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Lesson 2
Religion and Philosophical Investigation of Mankind
2.1 Religion
The period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago
(3200 BCE) in the Near East. The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs
that existed prior to the advent of written records. The earliest evidence of religious ideas dates
back several hundred thousand years to the Middle and Lower Paleolithic periods. Archeologists
refer to apparent intentional burials of early homo sapiens from as early as 300,000 years ago as
evidence of religious ideas and symbolic artifacts from Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. A
number of artifacts from the Upper Paleolithic (50,000-13,000) are generally interpreted by
scientists as representing religious ideas. Examples of Upper Paleolithic remains associated with
religious beliefs include the lion man, the Venus figurines, cave paintings from Chauvet Cave
and the elaborate ritual burial from Sungir. Later on this kind of expression of homo sapiens
become precise evidence for human belief and expression.
Many scholars had agreed that the main cause of belief come from two factors; emotional
or inside condition that is fear just like a baby who fears of his surrounding things because of his
lack of knowledge and reasons. And another is due to the evolution of human brain which grows
up and increase from time to time. This is external or physical condition. The quantity and
quality of brain will be multiple when he start to think again and again and use their own
organism especially hands to work out.
2.2 Development of religion
The religion have been naturally moderated from ancient till present. It was in intention or
maybe without intention of man. Religion has been changed and adjust to fit each community
and circumstances. It starts from simple form to be complex organization seen in nowadays.
There are 7 steps of religion development;
1)Paleolithic: Intentional burial, particularly with grave goods may be one of the earliest
detectable forms of religious practice. Societies may also have practiced the earliest form of
totemism or animal worship. Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic was intertwined with
hunting rites.
2)Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of
consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the spirit world. Generally, the shaman
traverses the axis mundi and enters the spirit world by effecting a transition of consciousness,
entering into an ecstatic trance, either autohypnotically or through the use of entheogens. The
methods employed are diverse, and are often used together.
3) Animism is the religious worldview that natural physical entities—including animals,
plants, and often even inanimate objects or phenomena—possess a spiritual essence. Animism

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encompasses the belief that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical (or
material) world, and souls or spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in some other animals,
plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural
environment, including thunder, wind, and shadows.
Animism consisted of two unformulated propositions; all parts of nature had a soul, and
these souls are capable of moving without requiring a physical form. This gives rise to fetishism,
the worship of visible objects as powerful, spiritual beings. The second proposition was that
souls are independent of their physical forms. It gives rise to 'spiritism', Many animistic cultures
observe some form of ancestor reverence. Whether they see the ancestors as living in another
world, or embodied in the natural features of this world, animists often believe that offerings and
prayers to and for the dead are an important facet of maintaining harmony with the world of the
spirits. This is sometimes called as “ancestor worship” as well.
4) Polytheism is the worship or belief in multiple deities usually assembled into a
pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. Polytheism was the
typical form of religion during the Bronze Age and Iron Age, up to the Axial Age and the
gradual development of monotheism or pantheism, and atheism.
5) Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or
possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped. The Rigveda was the basis of
henotheism in the sense of a polytheistic tradition striving towards a formulation of The One
(ekam) Divinity aimed at by the worship of different cosmic principles. Hinduism later
developed the concept of Brahman implies a transcendent and immanent reality, variously
interpreted as personal, impersonal or transpersonal.
6) Monotheism is a belief in the existence of a single god. it is common for believers to
also think that this god created all of reality and is totally self-sufficient, without any
dependency upon any other being. This is what we find in the largest monotheistic religious
systems: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism. but they also deny the existence of the gods
of any other religious faiths. Only one supreme god however is relatively infrequent and occurs
more during a transition between polytheism and monotheism when the older gods need to be
explained away. Various theologians and philosophers through time have believed that
monotheism "evolved" from polytheism, arguing that polytheistic faiths were more primitive
and monotheistic faiths more advanced - culturally, ethically, and philosophically.
7) Rational religion
Rationality is based on reason or evidence. Faith is belief in inspiration, revelation, or
authority. In this stage of Religion evolution, men have questioned himself and others by the
reason. At this stage they depend on themselves rather other authorities such as unapproved
power of god and goddess.
2.3 Major religion of the world
Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that
relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality. Many religions have narratives, symbols,
and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin

