Intro to Philosophy – Sept 14th
All evil doing is based upon ignorance for good.
The power of attaining.
o Attaining them justly or unjustly
o Virtue is the desire of things honourable – honestly and justly.
o Circular definition – defining virtue with virtue itself.
o If we don’t know what x is, how can we seek to know what x is? If we
found x and didn’t know what x was, we wouldn’t even know that
we’ve found it. (How to seek to know something we don’t already
know).
o Phaedo is a record of conversation between Socrates and his friends
on the last day of his life.
What is death? Isn’t it in a sense the separation of the soul, mind, psyche from
the body?
How do we know the soul isn’t just a mist, or breathe that when the body
dies, vanishes completely. Can we be sure it continues to exist after being
separated from the body?
o Gods disapprove of suicide – they get to take us when they choose.
The worst sin you can commit is to be inconsistent.
What was a united whole during life, becomes a separate after death.
Socratic Irony – there’s a great deal of irony in what Socrates says.
o Socrates will try to show that the soul does exist after death after
drinking the hemlock
All change in a sense is change from one opposite to another.
Instantaneous change with no intermediate states