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Chapter 2 :The GREEKS

The GREEKS
An Overview
In this chapter we shall cover a great deal of material. The general overview is given below in an outline.
There are ten sections. They will be broken up into a number of mini lectures. There will be discussion
questions based on the more important issues of philosophical interest. There is a great deal of material
available at your library and on the Internet. References will be offered. There will be a large number of links
to sites on the Internet. You are invited to visit them. Please keep in mind that the only materials that are on
internet sites that you will need to read will be clearly marked with something like, "You must read..... click
here." The more interested you are you may want to look into this period of time in the West much further than
time permits us here in this course. First you might consider the linked materials. So look over the outline
below and then move on to the next section.

Greek Thought
Classical Period
Outline
I. Culture and History
Social State

II. Arts
Playwrights
Thespis 560B
Aeschylus 525-456BC
Sophocles 496-405BC
Euripides 485-406B
Aristophanes 450-385BC
III. The Sophists
IV. Technology & Gadgets
V. Paideia (Culture)
Education
Poetry > Morality > cynicism> Rationalism
Mimesis > Subjectivism > Dialectic Thought
VI. Speculative Thought
From MYTH to PHILOSOPHY
VII. Science
VIII. Pre-Socratic Philosophers
IX. Socrates 470-399BC
· Life Line--ION
· Trial—EUTHYPHRO ,APOLOGY
· Prison-- CRITO
· Death -PHAEDO
· Legacy
X. Plato 428-348BC
· Overview
· The Theory of the Forms—PHAEDO
· The Good Life—REPUBLIC
· The Process- SYMPOSIUM T
The Legacy- Platonism.
Greek Thought
Classical Period

I. Culture and History

The Greeks wanted a good life. The question then, as well as now, is how to know what the good life is? How
does one recognize the good life? The GOOD itself? How does one gain the knowledge needed to pursue the
good life and distinguish it from another that is less good or even not good but appearing as good for those who
are foolish, impetuous and ignorant, lacking in wisdom?
The Greeks at the time of Socrates and Plato were undergoing a major change in the way in which they would
think about the world, themselves and reality itself. Greek culture rose to great heights in the period from 525
BC to 350 BC, the period that brackets the lifespan of Socrates and Plato. In this period Athens, the Greek city-
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state, would rise to the height of its political and military powers and would come to represent the height of
Greek cultural achievement as well. The Greeks during this time, and particularly in Athens, were moving from
an oral to a literate culture and from a foundation of religious belief and mythology to another based upon the
inventions and creations of artistic endeavor and rational thought.
The Greeks, prior to Plato, had a culture (the way a people learn to think, feel and act from the previous
generation) that was transmitted orally. Few could read or write. There was little material to write upon.
Papyrus from Egypt would be arriving and be popularized after Socrates death. If the average Greek were to
learn about anything it would need to be through hearing whatever it was spoken about. What they heard they
made every effort to remember and then repeat. This pattern for transmitting information became a pattern for
life itself. The tales of the gods and goddesses, the titans, heroes and heroines were placed in rhyme and meter
to make it easier to remember. What they remembered of the tales they endeavored to repeat not only in the
telling of the tales but also in their lives. The gods and goddesses supplied the examples, the paradigms, and the
models for behavior. If the gods did it, it must be good and so I should do it as well: so went the thinking.
When faced with a conflict or problem the Greeks had sought answers in the stories that they heard as they grew
and which they believed were true and served as guides through life for each of them. By the time of Socrates
there had grown a considerable amount of doubt about the stories. There was skepticism and outright denial as
well. The tales when examined often displayed a number of troublesome features including contradictions
amongst the many stories and examples of divine beings acting in a morally outrageous manner, such as
involving murder, patricide, matricide, rape, theft, lies etc… The playwrights were encouraging audiences to
reflect upon the tales and consider the values and morality within them. Orators were distorting the tales for
personal gain and some, such as Socrates, were examining the entire basis for the moral order.
The tales appear to describe a number of gods and goddesses who have each an assigned place in a general
hierarchy. As the divine beings had an order, so too should the human community have an order. The
question had arisen: upon what was the order to be based? Should it be based upon moira, fate or destiny, as
with the gods or upon something else? The Greeks, as with most humans, hated chaos, disorder. As the gods
enjoyed a cosmos, order, so too should humans have an order. The Greeks look for the order in the tales of the
gods but by the time of Socrates that approach was no longer working.
Greek culture was mythopoetic, based upon myths and transmitted through poetry. These tales had an
imaginative character and an emotional one as well. The myths proclaim a truth, which transcends reasoning.
These myths try to bring about the truth that they proclaim: the moral truths. The myths are a form of action or
ritual behavior, which must proclaim and elaborate a poetic form of truth. The logic of the events, the order of
causality, is anthropomorphic. If one asks "why" things are as they are , then the answer will be in the form of
"who" is responsible or the agent behind the events. The function of these myths, as in most cultures, is to
explain, unify, and order experience. The myths dispel chaos. They reveal a structure, order, coherence and
meaning not otherwise evident.
The tales spoke of Zeus, Chronos, Poseidon, Hera, Athena and dozens of other divinities, each with a genealogy
and an assigned place in the pantheon or general organization of the divine community. The divinities did not
get along all that amicably. The tales told of terrible and violent conflicts. This is probably due to the coming
together of the tales and divinities of two different peoples that became the Greeks of Plato’s time. There were
the original peoples of the land now called Greece and there were the Aryan invaders, the Ionians and Dorians.
These peoples had different conceptions of the world and of the realm beyond it. The indigenous or
autotocthonous , peoples were matriarchal with theriomorphic divinities. They tended to be pacific and
agrarian. The Aryans, from Anatolia, were patriarchal with anthropomorphic deities. They were nomadic and
belligerent. The tales of Homer and Hesiod contain an amalgamation of tales in which the deities (many
female) are woven into the tales of the invading peoples in order to accommodate the belief systems of the
indigenous peoples. For example, while Zeus is placed at the top of a hierarchy of deities, he has a wife, Hera,
who is supposed to be by his side, but whom he regularly disrespects or insults. Hera is she who has no specific
name; “she” or “her” the name for the highest female deity of the indigenous peoples. Athena, one of the
highest of the native deities (the “th” indicates she was a deity of the indigenous peoples) is given a place very
high in the order. Athena is reported to have been born or to have emerged directly from the head of Zeus,
knowing no woman as mother! Athena, the protective deity of Athens, represents wisdom (what philosophers
seek) and she also offers assistance to warriors. She takes on the form of an owl to bring information and
advice to humans. (Owls are associated with wisdom in much of the western world to this day.)
The physical conflicts between the two peoples who merged into the Greeks is mirrored in the tales of the
deities. Zeus takes several wives and has affairs, possibly to appease the indigenous peoples beliefs in the high
order of their female deities. The deities of the indigenous peoples are transformed, metamorphosed, into
human like beings with super human qualities.
The tales organized under Homer and Hesiod were used by the people as an encyclopedia, as the foundation of
the educational system. The tales were entertaining, containing stories of adventure. There was a great deal of
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sex and violence in them s well. They held the interest of generations of listeners and offered instruction on
how to conduct war, raise children, administer assistance to the wounded, resolve family conflicts and much
more. The tales, epic works, gave the Greeks a sense of history and their place in the general scheme of things.
The myths provided a set of moral exemplars, which each Greek was to follow. Each Greek was to be the best
that they could be, pursue virtue (arête), accept fate and prepare for the next life.
For a presentation of the Greek Myths you could look into a well known work by Thomas Bullfinch.
http://www.bartleby.com/bulfinch/ or here http://www.online-
literature.com/bulfinch/mythology_fable/
The vocabulary was not advanced and often the Greeks would think in terms of the stories and the characters in
them rather than in the abstract. For example, if one were to call for justice the Greek would call upon the
female deity who represented justice to come and settle the matter in some way. The figure of a robed woman
with blindfold holding a scale in one arm, is the representation of the goddess whose actions are what the
Greeks had thought of as Justice. Themis, the Divine Right or Divine Justice and Dike, human Justice, were the
deities whose actions constituted the Greek idea of the Right or Justice. It is Socrates' time that the Greeks are
seeking an answer without recourse to those stories and without the picture thinking methodology of the
mythopoetic culture, which was rapidly waning.

The Greeks at the time of Socrates and Plato had experienced a criticism of the tales and the morality of the
gods in their dramas performed in public amphitheaters. There was a raising of questions concerning the moral
foundation that was disturbing the order. Chaos was threatening! There was a noticeable breakdown of
traditions. There was a decline in respect for both the tradition and the laws. The Greeks were familiar with
speculation about the nature of the universe that did not involve the deities. They had experienced a
development in technology that afforded a much higher quality of life than known by their ancestors. Through
trade, travel and warfare they had come to know of other peoples, their history and cultures; their belief systems
and values. The Greeks were undergoing a shift in their worldviews and along with that a change in their
values, their ethical orientation and conceptual frameworks. In these ways the Greeks of 400 BC are like the
peoples of advanced technological societies today in a post-modern era.
serious reservations were voiced about the traditional gods. Before 500 B.C. the free-thinker Xenophanes (who
even attacked the Greek obsession with athletics!) spurned the gods of Homer and Hesiod for their deplorable
behavior -- ''thieving, fornicating and tricking one another.'' Before 400, Thucydides wrote a history, obsessed
with explanation, that all but left the gods out of the frame. Plato, not much later, wanted to exclude these old
portrayals of the divine from his ideal polity. So, by the time of the tragedian Euripides, many did not take the
Homeric vision of the gods literally: their mythical interventions were a way of talking about human life rather
than a description or a truth. Oliver Taplin ( December 14, 2003, New York Times, Book Review)

The key question for humans was and is: how to live a GOOD life? Before 500 BC the Greeks answered that
by thinking that the way was to follow the gods and to accept moira. After 400 BC the answer was not so clear
at all. What had happened? This is something worth examining for what it may offer those in our time. Before
1800 the answer to the question in the West had been to obey God’s commandments and accept God’s will.
Today that answer does not appear to be the actual approach in practice. There does not appear to be any
commonly accepted answer to the question In a post-modern age the general respect for the laws of God, the
truth of science, the traditions of our ancestors all seems in doubt. Ideas of an objective truth and single standard
for justice are regularly derided in discussions of the judicial system. Ideas of relative truths and morality are
very popular.
The Greeks were clustered due to conditions of geography and geopolitics. They lived in city-states, polii.
(The term ” politics” comes from this condition.) They often quarreled and went to war with one another. The
various city-states were organized under different forms of government. There were several: tyranny, military
dictatorship, Oligarchy, Autocratic, Aristocracy and Democracy. These forms might change over time. Indeed,
in Athens prior to Plato the Athenians had experienced several transitions; arriving at a form of democracy that
would put Socrates to death and motivate Plato to become a philosopher and write about an ideal polii or state
in his work , the Republic. The Greeks preferred any form of government and thus order to chaos or disorder as
would be present with tyranny (no rule of law or constitution).
Athens had defeated great city-states and foreign empires in several wars; sea war in particular. Athens enjoyed
a great prosperity as a result that brought many public works, theaters, temples, buildings, water works, streets,
commerce, festivals, foreign “teachers” or speakers. Athens represented an open city and a way of life that was
open to ideas, foreigners, trade etc.. Athens principle threat at the time of Socrates death was Sparta. If Athens
represented the way of ADVENTURE , Sparta represented the way of SAFETY. I the quest after cosmos over
chaos, Sparta had become an oligarchic state with a strict disciplinary code and a great deal of uniformity.
Sparta had a totalitarian government. Athens created a democracy. Just prior to Socrates trial and death Sparta
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defeats Athens in battle and imposes a rule by thirty young men who would become the tyranny that would be
overthrown an democracy put in its place. Socrates lived and died in Athens. He embodied much of its spirit.
He was open minded and questioned all. His life in pursuit of the GOOD was also one of intellectual
adventure. The chaos that threatened Athens in 399BC was associated with the openness of the preceding
years. In an attempt to restore an order, to fashion a cosmos again, Socrates appears as a thereat to the rulers of
Athens and that threat must be removed. In the lives of many humans there often come moments when a choice
must be made between the path of adventure versus that of safety. Athens and Sparta represented those paths.
The Greeks were moving from pre-history and the mythic time to history. They recorded events and preserved
them and transmitted them. The Greeks were moving from the mythic mode of thought as well. Instead of
accepting and repeating the tales they were starting to reflect upon them, to examine them closely and even to
question, doubt and disbelieve. A clear indication of the process of rational reflection upon the mythic epics is
given in the works of the playwrights. This is the material of the next section.

Greek Theatre

Throughout the year there were public performances of plays in all the Greek city-states. There were festivals
that would last for several days ands plays would be performed. Families would attend with children and
servants. They would bring food. If the play met with disfavor the audience would shower the stage with food
to drive the actors off the stage. Often prizes were awarded for the best play of the festival. Afterwards there
would be a party for the winner. It was not too dissimilar to the parties after the Emmy Awards or the Oscars or
Tony's.
The large amphitheaters would hold from 10 to 20,000 people. Almost an entire town would fill the theater to
watch and listen to the plays. The acoustics are still to this day, amid the ruins, simply amazing. All those in
the theater could hear the actors on stage. Assisting in the seeing of the action and the emotion of those on
stage were large masks held before the faces of the actors; one mask with a smile representing joy the other with
a frown for sorrow. These masks were the persona (or personalities) of the actors made more visible for the
audience to see.
The following playwrights will be discussed in brief to permit an understanding of the type of thought being
promoted by these artistic works.
Thespis 560BC
Aeschylus 525-456BC
Sophocles 496-405BC
Euripides 485-406B
Aristophanes 450-385BC

Thespis 560BC
The father of the play. Thespians are actors. Thespis utilized a chorus and a single actor.

Aeschylus 525-456BC
Type of Play: Drama
Plays Mentioned: 90
Survive: 7, Prometheus, Orestes Trilogy: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides
Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians
First Prizes 13:
Number of actors: 2 Chorus:12
His plays appear to focus upon justifying the way of the gods to humans according to human notions of justice.
He attempts to promote harmony and cooperation. In his plays he demonstrates how violence begets violence
begets more violence until reason enters to settle the discord. He demonstrates that the principles which govern
the gods are above those of humans. He favored the civilized life in which reason prevails over violence. He
encourages humans to avoid the sin of pride (hubris) and be mindful of the proper place for everyone. He
indicates that the state is the champion of justice and it promotes reasoned reconciliation.

Sophocles 496-405BC
Type of Play: Drama
Plays Mentioned: 120
Survive: 7 : Ajax, Electra, Oedipus the king, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus,
Trachinian Women , Philoctetes
First Prizes: 24 Number of actors: 3 Chorus : 15 Used Painted scenery!
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Sophocles tragedies are concerned with the fate of human heroes. He accepts the principles of the gods but
focuses on the human response to the actions of the gods. The hero is a human who has an extraordinary career,
which pushes back the horizons of what is possible for a human. The hero is not a flawless character but a
virtuous character. Sophocles acknowledges the power of the gods but he does not assume that their standards
are the same for humans. The human hero takes responsibility for the action of the human. Oedipus could
easily claim that he did not know that the man that he killed was his father and neither did he know that the
woman who was the mother of his children was also his mother. Oedipus could have claimed it was all a matter
of fate, the work of the gods. He could have offered excuses and "copped a plea". Instead, Oedipus takes
responsibility for what he has done and acknowledging the horror of it all, he plucks out his eyes and abandons
the palace and his kingship.

Euripides 485-406B
Type of Play: Drama , Tragedy
Plays Mentioned: 92
Survive: 19 including: Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Andramache, Ion, Trojan Women, Electra, Iphigenia
among the Taurians, The Bacchants, Iphigenia at Aulis.
First Prizes:4 Number of actors: 4 Chorus: 15
While Euripides appears to have won fewer prizes in his lifetime than others, more of his plays survive to this
day and are enacted in the principle cities of the Western world every year. His tragedies are very dark. They
challenged the audience to radically reconsider some of their most cherished notions. He reduced the heroes to
the level of the contemporary. He demonstrates that gods who do evil deeds are not to be considered as gods!
Euripides encouraged his audience to criticize antiquated conventions and the restraints of the social order- a
human made order.
Euripides ' work promotes a psychological understanding or perception of events. The plays move from
darkness to light. He promotes a questioning of the gods, often displaying their actions in a fashion so that they
appear ludicrous or at least questionable. He illustrates how the gods whatever they may do are not responsible
for human motivation. His human personages are seen struggling simply to survive in some tolerable
manner. Euripides illustrates how human laws deny basic human rights to women, bastards, foreigners and
slaves. His plays show the consequences of accepting those laws without question. He illustrates how the
heroic deeds of the legends look when carried out by contemporary humans. Euripides discredits belief in the
gods that promotes horrors. In his play Medea, he shows a horrible act of a mother killing her children in the
light of unjust and inhumane conventions that drove her to such a horrible act. In the Trojan Women he shows
the Athenians how their victory over the Trojans looked to the women and children of Troy who were raped and
killed. The Greeks were made to think by Euripedes works, to think and to question.

Aristophanes 450-385BC
Type of Play: Comedy
Plays Mentioned: 40
Survive: 11 including: Archanians, the Birds, the Frogs, the Clouds, Lysistrata
Number of Actors: 3 Chorus: 15
Aristophanes was a comic playwright. He was a conservative minded artist. He liked to poke fun at man and
his foibles. He delivered hilarious indictments concerning the politics, morality, law, economic theories and
educational practices of his time.
His plays are an example of old comedy: burlesque, farce, comic opera, pantomime. It was fun with a serious
intent to it.
In one play the Lysistrata, the men of a Greek city-state are off at war. The women are lamenting their fate as
they await news of the war and learning whether their husbands and sons are still alive or not. The women do
not like their station in life, the folly of war and the devaluation in the eyes of men. They are aware that the
men appear to have only one interest in them. They use this as part of a scheme. The women send word to the
front lines that no woman of the polis will have sex with the men while there is still a war going on. When
word of this strike reaches the men at war not much times goes by before they have settled the matter and are at
peace again. This play was greated with much laughter by the audience for several reasons. It was
Aristophanes way to condemn both the impatience to go to war and the narrow interest that men appear to have
had in women.
In another of his plays, the Clouds, Aristophanes is poking fun at the Sophists. These public speakers, debaters,
lawyers and educators were respected, feared and despised by many. The Sophists were destroying respect for
the traditions, including the family. They taught a form of skepticism, atheism, cynicism and relativism that
was undermining the foundations of the moral and social order. They did have tremendous skills as orators. It
is connection with Socrates that this play becomes very important. Aristophanes play The Clouds was first
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produced in the drama festival in Athens—the City Dionysia—in 423 BC, where it placed third. In this play,
the author, a friend of Socrates, uses his name in a comedy that criticizes the Sophists. Many who see the play
do not realize that the character named “Socrates” in the play did not depict the actual thinking of Socrates. It
was burlesque and farce; an exaggerated comic depiction.
Aristophanes and Socrates were well known to one another. They were friends of a sort. They dined together
as reported in the Symposium of Plato and Zenophanes. It was in the manner of a Friar's Club Roast were the
host of honor is lampooned and kidded by his friends that Aristophanes thought that he would poke a little fun
at Socrates. Aristophanes used the name of Socrates for one of the characters in his play. He made him the
head of a school. It was a school of sophistry, something that in real life Socrates not only would have no part
of but also would criticize. In the play the character Socrates spends his time suspended in air above the stage
looking heavenward in contemplation of the clouds and the heavens and divine nature of things. Because of
this association with the Sophistry, many who saw the play but who had never met Socrates or who had not
learned of his actual works, his questioning and questing after virtue and wisdom, these people would
mistakenly associate Socrates with being a Sophist and thus the animus born toward the Sophists was directed
to Socrates. Some of the jurors at the trial of Socrates were probably in that group who knew of Socrates only
indirectly and through the play. People today born after the events depicted in an Oliver Stone film might take
the film to be an actual depiction of the events as they did occur. Those who were alive and experienced those
events now that this is not the case.
In the Clouds, Aristophanes satirizes the intelligentsia of his day and decries the new educational programs of
the Sophists. The play opens with a father confronted by his son who is begging for more money to pay off
gambling debts. The father is a well-to-do businessman who wanted his son to assist him in business instead of
going off entertaining himself and gambling. The father agrees to pay off the debt one last time if the son will
agree to make something of his life, go off to school and learn how to assist his father in the business. The son
must agree as the debtors are threatening. The father takes his son into town where he knocks on a door and
enters a "school" where his son will be taught how to speak well so that he can conduct business, take up legal
matters in a court and become educated. In the school the actor named Socrates appears above the stage
engaged in reflections upon heavenly matters. The son is given a course in oratory, rhetoric and sophistry. The
son returns home to meet his father. The father greets his son and expects him now to assist the father. The
son, using his new speaking skills, attempts to convince the father that the father should turn over his business
to his son in payment for what the father owes the son. The father is most distressed by this and expresses his
concern about how his wife will receive this news of their son's attitude. Upon hearing this, the son proceeds to
say insulting things about his mother which the father becomes enraged upon hearing. So enraged in fact, that
the father drives the son away and then proceeds into town where he burns the school down. The audiences
who feared the Sophists enjoyed seeing them made fun of and receive their just deserts at the hands of the
father. Unfortunately, while entertaining to the general public Aristophanes, unwittingly contributed to the
negative assessment some had of Socrates.
In the Greek theatre there was a considerable amount of thinking going on. The dramatists and comedians
were encouraging their audiences to consider and reconsider their accepted truths, their traditions and their
laws, customs and values. It was not only on the stages that encouragement was given for thought. The
Sophists were at work with their questioning process as well.