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of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people derive
morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. There are roughly 4,200 religions in the
world. But there are five major religions which influence to people around the world.
2.3.1 Judaism
Judaism is the religion of the world's approximately 15 million Jews. It is one of the
oldest religions and the first monotheistic religion to teach the belief in one God. Both
Christianity and Islam have similarities with Judaism. These religions accept the belief in one
God and the moral teachings of the Hebrew Bible, which includes the Torah or " ".תורה
The basic laws and teachings of Judaism come from the Torah, the first five books of the
Hebrew Bible and oral traditions. Some of these oral traditions were later written. The Mishnah
and the Talmud are books written based on these oral traditions. The Torah is the most
important holy book of Judaism. The Hebrew Bible is a collection of writings called the
"Tanakh" ( תנ”ך ) in Hebrew. It is divided into three parts - Torah ( תורה , Instruction), Nevi'im
נְבִיאִים) , Prophets), and Ketuvim ( כְתוּבִים , Writings).
The following is a basic, structured list of the central works of Jewish practice and
thought.
The two most important groups of books in Judaism are the Bible and the Talmud. The beliefs
and rituals of Judaism come from these books. Later Jewish teachers and scholars wrote more
books, called commentaries, which explain and say more about the teachings of the Bible and
Talmud.
Bible
The Torah is the most important of all Jewish writings. The first five books of the Hebrew
Bible make up the Torah. The Torah contains the basic laws of Judaism and describes the
history of the Jews until the death of Moses. Jewish tradition says that God told Moses what to
write in the Torah, which is also called the Five Books of Moses. Jews divide the Bible into three
parts and call it the Tanakh. The three parts are the Torah, which is the first five books; the
Nevi'im, which are the books of the prophets; and the Ketuvim, meaning the Writings, which are
other books of history and moral teachings.
The Ten Commandments
1. You shall have no other Gods but me.
2. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
4. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
5. Respect your father and mother.
6. You must not kill.
7. You must not commit adultery.
8. You must not steal.
9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
10. You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his
house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.

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Other important teachings of Judaism are;
1. The most important teaching of Judaism is that there is one God, who wants people to do
what is just and compassionate. Judaism teaches that a person serves God by studying the
holy writings and doing what they teach. These teachings include both ritual practices and
ethical laws. Judaism teaches that all people are created in the image of God and deserve
to be treated with dignity and respect.
2. The law of God is the most important than other law
3. Islael people was selected by God to bring man to God
4. Historical events are the witness of God’s mighty. Man should follow the order to enjoy
the realm of God
5. Messiah or the prophet is the son of God
6. After death all man will be judged by God, punishment will go to sinful one the rewards
will be granted to good one.
7. The judgment day is true and God will present in front of man for cleaning day
8. Divine messenger was sent by God to deliver the words of God
9. Following Jew tradition and culture as written in scripture strictly
10. Jew must live for purification by following the right
a. Right of life
b. Right of asset
c. Right of occupation
d. Right of dressing
e. Right of having own house
f. Right of resting and privation
2.3.2 Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as
presented in the New Testament. Its followers, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the
only begotten Son of God and the Messiah (Christ) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (the part of
scripture common to Christianity and Judaism). Christianity has played a prominent role in the
shaping of Western civilization at least since the 4th century. As of the early 21st century,
Christianity has between 1.5 billion and 2.1 billion adherents, representing about a quarter to a
third of the world's population.
To Christians, Jesus Christ is a teacher, the model of a virtuous life, the revealer of God,
as well as an incarnation of God. But most importantly Christ is the savior of humanity who
suffered, died, and was resurrected to bring about salvation from sin. Jesus ascended into heaven
during the Resurrection, and most denominations teach that Jesus will return to judge the living
and the dead, granting everlasting life to his followers. Christians call the message of Jesus
Christ the Gospel ("good news") and hence label the written accounts of his ministry as gospels.
Like Judaism and Islam, Christianity is classified as an Abrahamic Religion. Christianity began
as a Jewish sect in the eastern Mediterranean, quickly grew in size and influence over a few

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decades, and by the 4th century had become the dominant religion within the Roman Empire.
During the Middle Ages, most of the remainder of Europe was christianized, with Christians
also being a (sometimes large) religious minority in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of
India. Following the Age of Discovery, through missionary work and colonization, Christianity
spread to the Americas and the rest of the world.
Christianity ( means "the anointed one" ) is a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on
the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as presented in the New Testament. Most Christians
believe that Jesus is the Son of God, fully divine and fully human, and the savior of humanity
prophesied in the Old Testament. Most Christians (Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern
Rite and Protestants alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds
mentioned above.
The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah
(Christ). Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.
Through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be
reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. According to
the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born
from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical Gospels, however
infancy Gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week
before his death, is well documented in the Gospels contained within the New Testament. The
Biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and
deeds.
The New Testament consists of Four narratives of the life, teaching, death and
resurrection of Jesus, called "gospels" (or "good news" accounts);a narrative of the Apostles'
ministries in the early church, called the "Acts of the Apostles", and probably written by the
same writer as the Gospel of Luke, which it continues; twenty-one letters, often called
"epistles" in the biblical context, written by various authors, and consisting of Christian
doctrine, counsel, instruction, and conflict resolution; and an Apocalypse, the Book of
Revelation, which is a book of prophecy, containing some instructions to seven local
congregations of Asia Minor, but mostly containing prophetical symbology, about the end times.
Christians follow the New testament and the contents of new testament is similar the old
testament of Judaism but Jesus Christ had moderated the teaching by;
1) Preservative aspect
God is the only God.
2) moderated aspect
-Yahweh is father of mankind not only Jews
-The relation of God and man like father and son
- Neighbor means mankind not just neighbor fellows
Don’t gaze at lady with bad thinking
3) Revolute aspect
- Do not divorce your wife except she commit adultery
- Do not swear but say the truth

