Plato

Question 1

How does Euthyphro initially respond to Socrates’ question to define piety?

Answer 1

‘The pious is doing what I am doing right now, to prosecute the wrongdoer’

Question 2

How does does Socrates respond to Euthyphro’s first definition of piety?

Answer 2

• he asks what wrongdoing is
• he explains that Euthyphro only gives examples
• Socrates insists that a proper definition of piety must be sufficient to include all instances of that virtue

Question 3

What is Euthyphro’s second definition of piety?

Answer 3

What is pious is what is dear to the Gods

Question 4

How does Socrates respond to Euthyphro’s second definition of piety?

Answer 4

• Socrates asks what is dear to the Gods
• it is not clear what makes anything dear to the Gods
• the God’s disagree on what is dear to one god and another
• the same thing, therefore, is pious and impious —> contradiction
• Socrates’ solution: what is dear to all Gods is pious
• Euthyphro dilemma: is something pious because it is dear to the Gods, or is something loved by the Gods because it is pious

Question 5

What is Euthyphro’s 3rd definition of piety?

Answer 5

What is pious is what is of necessity just

Question 6

What is Socrates’ response to Euthyphro’s 3rd definition of piety?

Answer 6

• Euthyphro is determining one view with another that is equally hard to define

Question 7

How does Euthyphro move in from is claim that piety is justice? And what is Socrates’ response?

Answer 7

He says that piety is a part of justice

Socrates asks which part

Euthyphro says it is the part that is concerned with the Gods

Socrates asks what concern for the God’s means - gods do not need our concern, they do not achieve anything with our help

Question 8

What is Euthyphro’s fourth definition of piety?

Answer 8

Piety is knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray, how to give to the Gods and how to beg from them

Question 9

How does Socrates respond to Euthyphro’s fourth definition of piety?

Answer 9

So, what we give to the Gods is dear to them, and pious is what is dear to the Gods —> this could relate to anything

Question 10

What is the conclusion of the Euthyphro dialogue?

Answer 10

Aporia

Question 11

What are the issues provoked by the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma?

Answer 11

If the Gods love something because it is pious then morality would be above the Gods which challenges ideas of omnipotence

Question 12

What are issues provoked by the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma?

Answer 12

If something is pious because the Gods love it then morality would be arbitrary. There is a mix up of cause and effect. Gives a necessary truth instead of a definition.

Question 13

What is the main question of the Meno?

Answer 13

Can virtue be taught?

Question 14

What are the different definitions of virtue given in the Meno?

Answer 14

• virtue is given by nature
• virtue needs practice
• virtue is given by the Gods
• virtue is teachable

Question 15

What are the key ideas introduced by the Meno?

Answer 15

• the idea that the soul is eternal, knows everything and recollects in order to learn
• virtue as a kind of wisdom

Question 16

How does Meno first define virtue?

Answer 16

He says that there are different virtues for different people (men, women, children)

Question 17

What is the problem with plurality re virtue?

Answer 17

Socrates says there must be a common value behind these different variations which defines virtue

Question 18

What is Meno’s second definition of virtue?

Answer 18

Virtue is split into different particular virtues: justice, moderation etc

Question 19

How does Socrates respond to Meno’s second definition of virtue and what is problematic about this response?

Answer 19

You have to achieve your virtues in a just way for it to be a virtue

Problem is that justice is a subset of virtue

Question 20

What is Meno’s third definition of virtue? What is Socrates’ response?

Answer 20

To be able to rule over people

• ruling has to be just not corrupt
• yet just definition is circular
• meno only gives examples of virtue rather than defining it

Question 21

What is Meno’s fourth definition of virtue? What is Socrates’ response?

Answer 21

Virtue is to desire beautiful things and to have the power to acquire them

• Socrates: no one desires anything that is bad, because people think bad things appear good. If people do something that is bad, it is only because they don’t know better.
• what is enquiring good things?
• meno: gold, silver, offices
• Socrates: is it always good to acquire these things if you can’t always acquire them justly and piously?
• menu disentangles material from virtue

Question 22

What is the result of the Meno dialogue?

