CH. 4 Plato: The Really Real

Question 1

Chapter Objectives

Answer 1

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES:

Plato’s Life and** **Times:

• Plato’s influence on Western thought.
• Main events in Plato’s life.
• The role that Socrates plays in Plato’s dialogues.

Knowledge and Reality:

• Define relativism and skepticism, and understand how Plato responded to these doctrines.
• Plato’s reasoning in arriving at his theory of knowledge.
• Rationalism and Empiricism – which doctrine Plato accepted and why.

Allegory of the Cave:

• Recount Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and explain what significance it has for him.
• How the allegory may allude to Socrates.

Immortality, Morality, and the Soul:

• The early Greek concept of the soul and how it changed over time.
• Plato’s two arguments for immortality—Recollection, and Affinity.
• Plato’s concept of the Tripartite Soul and why he thinks the soul must have more than one aspect.
• Why Plato thinks it’s more beneficial to be just than unjust.
• Recount the story of the ring of Gyges, and explain what Glaucon thought it proved.

The Individual and the State:

• Democracy, Meritocracy, and Aristocracy.
• Explain the makeup of Plato’s Ideal Society– the central tenet of personal and community morality.

Question 2

Plato

Answer 2

PLATO – Was the first to labor systematically in the full range of philosophical subjects.

• First to bring these studies together under one banner—philosophy
• This intellectual enterprise is the only way to attain true wisdom.

FATHER OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY – Because most of its branches of inquiry can trace their beginnings to him, and they cannot be deemed complete without taking him into account.

• Transmitted to us the wisdom of his beloved teacher Socrates.
• Bequeathed the results of his own genius to his best student, Aristotle.

Question 3

Plato’s Life and Times

Answer 3

PLATO (c. 427-347 BCE) – Born in Athens into an influential aristocratic family and grew up during the perilous years of the Peloponnesian War.

• Socrates involved him in the larger and nobler pursuit of wisdom through philosophy.
• Socrates chose death and was executed. Plato was twenty-eight.
• Disgusted by the unjust treatment of his teacher and friend, Plato left Athens.

In 387 BCE, he returned to Athens and founded the Academy, a college and research center often regarded as the first university.

• The aim was to train future rulers, for Plato insisted that the best and wisest rulers are those schooled in philosophy as well as politics.
• The Academy’s most distinguished student was Aristotle, who entered the school at age seventeen and remained for twenty years.

Plato’s thinking is embodied in his DIALOGUES, twenty-five of which exist complete. They were written during a span of fifty years and have been divided into three periods: early, middle, and late.

• They are called DIALOGUES because they are actually written as dialogues between people – usually Socrates and others.
• Early Dialogues – Include Euthyphro, Crito, Meno, Protagoras, and Gorgias. These works portray Socrates as a brilliant and principled deflator of his contemporaries’ bogus claims to knowledge.
• Middle Dialogues – Include Phaedo, Symposium, REPUBLIC, and Theaetetus. These encompass Plato’s best-known ideas in epistemology and metaphysics.
• Late Dialogues – Include Parmenides, Sophist, Critias, and Laws. They document Plato’s evolving views on the Republic and on other themes from the earlier periods.
  
  • Scholars tend to regard the early dialogues and Apology (which is not in dialogue form) as mostly reflecting the ideas of the historical Socrates.
  • Dialogues from the middle and late periods generally convey Plato’s own thinking, even though he often has his words coming from Socrates.

Question 4

Diotima of Mantinea

Answer 4

DIOTIMA OF MANTINEA – One of the very few women philosophers of note in the ancient world.

• She is mentioned in Plato’s Symposium where Socrates claims to have talked with her years earlier and found that she had some insightful things to say about the nature of beauty and love.

Question 5

Knowledge and Reality

Answer 5

Plato and Socrates believed that we can know things, that there are OBJECTIVE truths to be discerned about reality. They thought there is a way the world is and that we can come to know what that way is: we can attain knowledge.

• SOPHISTS rejected this view. For them, knowledge of objective reality is NOT attainable, because truth is RELATIVE.

RELATIVISM – The view that the truth about something depends on what persons or cultures believe. This is the belief that there is no objective reality to be discovered; there are only beliefs (or opinions, as Plato says) that people endorse.

• Plato thought there was an urgent need to show that the Sophists were wrong. He knew that if the Sophists were right, philosophy would be an empty exercise, knowledge would be impossible, and wisdom would be merely a philosopher’s dream.

SKEPTICISM – The view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way.

• Skeptics may deny that we have knowledge of anything or maintain that we lack knowledge of only some things, such as an external world, physical objects, or other minds.
• They hold that many or all of our beliefs are unfounded.
• A standard skeptical argument says we lack knowledge because we have no way of distinguishing between beliefs that we take to be instances of knowledge from beliefs that are clearly not instances of knowledge.
• From either a skeptical or relativist standpoint, then, we have only beliefs; knowledge is a lost cause.

TJB–Plato was against the skeptics and relativists.

