Socrates
”It is notoriously difficult to say anything historical about Socrates.”
- Socrates was interested in ethical matters.
- He went about searching for answers in the form of definitions.
- He first asks a preliminary question. Where X-ness is the matter under discussion.
- What is that by which all X-things are X?
- The search for definitions was part of Socrates’ attempt to better reach understanding. That defintions of the ehtical virtues would provide a clearer understandning of what the virtues are.
He’s operating against the Milesian background of inquiry into nature in the form of reason. that “reason” (not “experience”) is the cognition involved in knowledge.
He was interested in ethical matters and what the virtues are, but he did not attribute any particular ontological stuatus to the definitions of these virtues.
He figured defintions were something human beings know through the exercise of reason. Experience seems to be causually necessary for this knowledge but not appear as part of the justification for that knowledge.