Mr. F's Classroom



Week VI & VII Philosophy Excerpts- Mr F’s Philosophy ClassNails, Debra, "Socrates",?The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy?(Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta?(ed.), URL = < philosopher Socrates remains, as he was in his lifetime (469–399 B.C.E.),[ HYPERLINK "" \l "1" 1]?an enigma, an inscrutable individual who, despite having written nothing, is considered one of the handful of philosophers who forever changed how philosophy itself was to be conceived. All our information about him is second-hand and most of it vigorously disputed, but his trial and death at the hands of the Athenian democracy is nevertheless the founding myth of the academic discipline of philosophy, and his influence has been felt far beyond philosophy itself, and in every age. Because his life is widely considered paradigmatic for the philosophic life and, more generally, for how anyone?ought?to live, Socrates has been encumbered with the admiration and emulation normally reserved for founders of religious sects—Jesus or Buddha—strange for someone who tried so hard to make others do their own thinking, and for someone convicted and executed on the charge of irreverence toward the gods. Certainly he was impressive, so impressive that many others were moved to write about him, all of whom found him strange by the conventions of fifth-century Athens: in his appearance, personality, and behavior, as well as in his views and methods.In the late fifth century B.C.E., it was more or less taken for granted that any self-respecting Athenian male would prefer fame, wealth, honors, and political power to a life of labor. Although many citizens lived by their labor in a wide variety of occupations, they were expected to spend much of their leisure time, if they had any, busying themselves with the affairs of the city. Men regularly participated in the governing Assembly and in the city's many courts; and those who could afford it prepared themselves for success at public life by studying with rhetoricians and sophists from abroad who could themselves become wealthy and famous by teaching the young men of Athens to use words to their advantage. Other forms of higher education were also known in Athens: mathematics, astronomy, geometry, music, ancient history, and linguistics. What seemed strange about Socrates is that he neither labored to earn a living, nor participated voluntarily in affairs of state. Rather, he embraced poverty and, although youths of the city kept company with him and imitated him, Socrates adamantly insisted he was?not a teacher?(Plato,?Apology?33a-b) and refused all his life to take money for what he did. The strangeness of this behavior is mitigated by the image then current of teachers and students: teachers were viewed as pitchers pouring their contents into the empty cups that were the students. Because Socrates was no transmitter of information that others were passively to receive, he resists the comparison to teachers. Rather, he helped others recognize on their own what is real, true, and good (Plato,?Meno,?Theaetetus)—a new, and thus suspect, approach to education. He was known for confusing, stinging and stunning his conversation partners into the unpleasant experience of realizing their own ignorance, a state sometimes superseded by genuine intellectual curiosity.It did not help matters that Socrates seemed to have a higher opinion of women than most of his companions had, speaking of “men and women,” “priests and priestesses,” and naming foreign women as his teachers: Socrates claimed to have learned rhetoric from Aspasia of Miletus, the lover of Pericles (Plato,?Menexenus); and to have learned erotics from the priestess Diotima of Mantinea (Plato,?Symposium). Socrates was unconventional in a related respect. Athenian citizen males of the upper social classes did not marry until they were at least thirty, and Athenian females were poorly educated and kept sequestered until puberty, when they were given in marriage by their fathers. Thus the socialization and education of males often involved a relationship for which the English word ‘pederasty’ (though often used) is misleading, in which a youth approaching manhood, fifteen to seventeen, became the beloved of a male lover a few years older, under whose tutelage and through whose influence and gifts, the younger man would be guided and improved. It was assumed among Athenians that mature men would find youths sexually attractive, and such relationships were conventionally viewed as beneficial to both parties by family and friends alike. A degree of hypocrisy (or denial), however, was implied by the arrangement: “officially” it did not involve sexual relations between the lovers and, if it did, then the beloved was not supposed to derive pleasure from the act—but ancient evidence (comedies, vase paintings, et al.) shows that both restrictions were often violated (Dover 1989, 204). What was odd about Socrates is that, although he was no exception to the rule of finding youths attractive (Plato,?Charmides?155d,?Protagoras309a-b; Xenophon,?Symposium?4.27–28), he refused the physical advances of even his favorite (Plato,?Symposium?219b-d) and kept his eye on the improvement of their, and all the Athenians', souls (Plato,?Apology?30a-b), a mission he said he had been assigned by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, if he was interpreting his friend Chaerephon's report correctly (Plato,?Apology?20e–23b), a preposterous claim in the eyes of his fellow citizens. Socrates also acknowledged a rather strange personal phenomenon, a?daimonion?or internal voice that prohibited his doing certain things, some trivial and some important, often unrelated to matters of right and wrong (thus not to be confused with the popular notions of a superego or a conscience); the implication that he was guided by something he regarded as divine or semi-divine was suspect to other Athenians.Socrates was usually to be found in the marketplace and other public areas, conversing with a variety of different people—young and old, male and female, slave and free, rich and poor—that is, with virtually anyone he could persuade to join with him in his question-and-answer mode of probing serious matters. Socrates's lifework consisted in the examination of people's lives, his own and others', because “the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being,” as