Plato's Forms

1. Watch this video.
2. Read both handouts concerning the soul and the Forms.
3. Write up (in the sections comment of this post) a 2-3 paragraph summary on the soul and the Forms. What role does the soul play with the Forms? What role does the body play? What is the main point of the Plato's Symposium as it related to the soul and the Forms?

Plato Quotes

Provide a quote from Plato in comments section. Then, put quote in your own words.

Plato- Allegory of the Cave

Full text and accompanying video found here. 

HOMEWORK: IN COMMENTS SECTION, GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT YOU THINK PLATO IS SAYING ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION AND HOW HUMANS PERCEIVE THE WORLD.

Bio/Background Plato (429–347 B.C.E.) is, by any reckoning, one of the most dazzling writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy. An Athenian citizen of high status, he displays in his works his absorption in the political events and intellectual movements of his time, but the questions he raises are so profound and the strategies he uses for tackling them so richly suggestive and provocative that educated readers of nearly every period have in some way been influenced by him, and in practically every age there have been philosophers who count themselves Platonists in some important respects. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied. But he was so self-conscious about how philosophy should be conceived, and what its scope and ambitions properly are, and he so transformed the intellectual currents with which he grappled, that the subject of philosophy, as it is often conceived—a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, armed with a distinctive method—can be called his invention. Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range: perhaps only Aristotle (who studied with him), Aquinas, and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. (from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/). 

Charges Against Socrates, His Refusal for a Plea Deal, and his Sons.

These are the three major topics/themes we will read about in class today concerning The Apology of Socrates. Please put the designated passages into your own words in the Comments Section of this posting.

The Apology in a different format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Pl2HcmpVk

The Apology of Socrates

For a full-text of the Apology, click here. After reading, please be sure to answer the following questions in the "Comments" section of THIS posting. Do not email them to me, do not post them to another date.

For an in depth analysis of the real life trial of Socrates, click here. 

Read the first 5 pages of the text from the above link.

Questions

1.Describe Socrates' over-all tone in the first 4 pages of the reading. 

2. What does Socrates believe he is being accused of?

3. What role does Socrates' reputation play? What does he think is his reputation?

4. Give me your thoughts thus far on the text- what stands out the most? What does not make sense? What are some emerging themes?

Some Additional Help: Socrates in Modern Day English- Click here

Parmenides

PARMENIDES


Parmenides was a Greek philosopher and poet, born of an illustrious family about B.C.E. 510, at Elea in Lower Italy, and is is the chief representative of the Eleatic philosophy. He was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens for his excellent legislation, to which they ascribed the prosperity and wealth of the town. He was also admired for his exemplary life. A “Parmenidean life” was proverbial among the Greeks. He is commonly represented as a disciple of Xenophanes. Parmenides wrote after Heraclitus, and in conscious opposition to him, given the evident allusion to Hericlitus: “for whom it is and is not, the same and not the same, and all things travel in opposite directions” (fr. 6, 8). Little more is known of his biography than that he stopped at Athens on a journey in his sixty-fifth year, and there became acquainted with the youthful Socrates. That must have been in the middle of the fifth century BCE., or shortly after it. (Information taken from http://www.iep.utm.edu/parmenid/)

For a detailed introduction and philosophical analysis of Paremenides' work- click here. 

Assignment: In the Comments section, compare and contrast Thales and Parmenides. How are their approaches different? What questions are at the heat of their texts? Do either offer any answers to these questions?