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- Do not retort your enemies by harming but kindness
- Do good for those who hate and harm you instead of harming enemies
2.3.3 Islam
Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion articulated by the Qur'an, a book
considered by its adherents to be the verbatim word of God (Arabic: الله Allāh) and by the
teachings and normative example (called the Sunnah and composed of Hadith) of Muhammad,
considered by them to be the last prophet of God. An adherent of Islam is called a Muslim.
Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable and the purpose of existence is to love and
serve God. Most Muslims are of two denominations, Sunni (75–90%), or Shia (10–20%).
In Muslim tradition, the prophet Muhammad (c. 570 – June 8, 632) is viewed as the last
in a series of prophets. During the last 22 years of his life, beginning at age 40 in 610 CE,
according to the earliest surviving biographies, Muhammad reported revelations that he believed
to be from God conveyed to him through the archangel Gabriel (Jibril). The content of these
revelations, known as the Qur'an, was memorized and recorded by his companions.
During this time, Muhammad in Mecca preached to the people, imploring them to
abandon polytheism and to worship one God. Although some converted to Islam, Muhammad
and his followers were persecuted by the leading Meccan authorities. This resulted in the
Migration to Abyssinia of some Muslims (to the Aksumite Empire). Many early converts to
Islam, were the poor and former slaves like Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi. The Meccan elite felt
that Muhammad was establishing their social order by preaching about one God, racial equality
and in the process giving ideas to the poor and their slaves.
After 12 years of the persecution of Muslims by the Meccans and the Meccan boycott of
the Hashemites, Muhammads relatives, Muhammad and the Muslims performed the Hijra
("emigration") to the city of Medina (formerly known as Yathrib) in 622. There, with the
Medinan converts (Ansar) and the Meccan migrants (Muhajirun), Muhammad in Medina
established his political and religious authority. A state was established in accordance with
Islamic economic jurisprudence. The Constitution of Medina was formulated, instituting a
number of rights and responsibilities for the Muslim, Jewish, Christian and pagan communities
of Medina, bringing them within the fold of one community — the Ummah.
The Constitution established: the security of the community, religious freedoms, the role
of Medina as a sacred place (barring all violence and weapons), the security of women, stable
tribal relations within Medina, a tax system for supporting the community in time of conflict,
parameters for exogenous political alliances, a system for granting protection of individuals, and
a judicial system for resolving disputes where non-Muslims could also use their own laws. All
the tribes signed the agreement to defend Medina from all external threats and to live in
harmony amongst themselves. Within a few years, two battles were fought against the Meccan
forces: first, the Battle of Badr in 624, which was a Muslim victory, and then a year later, when
the Meccans returned to Medina, the Battle of Uhud, which ended inconclusively.

7. The Arab tribes in the rest of Arabia then formed a confederation and during the Battle of
the Trench besieged Medina intent on finishing off Islam. In 628, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah
was signed between Mecca and the Muslims and was broken by Mecca two years later. After the
signing of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah many more people converted to Islam. At the same time,
Meccan trade routes were cut off as Muhammad brought surrounding desert tribes under his
control.By 629 Muhammad was victorious in the nearly bloodless Conquest of Mecca, and by
the time of his death in 632 (at the age of 62) he united the tribes of Arabia into a single
religious polity.
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The Five Pillars of Islam (arkān al-Islām أركان الإسلام ; alsoarkān al-dīn أركان الدين "pillars
of the religion") are five basic acts in Islam, considered mandatory by believers and are the
foundation of Muslim life. They are summarized in the famous hadith of Gabriel.
They make up Muslim life, prayer, concern for the needy, self- purification and the pilgrimage.
They are:
1. Shahadah: declaring there is no god except God, and Muhammad is God's Messenger
2. Salat: ritual prayer five times a day
3. Sawm: fasting and self-control during the blessed month of Ramadan
4. Zakat: giving 2.5% of one’s savings to the poor and needy. Here are five principles that
should be followed when giving the zakāt:
a) The giver must declare to God his intention to give the zakāt.
b) The zakāt must be paid on the day that it is due.
c) After the offering, the payer must not exaggerate on spending his money more
than usual means.
d) Payment must be in kind. This means if one is wealthy then he or she needs to
pay 2.5% of their income. If a person does not have much money, then they should
compensate for it in different ways, such as good deeds and good behavior toward
others.
e) The zakāt must be distributed in the community from which it was taken.
5.Hajj: pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. If he/she is able to do.
Other belief for muslim
1. The Qu'ran asserts the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world; a
unique, independent and indivisible being, who is independent of the entire creation. God,
according to Islam, is a universal God, rather than a local, tribal, or parochial one—God
is an absolute, who integrates all affirmative values and brooks no evil.
2. Muhammad therefore, being the last prophet, was vouchsafed a book which, in Muslim
belief, will remain in its true form till the Last Day.
3. Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God's word to man, and a
completion and confirmation of previous scriptures.
4. Believing in angels is one of the six Articles of Faith in Islam. Just as humans are made of
clay, and jinn are made of smokeless fire, angels are made of light. The names and roles
of some angels have been mentioned to us:
 The angels of the Seven Heavens.
 Hafaza, (The Guardian Angel):

