PLATO (Lecture Notes)
I. Plato, born 427--d. 347 BC, on his 80th birthday.
A. Athletic in youth.
B. Before he was 20, he had written lyric and dramatic work.
1. Met Socrates in 407 B.C. at age 20. C. 398 B.C. travels to Megara to study with Euclid.
C. This influences at least two dialogues (Meno & Laws)
D. Returns to Athens, travels to Egypt, Cyrene (North Africa), Italy and Sicily. 1. In Sicily he is almost sold into slavery for his criticism of the government.
E. Opened the academy in 387 BC; taught for forty years.
1. Switched from dialectic to lecturing.
II. Periods of Writing: A. 398 to 387 BC:
Anti-sophistic, ethical period: Apology, Crito, Meno, Euthydemos, Gorgias, Ion.
B. 387 to 360 BC: metaphysical, constructive, literary period: Symposium, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Republic, Theatetus, Sophist.
C. 360-347BC: Mysticism and mathematics: Timeaus, Laws.
II. Plato's theory of metaphysics: the doctrine of ideas.
A. Flux (change, becoming) of Heraclitus vs. status (permanence) of Parmenides.
B. Result is new theory of reality: Change is illusion = the earth world;
permanence is ideal reality= noumenal world.
1. The philosopher produces reproductions of the ideal world which is too
bright for the newly initiated to see.
C. Universal ideas v. sense perception
1. rational thought v. experience
2. stable, validity v. individual, variable
3. permanence v. transience
4. being, reality v. becoming, appearance
D. Ideas or forms are spaceless, matterless, permanent.
1. All particulars in this world participate in their ideal forms in the noumenal world.
2. But they reveal it imperfectly.
3. The idea reveals the perfect potential for the form.
(a) Ideas must be efficient cause, energia, which
makes things become. Ideas are the life force of the entity and therefore are
more real than the entity.
4. Ideas are the final cause, telos, for they
determine the purpose or 'towards which' of the entity.
III. But how do we get to the world of ideas?
A. Finding the soul, recollecting, and transmigration.
B. The pyramid leading to God as ultimate initiator of energia and telos.
C. Therefore, there are two worlds: noumenal and
the phenomenal.
1. The soul mediates between these worlds.
2. But is the ideal world merely a glorification of the material, categorical
world. (Aristotle's turn.)
IV. The nature of the soul.
A. Reason carries the soul to the idea.
B. Senses carry the soul to the phenomenal.
C. The soul is composed of three parts:
1. Reason = the head. It's virtue is wisdom. In the
body politic, reason is the legislature.
2. Spiritual = the heart, produces courage and prudence. In the body politic,
spirit is the warrior class.
3. Appetites (pathe') in the organs, produces
moderation when controlled virtuously. In the body politic, appetites are the
workers.
D. How do we know the soul is real?
1. It is perpetual and self moving, self creating.
2. It is indestructible: vice can corrupt a soul but not destroy it.
3. The soul contains information it could not have received in this world (Meno).
4. It is immaterial and yet exists, therefore, it is permanent.
5. Each individual's longing for life proves the soul has tasted immortality.
V. Rhetorical implications of this theory:
A. Inquiry is preferred to persuasion.
B. Since there is a truth, reason is preferred to rhetoric.
C. The noble rhetoric would be dialectical, aimed at drawing out the soul and leading the student to God.
VI. These themes are manifest in Plato's most important dialogues.
A. Euthydemus The object of this attack on
sophistry is to show the difference between a truly philosophical argument and
one that is a trick.
1. Two Sophists banter a youth into confusion. Socrates rebukes them and then
with the proper questions straightens the poor youth out.
2. Lesson #1: Wisdom is the only good; ignorance is the only evil.
3. Lesson #2: Philosophy and political rhetoric are so different that someone
who participates in both will do little good either.
B. The Sophist This dialogue tries to demonstrate that the true rhetor uses his power to clear the soul of the illusions of this world; while the Sophist uses rhetoric to confuse the soul with more illusions. The true rhetor educates the citizens of his country; he gives them good reasons by which they can make decisions. The Sophist merely flatters and excites them.
C. Laches This dialogue focuses on the good citizen. Here two generals (Laches and Nicias) argue with Socrates over the question of whether you should train your son in military arts.
D. Gorgias The most important attack on the uses
of rhetoric by the Sophists. Isn't rhetoric corrupt when it is part of the art
of getting what one wants by fair means or foul?
1. Gorgias, and his pupils Polus, and Callicles
gather with Socrates.
