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For Socrates (469–399 BC), intellectualism is the view that "one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best"; that virtue is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and knowledge are cerebral relatives, which a person accrues and improves with dedication to reason.
Socrates (c. 470 – 399 BC). The first historical figure who is usually called an "intellectualist" was the Greek philosopher Socrates (c. 470 – 399 BC), who taught that intellectualism allows that "one will do what is right or [what is] best, just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best"; that virtue is a matter of the intellect, because virtue and knowledge are related ...
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and questioning one's beliefs, actions, and purpose in life. [2] The words were supposedly spoken by Socrates at his trial after he chose death, rather than exile. They represent (in modern terms) the noble choice, that is, the choice of death in the face of an alternative.
Socrates's theory of virtue states that all virtues are essentially one, since they are a form of knowledge. [151] For Socrates, the reason a person is not good is because they lack knowledge. Since knowledge is united, virtues are united as well. Another famous dictum—"no one errs willingly"—also derives from this theory. [152]
Commentators who focus on this latter point interpret Socrates' argument to mean that self-knowledge is accomplished through knowledge of God; [f] while others, concentrating on the image of eye looking into eye, infer that self-knowledge is accomplished only through knowledge of other human souls.
The philosophy of self examines the idea of the self at a conceptual level. Many different ideas on what constitutes self have been proposed, including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of the self, the self as a narrative center of gravity, and the self as a linguistic or social construct rather than a physical entity.
The first application of the phrase to self-knowledge in the modern sense occurs in Plato's Phaedrus, in which Socrates says that he has no leisure to investigate the truth behind common mythological beliefs while he has not yet discovered the truth about his own nature.
Here, Socrates aims at the change of Meno's opinion, who was a firm believer in his own opinion and whose claim to knowledge Socrates had disproved. It is essentially the question that begins "post-Socratic" Western philosophy. Socrates begins all wisdom with wondering, thus one must begin with admitting one's ignorance.