Philosophy 1050: Introduction to Philosophy

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Philosophy 1050 Introduction to Philosophy

• Week 7 Plato and the soul

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Forms and The Soul

• When Socrates finished, Cebes intervened
  Socrates, he said, everything else you said is
  excellent, I think, but men find it very hard to
  believe what you said about the soul. They think
  that after it has left the body it no longer
  exists anywhere, but that it is destroyed and
  dissolved on the day the man dies, as soon as it
  leaves the body and that, on leaving it, it is
  dispersed like breath or smoke, has flown away
  and gone and is no longer anything anywhere.
  (70a)

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Putting together the pieces Socrates and
Immortality

• We want to trace a route from
• The idea of the FORMS actual things that we can
  know about, but have never perceived with our
  senses
• To
• The claim that the soul is IMMORTAL.

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The Forms (Ideas)

• -Do we say that there is such a thing as the Just
  itself, or not?
• -We do say so, by Zeus.
• -And the Beautiful, and the Good?
• -Of course.
• -And have you ever seen any of those things with
  your eyes?
• -In no way. (65d)

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The Forms (Ideas)

• We say that there is something that is equal. I
  do not mean a stick equal to a stick or a stone
  to a stone, or anything of that kind, but
  something else beyond all these, the Equal
  itself. Shall we say that this exists or not?
• Indeed we shall, by Zeus, said Simmias, most
  definitely.
• Whence have we acquired the knowledge of it?
  (74a-b)

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The Forms (Ideas)

• If the forms cannot be seen or otherwise sensed,
  how do we have knowledge of them?
• How are the Forms related to the ordinary objects
  we see around us?

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One reconstruction (there are others that are
just as good!)

• 1. We have knowledge of something that we have
  never used our body to perceive.
• 2. Therefore we have knowledge that we did not
  get through our bodies.
• 3. This knowledge comes from recollection of
  things that are invisible and eternal (how can we
  tell?)
• 4. Therefore we must have known these things
  before we were born (why?)
• 5. Therefore the soul must have existed before we
  were born and can continue to exist after we die.

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Plato, recollection and knowledge tying down the
argument

• If Socrates is successful, he will have made an
  argument that goes from the existence of the
  Forms to the immortality of his soul.
• What would Sam Miller say about Socrates
  argument? What would Gretchen Weirob say?
• What parts of the argument are well established?
  What parts are open to doubt? Why?

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Plato and the Forms Review

• What do you think Socrates would say about the
  question of personal identity? What would he say
  in the Teleportation case? In the Julia
  North/Mary Frances Beaudine case?