This paper reconstructs Justin Martyr’s justification for giving evaluative priority to practical rather than theoretical activity when determining whether a human life qualifies as godlike. I argue Justin does so because he believes reason—expressed in both practical and theoretical contexts—is the location of value in human life, but that necessary limits on theoretical success mean we should look primarily to someone’s practical activities when determining the overall value of that person’s life. To show this, I first reconstruct key elements of (...) Justin’s action theory, demonstrating the centrality of reason to his understanding of practical action. Then, I show that Justin believes reason’s expression in practical contexts is valuable in two ways, first, human reason stands in a value-conferring relationship to the divine, and second, practical action is directly imitative of God's creative activity. I then argue that Justin believes God’s essence is unknowable, which provides several possible reasons to grant evaluative priority to practical rather than theoretical activity. Throughout, my analysis of Justin aims to show the intrinsic interest of Justin’s philosophical reflections while also offering a new perspective on how to interpret accounts of godlikeness in contemporaneous philosophical sources. (shrink)

This article investigates how Plato thinks we secure necessary motivational conditions for inquiry. After presenting a typology of zetetic breakdowns in the dialogues, I identify norms of inquiry Plato believes all successful inquirers must satisfy. Satisfying these norms requires trust that philosophy will not harm but benefit inquirers overall. This trust cannot be secured by protreptic argument. Instead, it requires divine intervention—an extra-rational foundation for rational inquiry.