Plato's Republic

Question 1

Human nature/Moral psychology
Knowledge/Epistemology
Metaphysics

Answer 1

Human nature/Moral psychology
- Tripartite soul
- Civic and psychic virtues - virtues of a society - virtue is not necessarily a moral term, it’s just the features of what makes something function well
- Ideal societal institutions and arrangements - what the human soul is like - how those views are manifested in his views of education and how the ideal society should be arranged (warning: might find his argument objectionable)

Knowledge/Epistemology
- Knowledge vs belief/opinion - how does knowledge differ from belief and opinion
- Objects of knowledge - what are the kinds of things we can have knowledge about

Metaphysics
Forms or ideas and sensible particulars - platonic forms - the sun the lion, the allegory of the cave

Question 2

What is the Republic about

Answer 2

Latin: res publica, literally: public thing/affair
Greek: politeia - constitution - a certain organization of the habitants and offices of a Greek community - how the society is arranged

The real philosophical problem that the republic is questioning is why be just.

Question 3

The big moral problem: Why be just?

Answer 3

Dikaios: just, morally, upright, righteous
There is no correlation between being morally upright and good and material success
Eg. an unattended laptop in Robarts, why don’t you take it

It’s argued that the good man leads a better life than the not-good man, for the sole fact that he is good

Question 4

Socrates attacks (Dikaios) by questioning justice in terms of society

Answer 4

They construct a legally just city - the city state invovles the workers (provides, food, shelter, etc), rulers (political rule, make decisions and laws), and auxillaries (police the city-state)
Socrates then devlops civic justice - a city-state is when and only when the members of these classes are each sticking to their tasks
And creates psychic justice that is analogous to civic justice, by arguing that the soul is composed of three parts, the part responsible for nature’s desires, food, drink, and sex, the spirited part (source of emotions (things like shame)), and a rational part (think about what’s good for the soul as a whole)

Question 5

Republic Book 1:

Answer 5

• How it is like the early Socratic dialogue - answering ethical, what is x questions - in this one, what is justice - relies on the similarity of virtue and arts and crafts, then he pulls away from it a bit. Virtue is like being in a certain state or having a certain disposition
• How it departs from Socratic ideas (both views and methods)
  Its geographical and historical setting - set in Paratus (court town outside of Athens) - summoned to the house of Cepahlus (rich, older guy) - alludes to the Peloponnesian war
• The characters and their views about justice (cephalus, polemarchus, and thrasymachus)

Question 6

Cephalus: Speak the truth and pay back debts

Answer 6

• Wealth can do a lot to save us from having to cheat or deceive - this is the kind of thing that justice is - reporting a view that it’s good, to be honest and not to cheat people
• Socrates takes this to be an offering of what justice is
• Socrates asks whether this is unconditional
• Or is doing these things sometimes just, sometimes unjust
• If a sane man lends a weapon to a friend and then asks for then back when he is not sane, the friend shouldn’t return them and wouldn’t be acting justly if he returned them
• Nor should anyone be willing to tell the whole truth to someone who is out of their mind
• Then the definition of justice isn’t speaking the truth and repaying what one has borrowed

Cepahalus’s son then takes over to defend this view - he revises it and says that justice is giving what is owed
Polemarchus: Help friends and harm enemies
Socrates and Polemarchus says that there is one sense where you may actually owe something or another sense where something is fitting
Polemarchus says that friends owe it to their friends to do good for them, never harm

Question 7

Polemarchus seems to have just taken what the poets say and believes that it is true

The thing that is fitting is help, and who it is fitting is friends
And harm is fitting for enemies

Answer 7

Socrates draws an analogy with crafts, these crafts are thought of like powers that enable you to do something, justice and virtue is like that.
The analogy of crafts leads to the idea of what a just agent looks like, rather than just what just actions look like - what power the agent has that allows them to do just acts

Socrates shows that Polemarchus’s idea is far from clear and somewhat incoherent, thinking that it could be a part of justice to harm anyone at all - the maxim of synonymities will juxtapose with morality and things that should make you a good person

