Assalam-o-Allaekum

I'm very pleased to well come you to the Education forum of Pakistan. Hope your visit will be useful and you will get your required assistance.
regards
Sadaf Awan

Wisdom Thought

The one who likes to see the dreams, night is short for them and who One who likes to fulfill the dreams, day is short for them.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Administration and educational administration


 Administration
 The word Administration is compound of two words, Ad and Minister. Ad refers to “to” and Minister means “Service”. Therefore we can take the meaning of Administration is “to service” or “To serve”.
Administration is actually a process to maintain a system, design rules and regulations and chose a particular path to attain specific goals.
Administration takes as a government of public affairs, duties and services and directing the management. Its actually the executive part of government, in which persons are collectively interested to execute laws and the superintendence of public affairs.
George Washington says:
“The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.”

Educational Administration
 This is defined by Ordway Tead as “a comprehensive effort to direct, guide and integrate associating human strivings, which are focused towards some specific ends or aims.” Indeed Educational Administration is considered a comprehensive effort to achieve some specific educational objectives or targets.
Educational Philosophy sets the goals, Educational psychology describes the objectives, but Educational Administration provides the way to achieve the goals on the basis of prescribed principles. It is actually the dynamic side of the education.
Educational Administration discusses the three sides of Education.
 
1-    Human Resources:
The human elements include:
        1- Students
2-    Parents
3-    Teachers
4-    Employees / personnel
 In personnel from top to bottom, federal to district, schools to universities and all boards of educations are included.

2-Material Resources:
 There are three types of material require for any educational institution. Money, Furniture and building, equipments and instructional material.  In equipments laboratory items, library material and sports goods are included, furthermore instructional material consists of audio visual aids and other related tools.

3- Laws and Needs:
 Educational administration on the ideas side has the responsibility to make rules and regulation according to the need ad interest of the country. The curriculum, guidelines, Aims of education all are designed by the educational administration.

The integration of these whole three parts into a whole is actually the Educational Administration.
French, Hull and Dodds consider educational administration as a lens. If it is a poor lens, the image is blurrred and obscure and no one in the school or community gets a clear picture of what the school is trying to do. IF it is a good lens, the school becomes a clear cut and vivid projection of the ideals we hope to bring into being.
 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

William James Biography- (1842-1910) By Kendra Cherry

  •  Born January 11, 1842 in New York City.
  • 1869 - Received M.D. from Harvard.
  • 1875 - Began teaching psychology at Harvard.
  • 1882 - Death of William's father, Henry James Sr.
  • 1890 - Published The Principles of Psychology.
  • 1892 - Turned lab over to Hugo Munsterberg.
  • 1897 - Published Will to Believe and Other Essays
  • 1907 - Published Pragmatism and officially resigned from Harvard.
  • Died August 26, 1910 at the age of 68. 

 

Early Life:

William James was born into an affluent family. His father was deeply interested in philosophy and theology and strove to provide his children with a rich education.
The James children traveled to Europe frequently, attended the best possible schools, and were immersed in culture and art, which apparently paid off - William James went on to become one of the most important figures in psychology, while brother Henry James became one of the most acclaimed American novelists.
Early in school, James expressed an interest in becoming a painter. While Henry James Sr. was known as an unusually permissive and liberal father, he wanted William to study science or philosophy. Only after William persisted in his interest did Henry permit his son to formally study painting.
After studying painting with the artist William Morris Hunt for more than a year, James abandoned his dream of being a painter and enrolled at Harvard to study chemistry. While two of James' brothers enlisted to serve in the American Civil War, William and Henry did not due to health problems.

Career:

As the family money began to dwindle, William realized he would need to support himself and switched to Harvard Medical School. Unhappy with medicine as well, he left on an expedition with naturalist Louis Agassiz, although the experience was not a happy one. "I was, body and soul, in a more indescribably hopeless, homeless and friendless state than I ever want to be in again," he later wrote.
Suffering from health problems and severe depression, James spent the next two years in France and Germany. It was during this time that he studied with Hermann von Helmholtz and became increasingly interested in psychology.
After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1869, James continued to sink into depression. After a period of inactivity, the president of Harvard offered James a position as an instructor. While he famously commented that "the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave," James accepted the job and went on to teach at Harvard for the next 35 years. James also founded one of the first experimental psychology laboratories in the United States.
His classic textbook The Principles of Psychology (1890) was widely acclaimed, but some were critical of James' personal, literary tone. "It is literature," psychologist Wilhelm Wundt famously commented, "it is beautiful, but it is not psychology." Two years later, James published a condensed version of the work titled Psychology: The Briefer Course. The two books were widely used by students of psychology and were known to most as "the James" and "the Jimmy" respectively.

William James - Theory:

  • Pragmatism
    James wrote considerably on the concept of pragmatism. According to pragmatism, the truth of an idea can never be proven. James proposed we instead focus on what he called the "cash value," or usefulness, of an idea.
  • Functionalism
    James opposed the structuralism focus on introspection and breaking down mental events to the smallest elements. Instead, James focused on the wholeness of an event, taking into the impact of the environment on behavior.
  • James-Lange Theory of Emotion
    The James-Lange theory of emotion proposes that an event triggers a physiological reaction, which we then interpret. According to this theory, emotions are caused by our interpretations of these physiological reactions. Both James and the Danish physiologist Carl Lange independently proposed the theory.

Influence on Psychology

In addition to his own enormous influence, many of James' students went on to have prosperous and influential career in psychology. Some of James' students included Mary Whiton Calkins, Edward Thorndike, G. Stanley Hall and John Dewey.

Selected Works by William James

  • James, William (1890) The Principles of Psychology. Classics in the History of Psychology, an internet resource developed by Christopher D. Green of York University, Toronto, Ontario.
  • James, William (1897) The Will to Believe
  • James, William (1907) Pragmatism: A new name for some old ways of thinking. New York: Longman Green and Co.

Biographies of William James

  • Myers, Gerald. (2001) William James: His Life and Thought. Yale University Press.
  • Simon, Linda (1999) Genuine Reality: A Life of William James. University Of Chicago Press.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Terminologies and Abriviations

  • Adult education: Talema balghan
  • Supervision:  Observe and direct the work of the school
  • Inspection: only observer the school and make a report
  • EDO: Executive District Officer
  • DO: District Officer
  • SD: Standard Daviation 
  • Hypothesis: An hypothesis is a specific statement of prediction./ Hypothesis describes the remaining possible outcomes./ Hypothesis describes the relationship between two variables.
  • Alternative Hypothesis: Hypothesis, which is creates against the null hypothesis, is called Alternative Hypothesis.
  • One-tailed hypothesis: When prediction specifies a direction, and this is null therefore, there is the no difference in prediction and the prediction of the opposite direction, this is called one-tailed hypothesis.
  • Two-tailed hypothesis: When hypothesis /prediction does not specify a direction, this is called two-tailed hypothesis.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Recommendations of first Educational Conference 1947


Aims of first Educational Conference 1947


First Educational Conference 1947


First Edu. Conference 1947 Address by Quaid


John Locke (1632-1704)

Although he completed a philosophical education at Oxford, John Locke declined the offer of a permanent academic position in order to avoid committing himself to a religious order. Having also studied medicine, he served for many years as private physician and secretary to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury and one of the Lord Proprietors of the Carolina Colonies. Locke's involvement with this controversial political figure led to a period of self-imposed exile in Holland during the 1680s, but after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 he held several minor governmental offices. A friend of Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, Locke was also an early member of the Royal Society. He studied and wrote on philosophical, scientific, and political matters throughout his life, in a voluminous correspondence and ample journals, but the public works for which he is best known were published in a single, sudden burst.
The fundamental principles of Locke's philosophy are presented in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), the culmination of twenty years of reflection on the origins of human knowledge. According to Locke, what we know is always properly understood as the relation between ideas, and he devoted much of the Essay to an extended argument that all of our ideas—simple or complex—are ultimately derived from experience. The consequence of this empiricist approach is that the knowledge of which we are capable is severely limited in its scope and certainty. Locke Our knowledge of material substances, for example, depends heavily on the secondary qualities by reference to which we name them, while their real inner natures derive from the primary qualities of their insensible parts.

Nevertheless, Locke held that we have no grounds for complaint about the limitations of our knowledge, since a proper application of our cognitive capacities is enough to guide our action in the practical conduct of life. The Essay brought great fame, and Locke spent much of the rest of his life responding to admirers and critics by making revisions in later editions of the book, including detailed accounts of human volition and moral freedom, the personal identity on which our responsibility as moral agents depends, and the dangers of religious enthusiasm. One additional section that was never included in the Essay itself is Of the Conduct of the Understanding, a practical guide to the achievement of useful beliefs about the world. Locke The bachelor philosopher's notions about childrearing appeared in Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693).

By contrast, Locke chose to avoid controversy by publishing his political writings anonymously. With the Two Treatises of Civil Government (1690) Locke established himself as a political theorist of the highest order. The First Treatise is a detailed refutation of the (now-forgotten) monarchist theories of Robert Filmer, but the Second Treatise of Government offers a systematic account of the foundations of political obligation. On Locke's view, all rights begin in the individual property interest created by an investment of labor. The social structure or commonwealth, then, depends for its formation and maintenance on the express consent of those who are governed by its political powers. Majority rule thus becomes the cornerstone of all political order, and dissatisfied citizens reserve a lasting right to revolution. Similarly, Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) argued for a broad (though not limitless) acceptance of alternative religious convictions.

