Michael Ryan

PHH-3100

Dr. Nam T. Nguyen

Exam 2 Responses

I Euthyphro: Within the dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates meets Euthyphro outside of court, the

two of them on opposite ends of the legal system with Socrates being charged with impiety and

Euthyphro prosecuting his own father for murder. Socrates then asks Euthyphro what piety is as

he proclaims to know all that there could be to know about it; Euthyphro firstly suggests that

piety is only persecuting those who offend the religion, and Socrates refutes that statement by

pointing out that there are a plethora of pious actions besides persecution. Euthyphro tries to

change his definition to say that what is pious is what is agreeable with the gods, but Socrates

also refutes this statement by pointing to history where the gods fought often, therefore what one

may agree with may displease another god. The next definition from Euthyphro of piousness is

something that is approved of by all of the gods; with the rebuttal, Socrates argues that

something that is pious is approved of by all of the gods not because it is pious, but it is simply

approved of by all the gods, therefore things that are pious determine what is approved of by the

gods. Socrates then states back to Euthyphro that what is pious and what is loved by the gods

cannot be one in the same because something that is pious would have been pious without the

love of the gods which concisely separated the topics that Euthyphro wished to combine with

this definition. After accepting this line of reasoning from Socrates, Euthyphro adopted yet

another definition of piousness in that it is concerned with looking after the gods which in turn
Socrates compared to how a horse tender looks after horses and as the gods are omnipotent

surely they do not need mortals to look after them. The final adaptation of Euthyphro’s

definitions spouts that piousness is a sort of trade with the gods wherein we sacrifice for them

and they grant prayers. Socrates points out that these sacrifices do not give benefit to the gods in

any way, therefore they only gratify them which leads back into Socrates’ own argument against

how what is loved by the gods and what is pious being the same thing. Without providing a

further explanation for what defines piety, Euthyphro leaves Socrates to ponder the definition on

his own.

Apology: Within Apology, Socrates is on trial for corrupting the youth and denying the

Athenian gods; Socrates opens his statement asking for the jury and court forgive him for his

type of speech as he is a foreigner to the court system despite being 70. Being deigned the

“wisest” of all men by the oracle at Delphi, Socrates reasoned that this must be because his is

aware that he truly knows nothing; this acknowledgement and consequent exposure of those who

proclaimed to know it all grew a steady rise of contempt by those same men he exposed while

simultaneously gaining fervor with the youth and he cited that contempt as the main reason he

was really being brought to trial. In his cross-examination of Meletus, Socrates talks to him

about the nature of man in that those who are good do good things to those around them while

bad people intentionally do some harm to those around them in the given moment. Socrates then

asks Meletus how he could be so convinced that he was “corrupting” the youth intentionally

while it would serve no purpose to Socrates as if he were intentionally doing some bad, bad

things would come to happen to him. Logically, to Socrates it makes no sense to intentionally do

bad things so therefore if he did indeed corrupt the youth it was done unintentionally and was

therefore not punishable in court. Socrates compares himself to a gadfly stinging a horse which
represents Athens, for without his annoyance, the horse would falter as Athens would without

Socrates’ influence. Despite making sound arguments for his defense, Socrates was found

guilty, showing that the people of Athens were willing to silence their biggest critic in order to

live a more “peaceful” life, yet still plagued by the problems that Socrates pointed out. After

being found guilty and being sentenced to death after refusing prison and exile, Socrates warned

those who condemned him to his fate that by doing so they damaged themselves far greater than

they would him. Socrates also talked about the concept of death towards the end, ultimately

coming to the solution that since only the gods know of what comes after life, and therefore there

is no merit in fearing the unknown. Apology spoke upon the often weak will of human nature,

opting to silence someone simply because they speak against you rather than listening to their

input.