Question 8

It is not a part of justice to do harm

Answer 8

1. To harm someone is to treat them badly
2. If you treat a horse badly, it becomes worse, relative to the standards approprotare for horses
3. If you treat a dog badly, it becomes worse, relative to the standards appropriate for dos
4. So, similarly, if you treat a human badly, they become worse,r elatice to the standards of human excellence
5. Justice is a human excellence
6. So, if you treat a human badly, theu become more unjust
7. Musicians cannot make someone unmusical by music
8. Horseman cannot make someone unskilled with horses by horsemanship
9. So, similarly, just people cannot make someone unjust by justice (More generally, good people cannot make someone bad by human excellence)
10. So, it cannot be a part of justice to harm someone

Question 9

Thrasymachus

Answer 9

He offers his definition: justice is the advantage or the interest of the stronger
Also formulated as “good of another” and “advantage of the established rule”
Discussion of this conception of justice
Discussion of the idea that justice is more profitable than justice

Question 10

Function argument

Answer 10

The function of x: what it alone can do or what it does better than anything else

1. Justice is a virtue of the soul
2. The function of the soul is living
3. The virtue of a thing is whatever lets it perform its function well
4. Justice allows a person to live well, injustice makes them live badly
5. Anyone who lives well is blessed and happy, anyone who doesn’t is wretched and miserable
6. Therefore, justice makes us happy, injustice makes us wretched
7. Being wretched isn’t profitable
   8.Therefore, injustice is never more profitable than justice

One problem of this argument is there is some equivocation in premises 4 and 5
Premise 4, we accept with premises 1, 2 and 3
Premise 5 however seems a bit different, living well equating to being happy is not quite the same as performing your function well

Question 11

Justice is really the good of the other

Answer 11

The metaphor of shepherds and sheep - they herd their sheep for their master’s good and their own

Question 12

The just person fares worse than the unjust

Answer 12

You’ll never find when the partnership ends, that a just partner has got more than an unjust one
A just man pays more on the same property, an unjust one less

Question 13

Socrates is not convinced

Answer 13

Socrates thinks that being advantageous to rule, no good person would want to rule
The greatest punishment, if one isn’t willing to rule, is to be ruled by someone worse than oneself
In a city of good men, if it came into being, the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they do now in order to rule
Socrates can’t all agree with Thrasymachus that is justice is the advantage of the stronger

The task of the republic is to show that it is beneficial for you to be just

Question 14

3 categories of goods

Answer 14

• There is a kind of good that we welcome, not because we desire what comes from it, but because we welcome it for its own sake - eg. joy
• There’s a kind of good we like for its own sake and also for the sake of what comes from it - being healthy
• Onerous but beneficial to us, and we wouldn’t choose them for their own sake, but for the sake of the rewards and other things that come from them - physical training, medical treatment

Being just is just a kind of compromise

Question 15

Prisoners dilemma / Justice is not pursued willingly

Answer 15

If both people confess, it’ll be bad, if both stay quiet, it’ll be okay, if one confesses, the person who confesses ends up good, but the person who doesn’t confess ends up bad

The best decision is for everyone to be just

Prosemochus says that everyone’s nature is good

Lord of the Rings: you where the rings and when you wear it you turn invisible
Prosemochus metaphor - shepherd finds a ring, wears it, becomes invisible, uses it to become king

If you compare the just and unjust person, it’s right to think that people pursue the just life only because its necessary - Justice is pursued unwillingly

Question 16

Glaucon

Answer 16

-Essence and origin: the just life is intermediate between the best and the worst
- Pursued unwillingly as something necessary
- Stripped of the reputation and external views

Question 17

Adeimantus

Answer 17

It’s really the consequences of having the reputation of being just (not even being just) that people seem to care about
There is no advantage in my being just if I’m not also thought to be just
The troubles and penalties of being just are apparent
The unjust person who secures the reputation of the just person gets all the benefits

Question 18

The challenge

Answer 18

Give more definition and reasoning on why is it good to be just or not be just - don’t give a theoretical argument, show the effect of those who have this quality

Question 19

The strategy of the response: constructing Kallipolis

Answer 19

We say that there is the justice of a single man, and also the justice of a whole city
a nd a city is larger than single man
Perhaps, then, there is more justice in the larger thing, and it will be easier to learn what it is
Let’s first find out what sort of thing justice is in a city and afterwards look for it in the individual

Question 20

Is this a good strategy

Answer 20

Why would anyone expect these two ways of talking about justice - civic and psychic justice to be the same
May be the same things if Plato is relying on the metaphysical assumption of the one over many assumption - if you make the assumption that there is one thing over the things that things have in common, that is assuming the one over many idea

What’s the envisioned relationship between individuals and society?

