Socrates and Plato

1
Socrates and Plato

• Socrates (d. 399 BCE)
• Plato (429-348 BCE)

2
Socrates

• Socrates questioned fundamental moral values of
  Athenian Society
• What is courage? What is virtue? What is Piety?
  These are all Socratic questions.
• Had many followers
• Convicted by an Athenian jury of corrupting the
  youth and heresy in 399.

3

• Socrates wrote nothing. Plato used Socrates as a
  character in most of his dialogues.
• Plato was Socrates most famous follower
• Almost all of Platos work is in dialogue form
• Most people think the early dialogues give us a
  picture of the historical Socrates
• In the Meno Socrates acts as a mouthpiece for
  Plato.

4
Menos paradox

• If you already know what virtue is, you dont
  need to work to discover it.
• If you dont know what virtue is, then it is
  impossible to come to discover it. You need the
  ability to recognize virtue when you see it
  and you can only do this if you already know what
  virtue is
• Therefore, it is impossible to come to know
  anything by way of inquiry. what virtue is

5

• Socrates replies that we can come to know
  something new because this knowledge is already
  in us. We learned it before, in a past life
• The slave boy example is designed to show that
  the slave has within himself the ability to
  knowSocrates does not tell him anything, but
  just asks questions

6
Knowledge and opinion

• Objects of knowledge are absolute, certain and
  unchanging. They need to be in an unqualified
  way
• Objects of opinion are qualified, imperfect, and
  changing. They are what they are in a qualified
  sense

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Examples

• Virtuous people, beautiful objects, circular
  shapes that you perceive are each objects of
  opinion. (these are imperfect and qualified)
• Virtue itself, beauty itself, circularity itself
  are objects of knowledge. These are perfect and
  unqualified. They are what they are.
• Plato calls the objects of knowledge the Forms.

8
But the senses are not useless

• They provide us with practical information
• They provide a starting point for knowledge
• Even though a sensible circle is not a real
  circle, you can use the sensible circle to stir
  your soul to grasp the true, non-sensible form of
  circularity. Likewise, to discover what justice
  is you can start with particular examples of just
  people or just actions.