Socrates leads up to the discussion of the soul/life with a lengthy discussion of how three contains or brings along odd and snow contains or brings along odd. Finally I tend to agree with your second point -- so here one might want to insist that we did not "learn" before being born, as Plato suggests in the Meno, but rather the soul has always existed and always had knowledge, so that learning is never necessary. But no-one has proposed a uniformly accepted version, as can be seen from arguments over whether or not viruses are alive. A word is used to point to a cluster of characteristics, some of which are more central than others. But that may be problematic - imagine admitting, for instance, that there is no clear answer as to what justice is and that it is somehow vague which things are just and which unjust. Select the date range you want to want see The Greatest Books from: Copyright 2009-2022 Shane Sherman IDw+a(sru Vy/P 0["Y In reply to Forms as causes by Peter Adamson. Full search A single capacity which is somehow ready for each knowable thing? And on point 2, again he has a pretty detailed argument to give here: the argument is that (a) we know Equality, (b) we can't learn Equality from sensation in this life, (c) we can't learn it at the moment of birth, because that is the only moment for us to be shocked into losing our access to this knowledge, so (d) the only time the knowledge could have been "acquired" is before birth. He says that life is that which [the soul] brings along, and earlier he says that the triad bring along the opposite of the Even." I actually talk about this in episode 90, where I look at Plotinus on evil, and in that episode (if I remember rightly) I talk about the fact that the word kakon in Greek might better be translated as "bad" since it has a broader use than just moral evil. Still there's no question that Plato and Plotinus would say that men can be evil, I think! For example, the argument for learning being really a remembering of what we knew before we were born: In reply to Socrates and definitions by Marissa. Also with some things, like for instance mathematical equality, it seems clear that things either have the relevant character or not, there is no ambiguity around the edges. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. (68) Aristotle associates virtues in general, and therefore moderation, with a "golden mean" between extreme dispositions? Why does Simmias reject the attunement view and not the theory of the soul's preexistence? Are they seen by the eyes? Why does Socrates claim that the body is an obstacle in the acquiring of knowledge? In the discussion of the soul, he says that the soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along according to my brother's interpretation, if the soul is analogous to Even rather than to three, what Socrates should have said is the soul will never admit its own opposite.. In reply to Plato's argument cont. At 150 items you feel that you are doing a pretty good job, even though the endless succession of letters and numbers is making the little buggers dance. I'm only three articles in, having just finished writing about Clement of Rome. 32. To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds toupgrade your browser. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. Can there be a vicious soul, then, if soul is attunement? BRILL's mainly English language publications include book series, individual monographs and encyclopaedias as well as journals. What, according to Socrates, is the attitude of philosophy toward pleasures of food, drink, sex, material possessions? (74b) ("Equality" and, oddly, "the equals themselves" refer to the same thing as the Equal itself. (74d) What is their relation to the Equal itself? and ends with the line just before the occurrence of first marginal "b" encountered. Does he claim he knows this? and I very much object to theories of art as imitation, and my previous education had given me an out-of-context, "face value" interpretation of his views on art as well as his supposed totalitarianism. 24 down and 76 to go to catch up with your current podcasts. (62a-62d). What sorts of explanations does Socrates now reject? So what people mean by the word is still the only evidence available. Thus the question is whether this soul-that-is-distinct-from-body is going to die along with the body, or not. How does such a capacity compare to just being "blank" -- we need Aristotle's notion of a potentiality here.) Glad you are enjoying them! At a later stage, what fascinated him about Anaxagoras' view? There are several dialogues which describe the afterlife but usually in highly physical terms (bodily punishments, for instance), albeit in the context of myths, as in the Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic. (115c-d) Why does Socrates chastise his friends for weeping? He questions everything his interlocutors say but not the phantasy of some old priest. ("Agamemnon", "Hom. Surely the same is true of the (human concept of) Virtue. You seem to me to be thinking that virtue could be like what Wittgenstein says about "game" -- there is only a family resemblance between different virtues or cases of virtue. R. Dancy, Plato's Introduction of Forms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Recollection and the Mathematician's Method in Plato's Meno, The divine feeling: The epistemic function of erotic desire in Plato's theory of recollection. Along those lines, I don't see the forms actively injecting their quality into objects, but a rather more passive way of causation: Helena exhibits just enough keypoints in the pattern of beauty to launch a thousand ships, but not enough to match a goddess. How does Socrates show that we don't always have knowledge, in the fullest sense, of the "themselves" in the present life? To your first point I'd say: remember that he has a specific argument against acquiring the understanding of equality from sensation, namely the point about compresence of opposites (the sticks and stones are no more equal than unequal).