The Sophists

The Sophists were orators, public speakers, mouths for hire in an oral culture. They were gifted with speech.
They were skilled in what becomes known as Rhetoric. They were respected, feared and hated. They had a gift
and used it in a manner that aroused the ire of many. They challenged, questioned and did not care to arrive at
the very best answers. They cared about winning public speaking contests, debates, and lawsuits and in
charging fees to teach others how to do as they did. To be able to speak well meant a great deal at that time. As
there was no real paper available, there were no written contracts or deeds and disputes that would be settled
today with a set of documents as evidence back then they would need to be settled through a contest of words:
one person's words against another's. Whoever presented the best oral case would often prevail. To speak well
was very important. The Sophists were very good speakers. Indeed, they had reputations for being able to
convince a crowd that up was down, that day was night, that the wrong answer could be the right answer, that
good was bad and bad is good, even that injustice is justice and justice would be made to appear as injustice!
To support one's position in any matter, nothing better could be offered than a quotation from one of the works,
which told of the gods and their actions. If an action of the gods could be found that was similar top that being
taken by a party to a debate then that was evidence of the correctness of that action. Therefore, those who were
the fastest and most accurate at being able to locate quotations and take them and apply them to a given
situation would often win the debate, the contest, the lawsuit or discussion. The Sophists were very well versed
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in the epic tales and poems. They were able to find the most appropriate quotation to support any position.
They regularly entered contests and those who won were given prizes, but no prize was greater than being the
victor and able to charge the highest rates of tuition to instruct the sons of the wealthy in how to speak in public.
This skill was needed to defend oneself against lawsuits even against the most frivolous of lawsuits brought by
one who thought himself to be the better speaker.
The Sophists taught course such as:
· How to win no matter how bad your case is.
· How to win friends and influence people
· How to succeed in business without really trying
· How to fall into a pigsty and come out smelling like a rose.
· How to succeed in life.
· How to play to win
The Sophists held no values other than winning and succeeding. They were not true believers. They were
secular atheists, relativists and cynical about religious beliefs and all traditions. They believed and taught that
"might makes right". They were pragmatists trusting in whatever works to bring about the desired end at
whatever the cost. They made a business of education and profited from it.
Their concerns were not with truth but with practical knowledge. They practiced rhetoric in order to persuade
and not to discover truth. Their art was to persuade the crowd and not to convince people of the truth. They
moved thought from cosmology and cosmogony and theogony, stories of the gods and the universe, to a
concern for humanity. Their focus was human civilization and human customs. Their theater was the ethical
and political problems of immediate concern for humans. They put the individual human being at the center of
all thought and value. They did not hold for any universals; not universal truths nor universal values. They
sought and took payment for their lessons at speaking (and writing).

Here are some excerpts:

Protagoras:
Man is the measure of all things
Relative truth only
Everyone has truth
Gorgias
1. nothing exists
2. If something does exist we can not know it
3. even if we can know it we can not communicate it
Callicles: Might is right Accident makes might
Thrasymachus :Might makes right
The Sophists challenged and criticized and destroyed the foundations of traditions and the moral and social
order and they put nothing in its place nor did they care to. While Socrates looked for objective and eternal
truths the Sophists were promoting ideas of relativism and subjectivism, wherein each person decides for him or
herself what the true and the good and the beautiful are. This appealed to the mob, the crowds, the unthinking
horde but it is not an approach that serves as the foundation for a common life. Conflicts are resolved through
the use of power. The Sophist held that might makes right. Society's demand for wisdom required more than
what the Sophists offered. Socrates attempted another approach and in part due to the Sophists lost his life in
his quest. Plato would be inspired by Socrates to take up the challenge and find answers to the questions that
were most basic and most in need of answering in the quest after wisdom and the GOOD.
Socrates could debate with Sophists and do quite well. Socrates was skilled in the art of reasoning. In his
exchanges with the Sophists Socrates developed his ability to think using a dialectical process. This
methodology would be not only an important part of his legacy to Plato but to Western thought as well. There
were other influences on both Socrates and Plato.

Plato's Critique of the Sophists and The Art of Memory by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D. Senior McLuhan Fellow at
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_plato_critique_sophists.htm
"The poets were not the only target of Plato's attack. The sophists were criticized mercilessly by Socrates.
These wandering teachers were the successors of the rhapsodes. Recently discovered fragments from the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C.E. prove that they were also heirs of the tradition started by the poet Simonides (556 -
468 B.C.E.).[1] These few surviving documents have allowed scholars to trace the line of descent from poet to
rhapsode to sophist as part of the transition from oral tradition to written record. When material from more than
one source was put together, interpreters were needed to translate anachronistic expressions and foreign
words.[2] As the epics came to be preserved in written collections, a group of rhapsodes became interpreters as
well as presenters of poetry. Some of the earliest prose consists of their efforts to explain the meaning of
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traditional names and phrases in the old theogonies. Glosses, along with explanations of Homeric proper names
and obscure words by "etymology," were developed, collected and transmitted by the rhapsodes.[3] Over time,
they began to offer instruction in the interpretation of poetry, in the use of letters, as well as in the
classifications and definitions laid down by their predecessors. They also taught techniques of oral presentation
and public speaking in addition to the use of an "art of memory," which was said to have been invented by
Simonides.[4] At some point, the most prominent of their number became known as teachers of wisdom. The
early sophists wandered all over the Greek-speaking world. Later, they converged on Athens, the leading
democratic city-state, where they could establish themselves as professional educators and gather their best
students around them. A number of Plato's dialogues bear the names of the major sophists in the tradition -
Gorgias, Protagoras, Critias and Hippias. For instance, at Protagoras 339a, there begins an extended passage in
which the sophist explains a lyric poem by Simonides so as to rationalize some of its contradictions. The
Sophist offers a number of different definitions and classifies sophists themselves as "deceptive image makers."
The Gorgias contains an extended critique of sophistic deceptions, and in the Greater Hippias 285b-286a and
the Lesser Hippias 368c-369a, Socrates takes an ironic tone in praising Hippias's use of the memory "art." "
Socrates and Plato would criticize the Sophists for leading people away from the truth by calling up memorized
passages and having the memory activated instead of reason. They would appeal to images and emotions rather
than to reason Socrates and Plato would use and advocate for the use of the dialectical process of inquiry over
memorization and repetition and emotional appeals to persuade the crowds.
Plato's Critique of the Sophists and The Art of Memory by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D. Senior McLuhan Fellow at
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_plato_critique_sophists.htm
"Yates also described a branch of the memory tradition that rejected the use of images and imagination, relying
instead on the principles of division and orderly arrangement. This method, later called "dialectic," grew out of
the observation that "thoughts" and certain "parts of speech," do not call up images in the same way as material
things (Quintilian Institutio Oratoria XI. ii. 24-26). The technique involved dividing the material to be
remembered into manageable "lengths" which were then organized into a schematic "in which the more general
or inclusive aspects of the subject came first, descending thence through a series of dichotomized
classifications" to subdivisions containing more specialized, or individual aspects (230). In contrast to the
method which impressed material on memory by envisaging vivid and emotionally charged "images," the
method of memorizing by "dividing and composing" stressed the use of cool analytic thought processes in the
continuous rehearsal and recitation of the abstract order of the "divisions." "

Both Socrates and Plato would find much of value in the speculative thought processes of those who took up
another set of questions entirely. There were those who wondered at the universe itself. They questioned its
composition and origins. It is to these naturalists or physicalists, these metaphysicians that we next turn. In the
next section we shall learn about the group of thinkers who are collectively known as, the Pre-Socratics.
MODERN SOPHISTS Lawyers Advertisers, etc….

The Pre-Socratics
from Science to Philosophy

IV. Technology & Gadgets

The Greeks were alive with ideas and inventiveness at the time of Socrates and Plato. They had self-moving
automata- a form of rudimentary robot. They had astronomical models. They had lottery machines and other
devices for balloting. There were balances, lens, plumbing, toys all indicating a remarkable degree of thought
and achievement. In Athens there were standardized measures, needed for trade. There was a town clock and
an observatory, with a device known as the “celestial machine”. In all the Greeks combined curiosity and
ingenuity to produce a wide variety of devices and public institutions. The voting machines they devised were a
means for mechanical honesty.
V. Paideia (Culture)
Greek culture rested upon a system of education that was both formal and informal. Central to the culture were
the epic tales that contained in them all that was important for any Greek. They contained answers to many of
the most basic questions. The educational system, had at its core the mastery of those mythopoetic tales. The
tales were sacred histories and paradigms for guidance for contemporary events. Greek culture and education
was through mastery of the Greek poetry and in those poems was the basis for Greek morality. The Greeks
used mimesis to memorize the tales. In so doing they were establishing the model for life itself. To imitate the
gods and heroes, to submit to the spell of the poem, the power of the tale, the model for behavior set within the
tale became the basis for pursuit of the good life, a life of virtue as exemplified by those in the tales. In an oral
culture to preserve the tales, memorization was important. To preserve the transmission of the tales and the
 9

moral order it was necessary to memorize and repeat exactly. The memorizing of the preserved word and the
repetition of the actions in the tale became the core of the educational system and the virtuous life. In this way
the medium became the message. The medium for the transmission of the culture was to memorize and repeat.
The message for how to live a good life was to learn how the gods and heroes behaved and then remember that
and repeat those behaviors in one’s own life. The tale was the thing. It was art, it was didactic instruction and it
was encyclopedic source of information about history, warfare, medicine, family relations, laws…. everything
important.
The key works each have their own accent.
Homer
Iliad- a dispassionate series of recommendations
Odyssey –a description and prescription on how society normally does and should behave
Hesiod
Theogany- a listing of customs, laws, and folkways of the immortals
Work and Days- nomos- Greek laws, derived from the folkways of the immortals
The tales were a political and social necessity. They helped the Greeks move from a diaspora to a polis , from
chaos to cosmos and it was through the paideia of oral recitation of the poetic tales that these were achieved.
The task for Socrates and Plato were:
1. to get at the subject who thinks and knows and not what was known
2. to get at the object of knowledge, the body of knowledge, that which is thought about and known and
not that which was memorized.
Critical thinking was set against the habit of self-identity with and through the oral tradition of memorization
and repetition. The polemics against the poets found in the works of Plato are a critique of memorization and
repetition as a means for gaining knowledge. Plato disliked the poets and the artists for they presented in word
and in pictures a impression of something that was not quite real and would actually lead those who heard and
saw their works further away from truth and reality.
Philosophy as developed by Socrates and Plato attempts to foster critical, dialectical thinking in the subject and
that process would lead the thinker to knowledge, truth, beauty and goodness. Memorizing and repeating was
not the method to arrive at those values, virtue and the good life. Plato would move the foundation of the
culture from myths to reasoning.
Prior to Plato After Plato

Poetry dialectic
Mythos logos
Doxa episteme
Opinion knowledge
Concrete images abstract principles
Particular general
VI. Speculative Thought
The Greeks were moving from MYTH to PHILOSOPHY. They were to move from using Poetry as a guide for
life to using Philosophy. They would be moving away from a religious mode of thought to a philosophical
mode of thought. In the religious mode, the mythopoetic mode, causality was thought of in anthropomorphic
modes. If one would ask “Why” did something occur, the answer would be in the form of “Who” was
responsible for the event, i.e., a god or goddess. The pre-Socratic thinkers, Socrates and Plato would move
away from the “who” to describing “how” an event occurs. This becomes a characteristic feature of Science.
The next progression is to arrive at a theory of causality to explain why things are as they are without
employing or referring to the gods or goddesses.
VII . Science
Greek science consisted in the process of thinking about, speculating about the nature of the universe itself. The
focus was on answering questions that could not be answered by the epic tales. If the gods created the universe,
WHAT did they make it with? What is the universe made up of and what controls or governs the actions of that
basic “stuff”. The Greeks were moving away from thinking of the world in mythopoetic terms to doing so
using what we might term “scientific” language. They were not using the language of persons any more.
RELIGION SCIENCE
BELIEF REASON
Speculative thought Critical thought
Mythopoetic language scientific language
Revelation reason
 10

Concrete abstract
I-Thou I-it
Theriomorphic
impersonal causality
Anthropomorphic
Immanent deities transcendent deities
Hierophanies isolated physical entities
Causality Causality
“why”= who “why” = how
all things in place discontinuity
moral order amoral
In this process of change there is a growth of abstraction in thought. There is a growing independence of
thought from the tales of the divinities and away from actual experience as well for such experience is always of
the concrete and particular.
VIII. Pre-Socratic Philosophers

The underlying assumptions of the early philosophers, the early scientists of Greek culture were:
· There is an intelligible coherence in the phenomenal world
· The universe is an intelligible whole
· There is an order, a cosmos, that underlies the chaos of our perceptions and that
· The Order of the universe is comprehensible to reason
In the works of the pre-socratics there is obviously the progression from mythopoetic thought to a primitive
scientific thinking in the form of speculative inquiry and from that form of thought to philosophy ass rational
inquiry. These thinker were searching for the ARCHE or the very first or most fundamental principles or
causes. They wondered about the immanent and lasting ground for existence. They were critical of the
cosmogony they had in the mythopoetic tales. They were looking for a cosmology (an explanation for the order
of the universe) that did not rely on the gods.
They did not base their thinking on belief but on reason.
These thinkers were naturalists and materialists as they sought answers to physical questions that were rooted in
the physical itself. They were looking for the stuff out of which the universe was composed and they wanted an
answer that was itself made of the same stuff. The matter of the universe would have its explanation in matter.
They were, for the most part, materialists, rejecting spiritual or religious explanations for the causes and stuff of
the universe.

Thales 625-545 BC was looking for the basic stuff (physis) out of which all else is made. He expressed his
idea concerning the basic stuff in his claim that “All things are made of WATER”! Now at first you might
think that his idea is pretty silly and definitely wrong, however, that would be the wrong approach. What do you
suppose was meant by that claim? Thales was attempting to express an idea at a time when his language was
not developed to the point where he could express an abstraction. We are accustomed to thinking in abstraction
and we are that way in part because we have a language with many words that are linked with abstractions. The
Greeks at this time did not have that to work with. For example, if someone wanted to call for justice, they
would call upon the goddess who in their tales represented what today we consider in the abstract as justice. So
instead of saying” I want justice” or “Give me justice” they might say something of this sort ”May the goddess
Themis settle this by sending us a sign”
Thales claim is most likely the claim that there is “Unity in Difference”! In other words, Thales was attempting
to claim that there was some basic stuff out of which all things are made. He selects water perhaps because it
has properties which enable all the people of his time and our time to experience water in three different states:
Liquid, solid and gas. Now if one thing such as water can exist in three very different forms then there must be
something , like water, that is the basic stuff, physis, of the universe. Today, scientists make a similar claim.
All reality, all that exists in the universe is made of or composed of or manifests as: energy. So from Thales
comes the idea that no matter how things may appear, all things are made up of the same stuff: Everything is
one thing!

Anaximander (ca. 612-545 BC) rejected Thales basic stuff, water, and speculated that the ultimate reality could
not be identified with any one particular element. He came up with the basic stuff being the BOUNDLESS or
the INFINITE or the UNLIMITED. This basic stuff was infinite and without a beginning. He also conceived of
the theory of species evolving from one another through time in response to the need to adapt. He thought of
 11

the earth as revolving. He speculated that all life originated in the sea and moved onto the land. With this
thinker abstraction and materialism developed further.

Anaximenes (585-528 BC) hypothesized that it was not water but AIR that was the fundamental stuff of the
universe and that air can be condensed or rarefied to take on the properties of what appear to be other elements.
He sought to simplify and clarify the model of the universe.

Anaxagoras (500-428 BC) appears to have taught that all that is can be explained with a combination of
NOUS and MATTER. For him the universe of matter was set into its form and motions by Nous or MIND.
This mind is immortal, homogeneous, omnipotent, omniscient and orders all phenomena. He did not believe in
gods and goddesses. He did not think that the sun was a god and the moon a goddess. He thought the sun was a
ball of fire and the moon a rock which reflected light from the sun. He was to be executed for blasphemy by
the Athenians but escaped to another land. Socrates was interested in his theories until Socrates learned that for
Anaxagoras the NOUS acted at the beginning of the universe, setting all in motion, and was not invoked by
Anaxagoras to explain motions including those of humans. Socrates was to focus on the actions of humans and
believed that their minds had a great deal to do with their actions.

Empedocles (450BC) conjectured that there are four basic elements: EARTH, AIR, FIRE and WATER. They
were moved about by the two basic forces: LOVE and STRIFE. Together these ideas explained everything that
was physical.

Leucippus (450BC) and Democritus (460-370BC) believed that there were an infinite number of ever moving
ATOMS (indivisible-not separable) that composed all that is. Each was imperceptible. The atoms exist in a
void. They move and interact through necessity and chance.

Pythagoras (580-496BC) not only quests after the basic stuff of the universe but his works reveal that he
explored truth itself and the idea of the good life; questions of ethics. He was concerned with the nature of
reality and of life. He developed spiritualism in contrast to the materialist schools of his time. He was a
mathematician, spiritualist, mystic, musician and leader of a cult. His fundamental contribution to the world of
thought was that the world is really not material at all but made up of NUMBERS. Numbers are things and in
some way constitute the essence of reality. All things are, despite appearances, made up of numbers. The
original number, the ONE, being as with fire, is in motion and set all else into being. He was inspired in this
mode of thought by his observations. The sound made by a string pulled tight and picked will vary with its
length. So he thought the amount of a thing leads to its properties and its very being. His is a naturalistic
explanation. How far off is it from contemporary science which instructs us that all things are made up of
energy and take on different properties depending on the amount of energy. Consider that the difference
between hydrogen and oxygen is the number of protons in the nucleus of the atoms of each.
The more important contribution made by Pythagoras was in his thinking that is to be in what is reached by
REASON over and against what is given to the senses. Truth is reached through reasoning. Reasoning reveals
that mathematics is in all things. Numbers relate to shapes and all that exist has or takes on shape. The
individual who develops reason is on the correct path for the truth and the path to realize the proper destiny for
the reasoning soul. Reason is the source of the world itself. Pythagoras taught that people should surrender to
their higher self, the soul, the reasoner. It is the reasoning part of the person that can contact reason itself, the
LOGOS, or universal reason that generates the universe. The reasoning principle is in all things. For
Pythagoras that principle, god, is the hidden measure in all that is real.

Heraclitus (535-475BC) believed that all things are in perpetual flux. BECOMING is the basis for all that is
real. BEING is unreal. All is changing. Permanence is an illusion. All things are one and one-in-many. That
which is the essence of all is FIRE. The LOGOS is the universal principle of reason through which there is a
law like process in the universe that provides its existence and order.

Parmenides (540-470 BC) taught tht all that is has always been and always will be. Reality is that which
never changes. Reality is BEING and not becoming. Changelessness is the nature of all reality. This is not at
all obvious to our senses. Parmenides trusted in his reason over his senses. The appearance of things can be
deceiving, so trust in reason. All change is illusion for Parmenides! Change can not be real. The truth is what
is arrived at by thought and the truth is set over and against opinions based upon sense impressions and
common beliefs. The REAL is changeless
The REAL is ONE.
He arrives at his ideas through a process of reasoning. Consider the following:
 12

If something exists, it must come from something.

Something can not come from nothing.
If there ever were nothing, there would need to be nothing forever.
Something can not come from nothing.
There is something now.
The something from which the present something comes must always have been.
There must always have been something, because something can not come from nothing.
So that which is has always been and will always be.
Change is an illusion. Permanence is real.
All is one, permanent and at rest.
Being never comes into existence, nor does it cease to be. Being always is. It cannot be added to or divided. It
is whole and complete in itself, one. It is unmoved and unchangeable. Being is. Being does not become.
Becoming is not. Becoming is unreal. Being is and is self-identical and uncaused.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM

So with Parmenides Philosophy comes to trust in REASON over the senses. His thought liberates reason from
the senses. There is in his work the recognition of the autonomy of thought and the use of independent criteria
for judging thought; namely, coherency & consistency over probability.
Philosophy is born in the recognition of the importance of abstract general principles. Philosophy develops as a
rigorous process of inquiry involving insights and deductive reasoning. In Philosophy the human mind comes to
recognize its own creation.

