Greeks Bearing Gifts

 

We will be doing something of a crash course in Plato and Aristotle.  But before we do, we need a REALLY crash course on the pre-Socratics.  One cannot properly understand Scholastic thought without understanding the contributions of Plato and Aristotle.  But one cannot properly understand either Plato or Aristotle without know­ing at least a little bit about the Greek philosophers who came before them and the metaphysical and epistemological puzzles they examined and ultimately bequeathed to Plato and Aristotle.

 

Let's begin by briefly saying something about some of those philosophers.

 

Scientia

 

As previously noted, these thinkers were as much "scientists” as they were philosophers.  For most of the history of philosophy and science, there was no rigid distinction between these disci­plines; "Philosophy" was just that general "love of wisdom" -of coming to understand the world in all its variety and the causes that lay behind it.  Logic, physics, metaphysics, biology, ethics, and all the other branches of science etc. are all part of this inquiry into the nature of reality.

 

“Scientia” a synonym of “knowledge”

 

This being so, it is approximately true to say that philosophy seeks “knowledge about all things.”  ("Philosophy" means "love of wisdom" in Greek.)

 

For our present discussion we may define Philosophy as in a manner similar to that of the Scholastics.

 

Philosophy is the science of all things through ultimate causes, investigated by the light of natural reason alone.

 

A)     the science of

B)      all things

C)      through ultimate causes

D)     investigated by the light of natural reason alone.

 

a.       Philosophy is a science.

 

It is not merely a set of opinions and theories. It was thought to be a certain knowledge of things based on evidence and demonstration, and reduced to a comprehensive rational system.  We will be talking later on what precisely counted as a philosophical demonstration for the scholastics, but for now, it is sufficient to note that philosophical theories we supposed to rest on arguments.

 

b.      Of things.

 

Philosophy investigates the things that are found in the existential world. Aside from material beings, it also discusses, in its different branches about non–material beings and principle, e.g., about the specific and the existential principles of things; about the soul, the intellect and the free will; about the nature of society, its principles and causes, etc.

Hence, Philosophy is said to cover all things in its consideration. It can do so, by viewing things from a higher vantage point, that is…

 

c.       By their ultimate principles and causes.

 

By this qualification, Philosophy, in its broadest sence, even historically, can be distinguished from the physical sciences such as Biology, Chemistry, or applied sciences such as medicine, music or warfare, etc..  These special sciences study the proximate constituent principles and explanations (causes) of their subject matter.

 

Biology studies the nature of the cell, protoplasm, tissues, the activities of anabolism and catabolism.  By contrast, Philosophy studies the nature of the living being as such, of the life and its principle. Chemistry studies the different elements of material substances. Philosophy studies the ultimate principle of the differences of material things. Positive Psychology studies human behavior, its differences and proximate causes. Philosophical psychology studies the ultimate principles of human behavior, reason and will.

 

d.      As known by natural reason alone.

 

Philosophy attains knowledge, not by relying on articles of faith (e.g. God is Triune), but by the use of the principle of ordinary, natural cognition, which may be obtained from the empirical investigation of nature and the natural study of things. This is meant when it is said that philosophy proceed by the “light of natural reason.”  

 

The "Pre-Socratic" philosophers, as they are known (since most of them came before Plato's famous teacher Socrates), were fascinated by the question of what the basic principle is that underlies all reality and unifies all the diverse phe­nomena of our experience.

 

Thales of Miletus (6th century B.C.), whom we have already met, is the first Western philosopher and scientist known to us.  You will recall that he famous­ly/infamously thought that this basic principle was water.

 

Pythagoras (572-497 B.C.), was inspired by discoveries in mathematics.  This lead him to posit that the basic principle of everything was numbers. As intriguing as this is, I will not dwell on it now, except to note the origins of what was to become a deep divide in the history of Western Philosophy

 

Other thinkers proposed yet other first principles. But it is instructive to look at an importance difference between Thales and Pythagoras.  They illustrate two divergent approaches to discovering the fundamental principle or principles underlying reality that would continue on and compete with one another for the entire history of Western philosophy and science.

 

·         Thales focuses on observable (empirical) phenomenon as the key to understanding all reality. He emphasizes the senses as the source of our knowl­edge

 

·         Pythagoras focuses on mathematics and the unob­servable (rational a priori) entities to understand and explain reality.  He emphasized the intellect or pure reason more than the senses

 

Thus:

 

·         Thales posits a mate­rial basis to all reality

·         Pythagoras posits something immaterial.