he says at his trial (Plato,?Apology?38a). Socrates pursued this task single-mindedly, questioning people about what matters most, e.g., courage, love, reverence, moderation, and the state of their souls generally. He did this regardless of whether his respondents wanted to be questioned or resisted him; and Athenian youths imitated Socrates's questioning style, much to the annoyance of some of their elders. He had a reputation for irony, though what that means exactly is controversial; at a minimum, Socrates's irony consisted in his saying that he knew nothing of importance and wanted to listen to others, yet keeping the upper hand in every discussion. One further aspect of Socrates's much-touted strangeness should be mentioned: his dogged failure to align himself politically with oligarchs or democrats; rather, he had friends and enemies among both, and he supported and opposed actions of both (see §3)."Socrates," by James M. Ambury,?The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002,?, 01/03/17.Socrates was born in Athens in the year 469 B.C.E. to Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and Phaenarete, a midwife.? His family was not extremely poor, but they were by no means wealthy, and Socrates could not claim that he was of noble birth like Plato.? He grew up in the political deme or district of Alopece, and when he turned 18, began to perform the typical political duties required of Athenian males.? These included compulsory military service and membership in the Assembly, the governing body responsible for determining military strategy and legislation.As a young man Socrates was given an education appropriate for a person of his station.? By the middle of the 5th?century B.C.E., all Athenian males were taught to read and write. Sophroniscus, however, also took pains to give his son an advanced cultural education in poetry, music, and athletics.? In both Plato and Xenophon, we find a Socrates that is well versed in poetry, talented at music, and quite at-home in the gymnasium.? In accordance with Athenian custom, his father also taught him a trade, though Socrates did not labor at it on a daily basis.? Rather, he spent his days in the?agora?(the Athenian marketplace), asking questions of those who would speak with him.? While he was poor, he quickly acquired a following of rich young aristocrats—one of whom was Plato—who particularly enjoyed hearing him interrogate those that were purported to be the wisest and most influential men in the city.Socrates fought valiantly during his time in the Athenian military.? Just before the Peloponnesian War with Sparta began in 431 B.C.E, he helped the Athenians win the battle of Potidaea (432 B.C.E.), after which he saved the life of Alcibiades, the famous Athenian general.? He also fought as one of 7,000 hoplites aside 20,000 troops at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.E.) and once more at the battle of Amphipolis (422 B.C.E.).? Both battles were defeats for Athens.Between 431—404 B.C.E. Athens fought one of its bloodiest and most protracted conflicts with neighboring Sparta, the war that we now know as the Peloponnesian War.? Aside from the fact that Socrates fought in the conflict, it is important for an account of his life and trial because many of those with whom Socrates spent his time became either sympathetic to the Spartan cause at the very least or traitors to Athens at worst.? This is particularly the case with those from the more aristocratic Athenian families, who tended to favor the rigid and restricted hierarchy of power in Sparta instead of the more widespread democratic distribution of power and free speech to all citizens that obtained in Athens.? Plato more than once places in the mouth of his character Socrates praise for Sparta (Protagoras?342b,?Crito?53a; cf.?Republic?544c in which most people think the Spartan constitution is the best).? The political regime of the?Republic?is marked by a small group of ruling elites that preside over the citizens of the ideal city.Though Alcibiades was not the only of Socrates’ associates implicated in the sacrilegious crimes (Charmides and Critias were suspected as well), he is arguably the most important.? Socrates had by many counts been in love with Alcibiades and Plato depicts him pursuing or speaking of his love for him in many dialogues (Symposium?213c-d,?Protagoras?309a,?Gorgias?481d,?Alcibiades I?103a-104c, 131e-132a).? Alcibiades is typically portrayed as a wandering soul (Alcibiades I?117c-d), not committed to any one consistent way of life or definition of justice.? Instead, he was a kind of cameleon-like flatterer that could change and mold himself in order to please crowds and win political favor (Gorgias?482a).? In 411 B.C.E., a group of citizens opposed to the Athenian democracy led a coup against the government in hopes of establishing an oligarchy.? Though the democrats put down the coup later that year and recalled Alcibiades to lead the Athenian fleet in the Hellespont, he aided the oligarchs by securing for them an alliance with the Persian satraps.? Alcibiades therefore did not just aid the Spartan cause but allied himself with Persian interests as well.??Sparta finally defeated Athens in 404 B.C.E., just five years before Socrates’ trial and execution.? Instead of a democracy, they installed as rulers a small group of Athenians who were loyal to Spartan interests.? Known as “The Thirty” or sometimes as the “Thirty Tyrants”, they were led by Critias, a known associate of Socrates and a member of his circle.The Thirty ruled tyrannically—executing a number of wealthy Athenians as well as confiscating their property, arbitrarily arresting those with democratic sympathies, and exiling many others—until they were overthrown in 403 B.C.E. by a group of democratic exiles returning to the city.? Both Critias and Charmides were killed and, after a Spartan-sponsored peace accord, the democracy was restored.? The democrats proclaimed a general amnesty in the city and thereby prevented politically motivated legal prosecutions aimed at redressing the terrible losses incurred during the reign of the Thirty.? Their hope was to maintain unity during the reestablishment of their democracy. One of Socrates’ main accusers, Anytus, was one of the democratic exiles that returned to the city to assist in the overthrow of the Thirty.?He was ordered by the Thirty to help