In Laches, Socrates, along with Laches and Nicias, discusses the issue of courage. In this dialogue, Socrates leads both Laches and Nicias to their definitions of courage yet eventually denies all of them. Specially, Laches’ first definition of courage is this: “if a man is willing to remain at his post and to defend himself against the enemy without running away, then you may rest assured that he is a man of courage” (Plato 675). His second definition, after Socrates’ examination of the first one, is that “it is a sort of endurance of the soul” (677). As for Nicias, he arrives at a definition of courage that is associated with wisdom or knowledge: courage is “the knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful in war and in every other situation” (680).

Socrates rejects Laches’ first definition because holding the ground is not the only way to fight the enemy; instead, Socrates gives the example of the Spartan hoplites that fight by first running away. As for Laches’ second definition, Socrates rejects it with examples of foolish and even evil endurance. In terms of Nicias’ definition, Socrates agrees that courage must have some elements of knowledge because animals and children are not called courageous. Nevertheless, Socrates argues that on the one hand, courage is the knowledge of future fearful and hopeful things, and on the other hand, “the same knowledge is of the same things—future ones and all other kinds” (684). Therefore, “courage is not knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful only, because it understands not simply future goods and evils, but those of the present and the past and all times” (684).

First of all, in terms of Socrates’ reasons to reject Laches’ two definitions, one might argue that Socrates is essentially looking for the Form of courage in his inquiry. As a result, Socrates is in a sense “playing” with Laches because he knows that any definition Laches gives, which is tainted by particularity, is doomed to fail to account for every situation of courage.

Secondly, although the logic of Socrates’ argument against Nicias’ definition seems sound, one might question one of the premises that “fear is produced not by evils which have happened or are happening but by those which are anticipated” (683). Sometimes we say that someone is courageous when he or she is able to walk out of the shadow of his or her past tragedies because there are many who simply lose hope and thereby give up living after something tragic has happened. Therefore, fear might not be exclusively produced by evils that are anticipated; accordingly, courage might not be exclusively the knowledge of the future either.

Finally, the fact that the whole dialogue reaches no conclusion in terms of what courage is raises questions. To begin with, perhaps the only conclusion that can be drawn is that knowledge of courage, or of virtue in general, is different from knowledge of other things such as a knife. Although one is able to tell a courageous person from a coward, he nevertheless does not know enough to speak about courage. Moreover, perhaps the whole dialogue, after all, can simply be interpreted as a practical example of Socrates’ claim that the only thing one is able to know is that he knows nothing.

Works Cited

Plato. Complete Works, ed. John Cooper. Hackett Publishing Company. 1997.