Plato/Socrates 9/5

7/29/2019 Plato/Socrates 9/5

1/19

Socrates & Plato


2/19

Socrates(469-399 BCE)

Main character in Plato's dialogues (wrote nothing himself)

Ideal personality for the Ancient philosopher:

- Wandered around Athens discoursing with anyone

- Challenged the most basic beliefs of the whole community

Took upon the role of the gadfly in the Athenian marketplace...

Traditional rationalistic approach to philosophy

Was considered the wisest by the Oracle of Delphi for knowing that heknew nothing

The Unexamined Life is not Worth Living

He was sentenced to death on the grounds of corrupting

the youth of Athens and showing impiety to the gods.


3/19

Socratic Method and Debate:

Both a literary style and actual form of argumentation

Generally a dialectic between two thinkers at a time

One usually leads the other into a contradiction through an analysis through

searching for consistency among assumed definitions There is a tendany for Socrates in Plato's dialogues to disrupt the confidence

of an expert in their field by deriving paradoxes in their beliefs, or showingthe impossibility of an adequet definition for their practice

negative method of hypothesis elimination the best hypothesis are

discovered through discovering contradictions amongst prior hypothesis,thus eliminating competing theories (often about essential features of things)

A way to discoveryour (and someone else's) actualopinions and biases


4/19

Plato(469-399 BCE)

Student to Socrates and teacher to Aristotle

Founded the Academy in Athens in 385 BCE

Unique among philosophers for his incredibly systematicinterrelationship between his epistemology, ontology, andethics (there is a vague hierarchy to these areas as well):

Epistemology + Ontology Ethics


5/19

Five Popular Dialogues:

The Republic

Symposium

Apology

Phaedo

Meno (our reading)


6/19

Theory of the Forms

The world is composed of imperfect copies of idealobjects which exist independently of any exampleprovided within the sensory world.

Forms are eternal, universal, necessary essencesthat make possible finite and contigent objects.

The highest form to be pursued is the form of theGood it serves to unify the other forms byfinding itself in them, and leads us to the good life.


7/19

The Allegory of the Cave(THE REPUBLIC, BK VII)


8/19

The Divided Line

MENO


9/19

TheMENO- Possibly the most important dialogue when it comes to Platonic epistemology in regardspecifically to education and whether we can knowingly pursue or be taught virtue.

- Entertains several important notions/problems/questions:

1) Can virtue be taught?

2) Is knowledge discovered or remembered?

3) What is the relationship and/or difference between true opinion and knowledge?

CHARACTERS:

Socrates

Meno

Slave Boy

Anytus

Gorgias (only mentioned)


10/19

Gorgias(485-380 BCE)

Most popular sophist along with Protagoras

The Nihilist

- nothing exists

Even if something exists, nothing can be knownabout it; and

Even if something can be known about it,knowledge about it can't be communicated toothers.

Even if it can be communicated, it cannot beunderstood.

ironicresponse to Parmenides


11/19

AreteVirtue or Excellence

As we saw with Protagoras,Arete can be interpreted bysophists as an excellence in rhetoric and debate

(making the weaker argument appear to be stronger).However, this does not follow from a definition ofvirtue, which is precisely what Socrates/Plato seeks.

The challenge posed within the Meno is to discover thewhole of virtue, rather than particular virtues (such asjustice, temperence, benevelonce, etc.)


12/19

Meno's Paradox

A man cannot search for either what he knows or for what hedoes not know. He cannot search for what he knows for heknows it, there is no need to search nor for what he doesnot know, for he does not know what to look for.

Basic Premise:

Either you know what youre looking for or you dont know what yourelooking for.

If knowledge is a state of knowing, and ignorance a state of not knowing, thenan ignorant person cannot even begin to learn (know) something that they donot know because they do not know what it is that they are to supposed tolearn (know) due to their ignorance of that very thing that they are to know.


13/19

Aporia

Revelation through ignorance a state ofpuzzlement brought about from running into

contradictions with one's beliefs.

Socrates explains that this is an important and

productive reaction to being aware of one'snatural state of ignorance in this present life.


14/19

Plato's Theory of Recollection

The Soul is immortal accordingly there isnothing throughout eternity that it could not haveaquired knowledge for

Anamnesisthe recollection of knowledge withinthe world (via some kind of indirect access theforms), which is eternal knowledge but onlyreveal in short periods of time within our finitelives on earth.


15/19

The Slave Boy's Recollective Process

With Socrates' guiding questions, the slave boydoes not actually learn anything, since all he doesis respond to Socrates' questions and is neverdirectly given any content required for his apparent

knowledge of geometry.

The slave is shown to


16/19

Knowledge vs. True Opinion

Since knowledge is obviously not attainablethrough the either the senses orcapable of

being learned (only recollected) within Plato'sepistemology, true opinion is suggested as apossible alternative.


17/19

Divine Dispensation

If virtue cannot be taught, it appears that the only real alternative toexplain it away as a quality that we can intuitively recognize inothers (politicians, Mythological heroes, diviners, etc.) is toconceide that it is somehow passed down from the gods ontoman. This is certainly consistent with Plato's idea of the forms

since the forms are located in a third realm which is compatablewith presence of the dieties of the Greek pantheon.

The obvious moraldilemma here (and a possibly aesthetic one ifwe consider the virtue of the artist) is that virtue, which canamount to something roughly the same as knowledge for thehumans present on earth, become more or less deterministic.That is to say, we are endowed with virtue by entities outside ofour control. One cannot, therefore, exercize their (supposed)free will in order to attain virtue... this is obviously a problem ifwe consider as a part of virtue that of the practice of the will.

Flow Chart of Ideas in the Meno:


18/19

Flow Chart of Ideas in the Meno:


19/19

Looking back...

The safest general characterization of the Europeanphilosophical tradition is that it consists of a seriesof footnotes to Plato.

- Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality

Why is Plato just as interesting to most scholars today as hiswritings have been constantly throughout history? What isthe secret to this lasting appeal?

Plato/Socrates 9/5

Documents