Wisdom for the Living: Sophia in Plato's Republic

abstract: In proposing an account of wisdom ( sophia ), Plato was intervening in a longstanding debate about the nature of the highest intellectual virtue for a human being. Despite its historical and philosophical significance, wisdom has received limited scholarly attention. This paper offers an account of wisdom in Plato's Republic . I reject the interpretation that wisdom is identical to knowledge of Forms. Rather, wisdom of the city (or soul) is the ability to make good judgments, by the standard of the Forms, about how the whole city (soul) would best fare. This account has implications for Plato's disagreement with Protagoras, the Two Worlds Debate about epistēmē , and the limitations of human wisdom.