Wilson Coimbra LEMKE; Bento Silva SANTOS

Original title: O Protágoras, de Platão (c. 427-347 a. C.), em diálogo com os Escritos Éticos, de Santo Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274)

Published in The World of Tradition

Keywords: Dialectic, Philosophy, Plato, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Virtue Ethics.

In his dialogue on the Sophists, entitled Protagoras, Plato deals with the nature of virtue, basically discussing whether it is something teachable. Some scholars, however, have designated this dialogue as aporetic, that is, inconclusive. We must, therefore, try to answer those questions that Socrates and Protagoras may have left unsolved on that occasion. Now, most of these questions were taken up in some works by Plato’s most famous disciple and, later, resolved in the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, such as the “Treatises on the virtues” (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance), contained in the Second Part of the Summa Theologica, the Disputed Questions on the Virtues, and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Hence, we must consider them here in the light of the great Aristotelian-Thomist synthesis. To do so, we use the scholastic method of disputatio, in which a quaestio is debated, structured in four articles, addressed by the Athenian philosopher to the great medieval Doctor. The article first discusses whether virtue is a science. The second, whether virtue can be taught. The third, whether virtue is one or multiple. And the fourth, if someone voluntarily acts badly.