Unit I
1. Presocratic Philosophy
Thales
Pythagoras: Number theory
Democritus: Atomism
Heraclitus: Doctrine of Flux and Logos
Parmenides: Nature of Being
Presocratic Philosophy (Complete Notes)
To get specific information on each sub-theme of the unit-1, please click the following topics
From the History of Philosophy
Thales
1. Presocratic Philosophy
Thales
Pythagoras: Number theory
Democritus: Atomism
Heraclitus: Doctrine of Flux and Logos
Parmenides: Nature of Being
Presocratic Philosophy (Complete Notes)
To get specific information on each sub-theme of the unit-1, please click the following topics
From the History of Philosophy
Thales
Pythagoras: Number Theory
Democritus: Atomism Ancient Atomism
Heraclitus: Doctrine of Flux and Logos
Parmenides: Nature of Being
UNIT II
1. Sophists: Protagoras(Man is the measure of all thing)
2. Socrates: Virtue is Knowledge
Sophists (Protagoras)
Socrates: Virtue is Knowledge Socrates
Virtue is Knowledge
According to Socrates, virtue is knowledge, because: (1) all living things aim for their perceived good; and therefore (2) if anyone does not know what is good, he cannot do what is good -- because he will always aim for a mistaken target; but (3) if someone knows what is good, he will do what is good, because he will aim for what is good.
That is the argument presented by Xenophon in his Memories of Socrates (Memorabilia iii, 9, 5). What Aristotle calls "the correct definition of the good" is that argument's assumed premiss (1 above); cf. Plato, Republic 505d-e.
Yet Socrates' view of moral virtue is contrary to the consensus of mankind, according to Aristotle. And, indeed, if Socrates is correct, then why don't people who say they know what they should do (namely, what is good) not do what they say they know they should do? Is it not true that all vice is the result of ignorance, and all (moral) virtue is the result of knowledge?
Two kinds of virtue
Note that physical strength and courage are both virtues or goods, but of the two only courage is a moral virtue or good whereas physical strength is a natural or non-moral virtue. Note that Socrates does not say that strength is knowledge, but he does says that courage is knowledge.
Man has uniquely human natural virtues such as reason and creativity, as he also has, uniquely among animals, moral virtues such as piety (correct conduct towards God), justness (correct conduct towards man), modesty (self-knowledge), self-discipline (self-control, temperance), courage.
[It was Socrates who revised the Greek concept areté ("excellence") to include moral virtue, Socrates who made the study of ethics part of philosophy (Diog. L. i, 14, 18). Philosophy's three parts, according to the Stoics.]
Unit III
1. Plato: Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Ideas, Immortality of the Soul and Criticism of Plato's theory of Ideas
In philosophy, Plato's epistemology is a theory of knowledge developed by the Greek philosopher Plato and his followers. Platonic epistemology holds that knowledge of Platonic Ideas is innate, so that learning is the development of ideas buried deep in the soul, often under the midwife-like guidance of an interrogator.
Plato: Theory of Knowledge
Plato: Theory of Ideas
Plato: Theory of Ideas (Simple Notes)
Criticism of Plato's theory of Ideas
Critical Estimate of the Doctrine of Plato’s Ideas:
(1) Plato has made no attempt at explaining how actually all other Ideas are derived from one single Idea. There is one important drawback in the dialectic, which Plato should have remedied. Supreme idea, he says, is the Good. It is the ground of all other ideas. He ought to have derived all other Ideas from this one highest Idea. But he has not done it.
(2) Again, Plato often identified God with the supreme idea of the Good. But how are God and the Idea of the Good, related? Either God is identical with the Good, or not.
If God is different from the highest idea, as Zeller points out, there are only three possibilities:
(i) God is the ground of the idea of the Good. This possibility show that the Good, as the highest Idea, is not substance, or ultimate reality,
(ii) The second possibility is God owes his being to the idea of the Good. This destroys God’s prestige and makes him dependent for his existence on the Idea of the Good. Then God becomes only an appearance,
(iii) The third alternative is that God and the Good are equally independent ultimate realities—which mean Plato’s theory is nothing but dualism.
The central thesis of Plato’s whole system of philosophy is the Theory of Ideas. All else—his physics, his politics his view on art—is but deduction from this theory of ideas. It is here that we must look, alike for his merits and the defects of Plato’s system.
Plato’s theory is that the Absolute reality is reason, is thought. This is the fundamental thesis of Idealism. Plato, therefore, is the founder of all idealism. His greatest contribution to history of philosophy is that “Absolute reality is universal thought.”
As Plato has described—ideas and the particular things of this world are opposed to each other by nature. Ideas are universals, particulars are individuals, Ideas are realities, particulars are appearances. Ideas are known by reason, particulars are known by perception. Ideas are beyond space and time, particular are always spatial and temporal, Ideas are thoughts, particular are things. Ideas are self-caused, independent of particulars, but the particulars have their grounds in Ideas and are real in so far as they participate in Ideas.
The question now arises. How the Ideas or the Forms or the universals are related to the particulars? In his book “Parmenides” Plato explains the relation as (1) existing between the original and the copy. (2) Sometimes he says that the relation is of participation. Particulars are dim, imperfect copies of the Ideas. Individual men are imperfect copies of the Idea Man. Plato again says—particulars participate in the universal, the individual men participate in the Idea of ‘Man’.
