“All virtue (arête) is knowledge (episteme) and therefore one.”

Plato’s “PROTAGORAS”

Protagoras' idea of good is subjective and relative; being and not-being are relative to human determination. In other words, 'man is the measure of all things, both of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not.' For the Platonic Socrates, man knows himself as measured by the good.

Conclusion: Socrates : all virtue (arete) is knowledge (episteme) and therefore one. He argues that the reason people act harmfully, to others or themselves, is because they only see the short term gains while ignoring the long term losses which might outweigh them, just like one makes errors in judging the size of objects that are far away. He says that if men were taught the art of calculating these things correctly, have a more exact knowledge that is, they would not act harmfully (357c-358d).

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In the Apology Socrates’ view is that if one discusses virtue regularly then one will (ideally) arrive at knowledge of virtue. But knowledge of virtue is sufficient for being virtuous. And being virtuous is sufficient for being happy. This is why Socrates says that it is the greatest good…to discuss virtue every day, and why he says that he (Socrates), unlike the Olympian victor, makes others happy (by engaging them in discussions about virtue).

There is also an argument at Euthydemus 280b-281b for the claim that knowledge is sufficient for happiness, which confirms the view that Socrates thinks that knowledge of good and bad (=knowledge of virtue) is sufficient for happiness (Charmides and Apology). The argument runs as follows:

1. It is sufficient for happiness to possess (good) things and use them rightly.

2. Knowledge is what enables us to use possessed things rightly.

So, 3. Knowledge is what enables us to be happy.

Finally, at Republic I 352-354, Socrates argues that virtue is sufficient for happiness. This is to be expected, given that virtue is the same as knowledge of virtue (see above) and knowledge of virtue is sufficient for happiness (Charmides and Apology). The argument runs as follows:

1. Everything that has a particular function (ergon) performs it well by means of its own peculiar virtue (arete).

2. The function of X is what X alone can do or what X does better than anything else.

3. What a soul alone can do is live.

So, 4. The function of a soul is to live. [2, 3]

So, 5. The soul lives well (eudaimonia) by means of its own virtue. [1, 4]

(5) entails that a virtuous soul lives well (i.e., is happy). {Remember that the word for happiness is “eudaimonia”, which literally means the same as “living well”.}

The soul lives well (eudaimonia) by means of its own virtue. (Republic I 352-354)

Epistêmê is the Greek word most often translated as knowledge, while technê is translated as either craft or art. These translations, however, may inappropriately harbor some of our contemporary assumptions about the relation between theory (the domain of ‘knowledge’) and practice (the concern of ‘craft’ or ‘art’).

techne is the name for the activities and skills of the craftsman, but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts. Techne belongs to ‘bringing forth,’ to poiesis, it is something poetic.

The other thing that we should observe with regard to techne is even more important. From the earliest times until Plato the word techne is linked with episteme. Both words are terms for knowing in the widest sense. They mean to be entirely at home in something, to understand and be an expert in it.

The Greeks did not rank their arts competitively, nor did they try to classify them. Architecture, sculpture, poetry, carpentry, shoemaking, and even handwriting are all skilled crafts which realized a telos that was given in Being…

A craft has a function (ergon); this is what it characteristically does or what it characteristically accomplishes. In fact, crafts are differentiated by their specific functions (erga) (Rep. 346a).

As the concept of technê develops, the role of reflective knowledge is emphasized. Whereas technê is associated with knowing how to do (epistasthai) certain activities, epistêmê sometimes indicates a theoretical component of technê. Then it is associated with understanding (gnôsis). On the one hand, the physician knows how to care for the sick (Rep. 342d), to prescribe a regimen (Rep. 407d), to provide for the advantage of the body (Rep. 341e), to make someone healthy (Charm. 174c), to make someone vomit (Laws 933b). On the other, the physician knows or recognizes (gignôskein) health by medical knowledge (epistêmê) (Charm. 170c). Since health is the goal of the medical craft, the physician understands the goal of the craft. Plato emphasizes this knowledge as a distinct aspect of the craftsman's skill. Sometimes this aspect is theoretical in the root sense of theôria — looking.

There is a second feature of technê that is vital for understanding its importance to Plato. In the Gorgias, technê is distinguished from empeiria not only by its ability to give an account but also because it seeks the welfare of its object. The physician and the physical trainer seek the welfare of the body, just as the judge and the legislator seek the welfare of the soul (464c). These features of technê figure in one of Plato's persistent themes, the knowledge needed to rule the city. One of its most important occurrences is in the Republic, where Socrates characterizes ruling as a kind of technê that looks out after the welfare of the city (Rep. 342e).

