Unit 2 - Plato
Plato, Republic, Book 1
Cephalus says that wealth is important because it can save us from having to do injustice. But why does he think justice is important?
Polemarchus says that justice is helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies. What problems does Socrates find in this conception of justice?
Thrasymachus thinks that Socrates, Cephalus, and Polemarchus all share a mistaken assumption about justice. What is it?
What does Thrasymachus mean when he says that justice is “nothing other than the advantage of the stronger” (338c)? Who are “the stronger”?
Why does Thrasymachus’s view of justice imply that (for those who aren’t in power) justice is “the good of another” (343c), while injustice is to one’s own advantage (344c)?
Why does Thrasymachus call justice a vice, injustice a virtue?
Compare the use Thrasymachus and Socrates make of the shepherd/sheep analogy.
Why does Socrates think that “in a city of good men, if it came into being, the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they do now in order to rule” (347d)?
Explain Socrates’ argument at 351b–352d that injustice will make a person “incapable of achieving anything, because he is in a state of civil war and not of one mind.” Is it a good argument? What analogy does it rely on?
Socrates gives the following argument at 352d–354a:
- Justice is the virtue of the soul.
- The function of the soul is living.
- The virtue of a thing is whatever makes it perform its function well.
- So justice makes a person live well.
- Anyone who lives well is blessed and happy.
- So justice makes a person blessed and happy.
Is this a good argument? If not, why not? What premise(s) do you think are false, and why? Or is there a mistake in the logic?
- Justice is the virtue of the soul.
Why is Socrates dissatisfied with the arguments of book 1?
Republic, Book 2 (beginning)
At 357b–357e, Glaucon distinguishes three classes of goods. What are they? In which class does he put justice? In which class does he think “most people” put justice?
Glaucon wants to hear justice and injustice discussed apart from “their rewards and what comes from each of them” (358b). What kinds of things are included in “their rewards and what comes from each of them”? Give some examples from the text.
Glaucon tells a story about the origins of justice. What is it? What view of human nature underlies it?
Glaucon argues that no one practices justice willingly. Explain.
Glaucon says that justice is an intermediate between the best and the worst. What are the best and the worst?
Glaucon urges Socrates to examine the completely just man and the completely unjust man. Describe each of these. Why does he think it is important to focus on these?
Why does Socrates start an investigation into the just man by inquiring about the just city?
What is Socrates’ justification for requiring that each person in his city do the one job for which he or she is most naturally suited, and not dabble in others?
Republic, Books 2–5 (excluding end of 4)
What kind of education will Plato’s guardians get? Why music and poetry and physical training?
In what ways are Plato’s educational proposals similar to Protagoras’s (in the Protagoras)? Is there a tension between these proposals and the views on education Socrates puts forth in the Protagoras?
Why does Plato put so much stress on education?
Why does Plato think that laws are useless for making the city good (427a)?
Why does Plato propose to censor the literature, art, and music to which his guardian youth are exposed? What kinds of stories would Plato censor? What would be left?
Describe Plato’s distinction between “imitation” and “straight narration.” When does he think imitation should be allowed? How does he think imitation can be harmful?
Describe the guardians’ living arrangements. Why aren’t the guardians allowed to have any private property?
How does Socrates reply to Adeimantus’s objection that the guardians in the kallipolis won’t be very happy?
How does Plato argue that the guardians should include women as well as men? How does he reply to the objection that since men and women have different natures, they should do different jobs? In what sense is he a feminist?
Explain Plato’s proposals for state regulation of reproduction and child rearing. How does Plato argue for the abolition of the nuclear family?
Plato says that the communal breeding arrangements he recommends lead to “the greatest good” for the city. What is this good?
What is Plato’s justification for giving all the political and military power to the guardians and depriving the producing class of any political participation? What is the guardians’ main goal in governing?
Republic, Book 4 (end)
What are the three parts of Plato’s city? What is the job of each?
- What are the three parts of the soul, and how do they match up with the parts of the city? What is the natural role of each part?
What is wisdom in the city? What is courage? Temperance? Justice?
What is wisdom in the soul? What is courage? Temperance? Justice?
What does Plato think is the greatest harm possible in the city?
What kinds of phenomena does Plato take to show that the soul has different parts?
How does Plato show that the rational part of the soul is distinct from the appetitive part? How does he show that the spirited part is distinct from the appetitive part?
Socrates says that justice “isn’t concerned with someone’s doing his own externally, but with what is inside him…” Explain.
What is the relation between a just person and just actions? Is one defined in terms of the other? What makes an action just, on Plato’s view?
What is injustice in the soul? In the city? In what sense is injustice “contrary to nature”?
Explain the analogy Plato draws between justice and health.
