Doctrine of Part Performance

Platos Idea of philosophyPLATOS IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY

Project submitted toxyz(Faculty: Public International Law)

Project submitted byabc(Political Science, major)Semester VRoll no. 14

HIDAYATULLAH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITYRAIPUR, C.G.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am highly elated to carry out my research on the topic, Platos Idea of Philosophy. I would like to give my deepest regard to my course teacher XYZ, who held me with her immense advice, direction and valuable assistance, which enabled me to march ahead with this topic. I would like to thank my friends, who gave me their precious time for guidance and helped me a lot in completing my project by giving their helpful suggestion and assistance. I would like to thank my seniors for their valuable support. I would also like to thank the library staff and computer lab staff of my university for their valuable support and kind cooperation.

ABC Semester V

CONTENT1. INTRODUCTION.....4

I. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.6II. OBJECTIVES6

2. RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND ART......73. PLATOS IDEA OF FLOURISHING...104. THE THEORY OF FORMS...125. THE THEORY OF THE TRIPARTITE SOUL..146. CONCLUSION....157. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY...18

INTRODUCTION

"Platonism" is a term coined by scholars to refer to the intellectual consequences of denying, as Plato's Socrates often does, the reality of the material world. In several dialogues, most notably the Republic, Socrates inverts the common man's intuition about what is knowable and what is real. While most people take the objects of their senses to be real if anything is, Socrates is contemptuous of people who think that something has to be graspable in the hands to be real. In the Theaetetus, he says such people are "eu a-mousoi", an expression that means literally, "happily without the muses" (Theaetetus 156a). In other words, such people live without the divine inspiration that gives him, and people like him, access to higher insights about reality.[footnoteRef:2] [2: Nails, Debra (2002). The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 0-87220-564-9. p247]

Socrates's idea that reality is unavailable to those who use their senses is what puts him at odds with the common man, and with common sense. Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind, and this idea is most famously captured in his allegory of the cave, and more explicitly in his description of the divided line. The allegory of the cave (begins Republic 7.514a) is a paradoxical analogy wherein Socrates argues that the invisible world is the most intelligible ("noeton") and that the visible world ("(h)oraton") is the least knowable, and the most obscure.Socrates says in the Republic that people who take the sun-lit world of the senses to be good and real are living pitifully in a den of evil and ignorance. Socrates admits that few climb out of the den, or cave of ignorance, and those who do, not only have a terrible struggle to attain the heights, but when they go back down for a visit or to help other people up, they find themselves objects of scorn and ridicule.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Rodriguez- Grandjean, Pablo. Philosophy and Dialogue: Plato's Unwritten Doctrines from a Hermeneutical Point of View, Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, in Boston, Massachusetts from August 1015, 1998.]

According to Socrates, physical objects and physical events are "shadows" of their ideal or perfect forms, and exist only to the extent that they instantiate the perfect versions of themselves. Just as shadows are temporary, inconsequential epiphenomena produced by physical objects, physical objects are themselves fleeting phenomena caused by more substantial causes, the ideals of which they are mere instances. For example, Socrates thinks that perfect justice exists (although it is not clear where) and his own trial would be a cheap copy of it.The allegory of the cave (often said by scholars to represent Plato's own epistemology and metaphysics) is intimately connected to his political ideology (often said to also be Plato's own), that only people who have climbed out of the cave and cast their eyes on a vision of goodness are fit to rule. Socrates claims that the enlightened men of society must be forced from their divine contemplations and be compelled to run the city according to their lofty insights. Thus is born the idea of the "philosopher-king", the wise person who accepts the power thrust upon him by the people who are wise enough to choose a good master. This is the main thesis of Socrates in the Republic, that the most wisdom the masses can muster is the wise choice of a ruler.[footnoteRef:4] [4: Irwin, T. H., "The Platonic Corpus" in Fine, G. (ed.),The Oxford Handbook of Plato(Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 71.]

OBJECTIVES

1. To have a detailed study of the relation of Philosophy and Art. 2. To discuss the various theories as propounded by Plato which show his idea of Philosophy.

