Life of Socrates

SOCRATES, son of the statuary Sophroniscus and of the midwife Phaenarete, was born at Athens, not earlier than 471 B.C. nor later than May or June 469 B.C. As a youth he received the customary instruction in gymnastics and music; and in after years he made himself acquainted with geometry and astronomy and studied the methods and the doctrines of the leaders of Greek thought and culture. He began life as a sculptor; and in the 2nd century A.D. a group of the Graces, supposed to be his work, was still to be seen on the road to the Acropolis. But he soon abandoned art and gave himself to what may best be called education, conceiving that he had a divine commission, witnessed by oracles, dreams and signs, not indeed to teach any positive doctrine, but to convict men of ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, and by so doing to promote their intellectual and moral improvement.

Socrates served as a hoplite at Potidaea (432 - 429 B.C.), where on one occasion he saved the life of Alcibiades, at Delium (424), and at Amphipolis (422). In these campaigns his bravery and endurance were conspicuous. But while he thus performed the ordinary duties of a Greek citizen with credit, he neither attained nor sought political position. His “divine voice,” he said, had warned him to refrain from politics, presumably because office would have entailed the sacrifice of his principles and the abandonment of his proper vocation. Yet in 406 he was a member of the senate; and on the first day of the trial of the victors of Arginusae, being president of the prytanis, he resisted: first, in conjunction with his colleagues, afterwards, when they yielded, alone, the illegal and unconstitutional proposal of Callixenus, that the fate of the eight generals should be decided by a single vote of the assembly.

Not less courageous than this opposition to the civium ardor prava jubentium was his disregard of the vultus instantis tyranni two years later. During the reign of terror of 404 the Thirty, anxious to implicate in their crimes men of repute who might otherwise have opposed their plans, ordered five citizens, one of whom was Socrates, to go to Salamis and bring thence their destined victim Leon. Socrates alone disobeyed. But though he was exceptionally obnoxious to the Thirty as appears not only in this incident, but also in their threat of punishment under a special ordinance forbidding “the teaching of the art of argument,” it was reserved for the reconstituted democracy to bring him to trial and to put him to death.

In 399, four years after the restoration and the amnesty, he was indicted as an offender against public morality. His accusers were Meletus the poet, Anytus the tanner and Lycon the orator, all of them members of the democratic or patriot party who had returned from Phyle with Thrasybulus. The accusation ran thus: “Socrates is guilty, firstly, of denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing new divinities, and, secondly, of corrupting the young.”

In his unpremeditated defense, so far from seeking to conciliate his judges, Socrates defied them. He was found guilty by 280 votes, it is supposed, against 220. Meletus having called for capital punishment, it now rested with the accused to make a counter-proposition; and there can be little doubt that had Socrates without further remark suggested some smaller but yet substantial penalty, the proposal would have been accepted. But to the amazement of the judges and the distress of his friends, Socrates proudly declared that for the services which he had rendered to the city he deserved, not punishment, but the reward of a public benefactor - maintenance in the Prytaneum at the cost of the state; and although at the close of his speech he professed himself willing to pay a fine of one mina, and upon the urgent entreaties of his friends raised the amount of his offer to thirty minas, he made no attempt to disguise his indifference to the result. His attitude exasperated the judges, and the penalty of death was decreed by an increased majority.

Then in a short address Socrates declared his contentment with his own conduct and with the sentence. Whether death was a dreamless sleep, or a new life in Hades, where he would have opportunities of testing the wisdom of the heroes and the sages of antiquity, in either case he esteemed it a gain to die. In the same spirit he refused to take advantage of a scheme arranged by his friend Crito for an escape from prison.

