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PY2011 > Plato > Flashcards

Plato Flashcards

1
Q

How does Euthyphro initially respond to Socrates’ question to define piety?

A

‘The pious is doing what I am doing right now, to prosecute the wrongdoer’

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2
Q

How does does Socrates respond to Euthyphro’s first definition of piety?

A
  • he asks what wrongdoing is
  • he explains that Euthyphro only gives examples
  • Socrates insists that a proper definition of piety must be sufficient to include all instances of that virtue
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3
Q

What is Euthyphro’s second definition of piety?

A

What is pious is what is dear to the Gods

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4
Q

How does Socrates respond to Euthyphro’s second definition of piety?

A
  • Socrates asks what is dear to the Gods
  • it is not clear what makes anything dear to the Gods
  • the God’s disagree on what is dear to one god and another
  • the same thing, therefore, is pious and impious —> contradiction
  • Socrates’ solution: what is dear to all Gods is pious
  • Euthyphro dilemma: is something pious because it is dear to the Gods, or is something loved by the Gods because it is pious
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5
Q

What is Euthyphro’s 3rd definition of piety?

A

What is pious is what is of necessity just

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6
Q

What is Socrates’ response to Euthyphro’s 3rd definition of piety?

A
  • Euthyphro is determining one view with another that is equally hard to define
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7
Q

How does Euthyphro move in from is claim that piety is justice? And what is Socrates’ response?

A

He says that piety is a part of justice

Socrates asks which part

Euthyphro says it is the part that is concerned with the Gods

Socrates asks what concern for the God’s means - gods do not need our concern, they do not achieve anything with our help

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8
Q

What is Euthyphro’s fourth definition of piety?

A

Piety is knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray, how to give to the Gods and how to beg from them

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9
Q

How does Socrates respond to Euthyphro’s fourth definition of piety?

A

So, what we give to the Gods is dear to them, and pious is what is dear to the Gods —> this could relate to anything

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10
Q

What is the conclusion of the Euthyphro dialogue?

A

Aporia

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11
Q

What are the issues provoked by the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma?

A

If the Gods love something because it is pious then morality would be above the Gods which challenges ideas of omnipotence

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12
Q

What are issues provoked by the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma?

A

If something is pious because the Gods love it then morality would be arbitrary. There is a mix up of cause and effect. Gives a necessary truth instead of a definition.

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13
Q

What is the main question of the Meno?

A

Can virtue be taught?

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14
Q

What are the different definitions of virtue given in the Meno?

A
  • virtue is given by nature
  • virtue needs practice
  • virtue is given by the Gods
  • virtue is teachable
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15
Q

What are the key ideas introduced by the Meno?

A
  • the idea that the soul is eternal, knows everything and recollects in order to learn
  • virtue as a kind of wisdom
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16
Q

How does Meno first define virtue?

A

He says that there are different virtues for different people (men, women, children)

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17
Q

What is the problem with plurality re virtue?

A

Socrates says there must be a common value behind these different variations which defines virtue

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18
Q

What is Meno’s second definition of virtue?

A

Virtue is split into different particular virtues: justice, moderation etc

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19
Q

How does Socrates respond to Meno’s second definition of virtue and what is problematic about this response?

A

You have to achieve your virtues in a just way for it to be a virtue

Problem is that justice is a subset of virtue

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20
Q

What is Meno’s third definition of virtue? What is Socrates’ response?

A

To be able to rule over people

  • ruling has to be just not corrupt
  • yet just definition is circular
  • meno only gives examples of virtue rather than defining it
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21
Q

What is Meno’s fourth definition of virtue? What is Socrates’ response?

A

Virtue is to desire beautiful things and to have the power to acquire them

  • Socrates: no one desires anything that is bad, because people think bad things appear good. If people do something that is bad, it is only because they don’t know better.
  • what is enquiring good things?
  • meno: gold, silver, offices
  • Socrates: is it always good to acquire these things if you can’t always acquire them justly and piously?
  • menu disentangles material from virtue
22
Q

What is the result of the Meno dialogue?