3. To differentiate the conceptual importance of dialogues in Platos theories and directions given by him.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The method of research adopted for the project is the analytical and descriptive method.The texts that were used for the project include articles, research papers and news given in various websites as well as online journals

RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND ARTIn the Republic, Plato voices his ambivalence toward poetry and poesis in general. Plato admires art for its great inspirational power, but at the same time detests it because its creator has no grasp of the truth.[footnoteRef:5] He states that the artist produces an insubstantial imitation of objects in the sensible world that are themselves less real than the forms, which comprise reality itself. Further, he argues that the appeal of poesis stems solely from its ability to arouse the emotions by gratifying the irrational, appetitive part of the soul while destroying the rational part. Consequently, poesis is psychologically damaging in its subversion of reason[footnoteRef:6]. The vehemence of Platos attack results from his desire to supplant art with philosophy as the major source of education in Athenian society. Poesis itself, in fact, has the same advantages and disadvantages as philosophy. [5: Plato. Ion. Trans. Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.] [6: Plato. Republic. 14 October 2003. .]

Many of Platos charges against poesis apply to philosophy itself and his own methods of writing philosophy. Just as the enchanting rhythms and captivating images of poesis may seduce an audience with their beauty, so too may the tight syllogisms and authoritative pronouncements in the dialectic of philosophy may elicit emotional response. It is unfair and, moreover, erroneous for Plato to conceive of poesis as exclusive of rationality, and similarly, of philosophy as independent of the faculty of emotion. Philosophy is a form of art, for the medium through which it operates, speech, is imitation, and art is, by Platos definition, imitation. It follows that a philosopher is an imitator whose representation of reality is limited by the extent to which words approximate an object, and further, the approximation of the object to the reality of the forms. Conversely, poesis is a form of philosophy, for its comprehension too involves intellectual contemplation and an active use of the consciousness.Through thoughtful reflection, both philosophy and art are capable of evoking knowledge of the forms. Both, therefore, are valid means of operating through and yet transcending imitation in the pursuit of truth. Although the purpose of philosophy is to attain authentic knowledge of the good and other forms, the word-images through which the philosopher speaks are ultimately imitations of objects that possess certain qualities of such forms. Like the representations produced by poesis, speech too is an imperfect mode of communication, thrice-removed from reality. The mortal soul is perplexed and cannot adequately grasp the forms, and so it discourses not about reality itself, but about the imperfect manifestations of reality, which are necessarily inferior. Hence, words are doubly imitations, because they describe objects that are themselves less real than the forms. Thrasymachus implies that words are inadequate to transmit truth when he says that Socrates has been talking nonsense and asks the philosopher to define justice clearly and exactly After Socrates shows Thrasymachus that injustice is not more profitable than justice, the latter retaliates, Enjoy your banquet of words!. He implies that he has been tricked by mere technicalities, definitions, into a concession. His statement hints not only at the insufficiency of words, but also at the aesthetic seductiveness of speech.Furthermore, since speech necessarily misrepresents the truth to some degree, so too does the philosopher, who, though he may try to explain the forms, inevitably fails and remains an imitator. Plato makes Socrates confess that he has no adequate knowledge of it [the good] but that he is willing to explain what is apparently an offspring of the good and most like it despite Socrates disclaimer that it is not right to talk about things one doesnt know as if one does know them. Nevertheless, the simple act of trying to explain the good without complete knowledge of it makes him an inexact imitator. The philosopher may even, consciously or otherwise, distort words for the purpose of persuading his audience and thereby make his imitation of reality only more inaccurate.[footnoteRef:7] [7: Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.]

Thrasymachus claims that the Socratic method of disputation lends itself to manipulation when he hostilely remarks, You disgust me, Socrates. Your trick is to take hold of the argument at the point where you can do it the most harm. He implies that, through the distortion of an argument for means of persuasion, Socrates can insidiously impose his views on his disciples. Still, Plato himself uses word-images to convey his ideas and, accepting the philosophers status as an imitator, even relies on imitation as a valid means by which to attain knowledge. For example, the dialogical form allows Plato to manipulate each of his characters, including Thrasymachus, who may voice beliefs that are not necessarily Platos own. Consequently, Plato subverts reality to some degree in order to attain truth. Moreover, the story told by Glaucon about the ring of Gyges, the noble falsehood about the origin of humans from gold, silver, and bronze, the metaphor of the cave, and the myth of Er all serve as allegorical stories (and hence, imitations of reality) that are meant to aid Socrates disciples in understanding his scheme for a just society. Thus, although word-image examples are inherently imitations, Plato does not hesitate to employ them, though this is his primary objection to the similar use of art.[footnoteRef:8] [8: Plato. Symposium. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.]