Under ordinary circumstances the condemned criminal drank the cup of hemlock on the day after the trial; but in the case of Socrates the rule that during the absence of the sacred ship sent annually to Delos no one should be put to death caused an exceptional delay. For thirty days he remained in imprisonment, receiving his intimates and conversing with them in his accustomed manner. How in his last conversation be argued that the wise man will regard approaching death with a cheerful confidence Plato relates in the Phaedo; and, while the central argument which rests the doctrine of the soul’s immortality upon the theory of ideas must be accounted Platonic, in all other respects the narrative, though not that of an eye witness, has the air of accuracy and truth.

http://www.2020site.org/socrates/

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14119a.htm

The Philosophy of Socrates

The most interesting and influential thinker in the fifth century was Socrates, whose dedication to careful reasoning transformed the entire enterprise. Since he sought genuine knowledge rather than mere victory over an opponent, Socrates employed the same logical tricks developed by the Sophists to a new purpose, the pursuit of truth. Thus, his willingness to call everything into question and his determination to accept nothing less than an adequate account of the nature of things make him the first clear exponent of critical philosophy.

Although he was well known during his own time for his conversational skills and public teaching, Socrates wrote nothing, so we are dependent upon his students (especially Xenophon and Plato) for any detailed knowledge of his methods and results. The trouble is that Plato was himself a philosopher who often injected his own theories into the dialogues he presented to the world as discussions between Socrates and other famous figures of the day. Nevertheless, it is usually assumed that at least the early dialogues of Plato provide a (fairly) accurate representation of Socrates himself

Euthyphro: What is Piety?

Specifically, Socrates systematically refutes Euthyphro's suggestion that what makes right actions right is that the gods love (or approve of) them. First, there is the obvious problem that, since questions of right and wrong often generate interminable disputes, the gods are likely to disagree among themselves about moral matters no less often than we do, making some actions both right and wrong. Socrates lets Euthypro off the hook on this one by aggreeing—only for purposes of continuing the discussion—that the gods may be supposed to agree perfectly with each other. (Notice that this problem arises only in a polytheistic culture.)

More significantly, Socrates generates a formal dilemma from a (deceptively) simple question: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (Euthyphro 10 a) Neither alternative can do the work for which Euthyphro intends his definition of piety. If right actions are pious only because the gods love them, then moral rightness is entirely arbitrary, depending only on the whims of the gods. If, on the other hand, the gods love right actions only because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine source of values, which we might come to know independently of their love.

In fact, this dilemma proposes a significant difficulty at the heart of any effort to define morality by reference to an external authority. (Consider, for example, parallel questions with a similar structure: "Do my parents approve of this action because it is right, or is it right because my parents approve of it?" or "Does the College forbid this activity because it is wrong, or is it wrong because the College forbids it?") On the second alternative in each case, actions become right (or wrong) solely because of the authority's approval (or disapproval); its choice, then, has no rational foundation, and it is impossible to attribute laudable moral wisdom to the authority itself. So this horn is clearly unacceptable. But on the first alternative, the authority approves (or disapproves) of certain actions because they are already right (or wrong) independently of it, and whatever rational standard it employs as a criterion for making this decision must be accessible to us as well as to it. Hence, we are in principle capable of distinguishing right from wrong on our own.

Thus, an application of careful techniques of reasoning results in genuine (if negative) progress in the resolution of a philosophical issue. Socrates's method of insistent questioning at least helps us to eliminate one bad answer to a serious question. At most, it points us toward a significant degree of intellectual independence. The character of Euthyphro, however, seems unaffected by the entire process, leaving the scene at the end of the dialogue no less self-confident than he had been at its outset. The use of Socratic methods, even when they clearly result in a rational victory, may not produce genuine conviction in those to whom they are applied.

http://socrates.clarke.edu/

http://www.sicetnon.cogito.de/artikel/historie/baker.htm

Links for Socrates

http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm

http://www.san.beck.org/SOCRATES4-What.html

http://www.1upinfo.com/encyclopedia/S/Socrates.html

http://www.str.org/free/studies/socratic.htm

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socrateslinks.html

Morality Play

Welcome to Morality Play.

