Plato and Aristotle were two of the most influential ancient Greek philosophers. Plato founded the Academy, one of the earliest known institutions of higher learning, and developed his theory of Forms which posited that the perceived world is merely a shadow of the ideal world of perfect Forms. Aristotle was a student at Plato's Academy and went on to found his own school, the Lyceum. He wrote on many topics and helped develop logic and categorized fields of knowledge. Both philosophers had a major impact on Western thought and their works were hugely influential on later philosophers and theologians.

4.  Socrates is, basically, the father of Western
philosophy
 He never wrote down any of his teachings,
his student, Plato, did this for him
 Socrates’ philosophy arose out of his negative
feelings in relation to the teaching of the
Sophists . . .

5. Eh, sorry! I thought
this class was about
Socrates?
WHO ARE THE
SOPHISTS?!!

6. Who were they?
 Intelligent men, who travelled from place to
place, teaching subjects like grammar,
rhetoric (debating, argument, logic) and
literature
 Athens was an emerging democratic centre
and educated people were needed
 The Sophists charged for their services,
usually employed by the wealthy and
powerful – what the Sophists taught was in
demand

7. What was their philosophy?
 The Sophists were concerned with the individual and
the individual’s place in the world
 Protagoras: ‘Man is the measure of all things’
 Led to the belief that the difference between good
and evil cannot be known
 It all depended on the circumstances – the Theory of
Relativity
 The sophists believed other concepts of truth and
justice were products of habit and circumstance
 Created by those in power to suit their own interests
‘Justice is simply the interest of the stronger’
~Thrasymachus

8. Truth was not the most important issue but
rather the ability to persuade your audience of
the truth of your position
- this is how they taught their students
 The sophists’ philosophy created tensions in Athens
 They suggested there were no absolute norms for right or wrong
 This contributed to a breakdown in moral order
 The distinction between good and evil was no longer clear
 He who could argue the best won out (or he who could pay a
Sophist the most to argue won out)
Socrates had enough of the Sophists . . .

9.  Born around 470 B. C.
 Lived in Athens at the height of its civilisation
 Described as a very ugly man, who often walked barefoot
and wore the same kind of clothes whatever the weather
 Excellent soldier – he had great physical power and could
endure a lot
 He was a very disciplined person
 He was interested in the development of a person’s moral
character
 He lived a virtuous life

10. Socrates was concerned with the question of
ETHICS (moral behaviour)
 Unlike the Sophists, he believed that there was
definite right and wrong
 He believed that people could accept it and
apply it into their daily lives
 He said that it was up to people (society), as a
whole, to establish those things that are right
and those that are wrong
 Dedicated his life to searching for standards by
which people could live a virtuous/good life

11. Socrates was also concerned with justice
 He wanted life to be fair for all
 It was a person’s duty to explore the
truth regarding right and wrong,
justice and injustice, courage and
cowardice
 He worked to find principles and laws
that all could live by and be happy
 Universal: these truths would be
applicable for all people, at any time,
everywhere and in all cases

12. Socrates' style was distinctive
 He questioned people through discussions or
dialogues
 He chose people who were experts in their field
and who fully understood the topic being
discussed
 He adopted the role of ignorant questioner
 Pretended he did not know and wanted to be
educated
 He asked tactful questions which would
bring the experts to a dead end – they
would run out of answers
 This showed them, and others, that they did
not have all the answers and, so, were not
experts
 Therefore, the aim of this method was to get
to the truth of how a person could live a good,
moral life

13. The SOUL
The soul is hugely important in his philosophy
 Had to be nurtured and protected
 Gaining wisdom would save the soul
 This would lead the person to living a virtuous life
‘Knowing what is good is the same as doing
what is good.’ ~ Socrates
 Believed people would not willingly do wrong
 No-one wants to be a bad person
 Later philosophers would disagreed with him
 They said that a person might know what is right but may not be
strong enough or disciplined enough to do

14. Socrates believed that an action is right when it
promotes humanity’s true happiness
 Socrates spoke of alcohol
 Drunkenness – only short term pleasure is gained
 Whatever you are escaping from, when you drink, will come
back
 Drunkenness - has long term effects
 Leads to ill health
 Can enslave the body – become addicted to it
 The drinking of alcohol goes against reason – why would you
willingly want to damage your body?
 Alcohol and drunkenness does not produce true pleasure – the
negative effects far outweigh the temporary happiness
Socrates believed true pleasure could only be
attained through living a moral life . . .