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Parmenides’ proem is called On Nature. ‘Nature’ here is our Western understanding of Physis. In The Question Concerning Technology Heidegger writes, “Physis is indeed poesis [bringing-forth] in the highest sense. For what presences by means of physis has the bursting open belonging to bringing-forth, e.g., the bursting of a blossom into bloom, in itself (en heautoi). In contrast, what is brought forth by the artisan or the artist, e.g., the silver chalice, has the bursting open belonging to bringing-forth, not in itself, but in another (en alloi), in the craftsman or artist” (QCT, 293).

But Dasein is not Being. Man (Dasein) “is to Zoon logon echon - the being that emerges from itself, emerges in such a way that in this emerging ([physis]), and for it, it has the word. In the word, the being we call man comports itself to beings as a whole, in the midst of which man himself is” (ibid. 68).

Nor is Dasein an animal or a thing. Heidegger is critical of the Roman interpretation of Zoon as ‘animal.’ Zoon means ‘living being’ and, for the early Greeks ‘living being’ “is physei on, a being whose Being is determined by physis, by emergence and self-opening” (P, 68). The Romans, thus, transform the early Greek understanding of the essence of man: “Zoon becomes animal, Logos becomes ratio. Man is animal rationale. In modern thought ratio, reason, is the essence of subjectivity, i.e., of the I-hood of man” (ibid.). As a result of this transformation, modern man has Forgotten (Lethe) his relation to Being, i.e., man lives in the “oblivion” of Being.

Dasein ‘is’Being questioning itself, and is therefore always involved in an understanding of the truth of Being (i.e. of Being in Its ‘unconcealment,’ or ‘uncovering,’ aletheia) via logos. “In the word and as word the Being of beings is given in relation to the essence of man in such a way that the Being of beings, in virtue of this relation to man, lets man’s essence emerge and lets it receive the determination we call the Greek one” (P, 68).

Heidegger emphasizes one etymological source of the term aletheia, “uncovering,” to argue

that the truth is not created by man, but is ‘revealed’ by Being. In Being and Time he states:

“To say that an assertion ‘is true’ signifies that it uncovers the entity as it is in itself. Such an assertion asserts, points out, ‘lets’ the entity ‘be seen’ ([apothansis]) in its uncoveredness. The

Being-true (truth) of the assertion must be understood as Being-uncovering” (261).

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Eudaimonia refers to “the holding sway in the appropriate measure of the ‘Eu’- the appearing and coming into presence of the daimonion” (ibid). Heidegger relates the daimonion (i.e., the ‘demonic’, the ‘uncanny’) to an “inner voice” that ultimately arises from “invisible and ungraspable Being” (ibid, see also above p. 7 the reference to the “Es ruft” in relation to the Call of Being). Further, ‘the uncanny’ in its essence is “the inconspicuous, the simple, the insignificant, which nevertheless shines in all beings” (P, 105).

The daimones, which we could say are the voice(s) themselves, are said to reside in the abyss between earth and heaven. They are the extraordinary ones “who point and give signs” (P, 104), across the chasm which separates Lethe and aletheia, toward what we perceive as “ordinary,”i.e., they are the “out of which all that is ordinary emerges” (P, 102). Heidegger claims that they are “more essential than any being [and, as such,] they determine every essential affective disposition from respect and joy to mourning and terror” (P, 106). Ultimately, Heidegger will relate the daimones to theaontes (the gods) who ‘bring things to view’ as historia (P, 111).

Mythos is the primordial naming of Being in its emerging forth via the Word or logos. “The word is in its essence the letting appear of Being by naming. […. And] mythos is the only appropriate mode of the relation to appearing Being” (P, 112). It is the “disclosive legend” (P, 114), the original gathering and naming of the gods who ‘bring to view’ “all that is.” “In mythos the daimonian appears [….and it is daimonian which] determines the basic relation of Being to man” (P, 117). Or to state this otherwise, it is through mythos that the truth of Being shines forth in the polis.

Heidegger will thus say that an ‘authentic’ relation to Being can only come about through a properly grounded praxis. Possibility relates to praxis (political and moral possibility), as actuality relates to theoria (theoretical activity, i.e., to science, or to what has a relatively fixed way of ‘being seen,’ or understood, via its definition). Man is always already in a polis - which has an already established custom (nomos), order (themis) and ethic (ethos). In fact, Heidegger believes that ethos is the ground for the political, and he repeatedly asserts that “every ‘sense of Being’ implies an ethos, and every ethos points towards a distinct sense of Being” (Smith, 183-5). However, for Heidegger, as with Aristotle, praxis in general, is habitual, occurring in the realm of ‘everydayness’…