In this activity you will be presented with 19 different scenarios. In each case, you will be asked to make a judgment about what is the morally right thing to do. When you have answered all the questions, you will be presented with an analysis of your responses which should reveal some interesting things about your moral framework and how it compares to others who have completed the activity.

Before starting Morality Play, it is important to bear the following in mind: At no time in the activity will your responses be judged to be 'correct' or 'incorrect'.

You should respond with what you think is the morally right thing to do, which may not be the same as what you would actually do. Several questions talk about 'moral obligation'. In this activity, to say you are morally obliged to do something means that, in order to behave morally, you must do that thing. When the moral obligation is 'strong', this means not doing what is obligated of you is a serious wrongdoing; when the obligation is 'weak', failing to do what is obligated of you is still a wrongdoing, but not a serious one.

Finally, remember to read each scenario very carefully. You will find that there are similarities between some of the scenarios. However, don't let this lure you into responding without thinking - each scenario needs at least some thought!

Click here to begin

Life of Plato

Plato (circa 428-c. 347 BC) was born to an aristocratic family in Athens. His father, Ariston, was believed to have descended from the early kings of Athens. Perictione, his mother, was distantly related to the 6th- century BC lawmaker Solon. When Plato was a child, his father died, and his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an associate of the statesman Pericles. As a young man Plato had political ambitions, but he became disillusioned by the political leadership in Athens. He eventually became a disciple of Socrates, accepting his basic philosophy and dialectical style of debate: the pursuit of truth through questions, answers, and additional questions. Plato witnessed the death of Socrates at the hands of the Athenian democracy in 399 BC. Perhaps fearing for his own safety, he left Athens temporarily and traveled to Italy, Sicily, and Egypt. In 387 Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the institution often described as the first European university. It provided a comprehensive curriculum, including such subjects as astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory, and philosophy. Aristotle was the Academy's most prominent student. Pursuing an opportunity to combine philosophy and practical politics, Plato went to Sicily in 367 to tutor the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, in the art of philosophical rule. The experiment failed. Plato made another trip to Syracuse in 361, but again his engagement in Sicilian affairs met with little success. The concluding years of his life were spent lecturing at the Academy and writing. He died at about the age of 80 in Athens in 348 or 347 BC.

Works of Plato

Plato wrote 26 dialogues on various philosophical themes, with Socrates as the main character in most of them. The exact ordering of the dialogues is not known, but they can be roughly assigned to three periods, the early, middle, and late. The early dialogues, begun after 399 B.C., are seen by many as memorials to the life and teaching of Socrates. Three of them, the Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, describe Socrates' conduct immediately before, during, and after his trial. The early writings include a series of short dialogues that end with no clear and definitive solution to the problems raised. Characteristically, Plato has Socrates ask questions of the form "What is X?" and insist that he wants not examples or instances of X but what it is to be X, the essential nature, or Form, of X. In the Charmides the discussion concerns the question "What is temperance?"; in the Laches, "What is courage?"; in the Euthyphro, "What is holiness?"

The dialogues of the middle period were begun after the founding of the Academy. Here he shows some dissatisfaction with his earlier negative procedure and adopts more openly positive doctrines in the discourses of Socrates. The dialogues of this period include Plato's generally accepted greatest work, the Republic. It begins with the question "what is justice?" and articulates his ideal political community and the proper education of its citizens. Justice is revealed to be a principle of each thing performing the function most appropriate to its nature. This principle is embodied politically in the idea that citizens perform the tasks for which they are best suited. In individuals the principle is to be discovered when each part of the soul performs its proper function. Reason is the ruler in both instances, and combined with the virtue of temperance the rule of reason is the harmonious rule of the individual and society. The society would be ruled by philosopher-kings, and their children would receive a superior education with a very military gymnastic part and a non-degrading music part, since degrading art corrupts the soul. The best students who were destined to be leaders would receive further education in advanced mathematics. Other middle dialogues include the Phaedo, in which he considers the nature of the soul and portrays the philosophical life as a separation of soul from body, the Symposium, in which Socrates portrays love as the creative attraction toward the beautiful and the good itself, Gorgias, a consideration of several ethical questions, and Meno, a discussion of the nature of knowledge.