Is this the purpose of the ethical inquiry? Should we be asking eg, what are our obligations to others are, rather than how we can achieve happiness (eudaimonia)

Question 21

OPOJ

Answer 21

OPOJ - One person, One Job
Everyone does their own work and doesn’t meddle in the work of others - important in the ideal city

Parts of Kallipolis (ideal city):
Producers (farmers, carpenters)
Guardians (soldiers and police)
Later: Rulers will be selected from the guardian class

Question 22

In order to defend the idea that being an actual good person is what we want, socrates needs to make clear what justice is

Answer 22

Does Justice realy pay?
What is justice anyway?
City-Soul Analogy - if we thought about the city as a natural ourgrowth as human nature - maybe if we want to know what a just society is, we can work from the individual
The construction of Kallipolis
OPOJ: the founding principle
OPOJ - one person one job

Question 23

Who will rules?

Answer 23

Must be older and the ruled younger
Rulers must be the best guardians, at guarding the city
They best guard the city when they’re knowledgable, capable and care for the city

How can we tell if they care for the people
Ones care most for what they love
They love it when he believes that they are not different from that - identify their own self interest with the interest of the city
The same things are advantageous to the city as himself - if it does well, the ruler does well
The ones who are most fit, who believe throughout their lives that they must eagerly pursue what is best for the city

Question 24

The Myth of the Metals is “one noble falsehood that would, in the best case, persuade even the rulers, but if that’s not the best case, then the people in the city”

Answer 24

The noble lie - all of you in the city are brothers
There is nothing they must guard better than the souls of the next generation
How do we get people to go along with this? (sticking to the job they’re naturall suited) - which is that god put these metals in you that determines which you are, and we can tell what metals you are made from
The noble lie is supposed to be showing the true belief people should have about unity in the city, it’s important that people don’t tey to do other peoples jobs, that may turn into upheaval. That the city share this familial affection, this is all true, even if the way its said is a lie.

How the guardians should live
They should not own private property
No house or storeroom that isn’t open to everyone
They’ll have common messes and live like soldiers in a camp
They can’t handle gold or silver, can’t wear jewellery, can’t touch silver or gold (they already have gold in their souls, can’t mess with it)

People may get envious, but by telling them the story that god has put the metal in their blood, and says that there is nothing to be done about it, stops people from trying to switch

It also seems like the guardians aren’t going to be very happy
Socrates responds to this with, that’s not my concern
We’re not making a group outstandingly happy, but a group

Question 25

Statue analogy

Answer 25

You musn’t expect us to paint the eyes so beautifully that they no longer appear to be eyes at all, and the same with the other parts. Rather you must look to see whether by dealing with each part appropriately, we are making the whole statue beautiful

Question 26

Women in Kallipolis

Answer 26

It says that women shouldn’t be allowed out, unless for festivals

It’s agreed that everyone should do work based on their nature, a women have different nature from men, and it’s appropriate to assign work based on nature, so how does it make sense that men and women should do the same thing

It needs to be made clear what form of difference in nature and sameness is important
What kinds of differences did we have in mind
Eg, people with long hair and people who are bald, have differences in nature, but it’s not significant with what they can do

The difference in nature between men and women are that women can have children, but it’s not relevant according to the jobs they are supposed to do, so it’s relevant and best that women and men do the same jobs

Women In Kallpiolis - it isn’t against nature to assign an education in music, poetry, physical training to the wives of guardians, then we’re not legislating impossibilites or indulging in mere wishful thinking, since the law we established is in accord with nature, it’s rather the way things are at present that seems to be against nature

Question 27

Abolishing the nuclear family

Answer 27

No parent will know its own offspring, no woman and man lives privately together, all these women are to belong in common to all the men
In order to make sure to get the population, they made the best women and best men breed to get the best offspring

It looks as though our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of those they rule. And we said that all such falsehoods are useful as a form of a drug
They’re gonna control the population size and the quality

There are prizes and rewards for people who go to battle, and those people do get to have sex more, as a prize

Defective offspring will be killed
No mother gets to know and raise their child

Is there any greater evil we can mention for a city than that which tears it apart and makes it many instead of one? Or any greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?

