SOCRATES & PLATO
5th CENTURY BC
Socrates & Plato
• The real story of Western Philosophy starts with Plato and
with his mentor Socrates, whose teachings he (Plato) put
down in writing.
• Many of the pre-Socratic philosophers (eg. Thalis,
Pythagoras etc) are known to us only through fragments
or summaries of their main ideas.
• With Socrates (thank to Plato) we have a complete picture
of his ideas and philosophies. And the way that Plato did it
was through the process of doubting and questioning
EVERYTHING that we believe in order to discover or
uncover truth.
Socrates & Plato
• The Pre-Socratics were concerned with the NATURE OF
REALITY …
• Questions like –
• What is the world made of? (Thalis)
• Is the world a unified thing? Are seemingly opposing ideas referring
to the same thing from a different perspective and therefore united?
(Parmenides)
• Is the world in a changing state all the time? (Heraclitus)
Socrates & Plato
• By the 5th century Athens was a flourishing city state and
the lucky ones were enjoying democracy if they happened
not to be slaves.
• A School of philosophers named SOPHISTS was
teaching the citizens of Athens how to win arguments
• The Sophists (like modern lawyers) were more concerned
about HOW to win an argument rather than with ideals of
justice or truth (eg. Slavery vs Democracy)
Socrates & Plato
• Socrates very often clashed with the SOPHISTS. Why?
• Socrates believed that philosophy should be used/employed to
discover truth NOT simply to win the argument/discussion
• His student Plato fictionalized many dialogues between
Socrates and the Sophists in which Socrates is debating such
matters as ‘What is the highest form of love?’ ‘what is virtue?’
• Socrates (according to Plato) was aiming for the ideals in life,
not simply filling his head with the knowledge of the nature of
things.
Socrates & Plato
• Socrates accepted to be executed because his
contemporaries did not want him around, challenging their
thoughts. He was given the choice of renouncing his
philosophy and being exiled OR to hold on to his ideas
and die.
• He chose to die.
Socrates & Plato
• The Socratic Method
• Socrates had a way of asking questions to his fellow Athenians
on their beliefs and slowly slowly with his questions showing
them that they were wrong in what they proposed.
• Then he would proceed to tell them his perception of the truth.
• Today when we read his philosophies we may consider them
strange or even self justifying
• Eg – at the end of the Symposium Socrates ‘proves’ that the
highest form of love is the one that is shared between an older
teacher and an attractive young student) like most of his
contemporaries they considered homosexuality as perfectly
normal.
Socrates & Plato
• So why is he so high up on the list of philosophers and a
central figure of the philosophical world?
• Firstly the profile of the philosopher he presents is of a
restless
inquisitive seeker of truth who will question everything from
a complex to the simplest matters of reality and experience in order
to learn more about the world
• Secondly the
Socratic method of philosophizing/ doing
dialect is at the heart of over two thousand years of philosophy. His
method tests out possible answers to a question, rejecting any
inconsistencies in logic and he slowly slowly approaches the truth
Socrates & Plato
Plato’s writings for Socrates’ philosophy
• Two of the most well known works of Plato presenting the
beliefs of Socrates are:
• ‘The Republic’ is the most complete statement of Socrates’ beliefs
(or how Plato presents those beliefs). It centers around the
meaning of justice and with that in view present a system of beliefs
about reality and human society.
• ‘The Allegory of the Cave’ gives one of the most important images
of philosophy. …
Socrates & Plato
• In “The Republic’ Plato tries to answer the question of
what
is justice and in his attempt to reach to an answer he
suggests that if we think clearly and perceive the true forms of
reality we will naturally desire to do the just thing in any
situation.
• Of course all of this is questionable but he takes it to be true
and from there he goes on to describe a society in which
people would want to do what is just and better perceive justice
and truth.
• Plato rejects the democracy of his time and suggests the idea
of a society in which men and women are equally
educated and in which children are removed from
their natural parents and brought up for the good
of society.
Socrates & Plato
• He suggests that
art and fiction should be banned
from society, the Republic, because they infer with the
idea of truth and beauty.
• The laws in the Republic are to be made by those citizens
that have a higher state of knowledge. Of course these
citizens would be the philosophers.
• So by a simple question on justice he ends up talking
about philosopher kings among whom he
considers himself to be one.
• This is the danger of Socratic method – that even the
most stupid arguments could be presented with such skill
as to persuade.
Socrates & Plato
• One thing that Plato teaches is that the first steps on the
road to knowledge are doubt, intelligent
and a burning
desire for the truth.
• ‘An unexamined life is not worth living.’
debate
Plato
• Plato’s two worlds
• two separate worlds = the one of appearance and the other of reality.
• How did he develop these ideas of the two worlds?
• Protagoras – ‘A man is the measure of all things’ meaning that
everything is relative. There is no universal knowledge at all
• Heraclitus – “You cannot step into the same river twice’ meaning that
all things flow and change. So we cannot know reality since it is
changing all the time
• Parmenides – “Knowledge and discourse must be about what is
(being), not what it is not”. Meaning you can only talk about things that
exist.
• If what they were saying was true the we cannot say anything about
reality. So Plato’s problem was how can we know a world that is
changing all the time. His solution to this problem was the 2 worlds.
• The world of beings
• Transcendent beyond space and time, unchanging world, can only
be perceived intellectually. This world stays the same. It is
perceived in our minds.
• The world of becoming
• In space and time, everyday world, constantly changing and you
perceive it with your senses.
• The world of BEING is full of forms that are the
causes of the particular things in the world of
BECOMING.
Plato – the theory of forms
• All things have essences/forms and these are located in the
world of being. The world of being is full of ideas.
• This points to the belief in a world above space and time, a
world of eternal and absolute beings, corresponding to every
kind of thing that there is and causing in particular things their
essential nature.
• Six characteristics of these forms
• Objective – exist out there as objects independently of our minds
• Transcendent – beyond space and time
• Eternal – always existed and will exist (not subject to motion or
change)
• Intelligible – cannot be perceived by senses but only intellect
• Archetypal – models for everything that exists or could exist
• Perfect – include absolutely all features of the things of what they are
the models
Plato – Theory of Forms
• How are the forms related to the individual things?
• Imitation – eg. this desk is an imitation of the form desk
• Participation – eg. the thing participates in the form
• Individual things can participate in more than one form
• Blending eg a dog can have a form brown, dark etc different forms
together
• Accidental forms eg all things have essential forms but also participate
accidentally in other forms (properties that are not essential to the
things)