Lesson 3 - Plato

Question 1

Plato was the first ____ philosopher?

Answer 1

Systematic

• • He integrated metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics together for the first time
• • He presented a coherent framework to answer the big questions of life

Question 2

Who was Plato’s 3 big influences?

Answer 2

1. ) Pythagorus
2. ) Parmenides
3. ) Socrates

Question 3

What famous school did Plato found?

Answer 3

The Academy in 387 BC

Question 4

What was Plato’s metaphysics?

Answer 4

Dualism: two distinct worlds or realms

Question 5

What were the 2 worlds and what did they contain?

Answer 5

1. ) Upper World - objects of the intellect (Forms/Ideas) - e.g. the perfect circle
2. ) Lower World - objects of sense experience (material world) e.g. Imperfect circles like wheels

Question 6

What is a form/idea?

Answer 6

eternal, unchangeable, universal essences (e.g. Redness, truth, beauty, justice, etc.)

Question 7

What are the 2 types of forms? What is the highest form?

Answer 7

1. ) Higher Forms (Truth, beauty)
2. ) Lower Forms (Geometrical/Physical)

The highest form is Good

Question 8

What are physical things?

Answer 8

Mere copies of forms (Forms are the realist things)

Question 9

How are forms related to particulars?

Answer 9

Via participation

Question 10

What is Plato’s anthropology?

Answer 10

Soul-Body Dualism (Soul is pre-existent, survives death)

Question 11

What are the 3 parts of the soul according to Plato?

Answer 11

1. ) The Rational (Mind/Intellect)
2. ) The Spirited (Driving Force)
3. ) Appetite (Desire or Instincts)

Question 12

What is Plato’s epistemology?

Answer 12

Rationalism (knowledge comes through intellect, not the senses).
– Like Socrates skeptical of Sophists

Question 13

What is Plato’s human belief?

Answer 13

1. ) Knowlege (higher realm - intellect; universals/forms)
   a. ) Dialectic - higher forms (the good)
   b. ) Understanding - lower forms (geometric)
2. ) Opinion (lower realm - sense-experience; particulars/copies)
   a. ) Belief
   b. ) Imagining

Question 14

How does Plato believe one comes to understand or know the forms?

Answer 14

Doctrine of Recollection - knowledge of the forms is innate and so learning them comes from recollection or remembrance

Question 15

What was Plato’s ethics?

Answer 15

Virtue ethics: morality based on rational inner harmony

Question 16

What were Plato’s four cardinal virtues?

Answer 16

wisdom, courage, temperance (balance), justice

Question 17

What is the ultimate goal of the moral life?

Answer 17

To know the good

Question 18

What was Plato’s cosmology, 4 parts?

Answer 18

1. ) Matter - eternal, pre-existing, indeterminate stuff
2. ) Forms - the eternal, immaterial patterns for the temporal material world
3. ) Receptacle - unstructured space where everything takes place
4. ) Demiurge - the finite craftsman

Question 19

To Plato, what is the cosmos the product of?

Answer 19

Impersonal necessity (recalcitrance) and reason (activity of the mind)

Question 20

What was Plato’s big idea?

Answer 20

The objects of sense experience are not the ultimate reality; they are merely imperfect copies of the perfect, paradigmatic, abstract, transcendent Forms.

Question 21

What is one word to describe Plato?

Answer 21

Dualistic