Plato wants to abolish nucelar family to create on a grand scale, familial love

Question that is raised is that even possible? It’s quite ridiculous

They’re not free to choose with class of society they belong to, they can’t choose who they have offspring with

Question 28

Another thing that is lacking from Kallipolis is any sort of democracy

Answer 28

In Athens, democracy was very direct, but this subverts OPOJ, since a farmer could one day just become the leader of the assembly, which is one reason you wan’t to avoid such democracy
It brings personal interest into government
There is no openness in Kallipolis
The breeding and stuff is condoned by Plato because it promotes unity

Plato says that the rulers in Kallipolis are supposed to be poeple who have knowledge on what is best for the whole and each of its parts
This is the one change that would make Kallipolis possible
Kallipolis is going to be ruled by philosophers and that have knowledge (what is it that they’re supposed to know - this is a question for later)

Question 29

Function of a polis

Answer 29

• A city comes to be because none of us are self-sufficient
• And a city comes to be because we need a lot of things
• And because we need many things, many people live together as partners and helpers
• And if they share things with one another, they believe that this is better for themselves, and this is the best way to live
• If it’s fulffilinf the needs of people and performing the function of a city well, so this would mean that the city would have the virtues, justice, as well

Question 30

Civic virtues:

Answer 30

• If our city, if indeed it has been completely founded, is completely good
• Then it is wise, courageous, moderate and just
• How do these four main aspects (or ‘whole’) relate to attributes of its individual members?
• Eg. if a city is tall, that means that the people in that city are tall
  But if we were thinking about justice, this strategy may not be the best one

Question 31

3 Parts of Kallipolis

Answer 31

• Rulers (complete guardians), who rule with a view to the good of the whole
• Auxiliaries, who assist the rulers, sort of professional military and police (muscle behind the brain)
• Producers, who do everything else - obey the rules but make everything else

Question 32

Virtues of a society

Answer 32

What makes a city wise - when there is knowledge possessed by some of the members of the city, specifically the knowledge about the maintenance of good relations, both internal in the city, and external (with other cities) - poseddes by those rulers/complete guardians - knowledge about the ruke - about what is best for the whole city
People who have this knowledge will be naturally the smallest

Question 33

Civic courage

Answer 33

A city has courage if it has the power to preserve through everything its belief about what things are to be feared

Question 34

Virtues and early education

Answer 34

What makes a city wise - when there is knowledge possessed by some of the members of the city, specifically the knowledge about the maintenance of good relations, both internal in the city, and external (with other cities) - poseddes by those rulers/complete guardians - knowledge about the ruke - about what is best for the whole city
People who have this knowledge will be naturally the smallest

Question 35

Civic courage

Answer 35

A city has courage if it has the power to preserve through everything its belief about what things are to be feared

Question 36

Virtues and early education

Answer 36

• When dyers dye wool purple - First pick out from the many colours of wool the one that is naturall white, then they carefully prepare this in various ways, so that it will absorb the colour as well as possible, and only at that point do they apply the purple dye,
• We were doing something similar when we selected our soldiers and educated them in music and physical training - because they had the propert nature and uipbringing, they would absorb the law in the finest way (just like the dye)
• Courage starts with the narrow notion of bravery on the battlefield, then it expanded to the more general notion about standing up to what you believe in (not just what the brave thing to do)
• And courage in the city (sticking to what you believe in) is what they were being prepared for in that early education

Question 37

courage in Protagoras

Answer 37

• This power to preserve through everything the correct and law-inculcated belief about what is to be feared and what isn’t is what i call courage, unless of course, you say otherwise - they were told what to believe
• Courage here is knowledge (knowledge is one way of preserving true beliefs), but in kallipolis, courage is not knowledge, it’s something else that gives them the power to preserve their beliefs

