Fronésis v Platónovom dialógu „Menón“

• Authors: Jaroslav Cepko

Title variants

EN

Phronesis in Plato’s Dialogue “Menon”

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

In the passage of Plato’s Menon 88a–89a, phronesis appears in a web of relations with the other key concepts of the dialogue. It is identified with virtue itself, or a part of it; it causes a person to make the right decisions; its presence renders things useful. It is precisely this context of usefulness and good that can indicate that Plato, like Aristotle, understood phronesis as practical wisdom, while the term episteme was reserved for the theoretical aspect of knowledge. Phronesis is, then, the human form of wisdom which enables one to lead one’s life in the right way. Such wisdom cannot be transmitted in a ready form, as opinions and knowledge are passed from teacher to pupil. In this sense, practical reason has a relation to exercise, or to that part of the triad included in Menon’s introductory question about the cultivation of virtue which, at first sight, is not focused upon in the course of the dialogue.

Keywords

EN

phronesis; Plato’s dialogue “Menon”; the theoretical and the practical; askesis

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 691-705
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Jaroslav Cepko

• Filosofický časopis, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic