• What are the two basic moral questions raised by Plato?
• What is Plato's teleology?
• How does Plato envision the soul?
• What is a healthy soul?
• What is ignorance?
• What are the results of ignorance?
• What are Plato's forms?
• Which individual acts with moral integrity & why?

Brief Biography  (427-347 B.C.)

Born in a wealthy and politically influential family.
Plato studied under Socrates
Plato began writing dialogues fifteen years after Socrates' tragic trial and death.
At 40 years of age he founded the Academy, precursor of today's university.
The Academy survived until 529 A.D. when Roman Emperor Justinian closed it.

What type of questions did Plato ask?
What is the good life?
What sort of individual should I strive to become?

Plato's Teleology
To know the answer, we must understand Plato's teleology.
Teleology refers to the proper function of any given thing.

"The development of anything follows from the purpose for which it was designed" (Falikowski 35).

Plato defines function as the task that something   is best or uniquely suited  to perform.   For example,  the pen's function is to write. If it writes smoothly and without skipping it is fulfilling its pen and is a good pen. A pruning knife is best suited for pruning. and the function of the ears is to hear.   Professions have their function too; a physician heals, a soldier defends, a teacher teaches.  Analogically, a man lives by reason.

Humans also have a function - and that is to perform our distinctively human function.

"Being less efficient than a robot on a factory assembly line, for instance, does not make us bad or morally deficient.  We are not designed by nature to be mindless machines. What we are designed to do and how we are supposed to function, according to Plato, can be best understood by turning to his explanation of the soul (Falikowski, Modern Philosophy for Modern Life 16)

Man's Tripartite Soul

Man has a tripartiite (check sp) soul : Reason, Spirit and Appetite, each part having a particular function to perform:.

Reason: Seeks knowledge and understanding. It measures, calculates and decides . Reason lets us think and make up our mind  Reason tries to make sense of things and of life. It coordinates and directios all actions.

Spirit: (Also called Spirited element) In today's terms, this might be called pride or honor.  It supports reason in controlling the Appetites It strengthens and supports Reason's efforts to avoid shameful conduct.It drives one towards action. It's sometimes referred to as passion.    It targets glory, honor, reputation, establishing a good name. Provides the impetus behind pursuits. Manifests itself in the need to love and be loved. Self-assertive tendencies

Appetite: desire, biological instinctive urges, physical pleasure, release from pain, eating, sleeping, sex.  appetites maintain the body.

Plato creates a metaphor of a charioteer driving 2 horses.

The charioteer is reason 
The two horses are appetite and spirit - running wild.

"Reason identifies the goal; it harnesses the power of the appetite and spirit and then proceeds toward its identified destination. appetite and spirit cannot be disposed of. They are essential to the well-ordered functioning of the human soul....For Plato, fulfillment of our function as human beings is equivalent to the attainment of moral virtue" (Falikowski 19).

To look at this on a personal level, I may occasionally (always) want to eat too much chocolate.   Therefore my Appetite is at war with my Reason.  It can be said that wrongdoing occurs when Reason and the Spirited Element cannot control the appetites. Thus, immoral action is a "symptom" of a disordered, unbalanced soul.  In contrast, people who perform morally right actions reveal inner harmony, wherein each part of the soul performs its function well.  This is only possible when Virtues are present (Martin 45)

The four Cardinal Virtues assist one  in living well:

• Wisdom is the virtue that enables Reason to effectively guide both the Appetites and the Spirited Element.
• courage makes it possible for the Spirited element to support Reason in controlling troublesome Appetites.
• Temperance, or moderation, enables the Appetites to be satisfied to a healthy degree without overindulgence.

Justice is simply a summary label indicating the presence  of the other three virtues: the just (or moral) person is someone whose Reason wisely supervises the Appetites in a temperate manner with the help of a courageous Spirited element" (Martin 45).

Reason:  The most important faculty
Wisdom; The most important virtue.