The Origin of Ideas

We now leave the Continent for an extended look at philosophy in Great Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Here the favored model for achieving human knowledge was not the abstract mathematical reasoning so admired by the rationalists but the more concrete observations of natural science. Heeding the call of Francis Bacon, British scientists had pursued a vigorous program of observation and experiment with great success. Isaac Newton showed that both celestial and terrestial motion could be explained by reference to a simple set of laws of motion and gravitation; Robert Boyle investigated the behavior of gasses and proposed a general theory of matter as a collection of corpuscles; and Thomas Sydenham began to use observational methods for the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Philosopher John Locke greatly admired the achievements that these scientists (his friends in the Royal Society) had made in physics, chemistry, and medicine, and he sought to clear the ground for future developments by providing a theory of knowledge compatible with such carefully-conducted study of nature.

The goal of Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), then, is to establish epistemological foundations for the new science by examining the reliability, scope, and limitations of human knowledge in contrast with with the pretensions of uncritical belief, borrowed opinion, and mere superstition. Since the sciences had already demonstrated their practical success, Locke tried to apply their Baconian methods to the pursuit of his own philosophical aims. In order to discover how the human understanding achieves knowledge, we must trace that knowledge to its origins in our experience.

Locke's investigation into human knowledge began by asking how we acquire the basic materials out of which that knowledge is composed, our ideas. For Locke, an idea is Essay I i 8) (Note that this is an extremely broad definition: it includes concrete sensory images, abstract intellectual concepts, and everything in between. The colors and shapes I see before me right now are ideas, and so are my hunger, my memories of the ocean, my hopes for my children, the multiplication tables, and the principles of democratic government.) Ideas, then, are the immediate objects of all thought, the meaning or signification of all words, and the mental representatives of all things. Locke's question was, where do we get all of these ideas which are the content of our knowedge?

Ideas from Experience

First, Locke eliminated one bad answer to the question. Most of Book I of the Essay is devoted to a detailed refutation of the belief that any of our knowledge is innate. Against the claims of the Cambridge Platonists and Herbert of Cherbury, Locke insisted that neither the speculative principles of logic and metaphysics nor the practical principles of morality are inscribed on our minds from birth. Such propositions do not in fact have the universal consent of all human beings, Locke argued, since children and the mentally defective do not assent to them. Moreover, even if everyone did accept these principles, their universality could be better explained in terms of self-evidence or shared experience than by reference to a presumed innate origin. (Essay I ii 3-5) Innatism is the refuge of lazy intellectual dictators who wish thereby to impose their provincial notions upon others. Besides, Locke held, our knowledge cannot be innate because none of the ideas of which it is composed are innate.

As the correct answer to the question, Locke proposed the fundamental principle of empiricism: all of our knowledge and ideas arise from experience. (Essay II i 2) The initially empty room of the mind is furnished with ideas of two sorts: first, by sensation we obtain ideas of things we suppose to exist outside us in the physical world; second, by reflection we come to have ideas of our own mental operations. Thus, for example, "hard," "red," "loud," "cold," "sweet," and "aromatic" are all ideas of sensation, while "perceiving," "remembering," "abstracting," and "thinking" are all ideas of reflection. ("Pleasure," "unity," and "existence," Locke held, are ideas that come to us from both sensation and reflection.) Everything we know, everything we believe, every thought we can entertain is made up of ideas of sensation and reflection and nothing else.
But wait. It isn't true that I can think only about what I myself have experienced; I can certainly think about dinosaurs (or unicorns) even though I have never seen one for myself. So Locke's claim must be about the ultimate origin of our ideas, the source of their content. He distinguished between simple and complex ideas and acknowledged that we often employ our mental capacities in order manufacture complex ideas by conjoining simpler components. My idea of "unicorn," for example, may be compounded from the ideas of "horse" and "single spiral horn," and these ideas in turn are compounded from less complex elements. What Locke held was that every complex idea can be analyzed into component parts and that the final elements of any complete analysis must be simple ideas, each of which is derived directly from experience. Even so, the empiricist program is an ambitious one, and Locke devoted Book II of the Essay to a lengthy effort to show that every idea could, in principle, be derived from experience.

A Special Problem

Locke began his survey of our mental contents with the simple ideas of sensation, including those of colors, sounds, tastes, smells, shapes, size, and solidity. With just a little thought about specific examples of such ideas, we notice a significant difference among them: the color of the wall in front of me seems to vary widely from time to time, depending on the light in the room and the condition of my eyes, while its solidity persists independently of such factors. Following the lead of Galileo and Boyle, Locke explained this difference in corpuscularian fashion, by reference to the different ways in which the qualities of things produce our ideas of them.

The primary qualities of an object are its intrinsic features, those it really has, including the "Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion" of its parts. (Essay II viii 9) Since these features are inseparable from the thing even when it is divided into parts too small for us to perceive, the primary qualities are independent of our perception of them. When we do perceive the primary qualities of larger objects, Locke believed, our ideas exactly resemble the qualities as they are in things.

The secondary qualities of an object, on the other hand, are nothing in the thing itself but the power to produce in us the ideas of "Colors, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, etc." (Essay II viii 10) In these cases, our ideas do not resemble their causes, which are in fact nothing other than the primary qualities of the insensible parts of things. The powers, or tertiary qualities, of an object are just its capacities to cause perceptible changes in other things.

Thus, for example, the primary qualities of this rose include all of its quantifiable features, its mass and momentum, its chemical composition and microscopic structure; these are the features of the thing itself. The secondary qualities of the rose, on the other hand, include the ideas it produces in me, its yellow color, its delicate fragrance; these are the merely the effects of the primary qualities of its corpuscles on my eyes and nose. Like the pain I feel when I stick my finger on a thorn, the color and smell are not features of the rose itself.

Some distinction of this sort is important for any representative realist. Many instances of perceptual illusion can be explained by reference to the way secondary qualities depend upon our sensory organs, but the possibility of accurate information about the primary qualities is preserved, at least in principle. The botanical expert may be able to achieve detailed knowledge of the nature of roses, but that knowledge is not necessary for my appreciation of their beauty.

Complex Ideas

Even if the simple ideas of sensation provide us with ample material for thinking, what we make of them is largely up to us. In his survey of ideas of reflection, Locke listed a variety of mental operations that we perform upon our ideas.

Notice that in each of these sections (Essay II ix-xii), Locke defined the relevant mental operations as we experience them in ourselves, but then went on to consider carefully the extent to which other animals seem capable of performing the same activities. This procedure has different results from Descartes's doctrinal rejection of animal thinking: according to Locke, only abstraction (the operation most crucial in forming the ideas of mixed modes, on which morality depends) is utterly beyond the capacity of any animal. (Essay II xi 10)

Perception of ideas through the senses and retention of ideas in memory, Locke held, are passive powers of the mind, beyond our direct voluntary control and heavily dependent on the material conditions of the human body. The active powers of the mind include distinguishing, comparing, compounding, and abstracting. It is by employing these powers, Locke supposed, that we manufacture new, complex ideas from the simple elements provided by experience. The resulting complex ideas are of three sorts.

Modes are complex ideas that combine simpler elements to form a new whole that is assumed to be incapable of existing except as a part or feature of something else. The ideas of "three," "seventy-five," and even "infinity," for example, are all modes derived from the simple idea of "unity." We can understand these ideas and know their mathematical functions, whether or not there actually exist numbers of things to which they would apply in reality. "Mixed modes" similarly combine simple components without any presumption about their conformity to existing patterns, yielding all of our complex ideas of human actions and their value.

Substances are the complex ideas of real particular things that are supposed to exist on their own and to account for the unity and persistence of the features they exhibit. The ideas of "my only son," "the largest planet in the solar system," and "tulips," for example, are compounded from simpler ideas of sensation and reflection. Each is the idea of a thing (or kind of thing) that could really exist on its own. Since we don't understand all of the inner workings of natural objects, Locke supposed, our complex ideas of substances usually rely heavily on their secondary qualities and powers—the effects they are observed to have on ourselves and other things.

Relations are complex ideas of the ways in which other ideas may be connected with each other, in fact or in thought. The ideas of "younger," "stronger," and "cause and effect," for example, all involve some reference to the comparison of two or more other ideas.

Locke obviously could not analyze the content of every particular idea that any individual has ever had. But his defence of the empiricist principle did require him to show in principle that any complex idea can be derived from the simple ideas of sensation and reflection. The clarity, reality, adequacy, and truth of all of our ideas, Locke supposed, depend upon the success with which they fulfill their representative function. Here, we'll consider one of the most significant and difficult examples from each category:

Free Action

Among our modal ideas, Locke believed that those of mixed modes, which combine both sensory and reflective elements, are especially important, since they include the ideas of human actions and provide for their moral evaluation. Among the mixed modes, the ideas of power, volition, and liberty are the most crucial and difficult. To them Locke devoted a chapter (II xxi) that grew, with alterations in later editions, to become the longest in the Essay.

The idea of power is illustrated every time we do something. Whether we think or move, the feeling that our mental preference leads to action provides a simple instance of power. The exercise of that power is volition or will, and the action taken as a result is a voluntary one. Liberty or freedom, on Locke's view, is the power to act on our volition, whatever it may be, without any external compulsion or restraint. (Essay II xxi 7-12)

Under these definitions, the question of whether we have free will does not arise for Locke, since it involves what would later come to be called a category mistake. In particular, it does not matter whether we have control over our own preferences, whether we are free to will whatever we wish. (Essay II xxi 23-25) In fact, Locke offered a strictly hedonistic account of human motivation, according to which our preferences are invariably determined by the desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain. (Essay II vii 3) What does matter for freedom and moral responsibility is that we can act on our preferences, whatever their source, without any outside interference. If I could have done otherwise (given a different preference), then I act freely and am responsible for my action.

Personal Identity

Among our ideas of relations, the strongest is that of identity. Locke held that the criteria for identity depend upon the kind of thing we are considering. Substantial identity requires the unique spatio-temporal history that is just the existence of each substance, but this is not the only consideration in all cases.
The identity of the tree outside my window, for example, does not depend on the substantial identity of its parts (in fact, they change from day to day and season to season); what matters in this case is the organization of those parts into a common life. A similar explanation, Locke held, accounts for the identity of animals and human beings. (Essay II xxvii 4-6) We recognize living bodies at different times by the organization of their material parts rather than by their substantial composition.
In analogous fashion, Locke explained personal identity independently of identity of substance. The idea of the person is that of a moral agent who can be held responsible for his or her actions. (Essay II xxvii 9) But Locke used a series of hypothetical examples to show that the identity of an underlying immaterial substance or soul is neither necessary nor sufficient for personal identity in this sense. Even the identity of the same human body (though we may rely upon that for third-person attributions of identity) is not truly relevant. The only thing that does matter, on Locke's view, is that the person self-consciously appropriates actions as its own.
This is, as Locke says, a "forensic" notion of personal identity; its aim is to secure the justice and effectiveness of moral sanctions. (Essay II xxvii 26) If, and only if, I now remember having committed a particular act in the past can I be justly punished for having done so. If, and only if, I project myself into the future can the prospect of punishment or reward influence my deliberations about how to act now. Locke's way of thinking about personal identity has shaped discussions of the issue ever since.
 
Knowledge and its Degrees


Having provided a thorough account of the origins of our ideas in experience, Locke opens Book IV of the Essay with a deceptively simple definition of knowledge. Knowledge is just perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas. (Essay IV i 2) We know the truth of a proposition when we become aware of the relation between the ideas it conjoins. This can occur in any of three distinct ways, each with its characteristic degree of certainty.
Intuitive knowledge involves direct and immediate recognition of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas. (Essay IV ii 1) It yields perfect certainty, but is only rarely available to us. I know intuitively that three is not the same as seven.
In demonstrative knowledge we perceive the agreement or disagreement only indirectly, by means of a series of intermediate ideas. (Essay IV ii 2) Since demonstration is a chain of reasoning, its certainty is no greater than its weakest link; only if each step is itself intuitively known will the demonstration as a whole be certain. If I know that A is greater than B and that B is greater than C, then I know demonstratively that A is greater than C.
Although intuition and demonstration alone satisfy the definition of knowledge, Locke held that the belief that our sensory ideas are caused by existing things deserves the name of sensitive knowledge. (Essay IV ii 14) In the presence of a powerful, present idea of sensation, we cannot doubt that it has some real cause outside us, even though we do not know what that cause may be or how it produces the idea in us. I have only sensitive knowledge that there is something producing the odor I now smell.

Types of Knowledge

Locke distinguished four sorts of agreement or disagreement between ideas, perception of which gives us four distinct types of knowledge: (Essay IV i 3-7)
Since knowledge of identity and diversity requires only a direct comparison of the ideas involved, it is intuitive whenever the ideas being compared are clear.
Knowledge of coexistence would provide detailed information about features of the natural world that occur together in our experience, but this scientific knowledge is restricted by our ignorance of the real essences of substances; the best we can do is to rely upon careful observations of the coincidental appearance of their secondary qualities and powers.
Mathematics and morality rest upon knowledge of relation, which Locke held to be demonstrative whenever we form clear ideas and discover the links between them.
The degree of certainty in our knowledge of real existence depends wholly upon the content of our ideas in each case. Locke agreed with Descartes that we have intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and he supposed it possible to achieve demonstrative knowledge of god as the thinking creator of everything. But we have only sensitive knowledge of the existence of other things presently before our senses.

The Extent of Knowledge

The result of all of this is that our knowledge is severely limited in its extent. On Locke's definition, we can achieve genuine knowledge only when we have clear ideas and can trace the connection between them enough to perceive their agreement or disagreement. (Essay IV iii 1-6) That doesn't happen very often, especially where substances are at issue. The truths of mathematics are demonstrable precisely because they are abstract: since my ideas of lines, angles, and triangles are formed without any necessary reference to existing things, I can prove that the interior angles of any triangle add up to a straight line.
But any effort to achieve genuine knowledge of the natural world must founder on our ignorance of substances. We have "sensitive knowledge" of the existence of something that causes our present sensory ideas. But we do not have adequate ideas of the real essence of any substance, and even if we did, we would be unable to discover any demonstrative link between that real essence and the ideas it produces in us. The most careful observation can establish at best only the secondary qualities and powers that appear to coexist in our experience often enough to warrant our use of them as the nominal essence of a kind of substance. (Essay IV xi 1-7)
Locke's efforts have therefore led to a sobering conclusion. Certainty is rarely within our reach; we must often be content with probable knowledge or mere opinion. Locke ultimately recommends that we adopt significantly reduced epistemological expectations.

Civil Society

The first instance of social organization, on Locke's view, is the development of the family, a voluntary association designed to secure the propagation of the human species through successive generations.  Although each individual in the state of nature has the right to enforce the natural law in defence of property interests, the formation of a civil society requires that all individuals voluntarily surrender this right to the community at large. By declaring and enforcing fixed rules for conduct—human laws—the commonwealth thus serves as "umpire" in the adjudication of property disputes among those who choose to be governed in this way.  An absolute monarch, by contrast, can only remain in a state of nature with respect to the subjects under its rule.
Securing social order through the formation of any government invariably requires the direct consent of those who are to be governed. Each and every individual must concur in the the original agreement to form such a government, but it would be enormously difficult to achieve unanimous consent with respect to the particular laws it promulgates. So, in practice, Locke supposed that the will expressed by the majority must be accepted as determinative over the conduct of each individual citizen who consents to be governed at all.  Although he offered several historical examples of just such initial agreements to form a society, Locke reasonably maintained that this is beside the point. All people who voluntarily chooses to live within a society have implicitly or tacitly entered into its formative agreement, and thereby consented to submit themselves and their property to its governance. 
The structure or form of the government so established is a matter of relatively less importance, on Locke's view. What matters is that legislative power—the ability to provide for social order and the common good by setting standing laws over the acquisition, preservation, and transfer of property—is provided for in ways to which everyone consents.  Because the laws are established and applied equally to all, Locke argued, this is not merely an exercize in the arbitrary use of power, but an effort to secure the rights of all more securely than would be possible under the independence and equality of the state of nature.
Since standing laws continue in force long after they have been established, Locke pointed out that the legislative body responsible for deciding what the laws should be need only meet occasionally, but the executive branch of government, responsible for ensuring that the laws are actually obeyed, must be continuous in its operation within the society.  In similar fashion, he supposed that the federative power responsible for representing this particular commonwealth in the world at large, needs a lengthy tenure. Locke's presumption is that the legislative function of government will be vested in a representative assembly, which naturally retains the supreme power over the commonwealth as a whole: whenever it assembles, the majority of its members speak jointly for everyone in the society. The executive and federative functions, then, are performed by other persons (magistrates and ministers) whose power to enforce and negotiate is wholly derived from the legislative. But since the legislature is not perpetually in session, occasions will sometimes arise for which the standing laws have made no direct provision, and then the executive will have to exercize its prerogative to deal with the situation immediately, relying upon its own counsel in the absence of legislative direction. It is the potential abuse of this prerogative, Locke supposed, that most often threatens the stability and order of a commonwealth.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Humanism

The time when the term “Humanism” was first adopted is unknown. It is, however, certain that both Italy and the re-adopting of Latin letters as the staple of human culture were responsible for the name “Humanists.” Literoe humaniores was an expression coined in reference to the classic literature of Rome and the imitation and reproduction of its literary forms in the “new learning”; this was in contrast to and against the Literoe sacroe of scholasticism. In the time of Ariosto, Erasmus, and Luther, the term umanisa was in effect an equivalent to the terms “classicist ” or ” classical scholar.”

1. Italian Humanism

Dante had an admiration for ancient letters. At first, he intended to compose his great epic in Latin verse. Petrarch considered his Africa a fair effort to reproduce Vergil. In the exordium of his chief work Petrarc h appeals to the Heliconian Sisters as well as to Jesus Christ, Savior of the world. He also reviews the epics of Homer (although he never learned Greek), Statius, and Lucan. He was overwhelmed with the friendships of many prestigous men of his day, a mong whom Cardinal Stephen Colonna was prominent. Petrarch is the pathfinder as well as the measure of the new movement. He idealized the classical world. His classicist consciousness and his Christian consciousness are revealed in his writings. Th e experiences of life constantly evoke in him classic parallels, reminiscences, associations. Julius Caesar, Papirius Cursor, are nostri, “our people”; Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Massinissa are externi, “foreigners.” His epistles provide the b est revelation of his soul. Of course, the craving for pure Latinity and the elevation of such practical power of imitation and reproduction involved an artificiality of which neither Petrarch nor his successors were aware. Boccaccio was not only a hu manist, but he, with appalling directness, revealed the emancipation of the flesh as one of the unmistakable trends of the new movement. Both he and Poggio, Valla, Beccadelli, Enea Silvio dei Piccolomini (in his youth) show that the hatred of the cle rical class instigated literary composition. At the same time in the caricatures of foulness which these leaders of the new learning loved to draw, there is no moral indignation, but clearly like satyrs they themselves relish these things. For this reason the Humanists of Italy, as such, were not at all concerned in the efforts for a reformation of the church as attempted in the councils of Constance or of Basel. Poggio, apostolic secretary, came to Constance with the pope, but spent most of his time in ransacking the libraries of Swiss monasteries for Latin codices. The defense of Jerome of Prague before the Council reminded him of Cato of Utica. His correspondent Lionardo Bruni at Florence warns him to be more circumspect in his praise of a heretic. In the Curia itself a semipagan spirit was bred by the Humanists. In 1447 Parentucelli, an enthusiast for codices, became pope as Nicholas V. On Easter, the eminent humanist Filelfo wrote to him from Milan to congratul ate him on his elevation. Filelfo expressed a general satisfaction of scholars, citing also the humanitas of Christ himself, as well as writing somewhat hypocritically of fucata gentilium . . . sapientia. Some time later, in 1453, Filelfo personally appeared at the papal court. Nicholas kept the vile “Satyrae” of the humanist until he had perused them, and gave Filelfo a purse of 500 ducats when he departed. Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini ascended the papal throne in 1458 as Pius II., another humanist pope.

