Please Help with Philosophy Question (Plato)...

**Terinox** · 10-26-2003, 07:29 PM

Okay, so I got this essay, and I'm just confused about the question:

These four statements are true:

i) Socrates is a human being.
ii) Plato is a human being.
iii) All human beings are mortal.
iv) Socrates is not Plato.

What does Plato think has to be true about the world in order for all these statements to be true? Is Plato right? Answer with reference to the dialogues we have covered in class.

Now, I just need a bit help getting started, cuz i'm having trouble understanding what the question is really asking. I don't see how those premises having anything to do with each other, especially 3 and 4.

Thnx,
T.

**peam** · 10-26-2003, 07:33 PM

I see you've taken up my way of doing homework. Good idea

If I knew who any of those guys were I'm sure I'd try to help you. Good luck.

**rambo** · 10-26-2003, 07:34 PM

Kind of hard to answer without regard to what specific texts you've referenced in class... anything you concentrated on quite a bit in lectures?

**Terinox** · 10-26-2003, 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by rambo

Kind of hard to answer without regard to what specific texts you've referenced in class... anything you concentrated on quite a bit in lectures?

LOL, good point Rambo, stupid me.

I believe this essay is based mostly on Plato's Meno, and Phaedo, his idea of "forms" and how there are "forms" of things.

**rambo** · 10-26-2003, 07:57 PM

Well, from what i know about the Meno, which isn't much...

Socrates is basically attempting to pick apart an ethical term by questioning a person who claims to know of the term's meaning, and eventually decides that neither he nor the "expert" really understands what the term really means. Basically he doesn't need to know anything, because he can't. Socrates also makes quite a few points that are simply about the nature of definition. So the prospect in your original statements are all relative to the person making them. So in one aspect, Plato only has to know that he is not socrates in order to interpret his own "defintions". Hope this helps...

**Terinox** · 10-26-2003, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by rambo

Well, from what i know about the Meno, which isn't much...

Socrates is basically attempting to pick apart an ethical term by questioning a person who claims to know of the term's meaning, and eventually decides that neither he nor the "expert" really understands what the term really means. Basically he doesn't need to know anything, because he can't. Socrates also makes quite a few points that are simply about the nature of definition. So the prospect in your original statements are all relative to the person making them. So in one aspect, Plato only has to know that he is not socrates in order to interpret his own "defintions". Hope this helps...

Good point rambo, I didn't think of it that way. That is kinda what the Meno does say. Thnx, I'll try and work a bit off that angle.

Any more suggestions/help is welcome

**Aragorn** · 10-26-2003, 08:11 PM

Have you covered Timaeus yet?

This a quote from it as Plato wrote about the world, making the above statements true...

"in every truth [is] a living creature with soul and reason."

Aragorn

**rambo** · 10-26-2003, 08:14 PM

Philosophy is nothing but organized musing Terinox, that quote aragorn just gave can write your whole paper

**Terinox** · 10-26-2003, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Have you covered Timaeus yet?

This a quote from it as Plato wrote about the world, making the above statements true...

"in every truth [is] a living creature with soul and reason."

Aragorn

No, so far we only covered Parmenides (three of his poems, Way of Truth and Proem, Way of Seeming), Meno, Phaedo, and 1-2 chapters of the Republic, although the essay does not include reference from that.

**Aragorn** · 10-26-2003, 08:39 PM

Okay then...in Phaedo, the cycle of opposites argument and then in the recollection argument, Socrates and Cebes talk about life and death and for one to hold true then so must the other. Again it's touched apon with mortality and how souls exist before life and exist again after death holding true as all human beings live and die there for making them mortal.

I know you can bs the rest of the way through

Aragorn

**Terinox** · 10-26-2003, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Okay then...in Phaedo, the cycle of opposites argument and then in the recollection argument, Socrates and Cebes talk about life and death and for one to hold true then so must the other. Again it's touched apon with mortality and how souls exist before life and exist again after death holding true as all human beings live and die there for making them mortal.

I know you can bs the rest of the way through

Aragorn

Sweet, thnx Aragorn, I'll work my way through that