Wisdom:
Wisdom makes inner harmony possible.  
Complete wisdom leads to the 'Doctrine of the Unity of the Virtues":  to fully have any one of the cardinal virtues is to have them all.
Wisdom is gained through philosophical reflection.
Wisdom makes the happy life (fulfiled life) possible.
Wisdom makes one seek the right ends.

Why do people mess up & do evil?

We confuse appearance with reality. 
We confuse apparent goods for real goods. 
We are pursuing the wrong goods
We are ignorant. We have false knowledge. We are poor misguided souls
We must use reason to get in touch with truth and true knowledge.

Where do we find truth?
We reason to it and realize it abides in the eternal forms

"In a famous passage from The Republic, Glaucon (one of the characters of the dialogue) argues to Socrates that, by nature, human beings are egoists strongly inclined to pursue their own self-interests. Thus 'those who practice justice do so against their will because they lack the power to do wrong.'  To illustrate his point, Glaucon recounts the story of Gyges." (Timmons, Conduct & Character 23) 

Plato's theory of forms "lends support to Socrates' claim that not only can virtue be known, but that people who know what is good will always do the right thing"  (Newberry , Ethical Traditions 21).

Why do people do the wrong things?
Plato & Socrates would say because of ignorance of what is right.  Absolutely no one, even a murderer, does wrong knowingly. This is why it's so important to teach correct thought as correct thought leads to correct action.

Q.  Plato was born during Athens Golden age.  What does this mean?
A.  This is when Athens was at its best.  
To place this information in a better perspective recall that during the first have of the fifth century B.C. a bitter war was waged against the Persians. In 480 the Persian King Xerxes plundered Athens and burned all the old wooden buildings of the Acropolis. A year later the Persians were defeated and that was the beginning of the Golden Age of Athens

Q. What was the Acropolis?
A.  Acropolis means "citadel," or more precisely "the city on the hill."  People had lived there since the Stone Age.  It is a logical place to live as inhabitants can look below  and view of best harbor of the Mediterranean.  From this elevated plateau, it was  easy to defend against marauders.

The biggest building in the Acropolis is the Parthenon, which means "the Virgin's Place."  It was built in honor of Athene, the patron goddess of Athens

That an outstanding citizen , Socrates, be condemned to death during the Golden Age permeated and created a focus for  Plato's thoughts and writings. Plato, a student of Socrates, was only 29 when Socrates drank   the hemlock.  It angered Plato  that Athens would condemn one of is noblest citizens to death.   As a loyal student, Plato's first public deed as a philosopher was to write "The Apology," an account of Socrates' plea to the jury.  One of Plato's most famous works is "The Republic," a description of the ideal society.  These works are still in existence today, in part, because Plato set up his own school of philosophy in the grove of Academus that was not far from Athens (The library of Historic Characters 6)..  The grove was  named after a Greek hero, Academus. The school was known as the Academy.  

Q. What would you guess were the three subjects that were "taught/discussed" at the academy?
A.  Philosophy, mathematics, and gymnastics.  

Q. What  was Plato interested in - that was similar to the pre-Socratics?
A.  Plato was interested in what "flows."
Plato was also interested , on the other hand, in what is eternal and immutable.

Q.  What are Plato's two big  ethical questions?
A.   (1) What constitutes the good life?
Performing our distinctively human functions well
(2)  What sort of individual should I strive to become
One whose soul is in balance  Reason (intellect); spirit (driving force/passion); & appetite

Recall the ethical sophist and Socratic teachings:
Sophists that  perceptions of what is right and wrong varied from one city-state to another, and from one generation to another.  Both time and place matter when coming up with a definition of what is right. Therefore, right and wrong were something that "flowed."  

Socrates, on the other hand believed in and died for eternal truth and absolutes.  by using human reason (rationalist) humans can discern what is right and wrong, since human reason is, in fact, eternal and immutable.

Plato tried to grasp a "reality" that was both immutable and eternal.
Plato's theory was based on his observation of nature.  
Plato said we can see from two lights: the light of the senses and the intellectual light. Plato's philosophy taught a liberation of the  human spirit from the prison of the senses

Q. When Plato observed a form, let's say a chair or an apple, what would he say about it material composition and its  eternity?
A.  Plato held that everything is composed of material elements, "substances" or "matter." 
Therefore, things are material.
On the other hand, everything is of a particular shape, of a particular form.
Therefore, everything is made of a particular "mold" which is timeless and immutable.
In short all is composed of form and matter.

