Plato

"All western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato,"

Recollection Dialectic

Desire

 Before our souls were united with

our bodies, we were acquainted with the Forms. Education is actually a process of reminiscence.

 We arrive at the knowledge of the

Forms through the power of abstracting the essence of things and discovering the relations of all divisions of knowledge.

 Leads people step by step.

Example:
From the beautiful object

To the beautiful thought

To the very essence of beauty itself

 For Plato there are two fundamental

aspects or realms of reality---the realm of the senses and the realm of the forms.

 For Plato it is the world of the Forms (the realm of

being) that is "really real" world; the world that we perceive with our senses (the realm of becoming) is little more than an imitation of this ultimate reality. He believes that for particular and imperfect thing that exists in the sensible realm (a table, a just act, a beautiful model, a circle) there is a corresponding absolute and perfect Form (Table, Justice, Beauty, a Circle). Plato believed that there could be no science of physics of our knowledge were limited to the physical things.

1. Moral rules are fashioned deliberately by

each community and hav relevance and authority only for the people in the place 2. Moral rules are unnatural and that people obey them only because of the pressure of public opinion 3. The essence of justice is power, or that might is right 4. The good life is the life of pleasure

 Plato put forward the Socratic notion that

knowledge is virtue He emphasized

The concept of the soul The concept of virtue as a function

 Three kinds of activity going on in a person:

1. There is an awareness of a goal or a value

(REASON) 2. There is the drive toward the action (SPIRIT) which is neutral at first but responds to the direction of reason 3. There is the desire for things of the body (APPETITE)

 Plato assumed that the soul is the principle

of life and movement. The body is inanimate and must be moved by the principle of life.

 Reason works on spirit and appetite, and

these two also move and affect reason Pleasure is a legitimate goal of life but passions are simply drives towards things that give pleasure Plato and Socrates echoes that moral evil is the result of ignorance

 The soul has two main parts: the

rational and the irrational (the irrational is made up of the spirit and appetite). The rational part came from Demiurge (the divine Craftsman) The irrational part, together with the body, came from the celestial gods.

 Plato says that when perfect and fully

winged she [the soul] soars upward...whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid groundthere finding a home, she receives an earthly frame...and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creation.

 The soul has an unruly and evil nature

in its irrational parts The cause of evil is present even in the souls preexistent state It is in heaven that the soul alternates between seeing the Forms and truth and forgetting this vision, whereupon it decline sets in.

 The soul is perfect in nature but one

aspect of its nature is the possibility to lapse into disorder, for the soul also contains the principle of imperfection.

 The souls entrance to the body causes

more disorder The body stimulates search for pleasure, hunger, thirst, and desire to procreate Ultimately turns to lust

 It is the body that accounts for

ignorance, rashness, and lust Upon entering the body, the former knowledge is forgotten

 (1) Conception of the soul that existed first,

independently of the body. In that state the soul enjoyed a basic harmony between its rational & irrational parts, a harmony wherein reason controlled the spirit and appetites through its knowledge of the truth. (2) But because the irrational part of the soul had the possibility of imperfection, it expressed this possibility by being attracted through its appetites to the lower regions, dragging with it the spirit and reason.

 (3) Then, upon entering the body, the original

harmony of the parts of the soul became further disrupted, the former knowledge forgotten, and because of the inertia of the body, was even further obstructed in recovering this knowledge. (4) Morality consists of the recovery of ones lost inner harmony by means of reversing the process by which reason had been overcome by the appetites & stimuli of the self

 Only knowledge can produce virtue because it is

ignorant or false knowledge that produced evil. No one willingly choose an act that will be harmful to oneself. One may do wrong acts, but they always assume some benefit will come from it. This is false knowledge, a type of ignorance, which people must overcome in order to be moral. False knowledge must be replaced with an accurate appraisal of things or act and their values. Thus, not any knowledge will do. Only knowledge that is true.

 Be aware of that one is in a state of ignorance.

Once is awakened from sleep of ignorance into two

ways:
Process of Recollection as depicted in Platos Meno;

This is an internal source of awaking. Like the account with the slave-boy, knowledge is already there and so it must be birthed out from memory. The effective Teacher: The External Agent: The freed prisoner from Platos Allegory. The effective teacher must turn the prisoner around so that he will shift his gaze from shadows to the real world.

 The good life is the life of inner harmony, of well-

being, of happiness. Virtue and goodness were intimately connected with the behavior that produced virtue & well-being. Harmony could be achieved only if the parts of the soul were doing what the nature of each was required to do; each part of the soul has a special function.

 Thus, virtue is grounded in the very nature of the soul.

It is the very nature of reason to know & to direct the spirits and appetites. Reason has a function,& reason is good only when it is acting as reason should. Plato compares the good life to the efficient functioning of things: a knife is good when it cuts efficiently, that is, when it fulfills its function.

 Corresponding to these 3 parts are three virtues, which

are achieved when those parts are respectively fulfilling their functions:
Virtue of Temperance: Bodily needs function within

appropriate limits Virtue of Courage: Spirited element is performing its heroic functions. Virtue of Wisdom: Reason masters the other 2 elements. Virtue of Justice: General virtue, which reflects a persons attainment of well-being & inner harmony, which, in turn, is achieved only when every part of the soul is fulfilling its proper function

A Summary of the Theory of Forms

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Plato ; Or The Philosopher"

"Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato, -- at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories. No wife, no children had he, and the thinkers of all civilized nations are his posterity and are tinged with his mind."