Greek Thought Part Deux: Greek Thought Part Deux Socrates, Plato, Aristotle


The Socratic Tradition: The Socratic Tradition "The Death of Socrates" by Jacques-Louis David (1787)


Socrates: Socrates Who is he? Three testimonies Aristophanes- comic poet who shows Socrates to be a sophist natural philosopher who would help anyone willing to pay turn a bad argument into a good one and who denied the city gods Xenophon- a military general would sees Socrates as a moral instructor and religious man who was quick to give advice and was an example of morality Plato- disciple of Socrates who shows him to deny the sophists, deny natural philosophy, deny that he knows anything, to espouse non-traditional morality


The Delphic Oracle- Apology: The Delphic Oracle- Apology An oracle told Socrates’ friend that they was no one wiser than Socrates Socrates was flabbergasted and decided to find out what made him wise He believed that he knew nothing Divine mission Examine all that claim to have knowledge If they have the knowledge, learn from it If they don’t, make them aware of their ignorance 3 features of the mission Socratic method Professions of ignorance Care for the soul


Socratic Method: Socratic Method Concerned with questions and answers, and definitions Elencho (refutation or examination) Encourage the interlocutor to express a belief Get him to express some other beliefs Show that the latter beliefs deny the prior He then concluded that the interlocutor doesn’t know what he is talking about and invites him to come search


Professions of Ignorance: Professions of Ignorance Socratic irony- he assures and encourages his interlocutors to continue talking Some believe that this and his claim that he does not know are forms of deception Others claim that he is skeptical of his interlocutors’ grasp of knowledge but is sincere in seeking to learn from them if they are truly knowledgeable Socratic Epistemology- distinction between knowledge and true belief Knowledge is more stable than belief Greater stability results from the knowers ability to work out the reason why


Socrates and the Sophists: Socrates and the Sophists Socrates appears to abandon cosmological speculation in favor of humanism Socratic ignorance may resemble nihilism It seems that people are persistently unable to answer the questions without falling prey to inconsistency or absurdity Sophists thought it was hopeless Socrates saw the pursuit of knowledge as the valuable occupation If you find knowledge you become an expert in the area and moral expertise was the most noble Socrates was concerned with the perfection of the human character


Care for the Soul: Care for the Soul Ethics- concerned with the nature of good and bad, right and wrong Wanted to remove it from the realm of authority, tradition, dogma, superstition, or myth Reason is the only proper guide Socratic Intellectualism Virtue is knowledge Views concerning three things: Nature of human happiness Effect of virtuous and vicious acts on the soul Ability to act contrary to perceived goodness


Happiness (eudaimonia): Happiness (eudaimonia) Happiness is the ultimate human good and it results from a flourishing healthy soul A virtuous soul Acting viciously makes the soul vicious Weakness of the will- we all seek the good Someone who desires bad things either thinks they are good or bad To want something is to want to possess it To want to possess is to feel that it would be a benefit To think it beneficial is to think it good Nobody desires bad things thinking they are bad Someone who desires bad things thinking they are good really desires good things


Two Corollaries: Two Corollaries Wrongdoing is involuntary It is done out of ignorance Unity of virtues To be virtuous is to maintain all virtue If you are courageous you are temperate If you are temperate you are holy If you are holy you are courageous


Plato: Plato None of Plato’s philosophy is written in the 1st person Plato is only mentioned 3 times in all his writing Socrates sometimes speaks for Plato


Theory of Recollection: Theory of Recollection After questioning Meno on his beliefs regarding virtue, meno is perplexed Socrates asks his to join him to search for the knowledge Meno questions how this search could happen We either know what we are looking for or we don’t If we know what we are looking for, the search is pointless If we don’t know then it is impossible So the search is either pointless or impossible Depends on an all or nothing concept of knowledge that Plato will attack


A Priori Knowledge: A Priori Knowledge Plato believed that learning is recollection Prior to birth, the soul knows everything but in the process of birth, it forgets what it knew So Meno’s search was an attempt to remember what the soul knows but has forgotten Plato denied the 2nd premise, not the 3rd 2- If we know what we are looking for, the search is pointless 3-If we don’t know then it is impossible If the soul existed before physical existence, what is implied about the soul after the physical?