Answer 22

Meno forces to accept he does not know and reconsiders his idea of virtue

Question 23

How does Socrates argue that virtue is teachable ?

Answer 23

1. Of the things that benefit us, some are beneficial but at other times harmful
2. The only thing that is always beneficial is wisdom
3. Virtue is always beneficial
4. Of virtue is wisdom it is therefore teachable

Question 24

What is a criticism to Socrates’ claim that virtue is teachable?

Answer 24

The fact that all good things, in order to be beneficial, must be accompanied by wisdom doesn’t really show that wisdom is the same thing as virtue

Question 25

How does Socrates argue that virtue is not teachable?

Answer 25

1. If virtue is teachable, we should have people that teach virtue, but there are no explicit teachers of virtue around 2. True opinion is ephemeral, subject to criticism and change 3. Opinion is different to knowledge, which does not change

Question 26

What is Socrates’ conclusion as to whether virtue is teachable?

Answer 26

Virtue neither comes by nature (because men are not my nature good), nor by teaching (no teachers) but as a gift from the God’s (not accompanied by understanding)

Question 27

What is the meno paradox?

Answer 27

How will you look for something when you don’t know in the least what it is? He cannot search for what he knows because he already knows it, and he cannot search for what he doesn’t know because he does not know what he’s looking for

Question 28

What are issues with Socrates’ explanation of the Meno Paradox?

Answer 28

He assumes knowledge is binary, rather than a matter of degrees With slave boy example, Socrates asks leading questions —> it can often be seen as a prof of a priori knowledge rather than recollection

Question 29

How does Socrates see the nature of knowledge in the meno?

Answer 29

He claims we can receive levy knowledge that we have been born with OR We are born with the innate ability to derive the logical consequences from or beliefs

Question 30

What is Socrates’ conclusion from the meno paradox?

Answer 30

He claims that we already have knowledge from birth or were born with the innate ability to reason. This is not a concrete argument, but he sees it better for us to believe we can search for things —> heuristic argument

Question 31

What questions does the Phaedo consider?

Answer 31

- how should we face death? - is the soul immortal? - what is the nature of the soul?

Question 32

What is the structure of the Phaedo dialogue?

Answer 32

1. Why philosophers should not be afraid of death 2. Argument against suicide 3. Does the soul go on living after death? 4. Objections from Simmas and Cebes 5. Socrates’ biography

Question 33

Why should philosophers not be afraid of death?

Answer 33

1. For philosophers strive for knowledge 2. The body is an obstacle in acquiring knowledge 3. Separating the soul from the body is the only way to acquire knowledge 4. Death is the separation of the body and the soul 5. Conc: philosophers should not fear death

Question 34

How did the sophists view suicide?

Answer 34

As a personal question

Question 35

How did the polis view suicide?

Answer 35

As a social question - everyone affected

Question 36

How does Socrates view suicide?

Answer 36

- it is not up to the self to choose - we are the possession of the Gods and they would punish us if we killed ourselves - we have responsibilities to society, family and Gods - not just ourselves

Question 37

What is the argument from opposites?

Answer 37

1. Everything that comes to be comes from its opposite 2. for something to become some F it cannot already be an F, because then it is not becoming F 3. You can Become F from another state, but not from nothing at all 4. All things come from their opposites 5. The opposite of being dead is being alive 6. Being alive comes from being dead 7. Conc: therefore, if the soul became alive and existed before death then it must become alive again after death - if the living never come from anything else but the dead, then this seems to be sufficient period that the soul goes on living after death

Question 38

What are issues with the argument from opposites?

Answer 38

- there are issues as to whether the opposite of contrary or contradictory: - if contrary the opposite of hot could be warm, as nothing can be both opposites, but not everything has to be in one of the two opposite states - for the contradictory, the opposite to being alive is not being alive and that includes everything that is not living (stones and numbers for example) from which being alive then could come to be - for an argument to be valid what we understand by ‘opposites’ must be the same in both cases, otherwise the argument is invalid

Question 39

What is the argument from recollection?

