Socrates vs. Sophists, Plato’s Philosophy, and Early Thinkers
The Difference Between Socrates and the Sophists
The word sophistes meant master in wisdom. These men traveled, engaging in politics and charging for lessons. They claimed knowledge of everything: astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, phonetics, music, painting. However, their aim was not truth, but the appearance of knowledge to gain authority. They were philosophical skeptics and relativists, believing that absolute truth was unattainable, and everyone had their own truth. For Socrates, philosophizing was teaching, not about the physis like Anaxagoras, but about human behavior and the ability to know the truth. Unlike Sophists, Socrates never engaged in politics, made speeches, or wrote anything. He considered himself not a teacher, but a conversationalist, believing wisdom came from dialogue, questioning, and collaborative searching for answers. He taught how to think, seek truth, and recognize its attainability. Unlike the Sophists, he did not charge for his teaching.
Ontological Dualism: Plato’s philosophy builds upon two earlier thinkers: Parmenides, who posited a permanent, intelligible, divine reality, and Heraclitus, who believed the essence of nature is change. Plato aimed for true knowledge, attainable only through the unchanging. He posited two worlds: the intelligible world of ideas and the sensible world of phenomena.
The World of Ideas
This world is characterized as divine, true, eternal, permanent, and organized from chaos by the Demiurge (mind organizer). It consists of absolute, immutable, universal, and independent ideas or forms.
The Sensible World
This world is characterized as perishable, changeable, and created by the Demiurge. It comprises relative, composite, and corruptible copies that imitate ideas. Plato’s philosophy is dualistic, establishing a relationship between these worlds: The world of ideas is independent of the sensible world, existing on its own. The sensible world depends on the world of ideas, being a copy.
This dependency of the sensible world on the world of ideas makes Plato’s philosophy ontological. His Theory of Knowledge (or Dualism of Knowledge) posits that we know things not captured by the senses. These are real, and Plato calls them ideas or forms. Knowledge of these ideas comes through mathematical reasoning (influenced by Pythagoras), eliminating sensory errors. Abstract reasoning, separate from sense perceptions, reveals the essence, what similar things have in common.
Characteristics of knowledge according to Plato:
- It must be certain and infallible.
- It must have as its object truth, something real, unlike mere appearance. For Plato, truth is permanent and unchangeable, identified with the world of ideas, unlike the changing material world.
The method to achieve knowledge is the dialectic (like Socrates’ maieutics), moving from the particular (e.g., a table) to the universal (the concept of a table) through questions and answers, leading to the discovery of truth. Following his master, Plato believed everyone possesses innate knowledge, needing only to discover or remember it.
The Soul
The soul is immortal, dominates the body, and is a homogeneous substance. Its activity is contemplating ideas and forms, making Platonic anthropology psychological. Plato divided the soul into three parts:
The Theory of the Soul
- The soul is the foundation of movement and life, from the Latin anima, that which animates a body.
- The soul is the source of knowledge; we know because of the soul. It identifies with the nous, an intelligence trained to know true reality: ideas.
- It has different capacities or dynamis, with three dimensions and functions:
Soul’s Dimensions
- Rational: Represented by the charioteer, providing ideas and making decisions.
- Irascible or Volitional: The dimension of voluntary impulses.
- Concupiscible or Appetitive: The source of desires and passions related to the body.
The First Philosophers
The earliest philosophers, known as sages, were wise men and poets. They sought to answer the question of the origin and constitution of the cosmos, determining the fundamental ‘principle’ (arche), not as anthropomorphic entities, but as what we call nature or physis.
Three Meanings of Physis
- Physis (nature) as reality: The set of things existing as they appear, multiple and changing yet certain.
- Physis (nature) as mode of being, essence: The definition answering the question “What is…?”, expressing the essence of things.
- Physis (nature) as arche (beginning): The fundamental constitutional principle from which things originate, are determined, or defined.
The Problem of Physis
The Milesians were the first to address the problem of physis.
Milesian Philosophers
- Thales of Miletus: Held that the principle of all things is water; everything becomes water. The multiple and different things come from one.
- Anaximander of Miletus: Believed the beginning of all things was apeiron (unlimited or indefinite), meaning all things are indefinite or indeterminate.
- Anaximenes of Miletus: A disciple of Anaximander, argued the principle of all things is air; everything comes from air.
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Claimed the origin of all things is fire. In fragments transmitted by Hippolytus, Heraclitus identifies fire with logos, using fire as a metaphor for reason, a common reason. He saw all things arising from contradiction, distinguishing themselves through opposition, and discovering a common reason through this contradiction.