15.  Socrates was executed in 399 B. C.
 Saw Athens was in danger of destruction
 Became critical of the government
 He was a social and moral critic
 He attempted to improve the Athenians' sense of justice
 His pursuit of virtue and his strict adherence to truth clashed
with Athenian society
 He claimed he was the wiser one since he was the only person
aware of his own ignorance
 Put on trial and found guilty
 heresy
 corrupting the minds of the youth

16.  Socrates was forced to drink a lethal poison
 He was given the opportunity to escape
 However, he chose not to escape, drank the
poison and died . . .

17.  Virtue (knowledge) is the most valuable of
all things
 Life should be spent in search of goodness.
 Truth is possible to achieve
 People should focus on self-development
rather than material wealth
 It is the job of the philosopher to show
people how little they really know
 An action is right when it promoted true
happiness

19. RPCorpuxz 2013
• The “idealist” or “utopian” or “dreamer”
• Born into a wealthy family in the second year of the
Peloponnesian War
• Name means “high forehead”
• Student of Socrates
• Left Athens when Socrates died but
returned to open a school called the Academy
in 385 BCE
• Wrote 20 books, many in the dialectic style
(a story which attempts to teach a specific
concept) with Socrates as the main character

20. • Idealist, believes in order and harmony,
morality and self-denial
• Immortality of the soul
• Virtue as knowledge
• Theory of Forms – the highest function of the
human soul is to achieve the vision of the
form of the good
RPCorpuxz 2013

21. RPCorpuxz 2013
 Plato’s thinking on the immortality of the soul,
Plato’s conception of a world beyond the sensory
and his god-like form of good have very much
shaped Christian thinking on God, the soul, and an
afterlife
 Nietsche called Christianity “Plato for the people”

22. Boo, hoo! My best
buddy is dead! I
don’t want to be
poisoned, so time
to leave Greece
for a while . . .
PLATO
You’ll learn all
about me next
week . . .

23.  When Plato returned to Athens in
387 B.C., he started a school of
learning called the Academy, which
was eventually described as the 1st
European University
 At the Academy, he taught his
subjects astronomy, biology,
mathematics, political theory, and
philosophy.

24.  Plato's major contribution was to the field of
psychology on the subject matter of
metaphysics. His thoughts on the idea of the
soul and its tripartite division: intuition,
logistikon nous, which he equated with the
brain, and the active emotions 'spiritness'
that reside in the chest, served as a basis for
future psychologists and there studies.


25.  Metaphysics is the study of the nature of
things. Metaphysicians ask what kinds of
things exist, and what they are like. They
reason about such things as whether or not
people have free will, in what sense abstract
objects can be said to exist, and how it is
that brains are able to generate minds.

26. The Forms actually exist and
are the reality (Being) of
which the observed and
material world (Becoming) is
simply a shadowy copy.

27.  Plato divided the universe into two different
realms
 1. The intelligible world of Ideas or Forms (Being)
 2. The perceptual world we see around us
(Becoming)

28.  The perceptual world, and all things in it,
are imperfect copies of the intelligible
Forms or Ideas that exist in an ideal
(spiritual) world.
 The Forms or Ideas are unchangeable and
perfect, and are only known by the use of
the intellect (not sense-perception or
imagination).

29. The Highest Form
The Form of the Good (often interpreted as
Plato's God), is the ultimate object of
knowledge and it sheds light on all other
forms.
Plato compares The Form of the Good to the sun,
which sheds its light on things in the
perceptual world and makes them visible.

30. Form of Good
Justic
e
Universal Qualities (essence that makes up forms)
Concepts and Ideals (Forms)
Physical Living Objects (Humans, animals, plants)
Physical inanimate objects (furniture)
BeautyTruth
RPCorpuxz 2013

31. Modes of Being Modes of Knowing
(metaphysics) (epistemology)
Higher Forms
Mathematical Forms
Understanding
Reason
SensibleWorldIntelligibleworld
sensible things
images of things
(paintings, sculpture)
perception
imagination
OpinionTrue
Plato’s Analogy of the Dividing Line

32. Sensible World World of the Forms
appearance (seems real) reality (is real)
perceived by senses known by intellect/reason
subjective (dependent upon my perception) objective (exists independently of my mind)
a table, a just action, a beautiful sunrise, a
circle, Britney Spears
Table, Justice, Beauty, Circle, Woman
Comparison b/w Sensible world and world of the
forms

33. Allegory of the Cave
In the perceptual world, the objects we see
around us bear only a dim resemblance to the
ultimately real forms of Plato's intelligible
world.
It is as if we are seeing shadows of cut-out
shapes on the walls of a cave—mere
representations of the reality outside the cave,
illuminated by the sun.

