CANS 406 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: A Perfect Circle, Socratic Method, True Justice
22 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
1. Monday January 8th: Missed
- Readings will be available on mycourses but if you’re off campus you need to copy vpn
Grading
- 10% weekly discussion questions
- Due each wednesday by noon
- 200 words long and answer question posted on my courses, with explicit
reference to that weeks reading
- 10% Conference Participation
- 20% X 2 (40%) Final essay, for March first and April 9th
- 40% for Final exam
2.Tuesday January 9th
Readings, Discussion Questions, and Conferences
- Need to complete all readings for week by beginning of class on tuesday
- Answer discussion questions by noon on wednesday
- Conferences are held on thursdays, start on january 25th
Evaluation
- All responses will be posted about the question onto a large document, for study aid
Essays
- 5-7 pages
- Submit electronically by mycourses
Final Exam
- Short essay questions drawn from weekly question, you will have seen it all before and
have all the responses from classmates
Plato Phaedo
- Read an excerpt from phaedo, one dialogue from plato that was inspired by socrates
- Hard b/c he says “socrates views this” but it’s all interpretations/secondary source
- 300-400 BC
- Need to be read slowly because they’re dense
- Key points to consider
- Socratic philosophy comes largely from Plato’s descriptions of him, so all of our
knowledge is based on secondary source
- What we know of it is in a form of dialogues, having conversations with students
- Phaedo describes death of socrates around 373 BC after being condemned to death for
corruption of youth in athens
- Was actually about his view in opposition against the war on Sparta, he had a lot
of questions and revealed incompetence of political leaders
- Known for socratic method
- Asking student questions until they get to an answer
- Socrates relies on internal reflection, to arrive at certain knowledge, oppositional to
scientific method
- Observation, senses, and empirical information are incapable of providing true
knowledge (believes all are bias?)
- Read as a defence for personal integrity, value fo reason in public discourse and politics
- Our focus is on what the dialogue says about memory
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- First concerns nature of death, intros socrates argument regarding soul
(paragraph 7)
- Middle section (paragraph 785), central focus is on theory of recollection
- Closely associated with theory of the forms
- Discusses roles of reason, nature of soul
Theory of the Forms
- Every concept (beauty, justice etc..) exist as an independant perfect ideal. For every
concept, there is an ideal form. No material or changeable circle is a circle. They are
merely reflections of the ideal forms
- A perfect circle on powerpoint, zoom in to edges and can see that it’s blurry
- No example of perfect justice
Recollection
- How one can have a knowledge of a concept of circle or justice if they’ve never
encountered a true circle or true justice
- Because we have knowledge of concepts like circle or justice that can’t come from bodily
senses, it must exist prior to birth
- essence of a person that exists after and before death, called the soul, has knowledge of
these perfects concepts. Soul comes into contacts with the forms when it’s not being
held in the body (death and birth). Knowledge is known before birth then forgotten when
born.
- It can be remembered through introspection or skillful questioning (socratic method)
- Can demonstrate knowledge of geometric principle if he asks the right questions
- Consequently, all true knowledge is actually recollection
- Memory is the ultimate source of truth
- Socrates isn’t concerned with memory, just centre of true knowledge
Aristotle
- Talks about memory and recollection in more familiar ways, modern tradition comes
more from aristotle than Socrates
- Student of Plato
- Systematizer, exhaustive sets of categories and explanations in natural science and
philosophy
- Talks about memory
- Dominant metaphors are mechanical
- For Socrates Memory recollection as material processes, things that can be
affected by physical changes
- Recollection as motion
- Memory as impression, your memories only form because they form impressions
on you
Memory as impression
- Memory arise from senses, the mind (medium) may be too hard or too soft, if it’s too
hards it won’t make an impression, if it’s too soft, it won’t hold and will fade away
- Discuss memory (process) and memories (impressions)
- Socrates never makes this distinction
- Memory isn’t associated with true or certain knowledge
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Readings will be available on mycourses but if you"re off campus you need to copy vpn. 200 words long and answer question posted on my courses, with explicit reference to that weeks reading. 20% x 2 (40%) final essay, for march first and april 9th. Need to complete all readings for week by beginning of class on tuesday. Answer discussion questions by noon on wednesday. Conferences are held on thursdays, start on january 25th. All responses will be posted about the question onto a large document, for study aid. Short essay questions drawn from weekly question, you will have seen it all before and have all the responses from classmates. Read an excerpt from phaedo, one dialogue from plato that was inspired by socrates. Hard b/c he says socrates views this but it"s all interpretations/secondary source. Need to be read slowly because they"re dense.