Question 6

Believing and Knowing

Answer 6

BELIEVING AND KNOWING:

• What if a belief we have happens to be true—is that knowledge?
• Accidental truth of a belief was good enough for the Sophists but not for Plato. He and most other philosophers past and present say knowledge has three necessary conditions:
  
  • To know a proposition:
    
    1. ​​You must believe it.
    2. It must be true.
    3. You must have good reasons for—be justified in—believing it true.
• A mere true belief is not knowledge either, because you can have a true belief and yet not genuinely know.
  
  • EX: Let’s say you believe for no reason that three ducks are now swimming on Walden Pond, and suppose your belief is true—there really are three ducks swimming on Walden Pond. Does your true belief count as knowledge? According to Plato, no—because you have no reason to think that three ducks are now swimming on Walden Pond. You have only a true belief by accident, a lucky guess, and that’s not knowledge.

Plato: Meno – True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place, but they will not stay long. They run away from a man’s mind; so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason.… Once they are tied down, they become knowledge.

• For Plato, knowledge is justified true belief. Most accept that knowledge is true belief that is in some sense backed by good reasons.

Why doesn’t true belief count as knowledge?

• NOTE–Because your belief can be true without you even knowing that it’s actually true.
  
  • NOTE–EX: You may believe in God and that may be true or false but you never really know, so it is not knowledge.

What would be the effect on society if no one ever had a good reason to believe a proposition?​​

• NOTE--Then everything would be just a belief and the Sophists would be correct.–TJB
• Plato takes for granted that we can identify false beliefs and that we can grasp mathematical, conceptual, and logical truths.
  
  • These assumptions do not hold for many people so it is a bold assumption.
    
    • NOTE–To support the idea of an objective reality, Plato begins with Math. (smart)– TJB
• ​Plato says, we must be able to acquire knowledge and he supports his conclusion using math.
  
  • We know that 2 + 5 = 7; that a triangle has three sides; and that if A is larger than B, and B is larger than C, then A is larger than C. No matter how hard we try, we cannot make 2 + 5 = 9.
  • These truths are objective: they are true regardless of what we think.
• We do not invent them out of our imaginations; we discover them. – This Is Very Important!

Plato reasons that if such truths are objective, they must also be about REAL THINGS.

• But what sort of real things? Certainly NOT the objects of our sense experience.
• Plato concludes that since a sensory property can both be and not be, it is NOT a reliable indicator of fully real things.
  
  • NOTE– Plato assumes that because a process is repeatable and always comes to the same conclusion regardless of who executes the process, then the process (MATH) must represent objective reality, but what if math is just a shared definition?–TJB
• Plato contends that the truly real things we can come to know are not of the physical world.
  
  • Consider: No one can draw a perfect line, or square, or triangle; there are always imperfections, even if only at the molecular level. But scientists and mathematicians study perfect lines, squares, and triangles.
  • The objects of their investigations do exist, but they cannot be the objects of sense experience.
  • Plato concludes that they must exist as ideal, changeless things in an immaterial reality beyond sense experience – 100% conceptual.
• Objects of knowledge exist, Plato says, but they are not particular, individual sensory things. They are general and abstract objects of the mind.

Do you agree that sense experience does not give us knowledge? Why or why not? Scientific research is based ultimately on sense experience. Does science give us knowledge?

• NOTE–I disagree. Sensory experience may not give us knowledge, but knowledge cannot be obtained without sensory experience. Sensory information is what our brain uses to make sense of the world. It’s how data is collected. Abstract ideas cannot be constructed without first having sensory input.
  
  • NOTE–EX: How can we “know” that a triangle has three sides if we don’t have sensory input of what a “side”is?– TJB
• Plato holds that our sense experience gives us opinion, not knowledge. Opinion is a fallible, transitory belief. Mere opinion is what the Sophists traffic in.
  
  • Only through our powers of reason can we reach beyond the physical world to take hold of real knowledge of lasting truths.

PLATO PHAEDO – “Do sight and hearing afford mankind any truth, or aren’t even the poets always harping on such themes, telling us that we neither hear nor see anything accurately?”

• So when does the soul attain the truth?
  
  • ​A: “So isn’t it in reasoning, if anywhere at all, that any realities become manifest.”

Question 7

Reason and the FORMS

Answer 7

REASON AND FORM:

For Plato, reality comprises two worlds:

1. Fleeting world of the physical – accessed through sense experience.
2. Eternal, nonphysical, changeless world of genuine knowledge – accessed only through reason.
   
   • In spelling out the contents of the latter, Plato articulates the central notion of his philosophy – the FORMS. He propounds two closely related meanings of Forms.
     
     • In one sense of the term, the Forms (also called Ideas) are perfect conceptual models for every existing thing, residing only in the eternal world penetrated by reason alone.
       
       • They are the ideals that we first come to know to assess the notions and objects we encounter in everyday experience.
         
         • EX: Through reason, we can access the Form of “table” and thus know the ideal template of “table.” With this knowledge, we can understand the essence of a table and use this understanding to make judgments about all physical tables.
         • EX: Likewise when we access the Form “courage,” we know what the ideal of courage is and can use this knowledge to appraise a particular instance of courage.
   • As Plato sees it, the truly real world is the world of the independently existing Forms—the domain of the perfect and everlasting.
   • Plato thinks the Forms are more real than the objects detected through sense experience.
     
