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| 354 | Wisdom makes virtue and true goodness possible |
| Full Idea: It is wisdom that makes possible courage and self-control and integrity or, in a word, true goodness. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 069b) | |||
| A reaction: Aristotle also says that prudence (phronesis) makes virtue possible. |
| 370 | Philosophy is a purification of the soul ready for the afterlife |
| Full Idea: Souls which have purified themselves sufficiently by philosophy will live after death without bodies. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 114b) | |||
| A reaction: Purifying it of what? Error, or desire, or narrow-mindedness, or the physical? |
| 350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts |
| Full Idea: When philosophers investigate with the help of the body they are led astray, but through reflection the soul gets a clear view of the facts. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 065c) |
| 24226 | The soul on its own enters a pure, unchanging and eternal realm, and experiences wisdom |
| Full Idea: When the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of the pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, …and its experience is then what is called wisdom | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 079d) | |||
| A reaction: Plato is probably the main source of something we can call 'pure' reason. It is a bit surprising that it took 2,000 years before someone thought to attempt a critique of it. |
| 362 | The greatest misfortune for a person is to develop a dislike for argument |
| Full Idea: No greater misfortune could happen to anyone than developing a dislike for argument. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 089d) |
| 24264 | Cebes responds critically to every idea he hears |
| Full Idea: There goes Cebes, always hunting down arguments, and not at all willing to accept at once what anyone may say. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 063a) | |||
| A reaction: Socrates seems to approve of this. The critical response has to be basic to dialectic. But I have observed a modern philosophical vice, of an almost unthinking negative response to every new idea, making philosophy excessively destructive. |
| 24276 | If you want to discover facts, don't muddle the start of enquiry with its conclusion |
| Full Idea: You wouldn't jumble things as the contradiction-mongers do, by discussing the starting-point and its consequences at the same time, if, that is, you wanted to discover any realities. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 101e) | |||
| A reaction: This looks like begging the question, if the start of the enquiry seems to already assume its conclusion. It presumably doesn't simply refer to incompetent muddle. |
| 13155 | If you add one to one, which one becomes two, or do they both become two? |
| Full Idea: I cannot convince myself that when you add one to one either the first or the second one becomes two, or they both become two by the addition of the one to the other, ...or that when you divide one, the cause of becoming two is now the division. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 097d) | |||
| A reaction: Lovely questions, all leading to the conclusion that two consists of partaking in duality, to which you can come by several different routes. |
| 21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias |
| Full Idea: When you say Simmias is taller than Socrates but shorter than Phaedo, so you mean there is in Simmias both tallness and shortness? - I do. ...But surely he is not taller than Socrates because he is Simmias but because of the tallness he happens to have? | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 102b-c) | |||
| A reaction: He adds that both people must be cited. This appears to be what we now call a rejection relative height as an 'internal' relation, which is it would presumably be if it was a feature of one or of both men. |
| 24270 | If we perceive equals, we need prior knowledge of the equal in itself |
| Full Idea: It must have been before we began to see and hear that we got knowledge of the equal itself, what it is, if we were going to refer the equals from our sense-perceptions to it. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 075b) | |||
| A reaction: Universals. Plato's drastic solution is that we remember pure equality from a past life. An intermediate view is that it may be innate (by evolution, perhaps). The reductionist view is we learned equality by past perceptions. Plus idealisation. |
| 24230 | The Forms arise whenever we talk of something 'in itself'. |
| Full Idea: Our present argument is about …the Equal, the Beautiful itself, the Good itself, the Just, the Pious, and about all those things to which we can attach the word 'itself', both when we are putting questions and when we are answering them. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 075d) | |||
| A reaction: This identifies the Forms with ideas which emerge during philosophical conversation (either the 'elenchus' interrogation or the 'dialectic' discussion). So they arise from using language. The 'itself' test works quite well in English. Cf essentialism. |
| 24225 | Things like the Equal and the Beautiful, which are real, must be unchanging |
