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AS Ethics: Plato Introduction

AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

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Page 1: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

AS Ethics: Plato

Introduction

Page 2: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato(429–347 B.C.E.)

Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81.

Plato’s writings are mainly written in the form of dialogues.

Most are named after the people to whom Socrates is talking e.g. Phaedo and Euthyphro.

Page 3: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

PlatoPlato is, by any reckoning, one of the most dazzling

writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy.

An Athenian citizen of high status, he displays in his works his absorption in the political events and intellectual movements of his time, but the questions he raises are so profound and the strategies he uses for tackling them so richly suggestive and provocative

that educated readers of nearly every period have in some way been influenced by him, and in practically every age there have been philosophers who count themselves Platonists in some important respects.

Page 4: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato

Questions:1. On what charges was Socrates

condemned to death?2. What is significant about the

‘Academy’ founded by Plato?3. Can you explain why Plato

decided to become a philosopher and why he wrote philosophical works?

Page 5: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato

Socrates was condemned to death on charges of impiety and corrupting the young.

Plato founded ‘The Academy’ the first prototype of a University.

Reading Plato, Socrates’ followers must have thought “He’s not gone after all he’s still here, asking awkward questions, tripping you up with arguments”

Page 6: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato

Plato’s Socratic dialogues were defending his reputation showing that he had been unjustly condemned.

Socrates the great educator not the great corrupter.

Page 7: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

PlatoAfter over two thousand years we

are still puzzling about the meaning of beauty, courage, friendship, justice, truth. Have we made any progress?

Yes and no.Plato believed that it was in the

nature of such questions that we have to puzzle them out for ourselves. (The answer is worth nothing unless we think it out for ourselves).

Page 8: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s DoctrinesIn Plato’s Apology,

he makes the claim that no harm can come to a good (virtuous) man either during his life or after his death.

In the Gorgias. Socrates claims that injustice harms the doer and justice benefits the doer.

Page 9: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s Doctrines

“One may lose all one’s money, be paralysed by disease but this is nothing compared with the damage that one may do to oneself.”

Explain what Plato means by this statement.

Plato thinks that the only real harm one can do is to one’s soul by leading an unjust life. Conversely, there is no gain like that which a good man has from practising the virtues.

Courage, temperance, wisdom and justice. (The four Classical Virtues).

Page 10: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s Doctrines

Plato teaches that ‘virtue is knowledge.’What is knowledge?Why is knowledge better than opinion?

Can you give any examples of knowledge that is not based on opinion?

Mathematics or a scientific fact e.g. It takes light from the sun eight and a

half minutes to reach the earth.

Page 11: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s DoctrinesPlato was a rationalist and he taught that

rationalism was the basis for morality. He thought that it was important that rationalism should be in charge of the non-rational elements that also made up human beings.

Thus Plato asserted that if one does not do the right thing (morally speaking) it cannot be that I knew what to do but lacked the courage to act on it.

Rather, if I lacked the courage, Plato would say that:

I lacked the knowledge.But isn’t this going against common sense?

Page 12: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s Doctrines

Plato believed that our assumptions and beliefs should be open to perpetual questioning.

For Plato ‘conclusions’ don’t have any special status they are merely staging posts on the road to further inquiries.

Page 13: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s Doctrines

Two most important of Plato’s doctrines are:

The Theory of the Forms and

That learning is recollection

Page 14: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato‘s Doctrines

That learning is recollection sounds bizarre at first. However, modern philosophers like Noam Chomsky holds that we must have innate knowledge. He argues that we are born with a whole grammar programmed in our minds.

Page 15: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato‘s Doctrines

Plato taught that knowledge is part of the essential nature of the soul.

Thus the soul exists before birth.In the Meno, Plato argues that latent

within our mind we have knowledge of the correct answers to what is justice, courage, beauty etc.

Such knowledge is deep within us.This leads on to Plato’s Theory of

Forms.

Page 16: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s Doctrines

Such questions as what is justice? Are centred on the quest for a definition.

If Plato is right we must have answers to these questions latent within us independently and prior to our experience of the world in which we are now living.

Thus Plato holds that there is apriori knowledge.

This view is fundamental to his Theory of Forms.

Page 17: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato: the Parable of the Cave

Explain Plato’s parable of the cave.What point does Plato want to

make in his parable of the Cave?

Page 18: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

Plato’s Cave

Page 19: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

The Theory of Forms

The theory that there is another world than this – an ideal world in which everything exists that gives value and meaning to this present world has had an incalculable influence on the whole of Western Culture not least Christianity.

N.B. However, it is important to be careful of using such phrases like the ‘World of Forms’ or ‘another world.’

Page 20: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

The Theory of FormsPlato uses such

phrases but the contrast he has in mind is not between one set of particular things and another set completely like it but more perfect, more abstract and located elsewhere e.g. heaven

Page 21: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

The Theory of FormsHis contrast is between the particular and the

general.Thus what is justice? Is a general question

about justice. It is not a question about the here and now. In the Phaedo, Socrates maintained that to do

philosophy is to rehearse for death- in fact practicing being dead.

Since being dead is having one’s soul separated from one’s body.

In doing philosophy you are, in so far as you can, separating your soul from your body.

Page 22: AS Ethics: Plato Introduction. Plato(429–347 B.C.E.) Plato was about 31 when Socrates died and he lived to be 81. Plato’s writings are mainly written

The Theory of FormsSo, when you ask the general question what is

justice? Plato thinks you are referring to justice anywhere and any time- justice in itself.

It follows then that if you are not thinking about here and now then you are not here and now.

You are where your mind is and therefore not in a place in that sense at all.

You are, as Plato would describe it, ‘immersed in generalities.’

So, it is o.k. to use the phrase ‘World of Forms’ provided you understand this to mean ‘the realm of invariable generalities.’