retrieve the democratic general Leon from the island of Salamis for execution, he refused to do so.? His refusal could be understood not as the defiance of a legitimately established government but rather his allegiance to the ideals of due process that were in effect under the previously instituted democracy.? Indeed, in Plato’s?Crito, Socrates refuses to escape from prison on the grounds that he lived his whole life with an implied agreement with the laws of the democracy (Crito?50a-54d).? Notwithstanding these facts, there was profound suspicion that Socrates was a threat to the democracy in the years after the end of the Peloponnesian War.? But because of the amnesty, Anytus and his fellow accusers Meletus and Lycon were prevented from bringing suit against Socrates on political grounds.? They opted instead for religious grounds.The Socratic problem is the problem faced by historians of philosophy when attempting to reconstruct the ideas of the original Socrates as distinct from his literary representations.? While we know many of the historical details of Socrates’ life and the circumstances surrounding his trial, Socrates’ identity as a philosopher is much more difficult to establish.? Because he wrote nothing, what we know of his ideas and methods comes to us mainly from his contemporaries and disciples.There were a number of Socrates’ followers who wrote conversations in which he appears.? These works are what are known as the?logoi sokratikoi, or Socratic accounts.? Aside from Plato and Xenophon, most of these dialogues have not survived.? What we know of them comes to us from other sources.? For example, very little survives from the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom Xenophon reports as one of Socrates’ leading disciples.? Indeed, from polemics written by the rhetor Isocrates, some scholars have concluded that he was the most prominent Socratic in Athens for the first decade following Socrates’ death.? Diogenes Laertius (6.10-13) attributes to Antisthenes a number of views that we recognize as Socratic, including that virtue is sufficient for happiness, the wise man is self-sufficient, only the virtuous are noble, the virtuous are friends, and good things are morally fine and bad things are base.Aeschines of Sphettus wrote seven dialogues, all of which have been lost.? It is possible for us to reconstruct the plots of two of them: the?Alcibiades—in which Socrates shames Alcibiades into admitting he needs Socrates’ help to be virtuous—and the?Aspasia—in which Socrates recommends the famous wife of Pericles as a teacher for the son of Callias.? Aeschines’ dialogues focus on Socrates’ ability to help his interlocutor acquire self-knowledge and better himself.Phaedo of Elis wrote two dialogues.? His central use of Socrates is to show that philosophy can improve anyone regardless of his social class or natural talents.? Euclides of Megara wrote six dialogues, about which we know only their titles.? Diogenes Laertius reports that he held that the good is one, that insight and prudence are different names for the good, and that what is opposed to the good does not exist.? All three are Socratic themes.? Lastly, Aristippus of Cyrene wrote no Socratic dialogues but is alleged to have written a work entitled?To Socrates.The two Socratics on whom most of our philosophical understanding of Socrates depends are Plato and Xenophon.? Scholars also rely on the works of the comic playwright Aristophanes and Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle.The Socratic problem first became pronounced in the early 19th?century with the influential work of Friedrich Schleiermacher.? Until this point, scholars had largely turned to Xenophon to identify what the historical Socrates thought.? Schleiermacher argued that Xenophon was not a philosopher but rather a simple citizen-soldier, and that his Socrates was so dull and philosophically uninteresting that, reading Xenophon alone, it would be difficult to understand the reputation accorded Socrates by so many of his contemporaries and nearly all the schools of philosophy that followed him.? The better portrait of Socrates, Schleiermacher claimed, comes to us from Plato.Plato’s Socrates moves next to explain the reason he has acquired the reputation he has and why so many citizens dislike him.? The oracle at Delphi told Socrates’ friend Chaerephon, “no one is wiser than Socrates” (Apology?21a).? Socrates explains that he was not aware of any wisdom he had, and so set out to find someone who had wisdom in order to demonstrate that the oracle was mistaken.??The philosophical positions most scholars agree can be found directly endorsed or at least suggested in the early or "Socratic" dialogues include the following moral or ethical views:A rejection of retaliation, or the return of harm for harm or evil for evil (Crito?48b-c, 49c-d;?Republic?I.335a-e);The claim that doing injustice harms one's soul, the thing that is most precious to one, and, hence, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it (Crito?47d-48a;?Gorgias?478c-e, 511c-512b;?Republic?I.353d-354a);Some form of what is called "eudaimonism," that is, that goodness is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to human happiness, well-being, or flourishing, which may also be understood as "living well," or "doing well" (Crito?48b;?Euthydemus?278e, 282a;?Republic?I. 354a);The view that only virtue is good just by itself; anything else that is good is good only insofar as it serves or is used for or by virtue (Apology?30b;?Euthydemus?281d-e);The view that there is some kind of unity among the virtues: In some sense, all of the virtues are the same (Protagoras?329b-333b, 361a-b);The view that the citizen who has agreed to live in a state must always obey the laws of that state, or else persuade the state to change its laws, or leave the state (Crito?51b-c, 52a-d).Socrates also appears to argue for, or directly makes a number of related psychological views:All wrongdoing is done in ignorance, for everyone desires only what is good (Protagoras?352a-c;?Gorgias?468b;?Meno?77e-78b);In some sense, everyone actually believes certain moral principles, even though some may think they do not have such beliefs, and may disavow them in argument (Gorgias?472b, 475e-476a).In these dialogues, we also find Socrates represented as holding certain religious beliefs, such as:The gods are completely wise and good (Apology?28a;?Euthyphro?6a, 15a;?Meno?99b-100b);Ever since his childhood (see?Apology?31d) Socrates has experienced a certain "divine something" (Apology?31c-d; 40a;?Euthyphro?3b; see also?Phaedrus?242b), which consists in a "voice" (Apology?31d; see also?Phaedrus?242c), or "sign" (Apology?40c, 41d;?Euthydemus?272e; see also?Republic?VI.496c;?Phaedrus?242b) that opposes him when he is about to do something wrong (Apology?40a, 40c);Various forms of divination can allow human beings to come to recognize the will of the gods (Apology?21a-23b, 33c);Poets and rhapsodes are able to write and do the wonderful things they write and do, not from knowledge or expertise, but from some kind of divine inspiration. The same canbe said of diviners and seers, although they do seem to have some kind of expertise—perhaps only some technique by which to put them in a state of appropriate receptivity to the divine (Apology?22b-c;?Laches?198e-199a;?Ion?533d-536a, 538d-e;?Meno?99c);No one really knows what happens after death, but it is reasonable to think that death is not an evil; there may be an afterlife, in which the souls of the good are rewarded, and the souls of the wicked are punished (Apology?40c-41c;?Crito?54b-c;?Gorgias?523a-527a).Plato"Plato," by Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith,?The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002,?, 01/03/17.Plato is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of?Aristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by?Heraclitus,?Parmenides, and the?Pythagoreans.There are varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato's works are authentic, and in what order they were written, due to their antiquity and the manner of their preservation through time. Nonetheless, his earliest works are generally regarded as the most reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and the character Socrates that we know through these writings is considered to be one of the greatest of the ancient philosophers.Plato's middle to later works, including his most famous work, the?Republic, are generally regarded as providing Plato's own philosophy, where the main character in effect speaks for Plato himself. These works blend?ethics,?political philosophy, moral psychology,?epistemology, and metaphysics into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. It is most of all from Plato that we get the theory of Forms, according to which the world we know through the senses is only an imitation of the pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the Forms. Plato's works also contain the origins of the familiar complaint that the arts work by inflaming the passions, and are mere illusions. We also are introduced to the ideal of "Platonic love:" Plato saw love as motivated by a longing for the highest Form of beauty—The Beautiful Itself, and love as the motivational power through which the highest of achievements are possible. Because they tended to distract us into accepting less than our highest potentials, however, Plato mistrusted and generally advised against physical expressions of love.Supposedly possessed of outstanding intellectual and artistic ability even from his youth, according to Diogenes, Plato began his career as a writer of tragedies, but hearing Socrates talk, he wholly abandoned that path, and even burned a tragedy he had hoped to enter in a dramatic competition (D.L. 3.5). Whether or not any of these stories is true, there can be no question of Plato's mastery of dialogue, characterization, and dramatic context. He may, indeed, have written some epigrams; of the surviving epigrams attributed to him in antiquity, some may be genuine.Plato was not the only writer of dialogues in which Socrates appears as a principal character and speaker.?ut it is one thing to claim that Plato was not the only one to write Socratic dialogues, and quite another to hold that Plato was only following the rules of some genre of writings in his own work. Such a claim, at any rate, is hardly established simply by the existence of these other writers and their writings. We may still wish to ask whether Plato's own use of Socrates as his main character has anything at all to do with the historical Socrates. The question has led to a number of seemingly irresolvable scholarly disputes. At least one important ancient source, Aristotle, suggests that at least some of the doctrines Plato puts into the mouth of the "Socrates" of the "early" or "Socrates" dialogues are the very ones espoused by the historical Socrates. Because Aristotle has no reason not to be truthful about this issue, many scholars believe that his testimony provides a solid basis for distinguishing the "Socrates" of the "early" dialogues from the character by that name in Plato's supposedly later works, whose views and arguments Aristotle suggests are Plato's own.In many of his dialogues, Plato mentions supra-sensible entities he calls "Forms" (or "Ideas"). So, for example, in the?Phaedo,?we are told that particular sensible equal things—for example, equal sticks or stones (see?Phaedo?74a-75d)—are equal because of their "participation" or "sharing" in the character of the Form of Equality, which is absolutely, changelessly, perfectly, and essentially equal. Plato sometimes characterizes this participation in the Form as a kind of imaging, or approximation of the Form. The same may be said of the many things that are greater or smaller and the Forms of Great and Small (Phaedo?75c-d), or the many tall things and the Form of Tall (Phaedo?100e), or the many beautiful things and the Form of Beauty (Phaedo?75c-d,?Symposium?211e,?Republic?V.476c). When Plato writes about instances of Forms "approximating" Forms, it is easy to infer that, for Plato, Forms are exemplars. If so, Plato believes that The Form of Beauty is perfect beauty, the Form of Justice is perfect justice, and so forth. Conceiving of Forms in this way was important to Plato because it enabled the philosopher who grasps the entities to be best able to judge to what extent sensible instances of the Forms are good examples of the Forms they approximate.In the early transitional dialogue, the?Meno,?Plato has Socrates introduce the Orphic and Pythagorean idea that souls are immortal and existed before our births. All knowledge, he explains, is actually recollected from this prior existence. In perhaps the most famous passage in this dialogue, Socrates elicits recollection about geometry from one of Meno's slaves (Meno?81a-86b). Socrates' apparent interest in, and fairly sophisticated knowledge of, mathematics appears wholly new in this dialogue. It is an interest, however, that shows up plainly in the middle period dialogues, especially in the middle books of the?Republic.Several arguments for the immortality of the soul, and the idea that souls are reincarnated into different life forms, are also featured in Plato's?Phaedo?