Thrasymachus and Socrates PDF

PHIL 108 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY II D R. B Ü Ş R A A K K Ö K L E R KA R AT E K E L İ [Almost All The Sentences In This And The F o l l o w i n g P r e s e n t a t i o n s A r e Ta k e n Fr o m : S o c r a t e s To S a r t r e A n d B e y o n d : A H i s t o r y o f P...

PHIL 108 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY II D R. B Ü Ş R A A K K Ö K L E R KA R AT E K E L İ [Almost All The Sentences In This And The F o l l o w i n g P r e s e n t a t i o n s A r e Ta k e n Fr o m : S o c r a t e s To S a r t r e A n d B e y o n d : A H i s t o r y o f P h i l o s o p h y, S a m u e l E n o c h S t u m p f a n d J a m e s F i e s e r, N e w Yo r k : M c g r a w - h i l l , 2 0 0 7 ( 8 t h Edition).]  Thrasymachus Found in Plato’s masterpiece Republic. Asserted that - injustice is to be preferred to the life of justice, because unjust person is superior in character and intelligence. - Justice is pursued by simpletons and leads to weakness. - Justice is the interest of the stronger; laws are made by the ruling party for their own interest.  Thrasymachus This standpoint of Thrasymachus can be formulated as “Might is right”, which means that people should aggresively pursue their own interest in an unlimited form of self- assertion. What we see in Thrasymachus is the reduction of morality to power. (Nietzsche and  Socrates: the Beginning of ‘Genuine’ Philosophy  470-399.  Lived in Athens.  Wrote nothing. We know his teachings by 3 sources: Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato.  For him, the questions of human nature, truth, and goodness were more urgent than the questions of nature. (The center of focus in philosophy shifts with him.)  Socrates vs the Sophists  It is ironic that Socrates was both a keen critic of the Sophists and was seen as a Sophist (the latter because both undertook to analyse any and every subject).  The Sophists: equally good arguments could be advanced on either side of any issue. (Similar to the Skeptics, who argued that there’s no certain, reliable knowledge, or no moral standard.)  Socrates: used constant argumentation to seek out the basis for stable society and certain knowledge and a good life.  Same technique, yet different purposes.  The most important question of Socrates scholarship  Q: Which ideas of Plato are to be attributed to him?  Q: Whether Plato simply reports what Socrates actually taught or expresses his own ideas through the figure of Socrates?  Some’d answer: Plato simply reports what Socrates actually taught. So, Plato’d get credit only for the literary form (i.e. dialogue).  Aristotle: distinguishes between the philosophical contributions made by Plato and Socrates. (Socrates gets the credit for “inductive arguments and universal definitions”, whereas Plato developed the Theory of Forms, the view that the universal archetypes exist independently of the particular things that embody them.) [Archetype= “A typical example of something, or the original model of something from which others are copied.”] How much of Plato is in fact Socrates? We should accept that Aristotle’s position is the more reliable one, given that he discussed this with Plato in the Academy. To conclude, much of the earlier dialogues’re portrayals of Socrates’ philosophical activity, while the latter dialogues represent Plato’s own views, esp. The Theory of Forms.  The soul for Socrates One of the principal targets of Socrates was overcoming the relativism and skepticism of the Sophists. To achieve this, he had to discover a secure foundation upon which to build an edifice of knowledge. This foundation is the human soul: whose main activity is to know and govern a person’s daily conduct (knowledge and morality).  Dialectic à la Socrates  The surest way to attain reliable knowledge is through the practive of disciplined conversation, i.e. dialectic.  In it, all parties to the conversation’re forced to clarify their ideas; the final outcome of conversation is a clear statement of what is meant.  In the earlier Platonic dialogues, Socrates pretends to be ignorant about a subject and then tries to draw out from the other people their fullest possible knowledge about it. His assumption was that by progressively correcting incomplete or inaccurate notions, he could coax the truth out of everyone. He would expose contradictions lurking beneath the other person’s views (the technique of elenchus) and thereby force the person to abandon its misdrected opinion.  For Socrates, no unexamined idea is worth having; no unexamined life is worth living.  The Socratic Method  A short question-answer exchange What is X?  Elenchus (refutation, disproof, cross-examination) e.g. the Euthyphro---What is piety?  