In short, Plato says that everything tangible in nature "flows." So there are no "substances that do not dissolve. Absolutely everything  that belongs to the "material world" is made of a material that time can erode, but everything is made of a timeless mold. or "form" that is eternal and immutable.
The form distinguishes one type from the other.
The matter individuates each.

For example:
A doughnut may be shaped in a circle and called a "donut," or or may be shaped like a short pipe and called a "cruller."  The "mold" tells us what it is and the material dough individuates each.

A further example:

I walk in a room and I see something made of wood (substance).  I know it is a chair, even though I've never in my life seen a chair exactly    like that.  How can I recognize it as a chair?  I can recognize it because I've grasped the concept of the "form" chair.  I possess the form in my intellect.  To know is to possess.   To know your beloved is to possess the form of your beloved in your intellect.  In a sense, to know is to possess.

One last example - gingerbread cookie.

If you want to make 50 gingerbread cookies alike, you would bake them in a form.  If i looked at each cookie, none would be exactly the same: one might be thicker, more cooked, a broken finger...  however I would know that each was a cookie because I would have grasped the eternal and immutable  form/mold

Q. Behind everything we see -  behind it is a mold or form.  Plato called these ideas. What  do you suppose would be Plato's theory of ideas?
 A. Plato came to believe that behind the material world, there is a  world of ideas that contains immutable and eternal forms or "patterns."  This is Plato's theory of ideas. In the highest sense, there is the Idea of Justice, of Temperance,... and the highest and most noble idea would  be the Idea of the Good. Plato  was groping towards a transcendental reality, but never reached the concept of god as the Father Almighty.

Q. What does the contemporary world say about eternity and matter and how does this compare to the views of the ancient Greeks.
A. Plato  believed everything tangible in nature "flows." therefore, there are no "substances" which do not dissolve.  Matter is eternal: it always was there & always will be there.  This is in sharp contrast to the Judeo-Christian belief that God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing - analogous to the big bang theory.  

Q.  According to Plato, where can true knowledge be found - in tangible things  or in things that can be understood with our reason?

A. Because tangible, material things are always changing, even the sturdy floor below is very gradually disintegrating, we cannot have sure knowledge; we can only have opinions. We can, however, only have true knowledge of that which reason understands.   Vision and perception can vary from person to person.  If I asked you which color of the rainbow is the prettiest, there would be different answers.   On the other hand if I asked you what 7 times 7 is, the entire class would know because reason is speaking.  Reason is the opposite of thinking or feeling. In a sense reason is eternal and universal because it only expresses eternal and universal states.

Q. Therefore reality is divided into two regions. What are these:
A The world of reason and the world of ideas.

Q. Why did Plato consider man to be a dual creature?
A. Because we are made of body and soul.
Our material body is subject to the same fate as everything else in the world.
Our soul is immortal.

Q. How did our soul come to me.
A. Our soul existed before it entered our body.  But  as soon as the soul reaches our body, it has forgotten everything from the world of ideas.

Q. How does learning take place?
A. As soon as  our soul starts discovering forms, gingerbread cookies or roses, for example, the sight of this imperfect form awakens our soul to the true cookie.

Q. Which role is lovelier, the one in our material world or the one in the world of ideas?
A. the rose we see is but a shadow  of the true rose.  In the same sense that we know if we see a shadow of a rose, there must be a real rose elsewhere - Plato thought the roses on earth were shadows and the real ones were in the world of ideas.

Q. What is Plato's Myth of the cave story?
A. Men are bound, immovable,  in an underground cave. a wall is behind them. Behind that wall pass human-like creatures. Behind these creatures is a fire. The bound men only see the shadows in front of them.  the shadows are what they consider reality.  One cave dweller frees himself and asks, "Where do these "shadows" come from? He turns around and see the fire. At first he is blinded by the light. He  goes outside, Eventually he sees colors and clear shapes. 