     • With knowledge of the really real, we can understand the “less real” realm of the imperfect and transitory.

FORMS – In Plato’s philosophy, the objectively real, eternal abstract entities that serve as models or universals of higher knowledge.

Plato also thought of the Forms as properties that can be had by several particular things—in other words, the Forms are universals.

• PARTICULARS reside in the temporary, imperfect world of the material;
• UNIVERSALS are found in the eternal, perfect world of the really real.
  
  • Every blue thing is a particular instance of the universal of blueness.
  • Every triangular thing is a particular example of the universal of triangularity.

How are the Forms supposed to help us understand the material world?

• NOTE–They are intended to represent a perfect ideal that is the “really real” and can only exist as a concept. Anything else is corrupted by the imperfection of the sensory input which makes them “less real”. They help us understand the material world by giving us a universal standard against which we can compare each instance of an object we experience in the physical world –TJB
• Forms bring order to the world.
  
  • We can comprehend items in the physical realm because they “participate in” the Forms, and the physical world achieves order and resists chaos because it also participates in the Forms – because the FORMS give it order.
  • EX: A brown horse participates in the Forms of brown and horse.
• So acquiring knowledge is a matter of discerning the Forms.
  
  • By using the question-and-answer format of the Socratic Method, Socrates’ implicit aim was to uncover the FORM of justice and the FORM of piety and thus grasp true wisdom.
• For Plato, the greatest of the Forms is the FORM of the GOOD.
  
  • To grasp the Forms is not only to achieve supreme wisdom, but also to acquire the highest virtues, to receive the blessings of those virtues, and to become a better person.
  • Ultimately, the serious searcher for knowledge will reach the summit of understanding in the Form of the good.
    
    • To attain this Form is to understand the final and complete explanation for everything—to come to know the best way for anything to exist, to know what is the highest good for everything in the world. – an impossible endeavor.

CRITIQUES OF THE FORMS:

• Plato’s Theory of the Forms is probably his most famous and controversial doctrine.
• INNATE KNOWLEDGE – Plato thinks knowledge of these immaterial ideals is already present at birth, inscribed in our minds (our immortal souls) in a previous existence.
  • Accessing this knowledge then is a matter of using reason to recall what we previously knew in another life.
  • In the dialogue, he depicts the character of Socrates discussing innate knowledge with Meno.
    
    • To prove his point, Socrates calls over an unschooled slave boy and asks him a series of questions about a geometry problem. Socrates draws a two-foot-by-two-foot square (four square feet), then tells the boy to draw another one that is twice the size of the first. Initially, the boy thinks that doubling the length of each side of the square will produce a square twice as large as the first. So he draws a four-foot-by-four-foot square (sixteen square feet) but sees right away that that answer cannot be correct. As Socrates asks further questions, the boy comes to the right answer on his own. Socrates says that he merely helped the boy recollect knowledge that he already possessed, bringing innate knowledge to consciousness.

Do you think the doctrine of innate knowledge is plausible? Why or why not?

• NOTE–Some understanding of the physical world is innate. However, the assertion that it comes from a “past life” is unfounded.

PLATO: MENO:

SOC: What do you say of him [the slave boy], Meno? Were not all these answers given out of his own head?

MEN: Yes, they were all his own.

SOC: And yet, as we were just now saying, he did not know?

MEN: True.

SOC: And yet he had those notions in him?

MEN: Yes.

SOC: Then he who does not know still has true notions of that which he does not

know?

MEN: He has.

Question 8

FORMS and the 3rd Man Argument

Answer 8

FORMS – says that there is an ULTIMATE EXPLANATION to describe everything objectively.

• There are FORMS, which represent the IDEAL VERSIONS of everything that exists in the world.
• EX: There is a FORM that is a “Chair”, but not just any chair. It is the ULTIMATE chair, the embodiment of all things that exist with regard to ‘chairness’. In fact, this ideal representation of the ideal chair is so perfect, that it can only exist as a concept in our minds. It can not exist in real life because our sensory interpretation of such an object would muck it up and make it imperfect.
  
  • In the real world, there are versions of these things (chairs) that are a part of (or take part in) this form. They are not perfect, but there is something about them that partakes in this form – something that makes them a chair, however imperfect.
  • The Form itself is NOT part of the group of chairs. It is the standard by which the ‘chairness’ of all objects in the real world is compared to see if they do or do not take part in this particular FORM – that of Chairs.

3rd MAN ARGUMENT – an argument against Plato’s Theory of Forms that insists that the FORMS do NOT provide the ultimate explanation for objects and ideas. It makes three points: (NOTE: Plato, in his Parmenides Dialogue, himself proposed this criticism of his FORMS theory – likely so he could pre-empt others from doing so. Later on, he proposes a solution to this criticism).

1. PREMISE 1: There must be an infinite chain of forms.
   
   • For each particular object that exists, there is a FORM in which it takes part.
   • EX: Take two things, a building, and the Earth. What do they have in common? What form might both of these things take part in? Well, one possibility (and there can be many forms in which an object or idea takes part) is that they are both large, so they both take part in the FORM of “LARGENESS”.
     