 

We see then an early divide between Rationalist and Empiricist and their metaphysical and epistemological commitments.

 

Philosophical Puzzlers

 

1.       Change and Permanence

 

Part of what led to this interest in first principles among the Pre­Socratics was the notice they took of the phenomena of change and permanence in the world around them.

 

A human being changes dramatically in both mind and body from conception through birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, and on until death

 

Yet we also claim that it is the same human being who undergoes all these changes.

 

So too with plants and animals, but note too, also species.

 

·         So the change seems to imply or even rely on permanence even as it defies it.

·         So how do we account for this rela­tionship between change and permanence?

·         Is one more basic than the other?

 

2.       The one and the many

 

There is also the question of the relationship between the one and the many.

 

There are many individual human beings (many)

Yet they are all nevertheless in some sense one thing: human. (one)

 

There are many individual trees, but they too all seem to be one insofar as they all have the nature of a tree (one) rather than each having its own unique nature;

There are many individual rocks, but they are nevertheless all one in being rocks; and so on for everything in our experience.

 

·         How do we account for this relationship?

·         How can any two things be “the same” while at the same time being two?

·         Is one of these things (i.e. ­the way in which things are "many" or the way in which they are "one") -more fundamental than the other?

 

Pre-Socratic philoso­phers differed:

 

·         Whether to emphasize the senses or the intellect as the fundamental source of our knowledge.

·         Whether to emphasize the oneness over diversity

·         Whether to emphasize permanence over change

 

Heraclitus (c. 535-475 B.C.) and Parmenides (c. 515-450 B.C.)

 

I wish to take a brief look at the metaphysical systems of Heraclitus (535-475 BCE) and Parmenides (515-445 BCE). Heraclitus and Parmenides are representatives of the absolute extreme positions on these ques­tions.  These men were similar in many regards. They were both “presocratic” philosophers who were primarily concerned with metaphysis (“the first philosophy”).  They both asked the very fundamental question: what exactly is the nature of reality/ being?  And both philosophers came to the conclusion that all the universe can be reduced to one basic substance: this is called “Monism”, which was first suggested by our good friend, Thales of Meletes.

 

However, while each was a monist, they had different ideas about what exactly this single substance was. Their disagreement on metaphysics would be extrapolated to include some very interesting epistemological implications.

 

Heraclitus:

 

 

Heraclitus was a rich man from Ephesus and lived c.500, during the Persian occupation of his home town.

 

 

What survives of his philosophical work consists of a series of aphorisms and cryptic pronouncements that force a reader to think.  Examples include:

 

·         "war is the father of all things"

·         "all things are in a state of flux and nothing is permanent"

·         "the road up and down is one and the same"

·         "You can never step in the same river twice."

 

http://www.heraclitusfragments.com/

 

http://home.wlu.edu/~mahonj/Ancient_Philosophers/Heraclitus.htm

 

Unfortunately, since so little of his work survives, it difficult to reconstruct Heraclitus' ideas. Nevertheless, it seems certain that he thought that the basic principle of the universe change as directed by logos, (i.e. the change is not chaotic, but rather rationally organized and therefore understandable).  Heraclitus believed that the universe was governed by a reason.  Reality was saturated, as it were, with reason, a sort of divine power guiding or directing “being.”  This he refers to as the “logos” which can be translated as word, law, principle, or meaning. 

 

This fundamental law of the universe held all things in perfect balance.  According to Heraclitus, the unity of the universe is composed of a balancing of opposites.  For Heraclitus, reality oscillates between bipolar oppositions.  The sage understands that these oppositions are just aspects of one reality.  Day becomes night and hot will become cold. The continuous changing of reality was the one fundamental constancy within the cosmos. This belief lead Heraclitus to the conclusion that all things are always in flux and that the only thing that did not change was change itself.

 

There Needs to Be Tensions between Opposites -- 'strife'

 

1. 'It is necessary to know that war is common and justice is strife and that all things happen in accordance with strife and necessity.'

 

-- Origen, Against Celsus (6.42)

 

2. 'War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as humans; some he makes slaves, others free.'

