Ancient Western Philosophy

Review for Test 2

· What is Crito about?

· What major themes emerge in Crito?

Describe Socrates's conversation with the Laws.
How do 'children' fit into Crito's persuasions and Socrates's responses?

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Socrates in Symposium and Phaedo;
-views on body, soul; Alcibiades-Wordly Beauty vs. Divine Beauty

-Why is the soul like the Forms? (Phaedo)

Swedene's Chapter on Love
-How does love imply the immortal?
-In what ways does Swedene use the Symposium in his arguments on love?
-Who is Gilgamesh?
-Discuss physical procreation vs. mental creation; which is better according to Socrates-

Plato’s Republic

Morality and State

Morality and Self-Interest (Socrates vs. Glaucon)

Theory of Forms in Allegory of the Cave (Bk. VII)

Why the just man is better off

Women and the Republic

Communism and the Guardians

Aristotle on Ethics

- views on happiness (NE I), habituation (NE Bk. II), the role of the state in individual happiness (NE I), virtue as a mean b/t two extremes, character ethics and moral dilemmas

NE II; decsribe habituation, defn of virtue, mean, excess, defect, intellectual virtue, practical wisdom

Aristotle on Metaphysics
-four causes, criticism of Plato's Forms, senses

More things to note:

Plato

-Discuss heavenly love and common love as discussed in the Symposium.

-How does Socrates distance himself from Alcibiades in the Symposium?

-how can we interpret the Symposium in light of Crito and the Apology with regards to Socrate’s claim that “love is only thing I ever claim to know anything about”?

-Compare the Socrates who claims ignorance about death in the Apology to the Socrates of Phaedo who seems hopeful about the prospects of a jolly afterlife.

-Outline Aristophanes’s “other-half” theory of love.

Phaedo [p. 117]: why is Socrates against suicide even though he thinks that the philosopher rightly studies dying?

-What is Socrates’s answer to Thrasymachus’s claim that justice amounts to what is in the interest of the stronger party (Book I; Republic)?

-what are the three major divisions of labor in Plato’s Republic?

-What does harmony and order of the state (and soul) have to do with justice?

-What is the Bk. V argument that Women may be Guardians?  Does it work?  Why don't we have a  woman president in the USA?

-How does Socrates respond to the question whether his state can exist in reality (473c7-…)?

Discussion: Socrates offers a theory of censorship in the Republic wherein the rabble-rousing stories of Homer are banned. Does the Janet Jackson exposition from some years ago rise to the level of corrupting the youth and adults? Why or why not? Based on your argument, determine whether you would relax or strengthen decency laws.

Aristotle

-How does one acquire moral virtue (NE II)?

-What is eudaimonia and how is it different from regular, old happiness (NE I)?

-What is Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean?

-Lecture: Distinguish between character-based ethics and legalistic ethics.

-How does Aristotle deal with moral dilemmas (NE III)?

-What is the importance of politicians in making citizens good?

-Square Aristotle’s remarks that the state is “by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual” (1253a17) with Socrates’s Crito views.

-Politics IV.2: why is a state with a large composition of middle class folk the best?

How does Swedene ("Feeling Better about Moral Dilemmas") use Aristotle's virtue ethics to develop a theory of emotional response to moral dilemmas?

Additional Questions

1) Define moral virtue for Aristotle and cite both the advantages and disadvantages of concentrating on character rather than acts.  How does Aristotle, in your analysis, deal with the problem of moral dilemmas in NE Bk., III?  Do you see moral dilemmas as threatening to virtue ethics? and why do you think this is the case?  In other words what is it about virtue ethics that makes it able to or unable to accomodate moral dilemmas? 

2) Compare Aristotle's and Plato's ethics (as put forth in the Republic).  What are their views on how we come to ethical conclusions?; What are their view's on humans' ability to reason?; What are their views on the ideal State's responsibility towards its citizens' ethical good?  Base your answer on a close reading of the texts and/or careful thought about lecture.