2. Character of the Movement

A very clear view of the Humanistic movement may be gained from the writings of the biographer and beneficiary of Leo X., Paul Giovio (Jovius). In his Elogia (Antwerp,1557) he presents a gallery of literary scholar s, beginning with Dante, and including Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bruni, Poggo, Beceadelli (the pornographic poet), Valla, Filelfo, Platina, the Greeks Emanuel Chrysoloras, Cardinal Bessarion, Trapezuntius the Cretan, Theodorus Gaza, Argyropulos, Chalcondyla s, Musurus of Crete, and Lasearis. Also, he gives us Lorenzo de’Medici, Ermolao Barbaro, Politian, Pico di Mirandola, and even Savonarola. But Savonarola’s attacks on Pope Alexander VI., father of Cesare and Lucrezia, are treated as treason and felon y. The Platonic academy of Ficinus at Florence had certainly no power to regenerate the political and moral corruption of its patron Lorenzo. Bibienna, the favorite of Leo X., was witty at banquets; at Leo’s court this cardinal produced his lascivio us comedy, “Colandra,” because Terence was too grave. Even Thomas More and Reuchlin are included. Among the latter’s academic friends were the anonymous composers of the satiric Epistoloe obscurorum virorum-the flail of the new learning swung ag ainst the old. The Italian Humanists were not concerned in the reformatory movements of the fifteenth century. They drifted into a palpable paganism or semipaganism, curiously illustrated in the verse, e.g., of Politian, especially his Greek verse, a nd of him even the lax Giovio writes: “he was a man of unseemly morals. “They all more or less emphasized “vera virtus” by which they meant “true excellence,” the self-wrought development of human faculties and powers. Still they knew how to ma intain friendly relations with those higher clerics who had resources with which to patronize the new learning. They often accepted clerical preferment, as did Gievio, who became bishop of Nocera. Often the Latin verse of their youth proved very awkw ard when they entered upon their benefices. All were more interested “in viewing the early monuments of sensual enjoyment” than in study of the New Testament. As they greatly exceeded the corruption of the clergy in their own conduct, they could not take any practical interest in any spiritual or theological reformation. In all the correspondence of Filelfo, extending from 1428 to 1462, there is but once or twice a slight (deistic) utterance of spiritual concern, when, in the siege of Milan by Francesco Sforza, 1449, the ducal city endured terrible sufferings. Jacob Burckhardt says of the Humanists that they were demoralized by their reproduction of Latin verse. But why did they delve in Ovid, Catullus, and the like with steady predilection? At best a mild deism or pantheism may be perceived in their more serious writings. Greek, on the whole, was a rare attainment among them, reproductive ostentation limited most of them to Latin.

3. Erasmus

Erasmus of Rotterdam in his person and career marks the point where the “new learning” had arrived at the parting of the ways. He felt an affinity for Lucian; his Encomium Morioe, a vitriolic satire, dealt not gently with clerical corruption. He edited the New Testament and dedicated it to Leo X. He had no desire to abandon the old Church, considering the bounties and pensions which he received were all derived from princes or clerics who adhered to the papacy. He pretended that he could not read the German writings of Luther. Erasmus wrote that “Luther’s movement was not connected with learning,” and, at the same time he wrote to Pope Hadrian VI.: “I could find a hundred passages where St. Paul seems to teach the doctrines which they condemn in Luther. “Other utterances show his unwillingness to serve the Reformation or to be held responsible for any part of it: I have written nothing which can be laid hold of against the established orders. . . . I would rather see things left as they are than to see a revolution which may lead to one knows not what. Others may be martyrs, if they like. I aspire to no such honor. . . . I care nothing what is done to Luther, but I care for peace. . . . If you must take a side, take the side which is most in favor.” His keen sense of actual dependencies in the movement of things led him to see situations and realities with wonderful clearness; but his genius, like that of many scholars, was essentially negative. When he was fifty-one, not long before 1517, he wrote to Fabricius at Basel: “My chief fear is that with the revival of Greek literature there may be a revival of paganism. There are Christians who are Christians but in name, and are Gentiles at heart.” In the fall of 1525, when central Germany had been affected by the Peasants’ War, he wrote: “You remember Reuchlin. The conflict was raging between the Muses and their enemies, when up sprang Luther, and the object thenceforward was to entangle the friends of literature in the Lutheran business, so as to destroy both them and him together.”

Plato (427—347 BCE)

1. Biography

a. Birth

It is widely accepted that Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died at the age of eighty or eighty-one at 348-7 B.C.E. These dates, however, are not entirely certain, for according to Diogenes Laertius (D.L.), following Apollodorus’ chronology, Plato was born the year Pericles died, was six years younger than Isocrates, and died at the age of eighty-four (D.L. 3.2-3.3). If Plato’s date of death is correct in Apollodorus’ version, Plato would have been born in 430 or 431. Diogenes’ claim that Plato was born the year Pericles died would put his birth in 429. Later (at 3.6), Diogenes says that Plato was twenty-eight when Socrates was put to death (in 399), which would, again, put his year of birth at 427. In spite of the confusion, the dates of Plato’s life we gave above, which are based upon Eratosthenes’ calculations, have traditionally been accepted as accurate.

b. Family

Little can be known about Plato’s early life. According to Diogenes, whose testimony is notoriously unreliable, Plato’s parents were Ariston and Perictione (or Potone—see D. L. 3.1). Both sides of the family claimed to trace their ancestry back to Poseidon (D.L. 3.1). Diogenes’ report that Plato’s birth was the result of Ariston’s rape of Perictione (D.L. 3.1) is a good example of the unconfirmed gossip in which Diogenes so often indulges. We can be confident that Plato also had two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the same parents (see D.L. 3.4). (W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, 10 n. 4 argues plausibly that Glaucon and Adeimantus were Plato’s older siblings.) After Ariston’s death, Plato’s mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes (in Plato’s Charmides, we are told that Pyrilampes was Charmides’ uncle, and Charmides was Plato’s mother’s brother), with whom she had another son, Antiphon, Plato’s half-brother (see Plato, Parmenides 126a-b).
Plato came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Their political activities, however, are not seen as laudable ones by historians. One of Plato’s uncles (Charmides) was a member of the notorious “Thirty Tyrants,” who overthrew the Athenian democracy in 404 B.C.E. Charmides’ own uncle, Critias, was the leader of the Thirty. Plato’s relatives were not exclusively associated with the oligarchic faction in Athens, however. His stepfather Pyrilampes was said to have been a close associate of Pericles, when he was the leader of the democratic faction.
Plato’s actual given name was apparently Aristocles, after his grandfather. “Plato” seems to have started as a nickname (for platos, or “broad”), perhaps first given to him by his wrestling teacher for his physique, or for the breadth of his style, or even the breadth of his forehead (all given in D.L. 3.4). Although the name Aristocles was still given as Plato’s name on one of the two epitaphs on his tomb (see D.L. 3.43), history knows him as Plato.

c. Early Travels and the Founding of the Academy

When Socrates died, Plato left Athens, staying first in Megara, but then going on to several other places, including perhaps Cyrene, Italy, Sicily, and even Egypt. Strabo (17.29) claims that he was shown where Plato lived when he visited Heliopolis in Egypt. Plato occasionally mentions Egypt in his works, but not in ways that reveal much of any consequence (see, for examples, Phaedrus 274c-275b; Philebus 19b).
Better evidence may be found for his visits to Italy and Sicily, especially in the Seventh Letter. According to the account given there, Plato first went to Italy and Sicily when he was “about forty” (324a). While he stayed in Syracuse, he became the instructor to Dion, brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I. According to doubtful stories from later antiquity, Dionysius became annoyed with Plato at some point during this visit, and arranged to have the philosopher sold into slavery (Diod. 15.7; Plut. Dion 5; D.L. 3.19-21).
In any event, Plato returned to Athens and founded a school, known as the Academy. (This is where we get our word, “academic.” The Academy got its name from its location, a grove of trees sacred to the hero Academus—or Hecademus [see D.L. 3.7]—a mile or so outside the Athenian walls; the site can still be visited in modern Athens, but visitors will find it depressingly void of interesting monuments or features.) Except for two more trips to Sicily, the Academy seems to have been Plato’s home base for the remainder of his life.