(which also includes the famous scene in which Socrates drinks the hemlock and utters his last words). Stylometry has tended to count the?Phaedo?among the early dialogues, whereas analysis of philosophical content has tended to place it at the beginning of the middle period. Similar accounts of the transmigration of souls may be found, with somewhat different details, in Book X of the?Republic?and in the?Phaedrus,?as well as in several dialogues of the late period, including the?Timaeus?and the?Laws.?No traces of the doctrine of recollection, or the theory of reincarnation or transmigration of souls, are to be found in the dialogues we listed above as those of the early period.The moral psychology of the middle period dialogues also seems to be quite different from what we find in the early period. In the early dialogues, Plato's Socrates is an?intellectualist—that is, he claims that people always act in the way they believe is best for them (at the time of action, at any rate). Hence, all wrongdoing reflects some cognitive error. But in the middle period, Plato conceives of the soul as having (at least) three parts:a?rational?part (the part that loves truth, which should rule over the other parts of the soul through the use of reason),a?spirited?part (which loves honor and victory), andan?appetitive?part (which desires food, drink, and sex),and justice will be that condition of the soul in which each of these three parts "does its own work," and does not interfere in the workings of the other parts (see esp.?Republic?IV.435b-445b). It seems clear from the way Plato describes what can go wrong in a soul, however, that in this new picture of moral psychology, the appetitive part of the soul can simply overrule reason's judgments. One may suffer, in this account of psychology, from what is called?akrasia?or "moral weakness"—in which one finds oneself doing something that one actually believes is not the right thing to do (see especially?Republic?IV.439e-440b). In the early period, Socrates denied that?akrasia?was possible: One might change one's mind at the last minute about what one ought to do—and could perhaps change one's mind again later to regret doing what one has done—but one could never do what one actually believed was wrong, at the time of acting.The?Republic?also introduces Plato's notorious critique of the visual and imitative arts. In the early period works, Socrates contends that the poets lack wisdom, but he also grants that they "say many fine things." In the?Republic,?on the contrary, it seems that there is little that is fine in poetry or any of the other fine arts. Most of poetry and the other fine arts are to be censored out of existence in the "noble state" (kallipolis) Plato sketches in the?Republic,?as merely imitating appearances (rather than realities), and as arousing excessive and unnatural emotions and appetites (see esp.?Republic?X.595b-608b).In the?Symposium,?which is normally dated at the beginning of the middle period, and in the?Phaedrus,?which is dated at the end of the middle period or later yet, Plato introduces his theory of?er?s?(usually translated as "love"). Several passages and images from these dialogues continued to show up in Western culture—for example, the image of two lovers as being each other's "other half," which Plato assigns to Aristophanes in the?Symposium.?Also in that dialogue, we are told of the "ladder of love," by which the lover can ascend to direct cognitive contact with (usually compared to a kind of vision of) Beauty Itself. In the?Phaedrus,?love is revealed to be the great "divine madness" through which the wings of the lover's soul may sprout, allowing the lover to take flight to all of the highest aspirations and achievements possible for humankind. In both of these dialogues, Plato clearly regards actual physical or sexual contact between lovers as degraded and wasteful forms of erotic expression. Because the true goal of?er?s?is real beauty and real beauty is the Form of Beauty, what Plato calls Beauty Itself,?er?s?finds its fulfillment only in Platonic philosophy. Unless it channels its power of love into "higher pursuits," which culminate in the knowledge of the Form of Beauty,?er?s?is doomed to frustration. For this reason, Plato thinks that most people sadly squander the real power of love by limiting themselves to the mere pleasures of physical beauty.The?Timaeus?is also famous for its account of the creation of the universe by the Demiurge. Unlike the creation by the God of medieval theologians, Plato's Demiurge does not create?ex nihilo,?but rather orders the cosmos out of chaotic elemental matter, imitating the eternal Forms. Plato takes the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth (which Plato proclaims to be composed of various aggregates of triangles), making various compounds of these into what he calls the Body of the Universe. Of all of Plato's works, the?Timaeus?provides the most detailed conjectures in the areas we now regard as the natural sciences: physics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology.In the?Laws,?Plato's last work, the philosopher returns once again to the question of how a society ought best to be organized. Unlike his earlier treatment in the?Republic,?however, the?Laws?appears to concern itself less with what a best possible state might be like, and much more squarely with the project of designing a genuinely practicable, if admittedly not ideal, form of government. The founders of the community sketched in the?Laws?concern themselves with the empirical details of statecraft, fashioning rules to meet the multitude of contingencies that are apt to arise in the "real world" of human affairs. A work enormous length and complexity, running some 345 Stephanus pages, the?Laws?was unfinished at the time of Plato's death. According to Diogenes Laertius (3.37), it was left written on wax tablets.Aristotle"Aristotle," by Anonymous,?The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002,?, 01/03/17.Aristotle is a towering figure in?ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany,?ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was a student of?Plato?who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms.As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all, areas of knowledge he touched. It is no wonder that?Aquinas?referred to him simply as "The Philosopher." In his lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive. Unfortunately for us, these works are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never intended for general readership, so they do not demonstrate his reputed polished prose style which attracted many great followers, including the Roman?Cicero. Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today.As the father of the field of logic, he was the first to develop a formalized system for reasoning. Aristotle observed that the validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its content. A classic example of a valid argument is his syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Given the structure of this argument, as long as the premises are true, then the conclusion is also guaranteed to be true. Aristotle’s brand of logic dominated this area of thought until the rise of modern?propositional logic?and predicate logic 2000 years later.Aristotle’s emphasis on good reasoning combined with his belief in the scientific method forms the backdrop for most of his work. For example, in his work in ethics and politics, Aristotle identifies the highest good with intellectual virtue; that is, a moral person is one who cultivates certain virtues based on reasoning. And in his work on psychology and the soul, Aristotle distinguishes sense perception from reason, which unifies and interprets the sense perceptions and is the source of all knowledge.Aristotle famously rejected Plato’s theory of forms, which states that properties such as beauty are abstract universal entities that exist independent of the objects themselves. Instead, he argued that forms are?intrinsic?to the objects and cannot exist apart from them, and so must be studied in relation to them. However, in discussing art, Aristotle seems to reject this, and instead argues for idealized universal form which artists attempt to capture in their work.Aristotle was born in 384 BCE at Stagirus, a now extinct Greek colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life. While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his guardian, Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the world, to complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied under?Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In the later years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began to lecture on his own account, especially on the subject of rhetoric. At the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of Aristotle would seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the Academy. But his divergence from Plato's teaching was too great to make this possible, and Plato's nephew Speusippus was chosen instead. At the invitation of his friend Hermeas, ruler of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia, Aristotle left for his court. He stayed three year and, while there, married Pythias, the niece of the King. In later life he was married a second time to a woman named Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus. At the end of three years Hermeas was overtaken by the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene.At the invitation of Philip of Macedonia he became the tutor of his 13 year old son Alexander (later world conqueror); he did this for the next five years. Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high honor, and there were stories that Aristotle was supplied by the Macedonian court, not only with funds for teaching, but also with thousands of slaves to collect specimens for his studies in natural science. These stories are probably false and certainly exaggerated.Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship and prepared for his subsequent conquests. Aristotle's work being finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the death of Plato. He found the Platonic school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens. He thus set up his own school at a place called the?Lyceum. When teaching at the Lyceum, Aristotle had a habit of walking about as he discoursed. It was in connection with this that his followers became known in later years as the?peripatetics, meaning "to walk about." For the next thirteen years he devoted his energies to his teaching and composing his philosophical treatises.?The works of Aristotle fall under three headings: (1) dialogues and other works of a popular character; (2) collections of facts and material from scientific treatment; and (3) systematic works. Among his writings of a popular nature the only one which we possess of any consequence is the interesting tract?On the Polity of the Athenians.Aristotle's writings on the general subject of logic were grouped by the later Peripatetics under the name?Organon, or instrument. From their perspective, logic and reasoning was the chief preparatory instrument of scientific investigation. Aristotle himself, however, uses the term "logic" as equivalent to verbal reasoning.Notions when isolated do not in themselves express either truth or falsehood: it is only with the combination of ideas in a proposition that?truth and falsity?are possible. The elements of such a proposition are the noun substantive and the verb. The combination of words gives rise to rational speech and thought, conveys a meaning both in its parts and as a whole. Such thought may take many forms, but logic considers only?demonstrative?forms which express truth and falsehood. The truth or falsity of propositions is determined by their agreement or disagreement with the facts they represent. Thus propositions are either affirmative or negative, each of which again may be either universal or particular or undesignated. A definition, for Aristotle is a statement of the essential character of a subject, and involves both the genus and the difference. To get at a true definition we must find out those qualities within the genus which taken separately are wider than the subject to be defined, but