Conclusion: The Socratic Paradigm

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:

The Conclusion of the book summarizes the various ways in which the Socratic persona in Plato's dialogues functions as a paradigm, a figuration of the perfect person, a model for emulation, and an avatar of the divine generosity that extends its providential nature into the world of space and time. In a similar way, Socrates operates as a kind of demiurge within the dialogues, assimilating his interlocutors to the good, which is to say, approaching them in their more divine aspects as intellectual beings capable of achieving virtue via the avenue of self-knowledge. I also address one of the most prominent of what I take to be myths about Plato's Socrates, namely, that he espoused the philosophy of egoism. It is here more than anywhere else that the inner Socrates who is essentially contemplative, and the outer Socrates who is a moral philosopher and possibly an empirical psychologist, sharply diverge. I compare Socrates with the twelfth-century Indian Buddhist philosopher, Shantideva, in terms of the purport of the precept that everyone wishes to be happy and free from suffering. This comparison, I argue, allows us to see that the fundamental Socratic insight, that everyone wants the good, is compatible with a radically altruistic perspective that rejects egoism. (Ahbel-Rappe, preface, xxii)

Citation

Ahbel-Rappe, Sara. "Conclusion: The Socratic Paradigm." In Socratic Ignorance and Platonic Knowledge in the Dialogues of Plato, 171–87. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018.