d. Later Trips to Sicily and Death

The first of Plato’s remaining two Sicilian adventures came after Dionysius I died and his young son, Dionysius II, ascended to the throne. His uncle/brother-in-law Dion persuaded the young tyrant to invite Plato to come to help him become a philosopher-ruler of the sort described in the Republic. Although the philosopher (now in his sixties) was not entirely persuaded of this possibility (Seventh Letter 328b-c), he agreed to go. This trip, like the last one, however, did not go well at all. Within months, the younger Dionysius had Dion sent into exile for sedition (Seventh Letter 329c, Third Letter 316c-d), and Plato became effectively under house arrest as the “personal guest” of the dictator (Seventh Letter 329c-330b).
Plato eventually managed to gain the tyrant’s permission to return to Athens (Seventh Letter 338a), and he and Dion were reunited at the Academy (Plut. Dion 17). Dionysius agreed that “after the war” (Seventh Letter 338a; perhaps the Lucanian War in 365 B.C.E.), he would invite Plato and Dion back to Syracuse (Third Letter 316e-317a, Seventh Letter 338a-b). Dion and Plato stayed in Athens for the next four years (c. 365-361 B.C.E.). Dionysius then summoned Plato, but wished for Dion to wait a while longer. Dion accepted the condition and encouraged Plato to go immediately anyway (Third Letter 317a-b, Seventh Letter 338b-c), but Plato refused the invitation, much to the consternation of both Syracusans (Third Letter 317a, Seventh Letter 338c). Hardly a year had passed, however, before Dionysius sent a ship, with one of Plato’s Pythagorean friends (Archedemus, an associate of Archytas—see Seventh Letter 339a-b and next section) on board begging Plato to return to Syracuse. Partly because of his friend Dion’s enthusiasm for the plan, Plato departed one more time to Syracuse. Once again, however, things in Syracuse were not at all to Plato’s liking. Dionysius once again effectively imprisoned Plato in Syracuse, and the latter was only able to escape again with help from his Tarentine friends ( Seventh Letter 350a-b).
Dion subsequently gathered an army of mercenaries and invaded his own homeland. But his success was short-lived: he was assassinated and Sicily was reduced to chaos. Plato, perhaps now completely disgusted with politics, returned to his beloved Academy, where he lived out the last thirteen years of his life. According to Diogenes, Plato was buried at the school he founded (D.L. 3.41). His grave, however, has not yet been discovered by archeological investigations.

2. Influences on Plato

a. Heraclitus

Aristotle and Diogenes agree that Plato had some early association with either the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, or with one or more of that philosopher’s followers (see Aristotle Metaph. 987a32, D.L. 3.4-3.5). The effects of this influence can perhaps be seen in the mature Plato’s conception of the sensible world as ceaselessly changing.

b. Parmenides and Zeno

There can be no doubt that Plato was also strongly influenced by Parmenides and Zeno (both of Elea), in Plato’s theory of the Forms, which are plainly intended to satisfy the Parmenidean requirement of metaphysical unity and stability in knowable reality. Parmenides and Zeno also appear as characters in his dialogue, the Parmenides. Diogenes Laertius also notes other important influences:
He mixed together in his works the arguments of Heracleitus, the Pythagoreans, and Socrates. Regarding the sensibles, he borrows from Heraclitus; regarding the intelligibles, from Pythagoras; and regarding politics, from Socrates. (D.L. 3.8)
A little later, Diogenes makes a series of comparisons intended to show how much Plato owed to the comic poet, Epicharmus (3.9-3.17).

c. The Pythagoreans

Diogenes Laertius (3.6) claims that Plato visited several Pythagoreans in Southern Italy (one of whom, Theodorus, is also mentioned as a friend to Socrates in Plato’s Theaetetus). In the Seventh Letter, we learn that Plato was a friend of Archytas of Tarentum, a well-known Pythagorean statesman and thinker (see 339d-e), and in the Phaedo, Plato has Echecrates, another Pythagorean, in the group around Socrates on his final day in prison. Plato’s Pythagorean influences seem especially evident in his fascination with mathematics, and in some of his political ideals (see Plato’s political philosophy), expressed in various ways in several dialogues.

d. Socrates

Nonetheless, it is plain that no influence on Plato was greater than that of Socrates. This is evident not only in many of the doctrines and arguments we find in Plato’s dialogues, but perhaps most obviously in Plato’s choice of Socrates as the main character in most of his works. According to the Seventh Letter, Plato counted Socrates “the justest man alive” (324e). According to Diogenes Laertius, the respect was mutual (3.5).

3. Plato’s Writings

a. Plato’s Dialogues and the Historical Socrates

Supposedly possessed of outstanding intellectual and artistic ability even from his youth, according to Diogenes, Plato began his career as a writer of tragedies, but hearing Socrates talk, he wholly abandoned that path, and even burned a tragedy he had hoped to enter in a dramatic competition (D.L. 3.5). Whether or not any of these stories is true, there can be no question of Plato’s mastery of dialogue, characterization, and dramatic context. He may, indeed, have written some epigrams; of the surviving epigrams attributed to him in antiquity, some may be genuine.
Plato was not the only writer of dialogues in which Socrates appears as a principal character and speaker. Others, including Alexamenos of Teos (Aristotle Poetics 1447b11; De Poetis fr. 3 Ross [=Rose2 72]), Aeschines (D.L. 2.60-63, 3.36, Plato Apology 33e), Antisthenes (D.L. 3.35, 6; Plato, Phaedo 59b; Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.4.5, 3.2.17), Aristippus (D.L. 2.65-104, 3.36, Plato Phaedo 59c), Eucleides (D.L. 2.106-112), Phaedo (D.L. 2.105; Plato, Phaedo passim), Simon (D.L. 122-124), and especially Xenophon (see D.L. 2.48-59, 3.34), were also well-known “Socratics” who composed such works. A recent study of these, by Charles H. Kahn (1996, 1-35), concludes that the very existence of the genre—and all of the conflicting images of Socrates we find given by the various authors—shows that we cannot trust as historically reliable any of the accounts of Socrates given in antiquity, including those given by Plato.
But it is one thing to claim that Plato was not the only one to write Socratic dialogues, and quite another to hold that Plato was only following the rules of some genre of writings in his own work. Such a claim, at any rate, is hardly established simply by the existence of these other writers and their writings. We may still wish to ask whether Plato’s own use of Socrates as his main character has anything at all to do with the historical Socrates. The question has led to a number of seemingly irresolvable scholarly disputes. At least one important ancient source, Aristotle, suggests that at least some of the doctrines Plato puts into the mouth of the “Socrates” of the “early” or “Socrates” dialogues are the very ones espoused by the historical Socrates. Because Aristotle has no reason not to be truthful about this issue, many scholars believe that his testimony provides a solid basis for distinguishing the “Socrates” of the “early” dialogues from the character by that name in Plato’s supposedly later works, whose views and arguments Aristotle suggests are Plato’s own.

b. Dating Plato’s Dialogues

One way to approach this issue has been to find some way to arrange the dialogues into at least relative dates. It has frequently been assumed that if we can establish a relative chronology for when Plato wrote each of the dialogues, we can provide some objective test for the claim that Plato represented Socrates more accurately in the earlier dialogues, and less accurately in the later dialogues.
In antiquity, the ordering of Plato’s dialogues was given entirely along thematic lines. The best reports of these orderings (see Diogenes Laertius’ discussion at 3.56-62) included many works whose authenticity is now either disputed or unanimously rejected. The uncontroversial internal and external historical evidence for a chronological ordering is relatively slight. Aristotle (Politics 2.6.1264b24-27), Diogenes Laertius (3.37), and Olympiodorus (Prol. 6.24) state that Plato wrote the Laws after the Republic. Internal references in the Sophist (217a) and the Statesman (also known as the Politicus; 257a, 258b) show the Statesman to come after the Sophist. The Timaeus (17b-19b) may refer to Republic as coming before it, and more clearly mentions the Critias as following it (27a). Similarly, internal references in the Sophist (216a, 217c) and the Theaetetus (183e) may be thought to show the intended order of three dialogues: Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophist. Even so, it does not follow that these dialogues were actually written in that order. At Theaetetus 143c, Plato announces through his characters that he will abandon the somewhat cumbersome dialogue form that is employed in his other writings. Since the form does not appear in a number of other writings, it is reasonable to infer that those in which it does not appear were written after the Theaetetus.
Scholars have sought to augment this fairly scant evidence by employing different methods of ordering the remaining dialogues. One such method is that of stylometry, by which various aspects of Plato’s diction in each dialogue are measured against their uses and frequencies in other dialogues. Originally done by laborious study by individuals, stylometry can now be done more efficiently with assistance by computers. Another, even more popular, way to sort and group the dialogues is what is called “content analysis,” which works by finding and enumerating apparent commonalities or differences in the philosophical style and content of the various dialogues. Neither of these general approaches has commanded unanimous assent among scholars, and it is unlikely that debates about this topic can ever be put entirely to rest. Nonetheless, most recent scholarship seems to assume that Plato’s dialogues can be sorted into different groups, and it is not unusual for books and articles on the philosophy of Socrates to state that by “Socrates” they mean to refer to the character in Plato’s “early” or Socratic dialogues, as if this Socrates was as close to the historical Socrates as we are likely to get. (We have more to say on this subject in the next section.) Perhaps the most thorough examination of this sort can be found in Gregory Vlastos’s, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge and Cornell, 1991, chapters 2-4), where ten significant differences between the “Socrates” of Plato’s “early” dialogues and the character by that name in the later dialogues are noted. Our own view of the probable dates and groups of dialogues, which to some extent combine the results of stylometry and content analysis, is as follows (all lists but the last in alphabetical order):
Early
(All after the death of Socrates, but before Plato’s first trip to Sicily in 387 B.C.E.):
Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, Republic Bk. I.
Early-Transitional
(Either at the end of the early group or at the beginning of the middle group, c. 387-380 B.C.E.):
Cratylus, Menexenus, Meno
Middle
(c. 380-360 B.C.E.)
Phaedo, Republic Bks. II-X, Symposium
Late-Transitional
(Either at the end of the middle group, or the beginning of the late group, c. 360-355 B.C.E.)
Parmenides, Theaetetus, Phaedrus
Late
(c. 355-347 B.C.E.; possibly in chronological order)
Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws

c. Transmission of Plato’s Works

Except for the Timaeus, all of Plato’s works were lost to the Western world until medieval times, preserved only by Moslem scholars in the Middle East. In 1578 Henri Estienne (whose Latinized name was Stephanus) published an edition of the dialogues in which each page of the text is separated into five sections (labeled a, b, c, d, and e). The standard style of citation for Platonic texts includes the name of the text, followed by Stephanus page and section numbers (e.g. Republic 511d). Scholars sometimes also add numbers after the Stephanus section letters, which refer to line numbers within the Stephanus sections in the standard Greek edition of the dialogues, the Oxford Classical texts.

