Philosophy

Alex Byrnes

doesn’t think we can define philosophy in a way that distinguishes it from other disciplines and inquiries
finds some value in philosophy as the activity of questioning conventional nad taken for granted beliefs

Joshua Cohen

philosophers think carefully, deeply, crtiically, and ambitously and that these are important skills for people to develop

Elizabeth Harman

you can put philosophy of____ in front of an array of topics
no authoritative answers in philosophy, meaning you have to decide for yourself which views you think are correct
philosphy is a technique that promotes thinking for yourself

Gideon Rosen

thinks philosophy does not have its own subject matter
philosophical reflection can improve our individual lives and live together
philosophy can deepen the experience of life
can make you think deeply about your life and why you do the things you do

Seanna Shiffrin

thinks philosophy can provide you with a successful career, closer friendships, and a meaningful life
thinks it does so by promoting the development and exercise of skills and virtues
valuable skills but mot going to change your life

the avg college student today

students writing, reading, and math skills have gotten worse
due to phones, lack of interest, and absense
attention spans are getting worse

why ai is destroying academic integrity key pts

ai has become a major problem around academic integrity and college students
ai is an ex of the experience machine: does not allow students to develop their own ideas

Main characters/discussions in gorgias

socrates and gorgias
socrates and polus
socrates and callicles

what is the initial discussion in gorgias about

what techne (craft) does Gorgias claim to be an expert in
oratory/rhetoric

what is the craft of oratory about according to Gorgias

speeches, greatest human concerns, persuasive political speeches, about matters of justice and injustice
persuading people

what does gorgias claim the two types of people he persuades

those convinced with knowledge (teaching persuation) and those convinced without knowledge (conviction persuasion)
gorgias claims the ability to persuade people without knowledge

An orator can convince a crowd

better than a true craftsman, even though the orator doesnt know the craft-gorgias

oratory is a

morally neutral skill, which can be used for good or bad
gorgias does not condone it being used unjustly

Socrates asks the question: does the orator know what is just and unjust, and can he teach this to his pupils, or is the orator ignorant of these things? what is gorgias’s response and socrates response

gorgias says that he does know and can teach his students what justice and unjustice are
socrates claims that if the orator knows what justice and unjustice are, then he is a just person and if he teaches justice and unjustice to his pupils, then they become just people too.
follows that oratory is not a morally neutral skill so gorgias contradicted himself

what is the dilemma gorgias is faced with

either an orator knows and teaches justice and unjustice, in which case his pupils wont act unjustly by abusing oratory, or he doesn’t know and doesn’t teach justice and injustice, in which case gorgias has to publicly admits hes ignorant of these concerns

what happens when polus enters

says socrates is rude and socratus condesends polus

polus questions socrates by asking what do you say oratory is then? socrates says…

it is a knack, form of flattery, image of a part of politics"
says oratory is telling people what they want to heat; pseudocraft

overviews of socrates craft v. knack framework

the true craft of the body= craft of health
true craft of the soul= the craft of politics
knacks/pseudo-craft of the body= cosmetics
pseudo craft of the soul=sophistry

the true craft of the body= craft of health

two parts
gymnastics: craft of diet and exercise; promotes health through prescribing exercise and nutritious food and drink
medicine: restores the body to health when sick

true craft of the soul= the craft of politics

two parts:
legislation (laws): prescribes laws that promote the heat of the soul

justice (court): restores souls to health through inflicting punishment upon people who act wrongly

legal moralism

philosophical view that the law can legitimately prohibit or require behavior based on society's collective judgment of morality, even if the action causes no direct physical or psychological harm to others

knacks/pseudo-craft of the body= cosmetics

cosmetics: promotes the illusory image of real health
pastry baking: mimics medicine by pretending to know what foods are good for the body while really jsut gving it things that are pleasurable

pseudo craft of the soul=sophistry

sophistry: mimics legislation by producing an illusory appearance of good laws
oratory: mimics justice by producing the illusory appearance (through persuasive speech) of appointing punishments to blame when whats really going on is in the interest of others

polus: but dont orators, like tyrants, have lots of power in their cities? and isnt that a good thing
socrates paradoxical claim:

actually orators and tyrants have the least power in their cities

Socrates method and approach to his conversation with Gorgias, Polus, and Calliclies

