CLA 100: GREEK CIVILIZATION

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CLA 100 GREEK CIVILIZATION

• Lectures 21 22
• Socrates
• Plato

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• a. His career
• tried, convicted, executed in 399 BC on
  charges of introducing new divinities
  corrupting the youth
• in Platos The Apology of Socrates, Socrates
  spends greatest amount of time defending himself
  against the views about himself put forward 26
  years earlier by Aristophanes in the Clouds where
  he was depicted as an atheistic sophist running a
  school for useless research where students were
  trained to make the worst argument appear the
  better
• Apology means defense
• very critical of Athenian democracy because
  of its reliance on lot for choosing leaders
• when you build a temple you appoint someone
  with expertise so why would you not do the same
  in politics?

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• a. His career (cont)
• some of his students turned out to be
  enemies of polis
• e.g. Alcibiades, Critias
• Critias, uncle of Plato, was one of 30
  tyrants who ruled Athens in brutal fashion after
  democracy was overthrown at end of Peloponnesian
  War in 404 BC
• Socrates makes a reference to this period in
  Platos The Apology of Socrates when he took his
  turn at being a member of the Council of 500

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• a. His career (cont)
• democracy was restored in 403 BC but 399
  when Socrates was tried was not a good time to be
  critical of democracy
• b. His philosophy
• his primary concern was ethics how one
  ought best to live ones life in order to be
  happy
• spent his life devoted to philosophy but
  didnt commit his ideas to writing

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• b. His philosophy (cont)
• what we know about Socrates comes from his
  student Plato, from historian Xenophon, from
  comic playwright Aristophanes
• each gives quite a different view
• with Plato its hard to tell what views are
  those of Socrates and what are Platos own views
  since Plato writes in form of a dialogue with
  Socrates as one of main speakers
• in Platos early dialogues, such as the
  Apology of Socrates, its generally thought that
  we have the historical Socrates

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• b. His philosophy (cont)
• In middle later dialogues, it is Plato
  putting forth his own views through the character
  of Socrates
• one view attributed to Socrates Virtue is
  knowledge.
• If a person really knew what was good for his
  soul, that person would do it, because he would
  not want to harm his soul
• True knowledge is, however, very hard to attain
• When someone does something evil, its because
  that person mistakenly thinks it will be good for
  his or her soul

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• b. His philosophy (cont)
• another idea of Socrates the unexamined life
  is not worth living (Apology)
• dialectical reasoning (Socratic reasoning)
• Socrates carries on his search for the truth
  by the method of questioning
• origin of this questioning one of his
  students went to Delphic oracle asked whether
  there was anyone wiser than Socrates. Oracle
  replied no.

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1. Socrates (469-399 BC)

• Socrates then went to those in Athens who
  had the greatest reputation for wisdom and on
  cross-examining them was able to show that they
  were ignorant
• He upset a lot of people in Athens by his
  line of questioning
• Socrates came to conclusion that oracle was
  right about his being wiser than all the rest in
  that he at least was willing to acknowledge his
  ignorance

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• a. His career
• student of Socrates for 8 years
• lived in S. Italy Sicily in 399-388 BC
• founded Academy outside walls of Athens in
  385 BC
• in 366 and 361 went to Sicily as advisor to
  Dionysius II, the tyrant, attempted to
  implement his ideas on political reform without
  success

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 1) theoretical
• reacted against view of sophists that
  morality was just a matter of convention that
  there was no such thing as absolute knowledge
• Plato thought absolute knowledge existed
• Developed his theory of forms to counter
  claims of sophists

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 1) theoretical theory of forms
• Believed in eternal, unchanging, universal
  absolutes that are independent of our world of
  phenomena
• When we say something is just or beautiful
  theyre not just relative terms or a matter of
  human convention
• Things like justice beauty must have a reality
  of their own outside the minds that conceived of
  them

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 1) theoretical theory of forms
• Plato often resorted to allegory and myth to help
  explain his ideas
• E.g. allegory of cave (gives example of prisoners
  who had grown up in a cave who could only see
  shadows on wall cast by objects out of their view)

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Allegory of Cave

• http//www.users.globalnet.co.uk/loxias/plato/cav
  eframes.htm

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 1) theoretical theory of forms
• In this world of appearances things we think we
  know are just like shadows reflected on the wall
  of cave.
• Since these shadows are all we have experienced
  we think theyre real
• in fact they only belong to the world of
  appearances
• They are just imperfect reflections of true
  reality

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 1) theoretical theory of forms
• Plato never worked out completely his views on
  these absolute forms, and is critical of them in
  his own later dialogues
• E.g. Were his views just meant to account for
  abstract ideas such as truth, justice beauty or
  were they supposed to apply to terms like chair
  or table too?
• Is there an absolute form of chair in which all
  particular chairs participate?

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Cave of Pan Nymphs (Mt. Hymettos)
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Cave of Pan Nymphs
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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 2) political
• In his Republic Plato has a very elaborate
  description of the ideal state
• Purpose so he can use state how it works as
  model for soul
• That he tried to put his political ideas into
  practice in Syracuse, Sicily shows he was
  interested in political questions raised with his
  model

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 2) political ideal state
• Starts with premise that justice is a virtue not
  only in individual but in state
• Justice in state exists when 3 parts of society
  carry out their duties
• 3 parts of state guardians (the rulers),
  auxiliaries (army), craftspeople (labourers)

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 2) political ideal state
• Women should be able to be guardians
• Children brought up in common
• Fathers should be between 25 and 55
• Mothers should be between 20 and 40
• Best ruler is a philosopher-king

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2. Plato (427-347 BC)

• b. His philosophy
• 2) political ideal state
• Education 18-20 gymnastics
• 20-30 music, arithmetic, astronomy
• 30-35 dialectic (philosophy)
• this was program of education he tried to
  use with Dionysius II in Sicily
• no surprise that he was unsuccessful