Socrates 4.
FORM- The highest form of thinking involves
Socrates (ca. 470–399 B.C.) agreed with the embracing the forms themselves, and true
Sophists that individual experience is important.He intelligence or knowledge results
took the injunction “Know thyself,” inscribed on
the portals of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, to
indicate the importance of knowing the contents
of one’s own mind or soul (Allen, 1991). He went
so far as to say,“The life which is unexamined is
not worth living”(Jowett, 1988, p. 49). However,
he disagreed with the Sophists’ contention that no
truth exists beyond personal opinion. In his search only from an
for truth, Socrates used a method sometimes understanding of the abstract forms.
called inductive definition,which started with an
examination of instances of such concepts as The Allegory of the Cave
beauty, love, justice, or truth and then moved on In the allegory of the cave, Plato described
to such questions as.For Socrates,an essence was a fictitious prisoners who have lived their entire lives
universally acceptable definition of a concept-a in the depths of a cave. The prisoners are
definition that was both accurate and acceptable chained,so they can look only forward. Plato then
to all interested parties.For Socrates,the described what might happen if one of the
understanding of essences constituted knowledge, prisoners were to escape his bondage and leave
and the goal of life was to gain knowledge. When the cave.
one’s conduct is guided by knowledge, it is According to Plato’s reminiscence
necessarily moral.In 399 B.C., when Socrates was theory of knowledge, all knowledge is innate and
70 years old, he was accused of disrespect for the can be attained only through introspection, which
city gods and of corrupting the youth of Athens.He is
was tired,convicted and sentenced to death. the searching of one’s inner understanding.
The Nature of the Soul
PLATO Plato believed not only that the soul had a rational
The writings of Plato (ca. 427–347 B.C.) can be component that was immortal but also that it had
divided into two periods. During the first period, two other components: the
Plato essentially reported the thoughts and courageous(sometimes translated as emotional or
methods spirited) and the appetitive. The courageous and
of his teacher, Socrates. When Socrates died, appetitive aspects of the soul were part of the
however, Plato went into self-imposed exile in body and thus mortal. With his concept of the
southern Italy, where he came under the influence three-part soul, Plato postulated a situation in
of the Pythagoreans. According to his theory of which humans were almost always in a state of
forms, everything in the natural world is a conflict, a situation not unlike the one Freud
manifestation of a pure form (idea) that exists in described many centuries later. According to Plato,
the abstract. Thus, chairs, chariots, cats, and the body has appetites (needs such as hunger,
Corinthians are inferior manifestations of pure thirst, and sex) that must be met and that play a
forms.Socrates accepted the fact that a thorough major motivational role in everyday life.
definition specified an object’s or a concept’s
essence, whereas for Plato an object’s or a
concept’s essence was equated with its form.
THE NALOGY OF THE DIVIDED LINE
Plato summarized this viewpoint with his famous
analogy of the divided line
1.IMAGE- Imagining is seen as the lowest form of
understanding because it is based on images.
2,BELIEF- The best we can do even when
confronting objects directly is to form beliefs or
opinions about them.
3.MATHMATICAL ANALYSIS- mathematical
knowledge is still not the highest type because
such knowledge is applied to the solution of
practical (empirical) problems,
Beliefs, however, do not constitute knowledge.
