53
votes
Accepted
Did Plato say “Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow”?
This is from the dialogue titled Sophist, the Fowler translation at perseus.tufts.edu gives it as:
No one should be discouraged, Theaetetus, who can make constant progress, even though it be slow.
...
- 2,837
13
votes
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Who is Plato and Socrates' God?
Whether Plato's character of Socrates or Plato himself believed in a God or many Gods is not perfectly clear. Additionally, we can't ascribe any sort of belief to the historical Socrates; we just don'...
- 2,841
12
votes
Did Plato record actual conversations in his dialogues?
Both of the answers are correct to point out that the dialogues are fictitious. It is extremely unlikely any section of any length is a transcript of an actual conversation between Socrates and anyone....
- 24.6k
11
votes
Accepted
How did Kant define knowledge?
Key text here may be On opinion, knowledge and belief, CPR B 848-859.
There is conviction [Überzeugung]. It is the subjective part necessary for knowledge:
Taking something to be true is an ...
- 13.5k
11
votes
Accepted
Does Nietzsche's rejection of Socrates mean that he is a relativist about ethics?
I believe the Nietzsche's passage referred to is this one:
"Socrates' decadence is suggested not only by the admitted wantonness and anarchy of his instincts, but also by the hypertrophy of the ...
- 42.5k
11
votes
Accepted
Did Plato believe in reincarnation?
Yes, and the Phaedo and the Republic (to cite just two texts) provide evidence for this.
Phaedo
Running through the dialogue has been the thought that soul and body
are sharply distinct and ...
- 35.4k
10
votes
Was Socrates a monotheist?
In several places, most notably the discussion of the "Allegory of the Cave" in The Republic, Plato's Socrates identifies the Ideal of the Good as the singular source of all good things in ...
- 27k
10
votes
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Was Plato influenced by Moses?
I do not remember any passage where Plato refers to the Jewish religion or to Jewish mythology.
Sometimes Plato refers to myths he pretends to have heard from Egyptians and possibly he invented some ...
- 24k
10
votes
Plato and the knowledge of the forms
I'm not sure Plato directly answers this question, but the dialogs clearly suggest the answer is yes. Plato frequently uses the metaphor of traveling closer or further away from the divine, immortal ...
- 27k
9
votes
Accepted
Buddhism in Phaedo
SOCRATES VERSUS BUDDHA ON THE SOUL
If Buddhism denies the existence of any continuing self or soul, this appears to conflict with Socrates' view of a continuing soul which is freed and released from ...
- 35.4k
9
votes
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What's the origin of this quote from Plato? "To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed"
Plato, Statesman, 264:
Stranger Let us, then, not make our division as we did before, with a view to all, nor in a hurry, with the idea that we may thus reach political science quickly, for that has ...
- 36.1k
9
votes
Accepted
What is the origin of the idea that moral realism requires a god?
Your understanding of Euthyphro sounds inverted. At the time, the idea that "good" was just a name for what the gods approve of was a commonplace. Plato's goal here, in fact, is to replace ...
- 27k
8
votes
Accepted
Why there are so many blunders/fallacies in Plato's Dialogues?
Plato believed in deeper levels of Truth and Reality underlying the world as we know it. Because of the relative imperfection of our own world, we can not fully express or directly communicate deeper ...
- 27k
7
votes
Can a beginner in Philosophy understand the following books?
It's arguably not possible to "fully" understand any great work of philosophy. In the Platonic tradition, in fact, the general assumption is that you are being pointed in the direction of things that ...
- 27k
7
votes
Accepted
Why does Nietzsche call Plato a bore?
Nietzsche writes in the second aphorism from the section What I Owe to the Ancients of his work Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (1888):
I am a complete skeptic about ...
- 24k
7
votes
Accepted
Is Plato's Callicles an example of Nietzsche's Übermensch? Is the Epicurean hedonist?
Well, in some ways Callicles comes close. One easily recognizes some of the key themes of Nietzsche's master morality there: the strong dominate the weak by nature, laws protecting the weak are unfair ...
- 42.5k
7
votes
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Was Plato an idealist or a realist?
Both Plato and Gödel were mathematical platonists. Both held that mathematical objects existed abstractly and outside of spacetime. This is what we would call mathematical realism. This position is ...
- 541
7
votes
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Where can I find the untranslated Greek text of Plato's republic?
The Perseus Collection is a great online collection of ancient texts in their original languages (with a built in translation dictionary) as well as lots of different English translations. Here is the ...
- 2,841
7
votes
Did Plato believe in reincarnation?
See the Myth of Er : "a legend that concludes Plato's Republic".
In the final part (617d–621b), a priest of Lachesis tells the returning souls that they must choose their next incarnate ...
- 36.1k
7
votes
Accepted
Is Heraclitus really a Mobilist?
Welcome, Delforge
Heraclitus and constant change - a vexed question
THE thought of Heraclitus of Ephesus is still often summarized
as " All things are flowing ", panta rhei; by which it is ...
- 35.4k
7
votes
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I don't understand how Plato's State is ideal
IMHO, the meaning of the Republic is is usually lost on modern readers. At first Socrates describes a very simple state, and describes such a state as "perfected". But his interlocutor asks ...
7
votes
Platonic love and "sapiosexuality"
They are definitionally incompatible.
Platonic love is a kind of love in which sexual desires are not present or have been suppressed.
X-sexuality is sexual desire for X.
Hence sapiosexuals, if such ...
- 3,400
6
votes
What did Socrates mean by " there is no more fitting reward than maintenance in the prytaneum"?
Socrates claims to be rewarded with free feeding at the Prytaneum because he has served well the State by teaching. A Socratic irony.
The Prytaneion was a building on the Acropolis of Athens. {...}
...
- 1,324
6
votes
What did Socrates mean by " there is no more fitting reward than maintenance in the prytaneum"?
One of the key features when teaching the Apology (which many philosophers don't teach in intro courses, because it's somewhat sparse on arguments) is basically whether Socrates is defending himself ...
6
votes
Did Plato record actual conversations in his dialogues?
As far as I know Plato's dialogues are fictitious.
E.g., Parmenides died at about 460 BCE in the South of Italy, while Socrates was born at 470 BCE in Athens. Hence the meeting of Parmenides with a ...
- 24k
6
votes
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Plato books for a philosophy newcomer
Original. As long as you are interested in a specific author, always the orignial (although for some there might be reading groups/seminars necessary, like Kant, Hegel, Foucault, etc. - but that is ...
- 13.5k
6
votes
Accepted
Does Socrates fear Euthyphro?
You said "With these two comments in mind, could we infer that Socrates fears Euthyphro?"
By just taking two comments from such a large conversation, you are going to conclude somethings which may be ...
- 184
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