Socrates and Plato were influential ancient Greek philosophers. Socrates focused philosophy on ethics and how people should behave, questioning answers rather than claiming to have answers himself. He developed the Socratic method of logical questioning. Plato was a student of Socrates and wrote dialogues depicting Socrates' discussions. Plato believed in ideals and developed his theory of Forms, that true knowledge comes from comprehending ideal versions of concepts. Both philosophers emphasized virtue and believed that knowledge leads to making ethical decisions.

1. Assignment I
Topic: SOCRATES AND PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY AND
CONTRAST BETWEEN THEIR IDEAS
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2. SOCRATES: FATHER OF PHILOSOPHY
Biography
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, an Athenian stone mason and sculptor. He learned his father's craft
and apparently practiced it for many years. He participated in the Peloponnesian War.
Socrates was born circa 470 BC, in Athens, Greece. He got his early education by the masters of his age
Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Prodicus, Giovanni Reale, Archelaus. These were versatile personalities of his
times. While his early education he became master in literature, Mathematics, political science, religion,
cosmology, astronomy, geography and many others. He also criticized on various subjects. Unlike some
other famous Greek philosophers, Socrates didn't write down his thoughts and ideas.
He preferred to just speak to his followers. Fortunately, two of Socrates' students, Plato and Xenophon,
wrote about Socrates in their works. We learn about Socrates' philosophies in many of Plato's dialogues
where Socrates is a major character taking part in philosophical discussions. Xenophon was a historian who
wrote about the events in Socrates' life. We also learn about Socrates from the plays of the Greek playwright
Aristophanes .
He philosopher he was the biggest moral philosopher of his times who gave a new dimension to philosophy and from his age a
new trend to look at philosophy was started philosophy out course was changed and new fields were introduced in philosophy as
before his era philosophy was concerned to seek for nature and natural secrets. Socrates was the first person to give a practical
and political focus to philosophy and ethics. Before Socrates, philosophy had focused primarily on questions of metaphysics,
religion and science. But the main subjects to which he was concerned were Epistemology, ethics (as ethics was confused with
politics).
Philosopher and Teacher
As Socrates grew older, he began to explore philosophy. Unlike many philosophers of his time, Socrates focused on ethics and
how people should behave rather than on the physical world. He said that happiness came from leading a moral life rather than
material possessions. He encouraged people to pursue justice and goodness rather than wealth and p ower. His ideas were quite
radical for the time. Young men and scholars in Athens began to gather around Socrates to have philosophical discussions. They
would discuss ethics and current political issues in Athens. Socrates chose not to give answers to questions, but instead posed
questions and discussed possible answers. Rather than claim he had all the answers, Socrates would say "I know that I know
nothing."
The Socratic Method
Socrates had a unique way of teaching and exploring subjects. He would ask questions and then discuss possible answers. The
answers would lead to more questions and eventually lead to more understanding of a subject. This logical process of using
questions and answers to explore a subject is known today as the Socratic Method.
Philosophical Traits
Ethics
Ethics are the norms by which acceptable and unacceptable behavior are measured. According to the beliefs of the ancient Greek
philosopher Socrates, one develops ethics through maturity, wisdom and love. Socrates introduced the concept of teaching ethics
and acceptable standards of conduct in 400 B.C. and has had a profound and lasting impact on the course of Western philosophy
and history ever since. He believed virtue was found primarily in human relationships, love and friendship, not through material
world.
Human Realm
. The abstract, theoretical streak in philosophy has persisted even until today, but Socrates was the first philosopher to assert that
the human realm was the proper focus of philosophical inquiry. Socrates believed, to the contrary of many around him, that the
most pertinent questions that philosophy had to deal with related to how people should live their lives, what kinds of actions were
righteous, and how people should live together in communities and states.
Portrait of Socrates. Marble,
Roman artwork (1st century),
perhaps a copy of a lost bronze
statue made by Lysippos.

3. Virtue
“Virtue is knowledge”.
Socrates equated knowledge with virtue, which ultimately leads to ethical conduct. He believed that the only life worth living
was one that was rigorously examined. He looked for principles and actions that were worth living by, creating an ethical base
upon which decisions should be made. Socrates firmly believed that knowledge and understanding of virtue, or "the good," was
sufficient for someone to be happy. To him, knowledge of the good was almost akin to an enlightened state. He believed that no
person could willingly choose to do something harmful or negative if they were fully aware of the value of life.
Democracy
“Democracy is the worst form of Government,”
He was against democracy because democracy was not in such a modern form as we enjoy today. He says that election is an art
so if you are a good artist you are good in elections he proposed two reasons for it:
 If you are a good in delivering speech you might be a ruler on behalf of blackmailing peopleemotionally.
 If you provide illiterate peoplewith some sort of crispy and clever ideas beyond their understanding or provide them
with some bribe you might won election.
According to him leader must be theone who deserve to be a leader.
Trial and Death
After Athens lost to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, a group of men called the Thirty Tyrantswere put into
power. One of the leading members of the Thirty Tyrants was a student of Socrates named Critias. The men
of Athens soon rose up and replaced the Thirty Tyrants with a democracy. Because Socrates had spoken out
against democracy and one of his students was a leader in the Thirty Tyrants, he was branded a traitor. He
went on trial for "corrupting the youth" and "failing to acknowledge the gods of the city." He was convicted
by a jury and was sentenced to death by drinking poison. Before his death Plato and other disciples offered
him to elope and preach somewhere else but he said:
“I cannot escape because it will result into contention that is the root of every evil and if I go somewhere else
to preach the coming generations will question on me that why I preach somewhere else and my own country
men left ignorant.”
Plato: Disciple of Socrates
Biography
Plato is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was born (427—347
B.C.)In Greece He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the
fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is
usually the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and
the Pythagoreans.
There are varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato's works are authentic, and in what order they were
written, due to their antiquity and the manner of their preservation through time. Nonetheless, his earliest works
are generally regarded as the most reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and the character Socrates that we
know through these writings is considered to be one of the greatest of the ancient philosophers.
Plato's middle to later works, including his most famous work, the Republic, are generally regarded as providing
Plato's own philosophy, where the main character in effect speaks for Plato himself. These works blend ethics,
political philosophy, moral psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics into an interconnected and systematic
philosophy. It is most of all from Plato that we get the theory of Forms, according to which the world we know
through the senses is only an imitation of the pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the Forms. He like his father
Socrates was a versatile genius. He like Socrates also wrote in Dialogue form.
While drinking hemlock
full of poison.
Plato