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 Kiraman Katibin (Honourable Recorders),[14] two of whom are charged to every human
being; one writes down good deeds and the another one writes down evil deeds. They are
both described as 'Raqeebun 'Ateed' in the Qur'an.
Mu'aqqibat (The Protectors) who keep people from death until its decreed time and who
bring down blessings.
 Jundullah, those who help Muhammad in the battlefield
 The angels who violently pull out the souls of the wicked,
 Those who gently draw out the souls of the blessed,
 Those angels who distribute (provisions, rain, and other blessings) by (God's) Command.
 Those angels who drive the clouds.
 Hamalat al-'Arsh, those who carry the 'Arsh (Throne of God), comparable to the
ChristianSeraph
 Those that give the spirit to the foetus in the womb and are charged with four commands: to
write down his provision, his life-span, his actions, and whether he will be wretched or
happy.
The Angel of the Mountains
 Munkar and Nakir, who question the dead in their graves.
 Darda'il (The Journeyers), who travel in the earth searching out assemblies where people
remember God's name.
 The angels charged with each existent thing, maintaining order and warding off corruption.
Their number is known only to God.
 There is the angel who is responsible for Jannah (Paradise). A weak hadeeth says his name is
Ridwan so as far as we know, there is no name for sure that we know of.
 Maalik is the chief of the angels who govern Jahannam (Hell)
 Zabaniah are 19 angels who torment sinful persons in hell
These angels take no pity on punishing them as they do what the Lord has commanded them
precisely and perfectly.
5. Qadar (Arabic: قدر , transl.: qadar, English: fate; divine foreordainment/predestination) is
the concept of divinedestiny in Islam
6. The day of resurrection
2.3.4 Hinduism
Hinduism is the dominant religion of the Indian subcontinent, particularly of India and
Nepal. It includes Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Smartism among numerous other traditions. Among
other practices and philosophies, Hinduism includes a wide spectrum of laws and prescriptions
of "daily morality" based on karma, dharma, and societal norms. Hinduism is a categorisation of
distinct intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid, common set of beliefs.
Major scriptures include the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Manusmriti,

9. Bhagavad Gita and Agamas. Hindu belief is spanning monotheism, polytheism,
panentheism, pantheism, monism, and atheism among others; and its concept of God is
complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. It is
sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting
the existence of others), but any such term is an over generalization. The Rig Veda, the oldest
scripture and the mainstay of Hindu philosophy does not take a restrictive view on the
fundamental question of God and the creation of universe. It rather lets the individual seek and
discover answers in the quest of life. There is no founder of this religion but scholars agreed that
there were many rishi or sage who wrote the scripture and continued teaching and practice
according to the code of Hindu law or dharma.
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Hindu society has been categorized into four classes, called varnas.They are,
 the Brahmins: Vedic teachers and priests;
 the Kshatriyas: warriors, nobles, and kings;
 the Vaishyas: farmers, merchants, and businessmen; and
 the Shudras: servants and laborers.
Traditionally the life of a Hindu is divided into four Āshramas (phases or stages; unrelated
meanings include monastery).
The first part of one's life, Brahmacharya, the stage as a student, is spent in celibate,
controlled, sober and pure contemplation under the guidance of a Guru, building up the mind for
spiritual knowledge.
Grihastha is the householder's stage, in which one marries and satisfies kāma and arthain
one's married and professional life respectively. The moral obligations of a Hindu householder
include supporting one's parents, children, guests and holy figures.
Vānaprastha, the retirement stage, is gradual detachment from the material world. This may
involve giving over duties to one's children, spending more time in religious practices and
embarking on holy pilgrimages.
Finally, in Sannyāsa, the stage of asceticism, one renounces all worldly attachments to
secludedly find the Divine through detachment from worldly life and peacefully shed the body
for Moksha
Mahabharata, Krishna defines dharma as upholding both this-worldly and other-worldly
affairs. The word Sanātana means 'eternal', 'perennial', or 'forever'; thus, 'Sanātana Dharma'
signifies that it is the dharma that has neither beginning nor end.
Artha (livelihood, wealth); Artha is objective & virtuous pursuit of wealth for
livelihood, obligations and economic prosperity. It is inclusive of political life, diplomacy and
material well-being. The doctrine of Artha is called Arthashastra, amongst the most famous of
which is Kautilya Arthashastra.
Kāma (sensual pleasure);Kāma means desire, wish, passion, longing, pleasure of the
senses, the aesthetic enjoyment of life, affection, or love. However, this is only acceptable
within marriage.