 

-- Hippolytus, Refutation (9.9.4)

 

For Heraclitus, the fundamental nature of “being” is was constant change between opposites. Life is followed by death, hunger to satiety to hunger again.  This strife or “war” within the nature of reality encompasses all things. All things are vibrating between opposite states; thus the universe is in an ironically “constant” state of flux.

 

Most famously he uses the example of a river. The philosopher stated that…

 

'Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow.'

 

--  Arius Didymus (Fr. 39.2)   [ most likely original ]

 

'[It is not possible to step twice into the same river] ... It scatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes.'

 

--  Plutarch, On the E at Delphi (392b)

 

"We step into and we do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not."

 

--  Heraclitus, Homeric Questions 24 Oelmann (Schleiermacher, fr. 72))

 

By this he means that the moment you step into a river, the water is displaced with new water and the nature of the river is changed permanently. But it is the same for the person doing the stepping.  Each of us are like the river in this respect, gaining and losing the “stuff” of our bodies.   Unavoidable changes mean were never the “same” as we were.

 

Fire is the physical aspect of the perfect logos.  But it is perhaps better to see fire representing his notion that transitioning/ transmuting is the ultimate nature of realty. By the time you finish this sentence you will be different from the person you were when you started it. So then the universe was always in a war of change and flux but this process commanded by a divine reason or logos.  Heraclitus believed that fire was the incarnation of a divine will that caused all change within reality and that the one undeniable law of the universe was that everything was always transforming into something else.

 

And what of “peace” for Heraclitus?

 

What would he have thought about “peace?”

 

Heraclitus claims that “war is the father of all things.” And “War is the king of all.”  But Heraclitus’s thought is preserved for us largely in the form of fragments as opposed to developed treaties.  This means that there is lots of room for interpretation as to precisely what he means by the Fragments. He is certainly referring to the clash of opposites in this world.  In fact, this very clash seems to be what makes the world itself.  Reality seems to be born and reborn by a struggle between these forces, (as culture is born by a clash of philosophies, tendencies, principles - a la Hegel).

 

We are forever creating the new and in the processes destroying the old.  It would seem that there can be no construction here without destruction, no harmony and balance without an ongoing tension between opposing forces, no continuity of life (dynamic living/ dynamic Spirit)) without constant consuming and devouring (fire).  This is probably what Heraclitus means by suggesting the basic substance of reality is fire. 

 

While we use the world “war” and “strife” to talk about this “struggle” that goes own between “opposite” forces, one might see an affinity between his view and the Yin/Yang notion coming from eastern thought.  The proper/ natural relationship of the world is balance between creation and destruction by opposing forces.  Again there seems an affinity between this view and that of Shiva, Lord of the Dance who is the destroyer/creator god of Hindu tradition.  From this point of view “peace” would be stagnation and death, unnatural and likely metaphysically impossible.

 

 

Thus

·         change is the universal feature of reality.

·         permanence is impossible

 

He is also reputed to have been a rather ill-tempered misanthrope, another one of his quips being that "Most men are bad."

 

"Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep."

 

-- Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians (7.132)

 

 

Parmenides:

 

 

Parmenides of Elea was a younger contemporary of Heraclitus of Ephesus, but he lived at the opposite end of the Greek world: in Italy.

 

 

 

Largely through a priori deductive reasoning, Parmenides concluded that actual change is impossible.

 

Parmenides' line of argument is as follows. Change is coming into being. If something comes into being, it comes into being from something that existed before. What was before? There are only two possibilities which make up the Parmenides problem:

either :

 

1. Being comes from being. or:

2. Being comes from nonbeing.

 

If #1 is correct and being comes from being, then what is now is the same as what was before and thus no change occurs. But is we try to go with #2 is correct and claim being comes from nonbeing, again no change occurs.  Nothing can come from nonbeing after all.  In fact, it would appear that there can ”be” no such thing as nonbeing, and no such thing as change. The world is all one being, and there is no division into separate individual beings that interact and change.

 

Further, a being could change only if caused to do so by something other than itself.  (For if it were the cause –i.e. were sufficient for- of its own change, would have already undergone the change and thus change would not have occurred.

 

But the only alternative to being is non­being, and non-being since (since it is just nothing) cannot cause anything.  Nothing comes from nothing.

 

Hence, again, change is impossible.

 

Furthermore, if every exist­ing thing is a being -for example, an apple is a being, and an orange is a being then they are really just the same thing, a being.  Diversity is impossible too; there really is no difference between apples and oranges after all, or between anything else. For Parmenides there is really just one thing in existence: being itself, solitary, undifferenti­ated, and unchanging.