SOCRATES:
We now will now turn to look at the life and thought of Socrates. It was he who developed the philosophical
process of thought and who focused on matters of great concern to humans. He was concerned with the
question: How do I live a Good Life? He was concerned with questions of knowledge, truth, beauty and
Goodness. He was executed for his beliefs and virtues. An interesting story and a life that produced such a
great impact on the world that it is true to say that what Socrates did changed the world. If Socrates had not
lived as he did you and I would not be as we are today. In fact we probably would not exist at all.
You can find a great deal of information concerning any of the thinkers mentioned here by going to this site:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/perscoll?collection=Greco-Roman
TEXTS of the Pre Socratics (Fragments)
XENOPHANES
XENOPHON
ZENO
DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA
IX. Hellenistic Philosophy
A brief description of Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics, Skeptics and other Schools of Greek thought
SOCRATES' LIFETIME

We now will now turn to look at the life and thought of Socrates. It was he who developed the philosophical
process of thought and who focused on matters of great concern to humans. He was concerned with the
question: How do I live a Good Life? He was concerned with questions of knowledge, truth, beauty and
Goodness. He was executed for his beliefs and virtues. An interesting story and a life that produced such a
great impact on the world that it is true to say that what Socrates did changed the world. If Socrates had not
lived as he did you and I would not be as we are today. In fact we probably would not exist at all.
====================================================
These sites are offered as background. You are not required to view them. However they are very interesting,
particularly the first one.-video and animation!
Illustrations in sculpture of Socrates are available in many places . One is from the Perseus Project at tufts
university:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/vor?lookup=socrates&collection=Perseus%3Acollection%3AGreco-
Roman&group=fieldcat&alts=1&extern=1&doctype=Art%20object
Illustrated website with Socrates Lifeline:
If you want to look at at very good website with photographs of Athens in the time of Socrates, with photos of
what it looks like today and material on Socrates, events in nearly every year of his life with photographs and
illustrations and photos of artifacts from the time period, go to this PBS site and click on the material that is
associated with Socrates. The site has audio, video, flash graphics and photos and a lot of printed material.
 13

http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/
So that we can better understand how Philosophy began in the West it would be valuable to learn something of
the life and times of Socrates. Thus the significance of what he did, what he invented and what he left behind
will be better appreciated.
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2KzymrmNa0&feature=related
An Excellent site listing other sites is this one:
http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm
Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for Socrates:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14119a.htm
========================================================
SOURCES:
Xenophon- Memoribilia and the Symposium from whom we learn of the every day details and colorful
aspects of Socrates life, his wife and children. He presents Socrates as a popular ethical teacher and a promoter
of common sense morality who strove to make others good men and citizens.
Aristophanes- whose play, The Clouds , used the name of Socrates in a comedy. He made fun of his friend in
a farce. He presented a burlesque figure of Socrates.
Aristotle- who tells us that Socrates never taught about anything relating to the idea of the eternal forms which
was later developed by Plato.
Plato- who gives us a very detailed description of the Socratic method of questioning, the dialectic process of
Philosophy and Socrates concern for virtue and truth.
Key events in Socrates Lifetime
480bc Anaxagoras arrives in Athens-invited to set up a "school"
Anaxagoras was the thinker who taught that the universe was made up of Mind and Matter. Mind or NOUS set
it all in motion in the beginning and has very little to do with it afterwards. The sun was a ball of fire and not a
god and the moon was a rock reflecting light and not a goddess. Athens invited him to town and set him up so
that he would teach others about his ideas. He had considerable reputation. The Athenians enjoyed and valued
the life of the mind. After it became apparent that Anaxagoras was not supportive of Athenian traditions he was
charged with being an atheist, harmful to Athens and he escaped before he could be punished (executed). See
below 450BC
479bc Xerxes , king of Persia, defeated at Plataea
This event enabled the Greeks and the Athenians , in particular, to focus more on their cultural advancement.
472. Aeschylus’ drama the Persians performed at Pericles request
In this play the rule of reason over violence is promoted.
470. SOCRATES is born of Antiochid tribe, ward of Alopece
His father was a successful stone cutter and his mother a mid-wife.
Socrates spent most of his life speaking with his fellow Athenians and anyone else who wished to speak with
him. He spoke about matters of great importance to him, he sought after answers to important questions. He
was not a Sophist as he never charged anyone for any lessons concerning anything. He did not claim to know
the answers. He did not attempt to win contests with prizes. He was seriously interested in learning about truth,
beauty, goodness and virtue. He entered the public spaces of Athens each day to speak with and question his
fellows and pursue after wisdom to know the difference between what he knew and what he did not know.
454. Aeschylus ‘ Orestes trilogy performed
450. Anaxagoras leaves Athens, fearing punishment, Archelaus succeeds him
445. Athens enjoys a "30 years peace" with Sparta
Free of fear of the arch rival , Athens could devote more time and resources to its own development.
433. Chaerephon consults the Oracle on Delphos-
Chaerephon is a well-to-do Athenian who journeys to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi in order to ask a question.
The temples were places that the Greeks could ask for assistance. From some surviving descriptions of events
at the temples it appears that at many temples young girls would serve as vehicles for the transmission of the
words of the divinities. Now the expressions of the oracles were somewhat ambiguous. There was a reason for
this. Today something is called “oracular” and by that is meant: an oral answer that has the tone of authority
and may be somewhat obscure or ambiguous. The petitioner would call upon the priest of the temple for
assistance(for a fee) . The question would be sent to the deity. The temple virgins might enter into a trance
(some say induced epileptic fit) and they would make strange sounds while appearing possessed by the deity.
The petitioner would ask assistance from the priest who would interpret what the deity was saying through the
utterances of the virgins. Two examples of such oracular sayings and their ambiguous nature.
1. King of Lydia went to Dephos and asked the god”Should I go to war with Cyrus , king of persi?” The
oracle responded with “If Croesus goes to war with Cyrus he shall bring down a mighty kingdom.” Well with
that the king returned to his kingdom and took his army and invaded Persia. King Cyrus sent his army after
 14

them and defeated the Lydians. King Croesus escaped. He returned to Delphos to express his anger at the god
for misleading him. The priest of the temple pointed out that the god did not mislead but spoke the truth. King
Croesus did bring down a mighty kingdom. His own!
2. Chaerephon goes to Delphos and asks “Who is the wisest?” He is told: "There is no one wiser than
Socrates". He returns to Athens with the answer and seeks Socrates. He informs Socrates of the answer of the
god. Socrates thinks ther must be some mistake. He does not believe he is wise at all. He sets out to learn from
those who are truly wise. Perhaps, the god meant for Socrates to seek wisdom (Philosophy). As Socrates
questions all those who claim to know important matters and those who were reputed to be wise , he finds that
they do not know what they claim to know. While Socrates who claims to know nothing appears to be quite
wise in admitting that he does not know. Socrates thinks that perhaps the god has used Socrates to teach
humans a lesson: that the highest wisdom they can achieve is to admit their ignorance.
Meanwhile, there were those in Athens who thought themselves to be quite wise. There were the Sophists who
would win debates and public speaking events and were thought to be wise. If any of these reported wise men
were to go to the Temple at Delphos to complain about the expression of the god the priest of the temple could
calm them by pointing out that the god did NOT say that Socrates was the wisest of all, no, only that there was
no one wiser than Socrates. Surely these wise and powerful and wealthy individuals were just as wise as
Socrates, the god did not want to list them all. That was all.
Socrates seeks after the wise to learn what their wisdom is and how one could acquire it. He questions those
who claim to have knowledge. In the ION Socrates is questioning someone who has won a prize for public
speaking (recitation and who thinks that because he has memorized some lines on a subject that he really
understands what it is all about. Socrates questions show that he doesn't.
READ this dialogue. the ION at http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/ion.txt
432. Peloponesian war breaks out again
431. Pericles Funeral oration given in Thucydides History
431-430 Battle of Potidaea- Socrates and Alcibiades participate
Socrates left the town limits of Athens only three times in his entire life. All three times was as a soldier to
defend Athens! Socrates acts heroically. Alcibiades is a handsome young man and great warrior, a soldier of
fortune, who enjoys himself a great deal. You may read about this at the end of the SYMPOSIUM . (You
will be required to read the SYMPOSIUM later in another section.) Text is available at
http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/symposium.txt
424. Socrates serves as a "hoplite" at Delium .
423. Aristophanes play The Clouds was first produced in the drama festival in Athens—the City
Dionysia—in 423 BC, where it placed third. In this play, the author, a friend of Socrates, uses his name in a
comedy that criticizes the Sophists. Many who see the play do not realize that the character named “Socrates”
in the play did not depict the actual thinking of Socrates. It was burlesque and farce; an exaggerated comic
depiction.
On Satire in Aristophanes's The Clouds a lecture by Ian Johnston.
at http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/clouds.htm
The text and some information about the play The Clouds
422. Socrates serves as a hoplite at the battle of Amphipolis
421. Nominal peace of Nicias which lasts for 2 to 3 years
416-415? Agathon wins first drama prize and feast is held afterwards
READ about this in the dialogue SYMPOSIUM
Alcibiades is disgraced in a "religious scandal". He and his friends are thought to have mutilated the statues in
Athens and that of the god , Mercury.
Alcibiades flees Athens and works for the Spartans! He is a soldier of fortune working for the arch enemy. He
seduces the wife of the king of Sparta while he was away. Alcibiades fled to Persia where he became a leader
in their army.
Euripedes play the Trojan Woman is performed in which the very idea of warfare is criticized by
showing the price paid for it by innocent beings.
413. Athens enters into warfare in Sicily against Syracuse
Coupd’etat in Athens- "Oligarchy of the 400" takes control
Aristophanes play Lysistrata is performed, in which the comedian makes fun of war.
407. Alcibiades is recalled to Athens only to leave shortly thereafter in disgrace again
406. Trial of the ten Athenian generals en bloc for negligence at the battle of Arginisai
Socrates is head of the panel of Judges and is sole dissenter. The mob wanted to have a trial for ten generals all
at the same time and then to execute them all for their crimes against their men, the enemy and Athens.
Socrates is chief judge of the court on that day and he refuses the demands of the mob because it was against
 15

Athenian Law to put all ten on trial at once, lest the guilt of many cover over the innocence of even one of the
others. Socrates grants separate trials
Sophocles and Euripedes die

404/3 Athens capitulates to Sparta

The brutal Spartan commander, Lysander, appoints a Commission of Thirty to rule over Athens. They become
the Terror, the "Tyranny of the Thirty". The tyrant would order Athenians arrested and then execute them or
exile them and take their property. If there were those who criticized the Thirty who had money, prestige or
power, the Thirty would order them to take part in these seizures or face the wrath of the Thirty. Socrates knew
the Thirty. Several had listened to Socrates in discussions as they were growing up. Socrates was critical of
their actions and expressed those criticisms. The Thirty wished to silence his criticisms. On one occasion
Socrates is ordered to go with Meletus and arrest Leon of Salamis. Socrates dissents in the arrest of Leon of
Salamis by the order of Critias and the Thirty. Meletus is in the group that carries out the arrest order. If
Socrates had gone along with the scheme, he would have “blood on his hands” after being involved with the
work of the Thirty and thus, they thought he would be silent. Socrates refused to cooperate with their nefarious
schemes and evil deeds. They wished to silence him and so they issued an edict that no one could teach public
speaking. Thus, they thought they would silence Socrates from speaking in public. When Socrates heard of
this edict, even that it was intended to silence him, he thought that there must be something wrong with the edict
for it would appear to ban anyone from speaking in the presence of another human being, because it is through
observing others speak that we learn. He refused to obey what was a defective decree. It appears the Thirty
were going to take action against Socrates when a revolution took place.
403. Order is restored by a group that institutes a Democracy
Anytus, Meletus and Lycon lead the party and movement.
Amnesty is declared. The laws are revised and codified.
Meletus prosecutes the poet Andocides for "impiety" –Anytus defends him.
399. Meletus accuses Socrates of "impiety" and "corrupting the young"
Socrates looks for the basis of morality in reasoning and not in the simple repetition of the examples set out in
the tales of the gods and goddesses. READ an example of this in the EUTHYPHRO at
http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/euthyphro.txt
Socrates appears for trial and makes his defense, his Apology
READ Plato's account of Socrates' defense in the APOLOGY
http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/apology.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/3963/books/apology.htm
http://www.san.beck.org/Apology.html
Socrates is found guilty, sentenced to die,
In prison he is invited to flee and live in exile but refuses to do so: the CRITO
http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/crito.txt
and is executed by drinking hemlock.
He offers arguments for the existence and immortality of the soul in the last hours of his life. We shall
read about this in a later lecture when we will read the PHAEDO
http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/phaedo.txt
=============================
Additional interesting material will be found at these sites:
A site on Plato and Socrates, his life, thought, method and more!
http://www.san.beck.org/Plato-Intro.html
What Socrates taught. An excellent site by Sanderson Beck
http://www.san.beck.org/SOCRATES4-What.html
VIDEOS: SOCRATES
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaYAFpaBEuU
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXtIZph2Vps&feature=related
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrCoEdsD_bA&feature=related
Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4sy3QOe0FU&feature=related

Socrates' Trial

399 BC Meletus accuses Socrates of "impiety" and "corrupting the young" . To the surprise of many who
thought that Socrates would "get the message" and flee, Socrates shows up for his trial!
 16

SOCRATES AND MORAL THEORY: ETHICS

Socrates looks for the basis of morality in reasoning and not in the simple repetition of the examples set out in
the tales of the gods and goddesses. Read the EUTHYPHRO at
http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/euthyphro.txt second location
http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/euthyphro.htm
On his way to the trial Socrates comes across a young man named, Euthyphro, who is returning form the
courthouse. Socrates learns that he is returning from posting charges against someone and so Socrates inquires
as to the defendant. He is shocked to learn that the young man has brought charges against his own father!
Socrates inquires as to why he is doing this and does he think that he is correct in doing so. The young man
informs him that he has charged his father with murder for allowing a servant who killed another servant to die
while tied up awaiting for the authorities to arrive to arrest him.
Socrates asks the young man why he thinks it is a good thing to bring charges against his own father. The
young man replies that it is the pious thing to do. Socrates asks him if he knows what piety is. Euthyphro
responds by saying that he believes that piety is to please the gods. Socrates asks how we know how to do that
and Euthyphro responds that to do as the gods do is to please them. He cites passages from the epic tales that
describe a god taking actions against his own father and provides this as a justification for doing what he is
doing. Socrates presses on with his questions. For Socrates this is a most important matter. Socrates is
attempting to learn how one knows what is GOOD. How do you know what the right thing to do would be. It
must be GOOD. We all want to do GOOD. We want GOOD answers, GOOD friends, and a GOOD life. So
how do you know what is GOOD. Euthyphro thinks he knows what is the GOOD. It is whatever is pleasing to
the gods. The gods are the standard for goodness. Now Socrates has a major problem with this approach.
There are problems with it. Socrates asks Euthyphro the key questions. Which gods are we to please. Not all
the gods agree. The stories report that they war among themselves. So what is pleasing to one may be
displeasing to another. There were stories of gods respecting their parent s and stories of the gods killing their
own parents. Likewise there were stories of the gods killing their own children, committing murder, lying,
raping and every other horrible act.

So what is the basis for the GOOD. Here is the question that set Socrates apart from all others of his day. A
question that sets Philosophy apart from religion and a question that Socrates could not answer. He died
without an answer. Plato devised an answer but Socrates had not reached that point at his death.
Do we call those acts good because the gods do them or do the gods do them because they are good? Are acts
good just because the gods do them and whatever a god does is good just because the god did it? Or, are certain
acts good and that is why a god does it?
Euthyphro can’t even understand he question and states that he must be going and thus ends the dialogue. Most
people of Socrates time could not understand the import of the question. If the gods do what they do because it
is good then there would be a standard for goodness, which even the gods would answer to and it would exist
apart from the gods to be held over them for the sake of judgment. But for the Greeks there was nothing above
the gods. The theory that Euthyphro put forward is called the DIVINE COMMAND THEORY. Many people
who believe in a single deity also hold for such a theory. Perhaps you think so too.
Consider : For those who believe in the One God of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Tradition are the
commandments of this God good because God commands them or is there a standard of Goodness which even
God must follow? Do all rules come from God? Does everything come from God?
a. Can God make a square circle?
b. If God makes a universe with blue in it and with yellow in it can it exist without green in it?
c. Can God make 2+3= something other than 5?
If God were to do something horrible would it make it good because God was doing it, say killing an entire
town, killing nearly every living being on earth, including innocent beings, ordering a father to kill his son?
These are all in the BIBLE. Are these good things?
Are the laws and rules of the physical universe and mathematics rules that even God must follow? Do they exist
above or before God? Where would they exist or come from?

Consider this:
You hear a story about a mother who has killed her own daughter. She claims she heard God order her to do
so. This happens! Do you think that yes, she heard God say that and so it was Good for her to kill her daughter
or do you think that there is something wrong with that woman? Do you think she may be suffering from a
chemical imbalance in her brain or some other ailment but that it can not be true that God told her to do it
because God would not do such a thing, because it is wrong, even horrible and God just would not do evil
things?
 17

Well when people make judgments about what God would or wouldn’t do, make judgments about actions as to
whether or not they are “evil” acts they are thinking that there is a standard for goodness by which they will
even judge God! Well, where does this standard come from? Where are the rules about what is Good? If they
are from God, God can make them and God can change them.

Socrates and many other Greeks were making judgments about the stories of the gods. They knew that certain
acts of the gods should be followed and others definitely avoided. Socrates was searching for a basis to affirm
the existence of a moral standard or set of rules that even the gods are subject to. This is known as Ethics in
Philosophy. Socrates was one of the very first humans to pursue the answer to the question, “What is the
GOOD?” using reason alone and not belief.
Socrates and Plato would use reasoning and commend others to do so in the pursuit of the GOOD life, answers
to the question “What is the GOOD?” They moved away from memorizing and repeating as the path to a good
life. The stories of the gods had too many contradictions in them and it became too difficult to believe in them.
As many must eventually give up a belief in Santa Claus, so too did they need to give up their belief in the
gods. But just as a belief in Santa Claus is comforting and brings physical gifts, belief in the gods was
comforting for it provided a basis for a moral order. Once belief in the gods was removed, what would the
Greeks put in its place? What would serve as the basis for the social and moral order? Socrates was searching
for it at the time of his death. Plato thought he had found it. More on this latter.

THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES - 399 BC

Socrates appears for trial and makes his defense ( his Apology).
READ Plato's account of Socrates' defense in the APOLOGY in any one of these three locations
http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/apology.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/3963/books/apology.htm
Here is a presentation of the dialogue with a listing of topics within it.
http://www.san.beck.org/Apology.html

Questions:
Why was he there? What was it all about? Why did he make the defense that he did? Why did they convict
him? Why did they sentence him to death?
If Socrates was such a good person, someone who was pursuing truth and goodness and wisdom, how could it
be that he would be executed by fellow citizens?
Socrates is just over 70 years of age at the time he is accused of a crime. He had never before been accused of
anything wrong or criminal. He had served as a justice but never been a defendant. He was very well known.
He was at least regarded as a great thinker, something of a scientist for his musings on the nature of the universe
and as a moralist for all his talk about virtue. Who were his accusers and why did they charge him?
The accuser went to the town hall and presented the charge along with a requested penalty.
Accuser : Meletus
Charge: Impiety-disbelieveing in the gods of the Athenians and corrupting the young
Penalty: Death
Meletus would serve as the prosecutor and present his charges at the trial and the evidence against the accused,
Socrates. Meletus was a conservative, something of a religious fanatic who had also brought charges against
the orator, Andocides.
Lycon, an orator, supported Meletus in bringing the charges. He appearsas a member of the group which
organized the overthrow of the thirty Tyrrants and the creation of the democratic order.
Anytus, the leader of the democratic government, may have been the principle instigator of the charges. He
may have invited Meletus to bring the charges. Anytus was concerned with the ability of the Democracy to
survive. In some way Socrates was perceived as a threat to the political order and thus to the leaders of the
democratic movement.

When the Democratic Party overthrew the tyrants, the “Thirty”, they needed to bring about a harmony within
the polis. They declared an amnesty for any and all crimes that may have been committed during the previous
few years that the tyrants had been inducing people into crimes in order to silence their criticisms and gain their
support. No one was to mention anything that had occurred or any one’s relation to the thirty tyrants. Now the
democratic order did not rest upon the leaders being noble born. It did not rest upon the power of the military.
The Athenians had governments run by kings, military commanders and wealthy people. Now they were ruling
themselves. Democracy. They rested that form opf government on the will of the people and their willingness
to accept that whatever the majority wanted would be the correct thing to do. This democracy did not involve
 18

the voting of all Athenians. The voting in Athens included only: males, born of Athenian mothers, born free,
and born legitimate, no bastards! Those men would vote on all matters and the majority would rule.

Socrates presented a threat to the Democratic Party and form of government. Socrates had for many years been
asking questions and he kept asking questions hoping to get the correct, final and truthful answer. He asked a
series of questions that were threatening to the political order because they focused directly on the basic
principle underlying the democratic rule. The answers to the questions below were the same in 399 BC as they
are today. Even today to push this issue would result in someone be criticized for being anti-democratic or anti-
American! Socrates would ask questions such as:

Is there any guarantee that whenever a majority of the people votes on something declaring that it is true, that
that vote makes it true ? The answer was, NO, there is no such guarantee!

Is there any guarantee that whenever a majority of the people votes on something declaring that it is beautiful,
that that vote makes it beautiful? The answer was, NO, there is no such guarantee!

Is there any guarantee that whenever a majority of the people vote on something declaring that it is good, that
that vote makes it good? The answer was, NO, there is no such guarantee!

Is there any guarantee that whenever a majority of the people votes on something declaring that it is justice, that
that vote makes it justice? The answer was, NO, there is no such guarantee!

Now this was a threat to the system of government and Socrates was seen as a danger to the state, a clear and
present danger, that needed to be dealt with and removed in a manner that would not injure the state. Socrates
questioning was a thereat to national security.

