarded by such as Quine, Davidson, and so
forth). So, then, on this treatment, if Socrates knows
(i) that courage is the science of the fearful and the hopeful,
and also knows
(ii) that courage is the science of goods and bads,
that will be no impediment to saying that
Nicias does not know (ii), but does know (i).
Compare modern views that although Oedipus does not know he is married to his
mother, he does know that he is married to Jocasta. Nicias 'knows something
about' courage, and Oedipus 'knows something about' Jocasta. Or so it is within
much modern epistemology. The proposition (i) can be known even though the
proposition (ii) is not known.
Now if, contrary to this conception of propositional knowledge (with which
24

Kraut is also working),37 we say that Socrates seeks not the meaning of
'courage', but the reference-that he seeks to know not 'something about'
courage (a proposition) but what courage is-then I believe we can say with a
good philosophical conscience that Nicias does not know what courage is Gust as
Oedipus does not know the woman he has married). At most, Nicias has only
gotten ahold of apart of what courage iso At most, Oedipus has knowledge of
only apart of who Jocasta iso To know what courage is, I am suggesting, one
nlust know all about courage. To quote a passage from Frege which I have used
elsewhere in this connection (Penner forthcoming), 'Comprehensive knowledge
of the reference of a term would require us to know the sense of every term that
applied to it. To such knowledge we never attain' (Black and Geach 1960,58).
But now if Nicias does not know what courage is in spite of 'knowing one true
proposition about it' , maybe Socrates thinks that he also does not yet know what
courage is, even though he might grant hirnself to be in astate which modern
philosophers might describe as his 'knowing at least one more true proposition
than Nicias knows'. As long as there are still some 'things yet to be known about
courage' , Socrates may still claim not to know what courage iS. 38
Let us go back to Jocasta. No reasonable person thinks he or she (really) knows
any other person. One's children and parents may, on fairly central matters, be as
much of a mystery to one at the end of one's life as they are quite early on. Oedi-
pus's nasty surprise about Jocasta is of course only a symbol of what husbands
and wives or life-partners are forever discovering about their own marriages or
partnerships (except of course when those marriages or partnerships are already
dead). Why should the nature of courage and of human goodness be that much
clearer to us than those we love most and have known best?
So if we turn away from knowledge of propositions and towards knowledge of
such things as courage or health, and persons such as Jocasta, we can give quite a
good account of Socratic ignorance, compatibly with his apparently firmly
believing that courage is the science of the fearful and the hopeful and that the
science of the fearful and the hopeful is the science of goods and bads.
But does Socrates not still know some things about courage, namely, some
propositions about it? To save Socrates, will I not also have to argue that there
are no propositions? Yes, a full answer would certainly require that. For now, I
shall just argue that, had we explained the notion of a proposition to hirn,

37 In Penner forthcoming, n72, I give the following references as evidence of the thoroughgoing
commitment to propositions in the account of Socratic knowledge and Socratic ignorance in Kraut
1984, 197n8, 211, 220-222, 225, 231, 241, 246, 260, 264, 269, 272, 278-279, 283-284. I also note that
Kraut frequently actually counts propositions ('Some true beliefs', 'some false beliefs', and so forth).
38 I suggest (Penner forthcoming) the following examples of the sorts of things that Socrates
might 'think he does not know' about courage and virtue: the nature of the happiness that the good are
good at getting; the nature of pleasure and of its place in the good life-on these two questions Aris-
tode went far beyond Socrates; the defects of radical Protagoreanism (where Plato went far beyond
Socrates-in the Theaetetus); better arguments to show that it always harms you to harm others
(plainly some work was called for here); and more convincing accounts of the function of man and of
the art of ruling (more work called for here too).
 25

Socrates still would not have granted that in knowing (i), Nicias knows any true
proposition about courage. (This will, at any rate, say a little about how 1 think
much modern empistemology may suffer from its exclusive preoccupation with
propositions.)
1 understand people who say Nicias knows (i) but does not know (ii). And 1
understand people who say that Oedipus knows that he is married to Jocasta and
does not know that he is married to his mother. But 1 wonder if Socrates would
think we do weIl to say that (i) exhibits know ledge of a proposition about
courage. For the courage Nicias has in mind is very far from being the science of
goods and bads. It is more courage as Nicias sees it than courage itself, that
Nicias has in mind. Similarly, 1 wonder if we do weIl to say that Oedipus'
'knowledge that he is married to Jocasta' exhibits knowledge about Jocasta if the
Jocasta he knows he is married to is, so to speak, not the Jocasta who is his
mother. From my standpoint, knowledge about Jocasta requires knowing Jocasta,
that is, knowing the woman who is Queen, wife of Oedipus, and mother of Oedi-
puS. 39
So even if 1 were to allow there to be knowledge of propositions, 1 could still
argue that (i) does not give us, on Nicias' part, any knowledge about courage.
This still therefore leaves it open to me to argue that Socrates knows about
courage only that he knows nothing. On such not entirely unreasonable grounds
may we build an account of Socratic ignorance that is compatible with Socrates
wanting us to see what Nicias misses at the end of the Laches.
It is true that these remarks represent a quite radical attack on the widespread
modern preoccupation with propositional knowledge. My exegetical case here
does not require acceptance of such an attack-even though, to be candid, 1
would myself urge it. What maUers is simply that the conception of knowledge
involved here be comprehensibly attributed to Socrates. 1 suggest that the attribu-
tion is credible.
1 conclude, first, that Socrates' thinking that courage is the science of goods
and bads is no impediment to his claim to know (about goods and bads)40 only