4. Other Works Attributed to Plato

a. Spuria

Several other works, including thirteen letters and eighteen epigrams, have been attributed to Plato. These other works are generally called the spuria and the dubia. The spuria were collected among the works of Plato but suspected as frauds even in antiquity. The dubia are those presumed authentic in later antiquity, but which have more recently been doubted.
Ten of the spuria are mentioned by Diogenes Laertius at 3.62. Five of these are no longer extant: the Midon or Horse-breeder, Phaeacians, Chelidon, Seventh Day, and Epimenides. Five others do exist: the Halcyon, Axiochus, Demodocus, Eryxias, and Sisyphus. To the ten Diogenes Laertius lists, we may uncontroversially add On Justice, On Virtue, and the Definitions, which was included in the medieval manuscripts of Plato’s work, but not mentioned in antiquity.
Works whose authenticity was also doubted in antiquity include the Second Alcibiades (or Alcibiades II), Epinomis, Hipparchus, and Rival Lovers (also known as either Rivals or Lovers), and these are sometimes defended as authentic today. If any are of these are authentic, the Epinomis would be in the late group, and the others would go with the early or early transitional groups.

b. Epigrams

Seventeen or eighteen epigrams (poems appropriate to funerary monuments or other dedications) are also attributed to Plato by various ancient authors. Most of these are almost certainly not by Plato, but some few may be authentic. Of the ones that could be authentic (Cooper 1997, 1742 names 1, 2, 7, and especially 3 as possibly authentic), one (1) is a love poem dedicated to a student of astronomy, perhaps at the Academy, another (2) appears to be a funerary inscription for that same student, another (3) is a funerary inscription for Plato’s Syracusan friend, Dion (in which the author confesses that Dion “maddened my heart with erôs“), and the last (7) is a love poem to a young woman or girl. None appear to provide anything of great philosophical interest.

c. Dubia

The dubia present special risks to scholars: On the one hand, any decision not to include them among the authentic dialogues creates the risk of losing valuable evidence for Plato’s (or perhaps Socrates’) philosophy; on the other hand, any decision to include them creates the risk of obfuscating the correct view of Plato’s (or Socrates’) philosophy, by including non-Platonic (or non-Socratic) elements within that philosophy. The dubia include the First Alcibiades (or Alcibiades I), Minos, and Theages, all of which, if authentic, would probably go with the early or early transitional groups, the Cleitophon, which might be early, early transitional, or middle, and the letters, of which the Seventh seems the best candidate for authenticity. Some scholars have also suggested the possibility that the Third may also be genuine. If any are authentic, the letters would appear to be works of the late period, with the possible exception of the Thirteenth Letter, which could be from the middle period.
Nearly all of the dialogues now accepted as genuine have been challenged as inauthentic by some scholar or another. In the 19th Century in particular, scholars often considered arguments for and against the authenticity of dialogues whose authenticity is now only rarely doubted. Of those we listed as authentic, above (in the early group), only the Hippias Major continues occasionally to be listed as inauthentic. The strongest evidence against the authenticity of the Hippias Major is the fact that it is never mentioned in any of the ancient sources. However, relative to how much was actually written in antiquity, so little now remains that our lack of ancient references to this dialogue does not seem to be an adequate reason to doubt its authenticity. In style and content, it seems to most contemporary scholars to fit well with the other Platonic dialogues.

5. The Early Dialogues

a. Historical Accuracy

Although no one thinks that Plato simply recorded the actual words or speeches of Socrates verbatim, the argument has been made that there is nothing in the speeches Socrates makes in the Apology that he could have not uttered at the historical trial. At any rate, it is fairly common for scholars to treat Plato’s Apology as the most reliable of the ancient sources on the historical Socrates. The other early dialogues are certainly Plato’s own creations. But as we have said, most scholars treat these as representing more or less accurately the philosophy and behavior of the historical Socrates—even if they do not provide literal historical records of actual Socratic conversations. Some of the early dialogues include anachronisms that prove their historical inaccuracy.
It is possible, of course, that the dialogues are all wholly Plato’s inventions and have nothing at all to do with the historical Socrates. Contemporary scholars generally endorse one of the following four views about the dialogues and their representation of Socrates:
  1. The Unitarian View:
    This view, more popular early in the 20th Century than it is now, holds that there is but a single philosophy to be found in all of Plato’s works (of any period, if such periods can even be identified reliably). There is no reason, according to the Unitarian scholar, ever to talk about “Socratic philosophy” (at least from anything to be found in Plato—everything in Plato’s dialogues is Platonic philosophy, according to the Unitarian). One recent version of this view has been argued by Charles H. Kahn (1996). Most later, but still ancient, interpretations of Plato were essentially Unitarian in their approach. Aristotle, however, was a notable exception.
  2. The Literary Atomist View:
    We call this approach the “literary atomist view,” because those who propose this view treat each dialogue as a complete literary whole, whose proper interpretation must be achieved without reference to any of Plato’s other works. Those who endorse this view reject completely any relevance or validity of sorting or grouping the dialogues into groups, on the ground that any such sorting is of no value to the proper interpretation of any given dialogue. In this view, too, there is no reason to make any distinction between “Socratic philosophy” and “Platonic philosophy.” According to the literary atomist, all philosophy to be found in the works of Plato should be attributed only to Plato.
  3. The Developmentalist View:
    According to this view, the most widely held of all of the interpretative approaches, the differences between the early and later dialogues represent developments in Plato’s own philosophical and literary career. These may or may not be related to his attempting in any of the dialogues to preserve the memory of the historical Socrates (see approach 4); such differences may only represent changes in Plato’s own philosophical views. Developmentalists may generally identify the earlier positions or works as “Socratic” and the later ones “Platonic,” but may be agnostic about the relationship of the “Socratic” views and works to the actual historical Socrates.
  4. The Historicist View:
    Perhaps the most common of the Developmentalist positions is the view that the “development” noticeable between the early and later dialogues may be attributed to Plato’s attempt, in the early dialogues, to represent the historical Socrates more or less accurately. Later on, however (perhaps because of the development of the genre of “Socratic writings,” within which other authors were making no attempt at historical fidelity), Plato began more freely to put his own views into the mouth of the character, “Socrates,” in his works. Plato’s own student, Aristotle, seems to have understood the dialogues in this way.
Now, some scholars who are skeptical about the entire program of dating the dialogues into chronological groups, and who are thus strictly speaking not historicists (see, for example, Cooper 1997, xii-xvii) nonetheless accept the view that the “early” works are “Socratic” in tone and content. With few exceptions, however, scholars agreed that if we are unable to distinguish any group of dialogues as early or “Socratic,” or even if we can distinguish a separate set of “Socratic” works but cannot identify a coherent philosophy within those works, it makes little sense to talk about “the philosophy of historical Socrates” at all. There is just too little (and too little that is at all interesting) to be found that could reliably be attributed to Socrates from any other ancient authors. Any serious philosophical interest in Socrates, then, must be pursued through study of Plato’s early or “Socratic” dialogues.

b. Plato’s Characterization of Socrates

In the dialogues generally accepted as early (or “Socratic”), the main character is always Socrates. Socrates is represented as extremely agile in question-and-answer, which has come to be known as “the Socratic method of teaching,” or “the elenchus” (or elenchos, from the Greek term for refutation), with Socrates nearly always playing the role as questioner, for he claimed to have no wisdom of his own to share with others. Plato’s Socrates, in this period, was adept at reducing even the most difficult and recalcitrant interlocutors to confusion and self-contradiction. In the Apology, Socrates explains that the embarrassment he has thus caused to so many of his contemporaries is the result of a Delphic oracle given to Socrates’ friend Chaerephon (Apology 21a-23b), according to which no one was wiser than Socrates. As a result of his attempt to discern the true meaning of this oracle, Socrates gained a divinely ordained mission in Athens to expose the false conceit of wisdom. The embarrassment his “investigations” have caused to so many of his contemporaries—which Socrates claims was the root cause of his being brought up on charges (Apology 23c-24b)—is thus no one’s fault but his “victims,” for having chosen to live “the unexamined life” (see 38a).
The way that Plato’s represents Socrates going about his “mission” in Athens provides a plausible explanation both of why the Athenians would have brought him to trial and convicted him in the troubled years after the end of the Peloponnesian War, and also of why Socrates was not really guilty of the charges he faced. Even more importantly, however, Plato’s early dialogues provide intriguing arguments and refutations of proposed philosophical positions that interest and challenge philosophical readers. Platonic dialogues continue to be included among the required readings in introductory and advanced philosophy classes, not only for their ready accessibility, but also because they raise many of the most basic problems of philosophy. Unlike most other philosophical works, moreover, Plato frames the discussions he represents in dramatic settings that make the content of these discussions especially compelling. So, for example, in the Crito, we find Socrates discussing the citizen’s duty to obey the laws of the state as he awaits his own legally mandated execution in jail, condemned by what he and Crito both agree was a terribly wrong verdict, the result of the most egregious misapplication of the very laws they are discussing. The dramatic features of Plato’s works have earned attention even from literary scholars relatively uninterested in philosophy as such. Whatever their value for specifically historical research, therefore, Plato’s dialogues will continue to be read and debated by students and scholars, and the Socrates we find in the early or “Socratic” dialogues will continue to be counted among the greatest Western philosophers.