What was at stake here was a clash between the way of adventure that had characterized the history of Athens
with its open door policy and the way of safety that had characterized the development of the state of Sparta
with its rigid discipline and narrow range of variations permitted. Socrates was representing the past of Athens
and now in a precarious condition some Athenians wanted to make the state more secure and the questioning of
the old man, Socrates, was threatening to the order and security of the people.

Socrates was not accused of crimes because of his association with the thirty young tyrants. Although several
of the thirty had known Socrates and had listened to him, he did not encourage or teach them to be tyrants. In
fact when they attempted to silence him for his criticisms of them he refused to arrest Leon of Salamis on their
orders and he refuses to observe their ban against teaching people to speak in public.

So, why was he indicted and why was he found guilty and sentenced to die? Ther are a number of factors hat
probably contributed to a sizeable amount of public opinion being set against Socrates.
1. The character with the name of “Socrates” in the play by Aristophanes, the Clouds, ws made the object of
ridicule. Other playwrights followed Aristophanes lead(Amipias(422bc) and Eupolis(421bc)). Many had seen
the plays who had not experienced Socrates directly. Many would havea false impression due to the “media”.
2. Socrates may have been seen as a dangerous intellectual inovator, on the order of Anaxagoras, who had
been driven out of Athens.
3. Socrates speculated about the universe. He was practicing the “new science” and was suspected of
atheistic tendencies.
4. Socrates did question people in a manner similar to the Sophists. He cross examined many who claimed to
have knowledge or wisdom in the hope of gaining what they had. Socrates used the dialectical method of
inquiry. He , unfortunately, showed people that many who claimed to know things actually did not. He
embarrassed the poets, statesman, and artisans of his day. Many people thought of Socrates as they did the
Sophists, although he was not one of them.
5. Socrates was indiscriminate in his associations. He would allow anyone to question him and observe him.
He did not care who they were. Over time, foreigners, mathematicians, the young, the Thirty who later became
tyrants, Sophists, politicians all would come to speak with Socrates. Many Athenians might have harbored
suspicions or distrust of Socrates associates and wonder about Socrates’ true plans or role in their actions.
6. Socrates questioning process was a threat to the democratic ideal, the foundation of the political and social
order.
What was really on trial then were the social values to be found in the actions and inquiries of Socrates.
 19

Both Plato and Xenophon report on the trial itself. There is no text indicating that Plato has distorted what
occurred at the trial. The prosecutor presented his charges and then Socrates was given his chance to speak.
He knew that he had until sundown of that day to present whatever he wanted to present. He has taken an oath,
sworn to the gods, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He has sworn an oath to accept the
verdict of the jury and the penalty imposed by the jury. It is his desire to keep these oaths that will be his
undoing. His desire to be faithful to his oaths make him say things that disturb many of the jurors and make
him remain in prison to die when he could have left and gone into exile.

Socrates opening points out that it is his duty to speak the truth and it is the duty of the jury to provide for
justice. Socrates will speak in his normal manner and he maintains that he is not a clever speaker (in the fashion
of the Sophists). He is not accustomed to dealing with courts, as he has never been a defendant. He attempts to
deal with the 2 sets of charges. He fears that the rumors concerning him are more damaging than the charges.
He can’t deal with them, as he would want because the charges are not made specific. He thinks he is there due
to the suspicions surrounding him that he is involved in strange investigations and that he is associated with
sophistry. There were no witnesses to support these charges and no evidence to show that Socrates ever
charged money for instruction as Sophists did. The god, the oracle at Delphos, has given him his business.
When the oracle said, “There is no one wiser than Socrates”, he took it to be giving him the charger to seek after
wisdom. He began to question all who may have had wisdom in any form only to find that it was not so. His
questioning of the statesmen, poets and artisans did find them guilty of pride (hubris) for thinking that they were
wise when they were not. This also won Socrates their enmity. Lycon, Anytos and Meletos were representing
the orators, craftsmen and poets he had embarrassed. Socrates does not believe that he can deal with all the
antagonisms by which he was disliked by so many. He does not believe that he can deal with the prejudices of
so many in so short a time allotted. So he turns to the specific charges.

1. Corruption of the young

Socrates questions Meletos concerning this charge. Apparently, Meletos believes that Socrates is the only
guilty of this. Socrates make light of that idea. Socrates inquires as to whether or not the alleged corruption is
deliberate or accidental and notes that either option leads to a course of action other than to charges and a death
penalty.
Meletos could name no individuals that Socrates had corrupted. No one in the court room named a single
corrupted child.

2. Impiety
The charge is explained by Meletos to mean that Socrates is an atheist and believes in no gods. Socrates points
out that he is not like Anaxagoras who did not believe in the gods. Meletos admits under questioning that
Socrates teaches about “spiritual” things and when he does so, Socrates forces Meletos to admit that Socrates
must then believe in spirits if he teaches about spiritual things and that spirits are gods and so Socrates must
believe in the gods.
Had Socrates concluded his defense at this point, he might have been acquitted, as the jury was most likely
laughing at the prosecutor. But Socrates did not stop there. Under oath to tell the whole truth, Socrates
proceeded to inform the jury as to the real reasons he believed he was charged with crimes. He informed
Meletos and the Jury that Meletos and his conspirators did not know he true charge to place against him. They
could not even bring up his loose association with some of the thirty tyrants due to the amnesty. Socrates
knows why he is disliked by so many and now begins to make a defense of the type of life he has lived. He has
only to consider whether one does right or wrong. The god has posted him to be a philosopher to test himself
and others. He does not fear death. It is unknown. He fears disobeying god, this is definitely bad. He is not
afraid to speak the truth as so many others are. He will act as the god has posted him to act. He will always be
a philosopher, a seeker after wisdom. He will do this and obey god rather than the mob. He will always
question others concerning truth and virtues and persuade them to care for its soul and its virtue rather than for
fame or money or power. He has acted always according to what he thought to be right. If he considered doing
otherwise, an inner voice (Daemon) would speak to him to warn him away from doing wrong. He has done so
and shall continue to do so in his private and public life. In public he has never done wrong. He never took
money and his finances show it. In public he refused the demand of the mob for a trial of ten generals together
and instead insisted on separate trials. He refused the tyrants order to arrest Leon of Salamis. He does not
believe that he has done wrong anywhere. He does not believe that he corrupted anyone.
Socrates informs the jury that he is asking for justice and not mercy or charity. He would not resort to appeals
for mercy as many others had done before him. He would not bring his wife and small children out to remind
them of his family obligations. These appeals make Athens look ridiculous in the eyes of others. This
 20

encourages the jurors to disrespect their oaths to provide for justice. These are oaths they swore to the gods as
jurors.

Socrates is found guilty. 281 to 219!

At this point the prosecutor was to present a penalty and the defendant could either accept it or he would offer
an alternative and defend it. Meletos asks for death. Socrates’ friends are horrified. They encourage him to
propose an alternative. Socrates speaks aloud wondering what is the punishment befitting his crime. As he
does not believe that he hasn’t committed a crime, how can he propose a punishment? Socrates states that it
would appear that his “true’ crime was not having the sense to live an idle life: neglecting his own household
affairs, not making money, not pursuing military appointments and for believing himself too honest to involve
himself in tawdry business affairs and political plots as so many others had done. For that “Crime” he think the
fitting punishment should be free room and board for he, his wife and children in the town hall for the rest of
their lives! He could not recommend anything that was negative as a consequence of leading a good life. Many
of the jurors become incensed over this offering. Socrates’ friends on the jury encourage him to propose
another penalty. Socrates considers alternatives. Death is not that upsetting since Socrates does not know for
sure what that is, prison, fines and exile are considered. Exile is not acceptable since Socrates would be labeled
as a criminal and wherever he went he would not be able to follow the instruction of the god for he would not
be allowed to speak with others and continue his pursuit of wisdom. Socrates reconsiders a fine but he has no
money. His friends take up a collection and he offers to pay that amount as a penalty for his crimes. The jury
votes and he is sentenced to die by a larger vote than found him guilty. 360-140!. That meant that there
were men on the jury who voted that he was not guilty and then voted to put him to death anyway! The old man
had offended them with his brazen stance affirming his virtue over their practices.
Socrates now chastises the jurors who are putting him to death, pointing out that their deed will allow non-
Athenians to criticize them. They will call Socrates wise and Athens foolish. He is an old man and they could
not wait for him to die. They needed to go out of their way to kill him. Socrates spoke to his friends and
encouraged them not to fell so badly for him. He was not afraid of death but of wickedness. He is confident
that the result has been a good one since that inner voice or daemon had not spoken to him and warned him
away from attending the trials and speaking as he did. He says it is far harder to out run wickedness than death.
Death comes to us all but wickedness is what we should be concerned with and avoid. We can’t avoid death.
Death was either a dreamless sleep or a journey to another place. If it was a dreamless sleep, Socrates thought
that it would not be bad at all. If it were a journey to another place where the gods and goddesses and heroes
were he would be happy to be with them and question them and learn the answers that had eluded him.
Socrates was convinced that no harm can come to a good man either living or dead!
Here is a presentation of the dialogue with a listing of topics within it.
http://www.san.beck.org/Apology.html
He was taken away to prison to await his execution. In prison he is invited to flee and live in exile but refuses to
do so!
Let’s move into that matter and discussion in the next section.
You will need to READ the CRITO at http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/crito.txt or at
http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/crito.htm
SOCRATES: Philosophy's martyr BY ANTHONY GOTTLIEB http://www.btinternet.com/~socratic/
On the TRIAL of SOCRATES by Douglas Linder (2002)
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socrates.HTM

SOCRATES IN PRISON

Read the dialogue the CRITO

http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/crito.txt second location
http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/crito.htm
Archeologists have uncovered the actual prison cell where Socrates was kept as he awaited his execution.
Here is a photograph with an actor seated in that very cell.

http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/
Socrates awaits his execution in prison. The Athenians have sent a boat laden with offerings to the gods in order
to insure a better future for Athens. The Athenians won’t execute him until the boat returns. Socrates and his
friends know that there will be several days until the boat returns. While in prison Socrates is visited by his
friends. One of his friends is an old and wealthy Athenian named Crito. Crito visits one day and informs
Socrates that he has arrange for Socrates’ escape. The guards have been bribed and he wants Socrates to leave
with him. Socrates will go off and live in another town. Socrates is not eager to go off with his friend. He asks
 21

him why he should do this. Crito responds by informing Socrates that he loves him and does not want him to
die. He asks Socrates to think of what people will say about Crito. They expect the old man to help out his
friend. He has a great deal of money and people would think poorly of him if he did not assist Socrates. Crito’s
reputation is at stake. Socrates does not accept Crito’s appeals to his emotions. Socrates again asks why he
should leave. Crito informs Socrates that:
a. it is not a great deal of money
b. Crito’s reputation is at stake
c. Socrates’ children would be let down by his leaving them. Socrates should remain alive to raise his
children in a virtuous manner.
Socrates is not quick to give in. Instead he reminds Crito that they had agreed through all the years that a
person should act according to what reasoning seems to be the best and not give in to emotions or to what the
mob wants. Socrates shall not respect the opinions of the many or even all only the reasons given by the few
who have positions resting upon knowledge of justice and the GOOD.
For Socrates the only consideration is whether or not he would be doing the right thing by leaving. Socrates
wants to do no wrong at all. Crito reminds Socrates that he has been done wrong by the jury. Socrates is not
guilty of the crimes he was charged with and is being asked to die. Crito urges him to leave. He does not need
to accept the verdict of a jury that has wronged him. Socrates responds by pointing out that we must do no
wrong at all even in return for a wrong. The laws did not wrong Socrates the jury did. Socrates does not want
to harm the Laws by doping wrong to them. Two wrongs do not make a right! Do not return a wrong for a
wrong. Crito does not quite understand Socrates point. In order to make it easier to understand Socrates asks
Crito to consider the Laws of Athens as a being standing at the doorway as Socrates is about to leave. The
Laws ask Socrates why is he leaving and Socrates repeats Crito’s reasoning. The Laws would object that it was
not the understanding that the Laws had with Socrates. The Laws were like a father in assisting Socrates as he
grew. They educated him and enriched him. They gave him a share in all the beautiful things of the city,
citizenship and the right to leave at any time. Socrates in particular is bound to them because for all his life he
remained in the city, leaving only to defend it in battles. He could have emigrated at any time but he choose to
remain and in so doing to obey its Laws.
If Socrates were to leave he would be disobedient and wrong toward the Laws in different ways:
1. hurting the Laws as they are as Parents to him
2. defying the laws who were his nurturers
3. he would be breaking his agreement to obey
Socrates can not leave. He swore an oath to accept the verdict and penalty. He swore to the gods. If he leaves
he will not convince anyone that he was right and they were wrong. No, rather it would be proof that they were
right in convicting and executing him. If he leaves he would become guilty of the two crimes he had been
accused of:
1. Impiety- he would be breaking his oath to the gods and thus show that either he disbelieves in them or is
insulting them deliberately
2. Corrupting the young- he would be setting a very bad example for the youth of Athens as they would see
Socrates run off into exile and think that they could do likewise in a similar situation and thus did not need to
keep their oaths.
Socrates believed in the Law that said if you make an oath, keep it. If you make a promise, keep it.
Socrates must stay and die to prove that he is innocent. In order to remain innocent he must die. He stays to die
because he is innocent and wants to remain innocent and virtuous. If he leaves he becomes guilty and deserves
to die!
Men and not the Laws wronged Socrates. He sees no reason to harm the Laws now. He does not want to do
wrong and thereby deserve the penalty. He wanted always and everywhere to do what reason directed him to
see as the GOOD, the virtuous.
Here is a presentation of the CRITO with a listing of the topics within it:
http://www.san.beck.org/Crito.html
READ:
Ziniewicz, Gordon L. "Plato: The Crito: Summary of the Argument Against Escaping from Prison" (Loyola
College, Maryland). [#001085 - 6.23K]
The decision made by Socrates changed the course of events for the entire world! If Socrates had left the prison
there would have been no Plato and had there been no Plato there would have been a different course of events
in the Western world and therefore in the entire world. The development of science and ideas of political
reform were all as they are because of the works of Plato. Had Socrates not remained in prison to die, Plato
would not have become a Philosopher and would not have written the dialogues that impacted on history. If
Socrates had not remained to die in prison, I would not have been born!
Socrates remains in prison and is executed by drinking hemlock.
 22

He offers arguments for the existence and immortality of the soul in the last hours of his life
Let’s move into that matter and discussion in the next section.
Read the PHAEDO
http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/phaedo.txt
Death of Socrates and Plato’s Theory of the Ideal Forms
Plato describes the death of Socrates in the dialogue, the PHAEDO. In that dialogue Plato becomes the first
human to set into written form an attempt to prove that human beings have souls which are spiritual and
immortal. Many cultures have such a belief. It can be found all around the world. However, the Greeks were
the first to attempt to offer a proof for its existence and a proof based upon reasoning. In order to understand the
PHAEDO and its arguments one must first be aware of Plato’s Theory of the Forms. This is needed for Plato
makes use of them in attempting to prove that the soul exists and that it survives the death of the body.
In the PHAEDO Plato uses the Theory of the Forms. Aristotle made it clear that Socrates did not use that
theory, it was developed later by Plato. So what is most likely is that Plato probably began the dialogue right
after the death of Socrates. He must have taken notes. He was not present at the death; he was ill. He probably
recorded what others told him occurred and then years later returned to the notes and finished the dialogue. So
the PHAEDO is a mix of what Socrates actually said and words Plato placed into the mouth of Socrates to
complete the arguments and offer stronger ones consistent with Plato’s views. It is likely a Dialogue from
Plato’s middle period of creativity.(see mini-lecture on Plato’s Dialogues) The dialogue contains four different
arguments to prove the existence of the soul. Socrates states at the conclusion of the first that it is sufficient.
The other three were probably added later by Plato and utilize references to Plato’s theory of the forms.
The THEORY of the FORMS
For many years I presented this theory in class utilizing a series of questions and practical demonstrations. In
this medium we shall attempt to get as close as possible to that.
We start off with a simple question:

What is this a picture of ? >>>>>>>>.

You probably answered that it is a chair. And you are correct!
Now answer this question:
What is a chair?
Proceed to the next section to continue the presentation and discussion!
You may have answered “ It is something that you sit on”
Over the years everyone who volunteers the answer in class has said that. It seems so obvious!
A chair is something that you sit on.

SOCRATES' DEATH and PLATO's THEORY of the FORMS

Arguments for the Existence of the Soul

Now just because someone sits on a desk it doesn’t mean it is a chair but a chair can’t be just something that
you sit on. You can sit on many things; desks , stairs, large rocks, benches, tree stumps, cars, your little brother
or sister, etc….
What is a chair?
By now you should realize that the original simple answer, “Something that you sit on” , is wrong or at least not
really correct. We can do better than that. You may now be thinking that a chair is something that was made to
have people sit on it. Further to prevent a human or other animal from being a chair you should also realize that
whatever a chair is it is non-living matter. It is inanimate.
In a classroom someone or other, by now, is offering the following as the definition of a chair:
A chair is an inanimate object made for the purpose of having humans sit on it.
Better yet:
A chair is an inanimate object expressly designed and manufactured for the purpose of having humans sit upon
it.
Now if you agree with that definition being much better than “Something that you sit on” We are off to a good
start in attempting to understand Plato’s Theory of the forms.

A chair is an object that humans can sit on, we can also stand on them to change a light bulb.

We can use them to hold a door open. We can do a number of things with them but we realize that they are
made for one purpose in particular. Chairs do not need to have four legs. They can have three legs , two legs
even one leg or no legs at all. Chairs do not need to be blue or brown or green or any color at all. Chairs do not
 23

nee to be made of wood or metal . Chairs could be made of clear glass, several large blocks. To understand
what a chair is you must abstract from any one particular chair and use your mind to get at the essence of a
chair. Its essence is in its purpose. Before the first chair was ever made by a human that human probably got
tired of sitting on piles of animal hides or tree stumps or large rocks. That human had the idea of making
something to sit on. The idea of the chair preceded its existence. The idea of the chair contains its purpose.

THEORY of KNOWLEDGE

Plato believed that just as you have realized what a chair is so to can all humans do so by thinking, by using
their minds. Plato believed that a human achieves knowledge by recollecting what was known before that
human’s soul entered the body. There is a realm of eternal forms, of IDEAS and IDEALS that never change.
These IDEAL FORMS exist in a realm apart from this physical universe. They are what make this universe
what it is. When humans come to have KNOWLEDGE of something it is actually RECOLLECTING the
IDEAL FORM. So Socrates could lead people through questioning to an understanding and knowledge of
something without needing to lecture or tell a person what the answer is. Plato demonstrates this in the MENO,
in which Socrates leads a person with no knowledge of geometry to correct answers concerning geometric
shapes by asking questions. So this universe is what it is to the degree it participates in the realm of the
FORMS. The particular things are what they are because the have the FORMS in them or behind their creation
and existence. The essence of a thing is what we know and that essence is its FORM. The essence is also its
purpose. Knowledge consists of awareness of the essence, the eternal FORM that makes something what it is.
The soul existed in the realm of the eternal forms before it entered the human body. It had all knowledge. As it
enters the body the soul becomes confused as it experiences particular things that have particular shapes and
colors and other attributes that the IDEAL FORM does not have. A person knows what a chair is, its essence,
its FORM, before that person is ever born. A person becomes confused after entering the body and seeing
particular chairs with their particular forms and hearing people speak a particular human language. Other
humans attempt to get that person to identify a sound like “Chair” or a series of letters like ”c-h-a-i-r “ with a
particular object, such as a brown, wooden, four legged, chair with a straight back. The child makes the
identification and the mind of the child is led away from the knowledge of the pure essence of what a chair is.
The child knows the essence of mother and father and table and tree and all things before it is born but gets
confused by people uttering sounds like ”mommie” and “mamma”, “say “ mommie , baby” “say mommy”.
Plato was the first to put into writing a theory of how it is we have knowledge and to explain how we make
mistakes. For Plato knowledge is recollecting (Anamnesis) , remembering what we were in contact with (knew)
before our souls (minds) entered our bodies. Plato accepted an idea that many Greeks believed: reincarnation.
So he believed that we live in some form before we enter the body and that we survive after leaving the body
and might enter another body to experience another lifetime. He developed this theory of the FORMS and used
it to explain KNOWLEDGE. In the PHAEDO, he will make reference to these ideas in order to prove the
existence and survival of the soul without the body.

Plato's theory:
Particular thing -> essence -> function, purpose ->FORM -> ETERNAL FORM
Things are what they are because of their forms. We know the form and not the thing itself. We know the
group or category a thing fits into, participates in, is made real by and not the concrete particular thing. What
we know about a thing such as:

Is that it is a chair. That it is a member of a group or set or category of things called ”chair” because it has the
same essence, purpose or FORM.
“Chair” is also a member of another set or FORM called “furniture” again because it shares in the same essence
as other members of that set such as; “table” and “lamp”.

Plato believed that all people can reason and it is reason that can cause a person to have knowledge, to move
away from focusing on the particular concrete object and to recollect the universal abstract essence or FORM of
the thing. That knowledge was necessary for understanding and for wisdom. The senses are a distraction for
humans and often confuse humans. For genuine understanding a human needs to get beyond the senses to reach
the truth through reasoning. Reasoning would have us deal with ideas and not the particular phenomenal
aspects of the object. If we keep looking at the four legs of a chair we will not come to understand truly what a
chair is.