Question 38

Civic moderation

Answer 38

The ruler and the ruled in any city share the same belief about who should rule

Question 39

Self control

Answer 39

• Moderation is surely a kind of order, similar to the idea of self-control
• Plato thinks that the idea of self-control is stupid, because it seems like there is a inner person that controls the other, but it is good because it implies that there is a good and bad part within the person, and the good controls
• The society is moderate in virtue of the fact that the producers are not trying to overthrow the rulers, they are in agreement, that is what the city is for it to be moderate
• Moderation is not the struggle of one part against another, it is all harmonious
• For a virtuous person, moderation is easy
• Moderation does not reside in any one part, but is spread out through the whole, unlike courage and wisdom that all reside in one part

Question 40

Civic justice:

Answer 40

Justice, socrates thnks, is exactly what we said must be established throughout the city when we were founding it - everyone must practice one of the occupations in the city for which he is naturally best suited
Justice is doing one’s own work and not meddling with what isn’t one’s own
Justice is OPOJ

• If a carpenter tries to do the work of a cobbler and vice versa, or the same person tried to do two jobs, no great harm comes from the city - it is not too big of a deal within the producers
• However, when someone who has the nature of a craftsman/producer, they try to enter the class of the soldiers, or an unworthy soldiers try to go to the rulers, these things would meddle with the city and create injustice
• Justice is for producers, auxiliaries, and rulers each to do its own work in the city

Question 41

Civic virtues

Answer 41

• Wisdom - rulers knowledge of what’s best for the whole city
• Courage - auxiliaries power to preserve through everything true beliefs about what is to be feared
• Moderation - consonance, harmony, and agreement among the parts about who should rules
• Justice - not meddling, doing one’s own work east part doing its job (OPOJ)
• If these analysis are to apply to human souls, what should be true about human souls?
  They need to be parts

Question 42

Parts of the soul

Answer 42

A city is thought to be just whenever people are doing their own work, the auxiliaries, rulers and producers
Does the human soul have these three parts

Characteristics of cities are surely also found in individuals
Well then we are surely compelled to agree that each of us has within himself the same parts and characteristics of the city (435e)
In dividing people into classes, they divided based on the characters of the people so you do tests, and you can tell this from a very young age - we have these natural talents
Rulers would be motivated by reason

When we do these things, when those people are loving money, or loving wisdom, do we do this with the whole soul, or just a part?
Do we learn with one part
And get angry with one part
Or when we set out for something, do we act with the whole of our souls

Question 43

Parts of the soul

Answer 43

• Reason (logisikon) - how things really are
• Appetite (epithumetikon) - motivated by what is pleasant/painful
• Spirit (thumoeides) - concerned with what appear/seem like - reputation/honour

Even though we can describe these different motivations, is it because our whole soulsa re being moved this way, or are there strong different parts in my soul
It’s argued that the reason and the appetite part are not the same, and the appetite part is not the same as the spirited part

Question 44

Structure of the first two arguments for the tripartite division

Answer 44

1. Principle of opposites: The same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same part of itself, in relation to the same thing, at the same time
2. Wanting and rejecting, assenting and dissenting, generally, wishing/willing and not wishing/willing are opposites
3. If the soul wishes/not wishes “for the same thing, with the same part of itself, in relation to the same thing, at the same time:, then it must have different parts

Question 45

Reason and Appetite

Answer 45

Principle of opposites: the same thing cannot do or undergo opposites in the same respect and in relation to the same thing at the same time
Desriging and rejecting are opposites
Thirst iself is an appetite for nothing other than drink itself (not hold, or cold, etc)
However, it can be argued that thirst and appetite is the want for something good, for thirst, the thirst for a drink that is good, if it were not a good drink for you, you would say no
When someone is thirsty but doesn’t want the drink, it’s because they can have a desire for it and an aversion for it, two parts of the soul, the appetitive part that wants the drink, and the rational part that doesn’t want the drink (eg. poison, or if it is dangerous for you to drink)
The thirsty people who don’t want a drink, there is two separate things in them that want to drink and don’t want to drink, so it is not unreasonable to say that there are two different parts of the soul

The next argument that divides the appetitive and spirited part of the soul relies on the idea that the same part of the soul can’t both want and not want something
Eg, some guy had the curiousity/appetite to look at corpses, but he is ashamed of this and angry with himself, but he eventually gets over it and looks at the corpses
Sometimes the appetites and the spirited are at war
Sometimes you can act upon your appetite and not your reason, then you get anry at yourself

