I've taken another peak at John M. Cooper's introduction to the complete works of Plato published by Hackett.... and while I've not finished reading that introduction, it is striking for its omission of a very striking feature of both Plato's and Aristotle's writings....
namely, their moral realism--what Penner I think is now calling (in Socrates' case))
"hyper" realism...(correction: that should have been "ultra")
For them it's unproblematic to speak of a good man or a bad man.
--Something I think we do not do unproblematically. ("We" moderns--or perhaps,
with awareness of some claims of the linguist Wierzbicka, We who speak English...)
Striking that Cooper does not notice or comment upon this fact--something that, I think,
a modern reader, might need some help understanding....
Plato's and Aristotle's way of speaking/thinking can seem to us to be naive, or simply mistaken.
(But is it mistaken? Should we say they belong to a different time, and leave it at that?
Or, should we say: Let the reader find her/his own reaction.(?) Or, can we use this striking difference as an opportunity to raise for a reader the philosophical issue . . . . and an opportunity to point out a different point of view from the one which will seem natural to many moderns?
Perhaps in the future I can try to find some examples of this moral realism ....
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