Socrates advocates for back-and-forth, question-and answer style of conversation, rahter than the long sppeches practiced by orators like gorgias.
socrates wants to discover the truth about things rather than merely persuading people
through asking questions, socrates gets people to agree to certain statements which are then used as premises for further discusion

Pror to showing that gorgias has contradicted himself, socrates says

those who lack this character argue in order to win rather than to discover truth

gorgias contradicts himself bc he thinks that

oratory is a morally neutral skill that can be used for good or evil
AND
that he can and does teach his peoples to be good and just

Socrates contrasts two different ways of refuting a particular assertion of pov

Polus thinks Socrates is making craxy claims that no one would accept, so he argues that bc reputable people in Athens would reject socrates views, those views must be false

argumentum ad populum

appeal to the people
fallacy, an error in reasoning whereby someone argues that something is true or false simply bc most people either beleive or disbeleive it

Socrates claims that he doesnt cite the authority of other people to support his positions, sicne they might be wrong. Instead he

tries to get people to agree with what hes saying based on mutually agreed upon reasons and sound arguments

Successful tyrants use rhetoric to

attain power and once they have power, they can put to death anyone they want and confiscate the propert and banish from their cities anyone the see fit
can also bend the laws of their city to benefit themselves and their friends at the expense of everyone else
polus assumes this power is a good thing that anyone would wnat

socrates makes the radical claim that successful tyrants

lack true power

socrates main arguments to polus

successful tyrants have the least amount of power in their cities
it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it; it is worse to commit injustice than to suffer it
if one commits an injustice, it is better to be caught and punised than to get away with it

successful tyrants have the least amount of power in their cities

Socrates argues that having the power to do whatever you want is not the same as having true power.

• Instrumental goods are things we value because they help us achieve something else. Intrinsic goods are things we value for their own sake.

• Tyrants may kill people, exile them, or take their property because they believe these actions will help them get what they really want.

• However, Socrates assumes that people ultimately want things that are actually good, not merely things they think are good.

• A tyrant might be able to do whatever he wants in the sense that no one can stop him, but if he doesn't understand what is truly good or just, he may actually be harming himself.

• Therefore, the tyrant has the ability to do whatever he sees fit, but he does not have true power, because he cannot actually achieve what he truly wants: what is genuinely good for him.

it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it; it is worse to commit injustice than to suffer it

Polus thinks Socrates is being ridiculous because he believes successful tyrants who commit terrible acts are happier than the people they hurt.

Socrates then gets Polus to agree to two important ideas:

1. It is better to commit injustice than to suffer injustice.

2. It is more shameful to commit injustice than to suffer it.

Socrates argues that these two ideas contradict each other.

• Something is shameful if it is either more painful or more harmful/evil than something else.

• Committing injustice clearly isn't more painful than suffering injustice.

• Therefore, committing injustice must be more harmful/evil than suffering it.

• But that means committing injustice cannot be better than suffering it, contradicting Polus's original claim.

polus’s response to socrates main argument about tyrants

i think these statements are absurd, socrates, though no doubt you think they agree with those expressed earlier

instrumental goods

acting in a way to get what you want

intrinsic goods

doing good bc it is the right thing; not for a reward

At the end of the discussion with Polus

Polus in unpersuaded, even though his own statements have led him to contradict himself
he is shown to lack the character that socrates claims for himself od caring about trust above all

injustice is a

corrupt condition of the soul (injustice in your soul)
Being unjust is the most shameful and harmful form of corruption out there

it is better to be caught and punished for doing unjust than to

get away with it bc being justly punished removes the great evil

Callicles proposes a distinction between law and nature

Nature is the realm of truth that is independent of human convention
law is human convention

why gorgias and polus failed

what gorgias and polus wanted to do was praise the use of oratory as a means of attaining political power.