39 This paragraph is of course an implicit attack on the notion of transparent, or de re, senses of
'knows' or 'believes'-as in 'Lois knows (or believes) of Clark Kent that he is no wimp' (on the
grounds that she thinks Superman is no wimp-even though she does not know that Clark is Super-
man, and thinks that Clark is a wimp). A fuller attack on that notion must be reserved for elsewhere.
40 Notice in this sentence, and two paragraphs back, that I speak of Socrates knowing about
courage (or about goods and bads) only that he knows nothing. It is sometimes suggested that there is
some kind of contradiction in Socrates' suggestion that he knows only that he knows nothing: to
know even that one knows nothing is surely still to know something. But there is no contradiction if
we make the italicized qualifications. There might (on a propositional view of knowledge) be a con-
tradiction, if Socrates were saying he knows only that he knows nothing ahollt anything. But that can-
not be what Socrates is saying. For one thing, it would hardly make Socrates the wisest person in alJ
Greece, since he concedes that artisans know plenty about their own arts. What is in question here is
restricted to knowledge about goods and bads-knowledge within the one science of goods and bads.
Socrates' claim is that he knows nothing that falls within the realm of the science of goods and bads.
Is there a self-contradiction in this claim? WeiL is knowing that one has no knowledge within the
realm of the science of goods and bads itself a bit of knowlege that falls within the realm of the sci-
26

that he knows nothing; second, that I am therefore free to persist in my belief that
what Socrates wants us to see Laches missing earlier on coheres with my reading
of what he wants us to see Nicias missing in the final refutation; and, third, that I
am also free to urge that my readings of all three refutations give the dialogue a
persuasive unity that it does not have on other readings. Indeed, nothing about
Socratic ignorance will stop us adopting the following exegetical maxim for the
Socratic dialogues (recommended in Penner forthcoming): Always assume that
in refuting an interlocutor, Socrates has clearly in mind some point he wishes us
to see even when his interlocutor does not himself see the point. In other words,
never use Socratic ignorance as argument against saying that Socrates has a
view as to what has gone wrong when an interlocutor has been reduced to aporia.
Such a maxim must indeed be judged by its fruits. Here I have argued only that
it can be successfully wielded in reading the Laches. 41
Department of Philosophy
University of Wisconsin
Madison WI 53705
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Black, M. and Geach, T. edd. 1960. The Philosophieal Writings 0/ Gottlob Frege 2nd edn. Oxford:
Blackwell's.
Devereux, D. 1977. 'Courage and Wisdom in Plato's Laehes' Journal o/the History 0/ Philosophy
15: 129-141.
Ferejohn, M. 1984. 'Socratic Thought-Experiments and the Unity of Virtue Paradox' Phronesis 29:
105-122.
Irwin, T. 1977. Plato 's Moral Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Penner, T. 1973. 'The Unity of Virtue' Philosophieal Review 82: 35-68.
Penner, T. 1987. The Aseent /rom Nominalism: Some Existenee Arguments in Plato 's Middle Dia-
logues. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Penner, T. 1988. 'Socrates and the Impossibility of Belief-Relative Sciences' 276-289 in 1.1. Cleary
ed. Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy vol. IH. Lanham MD: University Press of
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Penner, T. forthcoming. 'Socrates and the Early Dialogues' in R. Kraut ed. The Cambridge Compan-
ion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Santas, G. 1979. Soerates: Philosophy in Plato 's Early Dialogues. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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ence? Presumably it will be if and only if knowing that one knows nothing about carpentry is a bit of
knowledge within the realm of the science of carpentry. But the science of carpentry is arguably the
science of the principles of building. So I suggest that knowing that one knows nothing about carpen-
try is not itself a bit of carpentering knowledge. So Socrates' claim to know only that he knows noth-
ing is not self-contradictory. It is just striking. (Like the paradox at Protagoras 355a-d: how
ridiculous to think that one should choose the less good [or the less pleasant] because overcome by
the good [or the pleasant]. This is not a contradiction: just striking.)
41 In writing this paper, I have received very valuable feedback from undergraduate and graduate

tutorials at Madison. I would especially like to thank lohn Orlando and Andrew Siegel whose valu-
able opposition to things I have said earlier about the Laehes has much improved this paper.
 27

VIastos, G. ed. 1956. Plato Protagoras. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

VIastos, G. 1981. Platonic Studies 2nd edn. Princeton: Princeton University Press.