Philosophical Schools: Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
Comparison of Protagoras and the Socratic Method
Protagoras
- Understood that the source of our knowledge was the senses, and sense knowledge was subjective, changeable, and particular.
- There can only be a truly objective view; it is not universal and permanent.
- This position is called epistemological relativism and extends to all areas of knowledge.
Socratic Method
- Truth is possible to achieve and is within oneself.
- The teacher does not teach but *guides* to understanding; the relationship between the pupil and the teacher is the dialogue.
- The steps are the eristic (by questions seeking recognition of ignorance) and the maieutics (it leads the disciple to the discovery of the concept of something particular to the essential).
Plato’s Dialectic
The theory of recollection seems to have been abandoned by Plato. In these dialogues, Plato develops a new explanation of human knowledge, especially in Republic. He refers to both knowledge and the theory of Ideas, but the focus is the development of his ideal state.
A key text of this new theory is the Myth of the Cave, contained in Republic, which expresses the condition of those who have no education (survive in the dark) and those who possess it (make one wise), of those who remain in the sensible world and those who rise to the intelligible world (ontological dualism). Plato sums up his theory in an intuitive manner of man, the prevailing situation in relation to knowledge, and the problem of double reality. In an underground cavern, which has an opening in the light, there are men in chains from childhood facing the wall. In the cave, there are two areas separated by a partition behind which a fire burns. Between the fire and chains, there is a way by which men carry all sorts of objects, casting shadows on the wall of the cave. And the men in chains, not knowing anything different from these shadows, think that’s the reality. If one day, one of them is triggered and forced to look at the firelight, he should make an effort to get used to that light. And if forced to leave the cave and look at things from outside and then directly at the sun, he would be dazzled. But after a while, he would understand that the Sun produces the seasons and somehow all the things you see. But if this man did he return to the cave, he would eventually learn to appreciate more clearly the shadows to recognize in them the model of which they are imperfect copies. This would be the most capable to govern the “prisoners” of the “Cavern.”
This comparison shows some of the essential ideas of this new theory called Dialectic:
- Knowledge is the rise of the sensible world to the intelligible world.
- Such a rise is all an educational process that is free of chain to the material world (situation of ignorance = slavery) where intelligence is only interested in the sensible world, practical, and rise to the intelligible world in which intelligence reaches the contemplation of Ideas, theoretical knowledge.
- Education must start from the child and must go through the training of intelligence in the abstract work long preparatory or propaedeutic disciplines (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music).
- Only a minority would be capable of this long journey, for the intellect it takes enormous effort and passion for knowledge.
- Establishing the levels of this climb (the hierarchy of knowledge levels in parallel with the levels of reality)
- There are two general forms of knowledge: opinion and science. There is nothing new: such a distinction was already in Parmenides, for example. The view is sensible knowledge of things in the visible world, the world of what is generated (genesis, generation) and becoming. Science can only relate about the “intelligible world” of the Ideas, i.e., about Being (ousia) eternal and immutable. The lower-grade imagination-feeding knowledge of sensible objects received by the belief-second degree, and studied physics. The latter, therefore, was not considered by Plato as a true “science” is about as moving objects. The last two levels of knowledge are called dianoia and noesis, though Plato shows quite fluctuating in these names, nor is it clear how to translate them. Dianoia discursive reason is the mathematician, and intelligence is noesis own dialect, which is true knowledge (nous) of Ideas. And Plato points out the radical difference between mathematics and dialectic.
- The mathematics used a method falling discursive: part of a hypothesis and draw conclusions, with the help of visible images (drawings of geometric figures). Instead, the dialectic method employs a discursive ascending hypotheses are steps (some case, as below) in which the dialectic is supported to reach hypothetic not initially. ” And it does not use images at all.