(1) But ‘copy’ or imitation is a metaphor. Similarly, ‘participation’ between the Idea and the particulars is also a metaphor. Metaphor is not an explanation. If the particulars are copies of the Ideas, then the universals are to be treated as particulars. The copy of a tree is particular, but the original tree also is a particular.
The original and the copy—both are particulars. If both the idea and the particulars under it are treated as particulars, then on the basis of the common features between the two, we’ll have to admit of another ‘idea’ (universal). This last idea, if taken as the original, will be a particular, to explain which we should admit of as another idea. In this way, we will have to face infinite regress.
Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, put forward a similar argument against Plato’s theory, which is known as ‘Third-man-argument’. “When an individual is a copy of an idea, the individual and the idea are similar; therefore there will have to be another idea, embracing both the particulars and the original idea. And there will have to be yet another, embracing the particulars and the two idea, and so on ad infinitum.”
Universals must not be identified, even by analogy, with any things that are particulars, for to do so would be to make them no longer universals. The relation of universals (Ideas or Forms) is not like any other relation. The relation of copy to a thing, of which it is a copy, is still the relation between one particular and another.
(2) Plato used another metaphor to explain the relation between the idea and the particular thing. The particular “participates” in the universal. The crew and the passengers of ship participate in the ship. But this analogy does not stand. Because the men in the ship, the ship itself are both particulars. Perhaps, Plato was conscious of this problem.
In ‘Parmenides’, Plato himself, in the words of Parmenides, raises two questions:
(a) Does the individuals participate in the whole idea? or
(b) Only in a part of it? If we take the first alternative then we should admit that one idea is equally and totally present in each and every individual member of a class.
If the second alternative is accepted then the idea is one and many at the same time. But each goes against Plato’s theory of Ideas.
The relation may be explained as follows. The relation cannot be literally or even similar to any of the situation that Plato presents.
As John Hospers observes – “A more accurate statement of the relation, at which Plato hinted but never fully stated, would be: The relation between the (Ideas) universals and particulars is like no other relation. It is the relation of exemplification of instancing, which is uniquely different from any other relation that there is. A particular blue instances or exemplifies blueness, this triangle instances triangularity and so on.”
Following Thilly we may conclude by saying that with the possible exception of Plato’s theory of forms, no other Platonic theory (e.g., his doctrine of soul, God, world, his philosophy of Politics, Ethics and Nature) has exerted a longer or more continuous influence. Plato’s doctrine of ideas, though it contains a number of errors, yet, it marks a very important advance in philosophy, since it is the first theory to emphasise the problem of universals, which has persisted to the present day.
We cannot express ourselves in a language composed wholly of proper names, but must have also general words such as “man”, “dog”, “cat”, or relational words like ‘similar’, ‘before’ and so on. Such words are not meaningless noises and it is difficult to see how they can have meaning if the world consists entirely of particular things, such as is designated by proper names.
Plato’s theory of forms or ideas affords a prima facie case in favour of universals (B. Russell). He failed to realise how great the gap between universals and particulars is. His ‘ideas’ are just other particulars. He himself, at a later date, began to see this difficulty, as appears in Parmenides, which contains, according to B. Russell, one of the most remarkable cases in history of self-criticism by a philosopher.
As W. T. Stace observes, any successful philosophy must satisfy two conditions:
(1) It must be capable of explaining the world, and
(2) It must explain its first principle as self-explanatory.
Regarding explanation of the world, Plato says that the world of particular things and beings are “copies” or ‘imitation’ of the Ideas. They “participate” in the Ideas. But why? Why do such copies exist? There must be reason for it. This reason must exist in the nature of the Ideas themselves. There must be an inner necessity in the Ideas which force them to reproduce themselves in things. But there is no such necessity in Plato’s Ideas.
The Ideas are sole reality. They are self-sufficient. They lack nothing. It is not necessary for them to achieve anything. There are white objects in the world. But why should the Idea of whiteness produce white things? There is in the Ideas no necessity forcing them towards reproduction of themselves. Thus we can say that they possess no principle for the explanation of things.
The second test is whether the principle of Ideas is a self-explanatory principle. Now the only self-explanatory principle in the world is reason itself. Reason is its own reason. Explanation of a thing means showing that the thing is rational. When Plato says that the Absolute is concept, he says that it is reason. Merit of Plato lies in this recognition of the final principle of his philosophy as reason or concept.
But, to be self-explanatory, each concept must be a necessary concept. But Plato’s Ideas are not of this necessary kind. We can think the world without the idea of whiteness. Why is there an Idea of whiteness? We cannot see. There is no reason. There is no necessity. The same thing applies to all other ideas. They are not rational concepts.
Plato says that the ultimate ground or reason of all lower ideas will be found in the Supreme idea of the Good. But it is not possible to deduce the idea of whiteness from the idea of the Good. It is quite possible to think the Good without thinking of whiteness.
Plato takes the universal as a particular, when he says that particulars are copies or imitations of them. But to form a picture of the universal is to think it just what it is not, an individual.
Thus the Ideas of Plato cannot explain their relation to the world nor can the Ideas explain themselves. Plato’s Ideas exist in a world of their own. So, Stace comments that “Plato commits the greatest sin that can be ascribed to a philosopher. He treats thought as a thing. He was the great founder of Idealism, but his idealism is crude.”
Unit IV
1. Aristotle: Form and Matter
2. Concept of Cause
BOOKS
1. Popular Ancient Greek Philosophy Books2. Early Greek Philosophy
3. Burnet_Greek Philosophy_Thales to Plato
4. History of Greek Philosophy
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