The Asking Animal A freshman Advising Seminar - course 6.a36- Notes for Class #4 – 2-OCT-2006

1. The Asking AnimalA freshman Advising Seminar- course 6.a36-Notes for Class #4 – 2-OCT-2006 “Socrates -Plato and their predecessors”

2. 3 Men from Miletus - • THALES---Water • ANAXIMANDER--- Boundless ---(being?) • ANAXAMENES ---Air

3. Problem of Change -- • PARMENDES from Elea– Everyhting alwys exists – no actual change-perceptual illusion --- rationalism • Herclitus –constant change and dualities-God, reason, logos – oneness? • EMPEDOLES –earth, air fire and water—forces = love and strife

4. Atomic Theory –Greek style • ANAXAGORAS– Athens--infinite number of minute invisible particles • Democritus – natural transformations not actual change – so – tiny blocks -- atoms

5. Socrates – (470–399 BCE) • From Athens, where he was in pursuit of wisdom. He "followed the argument" in his personal reflection, and in a sustained and rigorous dialogue between friends, followers, and contemporary itinerant teachers of wisdom. • Due to his controversial questions and the allegedly uncanny effect of his presence, opinions about him were widely polarized, drawing very high praise or very severe ridicule. He had many devoted followers and many angry detractors • As an old man, he fell into grave disrepute with the Athenian public powers, and was eventually commanded to cease and desist his habitual public conversing, and associating with bright Athenian youths. He carried on as usual. • He was arrested and accused of corrupting the youth, inventing new deities, and disbelieving in the divine (atheism). According to traditional accounts, he was sentenced to die by drinking poison, or else leave the country as an exile. He believed it would be more honorable to stay in his home country than to leave. Therefore, at the age of 70, he drank the hemlock and died.

6. PLATO – (c. 427–c. 347 BC) • A student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens where Aristotle studied. Plato lectured extensively at the Academy, and wrote on many philosophical issues, dealing especially in politics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. • The most important writings of Plato are his dialogues, although some letters have come down to us under his name. It is believed that all of Plato's authentic dialogues survive. However, some dialogues and all letters ascribed to Plato by the Greeks are now considered by the consensus of scholars to be suspect . • Socrates is often a character in Plato's dialogues. How much of the content and argument of any given dialogue is Socrates' point of view, and how much of it is Plato's, is heavily disputed. Socrates himself did not write anything, so the "Socratic problem“ exists. • However, Plato was doubtless strongly influenced by Socrates' teachings, so many of the ideas presented, at least in his early works, were probably borrowings or adaptations.

7. Allegory of the the Cave -- • In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire.  Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see. Here is an illustration of Plato’s Cave: • . • Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows. • So when the prisoners talk, what are they talking about? If an object (a book, let us say) is carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on the wall, and a prisoner says “I see a book,” what is he talking about? • He thinks he is talking about a book, but he is really talking about a shadow. But he uses the word “book.” What does that refer to? • Plato gives his answer at line (515b2). The text here has puzzled many editors, and it has been frequently emended. The translation in Grube/Reeve gets the point correctly: “And if they could talk to one another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the names they used applied to the things they see passing before them?” • Plato’s point is that the prisoners would be mistaken. For they would be taking the terms in their language to refer to the shadows that pass before their eyes, rather than (as is correct, in Plato’s view) to the real things that cast the shadows. • If a prisoner says “That’s a book” he thinks that the word “book” refers to the very thing he is looking at. But he would be wrong. He’s only looking at a shadow. The real referent of the word “book” he cannot see. To see it, he would have to turn his head around. • Plato’s point: the general terms of our language are not “names” of the physical objects that we can see. They are actually names of things that we cannot see, things that we can only grasp with the mind.

8. The Republic • societies have a tripartite class structure corresponding to the appetite/spirit/reason structure of the individual soul. • Productive (Workers) — the labourers, carpenters, plumbers, masons, merchants, farmers, ranchers, etc. These correspond to the "appetite" part of the soul. ----Protective (Warriors or Auxiliaries) — those who are adventurous, strong and brave; in the armed forces. These correspond to the "spirit" part of the soul. ---Governing (Rulers or Guardians) — those who are intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, well suited to make decisions for the community. These correspond to the "reason" part of the soul and are very few. • Plato puts it: • "Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race." (Republic 473c-d) • Plato describes these "philosopher kings" as "those who love the sight of truth" (Republic 475c) and supports the idea with the analogy of a captain and his ship or a doctor and his medicine. • How the educational system should be set up to produce these philosopher kings. • The ideal city outlined in the Republic is qualified by Socrates as the ideal luxurious city, examined to determine how it is that injustice and justice grow in a city (Republic 372e). The"true" and "healthy" city is instead the one first outlined in book II of the Republic, 369c-372d, containing farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and wage-earners, • but lacking the guardian class of philosopher-kings as well as delicacies such as "perfumed oils, incense, prostitutes, and pastries", in addition to paintings, gold, ivory, couches, a multitude of occupations such as poets and hunters, and war. • In addition, the ideal city is used as an image to illuminate the state of one's soul, or the will, reason, and desires combined in the human body. Socrates is attempting to make an image of a rightly ordered human, and then later goes on to describe the different kinds of humans that can be observed, from tyrants to lovers of money in various kinds of cities. • The ideal city is not promoted, but only used to magnify the different kinds of individual humans and the state of their soul. However, the philosopher king image was used by many after Plato to justify their personal political beliefs. The philosophic soul according to Socrates has reason, will, and desires united in virtuous harmony. A philosopher has the moderate love for wisdom and the courage to act according to wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge about the Good or the right relations between all that exists. • Wherein it concerns states and rulers, Plato has made interesting arguments. For instance he asks which is better - a bad democracy or a country reigned by a tyrant. He argues that it is better to be ruled by a bad tyrant (since then there is only one person committing bad deeds) than be a bad democracy (since here all the people are now responsible for such actions.) • According to Socrates a state, which is made up of different kinds of souls, will overall decline from an aristocracy to a timocracy, then to an oligarchy, then to a democracy, and finally to tyranny. Perhaps Plato is trying to warn us of the various kinds of immoderate souls that can rule over a state, and what kind of wise souls are best to advise and give counsel to the rulers that are often lovers of power, money, fame, and popularity.