     • Although “Largeness” is an abstract concept, we know one thing about it with regard to FORMS. We know that if “LARGENESS” is a form that serves as the ideal standard for anything LARGE, then it too MUST be LARGE. So we know that the FORM “LARGENESS” must also be LARGE, just as the real world objects of a building and the Earth are large.
   • The 3rd Man Argument argues that since the FORM of LARGENESS itself is an example of LARGENESS, then it too must partake in (be a part of) another FORM. So, it says that this FORM of LARGENESS must take part in a FORM of something even grander – even more ideal – an even LARGER FORM of LARGENESS.
   • And if there is an even LARGER FORM of LARGENESS, then that too must be a part of an even more ideal FORM – a LARGER than LARGER LARGENESS – and so on to infinity.
     
     • It is similar to the question of any origin. EX: If God created us, then who created God. And if that entity created God, then who/what created it? And so on forever.
     • The bottom line is that INFINITE RESULTS are unacceptable in philosophy because they imply that there is no real basis in those results.
       
       • Interestingly, the foundation of Plato’s approach to philosophy and objective reality is to begin with MATH. In MATH too, infinite results are unacceptable.
2. PREMISE 2: INFINITES are IMPOSSIBLE.
3. CONCLUSION: Thus, FORMS are NOT POSSIBLE.

• The reason it’s called “3rd Man” is because Plato’s protege, Aristotle, posed this same criticism using the FORM of ”Man” with the GREATER form of “MAN” (in which the lesser FORM of “MAN” must partake) is the third man – the first “man” are real men in reality, who partake in the FORM of (the 2nd) MAN, which must further partake in the FORM of (the 3rd) MAN, who would then partake in the FORM of the 4th MAN, etc.
• PLATO later proposed a solution to the 3rd Man Argument – that the Form could serve as an example WITHIN ITS OWN FORM, so it did not have to have a ‘GREATER FORM’ to partake in.
  • To me this seems like an arbitrary and concocted non-solution. Who says such a form would logically serve as an example of its own form? He just decreed that.

Question 9

Plato’s Rationalism

Answer 9

PLATO”S RATIONALISM:

Plato’s theory of knowledge is a RATIONALIST VIEW.

RATIONALISM – The view that some or all of our knowledge about the world is gained independently of sense experience.

• Rationalists include René Descartes (1596–1650), Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677), and Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716).

EMPIRICISM – The doctrine that knowledge of the world comes solely from sense experience.

• We may come to know logical and mathematical truths through reason, but we can know nothing of the world except through our senses.
• Empiricists include John Locke (1632–1704), George Berkeley (1685–1753), and David Hume (1711–1776).

Modern Platonism:

PLATONISM – Views derived from Plato’s doctrines, especially his theory of Forms – says that numbers or other abstract objects are objective, timeless entities, independent of the physical world and of the symbols used to represent them.

MATHEMATICAL PLATONISM – Says that mathematical entities—such as the number 3; 2 + 2 = 4; all prime numbers; and pi—are abstract objects that exist independently of the thoughts and practices of rational beings.

• Objection to mathematical Platonism is that it proposes a great divide between mathematical concepts and the human mind, between the mathematical world and the world we live in.
  
  • NOTE–Clearly the objection is False. We definitely live in a mathematical world. Every physical event is defined by math – The standard model and physical theories hadn’t been developed when Plato was alive.–TJB

Do you think mathematical Platonism is plausible? Why or why not?

• NOTE–Yes. We know that math exists outside our reality because our reality appears to be made by math and if something is constructed WITHIN a framework, then that framework must necessarily supersede that which is created within it.
  
  • We didn’t create math, it created us and we merely discovered it. – TJB

Question 10

Allegory of the Cave

Answer 10

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE:

The Republic, Plato presents what is probably the most famous tale in Western philosophy:

• “ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE” – Illustrates facets of Plato’s theories of knowledge and metaphysics, but it can also be seen as a metaphor for the search for ultimate wisdom through philosophy.
• Imagine, Plato says, prisoners chained for life against a wall in a cave so that they can see only shadows on the opposite wall. The shadows appear because behind and above the wall to which the prisoners are chained there burns a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway along which people pass carrying vessels, statues, and replicas of animals. The prisoners see the shadows of these artifacts on the wall and hear the people’s voices echoing off of it, and they mistakenly believe that these sights and sounds are the real world. But the real world—the truth—lies above the darkened cave out in the bright sunlight.

PLATO: THE REPUBLIC:

• If this allegory is taken as a representation of the search for, and the impediments to, wisdom, what does the cave represent? What do the shadows on the wall represent?
  
  • NOTE–The Cave represents narrow-mindedness.
  • NOTE–The shadow represents our limited perceptions of the world around us – our ignorance.
• To [those imprisoned in the cave[, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
  
  • Someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
• And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

The prisoners react with disdain and violence to the enlightened one. Are there parallels in history of this sort of treatment for people with unconventional views?

