Philosophy Study Notes

The PLATO questions on the progress exam 2010. One of the four questions will be mandatory and you will then answer one other Plato question for a total of 2. The mandatory question will be worth 40% and the second Plato question worth 30%. The remaining 30% will be a question on the Upanishads. 1. Give a detailed account of Socrates’ Cycle of opposites argument and the Exclusion of Opposites argument. Doesn’t the former argument conclude that Life comes from Death and the latter argument concludes that they do not? How do you explain this apparent contradiction? Which of these two arguments do you think is the more convincing argument? Why?
1. The Cycle of opposites (things) arguments, by Socrates, for immortality
Everything that has an opposite, comes to be from its opposite, and from no other source
Coming to be or generation simply means that something comes to be what it is (from that thing) which is its opposite (Everything that actually has an opposite). Ex. Opposite of chair? Nothing. Opposite of Comfy chair = uncomfy chair.
If something has come to be faster then is must originally have been slower
Socrates frames his examples as comparatives
Comparatives end in -er or have a word like more, or less in front of them.
If something comes to be bigger, it must have once been smaller
Between any pair of opposites there is always 2 processes or generations
Ex. Something bigger comes to be smaller through the process of getting smaller and vice versa
RECIPROCITY - THE PROCESS RUNS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS
Slower faster
Hotter colder
Opposite things are also generated from one another
Awake --> sleep (falling asleep)
Asleep --> awake (waking up)
Unless Nature is lame, or imperfect, it must go in both directions (there must be reciprocity)
Without reciprocity
How can you possibly account for the continuation of life in general?
There will never be a time when nothing will be alive. There is no spontaneous generation (out of nothing,