Introduction to HumanitiesLecture 5

Plato

By David Kelsey

Plato

• Plato:– 427-347 B.C.– A friend and admirer of Socrates– Aristotle was his student– 387: established an academy for teaching– Sets about refuting the Sophist views of

Skepticism & Relativism• There is truth about reality and we can know

it• So he takes on the Socratic task• He wants to establish the pattern for a good

state– One in which a good person like

Socrates can live– Goodness is a real property…

– There are 3 steps he must overcome to refute the skeptic…

•

Knowledge vs. Belief

• What is the difference between knowledge and opinion or belief?– You can believe falsely but you cannot know falsely.

• If you claim to know something X which later turns out false– You won’t claim you knew X falsely but that you thought you knew X but didn’t

• If you believed something X which later turns out false.– You will say you did believe X but now you don’t

Is true belief knowledge?

• Is true belief knowledge?• Meno 98a:

– True beliefs “tend not to stay for long…unless they’re anchored by working out the reason…When true beliefs are anchored, they become pieces of knowledge and are stable.”

– Analogy of the blind person (Republic (506c)):

Knowledge is anchored true belief

• Knowledge is anchored true belief:• 1. To have knowledge you must be able to give an explanation or account for

holding on to the belief– The logos

• 2. And to have knowledge the true belief must be able to stand up to Socratic examination

• 3. Knowledge must also be implanted in us by instruction while mere true belief is implanted in us by persuasion.

– Knowledge cannot be overcome by persuasion• Understanding protects…

– Belief or true belief can be overcome by persuasion though.• For example…

Knowledge vs. Belief again

• Knowledge vs. Opinion again:– Opinion:

• Is changeable

• Can be true or false

• Is not backed up by reasons

• Is the result of persuasion

– Knowledge:

• Stays put

• Is always true

• Is backed up by reasons– Socratic examination…

• Is the result of instruction

Examples of knowledge

• To refute the Relativist, Plato must now give us examples of knowledge:– Mathematics and geometry…

– They are not relative. Instead, we recognize their truth• Example from Meno (80d):

– Socrates calls a slave boy up to demonstrate geometrical knowledge.– Consider a large square divided into 4 equal squares. Consider one of the smaller squares. Now try to

draw a square which is twice its size.

– So Relativism is false and skepticism is wrong.

– Value and morality?

Rationalism

• So how do we gain knowledge?– Not in our sense experience

– In Reasoning• We grasp the truth only through a logos that works out the reason (Phaedo 65b-c)

– Plato is a Rationalist:• Not an Empiricist• Knowledge comes in reasoning alone• Can’t trust sense experience• Innate knowledge or abilities

The objects of knowledge

• What are the objects of knowledge?– Consider the example from Meno:

• the knowledge that the larger square is twice the size of the smaller square

• This knowledge isn’t derived from the particular drawing in front of you.

• This knowledge is about the ‘square itself’

The Square Itself

• The Square Itself:– A public object

– A reality

– Not some particular square

– It is the form of all particular squares

– So what we can know are the forms themselves• The world of sense

– No knowledge is possible– Only opinions

• The world of forms– Knowledge is possible

The Forms &the objects of Sense

• The Forms:– Not anything we can perceive– not imaginary– Abstract objects

– The forms are more real than any object you see or touch or feel• The Forms:

– Are unchangeable– Are Eternal– The most reality…

• Things in the sensory world:– how they are regarded depends upon the perspective taken and the comparison in mind– Example: elephants and mountains…– Come into being and pass away

• So Things in the sensory world have less reality than the Forms– Not nothing but not as real as the forms…

• So we cannot have knowledge of the objects of sense– Only opinions

The epistemological argumentfor the world of forms

• The Epistemological argument:– 1. Knowledge is enduring, true, rational belief based on instruction

– 2. We do have knowledge

– 3. Our knowledge isn’t about the world revealed through the senses

– 4. Our knowledge, instead, is about another world, one that endures

– 5. This is the world of forms

– The world of forms:• Eternal• Contains many forms: the square itself, the triangle itself, good itself …• There is a intricately related pattern of Forms

– Example: MAN, HUMAN & MAMMAL

The Metaphysical Argumentfor the World of Forms

• The Metaphysical Argument (Parmenides 132a):– 1. Think of 2 large elephants

– 2. They have a certain character in common, each is large.

– 3. What they have in common cannot be the same as either elephant

– Thus, 4. Largeness is not the same as either elephant.

– 5. Largeness is not the same as both elephants• Another elephant might be large also

– Thus, 6. What the elephants have in common is a reality distinct from them.

– 7. They share the ‘large itself’.

The Semantic Argumentfor the World of Forms

• The Semantic Argument (Republic, 596a):– 1. Proper names, such as “Jim” or “Jen”, stand for one particular thing in the world.

They refer to some one thing.

– 2. General terms, such as “elephant”, are the names given to all the particular elephants. The one name stands for all the individual elephants.

