Plato

24. Adamson, Classical Philosophy (7 Dec 2024)

by kurto

Explicates the continuum of pre-Socratic, Socratic and Platonic, and Aristotelian philosophy, from the first systematic inquiries into nature and man’s nature until the end of Hellenistic period, generally presenting matters on their own terms rather than in context of future history of philosophy.

Pre-Socratic: The theme of constant, dynamic opposition against underlying unity preoccupied the departure from mythology and religion. Pythagoras preceded Plato’s forms (and also Descartes’ cogito) with a dualist theory of soul and also the representational power of numbers. Parmenides debuted the precedence of reason (rationalism) over empirical evident, and the role of being (ontology) in argument and consequence. But the problem of non-being was unresolved. Democritus considered that science banished the common-sense experience of the world (whereas moderns consider science more an extension or an enhancement). Anaxagoras embodied the pre-Socratics’ system-building efforts, whereas post-Aristotelians (Skeptics, Stoics, Cynics, Epicureans) were essentially ethicists, seeking to live an untroubled life. Empedocles married religious trappings to a rational cosmology. Medicine and philosophy were closely related in the Greek world, as in the Hippocratic oath.

The Sophists, embodied by Protagoras, were not dispassionately seeking truth, contra Gottlieb, but foreshadowed relativism in their pursuit of ‘making the weaker argument the stronger’ or in ‘man is the measure of all things’. Sophism assimilates virtue to what is advantageous, pace Thrasymachus, since morality is no more than social convention. Gorgias doubted the reality of being itself, the better to operate at the level of seeming than to pursue knowledge.
Socrates invented the view of philosophy as a pursuit of how men should live, versus the pursuit of metaphysics. Epistemology and ethics, though distinctly separate in modern philosophy, cannot be so if virtue is knowledge. In Meno, the Platonic Socrates asks not for a list of virtues but what they have in common. New theories are to be subjected to the test of consistency with itself (i.e., if nothing is true, is that itself true?)

Plato, considering the soul immortal, thereby explains how it knows of immortal forms (i.e., the so-called theory of recollection). Forms are standards of judgment, guideposts in human knowledge. ‘Good’ is the super-form; thereafter come being, change, rest, sameness, difference. Being is pervaded by difference, thereby disposing of the problem of being arising from not being; for what is not is false, not nothing. To be explanatory, the cause must give rise of the outcome; the true cause should not be consistent with other effects (i.e., largeness does not produce smallness). Knowledge is always true whereas belief can be true or false, and ignorance is always false. More elaborately: imagination < belief < thought < understanding < knowledge. Dialectic is the process of hypothesizing and then discovering the principles which support the hypothesis. The dialectician divides the inquiry’s evidence along ‘natural joints’ of categorization. Language is built on a presumption of stability, of shared meaning (convention), even if usage changes just as substance changes. It is a likelihood not a permanence. Phaedo and Republic utilize unchanging forms and changing things that participate in them. Timaeus introduces the demiurge, the mover. Aristotle saw dialectic more simply as argument from agreed premises. Logic is categorical: statements relate subject to predicate, in order to proceed to the syllogism. A demonstrative syllogism shows not only that something is (or is not) the case but why. The premises of demonstrative syllogisms must identify essential features of the things in consideration. ‘Accidental’ features (a giraffe with a broken toe) are not significant, contra modern science. For Aristotle, epistemology is fairly the same as the philosophy of science (systematic exploration), save that episteme encompasses all disciplines. Also in contrast to modern empiricism (e.g., Hume): though sense experience stops the regress of endless demonstration, rational or even plausible deduction is permissible even though they may be overturned. Items in the world are primary, not derivative of forms: without beautiful things there's no such thing as beauty. Changes involves the nature or property, called form, and the underlying substance, matter. The four causes are the material (substance), the formal (definition or determination), the efficient (the dynamic) and the final (purpose). Substance has potential to actually become something else. As to ethics, one seeks not only the ideal life but the good life that earns the admiration of others. Virtue is achieved by those raised well – by habituation. The virtuous action lies between the extremes, the rational discernment or perception of right action in the circumstance; but there is the problem of ‘moral luck’, ethics as a product of happenstance, as a luxury. Only the virtuous can have friends, who share interests and right action. Sensation isn’t the same as imagination, which is closer to preliminary thinking; yet it is short of belief. Adamson’s treatment of Aristotle’s political philosophy is shallow.

23. Strauss, The City and Man (22 Dec 2015)

by kurto

Modern political philosophy has become ideology, a phenomenon at the center of the crisis of the West, which is uncertain of its purpose. The modern treatment, which conceives of itself as political science, seeks to separate facts from values, and so cannot accommodate the pursuit of what ought to be, only what is. The classical treatment, best encapsulated in Aristotle’s

    Politics

because it originates the study of moral virtue, is the original and best approach to the ‘common sense’ understanding of political things. In three essays that chronologically work backward, from Aristotle to Plato’s

    Republic

to Thucydides, Strauss elucidates conceptions and problems of the best regime before turning to actual study of political history. In this way, Strauss makes the distinction between what is ‘first for us’ against what is ‘first in nature’, connecting history to philosophy without subsuming one inside the other. Philosophy is the ascendancy of events qua history. The search for the common-sense understanding of the city and man’s role as a good citizen and a good person leads the philosopher back to question: what is the nature of god? To be re-read.

2. Hamilton, Echo of Greece (7 Feb 2016)

by kurto

Most of the leading thinkers of ancient Greece lived in the fourth century, after the democratic triumph of Pericles and the fall of Athens. Hamilton sketches the oeuvre of these men, particularly emphasizing the humanistic qualities and also contrasting Plato with Aristotle, the latter so long in the former’s shade. Ultimately, the Greeks sought to identify freedom, the Romans order. The conclusion is a departure: what would have become of the Christian church had it followed the Greeks?

18. Hyde, Five Great Philosophies of Life (30 Sep 2019)

by kurto

Characterizes Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Christian philosophy, seeking to demonstrate the latter encompasses the best traits of the first four. The Epicurean view is to look for happiness in one’s appetites and passions, to find pleasure in what you’ve got. Its shortcoming is the greatest pleasures come from enduring struggle: there’s no development of character. Stoicism resolves to control temperament no matter the external effects. It founders on the suffering of others (i.e., the problem of evil). Further, the Stoic tends to be concerned with the universal rather than the local, where altruism ought to begin. Platonism seeks the perfection of virtue through subordinating parts to the whole, the lower to the higher. Appetites are to obey reason, spirit to be steadfast but secondary to the ruling of right reason. Family and property are subordinate to character development and the state’s role in creating virtue. Half of the Republic is given to education, outlining lifelong pursuit of proper subordination. Platonism fails in supposing universals are obtainable by all. The Aristotelian approach emphasizes sense of proportion, the ‘golden mean’, which is relative to context, and so locates personal virtue in the ability to choose the best alternative. One develops by displaying the courage of resolve, resilience in failure, and progress toward the objective: these are the basis of physical skill, mental power, moral virtue, and personal excellence. Friendship, based on shared interests, is the ideal evidence of virtue obtained. Aristotle failed, however, in blithely excluding more than half the populace (i.e., slaves) and was also too austere. The Christian exhibits love for everyone, universal fellowship, which is both a more exacting standard and also more realistic because it promotes focus on sympathy for those below. Over half of Hyde’s work is given to a refined ‘muscular Christianity’. There is no discussion of the distinction between philosophy qua philosophy and religion as philosophy; thus there is no discussion of the consequences of theology, mystery, or ceremony for Christian life.