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Plato
A discussion of the theories of society of Plato and Aristotle actually has two components, analysis of how they thought real societies actually operated and how they thought an ideal society...
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Plato
Plato (427—347 B.C.E.) was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the wealthy and powerful city state of Athens. He himself came from a wealthy and well-connected family. Plato was introduced...
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Plato
First, we should briefly mention what the allegory of the cave is. The allegory of the cave is found in Plato's Republic 514-520. In this illustration, Plato is saying that the default mode of...
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Plato
In many religious and philosophical traditions, the soul is considered to have some form of existence independent of the body. While in some religious systems (Christianity and Islam, for example),...
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Plato
Plato was not a democrat. He did not believe that all people are equal or that the people are able to know best how to govern themselves. Instead, his ideal form of government was one in which...
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Plato
One of the most respected philosophers in history, and a noteworthy figure of his time in ancient Greece, Plato's writings continue to be studied thousands of years after his death. His...
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Longinus
It is important to study the word of these early critics of literature precisely because they are foundational in terms of our understanding of literature today, and they are the giants on which...
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Plato
Plato certainly worried about governments censoring intellectuals. This he discusses in The Apology (or just Apology) in which he defends Socrates who had been charged with corrupting the youth of...
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Plato
Plato (429 – 347 B.C.E.) was a citizen of Athens, Greece and is perhaps best known in connection with his mentor, Socrates. The death of Socrates in 399 B.C.E., which is recorded in Plato’s...
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Plato
Crito gives four main reasons for his desire to help Socrates to escape. First, Crito states that it would reflect badly on Socrates' friends, as if they did nothing to help him. Second, Crito says...
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Plato
In short, Crito appeals to Socrates based on friendship, philosophy, and family to consider escaping from prison. Crito fails. In my opinion, Crito was very unpersuasive for two reasons. First,...
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Aristotle
One significant difference is that Plato separates pleasure from the good. He argues that both the coward can feel just as much pleasure from his cowardly acts as the hero can from his heroic...
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Plato
Callicles in this text argued for a complete lack of morality and for self-serving interest, a world in which the powerful could do what they want because justice was just a sham to be seen through...
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Plato
In response to the argument of Callicles that any notion of justice is man-made and therefore false as it is an artificial law and not a natural one, Socrates, the voice of Plato in this text,...
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Plato
Plato's definition of "Man" is subject to interpretation, but one famous anecdote gives an explicit (if satirical) Platonic definition. Based on the Dialogues, animals were classified into...
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Plato
Aristophanes was the most famous comic poet of ancient Greece and author of The Clouds, a play about Socrates that is actually mentioned in Plato's Apology as having been brought forward as...
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Plato
I think that one area in which Plato and Popper would have a vigorous debate would be in the realm of political philosophy. In his belief of the forms and the faith in the philosopher- king,...
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Plato
While I find many of Plato's points in his educational dialogue fascinating, I think that his construction of educational philosophy is not able to translate very well into the modern setting. The...
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Plato
Plato draws a series of oppositions between knowledge and opinion. The central opposition is ontological. Knowledge, because it is unchanging and certain, must be of things which are rather than...
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Aristotle
Because Aristotle had been so important to St. Thomas Aquinas and late medieval Roman Catholic theology, many Protestant countries looked upon his work with a certain degree of skepticism, seeing...
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Plato
The theme of this famous allegory is that our perception of reality is limited by our point of view, in fact that any perception is a limited one. Socially, it can be extended thematically to...
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Plato
This is a very good question and one that is important as it hits on a central point in Plato's philosophy. Here is some background information. The allegory of the cave is found in Plato's...
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Plato
Well...this is a very general question. But I think one way to answer this question is that he was a rationalist. This means that he believed that ideas were very real, more real that objects...
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Plato
This is a great question. Plato has written a lot on the topic literature and so many thing can be stated. So, I will have to be selective. Here are two points. First, Plato believed that...
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Plato
The Crito is one of Plato's shorter dialogues, which deals with the days before Socrates's execution. Crito, one of Socrates's disciples comes to persuade him to escape from prison in view of his...
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Plato
I am not so sure that we should agree with Plato. As you probably know Plato is pretty harsh when it comes to poets. Let me give you Plato's rationale and then answer why we should agree or...
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Plato
Plato discusses justice at great length in several dialogues including Apology, Laws, Republic, and Gorgias. His views of justice are generally concerned with what is called eudaimonia, or "living...
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Plato
The Platonic dialogues are the writings in which Plato lays out his philosophy. They are called dialogues because they are written as a series of conversations as opposed to simple treatises on...