Protagoras: Protagoras is mostly a discussion between the famous Sophist Protagoras and

Socrates, beginning with a discussion on what exactly Protagoras teaches; his explanation is that

he teaches his disciples how to become good citizens, which contradicted Socrates’ belief that

virtue was unteachable. Protagoras points to societal facets such as prison which attempts to

reform citizens into being virtuous, therefore teaching them virtue as well as the basis of virtue

being the building block of society in that society is truly founded on the principle that its

citizens can be virtuous. Socrates shifts the discussion somewhat and begins questioning

Protagoras on what virtue really is and asked if it was simply one thing or many. Protagoras

takes his turn and points out a supposed contradiction between Socrates’ argument and a poem

by Simonides wherein a sage asserts it is impossible to be good at all times as we will inevitable

be forced to make a bad decision due to unfortunate circumstance. Socrates argues this point in

the sense that the only real evil is ignorance, and while a decision may seem “bad” in the
moment, but if it was an informed decision, that is all that was possible. Socrates then goes into

the concept of cowardice in that it is essentially fearing things that do not need to be feared, and

therefore the concept of courage is a facet of knowledge. This line of reasoning proved

effectively to Protagoras that courage was indeed a part of virtue that he had not previously

considered. The dialogue ends with a juxtaposition to the start of it as both eventually agree that

knowledge is simply another name for virtue and therefore it can be taught while at the start

Socrates thought this to be wrong.

II 1. Argument from Opposites: The argument from opposites is the first argument Socrates

offered in theory of the soul; he stated that the soul was a part of a cycle between life and death

much in the way hot and cold or being asleep and awake are related. As a man wakes up from

being asleep or falls asleep from being awake, the soul had to come from somewhere before life,

and thus after death it would only be returning to its state before life. This world wherein the

soul resides before being born again is only available after death and before life. This implies a

cyclicity of the soul, constantly going between death and life only to live for however many

years, die, and then start the cycle all over again. Socrates also states that in this way, the dead

are created by the living in the same way life is created from death. This argument supposedly

concretes the immortality of the soul as the soul is simply always in the cycle between life and

death with each part of the cycle only being active when the other is not.

Theory of Recollection: The theory of recollection argument explains that learning is simply a

process of remembering things we may have forgotten in a past life. Socrates argues that since

humans are able to have a priori knowledge through certain questions despite supposedly not

knowing anything on the topic beforehand, this would be an example of remembering something
from a past life. Socrates used the image of unequal sticks or stones to make the point that

despite having no prior knowledge on them, we could attain that they are unequal, and therefore

we must have known what the concept of equality is. To have this knowledge buried within

ourselves but to have us forget a majority of it would imply that the soul existed before birth in

order to have attained said knowledge. The ultimate goal of the soul within this theory would be

to gain the true knowledge that it forgot at birth, creating a very reasonable yet difficult goal to

attain as all of that knowledge is within you, just waiting to be remembered by the soul. The

immortal soul therefore would have gone through countless lifetimes prior to the current one,

and with those lives came all the knowledge they provided, which can eventually be remembered

by the soul before starting the cycle of remembering again.

Argument from Affinity: Socrates’ third argument for the immortality of the soul is that while

the soul is invisible and divine, the body is visible and perishable, following that the soul

survives after the body dies. Even though the body may be physically perceptible as a corpse in

reality, the soul, being divine, separated from the body upon death, thus supposedly proving its

immortality. Socrates argued that this was the soul of the virtuous man while those who lived a

life of moral evil would be brought back as another body and being punished in Hades. The lust

for corporeality makes the man unvirtuous due to the fact that they long for something beyond

the existence of the soul. Socrates goes onto state that the philosopher, or those who love

wisdom and virtue will have an afterlife filled with goodness rather than being dragged back to

reality. This would be the punishment of the soul for not living a virtuous life, continuing that

same cycle until something clicked and virtue was finally achieved and the final departure from

the body could commence.