4. There are many dialogues that were supposed to be written by Plato. This list includes those he probably did write.
Apology, The Republic, Charmides ,Cratylus, Critias,, Crito, Epigrams, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Laws and Symposium etc.
Plato’s ideal state
He said that there is another place in the heavens where the ideal form of everything in this world exists where there is no sin,
artificiality but original form of everything. In his most celebrated book the Republic, Plato gives the theory of an ideal state. As
far as a state is concerned, Plato gives ideas about how to build an Ideal commonwealth, who should be the rulers of the Ideal
state and how to achieve justice in the Ideal state. Plato finds the state as the more suitable place to discuss about the morality
than an individual, because everything is easier to see in the large than in the small. A state, says Plato, is a man ‘writ’ large
against the sky. The elements that make up a city correspond to the elements that constitute the individual human soul. He also
introduced “Theory of ideas” that there are ideas in ideal world and forms are in the world in which we are living everything has
lost originality from it.
Philosopher King
Natural law theory, at its essence, is not far removed, conceptually at least, from Plato’s theory of forms. According to Plato,
only the philosopher kings are equipped and trained intellectually to comprehend the true forms as opposed to the sensible forms
that are readily understandable in the phenomenal world. These philosopher kings can grasp the Form of the Good, for instance,
which is the fountainhead from which flow all true forms, including knowledge, truth, and beauty.
Plato’s allegory of cave
Socrates gave this theory but it was mentioned by plato in Republic to illustrate knowledge is light.
Socrates describes a dark scene. A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing the light of day. These
people are bound so that they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind
the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, lying out of
sight behind the partial wall. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows across the wall that the prisoners are facing. T he
prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because these shadows are all they ever get to see, they believe them
to be the most real things in the world. When they talk to one another about “men,” “women,” “trees,” or “horses,” they are
referring to these shadows. These prisoners represent the lowest stage on the line—imagination.
A prisoner is freed from his bonds, and is forced to look at the fire and at the statues themselves. After an initial period of pain
and confusion because of direct exposure of his eyes to the light of the fire, the prisoner realizes that what he sees now are things
more real than the shadows he has always taken to be reality. He grasps how the fire and the statues together cause the shadows,
which are copies of these more real things. He accepts the statues and fire as the most real things in the world. This stage in the
cave represents belief. He has made contact with real things—the statues—but he is not aware that there are things of greater
reality—a world beyond his cave.
. Views on art and literature:
“Poets should be banned from an ideal state.”
Plato is a great literary artist. Yet he also made notoriously negative remarks about the value of writing. Similarly, although he
believed that at least one of the purposes of philosophy is to enable one to live a good life, by composing dialogues rather than
treatises or hortatory letters he omitted to tell his readers directly any useful truths to live by.
During the time of Plato Gods and Heroes were represented in an unfavourable light. Hence they were subjected to severe
criticism by the philosophers and educationists. Thus poets were considered to be inferior to the philosophers and orators. Plato
being much aware of these things and being profoundly influenced was not in favour of poetry at all. His attack on poetry can be
explained by dividing it into three categories:
 Morals Grounds
 Emotional Grounds
 Intellectual Grounds
Ethicsand Morality

5. Contemporary philosophers still disagree on what exactly the term "ethics" means. Many such philosophers today consider
ethical language to be nothing more than a moral fiction. Nevertheless, the general consensus in the field diverges among
three major branches: consequentialism, deontologicalism and virtue ethics. The first two are relatively recent ideas, but
virtue ethics has been around since the time of Plato. Virtue ethics focuses on the idea that what we call good is not
dependent on the actions we take nor the results of those actions (consequentialism), but instead focuses on the person that
we are.
To a virtue ethicist like Plato, actions are only good to the extent that virtuous persons take such actions. When Plato talks
about what is good, he always means for us to think of an ideal good person. In this way, Plato would agree wholeheartedly
with the basic idea of the What Would Jesus Do? movement, since the focus is on what a good person is, rather than what
good actions or good consequences are.
CONTRAST OF SOCRATIC AND PLATONIC VIEWS
References:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato
https://www.google.com
https://www.brighthubeducation.com/history
A history of political philosophy (book).