Philosophy: Knowledge Is Virtue
Socrates is widely acknowledged as the world's first philosopher, since he was the first to direct the attention of men from merely focusing on the study of nature to the study of human nature. Indeed, Socrates was the pioneer in moral philosophy for though the Sophists spoke of justice, law and temperance, they were still unable to define such values (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Heartlight Web site).
It was Socrates' search for understanding and defining human nature and the morals guiding it that led him to the dictum that "knowledge is virtue," for Socrates believed that it was the lack of knowledge that led to confusion about what is good. It is apparent that Socrates arrived at this conclusion from his own relentless search for the truth, to which he seems to have devoted his life. It is said that Socrates, in order to obtain the truth, discarded all sophistry and pretences and even spent time among the workplaces of artisans and merchants in an attempt to get people to think about universal principals through a process of question and answer. Thus, it is obvious that it was all his empirical observations, which led him to conclude that it was only a man's knowledge of 'true good' that could lead him to be virtuous (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Heartlight Web site).
Indeed, both Socrates' understanding of human nature and methods of study are prominently in evidence in Plato's Meno, where Socrates and Meno discuss the definition of virtue and the ways by which virtue can be taught or acquired. Though Socrates himself had probably already reached the conclusion that "knowledge is virtue," he adopts his usual method of investigative study comprised of the dialectical process of the development of thought through contradiction, to get Meno to arrive at the same conclusion (University of West Indies Web site).
Socrates sets...
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