Abstract
This paper argues against two commonly held views on the nature of courage and its relationship with virtue in Plato’s Laches. These views are the following: First, Laches’ and Nicias’ accounts of courage should be read as complementary, in the sense that each presents one of the two components of courage. Second, Socrates rejects the unity of virtue he defends in the Protagoras, endorsing instead the view that courage is only a part of virtue. In this paper, I aim to show that the reader of the Laches is invited to endorse Nicias’ unitary understanding of courage as knowledge of good and evil and, as a consequence of this, to grant the unity of virtue.
Award Identifier / Grant number: 2019-050-0503-18645
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Research funding: This research has been co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning” in the context of the project “Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers - 2nd Cycle” (MIS-5033021), implemented by the State Scholarships Foundation (ΙΚΥ).
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