It isn’t difficult to show that it is different. Even in small children, one can see that they are full of spirit from birth, but they don’t have reason until much later

Question 46

Psychic virtues:

Answer 46

We are agreed that the same classes in a city are in the individual
Wisdom: In the soul: rational part’s knowledge of what is advantageous for wahc part and for the whole soul
Courage: in soul: spirited part’s power to preserve through pains and pleasutres the declarations of reason about what is to be feared and what isn’t
Moderation in the soul: friendly and harmonious relation between the parts; ruler and ruled believe in common that the rational part should rule
Justice in the soul: each doing its own job

Question 47

Comparison with socratic views (in protagoras):

Answer 47

akrasia (weakness of will, incontinence) - socrates did not think this was possible - if you do anything you think is wrong, you don’t really know - it’s impossible to know what’s right and not do it - in plato it is possible
Unity of virtues - plato says we have different parts (maybe only in the just people we have unity) - socrates says that you can’t have one virtue without the others

The description of the just person does not meddle and harmonises the parts of the soul, and you get the idea that the just person is not the type to steal, or embezzle, etc

When glaucon describes the natural want to be greedy, but that is only a part of us, we are driven to action in other ways as well
Plato thinks that natural way of the soul is the rational part leading over the rest of the parts

What’s to guarantee that the just person will ensure that they are just in recognisable ways like not stealing
In a just person, the rational part knows what is best for the whole soul and each of its parts

Question 48

What is this knowledge?

Answer 48

The action is just and fine that preserves this inner harmony and helps achieve it
Regards as wisdom tbe knowledge that overseas suvh actions - the ation that destroys this harmony is unjust regards the belief that oversees it as ignorance

Question 49

• Does justice pay?
• What is the just persons’ inner life like
• We have different psyche parts, each at different sorts of things (pleasure, pain, shame and pride, truth and falsehood), and each has its own role to play in our lives
• Something is Just (and not corrupt) to the extent that there is no meddling between parts
• In a just person, their priorities and agendas are set by reason, that part which is concerned not with hoe things feel or seem but with how they are

Answer 49

For socrates, how things are/what we know to be true, determines what we want - the virtuous person has knowledge on what is good, and so he wants he and does that

For plato, there are other factors about our inner life, it’s not just how things are/what we believe to be true that motivates us, but how things feel is important to us. There is a part of us that focuses on pleasure, but also we care about how things seem/look. There’s part of us that care how we seem in the eyes of others.

Your beliefs about what is true, that’s not clouded by feelings of pleasure or pain or by perceptions like pride or shame
There are roles that each part of our psyche plays - plato is not advocating that we eradicate how we feel, like pleasures and pride - if we cultivate them properly, it will make things go well

Inside us, our overall life goes better when each part of our psyche sticks to its own role - so what should be ruling us? This is the same questions about what our prioirities should be. Should we act in accord on how things are, or how they feel/appear?

Glaucon thought that people are greedy, but plato says that there is not all that there is to us. That’s only a part of us, it’s just a part of us that has to do with how things feel. But the naturally ruling part thinks about how things are, that is knowledge, this is the rational part

Question 50

What is knowledge? What is it to know?

Answer 50

The rational part has the right conception of what is good, in the just person, the rational part has knowledge, and that contrasts with the person who does not have a good perception of what is good

Question 51

What does Reason know

Answer 51

He believes that the action is just and fine and preserves inner harmony
Regards as wisdom, the knowledge that oversees such actions
They are guided by knowledge

Question 52

Who are the philosophers?

