SOCRATES, PLATO, Their Philosophies

AND ARISTOTLE
SOCRATES (469-399 BCE) GREEK PHILOSOPHER FROM
ATHENS, GREECE. CREDITED AS THE FOUNDER OF
WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND AMONG THE FIRST MORAL
PHILOSOPHER OF THE ETHICAL TRADITION OF THOUGHT
Famous Quotes of Socrates:
“Know Thyself”
“The unexamined life is not worth living for”
“Virtue is knowledge”
“All I know is that I know nothing”
SOCRATES
*Best known for his “Elenchus” or the Socratic Method
*A method of question and answer which aims to provoke
the one being asked to think for himself and clarify his
conceptions about what is asked.
*Regarded as one who urged self-examination and claimed
that ‘The unexamined life is not worth living for”
SOCRATES
*Virtue is Knowledge, to make virtue intellectual.
*Vice is ignorance.
*The Socratic Method: an exercise in dialectics
through a series of questions and answers, the opponent
usually fails to realize that by the answers he has given,
he is in the process of showing or demonstrating the
contradiction in his own original argument or
proposition.
SOCRATES
*A legendary figure even in his own time, he was admired by his
followers for his integrity, his self-mastery, his profound
philosophical insight, and his great argumentative skill. He
was the first Greek philosopher to seriously explore questions
of ethics.
*Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical
results for the greater well-being of society. He attempted to
establish an ethical system based on human reason rather than
theological doctrine. Socrates pointed out that human choice was
motivated by the desire for happiness.
SOCRATES
“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing”
*He believed that learning came from within and that
the best and most lasting way to bring latent knowledge
to awareness was through the process of continual
questioning and unconventional inquiry. For Socrates,
answers were always steps on the way to deeper
questions
PLATO(427-347 BCE)
*A completion and extension of the philosophies of
Socrates.
*Concept or Idea is the only true reality.
*Philosophy is the science of idea.
*Dialogues-accounts of what he is concerned with as
influenced by Socrates
*The Republic-his famous work, discusses his social
and political philosophy.
PLATO
*Plato believes that for the Greek City States to
flourish, must be led by Philosopher Kings, that
justice is best manifested if persons would do what
is suited to his soul.
*He encouraged people to seek what is good, what
is true, and what is beautiful in the intellectual
realm beyond the appearances because the senses
are often deceitful.
PLATO
*Plato urged humans to detach themselves from
the corporeal because the soul can better
recognize the eternal form of truth, beauty, and
goodness.
PLATO
*Absolute Truth is beyond popular opinions of the multitudes.
*Moral Values are objective in the sense that they exist in a
spirit-like realm beyond subjective human conventions.
*They are absolute or eternal because they never change.
*They are universal as they apply to all rational creatures
around the world and throughout time.
ARISTOTLE (384-322BCE) ANCIENT GREEK
PHILOSOPHER AND POLYMATH. FOUNDER OF THE
LYCEUM IN ATHENS, THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE
DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SCIENCE.
*His Philosophy opposes Platonic tradition.
*Human beings philosophize because they wonder about the
world.
*His method focuses on analyzing phenomena or experience and
proving credible opinion about these experiences to arrive at
adequate proof.
ARISTOTLE
*His Ethics was Teleological (end or goal centered)
*What conduces to the attainment of his good or end
will be a right action on man’s part, the action that is
opposed to the attainment of his true good will be a
wrong action.
*Virtues are good habits that we acquire, which
regulate our emotions. (Face fear with courage)
ARISTOTLE
*Believes that the aim of Philosophy is Truth, and
the endowment of senses will lead a person in direct
contact with the world, and allow him to analyze
whether what appears upon close scrutiny and
analysis is correct.
*His Philosophy extends to Human Anatomy,
Biology, Physics, Knowledge, and Ethics.
ARISTOTLE
The moral theory of Aristotle, like that of Plato,
focuses on virtue, recommending the virtuous way
of life by its relation to happiness.
In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the
Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest
of his life studying, teaching and writing. Some of his
most notable works include Nichomachean Ethics,
Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics and Prior Analytics.