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Dharma or righteousness. Householders must learn the scripture, examine the truth
written in text and following the basic code of spirituality by themeselve. Dharma means the
way to be self-realisation. It covers all events and circumstanes which prove to be within one
reality God or Brahman.
Mokṣa (liberation, freedom from samsara);Moksha literally "release" (both from a
root muc "to let loose, let go"), is the last goal of life. It is liberation from samsara and the
concomitant suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and reincarnation.
2.3.5 Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion indigenous to the Indian subcontinent that encompasses a variety
of traditions, beliefs and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama,
who is commonly known as the Buddha, meaning "the awakened one". The Buddha lived and
taught in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries
BCE.[1] He is recognized by Buddhists as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his
insights to help sentient beings end their suffering (dukkha) through the elimination of ignorance
(avidyā) by way of understanding and the seeing of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda)
and the elimination of desire (taṇhā), and thus the attainment of the cessation of all suffering,
known as the sublime state of nirvāņa.
The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born in a
community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern
Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. It was either a small republic, in which case his
father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch.
According to the Theravada Tripitaka Gautama was born in Lumbini in modern-day Nepal,
around the year 563 BCE, and raised inKapilavastu. shortly after the birth of young prince
Gautama, an astrologer named Asita visited the young prince's father—King Śuddhodana—and
prophesied that Siddhartha would either become a great king or renounce the material world to
become a holy man, depending on whether he saw what life was like outside the palace
walls.Śuddhodana was determined to see his son become a king, so he prevented him from
leaving the palace grounds. But at age 29, despite his father's efforts, Gautama ventured beyond
the palace several times. In a series of encounters—known in Buddhist literature as thefour
sights—he learned of the suffering of ordinary people, encountering an old man, a sick man, a
corpse and, finally, an ascetic holy man, apparently content and at peace with the world. These
experiences prompted Gautama to abandon royal life and take up a spiritual quest.
Gautama first went to study with famous religious teachers of the day, and mastered the
meditative attainments they taught. But he found that they did not provide a permanent end to
suffering, so he continued his quest. He next attempted an extreme asceticism, which was a
religious pursuit common among the Shramanas, a religious culture distinct from the Vedic one.
Gautama underwent prolonged fasting, breath-holding, and exposure to pain. He almost starved
himself to death in the process. He realized that he had taken this kind of practice to its limit,
and had not put an end to suffering. So in a pivotal moment he accepted milk and rice from a
village girl and changed his approach. He devoted himself to anapanasati meditation, through
which he discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way (Skt. madhyamā-pratipad: a path of
moderation between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.

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Gautama was determined to complete his spiritual quest. At the age of 35, he famously
sat in meditationunder a sacred fig tree — known as the Bodhi tree — in the town of Bodh
Gaya, India, and vowed not to rise before achieving enlightenment. After many days, he finally
destroyed the fetters of his mind, therebyliberating himself from the cycle of suffering and
rebirth, and arose as a fully enlightened being (Skt.samyaksaṃbuddha). Soon thereafter, he
attracted a band of followers and instituted a monastic order. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the
rest of his life teaching the path of awakening he had discovered, traveling throughout the
northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent, and died at the age of 80 (483 BCE) in Kushinagar,
India. The south branch of the original fig tree available only in Anuradhapura Sri Lanka is
known as Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi.
His teachings on the Four Noble Truths are regarded as central to the teachings of
Buddhism, and are said to provide a conceptual framework for Buddhist thought. These four
truths explain the nature of dukkha(suffering, anxiety, unsatisfactoriness), its causes, and how it
can be overcome. The four truths are:
1. The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, unsatisfactoriness)
2. The truth of the origin of dukkha
3. The truth of the cessation of dukkha
4. The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha
The five precepts are training rules in order to live a better life in which one is happy,
without worries, and can meditate well:
1. To refrain from taking life (non-violence towards sentient life forms), or ahimsā;
2. To refrain from taking that which is not given (not committing theft)
3. To refrain from sensual (including sexual) misconduct;
4. To refrain from lying (speaking truth always);
5. To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness (specifically, drugs and
alcohol).
Philosophy
The word "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek (philosophia), which literally
means "love of wisdom". The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has
been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras. Philosophy is the study of general and
fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values,
reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such
problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. In
more casual speech, by extension, "philosophy" can refer to "the most basic beliefs, concepts,
and attitudes of an individual or group". Traditionally, there are five main branches of
philosophy which belong –
1)pure philosophy;
Metaphysics, which deals with the fundamental questions of reality.
Epistemology, which deals with our concept of knowledge, how we learn and what we
can know.

12. Logic, which studies the rules of valid reasoning and argumentation
Ethics, or moral philosophy, which is concerned with human values and how individuals
12
should act.
Aesthetics or esthetics, which deals with the notion of beauty and the philosophy of art.
2) Applied philosophy for example:Philosophy of eductation ,Philosophy of
language,Philosophy of mind,Philosophy of religion,Philosophy of science,Political philosophy
Eastern philosophy (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and early Western
philosophy are similar in their interest in matters of basic significance to human existence. There
were, however, some important, interrelated, differences.
1). Early Western philosophy and science were influenced by the concept of 'God as King
of the universe'. As King, God made laws that the natural world obeys (e.g. the 'law of gravity').
The role of philosophy and science was to discover the laws that govern the behavior of the
universe. In Eastern philosophy, however, the natural world does not follow laws, it simply 'is'.
Humans can look for regularities and pattern in the flow of nature, but any 'laws' thus detected
are the product of human conception, a way of organizing our experiences, and are not the
underlying basis of the phenomena being observed.
2) Both the Western and the Eastern approach share a concept that a deeper
understanding of reality is possible than is normally available in everyday experience. The
approaches differ significantly, however, in how to develop that understanding. The Western
approach to a deeper understanding involves the application of symbolic thought (i.e. words and
mathematics). In other words, the nature of reality can be discovered by thinking about it the
right way. Science relies upon a specific thinking processes (logic) while faith relies upon
specific thoughts (dogma). In the Eastern approach, thinking moves us away from understanding
reality. When we think we transfer our attention away from reality to the world of symbols, and
an irretrievable difference lies between the symbol and what it represents. In the Eastern
approach, the nature of reality is discovered by experiencing it directly, without thoughts. This is
accomplished through a variety of meditative processes.
3) In the Western approach, both religious and scientific, the verbal or mathematical
models of reality are evaluated along the criterion of Truth. A model is expected to accurately
express the true nature of reality. In the Eastern approach, however, verbal models concern more
how to experience reality, and are much less concerned about how to think about reality. They
are evaluated on their effectiveness rather than on their truth. The difference between verbal
models in the two approaches is essentially the difference between a text book on organic
chemistry and a cook book.
4) Most of Eastern philosophy especially Indian thought can not be separated from
religion. Both views and religion lead man to salvation, the distinction of all suffering. Western
philosophy concerns only rational and application to society and individual solution. It is quite
intellectual not spiritual as found in Eastern thought
2.1 The Origins of Western Thought
Philosophy as a discipline isn't easy to define precisely. Issuing from a sense of wonderment
about life and the world, it often involves a keen interest in major questions about ourselves, our
experience, and our place in the universe as a whole. But philosophy is also reflectively
concerned with the methods its practitioners employ in the effort to resolve such questions.