• NOTE–Yes. Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, and Socrates were all trying to enlighten those around them. People who were so set in their limited realities that they not only rejected these truths as falsehoods, but also called for the punishment (even death) of each of them for their lies/ deceit/ witchcraft. – TJB
• And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves (who were imprisoned in the cave) on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were, therefore, best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he (who is now enlightened to the truth beyond the cave) would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
  
  • NOTE–Here, Plato is pointing out that it is FAR Better to know the truth than to find glory in ignorance.–TJB
• Imagine once more, I said, such as one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
• To be sure, he said.
• And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
  
  • NOTE–Here, Plato is pointing out how ludicrous the enlightened person appears to the ignorant, almost as though they’ve left reality (ignorance) and returned unable to accept the state of the reality in which they once lived.
  • NOTE– Enlightenment is a different plane of existence.

What is the moral (or morals) of Plato’s allegory?

• The prison-house (CAVE) is the world of sight,
• the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend (MISUNDERSTAND) me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world.
• In the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things.
  
  • And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations (Enlightenment) to the evil state (Ignorance) of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner (Because he is enlightened among the ignorant); if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness (Ignorance), he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows (Ignorant Interpretations) of images of justice, and is endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those (The Ignorant) who have never yet seen absolute justice?
• The most obvious interpretation centers on the individual’s struggle to acquire the highest form of knowledge, the FORMS.
  
  • Prisoners represent the majority of people who have only transitory beliefs to guide them, who are in the darkness of ignorance, believing that their sensory experience, dim reflections, and shallow thinking reveal all that exists.
  • If a prisoner is released from his chains and is shown the true source of the shadows, he will not believe his eyes, and he will prefer to think as he always has—just as people will often prefer comfortable commonplace assumptions to deeper understanding.
  • If he is dragged into the light, his eyes will hurt, and he will be disoriented, just as the truths of philosophy—the eternal Forms—can at first seem strange and frightening.
  • But if he stays in the light, his eyes will eventually adjust; the persistent seeker of wisdom will gradually grasp the Forms and bask in the light of understanding. When he finally does see things as they really are in the full sunlight, he will pity the prisoners he left behind and will return to the cave to enlighten them.
    
    • Just as Socrates and Plato try to rescue people from their ignorance and turn them toward genuine wisdom.
  • But those who dwell in darkness will revile the enlightened former prisoner, thinking him a ridiculous fool, and might even put him to death for spreading heresy.
    
    • Athenians treated Socrates in a similar way, executing him for trying to nudge others toward real knowledge—a fate that has often befallen those who have dared speak unconventional truths.

Question 11

Immortality, Morality, and the Soul

Answer 11

Immortality, Morality, and The Soul:

• Early Greeks held the soul (psyche) is a pitiable thing, a far cry from the modern notion of soul as the supremely important essence of the real person.

G. M. A. Grube: Plato’s Thought – Achilles complains that he would rather be a servant to the poorest man on earth than king among the dead. There is no suggestion that the psyche is in any way man’s highest or noblest part. There is nothing spiritual about Homer’s souls and his dead would gladly come back to life, however painful.

• For early Greeks, to have a soul is merely to be alive; not having a soul is to be dead. The soul was not laden with much more importance than that.
  
  • The soul did not have the importance that later thinkers would give it.

How does the early Greeks’ view of the soul differ from that of Christians’?

• Socrates and Plato declared that the intellect is the highest, most divine part of a human, and intelligence is the greatest function of the soul.
• Through reason, the soul guides a person’s life and restrains the immoderate actions and reckless passions of the body.
• It is the soul that grasps eternal truths (the Forms), and it is philosophy that frees the soul from the bewildering and blinding influence of the senses.
• Little wonder, then, that Socrates urged Athenians to take care, above all, of their souls by continually searching for knowledge.

Question 12

The Immortal Soul and Morality

Answer 12

THE IMMORTAL SOUL:

• In the Apology, as Socrates waits in prison for his sentence to be carried out, he reflects on life after death and the fate of the soul. He considers two prospects:
  
  1. that death is oblivion, like an eternal sleep without dreams, OR
  2. that the soul lives on after the body dies and can engage in conversations with the previously departed.

PHAEDO (Dialogue) – Plato, through the persona of Socrates, sets forth arguments for the soul’s immortality.

• One is the argument from RECOLLECTION (Dialogue), which Socrates illustrates with the story of the slave boy and the geometry problem (discussed earlier). We acquire knowledge, says Socrates, by recalling what our souls knew (knowledge of the Forms) before we were born.
  
  • If he is right, it seems our souls do not perish with our bodies, and this suggests that immortality is at least a plausible theory.

What is Plato’s affinity argument for immortality? Does the argument prove what Plato thinks it does?

• AFFINITY ARGUMENT – ​There are two types of existence:
  
  1. There is the type of existence that is “human, mortal, multiform, non-intelligible, dissoluble, and never constant in relation to itself.” The body is most similar to what has this type of existence.
  2. In contrast, there is the type of existence that is “divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, unvarying, and constant in relation to itself.” The soul is most akin to what has this type of existence and therefore probably shares in all these attributes, including being both divine and immortal.

TRIPARTITE SOUL (The Three-Part Soul) – ​Plato believes in DUALISM – The view that the mind (or soul) and matter (or body) are two different entities. The soul and body consist of different kinds of stuff.