In the late dialogues Socrates recedes into the background. The best of the late dialogues are Parmenides and Theaetetus. In the Parmenides the theory of Forms is examined closely, and arguments are presented to show that the Forms cannot be entities of the same sort as those whose being they explain. The Theaetetus is Plato's most successful work in analytical philosophy, in which perception, knowledge, truth, and subjectivity are examined. The Sophist shows the relation between particulars and Forms. The Timaeus presents a description of the origin and nature of the universe, and the Laws considers a model constitution for an ideal city. The Philebus devotes time to a problem left open in the Republic; "what is the Good?"

Plato's theory of knowledge is found in the Republic, particularly in his discussion of the image of the divided line and the myth of the cave. In the former, Plato distinguishes between two levels of awareness: opinion and knowledge. Claims or assertions about the physical or visible world, including both commonsense observations and the propositions of science, are opinions only. Some of these opinions are well founded; some are not; but none of them counts as genuine knowledge. The higher level of awareness is knowledge, because there reason, rather than sense experience, is involved. Reason, properly used, results in intellectual insights that are certain, and the objects of these rational insights are the abiding universals, the eternal Forms or substances that constitute the real world.

The myth of the cave describes individuals chained deep within the recesses of a cave. Bound so that vision is restricted, they cannot see one another. The only thing visible is the wall of the cave upon which appear shadows cast by models or statues of animals and objects that are passed before a brightly burning fire. Breaking free, one of the individuals escapes from the cave into the light of day. With the aid of the sun, that person sees for the first time the real world and returns to the cave with the message that the only things they have seen heretofore are shadows and appearances and that the real world awaits them if they are willing to struggle free of their bonds. The shadowy environment of the cave symbolizes for Plato the physical world of appearances. Escape into the sun-filled setting outside the cave symbolizes the transition to the real world, the world of full and perfect being, the world of Forms, which is the proper object of knowledge.

The theory of Forms may best be understood in terms of mathematical entities. A circle, for instance, is defined as a plane figure composed of a series of points, all of which are equidistant from a given point. No one has ever actually seen such a figure, however. What people have actually seen are drawn figures that are more or less close approximations of the ideal circle. In fact, when mathematicians define a circle, the points referred to are not spatial points at all; they are logical points. They do not occupy space. Nevertheless, although the Form of a circle has never been seen—-indeed, could never be seen—-mathematicians and others do in fact know what a circle is. That they can define a circle is evidence that they know what it is. For Plato, therefore, the Form "circularity" exists, but not in the physical world of space and time. It exists as a changeless object in the world of Forms or Ideas, which can be known only by reason. Forms have greater reality than objects in the physical world both because of their perfection and stability and because they are models, resemblance to which gives ordinary physical objects whatever reality they have. Circularity, squareness, and triangularity are excellent examples, then, of what Plato meant by Forms. An object existing in the physical world may be called a circle or a square or a triangle only to the extent that it resembles ("participates in" is Plato's phrase) the Form "circularity" or "squareness" or "triangularity."

Plato extended his theory beyond the realm of mathematics. Indeed, he was most interested in its application in the field of social ethics. The theory was his way of explaining how the same universal term can refer to so many particular things or events. The word justice, for example, can be applied to hundreds of particular acts because these acts have something in common, namely, their resemblance to, or participation in, the Form "justice." An individual is human to the extent that he or she resembles or participates in the Form "humanness." If "humanness" is defined in terms of being a rational animal, then an individual is human to the extent that he or she is rational. A particular act is courageous or cowardly to the extent that it participates in its Form. An object is beautiful to the extent that it participates in the Idea, or Form, of beauty. Everything in the world of space and time is what it is by virtue of its resemblance to, or participation in, its universal Form. The ability to define the universal term is evidence that one has grasped the Form to which that universal refers.

