Plato's Philosophy

Plato?s Philosophy & Its Legacy ?Wherever I go in my mind I meet Plato coming back.? ?Greek Epigram I. Greek Philosophy Before Plato A. Definition of Philosophy 1. philosophia= ?love of wisdom? 2. Footnotes to Plato B. The Cosmologists (6th-5th centuries BCE) 1. ?Inquirers into nature? 2. Against Hesiod?for the kosmos 3. Unified theory of nature 4. Ancient atomism C. The Mathematicians 1. Pythagoras: ?All is number? 2. Parmenides & Zeno: ?All is One? D. The Sophists 1. Teachers of Rhetoric 2. Humanistic 3. Relativistic II. Socrates (469-399 BCE) A. Life 1. Born an Athenian citizen 2. Leaves occupation to become a philosopher 3. Fights in the Peloponnesian War 4. Trial and Death B. Teaching 1. Humanistic but not sophist 2. Socratic Method C. Influence on Plato 1. The Apology of Socrates III. Plato (429-347 BCE) A. Life 1. Born into a noble family 2. Student of Socrates 3. Attends Socrates at trial and death (399) 4. Travels around Greece and Italy 5. Opens the Academy in Athens (385) 6. Advisor to Dionysius II (in Sicily) in 368 & 362 7. Returns to Athens and dies in 347 IV. Aspects of Plato?s Thought A. Plato?s Dialogues 1. Popular form of writing 2. Socrates the main speaker (mostly) 3. Early, Middle, and Late Dialogues B. Theory of Forms 1. Ideas or Forms beyond the senses reason 2. Only accessible by self-mastery C. Theory of Recollection 1. Innate ideas 2. Forgetting and Remembering the Forms D. Platonic Dualism 1. Mind/Body or Mind/Matter distinction 2. Mind superior to body V. Plato?s Apology & Republic (c.380 BCE) A. Overview of Republic 1. What is justice? a. Thrasymachus: ?I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.? b. ??justice is what is advantageous to the stronger, while injustice is to one?s own profit and advantage.? 2. Republic?3 classes 3. Three virtues 4. Three parts of the soul 5. Justice as harmony B. Overview of Apology 1. Trial of Socrates 2. Defense of Philosophy