13. 13
Emerging as a central feature of Western culture, philosophy is a tradition of thinking and
writing about particular issues in special ways.
Thus, philosophy must be regarded both as content and as activity: It considers alternative
views of what is real and the development of reasons for accepting them. It requires both a
careful, sympathetic reading of classical texts and a critical, logical examination of
the arguments they express. It offers all of us the chance to create and adopt significant beliefs
about life and the world, but it also requires each of us to acquire the habits of criticical
thinking. Philosophy is both sublime and nitpicking.
Since our personal growth in these matters naturally retraces the process of cultural
development, study of the history of philosophy in our culture provides an excellent introduction
to the discipline as a whole. Here our aim is to examine the appearance of Western philosophy
as an interesting and valuable component of our cultural heritage.
2.1.1 Greek Philosophy
Abstract thought about the ultimate nature of the world and of human life began to appear in
cultures all over the world during the sixth century B.C.E., as an urge to move beyond
superstition toward explanation. We focus here on its embodiment among the ancient Greeks,
whose active and tumultuous social life provided ample opportunities for the expression of
philosophical thinking of three sorts:
 Speculative thinking expresses human curiosity about the world, striving to
understand in natural (rather than super-natural) terms how things really are, what
they are made of, and how they function.
 Practical thinking emphasizes the desire to guide conduct by comprehending the
nature of life and the place of human beings and human behavior in the greater
scheme of reality.
 Critical thinking (the hallmark of philosophy itself) involves a careful examination
of the foundations upon which thinking of any sort must rely, trying to achieve an
effective method for assessing the reliability of positions adopted on the significant
issues.
Beginning with clear examples of thinking of the first two sorts, we will see the gradual
emergence of inclinations toward the third.
Milesian Speculation
During the sixth century, in the Greek colony at Miletus, a group of thinkers began to engage
in an extended exploration of the speculative issues. Although these Milesians wrote little
themselves, other ancient authorities recorded some of their central tenets. Their central urge
was to show that the complex world has a simple, permanent underpinning in the reality of a
single kind of stuff from which all else emerges.
The philosopher Thales, for example, is remembered as having asserted that all comes from
water. (Fragments) Although we have no record of the reasoning that led Thales to this
conclusion, it isn't hard to imagine what it might have been. If we suppose that the ultimate stuff
of the world must be chosen from among things familiar to us, water isn't a bad choice: most of
the earth is covered with it, it appears in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms, and it is clearly
essential to the existence of life. Everything is moist.
Thales's student Anaximander, however, found this answer far too simple. Proper attention to
the changing face of the universe, he supposed, requires us to consider the cyclical interaction of