Plato believed that just as all people can come to understand and agree that:
2+ 3 = 5,
 24

then all people can come to understand that

a chair is an inanimate object designed and manufactured for the purpose of having humans sit on it.
He believed that with proper concentration and reasoning all people would also come to understand the essence
of :
TRUTH, BEAUTY, GOODNESS, TEMPERANCE, COURAGE, JUSTICE, LOVE, FRIENDSHIP
and all the Virtues and all the important matters for humans to know.
He thought this because he thought that all those words referred to IDEAL FORMS that are in all of us and
need only the proper thinking, led by questioning and guided by dialectical reasoning.
Plato’s contribution to the world of thought was this Theory of the Ideal Forms. They would explain how
things come to be as they are, the order of the universe, how we come to know things, how we make mistakes,
how we should live our lives. It is the FORM and not the particular thing that is important, VIRTUE and not
the particular life that is important. To be in a human body and thus to be ensnared by its distractions and
temptations was an embarrassment to Socrates and to Plato. Humans need to get out of their bodies (to die a bit)
through reflection and reasoning to get at the truth and understanding. The body misleads us, the senses
confuse us, our perceptions are not to be trusted.

THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY APPEAR TO BE!

I can swear to you that for me still, the sun looks to me as if it is not that hot, not that big and not that far away.
And I swear it moves! However, I have “learned” that the truth is quite the opposite. But I swear that the earth
does not look or feel as if it is moving! It does not look round. To me the earth looks flat and stationary. But I
am informed that it is actually spherical and rotating as it moves around the sun. It rotates at over 17,000 miles
an hour! Imagine that! Well I can’t imagine it. I can not see it. I have no feeling for it. And yet it is true?
If you are inclined to dismiss Plato’s theory, consider this: much of what you know and believe and much of
modern science owes a great deal to Plato’s theory. The laws of Nature are discernable to those who can detach
from the particular observations and look for patterns, look for FORMS in the data. It was Plato who
commended us to measure things and to look for what only reason could see operating in the universe in order
to discover (remember) the truth and gain knowledge! (see the TIMAEUS)
I will therefore now proceed to speak of the higher use and purpose for which God has given eyes to us. The
sight in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun,
and the heaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been uttered.
But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the revolutions of the years, have created number,
and have given us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe; and
from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the
gods to mortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight: and of the lesser benefits why should I speak? even
the ordinary man if he were deprived of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much let me say
however: God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the
heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the
perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the
absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries. The same may be affirmed of speech and
hearing: they have been given by the gods to the same end and for a like reason. For this is the principal end
of speech, whereto it most contributes. Moreover, so much of music as is adapted to the sound of the voice
and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of harmony; and harmony, which has motions akin
to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a
view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any
discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony
and agreement with herself; and rhythm too was given by them for the same reason, on account of the
irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them.

Thus far in what we have been saying, with small exception, the works of intelligence have been set forth;
and now we must place by the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being through
necessity-for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. Mind, the ruling power, persuaded
necessity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and after this manner in the
beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was created. But if a person
will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he must include the other influence of the
variable cause as well. Wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning, as about the
former matters, so also about these. To which end we must consider the nature of fire, and water, and air,
and earth, such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was happening to them in this
previous state; for no one has as yet explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire and the
 25

rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures, and we maintain them to be the first
principles and letters or elements of the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by a man of any
sense even to syllables or first compounds. …..

This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a fuller division than the former; for then we
made two classes, now a third must be revealed. The two sufficed for the former discussion: one, which we
assumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the same; and the second was only the imitation of the
pattern, generated and visible.
READ on the Theory of the Forms
http://php.iupui.edu/~cplaneau/Plato%20and%20His%20World/Plato%20Philosophy%20(Intro).htm
Now we can proceed to a presentation of the actual dialogue, the Phaedo

The Death of Socrates

Read the PHAEDO:

http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/phaedo.txt
Here is a presentation of the Phaedo in English with a listing of topics for reference purposes:
http://www.san.beck.org/Phaedo.html
At the time of the events in the dialogue, Plato was ill and did not observe the final hours of Socrates life.
Several friends of Socrates find him just awakening on the day when they know his execution must take place.
Socrates appears in rather good spirits. This surprises his friends. They have removed his shackles and he is
appreciative of how good it feels to have them off. Socrates (Plato) speculates that things appear to come in
opposing pairs , if it wasn’t for the pain we wouldn’t appreciate the pleasure of the absence of pain. Plato may
be indicating here that if God creates anything god must create its opposite as well. Hence if god creates the
good , god is also responsible for evil.
His friends inquire as to how he appears cheerfully willing to die. Socrates indicates that those who tackle
Philosophy ought to be cheerfully willing to die for they have been practicing death. If death is the separation
of the soul from the body and if philosophers who pursue after wisdom must focus their minds away from the
body and remove their minds(Souls) from the affairs of the body, then practicing Philosophy is like practicing
dying. Philosophers can only get to truth by reasoning which will arrive at the essence of things. One can
examine real things by the mind (soul) alone. To pursue wisdom is to set the soul free of the body to arrive at
true knowledge. The soul with wisdom and virtue is purified and will dwell with the gods.
His friends ask how he can be so certain that the soul will continue to survive after the death of the body.
Socrates indicates that given his position he has the right to speculate on this question.
He offers four arguments:

A short analysis of Socrates’ first argument for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo.
by Gregory Weston
In the Phaedo, Socrates begins his first argument for the immortality of the soul by asking Cebes, who
wonders about the immortality of the soul, if it is true that a thing can only change by becoming its own
opposite, that is to say, something large can only come from something was smaller before, and vice versa.
Then he continues asking if it is so that the weaker comes from the stronger, the swifter from the slower, the
worse from the better, the just from the unjust, and Cebes, of course, agrees. From here Socrates establishes
that all things come to be this way, opposites from opposites (70e-71c). Socrates then gives one more
example, that of sleep coming from wake and wake coming from sleep, before applying this principle to life
and death, which he thinks then proves that souls are reincarnated, which necessarily proves that they are
immortal. Here is his transitionary argument:
It is agreed that the living come form the dead in this way no less than the dead from the living and, if that is
so, it seems to be a sufficient proof that the souls of the dead must be somewhere whence they can come
back again. (72a)
A problem with this argument is that Socrates distinguishes between dead things and things that were never
alive. Simply saying “the living come form the dead,” I think no one would find controversial, but this
doesn’t prove reincarnation if you say the living come from dead rocks and dead water -- it only does if you
say the living comes from dead men. But I can think of no reason, empirical or otherwise, to distinguish
between a dead man and a never lived rock. So the argument fails.
There is another, much larger gap in Socrates’ argument. When Socrates establishes that incarnate beings
expire, and that life must come from dead things, he then assumes, without any proof, that souls exist, retain
their form after death, and, disembodied, go underground during for a while before returning to the world in
another body. But do men have souls? Perhaps they do, but there is no proof to this religious doctrine, and
 26

as long as one can bring in arguments based on supernatural premises into a philosophical inquiry whenever
one fancies, there is little point in it all. If one is willing to posit the existence of souls, why not just posit
immortal souls, and save the bother of an even larger number of arguments?

1.First argument for the existence of the Soul

2. The second argument: Souls pre-exist the body
If the dead come from the living and the living come from the dead, how can we be sure that souls exist before
they enter the body?
Socrates reminds his friends about the theory of knowledge. We know what a “hair” is and we know what
“equality “ is through an act of recollection in which our soul remembers what it knew before it came into the
body. So because of the theory of knowledge as remembering (anamnesis) we are assured that the soul exists
prior to entering the body.
3. The third argument:
Does the soul really exist AFTER death? Socrates responds that all they need do is combine the first two
arguments. Further, What exists forever is always the same and is uncompounded. It is spiritual. The soul is
invisible, unchanging and divine; unlike the body which is visible, changing and mortal. The soul is thus
spiritual and like the divine and so humans have a duty to keep it pure and thus it shall be immortal. To keep
the soul pure is what the wise should do and it will provide happiness as well.
4. The fourth Argument
Simmias and Cebes challenge Socrates. Simmias wonders that the soul might be to the body as harmony is to a
stringed instrument. When the instrument is destroyed there can be no harmony anymore. In this view the soul
is the attunement of the body. It is not visible but it is not immortal either.
Cebes thinks that the soul might be as a garment that someone can wear until they die and then the son wears
the garment until he dies and then his son after him until the garment finally wears out. The soul may last
longer than the body and enter several bodies through time, but it may not be immortal.
Before taking on these challenges directly, Plato has Socrates issue a warning about how to proceed with
philosophical inquiry and what to avoid. Simmias and Cebes should not be as the Sophists and be raising
challenges for the sake of arguing and debating. They should not be haters of arguments. They should be
looking for truth and wisdom. They should be reasoning and not quarreling. Socrates thinks that if they had
thought a little more there would have been no need to raise the issues that they did raise.
The jailer speaks to Crito asking him to calm Socrates down. The jailer has prepared a poison (hemlock) for
Socrates to take. The jailer is concerned that if Socrates is inan agitated state when he takes that poison it might
not work. It may take more poison to kill Socrates quickly. When Socrates learned of this he informs Crito to
tell the jailer to prepare a triple dose because Socrates was not about to calm down in the last hour of his life,
not if he did not want to. He was engaged in a dialectical dialogue and this is what he was about throughout his
life. He was looking for wisdom concerning death and he was close to it and did not want to stop.
Socrates responds to the objections of Simmias who wanted to compare the soul to harmony. The theory that
the soul is like a harmony is proven fallacious by the theory of recollection as the harmony does not precede its
elements, nor does it have knowledge, nor is it a ruling principle, and a harmony admits of degrees of concord
and dissonance, but the soul has no degrees as to its being.
As to the objections of Cebes , Socrates has another set of remarks. Cebes thinks of the soul as a longer lasting
but physical thing that eventually wears out. Socrates responds by pointing out that those who examine the
truth and want knowledge of what is real must take refuge in reasoning. Socrates was not like Anaxagoras in
believing that all things that exist are physical. When Socrates was younger he was attracted to the theory of
Anaxagoras that all could be explained as the result of MIND and MATTER.
Anaxagoras was the thinker who taught that the universe was made up of Mind and Matter. Mind or NOUS set
it all in motion in the beginning and has very little to do with it afterwards. The sun was a ball of fire and not a
god and the moon was a rock reflecting light and not a goddess. Athens invited him to town and set him up so
that he would teach others about his ideas. He had considerable reputation. The Athenians enjoyed and valued
the life of the mind. After it became apparent that Anaxagoras was not supportive of Athenian traditions he was
charged with being an atheist, harmful to Athens and he escaped before he could be punished (executed).
Socrates entered his school to learn about the theory but learned that for Anaxagoras the NOUS set all in
motion in the beginning of the universe and then had nothing to do with events afterward. Socrates thought that
if all there was to life was the experiences of the body he would have left the prison and gone off to live a little
longer somewhere. However, he remained in prison due to the activities of his MIND. Socrates will use that
mind and reasoning in order to answer Cebes. Socrates explains how the absolute essences cannot admit their
opposite, and since the soul is the essence of life, there is no way it could become death. Therefore, the soul is
immortal. It is generally recognized that God and the essential form of life and the immortal will never perish.
 27

Thus when death attacks a man, the body may die, but the immortal soul retires at the approach of death and is
preserved safe and sound, and truly exists in another world.

Fourth Argument for the Existence of the Soul

http://rideau.carleton.ca/philosophy/cusjp/v17/n1/saner.html#midtitle

When the arguments are completed, Plato has Socrates issue a warning and advice. He informs us that when
reasoning and developing arguments we should scrutinize the first suppositions upon which all thought rests.
Thinkers should examine the foundations of all arguments. Philosophers do not often make mistakes in
reasoning. They are ore often than not found wanting for not providing a better defense of the starting points or
initial supposition for their thinking and arguments.
Although Socrates and Plato both criticized artists for presenting false portrayals of reality and although both
were critical of the myths of their time, Plato now present a myth which describes the afterlife and how the soul
will be judged and will be rewarded or punished in the next life.
At the conclusion of the story (myth or moral) Socrates states:
"So for such things to be relied upon as being thus, as I described, it is not fitting for a man having
intelligence; yet that it is this or some such thing concerning our souls and the homes, since the soul appears
to be immortal, this also seems to me fitting and a venture worthy of imagining it is so; for the venture is
beautiful; and such things are useful in singing to oneself, wherefore I also have lengthened the past story.

"However on account of these things it is useful for a man to take courage concerning his soul, who in life
renounced the other pleasures of the body and its ornaments, as being alien, believing even more it is
another thing to be perfected, and has been serious about learning things and has adorned the soul not with
something alien but with her own order,
discretion and justice and courage and freedom and truth, thus one waits for the journey into Hades, as
passing when destiny should call."
Socrates is warning us not to take the tale seriously because it can not be true, literally. But it is better for
people to believe that something will happen to our souls after death. It is better because while alive people will
take care of their souls, pursue a good life, because they are fearful of what might happen after death. Thus, it is
better to believe than not to believe. This is so because of the REASONS that Plato gives. Plato believes that
the myth he reports is worthy of belief because it would make us better: live better in this life and earn us a
better life in the after world.

from the PHAEDO:

Socrates went and bathed himself to save the women the trouble of doing so after his death. He kissed his
wife and children. He took the cup of poison and drank it. He walked about and after a few seconds he felt
his legs getting numb. He sat down, then lay down. He grew weaker quickly.
The text:
When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the groin,
when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said (they were his last words)-he said:
Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in a
minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed
his eyes and mouth.
Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the most wise and most just and the
best of all the men whom I have ever known.
-------Plato
Many people seem quite interested in learning of the last words of people. Socrates last words were:
I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
What might this mean? Asclepius was the god of medicine. People would go to a temple of that god when they
were ill to ask for healing. They would make an offering of coins or animals in order to obtain the god’s favor,
instructions on getting well or a potion to take. They would do this for themselves ro for a friend. When they
recovered they would go to the temple to make a payment as a thanksgiving offering.
Now , Socrates could mean that the god Asclepius had sent him a potion (the poison hemlock) that would now
free him from his mortal coil, free him from entrapment in his body and allow his soul to go to its reward, to a
state where he would have knowledge, truth and all GOOD things. That is one possible meaning. The poison
for others was like a healing charm for Socrates.
Another possibility is this. Plato writes the dialogue. Plato was not there, he was ill. Plato heard what
Socrates had said. Perhaps, Socrates was thinking of Plato. Perhaps, Socrates had prayed to the god of
 28

medicine, Asclepius, to heal Plato to cure him of his attachment to the things of this world and make him better,
healthier, whole. Plato was so upset over the death of Socrates that he left Athens in disgust. He underwent a
“conversion” of a sort and moved away from a career as a poet and statesman and became a Philosopher!
Part of Socrates Legacy is Plato himself. More of his legacy in the next section.
Suggested Reading:
Kemerling, Garth. "Plato: Immortality and the Forms"
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/f5.htm#forms
http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/2f.htm#phaedo

SOCRATES LEGACY
1. Theory of the Soul
2. Socratic Method
3. Ethics
4. Epistemology
5. Plato
1. Socrates theory of the Soul:
http://www.san.beck.org/SOCRATES4-What2.html#12
Socrates believed that he had a mission to seek after wisdom. He died being faithful to that mission. He
attempted to find a stable and certain truth and a wisdom that would serve as a guide for life. He attempted to
lead others to real insight. He wanted to persuade others to look into themselves, to seek wisdom and virtue and
to care for their noblest possession, their soul, before all else. He attempted this even at his trial and in his final
days and hours. He used the dialectical method as a midwife to ideas to lead others to knowledge, truth and
virtue. He used the dialectical process to arrive at universal definitions. Plato would develop the explanatory
schema in which the universal definition is attainable due to a process of recollection through which all people
can gain knowledge of what is within them, their minds from birth. Socrates himself believed in the
universality of the inner rational being. He believed that:

The unexamined life is not worth living! The best manner to examinee that life is through reasoning which
employs the dialectical method of inquiry.

Plato inherits this belief, expands upon it and promulgates this belief.

2. SOCRATIC METHOD:
http://www.str.org/free/studies/socratic.htm
Socratic method and Scientific Method:
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~phildept/Dye/method.html
The Socratic legacy is in turning critical thought quite directly in the direction of humanity, human morality
and virtue and the idea of a good life for a human. Socrates’ theory of the soul and its virtue and the use of
reasoning in the service of virtue were lasting contributions to humanity. His legacy to Philosophy is ion two
areas. Ethics and Epistemology.
3. ETHICS:
For Socrates the key to a virtuous life was knowledge of the GOOD and this links ethics with epistemology. If
one knew the Good one would choose it. One always chooses the best of the options available. The question
was, what is the Good? What is Best? Virtue would depend on knowledge. Knowledge itself is a virtue but
knowledge of the GOOD and of Virtue was necessary for the GOOD Life. The soul must choose the GOOD
but only if it knows what it is. Evil is the result of ignorance. The soul chooses what it thinks is the Good but it
isn’t the soul has made a mistake! Wrong doing is involuntary. Evil doers must be educated, instructed as to
what truly is the GOOD and then they will choose it.
Socrates believed that no one does wrong voluntarily. Evil is the result of ignorance. If people knew what was
the right thing to do they would do it. We always choose what we think is the best or good for us. So, if
someone chooses to do what we think is wrong, then that person made a mistake and must be educated to see
the error. They mistook evil for the GOOD. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Socrates held that people know that OTHER PEOPLE think that it is wrong but they do not totally agree. The
wrong doers think that there is something good in doing the evil act even if it is only good for them. So, they do
it. If the wrong doers understood why the act was considered to be wrong they would not do it. They do it
because they mistake the evil act for a good act in some way. Given options humans will choose the options that
appears to be good for them. When they choose what other people call evil it is because they do not agree. They
will continue to do the evil acts unless and until they no longer think of them as good.
 29

Socrates theory does NOT claim that people who do wrong do not know that the act is wrong.

Socrates theory does NOT claim that people who do wrong do think that it is correct or right to do.
The theory is that people who do wrong know that OTHER PEOPLE think that it is wrong but that the wrong
doer does not accept that and does not agree because the wrong doer sees some benefit or good result for the
wrong doer.
As long as the wrong doer continues to see some benefit or good result for the wrong doer then the wrong doer
will continue to do the act that is considered wrong by OTHER PEOPLE. When the wrong doer comes to
understand and to know why the OTHER PEOPLE think of the act as being wrong and the wrong doer accepts
that then the wrong doer will stop doing that act.
Person P does act X.
Person P knows that OTHER PEOPLE think that act X is WRONG or BAD or EVIL.
Person P does X anyway because person P thinks that X is in some way GOOD for P. X is fun or releaves pain
or will bring money or power or fame to P.
P thinks that X will BENEFIT P. BENE = GOOD and FIT= Make or do. So P thinks that X will in some way
make a good for P.
Unless and until P stops thinking of X as a GOOD P will continue to do X. P does X because people always
choose what they think is on some way good for them.
For Socrates the soul always goes to the GOOD. The soul "volunteers" or wills to do the GOOD.
So P chooses X out of ignorance of what is truly GOOD as other people see the GOOD as different from X.
Further, Socrates held that all virtue is one! Virtue is GOOD. Truth is GOOD. Beauty is GOOD. Knowledge is
GOOD. The true, good and beautiful are all GOOD and united in the GOOD as ONE.
How was one to teach others what the GOOD is? Socrates sought an answer to that and many other questions.
The Sophists claimed to teach but they trained in technique. They dealt with specialized actions. Virtue is not
specialized.

4. EPISTEMOLOGY:
Socrates Ideas concerning Knowledge and Wisdom
http://www.san.beck.org/SOCRATES4-What.html#6
Socrates developed the dialectical process for gaining knowledge. He used an inductive method of
argumentation in order to develop universal definitions. This was his approach to the truth that would be
perfected by Plato. Socrates would examine theories (logoi) using the dialectic method, which was similar to a
conversational pattern with many questions. Socrates would challenge initial hypotheses and examine them for
presumptions and assumptions. He regularly used two techniques:
1. What follows if……..
2. What conflicts with …
He did this in an effort to establish the truth of the hypothesis. He looked for a coherent and consistent set of
ideas; a system of thought.
The pre-Socratic speculated, Socrates tested the ideas. Socrates looked to facts to test the theories. In this way
he was somewhat similar to Sir Issac Newton and modern science. Socrates sought to deduce the consequences
of a hypothesis in order to test it thereby.
The Sophists raised many questions in order to win debates and to gain power. Socrates did so to pursue truth.
He did not achieve all of what he sought. Plato would go further and develop answers through the
implementation of his theory of the Ideal Forms.
Socrates genius was in this:
he was the first to raise certain basic questions with a clear understanding of what he was doing.
5. Plato
Were it not for Socrates, Plato would not have become a Philosopher and not only the western world but the
entire world would have been a different place with a decidedly different history!
Now to consider Plato!

