ABSTRACT
Socrates and Plato, between them, are certainly responsible for a momentous transition in moral thinking. This chapter looks at Socrates and Plato on evil (or) rather, Socrates and Plato on to kakon. Socrates and Plato are revolutionary thinkers about evil/badness/to kakon — just as they are about goodness. Socrates and Plato take an important step away from the Greek tragic and towards the Christian conception, insofar as they simply refuse to talk or think in the tragedians' kind of way and are inclined to mock those who do. Likewise Socrates and Plato refuse to talk about ghosts and spooks in what was the most familiar way in their society, thanks to Homer and others, and is also in ours, thanks to our tradition of ghost and horror stories. It is not that Socrates and Plato do not believe in disembodied spirits (if that is what ghosts are supposed to be).
