Class Notes 4 You

Y Plato is an idealist thinker; in the Republic Plato said that "justice is the harmony and coordination existing in all nature." Therefore, according to Plato, each person should act on the basis of the qualities of his soul. Plato said in his Republic that the knowledge of ideas is the best and the highest. Knowledge of thoughts is necessary to come out of ignorance. Plato's justice is based on morality and duty, presenting the idea of the philosopher king; he said that a rational person would be the ruler, it is necessary to have discretion to rule. Modern justice is based on law, based on the constitution. But Plato rejected the recognition of the rule of law. The law is made by man, which man has made for his convenience, but it is absolutely necessary to have knowledge for making law. A person with knowledge is not materialistic, for him all this is meaningless i.e. being materialistic for living can be okay to an extent, but a person with knowledge is not materiali...

Socrates gave method of dialectics to develop a spirit of inquiry said not enough to know what constitutes life but more imp to understand what constitutes good life an unexamined life is not worth living theory of knowledge which said there is distinction b/w real knowledge and illusion of knowledge. Acc to him source of real knowledge is our soul. It can be gained not just be experience but by logical reasoning which he calls as dialectics.  Knowledge is the source of good life. knowledge becomes virtue only when applied. Use knowledge to challenge social norms and customs (e.g. RRM Roy, IC Vijayanagar)  PLATO: Introduction: father of political philosophy, the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. Book- the republic: concerning justice context: wanted to find the reasons for the loss of Athens to Sparta in the Peloponnesian war. Why Athens lost to Sparta in the Peloponnesian war:  Athens was democratic (hence Plato opposed to democracy) while Sparta was...