BRILL is renowned for its publications in the following subject areas; Asian Studies, Ancient Near East & Egypt, Biblical Studies & Religious Studies, Classical Studies, Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Middle East & Islamic Studies. He objects that there must be some kind of overarching unity to the concept to be defined, and asks what they all have in common. Basically I think your brother is right: the argument is that since the soul is essentially alive and the source of life, it doesn't admit of death. (105b-c) What more sophisticated answer explains the presence of life in a body? and finally, i'm confused over how the 'forms can 'cause' things to be a certain way. I assume you're monitoring all comments, so will see one back here, as easily as under the current episode? (97b-c) What disappointed him about Anaxagoras? (This is roughly Plato's view in Republic.) What, according to Socrates, are philosophers really doing? Why does Socrates call the method he actually uses his "second best"? In reply to Beyond Death by Glenn Russell. Socrates presents the soul not just as something living, but as the very principle by which living things are alive. Time is a bit more complicated, it isn't clear to me that the Forms are supposed to exist outside of time. (99d), 41. I'm not that far yet! Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. options are on the right side and top of the page. Already in antiquity this occasioned some criticisms. Or something more subtle. Both of them did quite a bit of work in other areas, as well - I'm wondering if you're familiar with either? I'm inclined to agree with them on that. In reply to argument from opposites by Thomas. 78b-80b contains an argument for the indestructibility of the soul after death that starts with a comparison between the soul and the body, and between the soul and the forms like The Beautiful. and notes by Harold Williamson (Greek Edition), The Socratic Dialogues Middle Period, Volume 1: Symposium, Theaetetus, Phaedo, Plato: Phaedo (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) (Greek Edition), Selected Writings from Socrates : Charmides', 'Lysis', 'Laches', 'Symposium', 'Apology', 'Crito', 'Phaedo With Aristophanes: The Clouds', 'Xenophon: s (Collector's Library of Essential Thinkers). Hope that helps, Amazon.com. How do we come to know the Equal itself? Although, I did first discover your podcast thanks to the episode on Porphyry, and decided to start from the beginning because of the "I Porphyry" jokes. What view of the soul is Simmias defending? (69b-c), 13. I'd say the answer to your question is no. Are equal material things completely equal or deficiently equal? (65d-e) If not, when are these things seen? What evidence does Socrates give for his claim at 70d-e that "all things which come to be come to befrom their opposites if they have such"? Does an attunement, according to Socrates, direct its elements, i.e., the things of which it is an attunement? 43. How does this undermine the attunement theory? i suppose if someone asks you to give a definition, you could either give an exhaustive list of objects which meets this definition (e.g. It's bc I'm trying to take these arguments seriously that I just used two exclamation marks in one paragraph. also (really finally), if the form of beauty is itself beautiful, is the form of beauty causing itself to be beautiful? (72a-b), 18. What will "true philosophers believe" according to Socrates? how does the form of beauty, which i guess is somehow 'in' beautiful objects, *cause* these objects to be beautiful? To access this article, please, Access everything in the JPASS collection, Download up to 10 article PDFs to save and keep, Download up to 120 article PDFs to save and keep. In reply to What counts as argument? by Marissa, In reply to Plato's arguments by Peter Adamson. In general I don't think he had just one single reason for positing Forms, he found them useful to deal with a whole range of problems, and the compresence problem is only one of these. I talk about these in a later episode.