PLATO'S DIALOGUES

Scholars have studied Plato's many dialogues very carefully. Many of them agree that the dialogues were
written over many years and that they appear to have a slightly different tone, which reflects Plato's intention in
writing them. Indeed, scholars who find in them a progression of ideas set the dialogues in a temporal order.
Plato works from those ideas and methodology he inherits from Socrates and then devises his own unique set of
ideas and further develops the dialectical method of reasoning, which he learned from Socrates.
 30

Below is a breakdown of the Dialogues into five different categories or periods. In each group are those
dialogues that appear to have been written with intent different from that of the other periods. In this course we
shall see the progression throughout the first three periods.
Chronological Listing
of
Plato’s Dialogues

Plato’s basic problems and periods of philosophical development together with dialogues
indicative of such. (The links are to translations by Benjamin Jowett.)
I. The defense of Socrates from the charges of impiety and corruption of youth.
Lysis, Charmides, Laches , Euthyphro Apology Crito
(Phaedo envisaged or begun but completed later.)
II. The defense of Socrates from the charge of being a Sophist and having an Amoral character.
In these dialogues there is an attack against the Sophists.
Ion, Hippias Minor, Gorgias, Menexenus, Protagoras, Euthydemus, Cratylus, Meno (Republic,
Book I, probably called Thrasymachus)

III. The need to synthesize a comprehensive view of reality and to deal with the problem of
contradictory speculative theories circulating at the time. Plato is synthesizing all of Greek thought up to
the time.
Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic
IV. The need to develop in a critical fashion such a conceptual framework that would be capable of
enunciating all the distinctions one must make in describing reality and yet capable of eliciting the
meanings one must have. Plato develops a single coherent worldview.
Parmenides, Thaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus,Critias (incomplete) Hermocrates (projected but
never written)
V. The need to give a detailed elaboration of practical proposals as tests for theories.
Letters VII, VIII, Philebus, Laws (Plato modifies the Republic)
Note: There exist a number of spurious dialogues and dialogues whose authenticity is questioned by many
serious scholars.
The above is based on Robert S. Brumbaugh, Plato and the Modern Age New York: Crowell Collier Press,
1962

READ : The Platonic Canon by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D.

Senior McLuhan Fellow at http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_platonic_canon.htm
" not only is Plato significant as the author of the first comprehensive collection of prose philosophy to be put
"on paper," he is also unique among authors of the classical age in that all of the written works credited to him
by the ancients have been preserved. One of the difficulties in reconstructing Plato's philosophy, then, is that
we are dealing with a puzzle that contains extra pieces. "

Read about Plato and His Dialogues by Bernard F. Suzanne at http://eawc.evansville.edu/essays/suzanne.htm

with a list and links to all works of Plato that are known to us. They are provided through the Persues project
at Tufts University. Another site for dialogues translated into English: http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/
Plato (427-347 BCE)
Plato was a mystic, mathematician, dramatist and philosopher. For him Philosophy is a form of life, a way to
salvation involving intellect and courage.
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPJUTltITk&feature=related
He criticized and condemned the artists and poets for their falsehoods but he often resorted to the use of tales
and painted verbal pictures to make certain points. This was particularly true when he was dealing with
metaphysical ideas.
READ: Plato's Banishment of the Poets by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D.
Senior McLuhan Fellow at http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_plato_banish_poets.htm
"In the dialogues, Socrates leads a sustained and merciless attack against the poets with Homer and Simonides
(Rep. 331d-335e; Prt. 316d, 339a-347a; Hppr. 228c; Ltr. II. 311a) the targets most frequently mentioned by
name. For instance, in Books II and III of the Republic, Socrates considers the subject of diction and points out
that Homer and "all the other poets effect their narration through imitation" (Rep. 393c). The poets are
criticized for producing deceptive images and for not telling their tales in the prescribed patterns (379a; 398b).
In the middle of the dialogue, images are relegated to the lowest level of the diagram of the divided line. In
Book X, the poets are said to be imitators who produce without knowledge of the truth (598a). Deceived by
 31

their own images, they are unable to perceive them as "three removes from reality" (598b), "for it is phantoms,
not realities, that they produce" (599a). Their imitations, Socrates says, cast a spell (601b) over the audience
that charms and entertains them while offering no educational benefit (608). Near the end of the dialogue, he
looks back on the argument and decides to banish the poets from the ideal republic. They will not be allowed to
return from exile, he proclaims, until a defence is offered in prose, showing that poetry is not just delightful but
beneficial to the order of the state (607d).[1] "
Plato learned from the Sophists, the Ionian scientists and the Milesians but most of all from Socrates. Plato
forged a complete philosophical system. He gathered the best of ideas from the Pythagoreans and the other
great minds and put together a unified system of thought and ideas.
His theory of reality, his metaphysics was the basis for his physics and that was consistent with this theory of
knowledge and of virtue. These ideas serve also as the foundations for his ethics and politics. He combined the
thinking of Heraclitus who thought that all things that were real were constantly changing and the world of
Parmenides who thought that all change was unreal.
Heraclitus > world in flux ---opinion---particulars
Parmenides > permanence > true knowledge—Universal—primary being
For Plato the particular concrete world is what it is to the degree it participates in the universals which inform
all that is real. To get at primary being, the essence of things one follows science and mathematics for they lead
us away from the particular to the universal, the patterns underlying and constituting all that is real.
The rational move, reasoning is to go from the:
Particulars to essences
Concrete to abstract
Imperfect to perfect
The soul may ascend to the level of the eternal by an intelligent apprehension of particulars. The soul may
become free as it reflects for itself, resign passion for contemplation and fix its eyes on the principles, the ideals,
and the eternal forms.
For Plato to know a thing is to understand its purpose: the essence of a thing is its function, this is its GOOD.
The essence of a thing is eternal, part of the eternal realm. It is what it is for all eternity. The essence of a thing
is linked to the universal and the ideal.
Each element in a human’s nature has its function and its end
Soul moral insight GOODNESS
Reason thought TRUTH
Spirit love (eros) BEAUTY and the desire for immortality
Knowledge is not possible through experience but through reason. The universals that are grasped by reason
are innate and not learned. Rationalism is anon-empirical process.
For Plato what exists is:
God (the ONE) – energy of creation
Mind (nous)- Ideas - the pattern of creation and all components
Matter –world- the stuff of creation- in chaos until transformed into cosmos by Nous.

Plato’s Social Philosophy and Political Thought

Plato preferred the rule of those who are best suited to rule rather than to have people ruled by kings, military
commanders, wealthy people or tyrants. In particular he did not like democracy as a form of government.
Democracy had killed Socrates. Democracy promoted and rested upon the cult of the average who gather as a
mob, constitute a majority and conceive of themselves as experts. There is no impulse towards self-criticism
and self improvement in democracy because the mob believes that each is correct and that they are the ones to
determine everything by voting. No need to change because there is no absolute standard against which any
one could measure. There is only the voting and the rule of the majority for whatever reasons or for no reasons
at all. The cult of the majority degenerates to the level of the least ambitious and least suited.
Plato preferred that the whole of society be organized as an organic whole, with each part doing its part to
provide for the proper functioning and prosperity of the whole. Those that know best how to do so would
organize these social units. Those who are truly the best at doing something would get to do it. This was a
meritocracy that Plato favored. In the Greek language of his day it was called “Aristocracy” meaning the rule
of the best( aristos). Today that term means the rule of a class of people who inherit their positions. That idea is
something towards which Plato was quite definitely opposed.
Humans were composed of three parts and they should also be kept functioning properly in relation to one
another as an organic whole, with each part doing its proper work.
Soul- unity of the whole
Reason – think, contemplate
 32

Spirit- desires, appetites, drives, instincts

READ : Plato and the Philosophical Foundations of Culture and Technology by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D.
Senior McLuhan Fellow at http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_plato_philosophical_foundations.htm
We must anticipate that the Platonic texts both exhibit and reflect this revolutionary, intermediate phase
between orality and literacy. This interface between oral and written modes of thought is considered to be a
significant part of the foundation of Western culture itself.[8]

READ : Greek Education and the Transition From Oral to Written Culture by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D.
Senior McLuhan Fellow at http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_transition_oral_written.htm
"As literacy became increasingly widespread, and more and more of the cultural heritage was documented in
writing, the need to preserve and re-create over and over the traditions and memory of the society became less
urgent. In time, dependency on the forms of social organization designed to preserve the culture orally
receded."
These cultural changes coincided with a number of other social, political and economic factors. The
establishment of democracy in Athens in combination with the wealth and curiosity of an imperial society
created a demand for formal, higher education in letters, oratory, rhetoric, science, philosophy and
statesmanship. This demand was met by wandering scholars -- the sophists, or "teachers of wisdom" -- who
engaged lecture halls, gave their courses of instruction, and then passed on to other cities to repeat them. From
the start, the sophists incurred resentment for charging all that their patrons could be persuaded to pay. Their
costly instruction made higher education available only to the rich and gave those who could afford it an
advantage in politics and in the law courts. For decades and then centuries, the oral traditions persisted
alongside of and in tension with new forms of organization that were emerging in response to the changing
technology. The poets passed on the tradition through their songs and in tandem with them, the sophists offered
their education in letters and oratory. Into this historical and cultural arena came three great teachers.[2] "

READ : Eric Havelock: Plato and the Transition From Orality to Literacy by Twyla Gibson, Ph.D.
Senior McLuhan Fellow at http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/tsc_havelock_orality_literacy.htm
"Eric Havelock - who was a visiting scholar at University of Toronto - brought together Rhys Carpenter's
evidence for the late introduction of the alphabet, Milman Parry's findings on oral-formulaic patterns, and
Plato's pronouncements on the nature of epic poetry, to support his theory concerning the impact of the alphabet
on Greek culture and education.
Following Carpenter, Havelock pointed out that early Greek culture was "wholly oral" and after the
invention of the alphabet, there was "a long period of resistance to the use of letters," so that literacy was not
achieved in Athens until nearly three hundred years later.[1] Greek "society became literate only by slow
degrees" (1986: 29). Oral habits of communication and instruction "persisted long after the alphabet had
theoretically made a reading culture possible" (1963: 45-46). Between Homer and Plato, argued Havelock, the
method of preserving the culture began to change as Greek education became alphabetized. Even up to Plato's
time, he said, the introduction of the alphabet made "little practical difference to the educational system or to
the intellectual life of adults" (1963: 38). Since Plato's writings are prose dialogues and not works of epic
poetry, Havelock placed "Plato near the end of the great transition from oral to literate habits of
communication" (1963: 97). Plato describes a cultural situation "in which oral communication still dominates
all the important relationships and valid transactions of life." He concluded that "it is only too likely that Plato
is describing a situation which was on the way to being changed as he wrote" (1963: 41).
Havelock applied Parry's findings concerning the oral verse of Homer to problems in our reconstruction
of the history of early Greek education. He sought to demonstrate that the "formulaic technique was employed
as the instrument of education" by the pre-literate Greeks (1963: 123). He asked, "How did this civilization
preserve its laws, traditions, historical sense and its technical skills?" He pointed out that preservation and
transmission of the tradition can never rely completely on the "give and take" between generations. To
function, a social group needs some kind of "standardized linguistic statement" that describes and enforces a
common consciousness, shared habit patterns and collective values. In an oral society, this statement is
preserved in the memories of living people and passed down through the generations. The collective memory
provides the content of the "educational apparatus" of the group. To become available for "transmission
through the educational apparatus, the tradition has to be verbally preserved in permanent and unaltered form . .
." (1963: 290-91). People had to be "assisted in their memorization of the living word by every possible
mnemonic device which could print this word indelibly upon the consciousness." How can memory retain
elaborate linguistic statements without changing them in transmission from one person to another and from one
generation to the next? According to Havelock, "the only possible verbal technology available . . . was that of
the rhythmic word organized in verbal and metrical patterns which were unique enough to retain their shape"
 33

(1963: 42-43). Poetry functioned as a technology for preserving cultural identity. It was used by the Greeks as
form of education, he asserted, "as a way of preserving and transmitting the accumulated body of knowledge in
the absence of writing." Homeric verse was therefore central to Greek education prior to Plato
not on the grounds that we would offer, namely poetry's inspirational and imaginative effects,
but on the ground that it provided a massive repository of useful knowledge, a sort of
encyclopedia of ethics, politics, history, and technology which the effective citizen was required
to learn as the core of his educational equipment (1963: 27).
According to Havelock, poetry did not mean the same thing for the Greeks that it means to us. Greek oral
poetry was a kind of "tribal encyclopedia," an "indoctrination which today would be comprised in a shelf of
text books and works of reference." Poetry was the "container" for all philosophy, history and science. It was
"first and last a didactic instrument for transmitting the tradition" (1963: 43).
Havelock asserted that poetry was the "sole mechanism" for memorization and preservation in the
absence of written record. It served this function via three devices: first, the employment of rhythms and
formulas to aid in the recall and re-use of the cultural record (1963: 100), second, through the use of what he
called "verbal formulas;" and third, through the reduction of all experience to a great story or a connected series
of stories. Poetic rhythm involves consistent repetition of patterns of language sounds. Verbal formulas - what
Parry and Lord called types and themes - entail the repetition of "an identical order" in different passages
(1963: 82-84). The third device, that of the great story, involves gathering together a number of small stories
into a coherent series of episodes focussed around "several prominent agents" who "act and speak with some
overall consistency" (1963: 175-76). Episodes provide a "frame of reference, the chapter headings, the library
catalogue, within which the memory can find markers" by locating a narrative situation in the context of a huge
and compendious story. In this way, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are kinds of catalogues of the history and the
geography of the Greeks. Hesiod's Theogony classifies the gods, their functions and families, while the Works
and Days is a catalogue of "exhortations, parables, proverbs, aphorisms, sayings, wise saws and instances,
interlarded with stories" (1963: 295).
Havelock linked Parry's findings on the imitative nature of the formulaic patterns of Homeric poetry
with Plato's criticism of the poets in the Republic, and with the negative assessment of art in other dialogues.
He pointed out that Plato was claiming for himself the place he was asking the poets to vacate. With the
ascendance of literacy, he argued, more and more of the cultural heritage was set down in writing, and the ways
of the old tradition were challenged. Plato=s attack on the poets was, according to Havelock, a rejection of the
oral tradition in which the bards merely imitated and copied words and phrases without any genuine knowledge
of what they were doing. Plato's assault, he maintained, was a rejection of the formulaic style produced by the
Greek oral mentality, a state of mind that was in tension with new modes of thought made possible by the
effects of the alphabet.
According to Havelock, the transition from oral to literate patterns touched off changes in vocabulary,
syntax, and in the basic categories of human thought. The terminology used by Plato and Aristotle to define
and categorize the operations of consciousness, he argued, had to pass through a long period of development
(1963: xi). He cited the findings of Harold Cherniss to support his theory that "the metaphysical interpretations
of pre-Platonic thinkers which are found in Aristotle's own works are in large measure accommodated to the
problems and indeed the terminology of his own system."[2] He presented passages in the Republic (522a-530b)
as evidence that Plato was creating a new frame of discourse and a new kind of vocabulary. Plato, he claimed,
was arguing for an approach that focused not on "modeling and reproducing." He was "demanding instead a
discourse which shall rearrange phenomena under general headings or categories" (1963: 259-60). The
language of categories and universals, claimed Havelock, refers to what would be called "concept" in modern
terminology. He said that Plato avoided the notion of concept or mental construction that would make things
like justice and goodness "abstract, arbitrary and relative conceptions of the human intellect." Instead, he
argued, Plato saw them as "somehow representing the cosmic structure independent of human cognition and so
labeled them visual shapes or forms." Thus, in the development of human thought, the theory of forms was a
transition between the "image-thinking" of oral poetry and the abstract concepts of philosophy made possible by
writing.
As the "first philosopher to adapt sustained oral teaching into written discourse," Plato must have been
"writing in the crucial moment of transition," from orality to literacy, said Havelock (1986: 111). He
emphasized that when orally shaped communication was first written down, "the device of script was simply
placed at the service of preserving visually what had already been shaped for preservation orally" (1963: 136-
37). Prose conformed at first to the previous rules for the poetic (1963: 39). Even though the alphabet was
destined to replace orality by literacy, "the first historic task assigned to it was to render an account of orality
itself before it was replaced. Since the replacement was slow, the invention continued to be used to inscribe an
orality which was slowly modifying itself in order to become a language of literacy" (1986: 90). After Plato,
Havelock concluded, the balance of the tension between the oral and literate mind-sets swung in favor of
 34

writing. The end of the oral civilization marked the beginning of our own. "Plato, living in the midst of this
revolution, announced it and became its prophet" (1963: vii). "

READ: review of Eric Havelock's Preface to Plato by Anthony J. Mioni available at

http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/ptop.html
November 13, 1996 Preface to Plato. Vol. 1 A History of the Greek Mind, by Eric Alfred Havelock, Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 1963.
About Preface to Plato: This book may be seen as a preface to Plato in two ways: The first is that it prepares us
for reading Plato by explaining the meaning of Plato's writings; the second is that it prepares for reading Plato
by explaining the historical developments that lead up to and influenced Plato. In it, Eric Havelock explains
Plato's battle with the poets for control over Greek paideia. Plato criticizes poetry as being restricted to doxa, or
opinion, and proposes to replace this traditional paideia with his own based on logos.

PART I: THE IMAGE-THINKERS

Chapter One: Plato on Poetry

Plato argues that the Greek poets (Homer to Euripides), who until Plato's time had been not only the primary
but the sole educators of the Greeks, are the enemies of truth and with their poetry spread a mental poison. The
deeds expressed in Homer, Plato argues, are hardly things in which the youth should be educated: murder,
incest, cruelty, treachery, uncontrolled passions, weakness, cowardice, and malice. He argues that among the
Greeks, social prestige is exalted above morality, for immorality is often more rewarded. And it is the poets
who are mostly to blame for this. But the problem of poetry is not restricted to its substance. For Plato, even the
style of the poets is reproachable: pure narrative, he says, is tolerable, but drama is not--unless the characters in
the drama are ethically superior. Plato's conclusion is that the major Greek poets must be excluded from Greek
education. But Plato's target, the author tells us, is not poetry as we understand it. It is rather something more
fundamental and powerful in the Greek experience. It is an over-all cultural condition that no longer exists. And
it is this cultural condition that the author seeks to define in the rest of the book.

Chapter Two: Mimesis mimesis (imitation) works in poetry. In all verbal communication we can distinguish a
descriptive method (third-person narrative) from dramatization. It is in dramatization that impersonation occurs,
that is, when an actor puts himself into a role, he or she impersonates or imitates the character of that role. But
imitating a base thing (whether it be a man, beast, or other thing) has a "basing" effect on the one imitating. The
poet should instead use a minimum of dramatization and a maximum of description. The problem with Plato's
argument, Havelock tells us, is that, though the actor playing the part must 'identify' with the character to
reproduce him, this does not seen to hold true for the poet. But Plato uses the term mimesis to describe not only
the state of the performer, but also that of the poet and the listeners.
In addition to the weakening of the moral character, Plato says that poetry also causes a crippling of the
intellect. For poetry totally lacks precise knowledge that, for example, a craftsman needs in the his trade or an
educator needs in forming the intellect. Instead, it appeals to the shallowest of our sensibilities. It is non-rational
and destroys the rational faculty. Finally, it puts us under a spell, or mob psychology.

Chapter Three: Poetry as Preserved Communication

Poetry in Greek society was always oral rather than written. The audience was one of listeners, not readers.
Even in Plato's day we have a primarily oral culture. Poetry for the Greeks is a memorized tradition that
depends on constant and reiterated recitation. In order to learn something, it must be repeated again and again
until it is memorized. Through this process there is a total participation and an emotional identification with
what is being learned. While memorizing the speeches of Achilles (through rhythmic memorized experience),
one must throw oneself into the part and identify with Achilles' anger. "Such enormous powers of poetic
memorization could be purchased only at the cost of total loss of objectivity." This kind of reliving experience
becomes for Plato the enemy. And the main target for Plato is Homer. For through him more than anyone else,
tradition was maintained, and paideia was transmitted.
Chapter Four: The Homeric Encyclopedia
The intent in Homer's poetry is primarily didactic, and the tale is subservient to the educational task. In his
work, as in Hesiod's, we find the nomoi (custom-laws) and ethea (folk-ways) of Greek society. We find lessons,
for example, on how a king, prince, or general should behave; on how to address a priest or any man of
importance; the acceptable roles of men and women; table manners; etc. Certain lines like "what is fitting" are
frequently used to introduced something that ought to be done. Plato describes Homer's instruction as dioikesis,
or the "management" of personal and social life. He even includes technical instructions on subjects like
 35

seamanship: in the first book of the Iliad, Homer teaches the techniques of loading, embarking, disembarking,
and unloading. This is why Plato states that by popular estimate the poets "possessed the know-how of all
techniques." ( Rep. 598eI)

Chapter Five: Epic as Record versus Epic as Narrative Homer's work is a record of what the Greeks in general
thought. Thus, a Greek poem was not a personal invention, but was a report that was shared by all the bards.
Reading Homer is like walking through a great room of Greek customs, beliefs, etc. It was the way in which
these things were reported that made poet's work. "The route [the bard] picks will have its own design." (page
88). And "only in the route he chooses does he exercise decisive choice." Such is the art of the encyclopedic
minstrel, who, as he reports also maintains the social and moral apparatus of an oral culture.
Homer's vision, moreover, is encyclopedic. His work is dispassionate and he totally accepts and reports the
customs of the Greeks as he sees them. The meter allowed for variation with each recitation. But what varies is
the tale, while the nomos and ethos of are kept.

