Introduction To Philosophy Fourth Class Slide

I. Introductions: Favorite TV/Cable Shows (limit three). 

II. Questions/Comments from last time. 

III. Introduction to Plato's Apology:

What he is doing, why he is doing it, why it is important, and for whom is it supposed to be important? 

Is he "political?" 

His "daimonic ["divine spirit, oracle, sign"] voice."  In its article "Daemon (classical mythology)" Wikipedia says :

in Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a deity, but rather a "great daemon" (202d).  She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e).  In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a "divine something") that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do. The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to the daimonion as a daimōn; it was always referred to as an impersonal "something" or "sign".  By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the human soul, his newfound self-consciousness.  Paul Shorey sees the daimonion not as an inspiration but as "a kind of spiritual tact checking Socrates from any act opposed to his true moral and intellectual interests." 

Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399, Plato surmised "Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings…"  Burkert notes that "a special being watches over each individual, a daimon who has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition. The famous, paradoxical saying of Heraclitus is already directed against such a view: 'character is for man his daimon.'" 

IV. Questions/Comments. 

V. Going through the dialogue carefully:

The Charges

The Oracle and Socratic "Ignorance" and Irony

Questions/Comments. 

Trying to "refute" or "understand" the Oracle? 

"I don't fear death"--why not? 

I won't stop, and can't be harmed by you. 

Questions/Comments. 

Return to my webpage for the course. 

Midcoast Senior College Website

Bruce Hauptli Home Page

Email: hauptli@fiu.edu 

Last revised: 04/09/21