Prior and Smith on Socratic Metaphysics

William J. Prior (Santa Clara University)

In a paper presented in Tucson in 2012 and now forthcoming inApeiron, Nick Smith agreed with the claim, made by R. E. Allen in 1970 and by me in 2004 that the Socrates of Plato's early dialogues had a metaphysics, an early version of the Theory of Forms. Allen and I had argued that the early version differed from the later version in that the later theory claimed that the Forms were "separate" from the things they characterized. Nick added two more differences: that the early Forms enter into part-whole relations, and that, whereas the later Forms are objects of knowledge, the early Forms, at least the virtue Forms,are knowledge. I believe that Nick overstates the difference between the early and later Theory of Forms, and in this paper I address his second claim. I attempt to show how it can be true both that the Forms are objects of knowledge and that virtue is knowledge.