ANCIENT PHIL ESSAY QUESTIONS

In the Euthyphro, Euthyphro’s third attempt to define the pious states that the pious is what all the gods love (9e11a). How does Socrates argue against this definition? How might we most reasonably defend the definition against Socrates’ objections? Could Socrates nonetheless reasonably  overcome that defense, and if so, how?

argument

carried analogy

1. Is the pious being loved by the gods because its pious or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods

2. is the thing carried a carried thing because it is being carried or for some other reason

3. euthyphro agrees to former

4. if anything is being changed or affected it is being changed because something is changing it

5. loving is a kind of affecting

6. the gods love is what is making something pious

The state of something being carried is effected by the act of carrying it.

what makes something pious is the fact the the act of the gods loving it effects how something is valued

therefore there is nothing inherently pious about something

• contradiction because he agreed to former argument and latter

Defense

• euthyphro can just fully accept that something is pious because the gods love it

  • give gods moral superiority

could socrates over come my defense -

if the god all have different moral standards that define what is pious and what isn’t pious we don’t have a definite standard of piety

no definite standard for what is pious

Socrates’ search for a definition of piety in the Euthyphro (esp. 5d-11b) and his descriptions of the politicians, poets, and craftsmen in the Apology (esp. 21b-23b) suggest that he has a fairly determinate conception of knowledge or wisdom. What does Socrates appear to consider necessary and sufficient for knowledge or wisdom of a specific subject matter? How might one most reasonably object to this conception of knowledge? How might Socrates most reasonably respond to such objections, and would he, in your judgment, be successful?

Argument: necessary for sufficient knowledge

• all posses knowledge in specific trade

• because of this they think they hold knowledge in higher matters, socrates found lacking

• to have true knowledge you need to be able to know forms/true definitions

• looking for wisdom to the forms of everything

Objection

• One can gain knowledge knowledge through sense perception

  • can be gained empirically through sense experience

  • we can know things by learning from real world experience

How might socrates most reasonable respond to latter objections

sense perceptions are flawed so we cant gain true knowlegde from them

• socrates might deem everyday knowledge as useful and true but true wisdom differentiates in that its is something devoid of human interactions and knowledge on everyday task

• true wisdom, to socrates, would be to understand your limits (what you don’t

In the Apology, Socrates briefly cross-examines Meletus, who agrees to a series of premises that, according to Socrates, show that he either does not corrupt the youth or does not do so deliberately (25c-26a). What is Socrates’ argument for this conclusion? How might one most reasonably object to this argument? How could one most reasonably defend Socrates’ conclusion against those objections, and would that defense, in your judgment, be sufficient to acquit Socrates of the charge of corrupting the youth?

What is Socrates’ argument for this conclusion?

• 1. Good people benefit others and bad people harm others

2. To corrupt someone is to make them worse

3.Therefore, to corrupt someone makes them more harmful and less beneficial to others

4. Nobody wants to be harm

5. Therefore nobody knows 1-3 will want to corrupt others

6. Socrates know 1-3

7.Therefore socrates will not want to corrupt others

8.Therefore, either socrates does not corrupt the youth or does so unintentionally

How might one object

• socrates uses premises implies that one could be possible unaware of harmful actions. either he deliberately harms or does so unintentionally

  • this does not deduce the fact that socrates may be doing harm unintentionally, in which he still is suseptable to doing harm.

  • if someone unintentionally does harm they cannot be aware of the later harmful effects to oneself

  • either way harm was done

  • for when one does harm one must be held accountable

How could one most reasonably defend Socrates’ conclusion against those objections?

• if ones actions caused harm unintentionally one must of done so based on outcome error rather than out of evilness

  • in this case one should be advised rather than punished

  • in apology socrates states that he would not stop his efforts to seek the wise which contradicts his statement to be advised in what he did wrong

In the Crito, Socrates argues in the voice of the laws of Athens that if he were to attempt to escape punishment, he would be trying to harm the laws and would be violating a just agreement (50a-53a). How do the laws support these claims? How might someone most reasonably object to their arguments? How could the laws most reasonably respond to such objections, and would that response, in your view, vindicate their claims?

Supported claims by the law

• the city that birthed him, brought him to be by the marriage of his parents. Educated him

• The city is the superior of socrates, they are not on equal footing

• if he cares for virtue and wisdom - entails that he should honor his country

• its impious to bring violence to country

• “Not one of our laws raises any obstacle or forbids him, if he is not satisfied with us or the city, if one of you wants to go and live in a colony or wants to go anywhere else, and keep his property.”