PLATOS IDEA OF FLOURISHING"So you see how our discussion concerns that which should be of the greatest importance to any person that is to say, how one should live."So says the character of Socrates in Platos sparkling dialogue on power and freedom, the "Gorgias", and it encapsulates why for me the greatest philosophy is to be found in Platos workseven if you dont believe (as few of us do) in their underlying metaphysics, the theory of eternal and unchanging forms[footnoteRef:9]. [9: See Ryle, The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson and Co., 1949, Chapter 5]

Plato never writes in his own voice; he never tells us what to think. Rather, he educates us in how to think. In his glorious dialogues, a wide variety of charactersphilosophers, politicians, playwrights, soldiers and oratorsdiscuss all the questions that really matter: the nature of love, beauty, knowledge and justice. These are discussions that leave space for the reader to enter. Underlying all of them is the question above: what is the best life and what sort of person does one have to be to live it? This approach to ethics focuses on the whole human being rather than on duties or the consequences of actions, and engages us emotionally as well as intellectually. And it is an approach to which the dialogue form is ideally suited: we are presented with an array of possible role models, and we are enabled to see how character, life and beliefs intertwine and influence one another. We are given a sense of the shape of a flourishing life."Flourishing"eudaimonia in Greekis not the same thing as pleasure, or even happiness. It is a more objective notion, concerned with the full realisation of our best faculties. We cannot always be happy, but we can always aim to fulfil our best potentialproviding, of course, that we have done some informed thinking about what "best" might entail here.[footnoteRef:10] [10: Roderick Chisholms entry, Intentionality, in Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1967, Vol. 3, pp. 201-204.]

For Plato, the best life is one in which reason and its desire for truth guides our sensual desires, and also our longing for honour and status. Without reasons guidance, these other desires will be adversely shaped by a corrupting environment and will harm both self and society. Through reason, we can escape the confinements of nature and nurture, and see further than our own postcode. But of course reason can only provide this release if it is properly trainedwhich is yet another argument in favour of sharpening your intellectual muscles by becoming an active participant in Platos matchless dialogues.

THEORIES OF FORMS

The Theory of Forms maintains that two distinct levels of reality exist: the visible world of sights and sounds that we inhabit and the intelligible world of Forms that stands above the visible world and gives it being. For example, Plato maintains that in addition to being able to identify a beautiful person or a beautiful painting, we also have a general conception of Beauty itself, and we are able to identify the beauty in a person or a painting only because we have this conception of Beauty in the abstract. In other words, the beautiful things we can see are beautiful only because they participate in the more general Form of Beauty. This Form of Beauty is itself invisible, eternal, and unchanging, unlike the things in the visible world that can grow old and lose their beauty.[footnoteRef:11] The Theory of Forms envisions an entire world of such Forms, a world that exists outside of time and space, where Beauty, Justice, Courage, Temperance, and the like exist untarnished by the changes and imperfections of the visible world. [11: C. Hampton, Pleasure, Knowledge, and Being: An Analysis of Plato's Philebus (1990); J. E. G. Evans, A Plato Primer (2010)]

Platos conception of Forms actually differs from dialogue to dialogue, and in certain respects it is never fully explained, so many aspects of the theory are open to interpretation. Forms are first introduced in the Phaedo, but in that dialogue the concept is simply referred to as something the participants are already familiar with, and the theory itself is not developed. Similarly, in the Republic, Plato relies on the concept of Forms as the basis of many of his arguments but feels no need to argue for the validity of the theory itself or to explain precisely what Forms are. Commentators have been left with the task of explaining what Forms are and how visible objects participate in them, and there has been no shortage of disagreement. Some scholars advance the view that Forms are paradigms, perfect examples on which the imperfect world is modeled. Others interpret Forms as universals, so that the Form of Beauty, for example, is that quality that all beautiful things share.[footnoteRef:12] Yet others interpret Forms as stuffs, the conglomeration of all instances of a quality in the visible world. Under this interpretation, we could say there is a little beauty in one person, a little beauty in anotherall the beauty in the world put together is the Form of Beauty. Plato himself was aware of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in his Theory of Forms, as is evident from the incisive criticism he makes of his own theory in the Parmenides. [12: Jacob A. Kline, A Commentary on Plato's Meno (1989)]

