PLATO

PHILOSOPHY & ATHENS

Socrates (470-399 BC) Plato (427-347 BC) Aristotle (384-322 BC)

PLATO’S LIFE

Plato is a nickname for Aristocles He came from a distinguished Athenian

family Became a student of Socrates at age

28 At age 40 he founded The Academy Died at age 80

WRITINGS

Approximately 30 of his known writings survive.

Early dialogues Ethical investigations but few answers

Middle dialogues Socrates is a spokesman for Plato’s ideas

Later dialogues Socrates doesn’t appear

INFLUENCES ON PLATO

Socrates Displeasure with the Sophists Important more for influence and method

than for content. Pythagoreans Pre-Socratic philosophers mediated

through Socrates (Armstrong, p. 20)

SOCRATES VERSES THE SOPHISTS

Teachers of Rhetoric A well-spoken man could make lots of

money in Athens Not primarily interested in truth Relativists Protagoras

“Man is the measure.”

THEAETETUS

Socrates “you believe that everyman is the authority on what is true.”

Protagoras “true” “Well, I just took a survey and …”

MAN IS THE MEASURE

Every man’s idea is equally true

Plato counters with - - 1. Self-refuting 2. The Test of Future Experience

SOCRATES

Socrates executed when Plato was 28 Recorded in Apology, Crito, Phaedo

Plato was nominally a follower, but it was the death of Socrates that most greatly influenced him.

PLATO’S THEORY OF THE FORMS

Human beings participate in two different worlds1. Physical world (the lower world)

The world of particular things Everything in the world changes Everything in this world is known by sense

experience

2. World of Forms (the higher world) The world of universals Unchanging Know by

PLATO TOOK THE TWO WORLDS OF HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES AND MADE THEM TWO FEATURES OF THE SAME WORLD.

WHAT IS A FORM

There is a form in the world for every class of object

Universals – properties shared by objects Eternal entities – numbers or propositions

that can only exist in the mind

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

Appear in book 7 of The Republic Prisoners bound in the back of a cave

and only able to see the back wall of the cave.

Behind them there is a fire producing light for the back of the cave.

Behind them men walk carrying statues which cast shadows on the back wall of the cave.

One prisoner frees himself

He discovers that the shadows are not the real world.

Finds the path out of the cave and after an arduous journey arrives in bright sunlight.

Amazed by the wonder of the world Goes back to tell the other prisoners –

kill him. You are the prisoners!

PLATO’S DUALISM

Metaphysical Dualism World of Forms World of Particular Things

Anthropological Dualism Body (bad) Soul (good)

Epistemological Dualism Know the world of particular things with body Know the world of forms with soul

WHY STUDY THIS “STUFF”

1. Philosophical systems find their way into pop culture. Postmodernism Music, Emergent Church, etc.

2. Historical – Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

Ethics, Politics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, etc.

Ex. Four Virtues (Courage, Moderation, Wisdom, Justice)

3. Historical - Counter Errors by understanding the past Syncretism - “Early Christianity combination

of Hebrew expectation and Greek metaphysical ideas.” NO!

How do you deal with similarity?

4. Many modern Errors have been countered by the ancients.

C.S. Lewis on the value of reading old books No need to recreate the arguments

HERMAN7 IDEAS THAT PLATO ATTACKED

Hedonism Empiricism Relativism Materialism Mechanism Atheism Naturalism

.

PLATO COUNTERS HEDONISM

Hedonism = Pleasure is the greatest good

Plato counters with the question, “Can there be such a thing as an evil pleasure?”

If yes, then there is a higher standard

PLATO COUNTERS ATHEISM

“Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Probably not our best response

Shows how seriously Plato took it. Atheism is a danger to the state

(Republic) C.S. Lewis said that the greatest thing

we could do for both God and man was to convert our neighbor.

PLATO COUNTERS EMPIRICISM

Empiricism - All human knowledge has its source in sense experience.

Plato calls all lower world understanding “opinion”

Only in the upper story do you have “knowledge”

Know the world of the forms via “reason”

PLATO COUNTERS RELATIVISM

Sophists “man is the measure of all things”

Plato argued for objective truths and values that are the same for all

PLATO COUNTERS MATERIALISM

What is really, real? Matter. Argues that there must me a reality

that is non-material – spiritual.

PLATO COUNTERS NATURALISM

Naturalism – the world can be explained without reference to any supernatural reality

PLATO COUNTERS MECHANISM

The world is just an elaborate machine Plato was a teleologist.

PLATO IS ON OUR SIDE

Read Armstrong pages 64-65