Socrates & Plato

Osborne 11-15  

(This is funny, but Woody Allen's "My Apology" really nails it. And if that's not silly enough for you...*)

1. Who were the Sophists? Was Socrates one of them? Did he consider philosophy a profession? What is "sophistry"?

2. Protagoras said "man is the measure..." What does this mean?

3. What do you think Socrates meant when he said "the unexamined life is not worth living"? Do you agree?

4. (T/F) Like the pre-Socratics, Socrates was deeply interested in identifying the basic stuff of which everything is made.

5. Why did Socrates see himself as a gadfly? What other descriptive metaphor did he apply to himself?

6. (T/F) Socrates agreed with Protagoras: objective truth, independent of any particular or exclusively-human point of view, is impossible.

7. What did Socrates mean when he said "we owe a cock to Aesculapius," the Greek god of healing and medicine?

8. What was the aim of Plato's Academy? What was the purpose of his myth (simile) of the cave?

9. In Plato's theory of education, knowledge is ___________.

10. For Plato the parts of the soul provide a model for his ideal republic, in which reason is exemplified by an elite governing class headed by ____________.