(*) Is the analogy Plato draws between the state and the individual soul illuminating or misleading? Explain.
(*) What basis does Socrates have for assuming that someone with a just soul (in his sense) won’t rob temples, break agreements, or engage in other behavior conventionally regarded as unjust? Why couldn’t Hannibal Lector have a soul with the rational part in charge, the appetites subordinated to it, and the spirited part assisting the rational part and holding firm his beliefs about what is good and honorable? He does have tremendous self-control.
Plato, Phaedo
What does Socrates mean when he says that philosophy is practice for death? Why does he say a philosopher should welcome death?
In what way does Plato think the senses are unreliable as sources of knowledge?
At 74b, Socrates asks: “do not equal stones and sticks sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one to be equal and to another to be unequal?” Explain.
Compare the Form of F with sensible Fs. What are the main differences?
What is the “compresence of opposites”? Give some examples.
Why does Plato think that no sensible property could explain why beautiful things are beautiful, or why large things are large? What does he think can explain why beautiful things are beautiful?
What justification does Plato give for believing in the Forms? Is it a reasonable one?
Aristotle says that Plato departed from Socrates and “separated the Forms” because he accepted the Heraclitean doctrine that all sensible things are “in flux.” How should we understand this doctrine, and what does it have to do with Plato’s belief in non-sensible Forms?
Plato, Hippias Major
What kind of answer is Socrates looking for when he asks Hippias “what is the fine?”
How do Hippias’s answers illustrate the “compresence of opposites” in sensible things and properties? Give some examples.
Republic, Book 5 (end)
Socrates’ aim at the end of book 5 is to distinguish true philosophers from the “lovers of sights and sounds.” Who are the lovers of sights and sounds? What distinguishes them from philosophers?
How does Socrates argue that the lovers of sights and are lovers of opinion, not knowledge? Is it an argument the lovers of sights and sounds could accept?
Republic, Books 6–7
Draw the cave. What are the four stages in the cave? How do they correspond to the four parts of the Divided Line?
Why does Plato think that the prisoners in the cave are “like us”? In what sense do we argue about mere shadows? - indeed, about shadows of artifacts, not of real things?
Is the knowledge the guardians must have any different from the knowledge the completely just individual must have? Why or why not?
Why does Plato think that the prisoners in the cave would be reluctant to turn around and walk towards the light? Explain how this part of the allegory applies to us.
Why does Plato think that the prisoners would ridicule the person who returned from the outside? Explain how this part of the allegory applies to us.
What is the difference between opinion and knowledge, according to Plato?
What does the second stage in the allegory of the cave (i.e., looking at the fire and the figurines that cast shadows on the wall) represent?
What sorts of sense perceptions does Plato call “summoners” (523b ff.)? What effect do summoners have on the soul? How do they draw us towards knowledge of the forms?
What is the difference between the numbers studied by arithmetic and the numbers attached to the objects of vision and the other senses? How do we grasp the numbers studied by arithmetic?
What are the two characteristic features of Thought (the third stage of the Divided Line, 510b-d)? How does Plato illustrate them by means of mathematics? What are some other examples of Thought (in addition to mathematics)?
Does Socrates claim to have Understanding (the fourth stage of the Line) of the Good or Justice, or merely Thought?
How does dialectic differ from mathematics?
What is the goal of dialectic?
Explain Plato’s analogy of the Sun.
Plato does not think that education consists in stuffing the soul with bits of knowledge. What does he think education is?
Describe the education of the guardians. Is it the kind of education you’d expect for a political leader?
Republic, Books 8–9
Would a businessman who rationally organizes all of his desires so that he can make money most efficiently have a soul ruled by the rational part? Why or why not? What kind of soul would he have?
What is the difference between necessary and non-necessary appetites or desires? Explain what Plato means when he says that the rational part of the oligarchic man’s soul is enslaved to his necessary desires.
How does Plato characterize democracy and the democratic soul? What features of the democratic soul correspond to the freedom and equality of the democratic state?
What’s wrong with democracy (and the democratic soul), according to Plato?
Plato says that an excessive desire for freedom leads from democracy to tyranny. Explain.
Describe the tyrannical soul and explain how it is analogous to a tyrannical state.
Why does Plato think that the successful tyrant is the most wretched and least free of all people?
(*) If you asked the tyrant, he’d probably say that he’s happy, since he can have anything he wants. Plato apparently thinks he’s wrong. Can we be wrong about whether we’re happy?
(*) Socrates argued in the Protagoras that the phenomenon commonly known as weakness of will, or “being overcome by pleasure,” is really just ignorance, and that we always do what we believe to be best. Does Plato reject this Socratic view, or does he accept it? Consider the evidence from books 4 and 6–10.