| Full Idea: Are these things ever the same …or do they vary from one time to another; can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, …the real, ever be affected by any change? - It must remain the same. …They can only be grasped by the reasoning part of the mind. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 078d) | |||
| A reaction: Note the assertion that they are 'real', as well as unchanging. It is hard to make sense of 'the Equal' as a Form. We can more easily see what is in common among beautiful things. The number three is equal and unequal. But see 74d. |
| 1 | There is only one source for all beauty |
| Full Idea: If anything is beautiful other than beauty itself, it is beautiful for no other reason but because it participates in that beautiful. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 100c) | |||
| A reaction: The Greek word will be 'kalon' (beautiful, fine, noble). Like Aristotle, I find it baffling that such diversity could have a single source. Beautiful things have diverse aims. |
| 24227 | One and one can only become two by sharing in Twoness |
| Full Idea: You do not know how else [when one is added to one it becomes two] except by sharing in a particular reality, which does not have any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, …as that which is one must share in Oneness. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 101c) | |||
| A reaction: Close readers of such passages have always been baffled by what sharing [partaking, metechein] could actually mean. How can two apples 'share' a pure eternal idea? The best approach is, I'm afraid, mental files. |
| 368 | Other things are named after the Forms because they participate in them |
| Full Idea: The reason why other things are called after the forms is that they participate in the forms. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 102a) | |||
| A reaction: Hm. The Third Man problem beckons. How do you identify the Form, and how do you connect it to this particular? Did you learn the name of the Form before you named any of the particulars? |
| 24275 | Whether things are large or small needs the Forms of largeness and smallness |
| Full Idea: It is by largeness that large things are large, and larger things are larger, and by smallness that smaller things are smaller. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 100e) | |||
| A reaction: The idea that there are Forms of 'largeness' and 'smallness' is a particularly bad advert for the theory of Forms, given how obviously relative such things are. A dog can distinguish large from small dogs, but hardly needs the Forms to do it. |
| 16516 | The ship which Theseus took to Crete is now sent to Delos crowned with flowers |
| Full Idea: The day before the trial the prow of the ship that the Athenians send to Delos had been crowned with garlands. - Which ship is that? - It is the ship in which, the Athenians say, Theseus once sailed to Crete, taking the victims. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 058a) | |||
| A reaction: Not philosophical, but this is the Ship of Theseus whose subsequent identity, Plutarch tells us, became a matter of dispute. |
| 359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original |
| Full Idea: If someone sees a resemblance, but feels that it falls far short of the original, they must therefore have a recollection of the original. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 074e) |
| 357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram |
| Full Idea: The way in which people react to a geometrical diagram or anything like that is unmistakable proof of the theory of recollection. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 073a) |
| 9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul |
| Full Idea: We are convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 066c) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to be the original ideal which motivates the devotion to a priori knowledge - that it will lead to a 'pure' knowledge, which in Plato's case will be eternal and necessary knowledge, like taking lessons from the gods. Wrong. |
| 24272 | Philosophy reveals that the senses are extremely deceptive |
| Full Idea: Philosophy shows the soul that inquiry through the eyes is full of deceit, and deceitful too is inquiry through the ears and other senses. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 082e) | |||
| A reaction: This scepticism about the senses seem to be a necessary pre-condition for a strong commitment to rationalism. It strikes me as ridiculous. The possibiity of deception does not make the senses 'full' of deceit. Just think about what you see. |
| 24271 | If a man knows something, he can give an account of it |
| Full Idea: If a man knows things, then of course he can give an account [logos] of what he knows. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 076b) | |||
| A reaction: The next question is what a person requires in order to be able to give that account. One answer must be understanding, rather than supporting information. Maybe it is grasp of the reality, rather than of mere words. |
| 15859 | To investigate the causes of things, study what is best for them |
| Full Idea: If one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. Then it befitted a man to investigate only ...what is best. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 096e) | |||
