Transcript Philosophy 224

PHILOSOPHY 224
PLATO’S VISION OF THE HUMAN
PLATO (428-347 BCE)
• Plato was from an old aristocratic
family in Athens. Many of the
important people of his time
appear as characters in his
dialogues.
• As a young man, Plato was
greatly interested in philosophy
and politics. He was a friend and
companion of Socrates. After the
death of Socrates, he fled
Athens.
• Upon returning to Athens around
385 BCE, he founded his school,
the Academy, which many
people call the first university. It
lasted until 529 ACE. He taught at
the academy, with a few
interruptions, until his death.
PLATO’S WORK
• Plato’s philosophical project is available to us
primarily through a series of dialogues.
• The dialogues pose us a particular problem of
interpretation.
• They are very tightly constructed dramatic
presentations of various philosophical issues.
• Though the philosophical content is at the heart
of these dialogues, it is not a simple matter to
separate the dramatic elements from the
philosophical.
• Actually, we might not even want to, as Plato
himself seems to suggest that the dramatic form is
important to the content.
SOCRATES (470-399 BC)
• Like many other characters
in Plato’s dialogues,
Socrates was a real person.
We know some things about
him, because he was a
relatively prominent
Athenian. He came from a
middle class background.
He was usually described as
a robust, though
unattractive man. He was
born at the time of the peak
of Athenian power and was
an adult at the time of the
Peloponnesian war, in which
he served with distinction.
SOCRATES’S PHILOSOPHY
• We know much less about his thinking because he
left no writings and it is therefore difficult to discern
his actual philosophical positions.
• There are a few characteristics of what Socrates
was all about upon which there is general
agreement.
• Socrates was primarily concerned with ethical matters.
• Socrates searched for universal definitions— “What is X?”
• Socrates’ method was the elenchus. A thesis is extracted from
an interlocutor, further beliefs are elicited, these beliefs are
shown to be inconsistent with the original thesis.
• Socrates’ used irony (the use of a word to express something
other than the literal meaning )as a rhetorical strategy. Irony
provided the opportunities for: humor, mockery and posing
riddles (and perhaps suggesting conclusions).
THE REPUBLIC
• The Republic is generally regarded as Plato’s
masterwork.
• It’s a dialogue devoted to the question: What is
Dikaiosune?
• Dikaiosune is a complicated Greek word. It is usually translated
as ‘justice,’ but probably means something closer to ‘the
proper way to live one’s life.’ The translation in the book
translates it as ‘morality.’
• In the dialogue, Socrates’s two interlocutors (Glaucon
and Adiemantus) have asked Socrates to accomplish
two things:
• Provide an account of human nature which makes clear why
Dikaiosune suits us;
• Explain how we can create a person of Dikaiosune (education)
and demonstrate that their life is the best life.
FROM THE MACROCOSM TO THE
MICROCOSM
• In response to the question about education, Plato suggests
an interesting argument from analogy. Since justice is a
feature of cities as well as individuals, let’s try to isolate justice
in the larger context. If we can do that, then we can apply it
to the smaller context (the human soul).
• In his analysis of the city, he identifies 3 different sorts of
citizens, to which belong different, characteristic virtues.
Types
Virtues
Ruler Guardian
Wisdom
Auxiliary Guardian
(police/military)
Courage
Tradesperson
Moderation (selfdiscipline)
SO WHERE’S JUSTICE?
• Using the virtue of moderation as the clue (in a city,
moderation is expressed in a shared commitment to
the common order, Plato identifies dikaiosune in the
city as the well-orderedness of the city: each sort of
person doing what they are best suited for (41).
• S then lists the evidence we have for this claim:
1. this sort of constancy seems to be the condition for the
presence of the other virtues;
2. common understanding of justice as ensuring to each
what is their own is consistent with this idea (42);
3. injustice in a city seems to arise when people stray from
their suited place (43).
WHAT ABOUT THE SOUL?
• Now that we’ve seen justice in the city, we need to finish
the argument and apply our insight to the human soul.
• We have to determine if the soul has the same structure
as the city and if justice in the soul is to be understood
like justice in the city—the well-orderedness of the soul—
If it (Justice) is the same property (form) in each (44)?
• In connection to the first question, S provides an
argument for the partition of the soul, based on the idea
that one and the same thing cannot take contradictory
positions on the same object, but like a top, which can
be considered to be both moving and standing still
depending on what element you concentrate on, we
can understand the possibility of one composite thing
taking opposing positions with regard to the same object
THE SOUL IS A TOP?
• In fact, when we reflect on our minds, we see ourselves
taking up such opposing positions.