Plato conceived the Forms as arranged hierarchically; the supreme Form is the Form of the Good, which, like the sun in the myth of the cave, illuminates all the other Ideas. There is a sense in which the Form of the Good represents Plato's movement in the direction of an ultimate principle of explanation. The Good is perfect and desired by all who know it. In the Philebus he wonders, Is it pleasure or knowledge? He shows that pleasure cannot be the Good; pleasures are often accompanied by false opinions, and great pleasures and pains occur in bad states of body or soul. Knowledge is not perfect either, because some arts are more exact than others. The Good can be neither knowledge nor pleasure alone, but a mixture of the best parts of both, which include the sciences and those pleasures that are pure and necessary. The best parts of this mixture are beauty, symmetry, and truth, which are all closer to knowledge than pleasure. He finally gives the order of value as measure, beauty, mind, science, and pure pleasure.

Plato had an essentially antagonistic view of art and the artist, although he approved of certain religious and moralistic kinds of art. His approach is related to his theory of Forms. A beautiful flower, for example, is a copy or imitation of the universal Forms "flowerness" and "beauty." The physical flower is one step removed from reality, that is, the Forms. A picture of the flower is, therefore, two steps removed from reality. This also meant that the artist is two steps removed from knowledge, and, indeed, Plato's frequent criticism of the artists is that they lack genuine knowledge of what they are doing. Artistic creation, Plato observed, seems to be rooted in a kind of inspired madness.

Links for Plato

http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/plat.htm

http://www.friesian.com/plato.htm

http://www.crystalinks.com/plato.html

http://www.findlink.dk/plato/plato.htm

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115123

http://books.mirror.org/gb.plato.html

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Plato.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm

http://www.nd.edu/~plato/

http://killdevilhill.com/platochat/wwwboard.html

The Allegory of the Cave

The Allegory of the Cave can be found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic, a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice. Often regarded as a utopian blueprint, The Republic is dedicated toward a discussion of the education required of a Philosopher-King.

Articles on 'The Allegory of the Cave'

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/AllegoryoftheCave.htm

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_allegory_of_the_cave

http://www.plotinus.com/plato_allegory_of_the_cave.htm

http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq002.htm

Plato's Allegory of the Cave and its relation to 'The Matrix' and'The Truman Show'

http://www.geocities.com/freeyourbrain/cave.htm

A Film Update of Plato's Cave?

http://www.uh.edu/~cfreelan/courses/cave.html

Life of Aristotle

Aristotle was born in Stagira in north Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367 he was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato's Academy until about 347 -- the picture at the top of this page, taken from Raphael's fresco The School of Athens, shows Aristotle and Plato (Aristotle is on the. right). Though a brilliant pupil, Aristotle opposed some of Plato's teachings, and when Plato died, Aristotle was not appointed head of the Academy. After leaving Athens, Aristotle spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great; after Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own, known as the Lyceum. After Alexander's death, Athens rebelled against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle's political situation became precarious. To avoid being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.

Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises. The 30 that survive touch on an enormous range of philosophical problems, from biology and physics to morals to aesthetics to politics. Many, however, are thought to be "lecture notes" instead of complete, polished treatises, and a few may not be the work of Aristotle but of members of his school.

Works of Aristotle

Whereas Aristotle's teacher Plato had located ultimate reality in Ideas or eternal forms, knowable only through reflection and reason, Aristotle saw ultimate reality in physical objects, knowable through experience. Objects, including organisms, were composed of a potential, their matter, and of a reality, their form; thus, a block of marble -- matter -- has the potential to assume whatever form a sculptor gives it, and a seed or embryo has the potential to grow into a living plant or animal form. In living creatures, the form was identified with the soul; plants had the lowest kinds of souls, animals had higher souls which could feel, and humans alone had rational, reasoning souls. In turn, animals could be classified by their way of life, their actions, or, most importantly, by their parts.