How to understand the difference between dialectics and mathematics? The mathematician would build on a mathematical idea, for example, the Square, and takes it for ‘alleged’, i.e., be as if he knew […] and it was obvious to everyone. Then trace its visual representation and on it – even thinking about the idea for “going to make deductive demonstrations. Plato described here came from the way mathematicians of his time. The dialectic does not use images at all. Part of an Idea and ascends to the supreme Idea, thinking abstractly about them, seeking to understand the similarity and contrast between them (dialectic). This implies that the World of Ideas is hierarchical, and that the supreme Idea is the first ‘principle’ knowledge of which really makes intelligible the other Ideas. In the Republic, this Idea is the Idea of the Good (which is, well, the sun of the intelligible world). Finally, the dialectical undertakes the opposite way: down from the supreme Idea chaining with it all other Ideas. Thus, the dialectic can establish communication (koinonia) and interlocking (symploké) between Ideas, acquiring a synoptic (collectively, global, integral) of the world intelligible.
In fact, Plato tells us how she gets to know Ideas. He only says that the soul is capable of this, and it is to learn to look in the right direction. And if we have to prepare for an ascent, mathematics is the prelude (introduction) to be learned, because they elevate the soul to the upper region, as the tear of the future and introduce it into contemplation (knowledge) of intelligible objects. But math is still tied to the sensory images. Leave and enter the world of Ideas, that is the task of dialectic, that is, the philosopher.
Aristotle’s Substance
Substance is the central notion of Aristotle’s metaphysics. How do I enter this notion? The text clearly shows: the multiple ways in which the word is meant to be, there is one which is its original meaning: the self as substance. Aristotle of the individual being, specifically, that is. To directly observe individual beings see in them a clear fact: all be changed. For example, the water heats, cools, it becomes ice, and yet in all these changes is always the same water. Is, in every change is a substrate, which remains through the change. The substance is exactly what is underneath, what remains behind all change. This substance is the physis or nature or fundamental principle of being. Aristotle says: There are many meanings of being, but they all refer to a term. We can talk about many ways of being, but they all refer to a primordial form: the substance. Certainly, there are many people, but everyone called substances. Therefore, the metaphysical question of being becomes the question of substance.
Substance and Accidents
All other ways of being are only modifications or accidents of the substance. The substance itself is reality and there are sustained, supported, all other things that change, all accidents. Water is essentially what changes is its color, temperature, etc.
The substances thus serve to support the accident to exist. The table is white, but the whiteness is not possible without the table. Accidents depend on the substance to exist: they are ens in annum, while the substance is ens in se, it is a being in itself, exists by itself, without relying on something else to be, and those are realities or ways of being in need of substance to exist (they say things as they relate to the substance.)
First and Second Substance
There are two types of substances: primary substance (the actual individual, Socrates) and secondary substances (species and gender: man, animal). Substance first is the particular (this table, that tree, John); substance second is what there is universal in the particular (furniture, plants, man). Any being, therefore, be explained from the primary substance and from the second, from the particular and from the general: Peter (really particular) man (kind) and animal (genus). This does not mean return to Platonic dualism because the species and genera are not out of the concrete things, but in them. Thus, Peter, we can find what is the species of the genus man and animal. However, primary substance is the really real because the species and genera have their existence in it. The need for second substance comes from the requirement of science as knowledge of the universal and unchanging: first substances are constantly changing therefore are not science, this can only be obtained of the species and gender: people change and die but the species and genera exist, though in other individuals, of course. This issue of whether or not they are secondary substances realities, “in Aristotle think so,” or are merely concepts that are in our mind, will provide the medieval dispute about universals.
The Substance as Composed of Matter and Form: The Hylomorphic Theory
The individual substances, i.e., the particular individuals, consisting, according to Aristotle, matter and form. This theory is traditionally known as hylomorphic hylomorphism or theory.
They matter and form the house, man, marble, but not joy or happiness: matter and form exist in material beings but not in the spiritual.
Example: The statue of David, by Michelangelo, is a whole, composed of matter, marble, and form, David.
Neither matter nor form alone is the primary substance, but this is the compound (synolon) of the two realities. It is not the sum of two juxtaposed elements, but the totality of a being, so that can not be separated (this is not physically separated but logically, by application of understanding), such as marble and inseparable figure of David, in the previous example.