2. Gorgias begins the debate with Socrates by arguing
that power and influence come with the ability to impress an audience. He is
the voice of this world.
3. Socrates replies that "rhetoric is the art of persuading an ignorant
multitude about the justice or injustice of a matter, without imparting any
real instruction." In dialectic the victor is clear, but often the
situation is clouded in rhetoric where several speak.
4. Gorgias replies that justice is a sufficient
practical knowledge of men and affairs to know what is conventionally moral in
any given case, i.e., audience analysis. Rhetoric is the art of persuading
people to bring about the greatest good.
5. Socrates replies that it can also bring about the greatest evil.
6. Gorgias says the subject of rhetoric is the
substance of speeches.
7. At this point Polus steps in to defend the
Sophists' position. He argues that the great good is power.
8. Socrates admires Polus' honesty, but Socrates
contends that rhetoric is not much use in the world because it is not an art, it does not rest on universal principles. It is a
knack.
9. Worse yet, it allows the guilty to go free. And don't, dear Polus,
argue that it defends the innocent, because that doesn't matter. It is better
to suffer an injustice than inflict one. Doing wrong is a great evil than
suffering at the hands of the wrong doer.
10. Polus surrenders to this attack and turns his
seat over to Callicles, to whom Socrates says, You are the only one here who is sincere.
11. Socrates says the role of a true rhetoric is to improve the people by
ending their ignorance, rather than pleasing them.
12. But Callicles argues that he must develop his
full talents to know who he is and that means becoming a man in the city.
"Anyone who is to live aright should suffer his appetites to grow to the
greatest extent and not check them, and through courage and intelligence should
be competent to minister to them at their greatest and to satisfy every
appetite with what it craves..."
13. Socrates is shocked and starts making long speeches pleading with Callicles to give up his views.
14. Callicles will have none of it. He accuses
Socrates of contradicting himself by engaging in mob oratory and says,
"[t]he truth, Socrates, which you proves to
follow is this: Luxury and intemperance and license, when they have sufficient
backing, are virtue and happiness."
15. Socrates makes one last plea: The afterworld in which we will be judged is
based on our true nature not the appearance we leave in the city. Rhetoric is
concerned with appearance, philosophy is concerned with reality.
E. The Phaedrus explores
the noble in three interesting speeches about love and rhetoric.
1. Phaedrus has just heard a speech about love by the
Sophist Lysias, and he thinks it is the best speech
he has ever heard.
2. Socrates proceeds to pick the speech apart after Phaedrus
repeats it. The bottom line is this: Don't believe anything because you admire
the language used, or you trust the source. Believe it because it is true. He
concludes that Lysias speech has been delivered
without true knowledge of the subject matter.
3. The second speech of the dialogue and the first on love by Socrates argues
that love has a wicked and corrupt side. Socrates admits when the speech is
over that it did not reveal what he really knew. 4. Just as he is about to
break a way unhappy with the physicality of the situation, Socrates receives
word from a daimon and now gives the third speech of
the dialogue and his second on love in which he sets out what have come to call
Platonic love. Here are some Passages: Every soul is immortal, for that which
moves itself is immortal... In the case of the human soul, it is a pair of
horses that the charioteer dominates: one of them is noble and handsome and of
good breeding, while the other is the very opposite, so that our charioteer
necessarily has a difficult time. . . When the soul is perfect and fully
winged, it soars on high and is responsible for all order in the universe; but
if it loses its wings, it is carried down until it can fasten on something
solid. It settles there, taking on an earthly body which seems to be
self-moving because of the soul within.... This is the Decree of Destiny:
whatever soul has followed in the train of a god and has caught sight of any
truth, it shall be free from harm until the next revolution.... when a man sees
beauty in this world and has a remembrance of true beauty from the noumenal, he begins to grow wings. .. the
man who partakes of this madness and loves beauty is called a lover."
Socrates concludes that the true lover loves the world of ideas and shares
these ideals with his lover. Together they reflect the light of truth; physical
love is only a manifestation of the spiritual love the lovers share. This
speech, he claims, is true to knowledge. 5. In the Phaedrus
one must define and divide one's topic. One must know the truth and therefore,
be a philosopher before one speaks. "Come out, children of my soul and
convince Phaedrus, who is the father of similar
beauties, that he will never be able to speak about anything unless he becomes
a philosopher." One must be true to knowledge and bring the other soul to
it. In love, as in noble rhetoric, both parties are
rewarded, both concentrate on the spiritual, and both propagate something new.
VII. Conclusion: A. Major principles B. Influence on Aristotle and the west.