Though Aristotle's work in zoology was not without errors, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time, and remained the ultimate authority for many centuries after his death. His observations on the anatomy of octopus, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and many other marine invertebrates are remarkably accurate, and could only have been made from first-hand experience with dissection. Aristotle described the embryological development of a chick; he distinguished whales and dolphins from fish; he described the chambered stomachs of ruminants and the social organization of bees; he noticed that some sharks give birth to live young -- his books on animals are filled with such observations, some of which were not confirmed until many centuries later.

Aristotle's classification of animals grouped together animals with similar characters into genera (used in a much broader sense than present-day biologists use the term) and then distinguished the species within the genera. He divided the animals into two types: those with blood, and those without blood (or at least without red blood). These distinctions correspond closely to our distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates. The blooded animals, corresponding to the vertebrates, included five genera: viviparous quadrupeds (mammals), birds, oviparous quadrupeds (reptiles and amphibians), fishes, and whales (which Aristotle did not realize were mammals). The bloodless animals were classified as cephalopods (such as the octopus); crustaceans; insects (which included the spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, in addition to what we now define as insects); shelled animals (such as most molluscs and echinoderms); and "zoophytes," or "plant-animals," which supposedly resembled plants in their form -- such as most cnidarians.

Aristotle's thoughts on earth sciences can be found in his treatise Meteorology -- the word today means the study of weather, but Aristotle used the word in a much broader sense, covering, as he put it, "all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts." Here he discusses the nature of the earth and the oceans. He worked out the hydrologic cycle: "Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth." He discusses winds, earthquakes (which he thought were caused by underground winds), thunder, lightning, rainbows, and meteors, comets, and the Milky Way (which he thought were atmospheric phenomena). His model of Earth history contains some remarkably modern-sounding ideas:

The same parts of the earth are not always moist or dry, but they change according as rivers come into existence and dry up. And so the relation of land to sea changes too and a place does not always remain land or sea throughout all time, but where there was dry land there comes to be sea, and where there is now sea, there one day comes to be dry land. But we must suppose these changes to follow some order and cycle. The principle and cause of these changes is that the interior of the earth grows and decays, like the bodies of plants and animals. . . .

But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.

Where Aristotle differed most sharply from medieval and modern thinkers was in his belief that the universe had never had a beginning and would never end; it was eternal. Change, to Aristotle, was cyclical: water, for instance, might evaporate from the sea and rain down again, and rivers might come into existence and then perish, but overall conditions would never change.

In the later Middle Ages, Aristotle's work was rediscovered and enthusiastically adopted by medieval scholars. His followers called him Ille Philosophus (The Philosopher), or "the master of them that know," and many accepted every word of his writings -- or at least every word that did not contradict the Bible -- as eternal truth. Fused and reconciled with Christian doctrine into a philosophical system known as Scholasticism, Aristotelian philosophy became the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, some scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were criticized simply because they were not found in Aristotle. It is one of the ironies of the history of science that Aristotle's writings, which in many cases were based on first-hand observation, were used to impede observational science.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/aristotle.html

• Overview
• Motion and its Place in Nature
• Metaphysics
• Ethics
• Poetics

Links for Aristotle

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aristotle.html

http://members.tripod.com/~batesca/aristotle.html

http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/aristot2.html

http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/aris.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01713a.htm

http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery/rhetoric/figures/aristotle.html

http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/aristotle_info.html

http://www.newbanner.com/AboutPic/athena/raphael/nbi_aris.html

Aristotle, Classic Technique, and Greek Drama

http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/spectop007.html

Greek Dramatic Criticism

http://www.theatredatabase.com/ancient/greek_dramatic_criticism_001.html