Chapter Seven: The Oral Sources of the Hellanic Intelligence

The pre-Homeric epoc, the Dark Age (about 1175 BC or later), relied for its preservation upon oral tradition
alone. This oral tradition developed in this period essentially as the encyclopedic and moral instruction of
Greece. Its purpose was pan-Hellenic. Homer's style therefore represents the Greek international style, just as
his content provides the tribal encyclopedia for all the Hellenes.
There were three levels or areas of communication: legal and political transactions, re-telling of tribal history,
and indoctrination of the youth through recital. "They would be required to listen and to repeat, and their
memories would be trained to do this." (121). Thus, the prince or judge would make decisions based on what
they remember from the training from their youth. And power came from the ability to speak well.
The educational process: during the day the youth would work with the adults. After dinner the tales would be
told. The youth would learn the tales and with them the customs, laws, etc. of their ancestors. Everything was
memorized. The minstrel, however, was not necessarily a professional, and they were not always creators of
stories, but perhaps just repeaters.
Plato's idea of poetry in this period was correct: it was not "literature," "but a political and social necessity. It
was not an art form, nor a creation of the private imagination, but an encyclopedia maintained by co-operative
effort on the part the 'best Greek polities.'" (125).
In addition to metrical devices, the Greeks used assonance and parallelism. Intelligence to these men meant
"superior memory and a superior sense of verbal rhythm." (128). This made them strive to attain this ability and
thus created "the necessary medium in which the Greek genius could be nursed to its maturity." (127). The
specific genius of the Greeks was rhythmic. And it was the mastery of musical rhythms that brought the Greeks
to master other kinds of rhythms also. Thus, "their supposed disadvantage in the competition for culture, namely
non-literacy, was in fact their prime advantage." (128).

Chapter Eight: The Homeric State of Mind

Although we moderns view poetry as not part of daily communication, the Homeric-age Greeks did. "The
whole memory of a people was poetised, and this exercised a constant control over the ways in which they
expressed themselves in casual speech." (134). When things were composed, they were composed poetically
(not first prosaicly). Thus, Homer, Hesiod, and the other Greek poets were not "special" or "gifted" people, like
our poets might be considered today, but they represent the normal state of mind of this people. The Greeks
thought in this way.
But the poets, in creating tales, had a certain control over the minds of their listeners. Plato, in fact, was certain
that "poetry and the poet had exercised a control not merely over Greek verbal idiom but over the Greek state of
mind and consciousness." (142). This situation continued virtually unchanged through Classic Greece.

You can learn a great deal about Plato, his background, family and students and Platonism at these sites:
The Life of Plato by Anthony F. Beavers and Christopher Planeaux
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/plato&soc.html
Christopher Planeaux http://php.iupui.edu/~cplaneau/plato_01.html
Basic Page by Garth Kemerling http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/plat.htm
On Plato and Platonism: by William Turner http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm
Richard Hooker’s Thought on Plato http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/PLATO.HTM
Short Life of Plato by Bernard SUZANNE http://plato-dialogues.org/life.htm
 36

Plato's Republic

The REPUBLICis one of the greatest works ever invented by a human being. At some colleges students spend
an entire term studying it and all of its intricacies and all of its import. In this work Plato touches upon all the
most important questions in Philosophy. He presents a single unified system of ideas in a work that is self
referential in as much as it illustrates some of the very things concerning which he is attempting to educate his
readers.
We don’t have the time to do justice to this work and so all that you are asked to read and think about are the
passages dealing with the divided line and the allegory of the cave, the Theory of Justice and the very idea of
Philosophy as a method for thinking. These are covered below.
To read the dialogue of PLATO titled The REPUBLICclick on the title of the work: The REPUBLIC
For an overall view of the REPUBLIC see http://www.friesian.com/plato.htm
For our purposes here please consider the following elements in Plato's work
1. The Allegory of the Cave
2. The Divided Line
3. The Theory of Justice
4. Plato's Theory of Philosophy as Dialectical Inquiry and Argumentation
2.The Allegory of the Cave ,The REPUBLIC Book Seven
Plato believed that there were four levels or approaches to knowledge and genuine understanding. They are
illustrated in the REPUBLIC in the allegory of the cave and in the divided line.
Level one: guided by images, stories guesses, opinions
Level two: guided by practical common sense, trial and error approach, practical
Level three: a theoretical, scientific approach seeking to understand why things are as they are
Level four: philosophical approach, by which theories are themselves evaluated. True understanding
People in the cave spend their time playing games and identifying the shadows on the wall. They think that the
shadows on the wall are the real things. They are happy to win prizes in the cave for being so quick and
accurate at identifying the shadows. They do not know that those are just shadows (I) caused by the light
crossing over the statues (II) which are themselves representations of the things outside the cave (III) and all of
those would not exist if not for the source of all things and all life, the sun (IV) .
Listen to AUDIO of the CAVE passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux4mcnFC_-c&feature=related

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Plato's%20cave
text : http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/ALLEGORY.HTM
another translation of the text: http://www.plotinus.com/plato_allegory_of_the_cave.htm
LOOK into the CAVE VIDEOS: ANIMATED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2afuTvUzBQ&feature=related
Clay Animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM
MATRIX Movie Plot and and the CAVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRNMZEDOBrM&feature=related
TEXT: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/plato/caveframes.htm
Tour through and out of the cave
http://rivertext.com/weil4.html

Saenredam after Cornelis Cornelisz, The Cave of Plato, Engraving, 1604, (London, B.M.)
Are there many people that you know who are at the first two levels , living in a cave and thinking it is the only
reality? Thinking that the shadows on the world are the reality and refusing even to turn around and look at
what else may be the actual truth? Do you know of people who are happy to have a nice position in the cave and
are looking for little beyond that? People who don’t want their thinking to be disturbed even if it is wrong?
READ: http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq002.htm
2. The Divided Line in The REPUBLIC
Plato believed that there were four levels or approaches to knowledge and genuine understanding. They are
illustrated in the REPUBLIC in the allegory of the cave and in the divided line.
Level one: guided by images, stories guesses, opinions
Level two: guided by practical common sense, trial and error approach, practical
Level three: a theoretical, scientific approach seeking to understand why things are as they are
Level four: philosophical approach, by which theories are themselves evaluated. True understanding
VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3nYAROx1Xo&feature=related
 37

From Richard Hooker

The Allegory of the Cave and the Divided Line: Far and away the most influential passage in Western
philosophy ever written is Plato's discussion of the prisoners of the cave and his abstract presentation of the
divided line. For Plato, human beings live in a world of visible and intelligible things. The visible world is what
surrounds us: what we see, what we hear, what we experience; this visible world is a world of change and
uncertainty. The intelligible world is made up of the unchanging products of human reason: anything arising
from reason alone, such as abstract definitions or mathematics, makes up this intelligible world, which is the
world of reality. The intelligible world contains the eternal "Forms" (in Greek, idea ) of things; the visible
world is the imperfect and changing manifestation in this world of these unchanging forms. For example, the
"Form" or "Idea" of a horse is intelligible, abstract, and applies to all horses; this Form never changes, even
though horses vary wildly among themselves—the Form of a horse would never change even if every horse in
the world were to vanish. An individual horse is a physical, changing object that can easily cease to be a horse
(if, for instance, it's dropped out of a fifty story building); the Form of a horse, or "horseness," never changes.
As a physical object, a horse only makes sense in that it can be referred to the "Form" or "Idea" of horseness.
Plato imagines these two worlds, the sensible world and the intelligible world, as existing on a line that can be
divided in the middle: the lower part of the line consists of the visible world and the upper part of the line makes
up the intelligible world. Each half of the line relates to a certain type of knowledge: of the visible world, we
can only have opinion (in Greek: doxa); of the intelligible world we achieve "knowledge" (in Greek, episteme).
Each of these divisions can also be divided in two. The visible or changing world can be divided into a lower
region, "illusion," which is made up of shadows, reflections, paintings, poetry, etc., and an upper region,
"belief," which refers to any kind of knowledge of things that change, such as individual horses. "Belief" may be
true some or most of the time but occasionally is wrong (since things in the visible world change); belief is
practical and may serve as a relatively reliable guide to life but doesn't really involve thinking things out to the
point of certainty. The upper region can be divided into, on the lower end, "reason," which is knowledge of
things like mathematics but which require that some postulates be accepted without question, and
"intelligence," which is the knowledge of the highest and most abstract categories of things, an understanding
of the ultimate good.
1 If you understand this first distinction, the much more difficult division of the intelligible world will make
more sense. Think over this carefully: the visible world, that is, the world you see, has two kinds of visible
objects in it. The first kind are shadows and reflections, that is, objects you see but aren't really there but derive
from the second type of visible objects, that is, those that you see and are really there. The relation of the visible
world to the intelligible world is identical to the relation of the world of reflections to the world of visible things
that are real.
2 The lower region of the intelligible world corresponds to the upper region in the same way the lower region of
the visible world corresponds to the upper region. Think of it this way: the lower region deals only with objects
of thought (that are, in part, derived from visible objects), which is why it is part of the intelligible world. There
have to be certain first principles (such as the existence of numbers or other mathematical postulates) that are
just simply taken without question: these are hypotheses. These first principles, however, derive from other first
principles; the higher region of the intelligible world encompasses these first principles. So you can see that the
lower region derives from the higher region in that the thinking in the lower region derives from the first
principles that make up the higher region, just as the mirror reflects a solid object. When one begins to think
about first principles (such as, how can you prove that numbers exist at all?) and derives more first principles
from them until you reach the one master, first principle upon which all thought is based, you are operating in
this higher sphere of intellection. Plato's line is also a hierarchy: the things at the top (first principles) have more
truth and more existence; the things at the bottom (the reflections) have almost no truth and barely exist at all.
*********************************************
1. The Divided Line, The REPUBLIC, book six
Palto's Theory of Knowledge and the Structure of the Republic

Intelligible World Knowledge (Episteme)

Intelligence (level 4) Dialectics
Soul-Reasoning understanding the Reason- nous
essence of a thing…. (How does True Science- Episteme
something exist at all) the IDEAL Judgment
FORMS
Absolute Good –True understanding Realm of Being
Philosophical approach, by which **********************
theories are themselves evaluated. Character in Dialogue: Socrates
And so with dialectic; when a person starts (Philosopher)
 38

on the discovery of the absolute by the *******************

light of reason only, and without any method of understanding-presenting the
assistance of sense, and preserves until by four levels: The simile of the Sun.
pure intelligence he arrives at the
perception of the absolute good
- Plato’s Republic (532-534D)
Truth and existence itself

Abstraction Level three: a theoretical, scientific

Understanding dianoia approach seeking to understand why
Theorization things are as they are
Realm of Being (The point of origin and steps to the first
Knowledge of why principals)
Use of prediction to verify Hypotheses
*********************** - Numbers mathematical postulates
Character in Dialogue: (Knowledge of things like mathematics)
Glaucon and Adaimantos (Social / political Deals with process of thought that is
Theorists) derived from visible objects
******************** Custom terms them sciences, but they
method of understanding-presenting the ought to have some other name, implying
four levels: The Divided Line greater clearness than opinion and less
clearness than science…-Plato’s Republic
(532-534D)
…. The intermediate between opinion and
reason….
- Plato’s Republic (532-534D)

Sensible World (Visible World)

Opinion (Doxa)
Level two: guided by practical common Common Sense ?
sense, trial and error approach, practical Belief-pistis
Faith or Conviction Realm of Becoming
Maybe true some of the time Opinions
occasionally wrong since based on the Know how
visual world of change. **********************
Have almost no truth and barely exist at all Character in Dialogue: Thrasymachus
(Sophist and lawyer/politician)
*******************
method of understanding-presenting the
four levels: The Curriculum for Dialectical
Thinking

Imagination Level one: guided by images, stories

Conjecture- Eikasia guesses, opinions
Guesses Illusions:Arts (shadows, reflections,
Realm of Becoming paintings, poetry)
Opinions For the arts in general are concerned with
********************** the desires or opinions of men.
Character in Dialogue: -Plato’s Republic (532-534D)
Cephalos and Polemarchus ( a wealthy old
man and his son) *Reflections to the world –not real and is
******************* proportional to visible things that are real
method of understanding-presenting the
four levels: The Allegory of the Cave
Table by Brandy Bryson (Sp 03)
In this next table the characters in the dialogue are located on the level of the divided line on which they
operate in their thinking.
 39

Plato's Theory of the Forms of Thinking and Approaches to Knowledge and the Structure of the Dialogue, The
REPUBLICItself
Approaches to Knowledge of the GOOD needed for a GOOD LIFE
the GOOD (to Agathon )
the ONE
Systems
(groups) of few
FORMS
FORMS many
Things very many characters
representing
Appearance
most the level
s of things
thinking\/
Forms
reason Simile of
Norms
(nous) the SUN-
I Ideals True Socrates
true science dialectic analogy Reason
V Tested Judgment Philosopher
(noesis) (Rep, BK
intelligible theories
(episteme) VI)
realm (noesis)
realm of
(noeta) Understandi
being Divided Glaucon
Hypotheses ng
abstractio Line Adeimantos
REASON Theories Knowledge spirit
II understandi n Theoreticl Theorists
Structures of teh "why" appetit
I ng (dianoia) theorizatio a Struture (social
Deductive with e
n (Rep, BK contract)
Systems Predictive
VI) Scientists
power
*************from level II to III is intellectual development most difficult to make*******
Curriculu
concrete
m
world as
experienti Thrasymachu
common experience Practical
II belief (pistis) al s Sophist
sense d "know how"
progress Lawyer
experiential
(Rep, BK
technique
VII)
realm of
visible Images
becomin
realm of Appearanc
g
OPINIO es stories
Cephalos
Ns (Doxa) fictions Allegory
change (wealthy old
hearsay of the
Conjecture Imaginatio man)
I anecdotes guesses CAVE ---
Eikasia n Polemarchus
second (Rep, BK
(his son and
hand info VII)
heir)
myths
(ikons)

3. Plato’s Theory of Justice in The REPUBLIC

READ: http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciBhan.htm

4. Plato's theory of PHILOSOPHY and DIALECTICAL REASONING which is at the heart of

PHILOSOPHY.
Broadly speaking, a dialectic is an exchange of propositions (thesis) and counter-propositions (anti-thesis)
resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions or at least an important change in the direction or level of the
dialogue. The exchange of propositions occurs in a question and answer format in the SOCRATIC METHOD.
This is exemplified in Plato's dialogues. In the passages below Plato describes dialectics and its identity with
PHILOSOPHY . Doing dialectical thinking concerning the most basic and important issues facing humans is
what Plato takes to be Philosophy. The passage are identified by there standard location numbers and in the
pages of the popular Mentor paperback book, Great Dialogues of Plato.
 40

The following passage contains Plato’s goal concerning the use of dialectics,” we have at last arrived at the
hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will
nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold
the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the
discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until
by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the
intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.(Republic (532A-534D) Mentor 331-334
)”Another passage states, “ But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and
only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences.(Republic (532A-534D) Mentor 331-334 )” This next
passage gives some insight into the idea of first principles and forms. Plato states, “I understand you to say that
knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as
they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and
not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who
contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is
added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and
the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate
between opinion and reason(Republic (511C) Mentor 311 )”The next line gives information that concerns the
process and states, “However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I
judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to
the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue..(Phaedo (99C-100C ) Mentor 503-
504 )” In the next passage there is a caution about the process when Plato states, “Yes, Simmias, replied
Socrates, that is well said: and more than that, first principles, even if they appear certain, should be carefully
considered; and when they are satisfactorily ascertained, then, with a sort of hesitating confidence in human
reason, you may, I think, follow the course of the argument; and if this is clear, there will be no need for any
further inquiry (PHAEDO (107B-108A) Mentor 511-512 )”.
Plato states,” For I dare say that you, Socrates, feel, as I do, how very hard or almost impossible is the
attainment of any certainty about questions such as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a
coward who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had
examined them on every side. (Plato PHAEDO (85C) Mentor, p 490 )” In the preceding passage Plato
acknowledges the difficulty of ascertaining the truth of the matters of life and goes on to state that one should be
brave and tackle the issues regardless. Plato then states, “For he should persevere until he has attained one of
two things: either he should discover or learn the truth about them; or, if this is impossible, I would have him
take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life-not
without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.(Plato
PHAEDO (85C) Mentor, p 490 )” In that statement he implies that truth is important for living a worthwhile life
and that if the truth is unattainable one should be guided by the best truth available although it will involve the
risk that comes from uncertainty.
Concerning the pursuit of truth, Plato, cautioned about maintaining the right state of mind. He warned of the
danger of becoming a misologist or hater of ideas as displayed in the following passage, “For as there are
misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same
cause, which is ignorance of the world. (2)” I interpret that passage to indicate what can stem from the
frustration that can develop from the process of examination combined with the ignorance of the examiner. In
the following he describes an example of how that happens, “Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and very melancholy too,
if there be such a thing as truth or certainty or power of knowing at all, that a man should have lighted upon
some argument or other which at first seemed true and then turned out to be false, and instead of blaming
himself and his own want of wit, because he is annoyed, should at last be too glad to transfer the blame from
himself to arguments in general; and forever afterwards should hate and revile them, and lose the truth and
knowledge of existence. (PHAEDO (90A) Mentor 494-495 )” In the following passage Plato describes a way in
which to prepare ones mind for the dialectical process, “ For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute,
cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.
And the difference between him and me at the present moment is only this-that whereas he seeks to convince
his hearers that what he says is true, I am rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a
secondary matter with me. And do but see how much I gain by this. For if what I say is true, then I do well to be
persuaded of the truth, but if there be nothing after death, still, during the short time that remains, I shall save
my friends from lamentations, and my ignorance will not last, and therefore no harm will be done. (PHAEDO
(90A) Mentor 494-495 )”

PHAEDO (85C) Mentor, p 490

 41

For I dare say that you, Socrates, feel, as I do, how very hard or almost impossible is the attainment of any
certainty about questions such as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a coward who did not
prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them on
every side. For he should persevere until he has attained one of two things: either he should discover or
learn the truth about them; or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of
human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life-not without risk, as I admit, if he
cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him. And now, as you bid me, I will
venture to question you, as I should not like to reproach myself hereafter with not having said at the time
what I think. For when I consider the matter either alone or with Cebes, the argument does certainly appear
to me, Socrates, to be not sufficient.
***************************
PHAEDO (90A) Mentor 494-495
But first let us take care that we avoid a danger.
And what is that? I said.
The danger of becoming misologists, he replied, which is one of the very worst things that can
happen to us. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of
ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises
from the too great confidence of inexperience; you trust a man and think him altogether true and
good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another
and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the circle of his
most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all
men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. I dare say that you must have observed this.
Yes, I said.
And is not this discreditable? The reason is that a man, having to deal with other men, has no
knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the true state of the case, that few
are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them.
How do you mean? I said.
I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small, that nothing is more
uncommon than a very large or a very small man; and this applies generally to all extremes, whether
of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white: and whether the instances
you select be men or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes, but many are in the mean between
them. Did you never observe this?
Yes, I said, I have.
And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition of evil, the first in evil would
be found to be very few?
Yes, that is very likely, I said.
Yes, that is very likely, he replied; not that in this respect arguments are like men-there I was
led on by you to say more than I had intended; but the point of comparison was that when a simple
man who has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be
false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he has no longer any faith left, and
great disputers, as you know, come to think, at last that they have grown to be the wisest of mankind;
for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or, indeed, of all
things, which, like the currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.
That is quite true, I said.
Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and very melancholy too, if there be such a thing as truth or certainty
or power of knowing at all, that a man should have lighted upon some argument or other which at
first seemed true and then turned out to be false, and instead of blaming himself and his own want of
wit, because he is annoyed, should at last be too glad to transfer the blame from himself to arguments
in general; and forever afterwards should hate and revile them, and lose the truth and knowledge of
existence.
Yes, indeed, I said; that is very melancholy.
Let us, then, in the first place, he said, be careful of admitting into our souls the notion that
there is no truth or health or soundness in any arguments at all; but let us rather say that there is as
yet no health in us, and that we must quit ourselves like men and do our best to gain health-you and
all other men with a view to the whole of your future life, and I myself with a view to death. For at
this moment I am sensible that I have not the temper of a philosopher; like the vulgar, I am only a
partisan. For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the
question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. And the difference
between him and me at the present moment is only this-that whereas he seeks to convince his hearers
 42

that what he says is true, I am rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a
secondary matter with me. And do but see how much I gain by this. For if what I say is true, then I
do well to be persuaded of the truth, but if there be nothing after death, still, during the short time
that remains, I shall save my friends from lamentations, and my ignorance will not last, and therefore
no harm will be done. This is the state of mind, Simmias and Cebes, in which I approach the
argument. And I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I
seem to you to be speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive
you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and, like the bee, leave my sting in you before I die.
***************************
PHAEDO (107B-108A) Mentor 511-512
But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor do I see any room for uncertainty,
except that which arises necessarily out of the greatness of the subject and the feebleness of man, and
which I cannot help feeling.
Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and more than that, first principles, even if
they appear certain, should be carefully considered; and when they are satisfactorily ascertained,
then, with a sort of hesitating confidence in human reason, you may, I think, follow the course of the
argument; and if this is clear, there will be no need for any further inquiry. That, he said, is true.
Argumentation Republic (487C-D) Mentor 285
To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a
strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at
each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these
littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty
overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of
draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too
find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the
counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now
occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step
of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not
only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become
strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are
made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.
***************************
DIALECTICS Phaedo(99C-100C ) Mentor 503-504
I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that
I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the
sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the
water, or in some similar medium. That occurred to me, and I was afraid that my soul might be
blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of the senses to apprehend
them. And I thought that I had better have recourse to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence. I
dare say that the simile is not perfect-for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates
existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he
who sees them in their working and effects. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first
assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever
seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed
I regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning clearly, as I do not think that you
understand me. No, indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.
There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only what I have been
always and everywhere repeating in the previous discussion and on other occasions: I want to show
you the nature of that cause which has occupied my thoughts, and I shall have to go back to those
familiar words which are in the mouth of everyone, and first of all assume that there is an absolute
beauty and goodness and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the
nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.
***************************
Republic (511C) Mentor 311
And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled
to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of
hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as
images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and
therefore a higher value.
 43