Answer 52

• The one who reasily and willingly try all kinds of learning, who turns gladly to learning and is insatiable for it, rightly called a philosopher, isn’t he?
• Many people can be considered philosophers, like lovers of sight, or lovers of sound, are we to say that these people, and those who learn similar or petty crafts, are philosophers?
• The lovers of sights and sounds like colours shape and music, but their thought is unable to see and embrace the nature of the beautiful itself

Question 53

The beautiful itself

Answer 53

Forms (beauty, squirrelness, largeness, equality) - eg. piety, things in themselves

Sensible Particulars (Helen’s beauty, squeaky, my height, these equal sticks and stones) - the things that stand in relation to that form

A form is, eg. there’a a kid and his grandfather is an expert in grey squirrels, and the kids are watching these squirrels, and they’re names are scratchy and squeaky, and the kid thinks he too is an expert, he know what squeaky does, how scratchy does. And the grandfather comes over and the kid asks that you must know squeaky and scatchy, and he asks like his grandfather is an expert about these squirrels. And the kid wonders how come the grandfather knows so much about grey squirrels, but nothing about the particular habits about the squirrels in the kids backyard. The grandfather knows about something entirely different, about grey squirelleness

What’s different about the forms and the sensible particulars? - things like forms differ from eg, beauty as a form differs from someone’s particular beauty, insofar as, those particular instances are always subject to what we call the the equal itself

Question 54

The equal itself

Answer 54

there is something that is equal, i don’t mean a stick equal to a stick, but something beyond this, the equal itself.
Equality itself is never not equal
Beauty itself is never not beautiful

The world is in constant flux, there is a lack of stability that we would want in order to gain knowledge
These sensible particulars are subject to change, something can be beautiful at one time, but not another

Unchanging forms are some full sense, and everything else both is and is not
These things that are and are not, don’t seem like things that can be objects of knowledge

We get the idea that perceptions can’t be trusted, they somehow deceive us
Do we say things are just or beautiful, but we have never seen it with our own two eyes

Question 55

Objects as knowledge are unchangeable things

Answer 55

• Knowledge is a power
• Opinion is a power that enableees us to opine
• Hearing, and sight are a power, they are capacities that help you do something
• Knowledge and opinion are not the same, one is fallible and one is not
• Knowledge is set as what is, and opinion opines
• If a different power is set over something different, and opinion and knowledge are different powers, then they are different

Question 56

Objects of knowledge are not the same as the objects of opinion

Answer 56

1. Knowledge and opinion are powers or faculties
2. Knowledge and opinion are distinct powers
3. powers/capacities/faculties are disintiugished by the domains they are “set over” and what they do - knowledge and opinion have different objects
4. So knowledge, and opinion are set over different things

if you know something, it is true, knowledge is factual/infallible, if you believe something or opine something, it doesn’t follow that what you believe is true, so it is fallible - knowledge is a very strong thing - if you say three is odd, you can’t be wrong, because it just follows, given the nature of the number three
The kinds of things that you know cannot be false

Question 57

What are the objects of knowledge, ignorance and opinion

Answer 57

• Knowledge is ser over what is completely
• Ignorance is set over what in no way is
• Opinion is set over what is intermediate between what purely is and what in every way is not, which particupaes in both being and not being - the things that the lovers of sights and sound, have love for, are things that are and are not
• There are three options to understanding the claim of sensible particulars being are and are not

Question 58

Three ways to interpret the to be

Answer 58

• The veridical (is true) reading
  (Kv)knowldge is directed at what is true completely
• (Ov) opinion is directed at what is true and not true
• (Ie) ignorance is directed at what is in no way true

Question 59

The existential (exists) reading:

Answer 59

• Knowledge is directed at what exists completely
• Oe opinion is directed at what exists and what does not exist
• Ignorance is directed at what in no way exists

Question 60

The predicative (is F) reading:

Answer 60

• Knowledge is directed at what is F
• Opinion is directed at what is F and what is not F
• Ignorance is directed at what in no way is F

The predicatice reading is where what it means that knowledge is set over what is, is knowledge is set over what is F
What is beautiful, in the way that is what in no way is not beautiful
Belief is all things that are f and not f
Knowledge is directed as what is, what id F, for any specified predicat F
Plato is denying that one can have knowledge on sensible particulars

What is F, completely and what is F and not F
Unlike forms, sensible particulars are all subject to the compresence of opposites, each has/is both x and its opposite
Forms are eternal, unchained, perfect, examplats of F, the things themselves that are always the same in every respect
Knowledge is set over forms, and opinion is set over what is and is not F

Question 61

Two worlds

Answer 61

• Does plato think one can have knowledge and belief/opinion about the same things? - in the Meno it looks like he does think that
• If knowledge is set over forms, and opinion is set over particulates, why does a ruler need knowledge?

Question 62

What the philosophers know?

