It’s well known that Socrates views virtue as a matter of knowledge, which can be paraphrased into an assertion like: He who knows what is good will do good. Or, like: No one really knowingly does wrong. However, this standpoint Socrates holds dear is seemingly so opinionated that it has provoked a great deal of controversy, despite the definition of knowledge on his stance excessively restricted.
Socrates, the reputed wiser, ever put, “one thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing “. It’s what, he believes, makes him alone the wisest at his era. But the problem is, if he does get no knowledge else, then how come he could differentiate what is virtue or not? That’s impossible, not in a million years! Hence he obviously knows at least a few things himself, which provides him with the ability to judge, subjectively or objectively. It follows, it’s these few things that make Socrates come to his famous but kind of exaggerated conclusion.
What do I mean by “these few things”? My perspective is, we can generally call them the Unspeakable Knowledge (because we depend on it as something known to judge). Or rather, the innate perceptions of human beings, which we acquire by nature but not nurture. Because of innateness, we can intuitively take them for granted. Scientifically speaking, they may be some inherent functions of human bodies. Mysteriously speaking, they may be the exceptional power endowed by the God. Anyway, they exist, undisputedly and objectively (regardless of the vagueness of their categories). And that’s where human’s other knowledge originates from. Whereas, for whatever, they are unspeakable themselves.
Take justice for instance. As far as I am concerned, I never encountered someone who truly and thoroughly denies the existence of justice. Justice, in any form of definition or restriction, might be unrecognized, contended or even repudiated. But for justice itself, it’s out of question for we’re under all circumstances on the way to seek and explore its essentiality. The same goes for cases of virtues, like equality, freedom or something that are widely accepted by human beings. You name it. So in this sense, virtues is really a matter of Unspeakable Knowledge, which is responsible for reference to what is virtue.
Let’s take a close look back at Socrates before going further. We all admit, Socrates has remarked the threshold of a brand new era of philosophy, which significantly distinguished him from his predecessors, known as natural philosophers. That could partly be ascribed to his efforts to redefine what is knowledge, and subsequently to the whole thing of philosophy. He insisted, such knowledge as how the physical world runs does nothing with our everyday behaviors. Thus he extrapolated that real knowledge is that we depend on to conduct our lives and ourselves for good. And that’s almost what knowledge is all about, not least in “Virtue is a matter of knowledge” sentence. On the top of that, it’s Socrates that said he had a “divine voice” inside himself to pursue the very truth. From where we stand, however, this “divine voice” is nothing but what we’ve named Unspeakable Knowledge right above!
So in Socrates’s language, if knowledge is the code of conduct of human beings; and if virtue is pertaining to the widely accepted codes, then by logic virtue is conversely a matter of knowledge. That’s because knowledge here is unspeakable but widely accepted as virtue too. Then the relationship between virtue and knowledge, put forward by Socrates, would turn out theoretically and tautologically true. Because it’s merely a logic thing in its form and never going to be proven wrong, not in a million years either!
But, what effect is it if Socrates is just playing all logic? And how could he make sure his understanding of virtue and knowledge is most reasonable and optimized? If not, his philosophy system would namely be based on an unreliable and misleading foundation, potential for collapsing if we find a better one. That’s more than awful. On the contrary, however, if what we’ve analyzed in this paper does not deviate from Socrates’s, or is approximately compatible with his, then we could conclude relatively, Socrates is getting all things right in his philosophical terminology. Tautological in logic though it really is, it’s fully Socratic. Socratic method or spirit, as we all know, is an endless and relentless process of persistent questioning, or a brutally honest to be true of self. They are two sides of one coin. To say be true of self is to say listen to the “divine voice” inside yourself, or follow the innate perceptions of human beings. Since we start the journey to truth with Unspeakable Knowledge, the single way we probably would overcome the uncontrollable reality and discover the very truth would only situate in unslakable lust of questioning. In other words, Socrates’s philosophy is based on a solid foundation, though of inevitable uncertainty in the very beginning featured as Unspeakable Knowledge. And frankly speaking, this situation has been lasting to our days, for the presupposed theory of everything, such as M-theory, remains in suspense. And maybe that’s why Socrates deserves the reputation of one of the most important philosophers in human history.
Still, we’re not all sided with Socrates in some fundamental questions. Above all, we totally disagree that the Unspeakable Knowledge constitutes the whole knowledge we gain, especially at the thought of its uncertainty and unspeakableness. And the reason is quite simple: if our goal is to give lights to Unspeakable Knowledge or reveal the very truth, then persistently questioning would be apparently no help and make few strides. Imagine what would be happening if there didn’t exist even a consensus of anything. Everything must be chaotic, and nothing meaningful then. What’s worse, the truth would be more overshadowed, and that’s absolutely unwanted of course. Now that we’re born with Unspeakable Knowledge and have the ability to judge and to learn, we must cherish it by enshrining it into speakable knowledge, and that’s what it exists for. Moreover, before everyone becomes true of himself as strictly as Socrates for example, Unspeakable Knowledge would be anything but widely accepted, and therefore we would find nothing in the end. In fact, the genius of knowledge-discovering method, as we exploit all the way to advance human knowledge, actually is to set aside the Unspeakable Knowledge, and focus instead on the speakable knowledge.
Then, we have to acknowledge that, Socrates’s virtue is rather flawed and far from practical, even though we couldn’t have agreed with it more. Suppose virtue is a matter of Unspeakable Knowledge, on one hand, then virtue would not be more speakable. That’s to say, if virtue appears unspeakable, then it was bound to be valueless and meaningless as knowledge is by practice. Let alone the rationality and validity of the pursuit to it. On the other hand, let Socrates hold the overall command of Unspeakable Knowledge, then how could we guarantee that people would listen to him but not sentence him to death as it really was? How could we guarantee that people would make same decisions when they know what is good, given the fact that, faced with almost same situation, Socrates dare to die while Aristotle chose to survive? For instance, if only few people knew what is real justice, then how could we ensure they did know what is real justice without vast acceptance, since justice is entirely societal (same for any case of virtue)? That’s untestable and non-experimental before all men be completely true of themselves, which is untestable and non-experimental as well. Or, that’s impossible for anybody to know one particular virtue exactly beforehand, before all men had otherwise arrived at an proper reconciliation of it, which seems almost impossible additionally. What’s more complicated is, if knowledge is not simply unspeakable as referred but speakable, then how could we consider virtue the equivalent or representation of knowledge? How to fix the theoretical dilemma that even non-virtual stuffs would be unspeakable (space, time e.g.)? What’s the relationship then?
Last but not least, now virtue and knowledge as conceptions has been used differently from Socrates’s for thousands of years, there must be somewhat reasonableness in this phenomenon. Socrates philosophically simplified them to their essence, which is admirable, but there is no good for us to philosophize and build up a precise and efficient philosophical system. If Socrates got good reasons to object to Pre-Socrates philosophers for practical purposes, then so do we get good reasons to oppose Socrates for more practical purposes too.
To sum up, by putting Socrates’s dictum into this paper’s expression, we’re allowed to exclaim, virtue in the ideal sense is a matter of Unspeakable knowledge per se. But as for the general relationship between virtue and knowledge, that’s something we can’t settle down decisively for the time being. Because we don’t think it makes sense to handle knowledge and virtue the way Socrates showed us, if anything wants to be uncovered. Things would be sophisticated more than what we thought.
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