Conversation with a Slave Boy: Conversation with a Slave Boy “What is the length of the side of a square that is double the area of a square whose side is 2 feet long?” Three parts The boy says 4 then 3 then admits that he doesn’t know Socrates continues to question and shows diagrams that lead the boy to see his mistake The boy has converted his belief regarding the length of the side by being asked the same question over and over and in different ways


Two-Worlds Theory: Two-Worlds Theory World of things that are Beauty, equality, justice, holiness World of things that are not Common objects that we sense Knowledge is restricted to necessary truths. They can be known but not believed The length of the side of the square Courage is a virtue


Theory of Forms: Theory of Forms What is virtue? What is the thing that all virtuous items share? Forms are the things that are These are the things that are known prior to birth The equal sticks strive to be like Equality but fall short


Allegory of the Cave: Allegory of the Cave Prisoners are bound in a cave seeing only shadows on the wall They can’t turn to see themselves or the things that are creating them They are forced to believe that what they see is real One man is freed and sees what is outside He is faced with three options: Teach and be persecuted, leave the cave forever, or go back to his old ways of thinking


Affinity Argument: Affinity Argument Something is composite insofar as it is likely to survive Something is constant and unvarying insofar as it is likely to be incomposite Forms are constant and unvarying: sensibles vary and are never constant So forms should survive while sensibles should not Forms are invisible; sensibles are visible The soul is invisible; the body is visible So, the soul is similar to forms and the body to the sensibles The soul studies the forms when it is unhindered by the body and the sensibles while it is So, the soul is similar to forms and the body to the sensibles The soul should be master and the body its slave So, the soul is similar to forms and the body to the sensibles So the soul is likely to survive, the body is not Sensibles resemble Forms like a copy resembles an original


Trinitarian approach: Trinitarian approach Justice in the city is when its three parts are functioning peacefully Rulers are ruling Soldiers are soldiering Workers are working Justice in the soul is similar 3 parts of the soul The Appetite- Passion Reason The spirit Does this resemble the paradigm of mind, body, and spirit?


Justice in the Soul: Justice in the Soul The appetite desires for its own sake Reason rules the appetite and pursues goods for their own sake and for the sake of consequence The spirit is the motivation and conscience in a sense because it focuses on consequence Justice in the individual Each part of the soul is performing its task: Reason ruling Spirit conscientiously and courageously defending the dictates of reason against the cravings of appetite


Raffaele’s School of Athens: Raffaele’s School of Athens


Plato and Aristotle: Plato and Aristotle


Aristotle: Aristotle Undertook the monumental task of organizing and systematizing the thought of the Materialists, Socrates, and Plato He believed that reason was the highest human faculty and the polis was the foundation of Greek life He believed in Plato’s universal principles but felt that they were derived from human experience with the material world


Critique of Plato’s Forms: Critique of Plato’s Forms His confidence lay in the senses- empiricism He wanted to swing the pendulum from the higher world to the material world Plato’s belief in a separate metaphysical world beyond space and time seemed t contradict reason This seemed to be mystical and showed that Plato undervalued the physical world Said that forms were not located in a higher world but existed in things themselves Aristotle favored the empirical sciences that were based on observation It became the task of science to arrange facts into a system of knowledge


Ethics: Ethics Knowledge of ethics was possible through reason The good life was the examined life People are not entirely rational and passion can’t be ignored or eliminated With proper training and habituation, people could learn to subordinate passion to reason The doctrine of the mean


The Legacy: The Legacy Western thought begins with the Greeks Reason Freedom Humanism By discovering theoretical freedom, defining political freedom, and affirming the worth and potential of human personality, the Greeks broke from the past and founded the rational and humanist tradition of the West” (Perry 2004, 99).