The Argument from the Form of Life: The final argument Socrates gives on the immortality

of the soul is that the soul participates in the Form of Life, and therefore cannot also participate

in death, therefore making it immortal. Socrates argues that something beautiful partakes in the

Form of Beauty in the same way that the soul indulges in the Form of Life. Socrates said that

anything which animates life would partake in this Form, and the soul animates beings, making it

a part of Life. Being a part of a certain Form makes it so it cannot also be the opposite in the

sense that the Form of Life can never be a part of the Form of Death. As the soul interacts with

the Form of Life by its very nature, it would follow that the soul cannot die, therefore making it

immortal. Participating in any way in the Form of Death would contradict the essence of the

soul, denying its purpose, only further concreting for Socrates that the soul must be immortal.

2. The arguments for the immortality of the soul that I find plausible would be the Argument

from Opposites and the Argument from the Form of Life as I find their premises agreeable while

I find the other arguments weak or having holes in the them. For the Argument from Opposites,

the cyclical idea of life and death makes sense to me when compared to the action of falling

asleep. One has to be awake first in order to fall asleep as well as sleep being a necessary

component in waking; this relates to the idea of the soul directly as the soul had to be somewhere

before animating some being. While you cannot be asleep and awake at the same time, the same

is true for the cycle of the soul as it cannot be in the life part of the cycle while also being in the

death portion, making it an infinite cycle that begins again each time death is encountered. This

same sort of logic is what makes me also agree with the Argument from the Form of Life as

Socrates stated that to participate in the Form of life disallows the soul from participating in the

opposite Form, being death. To be unable to participate in the Form of Death would mean that
the soul is unable to die, therefore making it immortal. This argument I felt used sound logic in

concluding the immortal soul as if this were not the case, the soul would violate the law of non-

contradiction by both participating in life as well as death. While the arguments are similar, I

feel as if the Argument from the Form of Life is slightly more plausible as I believe in the

Theory of Forms and while the Argument from Opposites makes very decent points, there is no

endpoint ad infinitum, instead the soul would simply be stuck in that endless loop between life

and death constantly. While there is some cyclicity in the former argument, Socrates argued that

eventually when virtue is reached, the soul will enter the afterlife filled with pleasures, but before

that the soul would continue in a corporeal body. I find this more likely that the Argument from

Opposites as it simply has an end goal in sight rather than just a loop.

III 1. Within Crito, Socrates is waiting for execution to come when his friend Crito visits him

and discusses escape with him. Socrates understands where Crito is coming from, but to escape

from his cell would violate the social contract in Athens that Socrates had benefited from his

entire life. This would be a greater injustice to Socrates than having these laws take his life, for

if he were to break the law to escape, in his mind he would be breaking every law they had by

undermining the justice system. Despite believing the punishment to be unjust, Socrates sticks to

what he has reaped from for a lifetime; the only way out of this scenario for Socrates would have

been if he could convince people that the law or punishment were unjust, but to simply flee from

prosecution would be a grave injustice. Skirting the legal system that held society together just

in an attempt to save one’s life denies the system its justice and breaks the social contract. To

Socrates, it is far more just to see his execution through as that is what the legal system in which

he participated in requires. If Socrates were to just disregard the laws, it would follow that any
citizen could just deny the law when it benefited them, making it so the laws themselves held no

more power, effectively destroying them and the state as a whole. Even if the law was unjust,

according to Socrates it was his place to effectively prove the injustice to the system, not simply

convince himself of it and act accordingly. These laws shape the very nature of the state as well

as the individual within the state, and to deny their power would break everything the state has

put into place, ending the social contract between the two. Socrates understands these things and

therefore resigns himself to his fate of execution as even despite the punishment being done

under an unjust law, it is only just to accept the punishment the state apparatus gives out as he

has agreed to that his entire life.