14. things of at least four sorts: the hot, the cold, the dry, and the wet. (Fragments) Anaximander
held that all of these elements originally arise from a primal, turbulent mass, the the
Boundless or Infinite {Gk. απειρων [apeirôn]}. It is only by a gradual process of distillation that
everything else emerges—earth, air, fire, water, of course—and even living things evolve.
The next Milesian, Anaximenes, returned to the conviction that there must be a single kind of
stuff at the heart of everything, and he proposed vapor or mist {Gk. αερ [aer]} as the most likely
candidate. (Fragments) Not only does this warm, wet air combine two of the four elements
together, but it also provides a familiar pair of processes for changes in its state: condensation
and evaporation. Thus, in its most rarified form of breath or spirit, Anaximenes's air constitutes
the highest representation of life.
14
As interesting as Milesian speculations are, they embody only the most primitive variety of
philosophical speculation. Although they disagreed with each other on many points, each of the
thinkers appears to have been satisfied with the activity of proposing his own views in relative
isolation from those of his teacher or contemporaries. Later generations initiated the move
toward critical thinking by arguing with each other.
Pythagorean Life
The Greek colony in Italy at the same time devoted much more concern to practical matters.
Followers of the legendary Pythagoras developed a comprehensive view of a human life in
harmony with all of the natural world. Since the Pythagoreans persisted for many generations as
a quasi-religious sect, protecting themselves behind a veil of secrecy, it is difficult to recover a
detailed account of the original doctrines of their leader, but the basic outlines are clear.
Pythagoras was interested in mathematics: he discovered a proof of the geometrical theorem
that still bears his name, described the relationship between the length of strings and the musical
pitches they produce when plucked, and engaged in extensive observation of the apparent
motion of celestial objects. In each of these aspects of the world, Pythagoras saw order, a
regularity of occurrences that could be described in terms of mathematical ratios.
The aim of human life, then, must be to live in harmony with this natural regularity. Our lives
are merely small portions of a greater whole. (Fragments) Since the spirit (or breath) of human
beings is divine air, Pythagoras supposed, it is naturally immortal; its existence naturally
outlives the relatively temporary functions of the human body. Pythagoreans therefore believed
that the soul "transmigrates" into other living bodies at death, with animals and plants
participating along with human beings in a grand cycle of reincarnation.
Even those who did not fully accept the religious implications of Pythagorean thought were
often influenced by its thematic structure. As we'll see later, many Western philosophers have
been interested in the immortality of the human soul and in the relationship between human
beings and the natural world.
During the fifth century B.C.E., Greek philosophers began to engage in extended
controversies that represent a movement toward the development of genuinely critical thinking.
Although they often lacked enough common ground upon which to adjudicate their disputes and
rarely engaged in the self-criticism that is characteristic of genuine philosophy, these thinkers
did try to defend their own positions and attack those of their rivals by providing attempts at
rational argumentation.
Heraclitus and the Eleatics

15. 15
Dissatisfied with earlier efforts to comprehend the world, Heraclitus of Ephesus earned his
reputation as "the Riddler" by delivering his pronouncements in deliberately contradictory (or at
least paradoxical) form. The structure of puzzling statements, he believed, mirrors the chaotic
structure of thought, which in turn is parallel to the complex, dynamic character of the world
itself.
Rejecting the Pythagorean ideal of harmony as peaceful coexistence, Heraclitus saw the
natural world as an environment of perpetual struggle and strife. "All is flux," he supposed;
everything is changing all the time. As Heraclitus is often reported to have said, "Upon those
who step into the same river, different waters flow." The tension and conflict which govern
everything in our experience are moderated only by the operation of a universal principle of
proportionality in all things.
Against this position, the Eleatics defended the unity and stability of the
universe. Their leader,Parmenides supposed that language embodies a logic of perfect
immutability: "What is, is." (Fragments) Since everything is what it is and not something else,
he argued in Περι Φυσις (On Nature), it can never correct to say that one and the same thing
both has and does not have some feature, so the supposed change from having the feature to not
having it is utterly impossible. Of course, change does seem to occur, so we must distinguish
sharply between the many mere appearances that are part of our experience and the one true
reality that is discernible only by intellect.
Other Eleatics delighted in attacking Heraclitus with arguments designed to show the
absurdity of his notion that the world is perpetual changing. Zeno of Elea in particular fashioned
four paradoxes about motion, covering every possible combination of continuous or discrete
intervals and the direct motion of single bodies or the relative motion of several:
1. The Dichotomy: It is impossible to move around a racetrack since we must first go
halfway, and before that go half of halfway, and before that half of half of halfway,
and . . . . If space is infinitely divisible, we have infinitely many partial distances to
cover, and cannot get under way in any finite time.
2. Achilles and the Tortoise: Similarly, given a ten meter head-start, a tortoise can
never be overtaken by Achilles in a race, since Achilles must catch up to where the
tortoise began. But by then the tortoise has moved ahead, and Achilles must catch up
to that new point, and so on. Again, the suppostition that things really move leads to
an infinite regress.
3. The Arrow: If, on the other hand, motion occurs in discrete intervals, then at any
given moment during its flight through the air, an arrow is not moving. But since its
entire flight comprises only such moments, the arrow never moves.
4. The Stadium: Similarly, if three chariots of equal length, one stationary and the
others travelling in opposite directions, were to pass by each other at the same time,
then each of the supposedly moving ones would take only half as long to pass the
other as to pass the third, making 1=2!
The patent absurdity that results in each of these cases, Zeno concluded, shows that motion (and,
hence, change of any sort) is impossible. (Fragments)
What all of this raises is the question of "the one and the many." How can there be any
genuine unity in a world that appears to be multiple? To the extent that a satisfactory answer
involves a distinction betweenappearance and reality and the use of dialectical reasoning in the
effort to understand what is real, this pursuit of the Eleatics set important standards for the future
development of Western thought.