 

A bit of an aside: Metaphysics as First Philosophy

 

His idea here is that something that exists (It is.) cannot also not-exist (It is not.).  Something cannot be and not-be.  The principle of non-contradiction [i.e. ~ (p & ~p )] is a metaphysical principle, not merely logical or epistemological one.  For those committed to the classical world view, including the Scholastics, metaphysics is the first philosophy.  It is fundamental fact about Being.  Indeed it is metaphysical (the fundamental rationality manifest in the world/ i.e. Logos) that make philosophy, including epistemology, possible.

 

Parmenides argues that a state of nothingness, a genuine “void” in reality could not be. Further, what “is” could not come from “what is not/ nonbeing.”  Certainly, what has no reality cannot affect that has reality.  Likewise what “is” cannot “go into a state” of non-existence. (i.e. again this would require p & ~p)  Therefore all that is/exists/ be must have always exist/ be. The unchanging permanent nature of reality means reality is in fact an indivisible unity.

 

Parmenides claimed that the apparent endless variety of entities and ceaseless changes we seem to see were just an illusion.

 

In a long poem, which partially survives, he opposed "being" to "not being", and pointed out that change was impossible, because it would mean that something that was "not being" changed into "being", which is absurd. “Nothing” or “Void” cannot be changed because it does not exist.

 

III

 

For it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.

 

VI

 

It needs must be that what can be thought and spoken of is;

for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for, what is

nothing to be. This is what I bid thee ponder. I hold thee

back from this first way of inquiry, and from this other also,

 

Following Parmenides were other of the Eleatic School: Melissus (500-440BC) and Zeno of Elea (495-430BC), the latter a said “pupil” of Leucippus, in reaction to materialism philosophers, in what some have referred to as an "attack" on Heraclitus, argued that all that existed was some type of immovable “being”, and concordantly that “non-being” or void was impossible—the following fragment from Melissus gives the gist of this argument:

 

“There is absolutely NO void. For void is not-being and the nothing could not exist. And it does not move. For it cannot more in any direction. But it is full. For if there were void, it would move into that void, but since there is no void it has nothing to move into.”

 

Thus reliance on reason reveal the deceptive nature of our senses.  This is a distrust born of our intellect.

 

For Parmenides there were “two worlds[1]” as it were:

 

1.       the illusory, unreal world which we experience every day

2.       the genuine reality, which we can reach only by the intellect.

 

·         Whatever exists is a being

·         If something is not a being then it is a non-being, and thus nothing.

·         Whatever is IS, and whatever is not IS NOT.

·         Both change and diversity are the illu­sions.

·         Reality is one, undifferentiated and permanent.

 

 

And if the senses lead us to think that there are innumerably many different things in the world -this apple, that orange, this book, that table, you, me, your dog, etc. -and that they are all constantly changing, this simply shows that the senses aren't to be trusted.

 

So then, Parmenides view could hardly differ more from that of Heraclitus.   There is no change. The reality/universe is continuous, unchanging and eternal. Now note that this is NOT the testimony of our senses.  Our senses (strongly) suggest that things are changing all the time, precisely as Heraclitus claims.  Parmenides’ radical metaphysics (along with the epistemology it implied) lead other philosophers to try to refute Parmenides monism and timelessness, especially since change in everyday life seem so much more evident than oneness.   Parmenides’ student Zeno famously defended his teacher’s views with his ingenious paradoxes about the space, time and motion (a principal kind of change).

 

Zeno of Elea

 

 

Zeno of Elea (b. 490 B.C.), a disciple of Parmenides, developed similar arguments.

 

Of Zeno's original 40 versions of the paradox (of which 8 have come down to us through Aristotle), three in particular have become quite well known:

 

1.       The Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise: If Achilles allows the tortoise a head start in a race, then by the time Achilles has arrived at the tortoise's starting point, the tortoise has already run on a shorter distance. By the time Achilles reaches that second point, the tortoise has moved on again, etc, etc. So Achilles can never catch the tortoise.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skM37PcZmWE

 

 

2.       The Arrow Paradox: If an arrow is fired from a bow, then at any moment in time, the arrow either is where it is, or it is where it is not. If it moves where it is, then it must be standing still, and if it moves where it is not, then it cannot be there. Thus, it cannot move at all.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfArTozRTLI

 

3.       The Dichotomy Paradox: Before a moving object can travel a certain distance (e.g. a person crossing a room), it must get halfway there. Before it can get halfway there, it must get a quarter of the way there. Before travelling a quarter, it must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on. As this sequence goes on forever, an infinite number of points must be crossed, which is logically impossible in a finite period of time, so the distance will never be covered (the room crossed, etc).,

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfqVnj-sgcc

 

The famous paradox of Achilles and the tortoise.

