Socrates and the Socratic Turn

Socrates Not interested in questions about the nature of reality Instead he asked questions about ‘the state of one’s soul’ What is courage? What does it mean to be a good person? What is justice? What is piety?

Socrates II This is called ‘the Socratic Turn’ Examples: Symbolically: Socrates ‘turning away’ from nature and to the self First time that the human mind and condition becomes the target of philosophical inquiry Examples: No one knowingly does evil Justice is not ‘might makes right’

Euthyphro Brief Review of Story in context of life and death of Socrates 1st attempt: “Doing what I am doing” This is an example not a definition What all examples have in common And Having that in common makes them examples

Euthyphro II 2nd attempt: “Loved by the gods” 3rd attempt: “Loved by ALL the gods” Divine command theory

Euthyphro Question Does God command it because it is good, or is it good because he commands it? Intrinsic vs. relational properties Male vs. Brother Weight vs. Mass Not the way we think loving works If relational then morality is completely arbitrary E.G. should God command us to murder children it would be morally permissible to do so

Plato Greek Philosopher

Knowledge of the Good Socrates claimed that the virtuous person is one who knows the Good It is then of the utmost importance to figure out how one can actually know the Good This is the project that Plato takes up His goal is to try and show how knowledge of the Good is possible But in order to answer that he must first answer the more general question: how do we know anything?

What is Knowledge? I parked my car in the lot, do I know where my car is? Knowledge requires certainty Object of knowledge can’t change If what can be known can’t change, then physical world can’t be an object of knowledge It is in a constant state of flux (becoming)

What is Knowledge? II So, if we are to have real knowledge it must meet the following requirements Unchanging Non-physical eternal Plato’s strategy is to look for an area where there is some knowledge already and then try to figure out what is going on there Geometry/mathematics

The Argument from Mathematics How is it possible that we know that 2+2=4 or that A2+B2=C2 Mathematical truths do not change 2 is prime, and will always be prime 2 is even and will always be even 2 is that the number two? NO! It is a representation of the number two Cat is that a cat? No!

The Argument from Mathematics II In the same way, this is not a triangle, it is a representation of one Triangles and numbers do not exist physically No one has ever seen the number two Triangles are made of lines, which are made of points, which have no dimensions But they MUST exist For otherwise mathematics would not be about anything and so would be false

The Correspondence Theory of Truth For a sentence to be true is for it to accurately represent reality So the sentence ‘the cat is on the mat’ will be true if There is a cat There is a mat And the former is on the latter

The Argument from Mathematics III The same is true of mathematical statements For 2+2=4 to be true there must be The number two The number four They must be related in the way the sentence says For A2+B2=C2 to be true there must be Right triangles

Theory of the Forms So, numbers and geometrical shapes exists as non-physical, eternal, and unchanging objects that are the objects of knowledge We get in touch with these objects via the use of reason Plato is a rationalist Knowledge can only be achieved via the use of reason These non-physical objects are called Forms

Theory of the Forms II From the Greek ‘eidos’ Means idea, but not in the way that we use the word These Ideas exist outside of the mind, outside of time and space The mind is able to ‘grasp’ these forms Two more arguments for Forms Degrees of perfection One over Many

Degrees of Perfection

Degrees of Perfection II How do you know that the triangles are not perfect unless you know what the perfect one is like And you are able to compare This, says Plato, is true of everything You know that some actions are not perfectly just But how could you know this unless there was Perfect Justice and you knew it? That is the Form of Justice

The Form of Tree Those are trees

One Over Many The Forms explain why it is that we categorize certain objects as male but not others There is a Form for every thing that objects have in common When you see that an object is, say, a desk you are grasping the Form of that object The objects are said to ‘participate’ in the Form An object can participate is many Forms at the same time

The Beautiful Human

The Divided Line Metaphysics Epistemology The Good Intelligible World Higher Forms Reasoning Intelligible World Knowledge Lower Forms Reasoning Sensible Obj Perception Opinion Visible World Images Imagination