• Plato reasons that internal conflict in the soul cannot happen unless the soul consists of more than one part. Thus, he claims that the soul has three distinct parts or aspects.

(1) APPETITE – (the “avaricious” part), which desires satisfaction of the bodily cravings for food, drink, sex, sleep, and other useful or pleasurable things.

(2) SPIRIT – (the “competitive” part), which wants to preserve a sense of self and serve ambition (and is thus motivated to maximize honor, self-esteem, recognition, success, and winning).

(3) REASON – (the philosophical or intellectual part), which should pursue truth (both practical and theoretical), regulate the other two parts, and rule the soul as a whole.

Julia Annas: An Introduction to Plato’s Republic:

• The ‘REASON’ part of the soul was the only part that is interested in the whole soul and not just itself. That is the main reason why it must be the one to rule the soul.
• The other reason is that a life that is shaped by devotion to the aim of reason, searching for truth, is a better life for the person to lead than a life shaped by devotion to the ends of the other parts (which are what APPETITE and SPIRIT are focused on).

MORAL SOUL:

• With his notion of a TRIPARTITE (three-part) soul, Plato is able to shed light on both human psychology and the foundations of morality.
• Most of his treatment of MORALITY is found in the REPUBLIC, which is ostensibly about the workings of the ideal state (or society) but is largely about the nature of morality (justice) and the necessary conditions for human happiness.
  
  • The discussion begins in the Republic’s first chapter with the SOPHIST Thrasymachus insisting that justice is nothing more than rules devised by the strong and imposed on the weak.
    
    • He then argues that the moral man will always be at a disadvantage compared to the immoral. It pays to be immoral, he declares; being moral is for suckers.

The REPUBLIC

• So the challenge to Plato is to show that Thrasymachus is wrong about JUSTICE and MORALITY,
  
  • Fundamental question: Which is the best way to live, justly or unjustly – which kind of life is good in itself (inherently good), not just good because the consequences of living that way are advantageous?
    
    • Plato must demonstrate that the poor, sick, reviled, homeless moral man has a better life (is happier) than the rich, healthy, respected, powerful immoral man.
• Plato addresses this challenge by referring to his concept of the TRIPARTITE SOUL – A man is moral (and behaves morally) when the three parts of the soul act in harmony and fulfill their purpose.
  
  • To achieve this state of harmony is to be a just person, and a just person acts justly.

What is Thrasymachus’ theory of morality? How does it differ from Plato’s?

• NOTE: Thrasymachus seems to assume that material benefit is the goal while Plato believes that tripartite harmony is the goal. Neither seems to disagree on what morality is. It’s just that Thrasymachus believes that immortality will provide greater (material) benefit to the individual. Neither of them are necessarily wrong given that they each measure the benefit of morality based on different goals. To get a better comparison of who is right or wrong, they would first need to agree on what the ultimate goal of morality is.
  
  • It is interesting to note that Thrasymachus focuses on the parts of the tripartite (1 & 2) while Plato adds the 3rd part to rule over parts 1 & 2.
  • But who is to say whether one or the other is correct. Maybe something completely different is the TRUE ultimate goal that determines the value of mortality. -TJB
• Plato says – “Once he has set his own house in order, which is what he really should be concerned with—only then does he act—if he acts—to acquire property or look after his body or play a role in government or do some private business. In the course of this activity, it is conduct which preserves and promotes this inner condition of his that he regards as moral and describes as fine, and it is knowledge which oversees this conduct that he regards as wisdom; however, it is any conduct which disperses this condition that he regards as immoral, and the thinking which oversees this conduct that he regards as stupidity.
  
  • NOTE–Here Plato says that the pursuit of worldly desires can be pursued only AFTER a person achieved perfect unity, truth, and (essentially) perfection of self. And even then, perfection must be maintained, and any action which degrades that perfection should be deemed evil and stupid. The catch is that perfection can never really be attained in the first place.– TJB
• The result of having this harmonious and just soul, Plato says, is enduring happiness—the priceless byproduct of the good life.
  
  • This kind of happiness is a deep, durable satisfaction that is not affected by the ups and downs of fortune.
• The inner state of the immoral person, however, is disharmony, where the three aspects of the personality pull against one another, each one wanting something that conflicts with the wants of the other two.

According to Plato, when is a person moral, or just?

• NOTE–When the 3 parts of the soul act in harmony and fulfill their purpose.

How does a person achieve true happiness?

• NOTE–By having a harmonious and just soul.

Why does Plato believe the moral life is better than the immoral life? Do you agree? Why or why not?

• NOTE--The moral life is better because it comes with a “harmonious and just” soul which leads to enduring happiness. The immoral life brings disharmony and conflict, and though it may bring occasional merriment, it does NOT bring enduring happiness.–TJB

NOTE–I think the results of acting morally depend on the person’s belief in what is or is not moral, as well as their sense of justification for their acts.–TJB

NOTE–EX: Killing may be justified by some if you are fighting a war or punishing an attacker, in which case, they would deem their actions both moral and beneficial to the soul. Others will disagree, finding it immoral under any circumstance and creating disharmony. –TJB

• Plato says that the unjust life is out of balance with inner conflict among the parts of the soul wreaking psychological pain and external calamity. Plato gives no positive weight to the benefits to the body in a material world. To him, the poor, decrepit, but moral man is far happier than the wealthy, healthy, immoral man.
  
