ABSTRACT
Failure to appreciate Socrates’ mystagogic function has marred the discussion of this problem. Socrates mystagogos leads his interlocutors from their current immature epistemic state to a more mature epistemic state with respect to the virtues. He repeatedly and explicitly relies on the truth and probative value of many pre-reflective beliefs regarding the virtues and how to live well. Socrates insists on the “priority of definition” only insofar as he assumes that a secure grasp of what each virtue is comes prior to an epistemically mature grasp of virtue more generally so that an admittedly insecure grasp of what virtue is necessarily entails that our current grasp of virtue is embarrassingly immature. This view is not paradoxical, it is mystagogic.
