|
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY:
PLATO
WRITTEN WORKS
about 30 dialogues,
ranging from very short (~10 pages) to very long (Republic,
~300 pages; Laws, ~340 pages); a handful of letters.
BIOGRAPHY
¨
born, 427 B.C.
¨
student of Socrates, 407-399
¨
Socrates dies, 399
¨
founds “The Academy,” 387
¨
to Syracuse as political advisor, 367-365
¨
3 times visits Sicily, interacts with Pythagorean and Eleatic
thinkers
¨
dies, 347
KEY FEATURES
OF SOCRATIC TEACHING
¨
oral – social, personal, dynamic, playful
¨
dialectical – question & answer; search for definitions
¨
ignorance
¨
irony
SOME SIGNATURE
PLATONIC TEACHINGS
Theory of Recollection
¨
learning is a kind of remembering
¨
dialectic is maieutic
¨
intellect vs. sense, soul vs. body
Theory of the Forms (or “Ideas”)
What function do the Forms serve?
¨
Objects of knowledge
¨
Causes of being
What are the features of the Forms?
¨
One
¨
Separate
¨
Absolute
¨
Immutable
¨
Participated
Immortality of the Soul
¨
The soul is not itself, nor is it constituted from, something
physical
¨
The soul is essentially alive
(Greek psyche, “soul,” means “principle of life,”
whatever causes something to be alive)
¨
Vice, the evil of the soul, makes the soul worse but does
not destroy it
¨
Myth of the afterlife – punishment, reward, reincarnation |