Or maybe only logical inconsistency counted as a counter-argument, not plausibility? As I discussed in episodes on his epistmology, and likewise in Aristotle, they seem to be taking knowledge to be of general features of reality, not things like this. One way of starting to think about the philosophical status of this principle is to observe that Aristotle accepted it in its general form, while questioning the specific forms that Plato gave it in many of his dialogues. (64d-64e), 7. translations of the same passage. Rather what you are meant to do is articulate the character or nature shared by all the things described using the defined term. (103c-105), 46. An XML version of this text is available for download, We know about "equal" bc we heard people talking about it as children, and learnt the concept that way. In the Meno Socrates pulls the concept of soul into his argument stating that some old priest or priestess says there is one. "105b" You embark on making a list of all the possible moves. Read your article online and download the PDF from your email or your account. * I can't see any advantage to pushing back the learning to before we're born. (76b-c), 29. Here in Phaedo he trips on the word 'soul' and slides into a substance 'soul' with nary a blink. I asked my brother about this and he said, "The argument may not work in the end, but it's a bit better than that. Od. He immediately points out that the conga line of symbols must have confused Polus because that bishop move from a1 to b2 is clearly wrong and should be from a2 to b1. (68d-69a) Upon what does true virtue rest? Plato. Its position is built on the thorough and famous Dutch academic tradition. (94b-e), 37. So he could have spent the years (decades?) How does Socrates move from these principles to the conclusion that souls exist, apart from the body, before and after the present life? (70c), 14. I look forward to future episodes! What further consideration does Socrates now add to support the "ancient theory" introduced at 70c? 42. And that seems like a good reason to accept that something exists, it is exactly the sort of reason a modern scientist would give for accepting the existence of some postulated entity of the physical world, like a subatomic particle. One point that was made is that death isn't really an opposing feature that would need to arise in the soul, but sheer non-existence. What do "men" think about the soul, according to Cebes? (Or maybe Plato is a big moralist and I've missed the boat by trying to read this without so many Sunday school voices raining down on me.). 9. They also allow us to compare different line to jump to another position: The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
(76d-e). (64c), 6. (98b-c), 39. Your current position in the text is marked in blue. option. Thanks so much for creating these very informative podcasts. D. Scott, Recollection and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). If the soul cannot admit death then it must be deathless, and if it is deathless then it is indestructible. 31. Is being a soul a matter of degree? 48.
Big things big? The Book Review Section does not focus at one single field, but utilizes a multidisciplinary approach. What makes beautiful things beautiful? Socrates talks about things like snow having the quality of cold, which cannot admit heat and must be either destroyed or driven away if heat approaches. Virtue may have characteristics but it is singular. I agree that many people would now think that something that does not exist in a place cannot exist at all. it seems to me that having given either of these lists, someone might ask 'suppose i don't agree with the list?' But snow can be destroyed by heat despite that cold does not admit heat, so how is this an argument for the souls immortality, except by wordplay? 11. Suppose we define virtue as the harmony or attunement of a soul. What theory is Socrates constantly asserting? Hi there. Is there any place in Platos dialogues where he envisions our experience after death as a dissolution into light, in other words, a realm of non-duel conscious awareness? Well you are going to like the Logical Positivists, if we ever get there! What, according to Socrates, would be ridiculous for a philosopher? Honest, I hope I'm not coming across as a self-opinionated pedant. Does the soul always follow the body's direction? A list can be woefully inadequate to answer the questions about cats when half of the items are dogs. I can finally see an outline of an argument, rather than arbitary assertions. Its presence in libraries around the globe is a sign of its continued success as an invaluable resource material. There is no common ground because you started on the dark squares while Callicles set out from the light ones. What do philosophers like Socrates (see "we" at 65d4) maintain about "the Just itself" and other things of the same general sort? How does the dialogue "prove" that the soul is indestructible? 23. (92c-d), 33. This is my problem, I know, not Plato's. Can you help me make sense of the argument for the soul's immortality in the Phaedo?