In essence, the Theory of Forms represents Platos attempt to cultivate our capacity for abstract thought. Philosophy was a relatively new invention in Platos day, and it competed with mythology, tragedy, and epic poetry as the primary means by which people could make sense of their place in the world. Like philosophy, art and mythology provide concepts that help us to understand ourselves, but art and mythology do so by appealing to our emotions and desires. Philosophy appeals to the intellect. The Theory of Forms differentiates the abstract world of thought from the world of the senses, where art and mythology operate. Plato also argued that abstract thought is superior to the world of the senses. By investigating the world of Forms, Plato hopes to attain a greater knowledge.[footnoteRef:13] [13: B. Jowett, ed. by D. J. Allan and H. E. Daley (4 vol., 4th ed., rev. 1953); A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (1927)]

THE THEORY OF THE TRIPARTITE SOUL

In the Republic and the Phaedrus, Plato describes the soul as divided into three parts, labeled appetitive, spirited, and rational. He offers this division partly as a way of explaining our psychological complexity and partly to provide a justification for philosophy as the highest of all pursuits, because it corresponds to the highest part of the soulthe rational part. We might feel the pull of these three parts when presented with a bowl of ice cream, a roast we accidentally overcooked ourselves, and a healthy salad. The appetitive part of our soul will crave the sensual pleasures it will derive from the ice cream, the spirited part of our soul will want to eat the charred roast out of a sense of pride in our own work, and the rational part of our soul will want to eat the salad as the healthiest of the three options. In proposing a tripartite soul, Plato acknowledges and seeks to explain the fact that we all experience inner conflict from time to time. We would be justified in seeing this theory as the starting point for psychology. However, Platos theory seeks not only to explain inner conflict but also to present the rational part of the soul as superior. Philosophy is essentially the practice of refining and foregrounding our rationality.

CONCLUSION

It is noteworthy, to begin with, that Plato is, among other things, a political philosopher. For he gives expression, in several of his writings (particular Phaedo), to a yearning to escape from the tawdriness of ordinary human relations. (Similarly, he evinces a sense of the ugliness of the sensible world, whose beauty pales in comparison with that of the forms.) Because of this, it would have been all too easy for Plato to turn his back entirely on practical reality, and to confine his speculations to theoretical questions. Some of his worksParmenides is a stellar exampledo confine themselves to exploring questions that seem to have no bearing whatsoever on practical life. But it is remarkable how few of his works fall into this category. Even the highly abstract questions raised in Sophist about the nature of being and not-being are, after all, embedded in a search for the definition of sophistry; and thus they call to mind the question whether Socrates should be classified as a sophistwhether, in other words, sophists are to be despised and avoided. In any case, despite the great sympathy Plato expresses for the desire to shed one's body and live in an incorporeal world, he devotes an enormous amount of energy to the task of understanding the world we live in, appreciating its limited beauty, and improving it.His tribute to the mixed beauty of the sensible world, in Timaeus, consists in his depiction of it as the outcome of divine efforts to mold reality in the image of the forms, using simple geometrical patterns and harmonious arithmetic relations as building blocks. The desire to transform human relations is given expression in a far larger number of works. Socrates presents himself, in Plato's Apology, as a man who does not have his head in the clouds (that is part of Aristophanes' charge against him in Clouds). He does not want to escape from the everyday world but to make it better. He presents himself, in Gorgias, as the only Athenian who has tried his hand at the true art of politics.[footnoteRef:14] [14: Rowe, Christopher, & Malcolm Schofield (eds.), 2000, Greek and Roman Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Contains 7 introductory essays by 7 hands on Socratic and Platonic political thought.)]