| A reaction: A reversal of the modern idea of 'best explanation'. Socrates is citing Anaxagoras's proposal to understand things by interpreting the workings of a supreme Mind. It is the religious version of best explanation. |
| 24279 | We no longer explain a hot body by 'heat', but by its containing fire |
| Full Idea: If you ask me what it is, by whose presence in a body, the body will be hot, I shan't give the safe old ignorant answer, that it's heat, but a subtler answer now available, that it's fire…and I shan't say a body is ailing because of illness, but of fever. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 105c) | |||
| A reaction: An explanation mocked by opium's sleep induction being explained by its 'dormitive principle' (Molière's The Imaginary Invalid). The modern view is that it makes a good but superficial point, by indentifying the location of the problem. |
| 13154 | Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? |
| Full Idea: Is it with the blood that we think, or with the air or the fire that is in us? Or is it none of these, but the brain that supplies our senses of hearing and sight and smell. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 097a) | |||
| A reaction: In retrospect it seems surprising that such clever people hadn't worked this one out, given the evidence of anatomy, in animals and people, and given brain injuries. By the time of Galen they appear to have got the answer. |
| 360 | We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it |
| Full Idea: We must have some previous knowledge of equality, before the time when we saw equal things, but realised that they fell short of it. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 075a) | |||
| A reaction: Plato sees this as a Form, but I see it as one of the capacities of the brain, to impose the ideal of perfect equality on things which seem fairly equal. |
| 24269 | When lovers see a beloved's lyre, they immediately think of the beloved |
| Full Idea: You know that lovers, whenever they see a lyre or a cloak their loves are accustomed to, they get in mind the form of the boy whose lyre it is. And that is recollection. Likewise, someone seeing Simmias is often reminded of Cebes. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 073c) | |||
| A reaction: This is the phenomenon of association by resemblance, which was so important for Hume's empiricism. Recollection from a past life is an extremely poor explanation of the matter. |
| 364 | One soul can't be more or less of a soul than another |
| Full Idea: Is one soul, even minutely, more or less of a soul than another? Not in the least. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 093b) | |||
| A reaction: This idea is attractive because unconsciousness and death seem to be abrupt procedures, and so appear to be all-or-nothing, but I would personally view extreme Alzheimer's as an erasing of the soul, though a minimum level of it seems all-or-nothing. |
| 24278 | Threeness brings up oddness, which won't admit evenness |
| Full Idea: Threeness, while not opposite to the even, neverthless doesn''t admit it, since it always brings up its opposite, just as twoness brings up the opposite of the odd, and fire brings up the opposite of the cold. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 104e) | |||
| A reaction: I'm struck by this as a source of the Hegelian dialectic, where the concept of nothing entails the concept of something, from which a long stream of deductions is said to flow. Hegel is a footnote to Plato. |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality |
| Full Idea: When anyone's soul feels a keen pleasure or pain it cannot help supposing that whatever causes the most violent emotion is the plainest and truest reality - which it is not. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 083c) | |||
| A reaction: Do people think that? Most people distinguish subjective from objective. Wounded soldiers are also aware of victory or defeat. |
| 24266 | Normal temperance - scorn and control of desires - needs contempt of the body, and wisdom |
| Full Idea: Even what most people name 'temperance' - not being excited over one's desires, but being scornful of them and well- ordered - belongs only to those who utterly scorn the body and live in love of wisdom. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 068c) | |||
| A reaction: I find the idea that people should be taught to have contempt for the bodies utterly despicable. How about having your nerves severed, to avoid pleasure? Temperance is about self-control, and nothing else. In Idea 24267 Socrates disagrees with me. |
| 24267 | Well-ordering is not temperance; it is just fear of pleasure becoming excessive |
| Full Idea: Simple-minded well-ordered temperance is like this: it's because they're afraid of being deprived of further pleasures, and desire them, that they abstain from some because they are overcome by others. …They achieve temperance because of intemperance. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 068e) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] Socrates firmly rebuffs my view of temperance (in Idea 24266). I see the virtue in terms of Aristotle's mean (which is appropriateness, not the middle path). This means self-control where rational judgement sees that it is required. |