A

Meno forces to accept he does not know and reconsiders his idea of virtue

23
Q

How does Socrates argue that virtue is teachable ?

A
  1. Of the things that benefit us, some are beneficial but at other times harmful
  2. The only thing that is always beneficial is wisdom
  3. Virtue is always beneficial
  4. Of virtue is wisdom it is therefore teachable
24
Q

What is a criticism to Socrates’ claim that virtue is teachable?

A

The fact that all good things, in order to be beneficial, must be accompanied by wisdom doesn’t really show that wisdom is the same thing as virtue

25
Q

How does Socrates argue that virtue is not teachable?

A
  1. If virtue is teachable, we should have people that teach virtue, but there are no explicit teachers of virtue around
  2. True opinion is ephemeral, subject to criticism and change
  3. Opinion is different to knowledge, which does not change
26
Q

What is Socrates’ conclusion as to whether virtue is teachable?

A

Virtue neither comes by nature (because men are not my nature good), nor by teaching (no teachers) but as a gift from the God’s (not accompanied by understanding)

27
Q

What is the meno paradox?

A

How will you look for something when you don’t know in the least what it is?

He cannot search for what he knows because he already knows it, and he cannot search for what he doesn’t know because he does not know what he’s looking for

28
Q

What are issues with Socrates’ explanation of the Meno Paradox?

A

He assumes knowledge is binary, rather than a matter of degrees

With slave boy example, Socrates asks leading questions
—> it can often be seen as a prof of a priori knowledge rather than recollection

29
Q

How does Socrates see the nature of knowledge in the meno?

A

He claims we can receive levy knowledge that we have been born with

OR

We are born with the innate ability to derive the logical consequences from or beliefs

30
Q

What is Socrates’ conclusion from the meno paradox?

A

He claims that we already have knowledge from birth or were born with the innate ability to reason. This is not a concrete argument, but he sees it better for us to believe we can search for things —> heuristic argument

31
Q

What questions does the Phaedo consider?

A
  • how should we face death?
  • is the soul immortal?
  • what is the nature of the soul?
32
Q

What is the structure of the Phaedo dialogue?

A
  1. Why philosophers should not be afraid of death
  2. Argument against suicide
  3. Does the soul go on living after death?
  4. Objections from Simmas and Cebes
  5. Socrates’ biography
33
Q

Why should philosophers not be afraid of death?

A
  1. For philosophers strive for knowledge
  2. The body is an obstacle in acquiring knowledge
  3. Separating the soul from the body is the only way to acquire knowledge
  4. Death is the separation of the body and the soul
  5. Conc: philosophers should not fear death
34
Q

How did the sophists view suicide?

A

As a personal question

35
Q

How did the polis view suicide?

A

As a social question - everyone affected

36
Q

How does Socrates view suicide?

A
  • it is not up to the self to choose
  • we are the possession of the Gods and they would punish us if we killed ourselves
  • we have responsibilities to society, family and Gods - not just ourselves
37
Q

What is the argument from opposites?

A
  1. Everything that comes to be comes from its opposite
    2.
    for something to become some F it cannot already be an F, because then it is not becoming F
  2. You can Become F from another state, but not from nothing at all
  3. All things come from their opposites
  4. The opposite of being dead is being alive
  5. Being alive comes from being dead
  6. Conc: therefore, if the soul became alive and existed before death then it must become alive again after death
    - if the living never come from anything else but the dead, then this seems to be sufficient period that the soul goes on living after death
38
Q

What are issues with the argument from opposites?

A
  • there are issues as to whether the opposite of contrary or contradictory:
  • if contrary the opposite of hot could be warm, as nothing can be both opposites, but not everything has to be in one of the two opposite states
  • for the contradictory, the opposite to being alive is not being alive and that includes everything that is not living (stones and numbers for example) from which being alive then could come to be
  • for an argument to be valid what we understand by ‘opposites’ must be the same in both cases, otherwise the argument is invalid
39
Q

What is the argument from recollection?