c. Ethical Positions in the Early Dialogues

The philosophical positions most scholars agree can be found directly endorsed or at least suggested in the early or “Socratic” dialogues include the following moral or ethical views:
  • A rejection of retaliation, or the return of harm for harm or evil for evil (Crito 48b-c, 49c-d; Republic I.335a-e);
  • The claim that doing injustice harms one’s soul, the thing that is most precious to one, and, hence, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it (Crito 47d-48a; Gorgias 478c-e, 511c-512b; Republic I.353d-354a);
  • Some form of what is called “eudaimonism,” that is, that goodness is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to human happiness, well-being, or flourishing, which may also be understood as “living well,” or “doing well” (Crito 48b; Euthydemus 278e, 282a; Republic I. 354a);
  • The view that only virtue is good just by itself; anything else that is good is good only insofar as it serves or is used for or by virtue (Apology 30b; Euthydemus 281d-e);
  • The view that there is some kind of unity among the virtues: In some sense, all of the virtues are the same (Protagoras 329b-333b, 361a-b);
  • The view that the citizen who has agreed to live in a state must always obey the laws of that state, or else persuade the state to change its laws, or leave the state (Crito 51b-c, 52a-d).

d. Psychological Positions in the Early Dialogues

Socrates also appears to argue for, or directly makes a number of related psychological views:
  • All wrongdoing is done in ignorance, for everyone desires only what is good (Protagoras 352a-c; Gorgias 468b; Meno 77e-78b);
  • In some sense, everyone actually believes certain moral principles, even though some may think they do not have such beliefs, and may disavow them in argument (Gorgias 472b, 475e-476a).

e. Religious Positions in the Early Dialogues

In these dialogues, we also find Socrates represented as holding certain religious beliefs, such as:
  • The gods are completely wise and good (Apology 28a; Euthyphro 6a, 15a; Meno 99b-100b);
  • Ever since his childhood (see Apology 31d) Socrates has experienced a certain “divine something” (Apology 31c-d; 40a; Euthyphro 3b; see also Phaedrus 242b), which consists in a “voice” (Apology 31d; see also Phaedrus 242c), or “sign” (Apology 40c, 41d; Euthydemus 272e; see also Republic VI.496c; Phaedrus 242b) that opposes him when he is about to do something wrong (Apology 40a, 40c);
  • Various forms of divination can allow human beings to come to recognize the will of the gods (Apology 21a-23b, 33c);
  • Poets and rhapsodes are able to write and do the wonderful things they write and do, not from knowledge or expertise, but from some kind of divine inspiration. The same canbe said of diviners and seers, although they do seem to have some kind of expertise—perhaps only some technique by which to put them in a state of appropriate receptivity to the divine (Apology 22b-c; Laches 198e-199a; Ion 533d-536a, 538d-e; Meno 99c);
  • No one really knows what happens after death, but it is reasonable to think that death is not an evil; there may be an afterlife, in which the souls of the good are rewarded, and the souls of the wicked are punished (Apology 40c-41c; Crito 54b-c; Gorgias 523a-527a).

f. Methodological and Epistemological Positions in the Early Dialogues

In addition, Plato’s Socrates in the early dialogues may plausibly be regarded as having certain methodological or epistemological convictions, including:
  • Definitional knowledge of ethical terms is at least a necessary condition of reliable judging of specific instances of the values they name (Euthyphro 4e-5d, 6e; Laches 189e-190b; Lysis 223b; Greater Hippias 304d-e; Meno 71a-b, 100b; Republic I.354b-c);
  • A mere list of examples of some ethical value—even if all are authentic cases of that value—would never provide an adequate analysis of what the value is, nor would it provide an adequate definition of the value term that refers to the value. Proper definitions must state what is common to all examples of the value (Euthyphro 6d-e; Meno 72c-d);
  • Those with expert knowledge or wisdom on a given subject do not err in their judgments on that subject (Euthyphro 4e-5a; Euthydemus 279d-280b), go about their business in their area of expertise in a rational and regular way (Gorgias 503e-504b), and can teach and explain their subject (Gorgias 465a, 500e-501b, 514a-b; Laches 185b, 185e, 1889e-190b); Protagoras 319b-c).

6. The Middle Dialogues

a. Differences between the Early and Middle Dialogues

Scholarly attempts to provide relative chronological orderings of the early transitional and middle dialogues are problematical because all agree that the main dialogue of the middle period, the Republic, has several features that make dating it precisely especially difficult. As we have already said, many scholars count the first book of the Republic as among the early group of dialogues. But those who read the entire Republic will also see that the first book also provides a natural and effective introduction to the remaining books of the work. A recent study by Debra Nails (“The Dramatic Date of Plato’s Republic,” The Classical Journal 93.4, 1998, 383-396) notes several anachronisms that suggest that the process of writing (and perhaps re-editing) the work may have continued over a very long period. If this central work of the period is difficult to place into a specific context, there can be no great assurance in positioning any other works relative to this one.
Nonetheless, it does not take especially careful study of the transitional and middle period dialogues to notice clear differences in style and philosophical content from the early dialogues. The most obvious change is the way in which Plato seems to characterize Socrates: In the early dialogues, we find Socrates simply asking questions, exposing his interlocutors’ confusions, all the while professing his own inability to shed any positive light on the subject, whereas in the middle period dialogues, Socrates suddenly emerges as a kind of positive expert, willing to affirm and defend his own theories about many important subjects. In the early dialogues, moreover, Socrates discusses mainly ethical subjects with his interlocutors—with some related religious, methodological, and epistemological views scattered within the primarily ethical discussions. In the middle period, Plato’s Socrates’ interests expand outward into nearly every area of inquiry known to humankind. The philosophical positions Socrates advances in these dialogues are vastly more systematical, including broad theoretical inquiries into the connections between language and reality (in the Cratylus), knowledge and explanation (in the Phaedo and Republic, Books V-VII). Unlike the Socrates of the early period, who was the “wisest of men” only because he recognized the full extent of his own ignorance, the Socrates of the middle period acknowledges the possibility of infallible human knowledge (especially in the famous similes of light, the simile of the sun and good and the simile of the divided line in Book VI and the parable of the cave in Book VII of the Republic), and this becomes possible in virtue of a special sort of cognitive contact with the Forms or Ideas (eidê ), which exist in a supra-sensible realm available only to thought. This theory of Forms, introduced and explained in various contexts in each of the middle period dialogues, is perhaps the single best-known and most definitive aspect of what has come to be known as Platonism.

b. The Theory of Forms

In many of his dialogues, Plato mentions supra-sensible entities he calls “Forms” (or “Ideas”). So, for example, in the Phaedo, we are told that particular sensible equal things—for example, equal sticks or stones (see Phaedo 74a-75d)—are equal because of their “participation” or “sharing” in the character of the Form of Equality, which is absolutely, changelessly, perfectly, and essentially equal. Plato sometimes characterizes this participation in the Form as a kind of imaging, or approximation of the Form. The same may be said of the many things that are greater or smaller and the Forms of Great and Small (Phaedo 75c-d), or the many tall things and the Form of Tall (Phaedo 100e), or the many beautiful things and the Form of Beauty (Phaedo 75c-d, Symposium 211e, Republic V.476c). When Plato writes about instances of Forms “approximating” Forms, it is easy to infer that, for Plato, Forms are exemplars. If so, Plato believes that The Form of Beauty is perfect beauty, the Form of Justice is perfect justice, and so forth. Conceiving of Forms in this way was important to Plato because it enabled the philosopher who grasps the entities to be best able to judge to what extent sensible instances of the Forms are good examples of the Forms they approximate.
Scholars disagree about the scope of what is often called “the theory of Forms,” and question whether Plato began holding that there are only Forms for a small range of properties, such as tallness, equality, justice, beauty, and so on, and then widened the scope to include Forms corresponding to every term that can be applied to a multiplicity of instances. In the Republic, he writes as if there may be a great multiplicity of Forms—for example, in Book X of that work, we find him writing about the Form of Bed (see Republic X.596b). He may have come to believe that for any set of things that shares some property, there is a Form that gives unity to the set of things (and univocity to the term by which we refer to members of that set of things). Knowledge involves the recognition of the Forms (Republic V.475e-480a), and any reliable application of this knowledge will involve the ability compare the particular sensible instantiations of a property to the Form.

