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

Plato Plato 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.

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?

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”

Plato Plato’s Socratic dialogues were defending his reputation showing that he had been unjustly condemned. Socrates the great educator not the great corrupter.

Plato After 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).

Plato’s Doctrines In 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.

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).

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.

Plato’s Doctrines Plato 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?

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.

Plato’s Doctrines Two most important of Plato’s doctrines are: The Theory of the Forms and That learning is recollection

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.

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.

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.

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?

Plato’s Cave

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.’

The Theory of Forms Plato 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

The Theory of Forms His 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.

The Theory of Forms So, 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.’