35. Plato’s metaphysics, particularly the dualism between the
intelligible and the perceptual influenced later Neoplatonic
thinkers such as Plotinus and religious theologians such as
Saint Paul and Saint Augustine.
Jewish-Christian-Islamic doctrine agrees with Plato’s
metaphysics: Spirit is absolutely distinct and infinitely
superior to the physical world of “flesh.”

36.  Plato died in 347 B.C., leaving the
Academy.
 The Academy remained a model
for institutions of higher learning
until Emperor Justinian closed it

38.  Aristotle was born in 384 BC
 His father was physician to the king of
Macedonia.
 When he was 7, he went to study at Plato’s
Academy.
 Began as a student, became a researcher and
finally a teacher.
 Was considered one of Plato’s best students.
 Plato died and willed the Academy to his
nephew.
 Aristotle left and founded the Lyceum.

39.  Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human
knowledge into distinct disciplines such as
mathematics, biology, and ethics. Some of these
classifications are still used today.
 As the father of the field of logic, he was the first
to develop a formalized system for reasoning.
Aristotle observed that the validity of any argument
can be determined by its structure rather than its
content. A classic example of a valid argument is his
syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man;
therefore, Socrates is mortal.

40.  While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his
guardian, Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual
center of the world, to complete his education. He joined
the Academy and studied under Plato, attending his
lectures for a period of twenty years.

41. • It is reported that Aristotle’s writings
were held by his student Theophrastus,
who had succeeded Aristotle in leadership
of the Peripatetic School.
Dialogues and
other works of a
popular character
Collections of
facts and material
from scientific
treatment
Systematic works
The works of
Aristotle fall under
three headings:
• Among his writings of a popular nature the
only one which we possess of any
consequence is the interesting tract On the
Polity of the Athenians.

42. • Aristotle’s writings on the general subject of logic
were grouped by the later Peripatetics under the
name Organon, or instrument. From their
perspective, logic and reasoning was the chief
preparatory instrument of scientific investigation.
Aristotle himself, however, uses the term “logic” as
“Organ
on”
Peripatetics

43.  Aristotle’s editors gave the name
“Metaphysics” to his works on
first philosophy, either because
they went beyond or followed
after his physical investigations.
Aristotle begins by sketching the
history of philosophy. For
Aristotle, philosophy arose
historically after basic
necessities were secured. It
grew out of a feeling of curiosity
and wonder, to which religious
myth gave only provisional
satisfaction.

44. • Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the
two extremes: form without matter is on one end,
and matter without form is on the other end. The
passage of matter into form must be shown in its
various stages in the world of nature. To do this is the
object of Aristotle’s physics, or philosophy of nature. It
is important to keep in mind that the passage from
form to matter
within nature is a movement
towards ends or purposes.
Everything in nature has its
end and function, and nothing
is without its purpose. Everywhere
we find evidences of design and rational plan.

45.  Ethics, as viewed by Aristotle, is
an attempt to find out our
chief end or highest good: an
end which he maintains is really
final. Though many ends of life
are only means to further ends,
our aspirations and desires must
have some final object or
pursuit. Such a chief end is
universally called happiness. But
people mean such different
things by the expression that he
finds it necessary to discuss the
nature of it for himself.

46. • Aristotle does not regard
politics as a separate science
from ethics, but as the
completion, and almost a
verification of it. The moral
ideal in political administration
is only a different aspect of
that which also applies to
individual happiness. Humans
are by nature social beings,
and the possession of rational
speech (logos) in itself leads
us to social union.

47. • Art is defined by Aristotle as
the realization in external
form of a true idea, and is
traced back to that natural
love of imitation which
characterizes humans, and to
the pleasure which we feel in
recognizing likenesses. Art
however is not limited to
mere copying. It idealizes
nature and completes its
deficiencies: it seeks to grasp
the universal type in the
individual phenomenon.

48.  Aristotle died in 322 B.C., after he left
Athens and fled to Chalcis.