• They think using oratory to gain power is good, not as a matter of social convention or law, but as a matter of truth according to nature

When arguing with socrates, they slipped up by endorsing conventional views which hold that its shameful not to know what justice is and that it is more shameful to commit than to suffer injustice
callicles thinks they lacked the courage of their conventions (they were too embarrased or ashamed to go against common beliefs

callicles presents himself as courageous in ways they were not

Callicles thinks that some men are

naturally superior to the mass of ordinary people and deserve to rule over them
callicles is defending facism

callicles critique of Socrates and his practice of philosophy

philosophy is bs- callicles
says it is okay for young people in moderation, but it becomes ridculous when practiced by grown men

Socrates thinks Callicles will be a good interlocutor bc

he possesses knowledge, goodwill, and frankness (sincerity)

isle of the blessed

myth

Some views are beyond the

pale of resonate discussion
is it ever good to violate this and explore someone else’s view? can you learn from it?
important to engage in views that are different from yours

who does calllicles say counts as the surperior men

“the more intelligent” are those who are entiltled to rule
more intelligent in the affairs of the city, and brave too

Socrates asks Callicles whether rules will also rule themselves

callicles says no

Question arises if the surperior people (those living a truly good life)

control their appetites or try to expand and satisify them
callicles believes they should try to expand and satisfy the which is hedonism

socrates first argument against hedonism

the parable of leaky jars

self controlled person: container is full and intacts
- once they have what they need, they can relax bc they dont constantly need more

the undisciplned person (hedonist): containers are leaky
-no matter how much they put into them, it keeps leaking out, so they constantly have to fill them
-is not happiness, form of constant need and dependence

socrates second argument against hedonism

the existence of bad pleasures: pleasure and pain can happen as the same time, feeling pleasure does not mean that it is good

socrates third argument against hedonism

Takes this form: goodnesss has feature X, pleasure lacks feature X, therefore, goodness cannot be pleasure

Callicles thinks pleasure is good and pain is bad
Socrates thinks that goodness and badness/evil are opposites that cannot coexist
each one drive out the other. nothing can be both good and evil at the same time. goodnesss cannot coexist with its opposite
however, it is possible to feel plasure and pain at the same time( like when you drink water when really thirsty)
pleasure can ocexist with its opposite
therefore goodness and pleasure cannot be the same thing

another argument against hedonism

brave men and cowards fell pain and pleasure to roughly the same degree
yet brave men are good and cowards are bad
therefore, goodness cannot consist in experiencing pleasure, and badness cannot consist in experiencing pain

Callicles shifts his position on hedonism

recognizes that some pleasures are good and some are bad

socrates gets callciles to admit that

good pleasures are those that arise from beneficial and good activities, while bad pleasures are those that arise from harmful or bad acitivities
we should do good things if it arises from something that is independently good

socrates makes explicit that they are discussing two rival ways to live

orator/sophist way of life v. the life of philosophy

oratory is a knack that

produces pleasure without knowledge of the good, while philosophy attains knowledge of the good, and thus can identify what pleasures are worthy of pursuit

callicles starts to disengage from

the convo bc he is loosing the argument

oratory identified as in the

business of gratification rather than goodness or truth
Socrates doesnt think any politicians knew or taught goodness and truth to the people of athens

musicians and dramatists are in the business of

producing pleasure rather than knowledge of the good

it takes a true craftsman to

speak, act, and legislate in such a way that makes the souls of people better

a good soul

an ordered and organized one
one that is lawful and possessed of justice and self-control
on what a good orator would know and do

socrates returns to callicles remarks about how

unprepared for the important tasks of life philosophy leaves people

the worst evil is being an

unjust person/having a corrupt soul

how can we protect ourselves against this greatest of evils

in the effort to protect oneself from suffering injustice, one runs the risk of becoming unjust oneself
so using power to avoid suffering injustice is not a way to save oneself from the greatest evil

Socrates claims that suffering death is not

the greatest evil
it is better not to be alive at all than to live badly
we should live as well as possible and not worry about how long we live

ascetism/ascetic

thinks bodily pleasure is bad

the orator/sophist practices the kind of politics that

risks him and the people suffering the greatest evil- being bad people, having unjust souls, etc

the philosopher will practice a better kind of politics

trying to make himself and the people as good as possible

Before supporting a politician we should see if

he is himself good and has a track record of making those around him better
using this standard, Socrates argues that a number of famous Athenian politicans were actually bad ones