2. Thrasymachus’ ideas on justice are that it is simply not worth it in the end; he uses the

example of a shepherd and his sheep in that the shepherd does not really think of what is good

for the sheep but rather what benefits him the most. He parallels this idea of the shepherd with a

ruler and his subjects in the sense that the ruler really regards his loyal subjects as nothing more

than sheep, a means to his end. To Thrasymachus, justice is what wholly benefits one person but

has damaging impacts on those it is applied to. He believes that injustice yields far better results

than justice as when in an identical scenario, the unjust man always ends up with more than the

just man. He uses taxes as an example for this as the just man is going to end up paying more

than his unjust counterpart, so would it not benefit more to live unjustly? He argues that on a

grand scale, injustice is far freer than justice ever could be, therefore, living an unjust life is the

only life to live should you not want to be subjugated for some other man’s “justice”. Power for

Thrasymachus is an essential component for justice as you need to be able to exert pressure over

others in order to benefit yourself. He argues that in an example of a powerful man, it is far

easier to look to injustice in order to get things done more efficiently and effectively and that can
be seen throughout history. To Thrasymachus, bending others to your will is far easier and

provides more bounty than handling a situation through justice. Having to think about the

feelings of those “below” you are not something that even occurs to Thrasymachus, and he

would rather perpetuate this cycle of power and brutality than find an actual just solution as

Socrates implores.

3. I believe there is a connection between Crito and John Austin’s legal positivism in the sense

that within the entire dialogue, Socrates is talking about how laws impact the state and the

individual, and that it is not the position of the individual to decide which laws are just or unjust.

This follows legal positivism as John Austin originally stated that laws are simply the “command

of the sovereign” with the sovereign being the legal system which creates and modifies laws. A

prime example of this idea would be when Crito is imploring Socrates to escape from his cell

with Socrates stating that doing so would in turn destroy the state as he would be denying their

laws and justice. This parallels the idea of legal positivism in the sense that Socrates realizes that

he cannot deny the laws of the state for that is not his place, and were he to do so would break

the social contract that had been established his entire life. Legal positivism argues that while

the laws are one distinct thing, their right or wrongness was something else entirely that would

be dealt with by the sovereign should problems arise with the law. Socrates would have agreed

with the theory of legal positivism due to the fact that he recognizes his role as a citizen is not to

decide what laws are right or wrong but to simply abide by them and face punishment should he

violate them. It did not really matter what Socrates was charged with, for he would not have

escaped due to his escape denying the justice that would be served with his punishment. The

“sovereign” described by legal positivism has the absolute authority over laws and Socrates

likely saw it the same way or he may have tried to escape and prolong his life. The fact that he
did not and instead awaited execution showed that Socrates believed in the justice system as a

whole even if he did not agree with his punishment, thus showing the connection to legal

positivism for if Socrates believed he was able to discern which laws were right and wrong, he

would have been as ignorant as those he spent his life disproving.

IV 1. The three parts of Plato’s utopia were the Guardians, Auxiliaries, and the Producers. The

Guardians were the philosopher-kings or the rulers of the utopia who were meant to love

knowledge and wisdom as well as a willingness to live a simple life as a ruler rather than living a

pompous life of wealth. This represented the logos from Plato’s tripartite soul as the

philosopher-king was someone who was meant to yearn for more knowledge as well as disregard

a life of worldly desires for the common good of the society. While this would be the smallest

part of the soul and therefore the smallest part of the city, it is of paramount importance for the

function of the soul and city as a whole. The Auxiliaries were the warriors of the utopia, meant

to guard each and every citizen from any harm that would befall them. These Auxiliaries were

synonymous with the spirited part of the soul, the part meant to deal with temper and high levels

of emotion. The Auxiliaries’ purpose was not only to protect the citizens from any invader, but

also to enforce the will of the philosopher-king as well as making sure the producers were

contributing their fair share to the society. The last part of the city is the producers, and it is the

largest part of the society as it encompasses everyone who is not a ruler or warrior; the producers

are simply meant to keep their minds on their labor while the rulers enacted rules to be obeyed.

