I N TRODUCT ION

socrates and plato

Socrates

Socrates

Socrates

Socrates

Socrates

Plato

Plato

Plato’s Metaphysics

The Soul

The soul is divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied?

Plato, Phaedo 80e

Equality

We say that there is something that is equal. I do not mean a stick equal to a stick or a stone to a stone, or anything of that kind, but something else beyond all these, the Equal itself. Shall we say that this exists or not?

Indeed we shall, by Zeus…Phaedo

Virtue

Soc. How fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue, you present me with a swarm of them, which are in your keeping. ..the virtues, however many and different they may be, they have all a common nature which makes them virtues; and on this he who would answer the question, "What is virtue?" would do well to have his eye fixed: Do you understand?

Meno

Beauty

I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and Great and all the rest…I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons… and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in… that Beautiful… that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason.

Plato, Phaedo 100c-e

Plato’s Dialogues

Plato’s Dialogues

Early ApologyCritoEuthyphroProtagorasLysisLaches

MiddleMenoPhaedoRepublic

LateTheaetetusPhilebus * Hipparchus

Plato’s Dialogues

Socrates: So, we must investigate again from the beginning what piety is, as I shall not willingly give up before I learn this…

Euthyphro: Some other time, Socrates, for I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to go.

Socrates: What a thing to do, my friend! By going you have cast me down from a great hope I had, that I would learn from you the nature of the pious and… [that] my ignorance would no longer cause me to be careless and inventive about such things and that I would be better for the rest of my life.

Euthyphro, 16