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One way of understanding this is that doing what is right is a reflection of what any being knows is right.<ref>[http://philpapers.org/rec/BALTMI-4 The Moral Intellectualism of Plato's Socrates The Case of the Hippias Minor]</ref> However, it can also be interpreted as the understanding that a rationally consistent worldview and theoretical way of life, as exemplified by [[Socrates]], is superior to the life devoted to a moral (but merely practical) life.{{cn|date=July 2020}}
== Ancient moral intellectualism<!--'Socratic intellectualism' redirects here--> ==
For [[Socrates]] (469–399 BC), intellectualism is the view that "one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best"; that [[virtue]] is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and [[knowledge]] are cerebral relatives, which a person accrues and improves with dedication to [[reason]].<ref name="SEP">{{cite web |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/ |title=Ancient Ethical Theory |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
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However, it is clear in Meno that virtue is not knowledge, rather True Belief.
Typically, Stoic accounts of care for the self required specific [[ascetic]] exercises meant to ensure that not only was knowledge of truth memorized, but learned, and then integrated to the self, in the course of transforming oneself into a [[Value (ethics)|good]] person. Therefore, to understand truth meant "intellectual knowledge", requiring one's integration to the (universal) truth, and [[Authenticity (philosophy)|authentically]] living it in one's speech, heart, and conduct. Achieving that difficult task required continual care of the self, but also meant being someone who embodies truth, and so can readily practice the [[Rhetoric|Classical]]-era rhetorical device of [[parrhesia]]: "to speak candidly, and to ask forgiveness for so speaking"; and, by extension, practice the [[Morality|moral]] obligation to speak the truth, even at personal risk.<ref>Gros, Frederic (ed.) (2005) ''Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subject'', Lectures at the College de France 1981–1982. Picador: New York</ref>
Contemporary philosophers dispute that Socrates's conceptions of knowing truth, and of ethical conduct, can be equated with modern, post-[[Cartesianism|Cartesian]] conceptions of knowledge and of rational intellectualism.<ref>{{cite book | author=Heda Segvic |title = A Companion to Socrates|pages = 171–185| doi=10.1002/9780470996218.ch10 |year = 2005|isbn = 978-0470996218|chapter = No One Errs Willingly: The Meaning of Socratic Intellectualism}}</ref>▼
== Contemporary views ==
▲Typically, Stoic accounts of care for the self required specific [[ascetic]] exercises meant to ensure that not only was knowledge of truth memorized, but learned, and then integrated to the self, in the course of transforming oneself into a [[Value (ethics)|good]] person. Therefore, to understand truth meant "intellectual knowledge", requiring one's integration to the (universal) truth, and [[Authenticity (philosophy)|authentically]] living it in one's speech, heart, and conduct. Achieving that difficult task required continual care of the self, but also meant being someone who embodies truth, and so can readily practice the [[Rhetoric|Classical]]-era rhetorical device of [[parrhesia]]: "to speak candidly, and to ask forgiveness for so speaking"; and, by extension, practice the [[Morality|moral]] obligation to speak the truth, even at personal risk.<ref>Gros, Frederic (ed.) (2005) ''Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subject'', Lectures at the College de France 1981–1982. Picador: New York</ref> This ancient, Socratic moral philosophic perspective contradicts the contemporary understanding of truth and knowledge as [[Reason|rational]] undertakings.
▲Contemporary philosophers dispute that Socrates's conceptions of knowing truth, and of ethical conduct, can be equated with modern, post-[[Cartesianism|Cartesian]] conceptions of knowledge and of rational intellectualism.<ref>{{cite book | author=Heda Segvic |title = A Companion to Socrates|pages = 171–185| doi=10.1002/9780470996218.ch10 |year = 2005|isbn = 978-0470996218|chapter = No One Errs Willingly: The Meaning of Socratic Intellectualism}}</ref>
== See also ==
* [[Moral rationalism]]
== References ==
{{reflist}}
== Further reading ==
* ''Virtue Is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy'', [[Lorraine Smith Pangle]], University Of Chicago Press, 2014
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