Plato (428BC-348BC)
- A. Introductory
remarks
- B. Some
moral (or affective) prerequisites for
being a true Philosopher rather than a Sophist
- C. The
Philosopher and death
- D. From
moral vision to
metaphysics: arguments for immortality
1. Introductory remarks
- 2. The first argument
- 3. An interlude: the
conditions for a
good argument
- 4. The second and
third arguments
- 5. Objections and
replies
- E. Three
notes on argumentation and
the limits of philosophical
reasoning
A. Introductory
remarks
- The term philosophy comes
from two Greek words, philos, which
means friend or lover, and sophia, which means
wisdom. So
philosophy
is the love of wisdom and, more importantly, the philosopher is the
friend
or, better, lover of wisdom.
- What is wisdom? The ideal for the philosopher is
the
attainment of
a comprehensive and systematic elaboration of the first principles of
being
that provides definitive answers to fundamental questions about the
origins,
nature, and destiny of the universe and about the good for human beings
and the ways to obtain it. And such wisdom is meant to be
action-guiding.
In the Republic Plato's injunction is in effect:
"Become wise
yourself, or if you are incapable of it, let yourself be guided by one
who is truly wise."
- The intellectual component of philosopher's quest
encompasses ethical,
metaphysical, and epistemic questions of the sort Plato discusses in
his
dialogues:
ETHICAL or MORAL
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METAPHYSICAL
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EPISTEMIC
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virtue (the good)
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being/becoming
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truth
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law (the right)
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appearance/reality
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knowledge
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justice
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power
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certitude
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friendship
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causality and freedom
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perception
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courage
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the nature of God
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explanation
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love
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space & time
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philosophical method
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piety
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the soul and immortality
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dialectical argument
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- But perhaps the more important question is: Who
and
what is the
philosopher? And here the notion of singleminded love becomes
important. For it is love for wisdom and the ideal of an
intellectually,
morally, and spiritually integrated life that drives the true
philosopher.
This is why Socrates and Plato insist that there are affective,
as well as intellectual, prerequisites for being a
philosopher.
This is crucial for understanding both the motivation and the method of
the philosopher. And, indeed, this will be one of the main themes
of this course. See Apology, 38A.
- With this in mind we can understand the early
dialogues
of Plato as exhibiting
philosophy in a state that is defective in various ways--e.g., in
Socrates's
coming across as simply a smart aleck in conversations with those who
are
not motivated by love of wisdom and, perhaps more significantly, in the
motivations of the young men (like Plato) who are attracted to
Socrates.
This is counterfeit philosophy as practiced by the sophists, those who
may look and sound like philosophers on the surface, yet whose
motivation
is not the love of wisdom and truth, but simply the desire to expose
the
intellectual shortcomings of their interlocuters or to persuade those
who
are led by their passions. When philosophical argumentation is carried
on in such an atmosphere, it will be barren and unable to proceed very
far. More on this later. The Apology and Phaedo
are excellent 'middle'
dialogues for raising
these issues, since it is in the middle dialogues that the portrait of
the true philosopher emerges. (The forbidding 'later' dialogues are
only for those who have passed the first test and are equipped to
handle
the intellectual challenges, i.e., philosophy majors!)
- Even
if philosophy as so described doesn't sound attractive to you, there is
yet another, less ennobling, purpose for being exposed to the great
philosophers, viz., to get to know yourself better. Each of us operates
by a set of 'first principles', i.e., basic assumptions that we take
for granted without question. The problem is that often we do not even
realize that we have such principles; further, even if we do realize
it, these first principles remain unexamined in the sense that we do
not understand where they come from or what their consequences are. We
do not ask whether it is good to
have such-and-such as a first principle. In this sense, we do not know
ourselves. Good philosophy is meant to help us identify and examine our
own deepest assumptions. In that sense it helps us at least to know
ourselves. This is at least a necessary, if not sufficient, condition
for being wise.
B. Some moral
(or affective)
prerequisites
for being a true Philosopher rather than a Sophist
- Detachment from worldly goods
(not tempted by
wealth, reputation
and fame, good connections, creature comforts, social standing, etc.) (Phaedo,
64D-65A and Apology, 29D-E & 36B-E).
- Singleminded and singlehearted devotion
to the truth
and wisdom
(unity or integrity of life) (Apology, 41D-E).
- Willingness to stand in opposition to
the "common
wisdom" (courage)
(Apology, 28B-31C)
- Intellectual humility
(docility but not
gullibility) (Apology,
23B)
- Sense of being called
(vocation) to the
practice of a way of
life (Apology, 37E-38A)
One place where these traits are especially important and evident is
in dialectical (back-and-forth) discussion of important philosophical
issues,
such as the immortality of the soul. I will return to this below
C. The
Philosopher and death (Phaedo,
61C-69E)
D. From moral
vision to metaphysics:
arguments for
immortality
- Philosophy is a search for truth
as well as
for a challenging or
inspiring vision. Socrates has put forth what many take to be an
inspiring vision of human perfection. Now he is asked to dig deeper
and defend this view against objections. (It is worth asking, though,
whether Socrates should abandon his convictions about the meaning of
his
life if he can't come up with compelling answers to the objections
raised
by Simmias and Cebes. What, after all, are the alternatives?--it
is always important to ask this question.
More below.)
- Arguments and their contexts: norms of
plausibility
and the pitfall of
the detached argument. It's one thing to raise objections; it's another
thing to propose an alternative comprehensive account and to explain
why someone might have been misled by the argument in question. For a
true
philosopher, the two are intimately connected.
- A fruitful piece of philosophical dialectic can
take
place only between
people who have both moral and intellectual excellence. In the Phaedo,
it is only the two visitors from Thebes, Simmias and Cebes, who
qualify. The others seem to be morally good, but not very gifted or
very well trained
intellectually. They are, after all, Socrates's friends and admirers
who have come to console him. In Plato's Republic,
on the
other hand, there is a character, Thrasymachus, who is intellectually
gifted
but morally corrupt, and his conversation with Socrates is flawed
because
he has no self-control. To make the point, Plato later puts the
strongest
argument for Thrasymachus's position into the mouth of two characters
who
qualify as philosophers but do not even believe the position they argue
so well for. (Remember this later in the course when Mill claims
that only a person who accepts a given position can argue really well
for
it.)
- 2.
The first argument: The argument
from opposites (70B-72E)
- Simmias: The soul is a
harmony of the bodily
elements and not an
independent thing.
- Socrates: If so, then
there is no
recollection--but you have already
accepted recollection. Also, if so, then there is no difference between
wickedness and righteousness.
- Cebes: The soul may not
outlast an
indefinite number of bodies;
it might wear out.
- Socrates: The soul is not
the sort of thing
that can have intrinsic
principles of deterioration or corruption.
E.
Three notes on argumentation and
the limits of philosophical
reasoning
- Note Simmias's remark at 85C-D. The limits of
dialectical argumentation.
- This gives rise to the oration against misology
(i.e., the hatred
of reasoned discourse or argumentation) at 89D-91C. This section
of the dialogue raises some questions:
- Notice that at the end of the dialogue Socrates
"breaks out" into a
myth about the afterlife and the judgment and disposition of souls
according
to their merits. Plato often uses myth (or a likely story)
to
mark
the limits of philosophical reasoning. But the fact that philosophical
reasoning
and argumentation have their limits does not dispense us from the
necessity
of deciding how to live our lives and what commitments we should make.
The
alternative seems to be simply to follow whatever desires we happen to
have
without asking whether or not we should have them.
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