| 351 | War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body |
| Full Idea: All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth, and we want this because of the body, to which we are slave. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 066c) |
| 24263 | We belong to the gods, and only kill ourselves if they indicate some necessity |
| Full Idea: For the gods we human beings are among their belongings, …and if one of your belongings were to kill itself, without your signifying it, wouldn't you punish it? It is reasonable that one should not kill oneself until God sends some necessity. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 062b) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] The obvious problem is that you have to interpret the gods' message of necessity. Maybe the mere suicidal feeling is the message? I've not met elsewhere the idea that we are the property of the gods. Evidence for that? |
| 24262 | Sometimes, and for some people, death is better than life |
| Full Idea: Sometimes and for some people it is better for a person to be dead than alive. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 062a) | |||
| A reaction: Socrates himself sees suicide as totally prohibited, but he understands the world. |
| 13156 | Fancy being unable to distinguish a cause from its necessary background conditions! |
| Full Idea: Fancy being unable to distinguish between the cause of a thing, and the condition without which it could not be a cause. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 099c) | |||
| A reaction: Not as simple as he thinks. It seems fairly easy to construct a case where the immediately impacting event remains constant, and the background condition is changed. Even worse when negligence is held to be the cause. |
| 24277 | Snow ceases to be snow if it admits the hot; it is the same if fire admits the cold |
| Full Idea: What is snow will never admit the hot and still be what it was, namely snow. …And again, fire will never admit coldness. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 103d) | |||
| A reaction: This common sense observation is the whole basis of the view of science as the study of the essential nature of each thing. |
| 369 | If the Earth is spherical and in the centre, it is kept in place by universal symmetry, not by force |
| Full Idea: If the earth is spherical and in the middle of the heavens, it needs neither air nor force to keep it from falling. The uniformity of heaven and equilibrium of earth are sufficient support. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 108e) |
| 24268 | It is a common fear that the soul may entirely disperse immediately after death |
| Full Idea: People fear that when it is separated from the body, the soul [psuché] may no longer exist anywhere, but that on the very day a person dies, it may be destroyed and perish, as soon as it is separated from the body, and is dispersed like breath or smoke. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 070a) | |||
| A reaction: Note that this still involves a separate soul, which briefly survives while it is dispersed. Socrates, of course, utterly disagrees with this view, but the fear was evidently widespread and popular. |
| 24274 | Critias thinks soul survives death into another body, but that process may still terminate |
| Full Idea: Critias agrees that at least soul is longer-lived than body, but that no one could be sure whether the soul, after wearing out many bodies time and again, might not the perish itself, leaving its last body behind. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 091d) | |||
| A reaction: This account makes soul depend on the body being good enough to support it. How could we tell whether or not we are living the first or the last life of the sequence? Shows reincarnations do not entail immortality. Socrates prefers immortality. |
| 363 | Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality |
| Full Idea: The theory that our soul exists even before it enters the body surely stands or falls with the soul's possession of the ultimate standard of reality. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 092d) |
| 24273 | Simmias fears that the beautiful soul is attunement of the body, and dies with it |
| Full Idea: Simmias is afraid that the soul, though more divine and lovelier than the body, may still perish before it, being a kind of attunement. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 091c) | |||
| A reaction: The thought is that the good tuning of a lyre is superior to the lyre, but dependent on it. A functionalist view of mind! [But see Phaedo 94a]. |
| 24265 | After death I expect to join the wise gods, and good men |
| Full Idea: If I didn't believe …that I shall enter the presence, first of other gods both wise and good, and next of dead people better than those is this world, I would be wrong to not resent death; ...but I expect (and hope) to join the company of good men. | |||
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 063b) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] No wonder the Christian monks helped Plato's texts to survive (but neglected Democritus). For Socrates it is evidently a matter of faith, but is unclear why he believes such things. |