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*[I]t is beyond the power
of human nature to achieve skill without any experience . . .
/
(hoti hê anthrôpinê phusis asthenestera ê labein technên hôn an êi
apeiros. . .)
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-The character Socrates, in Plato's
Theaetetus, 360 BC
149c
F.M. Cornford, trans., 1957
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Knowledge is true opinion.
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-Plato
Theaetetus
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*Now, can there be a worse
disgrace than this-that I should be thought to value money more than the life
of a friend?
/
(kaitoi tis an aischiôn eiê tautês doxa ê dokein chrêmata peri pleionos
poieisthai ê philous; ou gar peisontai)
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-The character Crito, in Plato's
Crito
44c
Benjamin Jowett, trans.
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*Really, Crito, why should
we care so much about what 'most people' believe?
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-The character Socrates, in Plato's
Crito
44d
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Is what is sacred sacred because the Gods
approve it?, or do they approve it because it is sacred?
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-Plato
Euthyphro
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*[A] man who means to be a
poet has to use fiction and not facts for his poems.
/
( . . . ennoêsas hoti ton poiêtên deoi, eiper melloi poiêtês einai, poiein
muthous all' ou logous . . . )
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-The character Phaedo, in Plato's
Phaedo
61b
F.J. Church, trans., 1951
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*What, he said, is not
Evenus a philosopher?
Yes, I suppose so, replied Simmias.
Then Evenus will wish to die, he said, and so will every man who is worthy
of having any part in this study. But he will not lay violent hands on
himself; for that, they say, is wrong.
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-The character Phaedo quoting Socrates, in
Plato's Phaedo, 61c
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*[T]he wise man will surely
desire to remain always with one who is better than himself.
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-The character Phaedo quoting Cebes, in Plato's
Phaedo
62e
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*Is it not rather the
case that the man who prepares himself most carefully to apprehend by
his intellect the essence of each thing which he examines will come
nearest to the knowledge of it?
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-The character Socrates, in Plato's
Phaedo
65e
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*[T]he origin of all wars
is the pursuit of wealth.
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-The character Socrates, in Plato's
Phaedo
66d
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Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm
to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold
on the mind.
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-Plato
The Republic
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Home
(This is a test effort. The text is copyrighted, I took it from Biography.com. This
will not be the final version of the text I use.)
Greek philosopher, probably born in Athens of an aristocratic family.
Little is known of his early life, but he was a devoted disciple of Socrates. He travelled
widely, then in about 367 BC founded his Academy at Athens, where Aristotle was his most
famous pupil. He remained there for the rest of his life, apart from visits to Syracuse,
where he was involved in political experiments. His 30 or more dialogues are conventionally
divided into three periods. The early dialogues have Socrates as the principal character
engaged in ironic and inconclusive interrogations about the definition of different moral
virtues (piety in the Euthyphro, courage in the Laches, and so on). In the middle, highly
literary dialogues, such as the Symposium, Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic, he increasingly
develops his own positive doctrines, such as the theory of knowledge as recollection, the
immortality of the soul, the tripartite division of the soul, and above all the theory of
forms (or "ideas') which contrasts the transient, material world of "particulars' (objects
merely of perception, opinion, and belief) with the timeless, unchanging world of
universals or forms (the true objects of knowledge). The Republic also describes Plato's
celebrated political utopia, ruled by philosopher-kings who have mastered the discipline of
"dialectic'. The third group of later dialogues (including the Parmenides, Theaetetus, and
Sophist) represents a series of highly sophisticated criticisms of the metaphysical and
logical assumptions of his middle period, and contain some of his most demanding and
original work. Taken as a whole, his philosophy has been so enormously influential that
the whole subsequent Western tradition was described by Whitehead as a series of "footnotes
to Plato'.