This class of people represents the appetite of the soul which pertains to the desires of people,

and as desires make up a larger portion of the soul than reason or spirit, it only makes sense that

it is the largest social class within the city. While reason rules over all as the philosopher-king,
so does logos over the rest of the soul, with emotions following logic and appetite following all

else.

2. The Divided Line: Within the Divided Line, reality is divided into two parts with those being

the visible world filled with physical objects subject to change and the invisible, never-changing

realm of universal ideas. The four sections the Divided Line is broken up into would be

Imagination, Belief, Intellect, and finally Reason. Imagination and Belief make up the visible

world in that the objects or images they evoke can be different for each individual while the

invisible world is not so. Intellect and Reason make up the invisible world on the Divided Line

and they refer to things that we can think of such as a shape or the concept of goodness; these

concepts are universal and also not of the physical world. While geometric shapes appear in this

invisible world, Plato considered them lesser than concepts arrived at by reason rather than

simply intelligence. While these parts are always going to be divided within the line, they are all

still parts of a whole that make up our reality.

Allegory of the Cave: The Allegory of the Cave is a discussion on if our senses can deceive us

as well as being limited by our own experience. The Allegory of the Cave is a thought

experiment wherein people are born into a life in a cave where their only perception of reality are

the shadows of a fire that they never see. When one person is thrown out of the cave into the real

world, he is shocked by what he sees in that it completely contradicts everything he has been

taught thus far in life; when returning to the cave to relay this information, those still in the cave

cannot believe what the man is saying. They cannot perceive a reality such as the one the man

describes and would thus rather stay in their comfortable life. This shows not only can our

senses be wholly deceived, but that seeing the “light” (reality) is impossible when you are

convinced of the darkness. This relates heavily to the Divided Line as without the imagination to
perceive it as well as not having a true sense of belief makes it so those in the cave can never

attain intellect or reason. To do this would be to willingly walk out of the cave in order to attain

for yourself what the world was, but as change is a daunting feat for many, a majority will

simply live their lives in the darkness without ever experiencing the light.

Theory of the Forms: The Theory of Forms effectively states that the world we live and

perceive in, or the physical world, is not the “real” world and that the true reality lies beyond our

realm. This “true” reality is the World of Forms wherein all the Forms reside, albeit outside

human perception. The Forms are the unchanging essence of a certain object or concept for

which all of the objects and things within the physical realm imitates. According to this theory,

it would be impossible to fully understand an object or concept due to the Form of said thing

transcending our very reality and only graspable by the mind. According to Plato, everything

has its own Form, and these unchanging concepts such as “humanness” is merely the idea of the

object of humans, that is, what it takes to be human. The things within our visible world interact

with these Forms but can never fully embody them as they exist outside our realm or perception.

V 1. Aristocracy: An aristocracy is the same government system that Plato proposed for his

utopia wherein there was a ruling class designated to govern the rest of citizens. Plato’s

aristocracy involved the philosopher-king as the ruler, one who would not be consumed by

desires for power or wealth, but simply wanted the best for his citizens. The aristocracy requires

that one certain class (Guardians) to be the ruling class at all times in order for there to be no

power struggles. This aristocracy also requires a military force such as the Auxiliaries for the

ruler to give orders that would be enforced on the entirety of the population, giving them a

constant sense of security. The aristocracy requires that clear hierarchical structure of power in
order to effectively delegate powers and rule. This society runs based on the fact that the

aristocrats are meant to be just people, and should that idea be corrupted, so would the society.

Timocracy: A timocracy is a form of government wherein land ownership is required in order

to partake in political office. This is a very easy way to create a wealth disparity when it comes

to social classes as with land comes power, and those with power do not want to give it up.