I guess that one would need to say more in favor of the "list" idea given Socrates' plausible sounding suggestion that each item on the list must have something common with every other item, and this is what make it a list of virtues as opposed to just any old list of items. Here in the Phaedo he's talking to his own students and friends so they have a lot of common ground already, and in fact the Forms are introduced as if it were an idea they were all familiar with and basically accept (but that isn't the case at all in the Meno, there the Forms aren't even mentioned). 1. G. Vlastos, Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo, Philosophical Review 78 (1969), 291-325. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics/.
BRILL is renowned for its publications in the following subject areas; Asian Studies, Ancient Near East & Egypt, Biblical Studies & Religious Studies, Classical Studies, Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Middle East & Islamic Studies. He objects that there must be some kind of overarching unity to the concept to be defined, and asks what they all have in common. Basically I think your brother is right: the argument is that since the soul is essentially alive and the source of life, it doesn't admit of death. (105b-c) What more sophisticated answer explains the presence of life in a body? and finally, i'm confused over how the 'forms can 'cause' things to be a certain way. I assume you're monitoring all comments, so will see one back here, as easily as under the current episode? (97b-c) What disappointed him about Anaxagoras? (This is roughly Plato's view in Republic.) What, according to Socrates, are philosophers really doing? Why does Socrates call the method he actually uses his "second best"? In reply to Beyond Death by Glenn Russell. Socrates presents the soul not just as something living, but as the very principle by which living things are alive. Time is a bit more complicated, it isn't clear to me that the Forms are supposed to exist outside of time. (99d), 41. I'm not that far yet! Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. options are on the right side and top of the page. Already in antiquity this occasioned some criticisms. Or something more subtle. Both of them did quite a bit of work in other areas, as well - I'm wondering if you're familiar with either? I'm inclined to agree with them on that. In reply to argument from opposites by Thomas. 78b-80b contains an argument for the indestructibility of the soul after death that starts with a comparison between the soul and the body, and between the soul and the forms like The Beautiful. and notes by Harold Williamson (Greek Edition), The Socratic Dialogues Middle Period, Volume 1: Symposium, Theaetetus, Phaedo, Plato: Phaedo (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) (Greek Edition), Selected Writings from Socrates : Charmides', 'Lysis', 'Laches', 'Symposium', 'Apology', 'Crito', 'Phaedo With Aristophanes: The Clouds', 'Xenophon: s (Collector's Library of Essential Thinkers). Hope that helps, Amazon.com. How do we come to know the Equal itself? Although, I did first discover your podcast thanks to the episode on Porphyry, and decided to start from the beginning because of the "I Porphyry" jokes. What view of the soul is Simmias defending? (69b-c), 13. I'd say the answer to your question is no. Are equal material things completely equal or deficiently equal? (65d-e) If not, when are these things seen? What evidence does Socrates give for his claim at 70d-e that "all things which come to be come to befrom their opposites if they have such"? Does an attunement, according to Socrates, direct its elements, i.e., the things of which it is an attunement? 43. How does this undermine the attunement theory? i suppose if someone asks you to give a definition, you could either give an exhaustive list of objects which meets this definition (e.g. It's bc I'm trying to take these arguments seriously that I just used two exclamation marks in one paragraph. also (really finally), if the form of beauty is itself beautiful, is the form of beauty causing itself to be beautiful? (72a-b), 18. What will "true philosophers believe" according to Socrates? how does the form of beauty, which i guess is somehow 'in' beautiful objects, *cause* these objects to be beautiful? To access this article, please, Access everything in the JPASS collection, Download up to 10 article PDFs to save and keep, Download up to 120 article PDFs to save and keep. In reply to What counts as argument? by Marissa, In reply to Plato's arguments by Peter Adamson. In general I don't think he had just one single reason for positing Forms, he found them useful to deal with a whole range of problems, and the compresence problem is only one of these. I talk about these in a later episode.