Answer 62

• what is always the same in all respects are philosophers
• But we can’t have knowledge on the sensible world, so we can’t know if a just act is just

Ship of state simile
Ship owner (athenian people)
Sailors (demagogues)
True captain (philosophers) who look at the star (forms) in order to navigate the ship
Plato is showing in this simile how something is not obviously relevant, (like stars to the ship) like knowledge, is actually crucial

Question 63

The form of the good

Answer 63

the most important thing to lean about that it;s by their relation to it that just things and the others become useful and beneficial, if we don;t know it, even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us
The rulers are supposed to look at the good of each part of the city and the city as a whole
It doesn’t take into account what it is that we decide what we want for our own lives

What makes these rulers wise is that they have grasped and know what plato calls the form of the good - it’s by their relation to the form of the good that just things become useful and beneficial

Question 64

Forms vs sensible particulars

Answer 64

There are many beautiful things, good things, etc
And beauty and good itself and these things, we set down according to a single form of each, believing that there is but one and call it the being of each

Sight may be present in the eyes, and the one who has it may try to use it, and colours may be present in things, but unless a third kind of thing is present, which is naturally adapted for this very purpose, you know that sight will see nothing, and the colours will remain unseen
The third thing is light
Whose light is it to cause us to see things in the best way - the sun
This is the offspring of the good

What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, then sun is in the visible frealm, in relation to sight and visible things

Question 65

Sun - offspring of the good

Answer 65

The source of visibility of things seen
The source of coming to be and growth the source of being
Form of the good
The source of intelligibility of things known
The source of truth of things known

Is the sun weren’t there it would not make them visible, but plato seems to explain it as he seems to describe it as not only the sun making things visible, but the sun makes things exist

Just as the sun is th e cause and source of visibility (and becoming) of visible things
So the form of the good is the cause and source of intelligibility (and beings) of intelligible things

Question 66

Sophisticated causes

Answer 66

citing a physical feature as a reason for something

Anything that cites a physical process or trait is not a good explanation for something
Because the same physical thing vcan explain the opposite or that sometimes we just don’t know if it is true

For something to be a cause of something, it must be sufficient for the effect

Plato does not accept sophisticated causes

If A is a cause of B, then it cannot be the case that A is the cause of the opposite of B

Question 67

Anaxagorous’ nous

Answer 67

Mind is a common translation of nous
If then one wished to know the cause of each things, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act.

Question 68

Teleogical explanation

Answer 68

Telos = end, goal, purpose
An explanation that cites the enf goal or purpose for something is a teleogolgical explanation

Why things are best

Question 69

“Safe answers”

Answer 69

If there is anything beautiful besides the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason that that it shares in that brautifulm abd i say so with everything
Something is tall because it participates in tallness
It is through beauty, that beautiful things are made beautiful
This is the safe answer because it’s not going to lead to contradictions

Plato thinks we can move beyond safe answers - just the essences or natures of things
We can do better by understanding what they really are, these forms that we’ve posited, really are
We do this by knowing why it’s best for them to be the way they are

Question 70

Divided line:

Answer 70

Each stage of the line maps how each part of the minds latches onto the world
It’s either visible or sensible, and the world as understood - these are the two parts of how we latch onto the world
Within the visible there are: the way we latch onto things is through images/imagination, or latching onto the world through belief
Within the understood/intelligible there are: the way we latch onto things is through thought - now we are aware that there are something, or we latch onto the world through understanding

Using images to reason about intelligibles
Like in geometry

Question 71

Cave allegory:

Answer 71

The prisoners in the cave are chained to the bottom and only look at the shadows of the puppets
Plato says the prisoners are like us, we mistake images for the real thing

What’s taken as just might not actually be just

What do shapes have in common - circle, square, rectangle - they are all closed geometrical figures
This is the stage of understanding, where we are no longer using hypothesis or images, we are using the form of the good

The power to learn is to present in everyone’s soul and that the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body. This instrument cannot be turned around from that which is coming into being without turning the whole soul until it is able to study that hich is and the brightset thing that is, namely, the one we call the good

Education is not putting sight into blind eyes, but turning the whole soul to see in the right way

In the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that it produces both light and its source in the visible realm it contrlols and provides the truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it.