Timocracies often valued power in the sense of war; they went and took their honor rather than

achieving them through intellectual means. Timocrats valued material goods and would

therefore hoard wealth and keep it from public view. They also held distrust for thinkers and

would keep them from holding positions of power, likely as they could not ascertain the idea of

not wanting power or wealth. Imposing laws upon timocrats is somewhat difficult and would

often have to be done with force as some of them believed their “power” transcended that of

society. While this was not true, when enough power is accumulated through conquest and

military victory, being bound by laws almost seems asinine.

Oligarchy: Within an oligarchy, there is a clear wealth separation between the rich and the poor

with the former holding all of the power. This is a form of government that creates constant

friction between the differing social classes as unlike an aristocracy, the oligarchs are simply in

power because they accrued wealth. From a military standpoint, an oligarchy is one of the

worst-performing regimes as the ruling class likely is unwilling to arm the majority due to the

fear of a revolution. There is also a constant friction between the social classes due to the great

wealth disparity with the rich doing all they can to gain more wealth while at the same time

keeping the lower classes in their place. The oligarch at least is temperate in their measures for

simply crushing a social class into place is not likely to yield as much money should they do the

same thing over a long period.

Democracy: Should a revolution take place within an oligarchy, it would devolve into a

democracy wherein the citizens hold the primary political power. The people are free to do what

they desire when they desire to do it with no order to their lives. The lower class becomes larger

and larger with these citizens wanting more and more as time goes on. The freedom provided by

democracy makes it so the people no longer think about necessary things, but simply the things

they want or the things they can buy. In a pure democracy, there is no true order for each

individual’s life as this society was founded out of a desire for freedom. Almost like an anarchy,

in a pure democracy, the people are free to live how they want even if it should break the laws to

do so. Plato believed that every democracy was doomed to fall into tyranny as without that

control over the lives of the citizens, someone will eventually seize power to keep order.

Tyranny: A tyranny is the natural course for a democracy to take once someone seizes power in

order to keep the society stable. Once this person experiences power, they become a tyrant, not

willing to give up any power while at the same time limiting the power of everyone below him.

A tyrant lives life like it has no rules because to a tyrant there really are none, they hold all the

power within society so they can make whatever decisions they choose and the rest simply have

to live with their decisions. A tyranny inspires hatred from everyone below them as the tyrant is

able to commit whatever injustices they desire with no immediate repercussion. This comes to a

head when the tyrant lives in constant fear of revenge from everyone they have been abusing

since they came into power. The tyrant eventually becomes a victim to their own vices, too

scared to leave their home in fear of retribution, wholly removed from any joy of life in the pure

sense due to the amount of moral evil they perpetuated in their society.

2. I agree with the Platonian idea of an aristocracy in the sense that the hierarchical structure is

required for a society to function efficiently at all. The aristocracy Plato describes with the
Guardians being the ruling class seems to be the best idea for a form of government, but the only

problem with it would be the corruptible nature of human beings. That aristocratic class, in order

to be continually effective would need to remove themselves from human desires but rather

focus on how to better their society as a whole. Without that necessary feature of the Platonian

aristocracy, that ruling class would likely keep the lower classes exactly where they are while

continuously gaining more wealth much like an oligarchy. Even though the ruling class in an

aristocracy is distinct from other social classes, should they not fall victim to their own hubris,

they have in my opinion the most efficient working class. Within an oligarchy, the majority is

kept down by the ruling class simply because they can, which foments the idea of revolution in

the lower classes. A tyrannical ruler must always live in fear due to the injustices they commit

while an aristocratic class has the opportunity to nurture relations between social classes. Should

they foster a positive relationship between themselves and those below them, the level of

efficiency in society would increase as that working class does not feel abused as they do in

other regimes. Holding the ruling power in society in an awesome responsibility, and that must

be taken into account when considering the actions they take towards the citizens. Should the

aristocracy begin to abuse their power, their society is likely to devolve into an oligarchy with a

greater wealth and class disparity; while I do see this as an inevitability in the real world, I still

believe aristocracy has the biggest opportunity for efficiency until the ruling class begin to abuse

their power.