Intellectual Midwifery: Socrates asks questions so as to get the truth from the interlocutor who already possess that truth/knowledge. By asking questions he makes the interlocutor ‘give birth to truth.”  (Plato, Apology, 22d) Chaerephon --- Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi--- asked if there was anyone wiser than Socrates. συνῄδη οὐδὲν ἐπισταμένῳ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν = I was conscious that I knew practically nothing ἓν οἶδα, ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα = I know that I know nothing / all I know is that I know nothing / I know only one thing, that I know nothing.  The Concept, Form, or Definition  Some dialogues end inconclusively, because he was concerned not with imposing a set of dogmatic ideas upon his listeners but with leading them through an orderly process of thought.  He saw the definition as the instrument of clear thought, because terms have definite meanings (undermining the relativism of the Sophists).  Accordingly, he distinguishes between the particular and the universal/general. Whereas the former refers to, say, this beautiful flower, the latter to the concept of Beauty of which this flower partakes so as to make it a beautiful flower.  To understand the beautifulness of this flower, we should know not the particular, but the universal, i.e. the Definition/Concept/ Form.  The aim of Socratic dialogues: arriving at the the latter.  Socrates vs the Sophists  Knowledge has to do with our ability to discover in facts the abiding elements that remain after the facts disappear. (e.g. Beauty remains after the rose fades)  Now, we can recognise the main difference between the Sophists and Socrates. - The former: focused on the differences between different cultures; and concluded that all notions of justice and goodness are relative. - The latter: recognised that despite these differences, we’re all human beings (a universal basis behind the multiplicity); and concluded that we could, or should, investigate what Justice, Law, or Goodness, is.  Socrates Behind the world of facts (i.e. the differences of the particulars), there’s an order in things. This refers to teleology: the view that things have a function/purpose/telos and tend towards the good. E.g. the human being has a nature: rationality  acting rationally is the behaviour appropriate to the human nature  people ought to act rationally  The Metaphysical Status of the Forms: Socrates vs Plato  Q: Whether the universal concepts refer to some existing reality in the same way that particulars do?  A: Whether Socrates dealt with the problem of the metaphysical status of universals depends on whether we consider Plato or Socrates to be the author of the Theory of the Forms. Plato: the Forms’re the most real thing there are; they have a separate existence from the particular things we see. Aristotle: rejects the separate existence of the Forms; instead, universals exist only in the actual things (in re) we experience. Socrates himself didn’t separate the Forms; he only asserted the existence of an intelligible order lying behind the visible world.  Knowledge  Virtue  For Socrates, to know the good is to do the good. (By implication, vice or evil is the absence of knowledge; vice is ignorance.)  Therefore, noone ever indulges in vice or commits an evil act knowingly. Wrongdoing is always involuntary, being the product of ignorance.  This view of Socrates contradicts our common sense. If we understand ignorance as an act’s ability to produce happiness (namely, ignorance about what makes one’s soul as good as possible), then we could see it’s not so. To achieve happiness, one must know what really gives one happiness and what appears to give one happiness.  This view rests on the assumption that the fundamental structure of human being and virtuous behaviour are constant – contrary to the skepticism and relativism of the Sophists.  Socrates’ Trial and Death  Convinced that the care of the human soul should be our greatest concern, Socrates spent most of his time examining his own life, as well as the lives and thoughts of other Athenians.  As the political situation of Athens deteriorated, his incessant questioning of delicate issues became a problem. (see Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, p. 39)  In 399 BCE, he was brought to trial on the charge “of not worshipping the gods whom the State worships, but introducing new and unfamiliar religious practices; and, further, of corrupting the young. The prosecutor demands the death penalty.” (D. Laertius)  He could have gone into voluntary exile; instead, he remained at Athens and defended himself before a court (recorded in Plato’s Apology). To escape would be to defy and thereby injure Athens and its law.