A
  1. Learning is recollection
  2. We can only recollect what we knew before and have forgotten
  3. We learn things for the first time in this life
  4. This acquiring knowledge must have taken place before we were born
  5. Conclusion: our organ of learning, the soul must have existed before birth
40
Q

What are issues with the recollection argument?

A
  • Plato binds this proof explicity to the existence of the forms - if these realities do not exist, this argument is altogether futile
  • this argument does not reason for the immortal soul, as Socrates only validly reasons that the soul existed before we were born, not that it will continue existing afterwards
41
Q

What is the combination of argument from opposites and recollection?

A
  1. The soul must have existed before it was born and became alive (recollections argument)
  2. All things come to be from their opposites
  3. The opposite of being dead is being alive
  4. Being alive comes from being dead
  5. Conc: if the soul became alive and existed before death then it must also become alive after death
42
Q

What is the similarity argument?

A
  1. The soul is more like the forma than sensible things
  2. Forms: invisible, unchanging, and this incomposite and eternal
  3. Perceptible objects: visible, changing, composite, perishable
  4. The soul is invisible, like the forms and unlike ordinary physical objects
  5. Conc: the soul, like the forms and unlike ordinary perceptible objects, is unchanging and eternal
43
Q

What type of argument is the similarity argument?

A

Argument from analogy

44
Q

What are objections for the similarity argument?

A
  • Simmias: there are things that are invisible that perish when the visible thing they are associated with perish, for example, the attunement of a lyre. It could be the same with the soul: it is invisible, but perishes when the body perishes?
  • it is an inductive and it’s premises do not ensure its conclusion is true
45
Q

How do Simmias and Cebes’ object to Socrates’ arguments on the soul by claiming it is like the harmony of a lyre? How does Socrates respond?

A
  • soul like harmony of a lyre:
    • seems to be a problem for the similarity argument, for the soul could, like a harmony, be similar to the forms in being invisible, but still be destroyed when the material basis is destroyed.
    • Socrates’ response: does not fit the recollection argument: if the soul is a harmony, it cannot exist before the elements from which it is composed —> cannot hold that learning is recollection since this presupposes that the soul exists before birth
    • differences between harmony and soul:
    • harmony is directed by its components, but this is not true for the soul - soul directs components
    • harmony can be more or less harmonised, but soul can not be more or less a soul
    • problems in combining this with vices and virtues
46
Q

How do Simmias and Cebes object to Socrates’ view that the soul is eternal?

A

They say that the soul is long-lasting but not eternal

  • coat example: can outlive owner but won’t last forever
  • just because the soul hasn’t died before doesn’t mean it won’t die soon
47
Q

How does Socrates use his biography in the Phaedo to explore necessary and sufficient causation?

A
  • he explains that he was disappointed by Anaxagoras as his sense of cause was limited to the mind not physical things; he assumed that everything contains a seed of everything else in it
  • he criticises the pre socratics (Pythagoreans) because they focused only on physical causes not abstract ones
  • Socrates sought to explain the world in terms of both physical and abstract causes, which he contains in sufficient and necessary causes
48
Q

What is Socrates’ criteria for causes?

A
  1. Two different causes cannot have the same effect
  2. The same cause cannot have opposite effects
  3. A cause can’t be the opposite to the effect it has
49
Q

How does Socrates understand cause in comparison to modern understanding?

A

He is not looking for causes of actions but for causes for something to have a certain property, and also the causes or reasons are not events but the things responsible

50
Q

What is Socrates’ final argument for the immortality of the soul?

A
  1. no F can ever admit its opposite
  2. When the opposite of F approaches, F either flees or is destroyed
  3. Some things x while not being F are necessarily always connected with F
  4. When the opposite approaches, x will flee or be destroyed
  5. The soul is always connected with life
  6. The opposite of life is death
  7. Soul will not admit death
  8. Conc: soul is deathless

PY2011 (5 decks)

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