 

Suppose Achilles and the tortoise are in a race, but the tortoise begins little ahead of Achilles.  Zeno reasons that, Achilles, no matter how fast he is, can never outrun the tortoise. This is because, by the time Achilles reaches the point from which the tor­toise had started, the tortoise will have reached, however slight, a new position; by the time Achilles reaches that new position, the tortoise will again have moved on. And so on, ad infinitum.

 

The very idea that Achilles, the tortoise, or anything else can move thus leads to paradox; hence motion is impossible. The senses may tell us otherwise, but they are refuted by reason.

 

So note, the tendency to emphasize permanence and oneness as the fundamental features of reality aligns with an emphasis on the intellect and pure reason as the source of reliable knowledge.

 

By contrast, the tendency to emphasize the diversity and changeability of things is associated with an emphasis on the senses as a source of knowledge.

 

While Parmenides took the stance that motion was impossible, it is said that Heraclitus sought to disprove him. Heraclitus took his arm, moved it about his face and essentially said ‘there, I disproved it’. Parmenides then says that just because an arm is in one location one moment and then a different location the next, it does not necessarily mean that the arm actually moved.

 

To Parmenides, knowledge gained through the senses was unreliable.  Parmenides denounced the intuitions of sense experience as falsities, the way of “opinion” to be distinguished from actual knowledge. So the fact that we observe change/motion does des not demonstrate that change/motion are real.  The way of truth starts from an epistemological “ground zero,” then relies only on our reason and logic to arrive at a worthy conclusion. Thus despite appearances to the contrary, all “being” is one, and the multiplicity of individual beings is a mere illusion.

 

Parmenides was a pioneer in his use of logic and logical (deductive) inference.  He is said to have seen this as therapeutic or ministry free human minds from illusion and bringing them to reality.  Logic wasn’t merely an abstract philosophical effort.  Indeed all of authentic philosophy he viewed in this light.

 

Think of a magician's trick.  You may not know why you seem to see the lady cut in half, but know for certain that it impossible that she really be cut in half.  Therefore, what you are witnessing must be an illusion.  Philosophers therefore, should not be interested in anything that changes, but rather in which is, (rather then that which is not).  This was among the first attacks on the reliability of the senses to provide us with accurate information about reality (Rationalism)

 

Sophists, Sophistry and Socrates

 

So we see an early divide between those who see the best way of coming to know reality is through a priori reasoning, logic and rational intuition and those who believe we must rely on the testimony of our sense to come to know reality.  However, it should be noted that both positions seemed committed to the notion that reality is intelligible and that (unaided) human reason is capable of come to at least a partial understanding of it.  The logos of reality is accessible to or perhaps identical with the human intellect.

 

While this may seem fairly abstract, is will have some pretty directly practical consequences.  And while some of the Pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with such abstractions, others were concerned with practical affairs and the practical consequences of these views too.  Parmenides argument took on moral and bore political implications once adopted the Sophists.  These Sophists taught the use of argumentative skills of the sort previous philosophers had exhibit­ed, but as a means of attaining worldly success, for instance in poli­tics.  Protagoras in particular, sought to justify epistemic and ethical relativism, which his students used to discredit evidence in court and defend immorality.

 

Thus the Sophists have a reputation for being cynical and unscrupulous.  Persuading one's listener (for one’s advantage) was the only goal.  What mattered was not truth and understanding (Sophia) but rather winning the debate.  Rhetorical success was more important than logos.