– 3. So we assume there is one form common to all the particulars, I.e. there is a form elephant that is common to all elephants.

– Thus, 4. “Elephant” names an object, the form elephant, just as “Jen” names an object, Jen.

– Thus, 5. Whenever we give the same name to a plurality of things, we are naming a form.

Plato’s theory of meaning

• Plato’s theory of meaning:– Proper names: get their meaning by standing for or by naming some object in the

world

– General terms: get their meaning by standing for or naming a Form

Forms and Objects of Sense

• Objects of sense are divided into likenesses and things– Likenesses are copies of things. For example…

• Objects of sense have less reality than the forms because:– Objects of sense are merely copies of forms

• This bird isn’t a perfect eagle, maybe it’s wing is broken.• It is a copy of the form EAGLE.• But the copy has certain defining characteristics…

– Objects of sense exist only dependently on the forms

– The Forms exist independently of the objects of sense. • What if eagles become extinct?

• The forms– Forms produce and explain the objects of sense: The form EAGLE makes a particular bird the eagle

it is– Objects of sense participate in forms: This particular bird participates in the Form EAGLE

Lower and Higher Forms

• Higher and Lower forms:– The Higher forms explain and produce the lower forms

• SQUARE: 4, EQUAL, STRAIGHT, LINE, ANGLE

– Reasoning about the higher and lower forms:

• Science:– The construction of lower forms– The scientist examines natural things in the visible world and posits explanations of

them in terms of hypothetical terms– Doesn’t lead us to the higher forms, so scientists only grasp some of reality

• Dialectic:– Purely intellectual:

» no reliance on the world of sense» absolute certainty

– When lower forms are explained in terms of higher forms– Purely conceptual process of moving from lower to higher forms and eventually to the

highest form

The form of the GOOD

• The GOOD:– The ultimate explanation of every other thing is the GOOD

• To understand why anything is as it is, we must see that it is so because it is good for it to be so.

• For example, Socrates is sitting in prison…

– Responsible for knowledge and truth• Gives the things we know their truth and makes it possible for people to have

knowledge

• Knowledge, truth and beauty…

– The Starting Point & The Highest Form • Farthest left…

• The GOOD makes intelligible, gives the reason and causes the reality of everything.

The Divided Line

• l_____A_____l_____B_____l_____C_____l_____D_____l• The visible the intelligible

• l__Likenesses____l_____Things______l__Lower Forms___l___Higher Forms__l• • GOOD

• l__Imagination___l_____Opinion_____l____Sciences____l____Dialectic____l• Being More Real • Producing and Explaining

• The visible is the sensible world:– Likenesses are copies of objects of sense– Knowledge: imagination and opinion

• The intelligible is the world of forms:– Lower forms are composed of higher forms, – Knowledge: Science and Dialectic

• Reality, Production and Explanation:– The higher forms have the most reality, likenesses the least– The higher forms produce and explain the lower forms and so on

The Allegory of the cave

• The allegory of the cave:– Represents the various stages of the ascent to wisdom

• To love wisdom is to be motivated to turn one’s head away from the shadows…• It is a difficult road…• Imagine a prisoner is set free from his shackles.

– He stands up, turns his head and walks toward the firelight.– It hurts him to do this. His eyes can’t adjust right away. So he cannot make out the

objects whose shadows he was formerly looking at.– He sees the objects which cast the shadows and he is dumbfounded: what he once

thought was reality was only a copy of it.

• Now what if he is forced up the steep slope toward the sunlight.– his eyes would be overwhelmed by the suns beams…– Shadows…reflections….actual objects…the heavenly bodies…the sun itself– He’d realize the Sun’s powers…– He’d feel sorry for his former fellow prisoner’s…

• What if he went back underground to sit in his old spot, next to the other prisoner’s?

– Like Socrates (136-137)

The terms of the analogy

• The terms of the analogy: – The prisoner’s

– The shadows on the wall

– The low wall

– People on the other side of the low wall

– The artifacts

– The fire

– The road to the outside world:

– The exit to the outside world

– Objects outside the cave•

– The sun

The Allegory & Education

• Education:– The art of orientation

– The capacity for knowledge is present in everyone’s mind

• The Slave Boy and the 2 squares…

– The mind must simply be turned away from the shadows on the wall and towards the sunlight

– But turning the mind away from the shadows is not easy as the prisoners are not happy to be told they suffer from an illusion. Hence wisdom is resisted…

Love of wisdom

• Love of wisdom:– Wisdom:

• To see everything in light of the highest forms of BEAUTY and GOOD• Participating in the eternality of the Forms

– To Love Wisdom:• It isn’t enough to love a beautiful body or a beautiful soul.

– We will explore all the sciences – This will bring forth “the most fruitful discourse and the loftiest thought, and reap a

golden harvest of philosophy.” (Symposium, 198a-212b)

• But our longing drives us beyond knowledge to the highest forms:– We all want the eternality of the GOOD and the BEAUTY forever.– Only then will we truly be happy.– Only then will be truly be close to the immorality of the Gods.

