Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Key ideas
Socrates (470 – 399 BCE)
• concerned with ETHICS
• The truth about how to live a good
moral life: what is goodness, justice,
temperance?
• An action is right if it promotes our true
happiness
• True pleasure is attained through
ethical living
• Universal definition of justice
The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David
See
www.pima.gov/publicdefender/socrates.htm
• Observe laws & limits to lead a good life
• Dialogues – role of ignorant questioner to show experts their own
ignorance (ideas of Socrates documented by Plato. Some of the
most famous philsohical publications)
• Care for the soul: gaining wisdom is key to a virtuous life & saving
the soul
• Knowing what is good = doing what is good
The Death of Socrates by
Jacques-Louis David
See
www.pima.gov/publicdefend
er/socrates.htm
Socrates continued:
• In this painting, Socrates (470–399 B.C.), uncoerced and
unshackled, freely prepares to die by drinking poisonous hemlock
• The philosopher is condemned to die by the Athenian
democracy for promoting skepticism and impiety
(the Athenians were nervous about offending the gods)
• Rather than flee the city, Socrates accepts his unjust
punishment and sacrifices himself on abstract principle.
•
Nevertheless, Socrates shows nobility and selfcontrol in the face of death.
See www.philosophypages.com
• Socrates calmly sits upright with his finger
extended in the air, exuding authority,
responsibility, and intellect
• Surrounding him are his students, most reacting
emotionally
Name Plato (Πλάτων)
Birth c. 428–427 BC, Athens
Death c. 348–347 BC, Athens
PLATO
School/tradition Platonism
Rhetoric, Art, Literature, Epistemology,
Main interests Justice, Virtue, Politics, Education,
Family, Militarism
Notable ideas Platonic realism
Socrates, Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes,
Influences Aesop, Protagoras, Parmenides,
Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Orphism
Aristotle, Neoplatonism, Cicero,
Plutarch, Stoicism, Anselm, Descartes,
Hobbes, Leibniz, Mill, Schopenhauer,
Influenced
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt,
Gadamer and countless other western
philosophers and theologians
Plato (428 – 347 BCE)
Knowledge through reason, the intellect – not the senses.
Knowledge of reality & how we perceive it: what is whiteness,
roundness, treeness? (Metaphysics – meaning and reality)
Theory of Forms / Ideas:
world of the senses / change / illusion / appearance / imperfect
Vs
the authentic world / ideas / unchangeable / spiritual / eternal
Allegory of the
Cave(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTWwY8Ok5I0)
Image courtesy
of
news.bbc.co.uk
Plato asks the young girl in Sophie’s World (by Jostein Gaarder) to think about the
following 4 questions, thereby engaging in philosophy:
•Think over how a baker can bake 50 absolutely identical biscuits
• Ask yourself why all horses are the same
• Decide whether you think that [the human person] has an immortal soul
• Say whether men and women are equally sensible
Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE)
Interested in scientific proof & principle of cause & effect
Whiteness, treeness, justice etc exist – called these ‘forms’
Form and matter: recognises the essence of something &
its physical manifestation: what makes me unique + the
physical characteristics I exhibit. Both need each other.
Form = what makes something what it is: whiteness,
treeness, it is unchanging; matter = individual, particular,
concrete, it changes.
Knowledge begins with the senses. 2 ways of knowing:
through the senses first + then through the intellect.
We must use our senses as well as our intellect.
Seasons: senses tell us there is change. Intellect tells us
why. Within change there is stability and a foundation for
scientific thought / principles
Image courtesy of
space.about.com