  • Says who?
  • He says that from an immoral life may come transitory enjoyment but no true happiness.
    
    • NOTE: Maybe, maybe not. Who is he to judge the feelings of others? Plato simply assumes that his views on morality and related happiness are correct. But that is really just his opinion.
• Plato, “But the just life, despite any outward misfortune and the disdain of the unjust, is the most beneficial and, in the best sense of the word, the happiest.”
  
  • NOTE: I’ll bet the luster of morality takes a back seat for the person who truly suffers in the material world. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were not exactly regular people living regular lives. They could afford to wax poetically about the ideals of morality and their alleged associations with enduring happiness. Not everyone begins with that luxury.

Question 13

The Ring of Gyges

Answer 13

THE RING OF GYGES – In the REPUBLIC, Plato’s older brother, Glaucon, asks Socrates whether justice is good in itself or only a necessary evil.

• Glaucon poses the hypothesis that egotistic power-seeking in which we have complete freedom to indulge ourselves might be the ideal state of existence.
  
  • Plato reasons that others might seek to have the same power, which would interfere with our freedom and cause a state of chaos in which no one was likely to have any of one’s desires fulfilled.
    
    • So we compromise and limit our acquisitive instincts (desire to acquire stuff).
      
      • Justice or a system of morality is simply the result of that COMPROMISE.
        
        • It has no intrinsic value but is better than chaos and worse than undisturbed power. It is better to compromise and limit our acquisitive instincts.
• Glaucon tells the story of a shepherd named Gyges.
• Socrates counters that to be just is indeed always better than to be unjust. Immorality corrupts the inner person, making one truly worse off psychologically and spiritually.
  
  • NOTE: Plato lays much of his philosophy on the unfounded conclusion that people are always better off if their soul is virtuous and true, giving no weight to matters of material in a material world. He does not seem to address the difference in environmental influences that affect the poor and the rich.
    
    • EX: Does he ponder the ease with which a person might accept his version of morality if they live comfortably vs. if they live amidst squalor and death?
      
      • Does he consider morality as relativistic at all? For example, if you steal a loaf of bread because you want to, but have no need – is that the same as stealing a loaf of bread to keep your family from starving to death?
      • Is it moral or immoral to look down on someone who harshly judges a person for stealing to keep their family alive?
      • Maybe Plato is the immoral one in that situation. Who is he to judge those fighting for their family’s survival when he was never in such a position?

Question 14

The Individual and the State

Answer 14

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE:

• In the REPUBLIC, Plato argues that the only kind of society that can ensure people get their due is a MERITOCRACY – a system of rule by an elite distinguished by abilities and achievements.
  
  • He contrasts meritocracy with a form of government he strongly opposes: DEMOCRACY – rule by the people as a whole.
    
    • In his view, democratic rule is mob rule, the reign of a rabble too easily swayed by emotional appeals and bad arguments. (He never forgot that it was a democratic vote of his fellow citizens that committed the ultimate injustice by condemning to death his teacher and role model, the venerable Socrates.)

SOCIETY = SOUL – Plato equates the functioning of the ideal society to the functioning of the soul.

• The soul is composed of three fundamental components:
  
  • APPETITE
  • SPIRIT
  • REASON (or intellect).
  • The just, or moral, person will be a well-balanced composite of these; each performing its own distinctive function in harmony with the others, with the appetites and spirit ruled and coordinated by reason.
• A society consists of three types of people, each one identified according to which of the soul’s components predominates:​
  
  • Those who are moved by APPETITE (PRODUCERS —laborers, carpenters, artisans, farmers).
  • Those who are moved by SPIRIT (AUXILIARIES —soldiers, warriors, police).
  • Those who are moved by REASON (GUARDIANS —leaders, rulers, philosopher-kings)
• In a just society, these three perform their proper functions, with the producers and auxiliaries being led and controlled by the guardians.
  
  • The just state is a harmonious community governed by reason, just as a moral or virtuous person is a tripartite being presided over by the rational faculty of the soul.
• Plato says citizens are assigned to one of the three functions based on their aptitude and performance, and once appointed, they are expected to remain in that class and not cross over to another.
  
  • This scheme reflects PLATO’S THEORY OF ETHICS – To be virtuous and happy, we must act according to our talents and aptitude, striving for excellence in the endeavors nature has chosen for us.
• ARISTOCRACY – (A society ruled by a privileged class)—NOT an aristocracy of the rich or well-born, but of the intellect.
  
  • The GUARDIANS are true philosopher-kings. They wield all the political power by virtue of their greater talents and intelligence – but, contrary to the usual custom—cannot own property, for owning property might tempt them to govern for personal gain rather than for the good of society.
    
    • This powerful elite can include women and anyone from the lower classes because the only qualification for becoming a ruler is simply to be of superior intelligence and character.
• CRITICISM – His ideal state rests on massive INEQUALITY among citizens who are sorted into three classes marked by unequal shares of power and privilege.
  