I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts.
And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that
other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses
not as first principles, but only as hypotheses --that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a
world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the
whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends
again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.
I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is
really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the
science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which
proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the
senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who
contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first
principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned
with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason,
as being intermediate between opinion and reason.
You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions,
let there be four faculties in the soul-reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second,
faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last-and let there be a scale of
them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects
have truth.
***************************
Republic (532A-534D) Mentor 331-334
we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only,
but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember,
was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself.
And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason
only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the
perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the
case of sight at the end of the visible.
Exactly, he said.
Then this is the progress which you call dialectic?
True.
But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the
images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence
they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive
even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true
existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an
image) --this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is
best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the
body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world --this power is given, as I
was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described.
I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another
point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but
will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us
assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain, and describe
that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are
the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest?
Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and
you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I
told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen
something like reality; of that I am confident.
Doubtless, he replied.
But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one
who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last.
And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular
process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in
general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production
and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the
 44

mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being --geometry
and the like --they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as
they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them.
For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps
are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention
can ever become science?
Impossible, he said.
Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science
which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is
literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as
handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing.
Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness
than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called
understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to
consider?
Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with
clearness?
At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for
opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the
fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and
so to make a proportion: -- As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is
to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows. But let us defer
the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long
enquiry, many times longer than this has been.
As far as I understand, he said, I agree.
And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of
the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this
conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will
you admit so much?
Yes, he said; how can I deny it?
And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract
and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is
ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of
the argument --unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor
any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by
science; --dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world
below, and has his final quietus.
In all that I should most certainly agree with you.
And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and
educating --if the ideal ever becomes a reality --you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts,
having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters?
Certainly not.
Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain
the greatest skill in asking and answering questions?
Yes, he said, you and I together will make it.
Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no
other science can be placed higher --the nature of knowledge can no further go?
***************************
The Seventh Letter (344a-b)
Plato is describing the highest kind of thinking that is true philosophy, contrasting it to that type of dispute
where, “anyone who pleases among those who have skill in confutation gains the victory.”
To sum it all up in one word, natural intelligence and a good memory are equally powerless to
aid someone who has not an inborn affinity with the subject [of moral goodness]. Without such
endowments there is not the slightest possibility [of really doing philosophy] . Hence, all those with
no natural aptitude for and affinity with justice and all the other noble ideals, though in the study of
other matters they may be both intelligent and retentive—all those too who have affinity [with justice
and moral ideals] but are stupid and unretentive—such will never any of them grasp the most
complete truths in regard to moral concepts. The study of virtue and vice must be accompanied by an
inquiry into what is false and true of Being—what is—in general and must be carried on by practice
 45

throughout a long period, as I said in the beginning. After much effort practicing detailed
comparisons of names and definitions and visual and other sense perceptions, after these are brought
into contact and friction one with another in the course of scrutiny and friendly disputation by people
who proceed by question and answer without jealousy, at last in a sudden flash, understanding of
each blazes up, and the intelligence, as it exerts all its powers to the limit of human capacity, is
flooded with light.”
The REPUBLIC
For a quick tour though The REPUBLIC go to this site
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/plato/platos_page.htm
Plato's SYMPOSIUM
This dialogue is unlike the others of Plato, in as much as , Socrates does not question the others in the
dialectical fashion, except briefly. Instead the various speakers take turns, as it were, each offering what he
knows from his own perspective and then Socrates presents a view that can place the others within a grander
scheme. At least one commentator has speculated that Plato wrote this dialogue as a form of brochure for his
Academy in Athens. It gives a sampling of what it might be like to attend a class at the Academy. Leading
thinkers each present what they know from their own perspective or discipline and then Plato would enter the
discussion with dialectical questioning and attempt a synthesis.
The banquet did occur. Xenophon reports on it as well as Plato. Agathon had won first prize for dramatic play.
Guests were invited back to the house for a party. Socrates was one of them. There at the party, instead f
becoming drunk and entering into orgiastic practices, they decided to each take turn speaking about love. (
Today when males gather at drinking parties the most popular topics are often sex or sports.)
When you read the dialogue you should note that when Socrates turn to speak comes, after questioning
Agathon, he tells of his instruction as to the nature of Love and Beauty from a woman, Diotima. Pay particular
attention to her instructions. She provides a lesson the reveals Plato’s idea of the Eternal and Ideal Forms. In
this dialogue Plato is giving a credit or reference to Socrates and to Diotima as the source of his ideas.

A statue of Eros possibly done by a Roman artist

Praxiteles

Below are 1)the dialogue and 2)an overview and 3)a summary of it. Read them all.

1) The Dialogue The Symposium of Plato

Older translation by Benjamin Jowett >>http://www.eserver.org/philosophy/plato/symposium.txt
Contemporary translation done freely from the
http://members.aol.com/thelogos/symtxt.htm
Greek by Professor Emile J. Piscitelli) >>

2) Overview of The Symposium of Plato A Platonic Dialogue by Katherine Stabile Modified by Philip A.
Pecorino
Apolloddrus relates to a friend the events and speeches which were reported to him by Aristodemus.
Characters of the Dialogue:
HOST : Agathon - tragic poet who gives the party.
GUESTS
Phaedrus- humanist scholar
Pausanias- sophist
Euriyximachus -physician
Ariststophanes –comic playwright
Socrates- philosopher
PARTY CRASHER
Alcibiades – soldier of fortune - crashes the party.
SPEECHES
PHAEDRUS: LOVE is the oldest of all gods, the benefactor of humankind,
the inspiration of honor (a man would rather die than appear
as a coward in the eyes of his beloved) and the spirit of
self-sacrifice.
PAUSANIAS: His approach is more subtle. He introduces the distinction
 46

between the celestial love and the market love. Base love’s
object: women and young boys; Noble love’s object; Young men.
His speech. is a justification, a hymn of homosexuality. He is offering practical advice and street wise
type of knowledge.
EURYXIMACHUS: His is a professional, mechanical, chlorophorm-smelling definition of love. His
method is to exalt the distinction of bad and good love (balance and harmony) into a cosmic principle and ergo
universally applicable. This definition functions as the transition from the narrow definition of love as physical
desire (Phaedrus and Pausanias) to the intellectual love in Diotima's speech. As a physician he speaks of the
healthy and the ill and advises from a foundation of practice.
ARiSTOPHANES: As a comedian he composes a humorous tale to frame his account of love. He
defines love as the "desire and pursuit of the whole. He recognizes that: a) love is a need whose satisfaction is
more than physical; b) love is a longing to regain a lost happiness.
AGATHON: hymn to the "essential" nature of love. Superficial rhetoric. His contribution is the admission that
love's object is Beauty He too is a humanist scholar. Yet, much of his effort through quotations produces a
contribution which contradicts that of Phaedrus.
TRANSITION: Points established:
SOCRATES 1 Love is a relative name, like father and mother
AND 2. Love desires its object because it lacks it
AGATHON 3. Love desires the preservation of its object once it possesses it.
4. Since the object of love (as Agathon has pointed out)
is beauty, eros cannot be beautiful and since beauty
is the same as the Good he cannot be good either. This
conclusion is not mere word play. Love is established as the
consciousness of a need for a good not yet acquired or possessed.
SOCRATES . He relates what Diotima has told him.
Presuppositions of the speech: Theory of the forms and
the concept of the Immortality of the soul.
Eros is neither beautiful nor ugly, neither good nor evil.
He is an intermediate state, a daemon, half man ,half god;
he is like opinion (Intermediate between ignorance and
episteme. Love is a link, a daemon. He is the true lover
of wisdom because wisdom is beautiful and beauty is the
object of love. Men are lovers of the good which they
want to possess perpetually. Perpetuity achieved through
procreation Thus, Eros is procreation: physical, spiritual
and philosophical (that of wisdom)

Painting of Eros and Psyche >>>

The Good or Beauty

Beauty of Soul and Body
Lover of wisdom;
Physical Beauty This love brings the True immortality
Sexual love spiritual offsprings of the soul through the
Physical marriage (civilization and possession of Forms.
For the basest desires in society) into existence (Lovers of Zeus)
Human nature Marriage of Noble Minds.
It feeds the animal in man. (Lovers of Ares)
(Lovers of the Vulgar) .
The philosopher's love is always of the last kind. He is the lover of the Good and the Beautiful. He is the
Lover of the Forms. But the philosophic soul must undergo certain successive steps in order to ascend to the
 47

sphere of the Forms. These steps are as follows:

the Form of Beauty

I Kinds of Knowledge
Moral Beauty
Beauty
Of Soul
Physical beauty
In se

Love of particular
Physical beauty

From the particular to --------the-----------------necessary—(general and abstract)

ALCIBIADES: His speech is to prove that Socrates is the supreme lover, The Philosopher , par excellence. He
who pursues true Eros of Diotima. His love for Socrates exemplifies one of the forms of love described in the
speeches, that of Pausanius. His love is an example of what becomes known as “Platonic Love”
Plato offers a view of love that reaffirms his theory of the forms and directs those who follow the flow of the
speeches to a more enlightened view of love and then offers us confirmation of his ideas by showing how
Alcibiades was inspired by Socrates to appreciate Socrates for the beauty of his soul or spirit rather than for his
body.

3) Summary of The Symposium of Plato by Omonia Vinieris ( 2002)

PHAEDRUS
Phaedrus, in customary fashion, begins his encomium to Eros, the god of Love, by explicating the prominence
of his birth. Phaedrus eulogizes to a great extent, seeing that Eros is widely acknowledged as the eldest of gods
(which is made evident by Hesiod and Parmenides). Only Chaos precedes him in maturity. Phaedrus suggests
that by reason of Eros’ seniority, he bestows the greatest rewards to man. To his fellow partakers of intellectual
revelry, Phaedrus reveals the great benefits granted to mankind by Eros. The primary gift to man is the
instillation of honor. A lover’s principal intention is to give the impression of dignity and nobility to his
beloved, which in essence, is distinguished as beauty. Love provokes one to live nobly as it teaches man honor
and pride wherein he will attain goodness through his respectable actions. Hence, if a lover were to perpetrate
appalling and dishonorable deeds and if his disgrace be learned of by his beloved, he would recognize the
ugliness of humiliation and shame. Shame consequently propels the lover to do great and noble needs.
“And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonorable act, or submitting in cowardice when any
dishonor is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by
his father, or by his companions, or by anyone else,” (Symposium).
Phaedrus also suggests that Eros implants the moral fiber of self-sacrifice into man. Thus, an army
exclusively comprised of lovers and loved ones who are ashamed to display any signs of spinelessness would be
indestructible, as they would more readily die than disgrace themselves in the presence of each other. Phaedrus
further praises the honored men and women (Alcestis, Achilles) who have died for love and informs his
companions that the gods reward them as well.
PAUSANIAS
Pausanias indicates that Aphrodite, goddess of Love, exists in two antithetical forms: Heavenly
Aphrodite (Ouranios), and Popular Aphrodite (Pandemos). Thus, he infers that Eros, as her progeny, is of two
divergent sorts and that he must distinguish between them. Pausanius erroneously construes Popular Eros is
vile since it randomly targets women and young boys for bodily pleasure, both of whom are devoid of any
intellectual capacity. Heavenly Eros is favored because its devotees are firm in their quest for virtue, or
teaching it to their beloved burgeoning thinkers.
“Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent
nature; and anyone may recognize the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love
not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their
beards begin to grow,” (Symposium).
Love’s significance emerges purely with respect to virtuous attainment. Lovers ought to enhance or perfect
their intellectually immature beloved whilst this beloved must be subject to acquire wisdom from their lovers.
In recognition of the virtue they attain from their ripened mastermind lovers, these youngsters must sexually
“make their day”, presumably succumbing themselves to anal copulation. Thus he promotes sexual pleasure
provided that virtue is the force behind it.
 48

ERYXIMACHUS
Eryximachus, the snobbish doctor who assumes responsibility over the party, uses his medical
proficiency to manipulate his eulogy of Love. He extends Eros beyond sexual desire asserting that it
encompasses all life, not only humans. He claims that the physician employs medicine, the knowledge of
desire, and strives to satiate the healthy components of the body while it denies the sickly, damaging parts of
any gratification that constitute Bad Eros. Thus the conflicting elements of the body, reminiscent of hot and
cold, will be acquiescent.
“There are in the human body these two kinds of love, which are confessedly different and unlike, and being
unlike, they have loves and desires which are unlike; and the desire of the healthy is one, and the desire of the
diseased another…the good and healthy elements [in the body] are to be indulged, and the bad elements and the
elements of disease are not to be indulged, but discouraged,” (Symposium)
Medicine, just like music, generates harmony between divergent elements (notes). The instant that concord
among the bodily elements is achieved, the body is in attunement. This attunement is the product of Love.
Erixymachus maintains that stability must govern over incongruent elements if there is to be Love,
subsequently exemplifying the omnipotence of order.
ARISTOPHANES
Aristophanes, the comic poet, reckons that Eros is a distinct uplifting force and presents a pleasant and
genial allegory in describing human nature and its condition with the suggestion that Love helps us to unearth
our other half and that one day we may be wholly reunited. Our primordial nature was of another kind where
three genders pervaded the earth: male, female, and hermaphrodite. They were exceptionally physically potent
and were extreme zealots who were blasphemous toward the gods, but Zeus did not annihilate their race.
Instead of renouncing the sacrifices put forward by them, he enfeebled them by hacking them in two. The
androgynous halves, one man and the other woman, were blessed with interlocking genitals that were capable of
procreation. The male halves both were stumped with protruding genitals, but Zeus managed to allot another
crevice on the body so that they, too, may satiate their lust, and then go on about their business. Apparently, the
lesbians, or female halves, were done for; their enjoyment was overlooked. The two halves of each whole were
gorged with longing as they pined for one another. Once they embraced, they basked in each other as they
sought everlasting union. So Aristophanes effectively concludes that Eros is the name for desire and pursuit of
wholeness motivated to mend the severance of humankind.
“I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to its primeval nature had his
original true love, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree
and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such a union; and that will be the attainment
of a congenial love,” (Symposium).
The Butcher's Wife and the "split men"
http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq004.htm
AGATHON
Agathon, a tragic poet renowned for his loveliness, is the beloved of Pausanias. In his tribute to Eros,
he is distinct from the other speakers in that he first will praise Eros’ nature and after will praise his
contributions to man. Unlike Phaedrus’ encomium, Agathon indicates Eros’ supreme beauty greater than all the
deities, and accordingly is the most youthful in their company. Eros, he says, has contempt for old age and
shuns it. He ascribes many good attributes to Eros; for Agathon professes he is soft, fair, just, temperate,
courageous, wise, poetic, artistic, peaceful, and orderly. Agathon deviously goes into raptures over his own
gorgeousness in this encomium because he, in fact, is an exceedingly beautiful man. Moreover, suggests that
after the nativity of Love, that goodness was dispersed throughout the world. Agathon says,
“In the days of old, as I began saying, dreadful deeds were done among the gods, for they were ruled by
Necessity; but now since the birth of Love, and from the love of the beautiful, has spring every good in heaven
and earth,” (Symposium).
The gifts of Eros to humanity comprised of concord (omonoia…my name), tenderness, benevolence,
empathy, civility, desire of beauty and constancy.
DIOTIMA
Socrates retells an account of a priestess, Diotima, who familiarizes him with the nature of Love.
Diotima convinces Socrates that Love is not a divinity because it lacks good and beautiful qualities that a god is
believed to possess. Socrates deduces that this ought to signify Love’s mortality. On the contrary, Love is
neither mortal nor divine, explains Diotima, but rather an intermediary spirit called a daemon. As Eros longs to
perpetually possess good things, he uses beauty as the object of his desire so that he may do so. Unceasing
possession of the good will be upheld through desire to procreate. Procreation accordingly substantiates Love’s
desire for immortality. Furthermore, Diotima explains that as beauty is sought through procreation, there are
assorted levels of beauty. Diotima states,
“He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from
 49

the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties
of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on
to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair
notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is,”
(Symposium).
This quote, in essence, is the advertisement of Plato’s Theory of the Forms. The escalation of the
lover to the absolute form of beauty, Beauty, begins with physical beauty as the object of desire in the first level
of ascent. Diotima reveals that a young boy initially may be provoked to procreate through a sexual and
physical attraction to one individual body. This body functions as a distorted image of real beauty as it
coincides with Plato’s first stage in his Theory of the Forms. The youth then becomes conscious of the actuality
that the beauty of one body is of the same substance of another. Understanding that visible beauty is shared by
all bodies, he sees the preposterousness of loving a single distinct body. The lover now ascends to a higher
level, since he is disjoined from the specificity of the visible world. Subsequently, the youth acquires
knowledge of the beauty of laws and institutions in his new realm of intelligence. As he grows to love the
knowledge of one specific practice, he will come to love all knowledge in its entirety. He is on the brink of
grasping Beauty in its purest and most everlasting form. It is this form of beauty that the true philosopher
beholds for it is the universal essence for everything that exists in the realm of beauty. The beauties of the
lower levels partake in Beauty as they are derived from this source. This final level is when the lover may
unveil his eyes and catch sight of something of an unpolluted brilliant magnificence, Beauty.
ALCIBIADES
Alcibiades is the flamboyant party crasher of this convention of love, and is severely smashed upon his
entrance. His intoxication allows him to overtly and skillfully articulate his unrequited love affair with Socrates
to the guests. Ultimately, Alcibiades’ love for Socrates is akin to that of the Pausanian beloved for he desires to
extract wisdom from him with the intention of ripening virtuously into manhood, although he initially had only
a physical fixation. A fabrication rests in Alcibiades’ pursuit for wisdom. His tribute to Socrates sounds more
like a conviction of his hubris in that Socrates is not allured by Alcibiades sex appeal. In equating him with
Marsyas, a satyr whipped alive for his hubris by Apollo, Alcibiades, in effect, deprecates him out of his own
exasperation. Even so, the lover’s role does not befit Socrates in a sense that he is not lured by physical beauty.
Socrates’ love for Alcibiades, on the contrary, is analogous to Platonic Love, that is inherent in the speech of
Diotima. Alcibiades clearly portrays himself as a lover scorned by Socrates. But Socrates is in fact the true
lover, who loves what is truly beautiful and good, the proper object of love, instead of what only seems so.
Real love seeks contemplation of Beauty, not sexual intercourse. Socrates rebukes Alcibiades' advances and
entreaties indicating that he would not trade off his valuable good judgment and the virtue of his soul for some
brief erotic pleasure. Socrtes would not destroy that which attracted Alcibiades, his virtue. Socrates says,
“…truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you. And
therefore, if you mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for beauty, you will have greatly the advantage
of me; you will gain true beauty in return for appearance—like Diomede, gold in exchange for brass,”
(Symposium).
After several failed attempts at seduction, Alcibiades comes to realize that he will not succeed and it is the
virtue of Socrates that rebukes him. He comes to respect Socrates’ temperance. Alcibiades lust for Socrates
and his false claims of a desire to acquire wisdom are illustrations of the type of love described by Pausanius.
Alcibiades may appear to have platonically loved Socrates, but it is more certain that Socrates truly loved in
this manner of which he spoke he learned from Diotima and is the very essence of platonic love..

In Praise of Love Adorned: Plato's Symposium :A lecture by Professor Emil J. Piscitelli

http://members.aol.com/thelogos/sym.htm

The Title of the Symposium by Christopher Planeaux

http://plato.evansville.edu/commentary/planeaux/sym_title.htm
Bibliography of Print Resources:
Sexuality in Fifth-Century Athens by Brian Arkins
http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/94/Arkins94.html

Plato's Legacy
Plato's flawless sense of style and form lead to logical and aesthetic coherence displayed in his dialogues.
His legacy survives in what is known as Platonism.
Four characteristics of Platonism are:
1. The function of Philosophy is to arrive at some single systematic synthesis of all that is known.
2. The theory of the forms signifies that generalizations have explanatory value.
 50

3. Reality forms a single coherent system. Reality is not divided up into isolated departments.
4. The World of Thought and the World of Fact illustrates some value.
The TRUE , the GOOD and the BEAUTIFUL are ONE.
Plato's ideas have had an impact on every major social institution: religion, art, science, family, etc...
On Platonism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/
We shall see some of the consequences of his ideas in several of the other modules or units of this course.
With this we conclude this module and the course will now move on into specific issues that have captivated
thinkers around the world. These issues involve what are called the perennial questions that have fascinated
philosophers throughout the world for over two millennia. These are questions and issues that keep arising
wherever you have humans who take time to think. We shall go on now to examine several Issues in
Philosophy.
END OF CHAPTER 2