  • if not one must come to agreement when one is on trial

• Socrates, who spends time on learning knowledge, wisdom and virtue - would be contradicting himself if disobeys laws he agreed to

Objections - one can say that laws could be corrupt, giving an unjust punishment

• if something is unjust one must be held accountable

• laws must acquit socrates as punishment is unjust

Laws response

• socrates could have chosen to pay a fine at time of sentence but did not

• socrates implies that he would not stop practicing philosophy

• he accepted punishment of death

1. In the Phaedo, Socrates presents what has come to be called the Cyclical Argument for the conclusion that “the living come from the dead” and hence that “the souls of the dead must be somewhere whence they can come back again” (70d-72a). How does he argue for this conclusion? What are the best objections against it? How might Socrates most reasonably defend the argument against those objections, and would that defense be sufficient to defeat the objections?

Socrates argument for the soul

1. Everything that comes to be comes to be from its opposite [if it had an opposite. Ex: smaller: larger, weaker: stronger, worse: better, Sleeping: walking

2. Death is the opposite of life [being dead is the opposite of being alive]

3. Hence everything that comes to be dead comes to be dead from being alive

4.Hence everything that comes to be alive come to be from being dead

5.Hence our souls exist “in the underworld” (i.e separated from the body)

• the soul is incorporeal, separate entity that can exist outside body

• opposites of opposites

  • death opposite of life

  • everything that’s dead comes to be dead from being alive

  • everything that comes to be alive comes to be from being dead

  • hence souls exist separate from body

objections

• one can say that rather than dead being positive attribute it is simple non existence.

  • death results in non existence

  • if something is non existent it proceeds that it no longer is present

  • the soul is non existent after death

  • therefore the soul cannot exist after death

  • death does not flow into being alive

• death and life do not work in tandem

  • sleep and awake

Socrates response

In the Phaedo, Socrates presents what has come to be called the Affinity Argument for the conclusion that the soul cannot be broken up and destroyed (78b-80b). How does he argue for this conclusion? What are the best objections against it? How might Socrates most reasonably defend the argument against those objections, and could that defense be sufficient to defeat those objections?

• changing things - composite

• unchanging things - incomposite

incomposite things cannot be broken up

• the forms are mos likely incomposite, unchanging

• the souls can know forms

• the soul must be similar to forms

• the soul must be unchanging, incomposite

• hence the soul cannot be broken

Objection

• how do we know soul id similar to the forms outside just the soul knowing the forms

• through the soul we also know material things

• soul could be material in this case

Socrates response

• we don’t use soul to know material things

• we use sense perception to understand material things

• so soul is only familiar with immaterial things like forms

• sense perception is controlled by body

• we only percive particulars we don’t really know them, our sense perception is a bodily function, so soul id only familiar with immaterial things like the forms, cause the forms is true knowledge

1. In the Phaedo, Socrates argues against the so-called harmony theory of the soul, which Simmias presents as a plausible reason to doubt that the soul can survive the death of the body (85e-86d, 91d-95a). What is the harmony theory, and how would it support the conclusion that the soul cannot survive the death of the body? What do you take to be Socrates’ best argument against the harmony theory? How might one most reasonably defend the harmony theory against that argument, and can it, in your view, successfully meet Socrates’ objections?

Harmony theory

• harmony does not direct its components of which it is made of but is directed by said components

• harmony cannot be different state from that of the elements of which its composed

• nature of each harmony depend on way it has been harmonized

  • if it is more an more fully harmonized, be more and more fully a harmony

  • if it is less and less fully harmonized be less anf less a harmony it will be less and less fully harmony

• can be true about soul

  • one soul is more and more fully a soul than another or less and less fully a soul

  • one soul can have intelligence and virtue and to be good , another to hav folly and wickedness and to be bad

• supports that soul cannot survive death as it entails that the soul works with the body to create harmony, causing soul and body to be linked

Socrates objection to harmony theory

1. the soul exist before the body

2. harmony is not like that

3. the harmony is composed after the lyre and the strings and the notes, though still unharmonized

• sticking to dualist ideal - the body and soul are separable while lyre and harmony work together

• strict and ridge - good soul is harmonized while evil soul lacks any kind of harmony

• soul is still master of body on terms of moral authority

  • causes body to do things

• virtue of soul - harmony wickedness of soul - disharmony

  • no soul if harmony would share any wickedness or disharmony

• The argument from degrees of harmony

  No soul is more or less a soul then any other

  Therefore if soul is an attunement/ harmony, no soul is more or less attuned/ harmonized than any other

  Virtue and vice are a matter of the soul being more and less harmonized/ attuned

  Therefore, if the soul is an attunement/ harmony, no soul is more or less virtuous or vicious than the other

  But some souls are more, and other less, virtuous than others

  Therefore, the soul is not an attunement/ harmony

Defense against socrates objections

• how do we know that soul exist before body besides socrates argument that soul must bc it knows the forms

• it can be that soul came to be when one is born.