taken together are precisely equal to it. For example, "prime," "odd," and "number" are each wider than "triplet" (that is, a collection of any three items, such as three rocks); but taken together they are just equal to it.?Having determined the genus and species, we must next find the points of similarity in the species separately and then consider the common characteristics of different species. Definitions may be imperfect by (1) being obscure, (2) by being too wide, or (3) by not stating the essential and fundamental attributes. Obscurity may arise from the use of equivocal expressions, of metaphorical phrases, or of eccentric words. The heart of Aristotle's logic is the syllogism, the classic example of which is as follows: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.?Aristotle's editors gave the name "Metaphysics" to his works on?first philosophy, either because they went?beyond?or followed?after?his physical investigations.?For Aristotle, philosophy arose historically after basic necessities were secured. It grew out of a feeling of curiosity and wonder, to which religious myth gave only provisional satisfaction. The earliest speculators (i.e. Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander) were philosophers of nature. The Pythagoreans succeeded these with mathematical abstractions. The level of pure thought was reached partly in the Eleatic philosophers (such as Parmenides) and Anaxagoras, but more completely in the work of Socrates. Socrates' contribution was the expression of general conceptions in the form of definitions, which he arrived at by induction and analogy. For Aristotle, the subject of metaphysics deals with the first principles of scientific knowledge and the ultimate conditions of all existence. More specifically, it deals with existence in its most fundamental state (i.e. being?as?being), and the essential attributes of existence.?The axioms of science fall under the consideration of the metaphysician insofar as they are properties ofall?existence. Aristotle argues that there are a handful of universal truths.First, Aristotle argues, forms are powerless to explain?changes?of things and a thing's ultimate extinction. Forms are not causes of movement and alteration in the physical objects of sensation.?Second, forms are equally incompetent to explain how we arrive at?knowledge?of particular things. For, to have knowledge of a particular object, it must be knowledge of the substance which is?in?that things.?If forms were needed to explain our knowledge of particular objects, then forms must be used to explain our knowledge of objects of art; however, Platonists do not recognize such forms.For Aristotle, the form is not something outside the object, but rather?in?the varied phenomena of sense. Real substance, or true being, is not the abstract form, but rather the?concrete?individual thing. Unfortunately, Aristotle's theory of substance is not altogether consistent with itself. In the?Categories?the notion of substance tends to be nominalistic (that is, substance is a concept we apply to things). In theMetaphysics, though, it frequently inclines towards realism (that is, substance has a real existence in itself).?The term "matter" is used by Aristotle in four overlapping senses.?First, it is the underlying structure of changes, particularly changes of growth and of decay.?Secondly, it is the potential which has implicitly the capacity to develop into reality.?Thirdly, it is a kind of stuff without specific qualities and so is indeterminate and contingent.?Fourthly, it is identical with form when it takes on a form in its actualized and final phase.The development of potentiality to actuality is one of the most important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. It was intended to solve the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with reference to the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. The actual vs. potential state of things is explained in terms of the causes which act on things. There are four causes:Material cause, or the elements?out of which?an object is created;Efficient cause, or the means?by which?it is created;Formal cause, or the expression of?what?it is;Final cause, or the end?for which?it is.Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the two extremes: form without matter is on one end, and matter without form is on the other end. The passage of matter into form must be shown in its various stages in the world of nature. To do this is the object of Aristotle's physics, or philosophy of nature. It is important to keep in mind that the passage from form to matter within nature is a movement towards ends or purposes. Everything in nature has its end and function, and nothing is without its purpose.?Aristotle rejects the definition of space as the void. Empty space is an impossibility. Hence, too, he disagrees with the view of Plato and the Pythagoreans that the elements are composed of geometrical figures. Space is defined as the limit of the surrounding body towards what is surrounded.?Time?is defined as the measure of motion in regard to what is earlier and later. It thus depends for its existence upon motion.Soul?is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or realization of a natural body. From this definition it follows that there is a close connection between psychological states, and physiological processes. Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an impression stamped on it are unified.?he soul manifests its activity in certain "faculties" or "parts" which correspond with the stages of biological development, and are the faculties of nutrition (peculiar to plants), that of movement (peculiar to animals), and that of reason (peculiar to humans). These faculties resemble mathematical figures in which the higher includes the lower, and must be understood not as like actual physical parts, but like suchaspects?as convex and concave which we distinguish in the same line. The mind remains throughout a unity: and it is absurd to speak of it, as Plato did, as desiring with one part and feeling anger with another. Sense perception is a faculty of receiving the forms of outward objects independently of the matter of which they are composed, just as the wax takes on the figure of the seal without the gold or other metal of which the seal is composed. As the subject of impression, perception involves a movement