• Plato’s example of thirst leads us to conclude that the
soul has at least two parts: rational and the appetitive
(desiring soul).
• But what about the spirited part of the soul (the seat of
the emotions)?
• Initially we must suppose that it could be an aspect of one of
the other two, but a closer look shows us that this is not the
case: 1)not part of the appetites, because we often get angry
with ourselves for giving in to them, and our anger can
sometimes help us control them (440a—Leontius); 2)small
children show anger well before they show rational capacities
so can’t be part of the rational soul either (441b).
CONCLUSION
• Therefore, the structure of the city is mirrored in the
soul.
• Plato goes on to insist that all of the virtues of the
city are mirrored in the soul as well.
• Finally, he concludes that a person is just in the
same way that a city is just (48).
• Then, starting at 443c-d (51), Plato offers us a
description of the just soul.
WHAT ABOUT INJUSTICE?
• In large part, the discussion of justice is over, but there
are a few loose ends to tie up. In particular, we need to
consider what our account has to say about injustice.
• As with a city, an unjust soul is one that is out of balance
(444b).
• This in turn permits the drawing of an analogy between
justice and health—just as justice=balance soul,
health=balanced body.
• This allows us to conclude in turn that virtue is a kind of health
(444c).
• This allows us to conclude that the life of a person of
Dikaiosune is the best life (445b).
WE STILL NEED TO TALK ABOUT HUMAN
NATURE
• The account is, if anything, more complex than the
account we get of justice.
• The text doesn’t give us a great deal to work with, but it
is one of the most famous sections of the Republic. It’s
called the Allegory of the Cave.
• The Allegory is part of Plato’s response to metaphysical
and epistemological issue concerning universals like
dikaiosune: namely, what sort of things are they and
what sort of knowledge is it that we have of them?
• Plato offers three different analogies or allegories to help
us understand his answers to these questions. The
Allegory of the Cave is the final (and unifying) of these.
PLATONIC METAPHYSICS
• Because of the limitations of the material covered in the
text, it’s difficult to discern Plato’s account of the nature
of reality there.
• Actually, it’s a challenge in its own right, and there are
important disagreements that continue to this day about
this issue.
• We can say a few things that are generally accepted.
• Plato was a dualist. Reality is composed of two different
metaphysical orders.
• The most fundamental order is formal, not physical. The forms
are universal aspects of reality.
• Particular things get their being from the forms. The world of
experience is a metaphysically dependent world.
THE ANALOGY OF THE LINE
THE CAVE
THE PRISONERS
• All that a person like those described as being
chained in front of the wall could see of themselves,
other people, and the puppets would be shadows
on the wall.
• All that they could have any sensory experience of
would be mediated by the wall (hearing=echo).
• The implication is clear: we are like prisoners in the
cave (for the most part, humans live on the bottom
part of the line), but there is a way out.
THE ESCAPEE
• What if a prisoner were released? What would her experience
be like?
• She would be disoriented, her senses painfully struggling to deal with
the increase in illumination/change in object, and her consciousness
struggling to process the new experience.
• If someone asked her, she’d likely insist that the familiar shadows were
more real than the blurring/buzzing confusion she was currently
experiencing.
• Eventually she would orient to her new context and she would
grasp the nature of the illusion that she had lived in. Her senses
would be capable of distinguishing the faint light of the exit of
the cave, and she would likely enough explore it and find her
way into the full light of the sun.
• What would her experience be like at this stage? Probably
much like when she was first freed (though with more
confidence). Eventually she would discover that the sun
(Good) is the truth of the whole.
THE PHILOSOPHER
• What do you think the mood of this lucky person would
be? How would she evaluate her situation relative to the
situation of the people still in the cave? In the face of the
gap between the situations, she might be motivated to
return to the cave. Why?
• What would the experience of the return be like? She
would once again be blind, but this time by darkness
(ignorance) rather than light (access to knowledge).
• Her former colleagues would doubtless be tempted to blame
her blindness and lack of fit on what she know knows, and thus
stigmatize her accomplishment.
• If she kept trying to convince people to accept what she
knows to be true, they’d likely end up killing her (like Socrates).
HUMAN NATURE
• So, what does the cave analogy suggest about Plato’s
understanding of human nature?
• Reason gives us the capacity to bridge the ontological
gap between the formal and material dimensions of
reality (the intelligible and visible worlds).
• We are bodies, caught up in the visible world and thus
susceptible (like the prisoners) to the trap of recognizing
only that which the limited understanding of Doxa
makes available.
• But, if we order our soul correctly (if Diakosune rules it) we
can be philosophers, and thus recognize the truth of the
formal, intelligible world.