• So it is the love of wisdom that motivates the prisoner to leave the cave

The Soul

• Plato thought the soul immortal:– The body cannot move itself. Something else must move it.

• A body deriving its motion from within is besouled. (Phaedrus 245e)

– The soul moves itself.• It is a principle of activity and motion…• It is a principle of energy…

– So the body can die.• It can cease to be in motion…

– And the soul cannot die.• The soul is inherently a source of energy and life but cannot abandon its own nature• So the soul is ever in motion

The separation of soul from body

• To be truly wise:– Since it is only the intellect that can lead us to the highest forms of GOOD and

BEAUTY.

– And since the intellect is a capacity of the soul.

– And since the body only distracts from the world of Forms.

– To truly love wisdom is to maximize the separation of soul from body.• For the soul to live alone by itself, both in the present and the hereafter, released from the

body, as from fetters (Phaedo 67c-d)

– But since releasing the soul from the body is death the philosopher cultivates dying. (Phaedo 67c)

• Our true home…• We are propelled away from the body…• not fearing death…

The 3 parts of the soul

• The 3 parts of the soul and the myth of the charioteer:– “Let it be likened to the union of powers in a team of winged steeds and their winged

charioteer.” (Phaedrus 246a-b)

– Desire or appetite:• The unruly and hot-blooded steed; “consorting with wantonness and vainglory; shaggy of ear,

deaf, and hard to control with whip and goad.” (Phaedrus 253d-e)• Motivates…

– The spirited part of the soul:• The white horse, on the more honorable side, a lover of glory, but with temperance and

modesty, needs no whip, being driven by command of world alone (Phaedrus 253d-e)• Animates us so life is enjoyable

– The rational part of the soul:• The charioteer• The function is to guide spirit and desire; to make judgments backed by reason, to seek

wisdom• The soul is beset with internal conflict. • For example, drinking from the polluted stream…

Morality

• Morality:– Each part of the soul has a function.– The excellence of each part is the best performance of its function.– Appetite/Desire:

• Appetite is performing excellently then when it motivates you strongly to achievement.

– Spirit:• Sprit is performing excellently then when it gives you a passion for life, to enjoy

and care about the things in your life

– The Rational part:• The rational part is performing excellently when you are reasoning well, knowing

all the reasons available and weighing out the pros and cons and doing what is best.

The Soul’s functioning well

• What makes one moral:– When desire, spirit and reason are all functioning well.

– The excellent human is one who is strongly motivated, emotionally vivacious and rational.

– Such a person will be happy.• Unhappiness is a result of a lack of harmony among the different parts of the soul.• For example…

– The good person is in perfect harmony…

Right and Wrong action

• Wrong action:– To let the beast within to rule, to allow it to overwhelm the man within

– Is lacking harmony among the 3 parts of the soul, each struggling for dominance

– If the spirit isn’t functioning well…

– If the desire isn’t functioning well…

• Right action:– The man within masters the beast and tames the lion

– This will result in a moral life and moral action, for the beast will not wildly demand what reason says it is not proper to want.

• So why be moral?– Immorality disharmony unhappiness

– Harmonious happiness GOOD

– So Morality is good in itself.

The State

• The State:– 3 parts of the community:

• a parallel to the 3 parts of the soul• Each part of the community has its function and when the state is functioning well each part of

the community is functioning well

• 1. Productive part: – those that are best fit to be laborers, carpenters, plumbers, etc.– As appetitive

• 2. Protective part:– Those best suited to serve in the army or navy– As spirit

• 3. Governing part– The very few who are intelligent, rational, self-controled and in love with wisdom– As Reason

Philosophers as Kings

• Philosophers as Kings:– The search for wisdom is only open to some so there will always be only a few who

are fit to rule• Athenian Democracy…

– So unless a community has a philosopher as a king or the people who are kings or rulers practice philosophy with enough integrity, there can be no end to political troubles.

• So Harmony only if…

Philosopher Kings

• Philosopher Kings:– Love wisdom

– Have the ability to know

– Have attained knowledge of the forms and in particular the highest form of the GOOD

• But since the education necessary to attain knowledge of the forms is rigorous and demanding, only a few will be able to do it.

– Rule by the few wise ones

– And since the wise will truly know the form of the GOOD• The few will educate the rest…

The Third Man Argument

• The Third Man Argument:– Raises a question about the reality of the forms.– Raises an Infinite Regress– The Argument:

• 1. Socrates and Heraclitus are both men• 2. So there must be a form of man to explain their similarity

• 3. But this form must itself be a man

• 4. Plato thinks that the Forms possess the very character that they give their particulars

• 5. But then we need a second Form, MANN, to explain what is shared by Sorates, Heraclitus and the form MAN

• 6. And then we must posit a third Form, a fourth Form, etc.

• 7. But then for any instance of a Form, there must be an infinite number of other stages, I.e. Forms, on which its existence depends

• 8. But then it isn’t clear how a Form could participate in an object of sense at all