PHL 503 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Socratic Method, Thrasymachus, Cephalus
18 Jan 2016
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The republic, book 1: socratic method and definitions. The characteristics that are both necessary and sufficient. Identify some quality or property such that if something fits that concept then it has that property. "x" is a marriage, is and only if Characteristics should be sufficient such that if "x" has those qualities then it is a marriage and vice versa. If there is a real disagreement about the definition of something then at least one side has to be wrong. They have an idea about what the word/thing is but are mistaken about the nature of the word/thing. Even before they have defined the nature of justice itself, they must still be able to tell what counts as clear cases of justice/non-justice. Therefore there must be some pre-discriminatory ideas/you must already know in some way but you are not able to explain. The job of the philosopher is to make the implicit, explicit.
