Exploring Plato's Philosophy and Context
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ScribdTranslationsExploring Plato's Philosophy and Context
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ScribdTranslationsPLATO QUESTIONS:
1) What is the socio-political context of Plato's work? Why can we say that his philosophy is a
response to the present state of affairs at that time? (End of the golden age, crisis of democracy, Enlightenment,
rise of democracy, defeat of the Peloponnesian War, death of Socrates.
2) How is the figure of Socrates, Plato's teacher, recovered by him? Explain the difference Socrates.
Historical/Platonic Socrates.
3) ¿Cuáles son las influencias inmediatas que determinan la filosofía platónica? Mencione: Heráclito, Parménides,
Socrates, Sophistry.
4) Why do we say that Plato's work is the first to be all-encompassing and systematic? Why the
Does Platonic metaphysics determine the rest of its fields of thought?
5) How many dialogues do we currently have from Plato? Are some of them apocryphal? Do we have reliable data on
his biography given by himself?
6) What is the relationship between your philosophy, especially its metaphysical core, and politics? Explain it.
political-pedagogical interest of Plato and relate it to his biography (7th Letter).
7) How would you structure Plato's work? Mention periods, stages (4) and most important dialogues.
8) Explain Platonic metaphysics, especially the theory of ideas, and its epistemological, ethical, and...
policies (of the fields or worlds, objective morality, moral intellectualism, anamnesis, degrees of knowledge, better
political constitution.
Mention the importance of pedagogy for Plato. Explain why only philosopher kings can rule.
why that is just, and against what evils it stands (disease of the polis). Refer to the founding of the academy.
and the duration of this until it was closed by Justinian (5xx A.D).
10) Why do we say that Platonic philosophy is rationalist and realist? Why do we not say that its theory of the
ideas is 'idealistic'.
11) Mention the four degrees of knowledge in Plato and their two main divisions. Refer to the allegory of the
line of the Republic.
12) Explain Plato's myth of the cave (Republic 7) and how it integrates various dimensions of his thinking.
thought.
13) Explain the allegory or myth of the winged chariot in Phaedrus. Explain the tripartite theory of the soul and the divine.
14) Explain the value of madness according to Plato (Phaedrus) as a means of knowledge.
15) Mention the value of oral knowledge compared to written, and refer to the so-called 'agrapha dogmata'.
16) Explain how Plato operates to define his ideal state in the Republic. Mention: whether this is possible or just a
cosmic model, relationship between the individual constitution of souls and the state as a whole (soul acropolis), explain
why it privileges the organic order of the polis, why it can be interpreted as totalitarian by theorists
like Karl Popper (each one in its place, predetermined function, organic, only some command, moral
objective).
17) Mention the importance of askesis in Platonic thought and refer to how this and others
nodes of his thought traverse the history of the West.
18) Why, from Michel Foucault's thinking, can we say that Socrates is the model of man?
virtuous Greek? Explain the issue of pleasures in the Greeks based on their History of Sex. 2.
Explain using the concepts of: aesthetics of existence, enkrateia, hybris/sophrosyne, tekhnai tou biou.
asceticism, self-care,