Or maybe only logical inconsistency counted as a counter-argument, not plausibility? As I discussed in episodes on his epistmology, and likewise in Aristotle, they seem to be taking knowledge to be of general features of reality, not things like this. One way of starting to think about the philosophical status of this principle is to observe that Aristotle accepted it in its general form, while questioning the specific forms that Plato gave it in many of his dialogues. (64d-64e), 7. translations of the same passage. Rather what you are meant to do is articulate the character or nature shared by all the things described using the defined term. (103c-105), 46. An XML version of this text is available for download, We know about "equal" bc we heard people talking about it as children, and learnt the concept that way. In the Meno Socrates pulls the concept of soul into his argument stating that some old priest or priestess says there is one. "105b" You embark on making a list of all the possible moves. Read your article online and download the PDF from your email or your account. * I can't see any advantage to pushing back the learning to before we're born. (76b-c), 29. Here in Phaedo he trips on the word 'soul' and slides into a substance 'soul' with nary a blink. I asked my brother about this and he said, "The argument may not work in the end, but it's a bit better than that. Od. He immediately points out that the conga line of symbols must have confused Polus because that bishop move from a1 to b2 is clearly wrong and should be from a2 to b1. (68d-69a) Upon what does true virtue rest? Plato. Its position is built on the thorough and famous Dutch academic tradition. (94b-e), 37. So he could have spent the years (decades?) How does Socrates move from these principles to the conclusion that souls exist, apart from the body, before and after the present life? (70c), 14. I look forward to future episodes! What further consideration does Socrates now add to support the "ancient theory" introduced at 70c? 42. And that seems like a good reason to accept that something exists, it is exactly the sort of reason a modern scientist would give for accepting the existence of some postulated entity of the physical world, like a subatomic particle. One point that was made is that death isn't really an opposing feature that would need to arise in the soul, but sheer non-existence. What do "men" think about the soul, according to Cebes? (Or maybe Plato is a big moralist and I've missed the boat by trying to read this without so many Sunday school voices raining down on me.). 9. They also allow us to compare different line to jump to another position: The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
(76d-e). (64c), 6. (98b-c), 39. Your current position in the text is marked in blue. option. Thanks so much for creating these very informative podcasts. D. Scott, Recollection and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). If the soul cannot admit death then it must be deathless, and if it is deathless then it is indestructible. 31. Is being a soul a matter of degree? 48.
Big things big? The Book Review Section does not focus at one single field, but utilizes a multidisciplinary approach. What makes beautiful things beautiful? Socrates talks about things like snow having the quality of cold, which cannot admit heat and must be either destroyed or driven away if heat approaches. Virtue may have characteristics but it is singular. I agree that many people would now think that something that does not exist in a place cannot exist at all. it seems to me that having given either of these lists, someone might ask 'suppose i don't agree with the list?' But snow can be destroyed by heat despite that cold does not admit heat, so how is this an argument for the souls immortality, except by wordplay? 11. Suppose we define virtue as the harmony or attunement of a soul. What theory is Socrates constantly asserting? Hi there. Is there any place in Platos dialogues where he envisions our experience after death as a dissolution into light, in other words, a realm of non-duel conscious awareness? Well you are going to like the Logical Positivists, if we ever get there! What, according to Socrates, would be ridiculous for a philosopher? Honest, I hope I'm not coming across as a self-opinionated pedant. Does the soul always follow the body's direction? A list can be woefully inadequate to answer the questions about cats when half of the items are dogs. I can finally see an outline of an argument, rather than arbitary assertions. Its presence in libraries around the globe is a sign of its continued success as an invaluable resource material. There is no common ground because you started on the dark squares while Callicles set out from the light ones. What do philosophers like Socrates (see "we" at 65d4) maintain about "the Just itself" and other things of the same general sort? How does the dialogue "prove" that the soul is indestructible? 23. (92c-d), 33. This is my problem, I know, not Plato's. Can you help me make sense of the argument for the soul's immortality in the Phaedo?
I guess that one would need to say more in favor of the "list" idea given Socrates' plausible sounding suggestion that each item on the list must have something common with every other item, and this is what make it a list of virtues as opposed to just any old list of items. Here in the Phaedo he's talking to his own students and friends so they have a lot of common ground already, and in fact the Forms are introduced as if it were an idea they were all familiar with and basically accept (but that isn't the case at all in the Meno, there the Forms aren't even mentioned). 1. G. Vlastos, Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo, Philosophical Review 78 (1969), 291-325. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics/.