Transcript Socrates-Plato - 2011PhilosophiseThroughFun

CLA 100: GREEK
CIVILIZATION
Lectures 21 & 22
1. Socrates
2. Plato
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
• a. His career
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tried, convicted, & executed in 399 BC on charges of
introducing new divinities & corrupting the youth
• in Plato’s The Apology of Socrates, Socrates spends
greatest amount of time defending himself against the
views about himself put forward 26 years earlier by
Aristophanes in the Clouds where he was depicted as an
atheistic sophist running a school for useless research
where students were trained to make the worst argument
appear the better
• Apology means “defense”
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very critical of Athenian democracy because of its
reliance on lot for choosing leaders
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when you build a temple you appoint someone with
expertise so why would you not do the same in politics?
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
• a. His career (cont)
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some of his students turned out to be
enemies of polis
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e.g. Alcibiades, Critias
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Critias, uncle of Plato, was one of 30 tyrants
who ruled Athens in brutal fashion after
democracy was overthrown at end of
Peloponnesian War in 404 BC
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Socrates makes a reference to this period in
Plato’s The Apology of Socrates when he took his
turn at being a member of the Council of 500
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
• a. His career (cont)
•
democracy was restored in 403 BC but
399 when Socrates was tried was not a good
time to be critical of democracy
• b. His philosophy
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his primary concern was ethics: how one
ought best to live one’s life in order to be
happy
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spent his life devoted to philosophy but
didn’t commit his ideas to writing
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
• b. His philosophy (cont)
•
what we know about Socrates comes from his
student Plato, from historian Xenophon, & from
comic playwright Aristophanes
•
each gives quite a different view
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with Plato it’s hard to tell what views are those
of Socrates and what are Plato’s own views since
Plato writes in form of a dialogue with Socrates as
one of main speakers
•
in Plato’s early dialogues, such as the Apology
of Socrates, it’s generally thought that we have the
historical Socrates
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
• b. His philosophy (cont)
•
In middle & later dialogues, it is Plato putting
forth his own views through the character of
Socrates
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one view attributed to Socrates: “Virtue is
knowledge.”
• If a person really knew what was good for his
soul, that person would do it, because he would
not want to harm his soul
• True knowledge is, however, very hard to attain
• When someone does something evil, it’s because
that person mistakenly thinks it will be good for
his or her soul
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
• b. His philosophy (cont)
• another idea of Socrates “the unexamined
life is not worth living” (Apology)
• dialectical reasoning (Socratic reasoning)
•
Socrates carries on his search for the
truth by the method of questioning
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origin of this questioning: one of his
students went to Delphic oracle & asked
whether there was anyone wiser than
Socrates. Oracle replied no.
1. Socrates (469-399 BC)
Socrates then went to those in Athens who
had the greatest reputation for wisdom and
on cross-examining them was able to show
that they were ignorant
He upset a lot of people in Athens by his
line of questioning
•
Socrates came to conclusion that oracle
was right about his being wiser than all the
rest in that he at least was willing to
acknowledge his ignorance
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• a. His career
•
student of Socrates for 8 years
•
lived in S. Italy & Sicily in 399-388 BC
•
founded Academy outside walls of Athens in
385 BC
•
in 366 and 361 went to Sicily as advisor to
Dionysius II, the tyrant, & attempted to
implement his ideas on political reform without
success
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
•
1) theoretical
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reacted against view of sophists that morality
was just a matter of convention & that there was
no such thing as absolute knowledge
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Plato thought absolute knowledge existed
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Developed his theory of forms to counter
claims of sophists
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
•
1) theoretical: theory of forms
• Believed in eternal, unchanging, universal
absolutes that are independent of our world of
phenomena
• When we say something is ‘just’ or ‘beautiful’
they’re not just relative terms or a matter of
human convention
• Things like justice & beauty must have a reality of
their own outside the minds that conceived of
them
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
• 1) theoretical: theory of forms
• Plato often resorted to allegory and myth to
help explain his ideas
• E.g. allegory of cave (gives example of
prisoners who had grown up in a cave &
who could only see shadows on wall cast by
objects out of their view)
Allegory of Cave
• http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/plato/caveframes.htm
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
•
1) theoretical: theory of forms
• In this world of appearances things we think we
know are just like shadows reflected on the wall of
cave.
• Since these shadows are all we have experienced
we think they’re real
• in fact they only belong to the world of
appearances
• They are just imperfect reflections of true reality
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
•
1) theoretical: theory of forms
• Plato never worked out completely his views on
these absolute forms, and is critical of them in his
own later dialogues
• E.g. Were his views just meant to account for
abstract ideas such as truth, justice & beauty or
were they supposed to apply to terms like ‘chair’
or ‘table’ too?
• Is there an absolute form of chair in which all
particular chairs participate?
Cave of Pan & Nymphs (Mt. Hymettos)
Cave of Pan & Nymphs
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
• 2) political
• In his Republic Plato has a very elaborate
description of the ideal state
• Purpose: so he can use state & how it works as
model for soul
• That he tried to put his political ideas into practice
in Syracuse, Sicily shows he was interested in
political questions raised with his model
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
• 2) political: ideal state
• Starts with premise that justice is a virtue
not only in individual but in state
• Justice in state exists when 3 parts of
society carry out their duties
• 3 parts of state: guardians (the rulers),
auxiliaries (army), & craftspeople
(labourers)
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
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b. His philosophy
2) political: ideal state
Women should be able to be guardians
Children brought up in common
Fathers should be between 25 and 55;
Mothers should be between 20 and 40
Best ruler is a philosopher-king
2. Plato (427-347 BC)
• b. His philosophy
• 2) political: ideal state
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Education: 18-20: gymnastics
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20-30: music, arithmetic, astronomy
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30-35: dialectic (philosophy)
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this was program of education he tried
to use with Dionysius II in Sicily
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no surprise that he was unsuccessful