  • Plato maintains that equals should be treated equally, but to him the classes deserve different treatment because they are not equal. They are different. For Plato, all men are not created equal.
• Then there is the AUTHORITARIANISM of Plato’s state, in which no one gets to choose their own role in life. In general, once assigned to a social role, citizens cannot jump to a different one. There is no social mobility except within a class and in the case of guardians being chosen from lower classes.
• Criticism has also been leveled at Plato’s assumption that the unity of the community trumps personal liberty.
  
  • We require very strong arguments in support of the view that the unity of the political state is such a good thing that it justifies loss of what we are bound to regard as individual freedom. We never get these kinds of arguments in Plato, however … Plato simply takes the value of the unity of the state as self-evident.
    
    • NOTE: Once again, Plato places his philosophy on a foundation of assumptions without supporting premises. What happened to the Socratic Method? It seems that the Socratic Method and reason only apply when NOT referencing Plato’s many assumptions and opinions.
• The REPUBLIC – Plato has Socrates explain his concept of morality within individuals and communities.
• “Every individual has to do just one of the jobs relevant to the community, the one for which his nature has best equipped him.”
• Plato equates MORALITY to an INDIVIDUAL doing one’s own job and not intruding elsewhere.
  
  • This is in a sense what morality is—doing one’s own job.
• There’s apparently a close connection between the ability of everyone in a community to do their own jobs and the community’s wisdom, self-discipline, and courage.”
• It is this principle (of doing one’s individual job) that makes it possible for all those other qualities (wisdom, self-discipline, and courage) to arise in the community, which makes the society a MORAL COMMUNITY as well.
  
  • So a MORAL COMMUNITY (that has wisdom, self-discipline, and courage) can ONLY be made up of MORAL INDIVIDUALS (Who each do their job without intruding on others).
• “So from this point of view too we are agreed that morality is keeping one’s own property and keeping to one’s own occupation.”
• If a joiner tried to do a shoemaker’s job, or a shoemaker a carpenter’s, or if they swapped tools or status, or even if the same person tried to do both jobs, with all the tools and so on of both jobs switched around, do you think that much harm would come to the community?”
• “Not really,” he said.
  
  • “On the other hand, when someone whom nature has equipped to be an artisan or to work for money in some capacity or other gets so puffed up by his wealth or popularity or strength or some such factor that he tries to enter the military class, or when a member of the militia tries to enter the class of policymakers and guardians when he’s not qualified to do so, and they swap tools and status, or when a single person tries to do all these jobs simultaneously, then I’m sure you’ll agree that these interchanges and intrusions are disastrous for the community.”
  • “Absolutely.”
  • “There’s nothing more disastrous for the community, then, than the intrusion of any of the three classes into either of the other two, and the interchange of roles among them, and there could be no more correct context for using the term ‘criminal.’”
    
    • NOTE– These two paragraphs are Plato’s argument for people staying within their own class for the good of society.–TJB
• “And when someone commits the worst crime against his own community, wouldn’t you describe this as immorality?”
• This is what immorality is.
  
  • ​Isn’t it the case that when each of the three classes—the one that works for a living, the auxiliaries, and the guardians—performs its proper function and does its own job in the community, then this is morality and makes the community a moral one?”

Question 15

REVIEW NOTES

Answer 15

4.1 Plato’s Life and Times:

Plato – Father of Western Philosophy because most of its branches of inquiry can trace their beginnings to him, and they cannot be deemed complete without taking him into account.

• Founded the Academy in Athens, a college and research center often regarded as the first university.
• The Academy’s most distinguished student was Aristotle.

4.2 Knowledge and Reality:

• Plato rejected the relativism and the skepticism of the Sophists, and he provided an important analysis of knowledge as justified true belief.
• Reality comprises two worlds: Fleeting world of the physical accessed through sense experience; eternal, nonphysical, changeless world of genuine knowledge accessed only through reason.
• Central notion of his philosophy is the Forms, the objectively real, eternal abstract entities that serve as models or universals of higher knowledge.

4.3 Allegory of the Cave:

• A story that Plato tells to illustrate facets of his theories.
• Interpretation centers on the individual’s struggle to acquire the highest form of knowledge, the Forms, and on the opposition by the unenlightened to this wisdom.

4.4 Immortality, Morality, and the Soul:

• Plato offers several arguments for the immortality of the soul, including the recollection and affinity arguments.
• Plato accepted the mind-body theory known as dualism but also argued that the soul consisted of three aspects or parts: appetite, spirit, and reason. NOTE– The Tripartite
• A person is moral and behaves morally when the three parts of the soul act in harmony and fulfill their purpose.

4.5 The Individual and the State:

• The only kind of society that can ensure people get their due is a MERITOCRACY, a system of rule by those most qualified to govern.
• In his view, democratic rule is mob rule, the reign of a rabble too easily swayed by emotional appeals and bad arguments.
• Just as the moral person is a well-balanced composite of the three parts of the soul, a society consists of three types of people, each one identified according to which of the soul’s components predominates.
  
  • Thus, a just society has producers, auxiliaries, and guardians.
• Plato’s ideal society has been criticized for its inequality, its authoritarianism, and its subordination of individual liberty to the needs of the community.