c. Immortality and Reincarnation

In the early transitional dialogue, the Meno, Plato has Socrates introduce the Orphic and Pythagorean idea that souls are immortal and existed before our births. All knowledge, he explains, is actually recollected from this prior existence. In perhaps the most famous passage in this dialogue, Socrates elicits recollection about geometry from one of Meno’s slaves (Meno 81a-86b). Socrates’ apparent interest in, and fairly sophisticated knowledge of, mathematics appears wholly new in this dialogue. It is an interest, however, that shows up plainly in the middle period dialogues, especially in the middle books of the Republic.
Several arguments for the immortality of the soul, and the idea that souls are reincarnated into different life forms, are also featured in Plato’s Phaedo (which also includes the famous scene in which Socrates drinks the hemlock and utters his last words). Stylometry has tended to count the Phaedo among the early dialogues, whereas analysis of philosophical content has tended to place it at the beginning of the middle period. Similar accounts of the transmigration of souls may be found, with somewhat different details, in Book X of the Republic and in the Phaedrus, as well as in several dialogues of the late period, including the Timaeus and the Laws. No traces of the doctrine of recollection, or the theory of reincarnation or transmigration of souls, are to be found in the dialogues we listed above as those of the early period.

d. Moral Psychology

The moral psychology of the middle period dialogues also seems to be quite different from what we find in the early period. In the early dialogues, Plato’s Socrates is an intellectualist—that is, he claims that people always act in the way they believe is best for them (at the time of action, at any rate). Hence, all wrongdoing reflects some cognitive error. But in the middle period, Plato conceives of the soul as having (at least) three parts:
  1. a rational part (the part that loves truth, which should rule over the other parts of the soul through the use of reason),
  2. a spirited part (which loves honor and victory), and
  3. an appetitive part (which desires food, drink, and sex),
and justice will be that condition of the soul in which each of these three parts “does its own work,” and does not interfere in the workings of the other parts (see esp. Republic IV.435b-445b). It seems clear from the way Plato describes what can go wrong in a soul, however, that in this new picture of moral psychology, the appetitive part of the soul can simply overrule reason’s judgments. One may suffer, in this account of psychology, from what is called akrasia or “moral weakness”—in which one finds oneself doing something that one actually believes is not the right thing to do (see especially Republic IV.439e-440b). In the early period, Socrates denied that akrasia was possible: One might change one’s mind at the last minute about what one ought to do—and could perhaps change one’s mind again later to regret doing what one has done—but one could never do what one actually believed was wrong, at the time of acting.

e. Critique of the Arts

The Republic also introduces Plato’s notorious critique of the visual and imitative arts. In the early period works, Socrates contends that the poets lack wisdom, but he also grants that they “say many fine things.” In the Republic, on the contrary, it seems that there is little that is fine in poetry or any of the other fine arts. Most of poetry and the other fine arts are to be censored out of existence in the “noble state” (kallipolis) Plato sketches in the Republic, as merely imitating appearances (rather than realities), and as arousing excessive and unnatural emotions and appetites (see esp. Republic X.595b-608b).

f. Platonic Love

In the Symposium, which is normally dated at the beginning of the middle period, and in the Phaedrus, which is dated at the end of the middle period or later yet, Plato introduces his theory of erôs (usually translated as “love”). Several passages and images from these dialogues continued to show up in Western culture—for example, the image of two lovers as being each other’s “other half,” which Plato assigns to Aristophanes in the Symposium. Also in that dialogue, we are told of the “ladder of love,” by which the lover can ascend to direct cognitive contact with (usually compared to a kind of vision of) Beauty Itself. In the Phaedrus, love is revealed to be the great “divine madness” through which the wings of the lover’s soul may sprout, allowing the lover to take flight to all of the highest aspirations and achievements possible for humankind. In both of these dialogues, Plato clearly regards actual physical or sexual contact between lovers as degraded and wasteful forms of erotic expression. Because the true goal of erôs is real beauty and real beauty is the Form of Beauty, what Plato calls Beauty Itself, erôs finds its fulfillment only in Platonic philosophy. Unless it channels its power of love into “higher pursuits,” which culminate in the knowledge of the Form of Beauty, erôs is doomed to frustration. For this reason, Plato thinks that most people sadly squander the real power of love by limiting themselves to the mere pleasures of physical beauty.

7. Late Transitional and Late Dialogues

a. Philosophical Methodology

One of the novelties of the dialogues after those of the middle period is the introduction of a new philosophical method. This method was introduced probably either late in the middle period or in the transition to the late period, but was increasingly important in the late period. In the early period dialogues, as we have said, the mode of philosophizing was refutative question-and-answer (called elenchos or the “Socratic method”). Although the middle period dialogues continue to show Socrates asking questions, the questioning in these dialogues becomes much more overtly leading and didactic. The highest method of philosophizing discussed in the middle period dialogues, called “dialectic,” is never very well explained (at best, it is just barely sketched in the divided line image at the end of Book VI of the Republic). The correct method for doing philosophy, we are now told in the later works, is what Plato identifies as “collection and division,” which is perhaps first referred to at Phaedrus 265e. In this method, the philosopher collects all of the instances of some generic category that seem to have common characteristics, and then divides them into specific kinds until they cannot be further subdivided. This method is explicitly and extensively on display in the Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus.

b. Critique of the Earlier Theory of Forms

One of the most puzzling features of the late dialogues is the strong suggestion in them that Plato has reconsidered his theory of Forms in some way. Although there seems still in the late dialogues to be a theory of Forms (although the theory is, quite strikingly, wholly unmentioned in the Theaetetus, a later dialogue on the nature of knowledge), where it does appear in the later dialogues, it seems in several ways to have been modified from its conception in the middle period works. Perhaps the most dramatic signal of such a change in the theory appears first in the Parmenides, which appears to subject the middle period version of the theory to a kind of “Socratic” refutation, only this time, the main refuter is the older Eleatic philosopher Parmenides, and the hapless victim of the refutation is a youthful Socrates. The most famous (and apparently fatal) of the arguments provided by Parmenides in this dialogue has come to be known as the “Third Man Argument,” which suggests that the conception of participation (by which individual objects take on the characters of the Forms) falls prey to an infinite regress: If individual male things are male in virtue of participation in the Form of Man, and the Form of Man is itself male, then what is common to both The Form of Man and the particular male things must be that they all participate in some (other) Form, say, Man 2. But then, if Man 2 is male, then what it has in common with the other male things is participation in some further Form, Man 3, and so on. That Plato’s theory is open to this problem gains support from the notion, mentioned above, that Forms are exemplars. If the Form of Man is itself a (perfect) male, then the Form shares a property in common with the males that participate in it. But since the Theory requires that for any group of entities with a common property, there is a Form to explain the commonality, it appears that the theory does indeed give rise to the vicious regress.
There has been considerable controversy for many years over whether Plato believed that the Theory of Forms was vulnerable to the “Third Man” argument, as Aristotle believed it was, and so uses the Parmenides to announce his rejection of the Theory of Forms, or instead believed that the Third Man argument can be avoided by making adjustments to the Theory of Forms. Of relevance to this discussion is the relative dating of the Timaeus and the Parmenides, since the Theory of Forms very much as it appears in the middle period works plays a prominent role in the Timaeus. Thus, the assignment of a later date to the Timaeus shows that Plato did not regard the objection to the Theory of Forms raised in the Parmenides as in any way decisive. In any event, it is agreed on all sides that Plato’s interest in the Theory shifted in the Sophist and Stateman to the exploration of the logical relations that hold between abstract entities. In the Laws, Plato’s last (and unfinished) work, the Theory of Forms appears to have dropped out altogether. Whatever value Plato believed that knowledge of abstract entities has for the proper conduct of philosophy, he no longer seems to have believed that such knowledge is necessary for the proper running of a political community.

c. The “Eclipse” of Socrates

In several of the late dialogues, Socrates is even further marginalized. He is either represented as a mostly mute bystander (in the Sophist and Statesman), or else absent altogether from the cast of characters (in the Laws and Critias). In the Theaetetus and Philebus, however, we find Socrates in the familiar leading role. The so-called “eclipse” of Socrates in several of the later dialogues has been a subject of much scholarly discussion.

d. The Myth of Atlantis

Plato’s famous myth of Atlantis is first given in the Timaeus, which scholars now generally agree is quite late, despite being dramatically placed on the day after the discussion recounted in the Republic. The myth of Atlantis is continued in the unfinished dialogue intended to be the sequel to the Timaeus, the Critias.

e. The Creation of the Universe

The Timaeus is also famous for its account of the creation of the universe by the Demiurge. Unlike the creation by the God of medieval theologians, Plato’s Demiurge does not create ex nihilo, but rather orders the cosmos out of chaotic elemental matter, imitating the eternal Forms. Plato takes the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth (which Plato proclaims to be composed of various aggregates of triangles), making various compounds of these into what he calls the Body of the Universe. Of all of Plato’s works, the Timaeus provides the most detailed conjectures in the areas we now regard as the natural sciences: physics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology.

f. The Laws

In the Laws, Plato’s last work, the philosopher returns once again to the question of how a society ought best to be organized. Unlike his earlier treatment in the Republic, however, the Laws appears to concern itself less with what a best possible state might be like, and much more squarely with the project of designing a genuinely practicable, if admittedly not ideal, form of government. The founders of the community sketched in the Laws concern themselves with the empirical details of statecraft, fashioning rules to meet the multitude of contingencies that are apt to arise in the “real world” of human affairs. A work enormous length and complexity, running some 345 Stephanus pages, the Laws was unfinished at the time of Plato’s death. According to Diogenes Laertius (3.37), it was left written on wax tablets.