and a kind of qualitative change; but perception is not merely a passive or receptive affection. It in turn acts, and,distinguishing?between the qualities of outward things, becomes "a movement of the soul through the medium of the body." The objects of the senses may be either (1) special, (such as color is the special object of sight, and sound of hearing), (2) common, or apprehended by several senses in combination (such as motion or figure), or (3) incidental or inferential (such as when from the immediate sensation of white we come to know a person or?object?which is white). There are five special senses. Of these, touch is the must rudimentary, hearing the most instructive, and sight the most ennobling. The organ in these senses never acts directly , but is affected by some medium such as air.Ethics, as viewed by Aristotle, is an attempt to find out our chief end or highest good: an end which he maintains is really final.?Aristotle expands his notion of happiness through an analysis of the human soul which structures and animates a living human organism. The parts of the soul are divided as follows:Calculative -- Intellectual VirtueRationalAppetitive -- Moral VirtueIrrationalVegetative -- Nutritional VirtueThe human soul has an irrational element which is shared with the animals, and a rational element which is distinctly human. The most primitive irrational element is the vegetative faculty which is responsible for nutrition and growth. An organism which does this well may be said to have a nutritional virtue. The second tier of the soul is the appetitive faculty which is responsible for our emotions and desires (such as joy, grief, hope and fear). This faculty is both rational and irrational. It is irrational since even animals experience desires.?Aristotle continues by making several general points about the nature of moral virtues (i.e. desire-regulating virtues). First, he argues that the ability to regulate our desires is not instinctive, but learned and is the outcome of both teaching and practice. Second, he notes that if we regulate our desires either too much or too little, then we create problems. As an analogy, Aristotle comments that, either "excess or deficiency of gymnastic exercise is fatal to strength." Third, he argues that desire-regulating virtues are character traits, and are not to be understood as either emotions or mental faculties.Most moral virtues, and not just courage, are to be understood as falling at the mean between two accompanying vices. His list may be represented by the following table:VICE OF DEFICIENCYVIRTUOUS MEANVICE OF EXCESSCowardiceCourageRashnessInsensibilityTemperanceIntemperanceIlliberalityLiberalityProdigalityPettinessMunificenceVulgarityHumble-mindednessHigh-mindednessVainglorinessWant of AmbitionRight AmbitionOver-ambitionSpiritlessnessGood TemperIrascibilitySurlinessFriendly CivilityObsequiousnessIronical DepreciationSincerityBoastfulnessBoorishnessWittinessBuffooneryShamelessnessModestyBashfulnessCallousnessJust ResentmentSpitefulnessJustice is used both in a general and in a special sense. In its general sense it is equivalent to the observance of law. As such it is the same thing as virtue, differing only insofar as virtue exercises the disposition simply in the abstract, and justice applies it in dealings with people. Particular justice displays itself in two forms. First,?distributive justice?hands out honors and rewards according to the merits of the recipients. Second,?corrective justice?takes no account of the position of the parties concerned. Pleasure is not to be identified with Good. Pleasure is found in the consciousness of free spontaneous action. It is an invisible experience, like vision, and is always present when a perfect organ acts upon a perfect object. Pleasures accordingly differ in kind, varying along with the different value of the functions of which they are the expression. They are determined ultimately by the judgment of "the good person." Our chief end is the perfect development of our true nature; it thus must be particularly found in the realization of our highest faculty, that is, reason. It is this in fact which constitutes our personality, and we would not be pursuing our own life, but the life of some lower being, if we followed any other aim. Self-love accordingly may be said to be the highest law of morals, because while such self-love may be understood as the selfishness which gratifies a person's lower nature, it may also be, and is rightly, the love of that higher and rational nature which constitutes each person's true self. Such a life of thought is further recommended as that which is most pleasant, most self-sufficient, most continuous, and most consonant with our purpose. It is also that which is most akin to the life of God: for God cannot be conceived as practising the ordinary moral virtues and must therefore find his happiness in contemplation.Friendship is an indispensable aid in framing for ourselves the higher moral life; if not itself a virtue, it is at least associated with virtue, and it proves itself of service in almost all conditions of our existence. Such results, however, are to be derived not from the worldly friendships of utility or pleasure, but only from those which are founded on virtue. The true friend is in fact a second self, and the true moral value of friendship lies in the fact that the friend presents to us a mirror of good actions, and so intensifies our consciousness and our appreciation of life.Aristotle does not regard politics as a separate science from ethics, but as the completion, and almost a verification of it. The moral ideal in political administration is only a different aspect of that which also applies to individual happiness. Humans are by nature social beings, and the possession of rational speech (logos) in itself leads us to social union. The state is a development from the family through the village community, an offshoot of the family.Art is defined by Aristotle as the realization in external form of a true idea, and is traced back to that natural love of imitation which characterizes humans, and to the pleasure which we feel in recognizing likenesses. Art however is not limited to mere copying. It idealizes nature and completes its deficiencies: it seeks to grasp the universal type in the individual phenomenon. ................
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