 

Hence: Sophistry

 

In Plato's Sophist, the sophists are referred to a "contradictors," and the "teachers of contradiction."[2] The Sophists were practiced rhetoricians contradicting any general statements "about being and becoming."[3] Sophists applied contradiction to "all arts" and "each craftsman," telling them how to do their jobs.[4] In Plato's Meno, Socrates says that "for more than forty years all Greece failed to notice that Protagoras was corrupting his classes and sending his pupils away in a worse state than when he took charge of them."[5] Aristotle accuses Protagoras and his rhetorical craft of making the weaker argument appear the stronger.  This “is why human beings were justly disgusted at Protagoras's pronouncement. For it is false, and not a true, but an apparent likelihood, and not present in any art other than rhetoric and debating."[6] Plato and Aristotle claimed that Parmenides was also guilty of misleading people through "apparent likelihoods" and this was a basis for Protagoras' relativism.[7]

 

The idea is this.  If the world of sense-perceived objects is a realm of illusions, judgments about is must all be equally false, none better than any other.  According to Aristotle, "[Protagoras] said that a human being is the measure of all things, meaning nothing else than that what seems so to each person is solidly so."[8] Things may seem different to you and they seem to seem, but there is no way to judge who is right. Indeed, we’re both equally wrong/right.  This position brings all evidence into question, allowing Protagoras to "make the weaker argument the stronger." The very concept of an enduring or universal human nature is called into question: "It is necessary for them [the Protagoreans] to say that all things are incidental, and that there is not anything which is the very thing it is to be human or to be an animal."[9] However, this is sheer lunacy for Aristotle.  "the same thing would be a battleship and a wall and a human being, if something admits of being affirmed or denied of everything, as it must for those who repeat the saying of Protagoras."[10]

 

Aristotle suggests Protagoras’s manages to be convinces by trading on two things: conflating matter of pure taste with matters of objective truth and utilizing the conclusions of Parmenides.  Dealing with Protagoras’s relativism requires dealing with both of these, as Plato too, attempted to so.

 

Thus Sophists also tended toward skepticism and relativism, think­ing that no knowledge of objective truth is really possible and that every view is in principle as good as any other. Socrates sought to oppose these view for he thought they were corrupting and dangerous morally as well as intellectually.

 

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) vigorously opposed the Sophists.

 

He regarded them as a dangerous, a source of intellectual and moral corruption.

 

Socrates, in contrast to the Sophists, held

 

·         That there is an objective difference between truth and falsity

·         That there is an objective difference between and good and bad

·         Bad actions corrupt one's soul and thus harm the perpetrator whether or not they bring worldly success.

 

He challenged his fellow citizens asking the supposed wise among them:

 

"What is justice?"

"What is piety?"

“What is courage?”

 

In his dialogues he would expose the inadequacy of their answers as he sought better ones.  He seemed confident that through this method of rational inquiry we could find the true essences of the things he was inquiring about.

(That is, what is it that all and only just acts have in common by virtue of which are just acts?) The opinion of the majority was in his view not what mattered; rather, it was the opinion of the wise, those guided by reason, that counted. Famously, Socrates did not claim to have found the answers himself.  However he set the stage for Plato and Aristotle.  It would fall to them and their successors to sort out what essences are, how they operate and how we come to know them.

 

Ultimately Socrates was put on trial by a jury of 500 of his fellow citizens for purportedly denying the gods of the city and replacing them with new ones, and in general corrupting the youth of Athens.  The real motives are unclear.  It may have been his associations with certain anti-democratic political figures of the day, or it may be that he simply was the annoying gadfly he described himself to be and the senators of Athens simply wanted to be rid of him.  Socrates defended himself, Plato tells us, by claiming that he was divinely called to lead others to the improvement of their souls. Little wonder that Plato from that point on turns from a potential career as a lawyer and politician to the vocation of pursuing truth.


[1] Some with see here a foreshadowing of Plato’s two realms, the metaphysical attempt to resolve Parmenides’ dilemma.  Aristotle, and ultimately Scholasticism, explicitly reject Platonic Dualism as solution. Aristotle instead provides his own alternative.

[2] Plato, Sophist, trans. Seth Bernadette (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986),, 232b

[3] Sophist, 232c.

[4] Sophist, 232e. The Eleatic Stranger mentions the "Protagorean writings on wrestling" specifically in this regard.

[5] Plato, Meno, trans. W.R.M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 91e. 

[6] Aristotle, Rhetoric, in Plato's Gorgias and Aristotle's Rhetoric, trans. Joe Sachs (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2009), 1402a20.

[7] At Physics 186al, Aristotle says that "Melissus and Parmenides reason like debaters."

[8]  Metaphysics, 1062b 12

[9] Metaphysics, 1007a22. 

[10] Metaphysics, 1007b20.