RT Article
T1 Ignorance in Plato’s Protagoras: An Inquiry into Humanity’s Dark Side
JF Phronesis
VO 67
IS 3
SP 309
OP 337
A1 Liu, Wenjin
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2022
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1814219331
AB Ignorance is commonly assumed to be a lack of knowledge in Plato’s Socratic dialogues. I challenge that assumption. In the Protagoras, ignorance is conceived to be a substantive, structural psychic flaw—the soul’s domination by inferior elements that are by nature fit to be ruled. Ignorant people are characterized by both false beliefs about evaluative matters in specific situations and an enduring deception about their own psychic conditions. On my interpretation, akrasia, moral vices, and epistemic vices are products or forms of ignorance, and a person who lacks knowledge is not necessarily ignorant.
K1 Protagoras
K1 Socrates
K1 Vice
K1 Akrasia
K1 Knowledge
K1 Ignorance
DO 10.1163/15685284-bja10058