Answer 39

1. Learning is recollection 2. We can only recollect what we knew before and have forgotten 3. We learn things for the first time in this life 4. This acquiring knowledge must have taken place before we were born 5. Conclusion: our organ of learning, the soul must have existed before birth

Question 40

What are issues with the recollection argument?

Answer 40

- Plato binds this proof explicity to the existence of the forms - if these realities do not exist, this argument is altogether futile - this argument does not reason for the immortal soul, as Socrates only validly reasons that the soul existed before we were born, not that it will continue existing afterwards

Question 41

What is the combination of argument from opposites and recollection?

Answer 41

1. The soul must have existed before it was born and became alive (recollections argument) 2. All things come to be from their opposites 3. The opposite of being dead is being alive 4. Being alive comes from being dead 5. Conc: if the soul became alive and existed before death then it must also become alive after death

Question 42

What is the similarity argument?

Answer 42

1. The soul is more like the forma than sensible things 2. Forms: invisible, unchanging, and this incomposite and eternal 3. Perceptible objects: visible, changing, composite, perishable 4. The soul is invisible, like the forms and unlike ordinary physical objects 5. Conc: the soul, like the forms and unlike ordinary perceptible objects, is unchanging and eternal

Question 43

What type of argument is the similarity argument?

Answer 43

Argument from analogy

Question 44

What are objections for the similarity argument?

Answer 44

- Simmias: there are things that are invisible that perish when the visible thing they are associated with perish, for example, the attunement of a lyre. It could be the same with the soul: it is invisible, but perishes when the body perishes? - it is an inductive and it’s premises do not ensure its conclusion is true

Question 45

How do Simmias and Cebes’ object to Socrates’ arguments on the soul by claiming it is like the harmony of a lyre? How does Socrates respond?

Answer 45

- soul like harmony of a lyre: - seems to be a problem for the similarity argument, for the soul could, like a harmony, be similar to the forms in being invisible, but still be destroyed when the material basis is destroyed. - Socrates’ response: does not fit the recollection argument: if the soul is a harmony, it cannot exist before the elements from which it is composed —> cannot hold that learning is recollection since this presupposes that the soul exists before birth - differences between harmony and soul: - harmony is directed by its components, but this is not true for the soul - soul directs components - harmony can be more or less harmonised, but soul can not be more or less a soul - problems in combining this with vices and virtues

Question 46

How do Simmias and Cebes object to Socrates’ view that the soul is eternal?

Answer 46

They say that the soul is long-lasting but not eternal - coat example: can outlive owner but won’t last forever - just because the soul hasn’t died before doesn’t mean it won’t die soon

Question 47

How does Socrates use his biography in the Phaedo to explore necessary and sufficient causation?

Answer 47

- he explains that he was disappointed by Anaxagoras as his sense of cause was limited to the mind not physical things; he assumed that everything contains a seed of everything else in it - he criticises the pre socratics (Pythagoreans) because they focused only on physical causes not abstract ones - Socrates sought to explain the world in terms of both physical and abstract causes, which he contains in sufficient and necessary causes

Question 48

What is Socrates’ criteria for causes?

Answer 48

1. Two different causes cannot have the same effect 2. The same cause cannot have opposite effects 3. A cause can’t be the opposite to the effect it has

Question 49

How does Socrates understand cause in comparison to modern understanding?

Answer 49

He is not looking for causes of actions but for causes for something to have a certain property, and also the causes or reasons are not events but the things responsible

Question 50

What is Socrates’ final argument for the immortality of the soul?

Answer 50

1. no F can ever admit its opposite 2. When the opposite of F approaches, F either flees or is destroyed 3. Some things x while not being F are necessarily always connected with F 4. When the opposite approaches, x will flee or be destroyed 5. The soul is always connected with life 6. The opposite of life is death 7. Soul will not admit death 8. Conc: soul is deathless