In Plato's "Laches" conversation, Socrates challenges Laches' original description of a "man of

courage," which is "someone who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights his
enemy." Socrates engages in a philosophical discourse within the "Laches" dialogue to
scrutinize the essence of courage and to determine the validity of the provided definition.
Socrates' principal concern with this definition revolves around its oversimplified and vague
nature. Socrates argues that courage should not be equated solely with the ability to endure and
persist in combat, emphasizing that there is more to bravery than mere endurance in battle.
Socrates asserts that a fundamental element of courage hinges on the ability to differentiate
between what should instill fear and what should not. In other words, Socrates suggests that a
courageous individual must possess wisdom and keen discernment. He offers some
counterexamples to support his claims: What happens if someone fights on ignorance, without
realizing the risks they are taking?

What happens if someone carelessly approaches the adversary without thinking about
their own safety? Do they still have heroism? Socrates asserts that true courage
involves facing peril with sanity and restraint. A brave individual should be able to make
well- informed decisions about whether to back down and when to keep their ground. It
suggests that bravery is essentially, tied to intelligence and the ability to make
judicious choices when confronted with fear. According to Socrates, bravery is a
quality that exists when knowledge and deeds meet. Confronting challenges requires
not just determination but also the skill to assess them with reason. Socrates challenges
the simplified variety that bravery solely involves enduring combat hardships by
highlighting the importance of intelligence and reason in facing misfortune. In
probing deeper into the relationship between virtue, wisdom, and knowledge, Socrates
delights the discussion on bravery from a superficial understanding to a profound
investigation His approach to inquiry and critical thinking promotes a deeper, more
complicated meaning of bravery that reaches over the obvious and explores the difficulties
of morality and human nature.