Similarly, the Socrates of Republic devotes a considerable part of his discussion to the critique of ordinary social institutionsthe family, private property, and rule by the many. The motivation that lies behind the writing of this dialogue is the desire to transform (or, at any rate, to improve) political life, not to escape from it (although it is acknowledged that the desire to escape is an honorable one: the best sort of rulers greatly prefer the contemplation of divine reality to the governance of the city). And if we have any further doubts that Plato does take an interest in the practical realm, we need only turn to Laws. A work of such great detail and length about voting procedures, punishments, education, legislation, and the oversight of public officials can only have been produced by someone who wants to contribute something to the improvement of the lives we lead in this sensible and imperfect realm. Further evidence of Plato's interest in practical matters can be drawn from his letters, if they are genuine. In most of them, he presents himself as having a deep interest in educating (with the help of his friend, Dion) the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius II, and thus reforming that city's politics.Just as any attempt to understand Plato's views about forms must confront the question whether his thoughts about them developed or altered over time, so too our reading of him as a political philosopher must be shaped by a willingness to consider the possibility that he changed his mind. For example, on any plausible reading of Republic, Plato evinces a deep antipathy to rule by the many. Socrates tells his interlocutors that the only politics that should engage them are those of the anti-democratic regime he depicts as the paradigm of a good constitution. And yet in Laws, the Athenian visitor proposes a detailed legislative framework for a city in which non-philosophers (people who have never heard of the forms, and have not been trained to understand them) are given considerable powers as rulers. Plato would not have invested so much time in the creation of this comprehensive and lengthy work, had he not believed that the creation of a political community ruled by those who are philosophically unenlightened is a project that deserves the support of his readers.[footnoteRef:15] Has Plato changed his mind, then? Has he re-evaluated the highly negative opinion he once held of those who are innocent of philosophy? Did he at first think that the reform of existing Greek cities, with all of their imperfections, is a waste of timebut then decide that it is an endeavor of great value? (And if so, what led him to change his mind?) Answers to these questions can be justified only by careful attention to what he has his interlocutors say. But it would be utterly implausible to suppose that these developmental questions need not be raised, on the grounds that Republic and Laws each has its own cast of characters, and that the two works therefore cannot come into contradiction with each other. According to this hypothesis (one that must be rejected), because it is Socrates (not Plato) who is critical of democracy in Republic, and because it is the Athenian visitor (not Plato) who recognizes the merits of rule by the many in Laws, there is no possibility that the two dialogues are in tension with each other. Against this hypothesis, we should say: Since both Republic and Laws are works in which Plato is trying to move his readers towards certain conclusions, by having them reflect on certain argumentsthese dialogues are not barred from having this feature by their use of interlocutorsit would be an evasion of our responsibility as readers and students of Plato not to ask whether what one of them advocates is compatible with what the other advocates. If we answer that question negatively, we have some explaining to do: what led to this change? Alternatively, if we conclude that the two works are compatible, we must say why the appearance of conflict is illusory.[footnoteRef:16] [15: Rowe, Christopher, & Malcolm Schofield (eds.), 2000, Greek and Roman Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Contains 7 introductory essays by 7 hands on Socratic and Platonic political thought.)] [16: Klagge, James C. and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), 1992, Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogue, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 1992, Oxford: Clarendon Press.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY & WEBLIOGRAPHY

Nails, Debra (2002). The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 0-87220-564-9. p247 Rodriguez- Grandjean, Pablo. Philosophy and Dialogue: Plato's Unwritten Doctrines from a Hermeneutical Point of View, Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, in Boston, Massachusetts from August 1015, 1998. Irwin, T. H., "The Platonic Corpus" in Fine, G. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 71. Plato. Ion. Trans. Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. Plato. Republic. 14 October 2003. . Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. Plato. Symposium. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. See Ryle, The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson and Co., 1949, Chapter 5 Roderick Chisholms entry, Intentionality, in Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1967, Vol. 3, pp. 201-204. C. Hampton, Pleasure, Knowledge, and Being: An Analysis of Plato's Philebus (1990); J. E. G. Evans, A Plato Primer (2010) Jacob A. Kline, A Commentary on Plato's Meno (1989) B. Jowett, ed. by D. J. Allan and H. E. Daley (4 vol., 4th ed., rev. 1953); A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (1927) Rowe, Christopher, & Malcolm Schofield (eds.), 2000, Greek and Roman Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Contains 7 introductory essays by 7 hands on Socratic and Platonic political thought.) Rowe, Christopher, & Malcolm Schofield (eds.), 2000, Greek and Roman Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Contains 7 introductory essays by 7 hands on Socratic and Platonic political thought.) Klagge, James C. and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), 1992, Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogue, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 1992, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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