Socrates, Aristotle, and the Stoics on the apparent and real good

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to sketch an account of how the distinction “apparent-real good” is meant to be understood in a line of thought that begins with Socrates, is critically developed by Aristotle—in his criticism of the Socratic account of human motivation—and is resumed by the older Stoics. My most general claim is that, in spite of the fact that the Socratic insight into the way human action should be grasped is always puzzling in its details, and that Aristotle disagreed with it at some important points, none of them was able to get rid of some Socratic features in accounting for the complex mechanism that takes place between desire and cognition when what is intended is to explain human action. I will begin by describing some well known Socratic theses, placing emphasis on some issues I consider that were particularly relevant both for Aristotle and the Stoics. Regarding Aristotle, I will explore the way in which he appears to have incorporated some Socratic topics into his own moral discussion and how he refined them within his account of action. Finally, with respect to the Stoics I will suggest that they took for granted some relevant details of the Socratic approach to moral matters, even though they seem to have taken into consideration Aristotle’s criticism of the so-called Socratic intellectualism, but without dismissing their intellectualist approach to moral matters.