There is a further line of response to the Leontius objection, however, which is to acknowledge that perhaps, after all, Plato does accept the possibility of akrasia in the text, and that Leontius is an implied akratic. I do not think anything in the text can rule out that interpretation. However, I also think that, whatever Plato’s views on akrasia at the time he wrote the Republic, he shows no interest in drawing attention to its possibility, and he at least treats stable true belief at the time of action as if it were sufficient for behaving correctly. This is especially true of his characterization of courage and cowardice throughout Books 3 and 4: whether akrasia is possible in the Republic or not, it does not seem to be in the picture in Socrates’ account of courage. My claim is simply this, then: even supposing Plato had come to accept the possibility of akrasia (or, for that matter, had accepted it all along), his early educational proposals — including the tests against belief abandonment — and his account of courage in Book 4, along with his emphasis through the dialogue on the corruption of reason by appetite, either ignore or trivialize its significance.
« Prev Next »
Top of page Top of page