Instead of escaping to the country, he returns to the cave to tell the truth, but is not believed. the cave dwellers point to the wall and say that what they see is all there.  finally they kill him.  (More on the Myth of the Cave  can be found in Plato's dialogue, The Republic.)

Q. Whom do you think Plato was thinking of when he wrote this myth?
A. Socrates  and his courage and sense of pedagogic responsibility.  

Q. One of Plato's most famous works  is "The Apology of Socrates."  What is another translation of the word "apology"?
A.  Defense

Q. What is the nature of man?  According to Plato man cinsisists of two parts. What are these?
A.  The Body and Soul.

Q. Plato thought courage, passion, decision making were intimately related to the soul - in the same way that Freud saw man divided into three parts; id, ego and super ego.  What is the soul and what are its three parts according to Plato?
A.  For Plato, the soul is the principle of life and movement. It did not have the religious significance currently attributed to the soul. The soul is what brings life to the inanimate body. The soul is made up of reason, spirit, and appetite. 

Q. Each of the three divisions of the soul has a separate habitation in the body.  Just as the soul has three parts, so does the body: the head, the chest, and the abdomen, and each corresponds to a faculty of the soul. Which might correspond and why?
Reason belongs to the head
Will/spirit  belongs to the chest
Appetite belongs to the abdomen

Q. Each of these has  an ideal virtue (wisdom, courage and temperance. which would correspond?

Q.  Just  as the body and the soul are tripartite,  to is the ideal republic state. It is comprised of rulers, auxiliaries and  laborers (farmers) the creation of a good state demands being ruled by reason. Just as the head governs the body, so a philosopher must govern the state.  Where would rulers, Auxiliaries and laborers fall in our chart?

Q. According to Plato, how does man become more and more like God?
A "Man's kinship to God is to be found both in his rational and in his moral nature. it is by the speculative reason, together with moral conduct founded on reason, that he attains to knowledge of the divine; and, through the  persistent exercise of philosophic contemplation and upright living that man is rendered more and more like to God"  (The Library of Historic Characters"(10).

Q. Should man fear death & is the soul immortal?

A.  Except in the Timaeus, the body, though mortal, is not regarded as essentially vile; it is not the origin and source of sin (as sin is a disease, and arises either from ignorance or form madness).  It is simply the prison of the soul - a clog or hindrance, therefore to the highest perfection, and the occasion or condition of moral evil; and , until man is freed from it, he has not full scope for the development of his higher self. Death, then, is to be welcomed, not feared - it is a blessing, not a curse; and our present life is a season of probation in preparation for that great event.  

The soul, on the other hand, is immortal/ But if immortal, then also pre-existent. Immortality and pre-existence stood or fell together in the mind of Plato. (The Library of Historic Characters 10).

Q. What parallels can be drawn between the transcendentalists and Plato? Read the following excerpt from Wordsworth:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
and cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

A. Man is Timaeus is viewed as a microcosm, of which the universe is the macrocosm. The same elements that are found in the one are discoverable also in the other - only on a larger scale. The world has a soul, no less than man; and in this soul-inspired world-mass, as in man, we can discern a nous or mind, a psyche or soul, and a soma or body.  

Secondly, man is essentially a social being, and he has necessarily relations to the State.  hence, in the ideal Republic, man's threefold soul finds its concrete counterparts in the grades or classes of the citizens:

1. The highest class or rulers represent the rational element
2. The spirited or courageous factor is embodies in the soldiers.

3. The artisans, agriculturists, and tradesmen stand for the appetitive soul.

 Plato is covered in Sophie's World, pages 78 - 93.

What does Sophie learn about the true, the beautiful and the good?  What does she learn about the world is ideas/forms, about the world soul.  What is true knowledge? What does Sophie learn about the allegory of the cave?

Plato says our soul should be in balance -  balanced. Life must not be based on insatiable desires or self-glorifying pursuits.     His "Republic" is where we can best live this life.