16. 16
Empedocles and Anaxagoras
In the next generation, Empedocles introduced the plurality from the very beginning.
Everything in the world, he supposed, is ultimately made up of some mixture of the four
elements, considered as irreducible components. The unique character of each item depends
solely upon the special balance of the four that is present only in it. Change takes place because
there are two competing forces at work in the world. Love {Gk. φιλια [philia]} is always putting
things together, while Strife {Gk. νεικος [neikos]} is always tearing them apart. The interplay of
the two constitutes the activity we see in nature.
His rival, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, returned in some measure to the Milesian effort to
identify a common stuff out of which everything is composed. Matter is, indeed, a chaotic
primordial mass, infinitely divisible in principle, yet in which nothing is differentiated. But
Anaxagoras held that order is brought to this mass by the power of Mind {Gk. νους [nous]}, the
source of all explanation by reference to cosmic intelligence. Although later philosophers
praised Anaxagoras for this explicit introduction of mind into the description of the world, it is
not clear whether he meant by his use of this word what they would suppose. (Fragments)
Greek Atomism
The inclination to regard the world as pluralistic took its most extreme form in the work of
the ancientatomists. Although the basic outlines of the view were apparently developed
by Leucippus, the more complete exposition by Democritus, including a discussion of its ethical
implications, was more influential. Our best source of information about the atomists is the
poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by the later Roman philosopher Lucretius.
For the atomists, all substance is material and the true elements of the natural world are the
tiny, indivisible, unobservable solid bodies called "atoms." Since these particles exist, packed
more or less densely together, in an infinite empty space, their motion is not only possible but
ineveitable. Everything that happens in the world, the atomists supposed, is a result of
microscopic collisions among atoms. Thus, asEpicurus would later make clear, the actions and
passions of human life are also inevitable consequences of material motions. Although atomism
has a decidedly modern ring, notice that, since it could not be based on observation of
microscopic particles in the way that modern science is, ancient atomism was merely another
fashionable form of cosmological speculation.
The Sophists
Fifth-century Athens was a politically troubled city-state: it underwent a sequence of external
attacks and internal rebellions that no social entity could envy. During several decades,
however, the Athenians maintained a nominally democratic government in which (at least some)
citizens had the opportunity to participate directly in important social decisions. This contributed
to a renewed interest in practical philosophy. Itinerate teachers known as the sophists offered to
provide their students with training in the effective exercise of citizenship.
Since the central goal of political manipulation was to outwit and publicly defeat an
opponent, the rhetorical techniques of persuasion naturally played an important role. But the
best of the Sophists also made use of Eleatic methods of logical argumentation in pursuit of
similar aims. Driven by the urge to defend expedient solutions to particular problems, their

17. Socrates
469 BC – 399 BC
17
efforts often encouraged relativism or evan an extreme skepticism about the likelihood of
discovering the truth.
A Sophist named Gorgias, for example, argued (perhaps ironically) that: (a) Nothing exists;
(b) If it did, we could not know it; and (c) If we knew anything, we could not talk about
it. Protagoras, on the other hand, supposed that since human beings are "the measure of all
things," it follows that truth is subjectively unique to each individual. In a more political vein,
Thrasymachus argued that it is better to perform unjust actions than to be the victim of the
injustice committed by others. The ideas and methods of these thinkers provided the lively
intellectual environment in which the greatest Athenian philosophers thrived.
Socrates: Philosophical Life
The most interesting and influential thinker in the fifth century was Socrates, whose
dedication to careful reasoning transformed the entire enterprise. Since he sought genuine
knowledge rather than mere victory over an opponent, Socrates employed the same logical
tricks developed by the Sophists to a new purpose, the pursuit of truth. Thus, his willingness to
call everything into question and his determination to accept nothing less than an adequate
account of the nature of things make him the first clear exponent of critical philosophy.
Although he was well known during his own time for his conversational skills and public
teaching, Socrates wrote nothing, so we are dependent upon his students
(especially Xenophon and Plato) for any detailed knowledge of his methods and results. The
trouble is that Plato was himself a philosopher who often injected his own theories into the
dialogues he presented to the world as discussions between Socrates and other famous figures of
the day. Nevertheless, it is usually assumed that at least the early dialogues of Plato provide a
(fairly) accurate representation of Socrates himself.
Euthyphro: What is Piety?
In the Ευθυφρων (Euthyphro), for example, Socrates engaged in a sharply
critical conversation with an over-confident young man. Finding Euthyphro
perfectly certain of his own ethical rectitude even in the morally ambiguous
situation of prosecuting his own father in court, Socrates asks him to define
what "piety" (moral duty) really is. The demand here is for something more than
merely a list of which actions are, in fact, pious; instead, Euthyphro is supposed
to provide a general definition that captures the very essence of what piety is.
But every answer he offers is subjected to the full force of Socrates's critical
thinking, until nothing certain remains.
Specifically, Socrates systematically refutes Euthyphro's suggestion that what makes right
actions right is that the gods love (or approve of) them. First, there is the obvious problem that,
since questions of right and wrong often generate interminable disputes, the gods are likely to
disagree among themselves about moral matters no less often than we do, making some actions
both right and wrong. Socrates lets Euthypro off the hook on this one by aggreeing—only for
purposes of continuing the discussion—that the gods may be supposed to agree perfectly with
each other. (Notice that this problem arises only in a polytheistic culture.)

18. 18
More significantly, Socrates generates a formal dilemma from a (deceptively) simple
question: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by
the gods?" (Euthyphro 10 a) Neither alternative can do the work for which Euthyphro intends
his definition of piety. If right actions are pious only because the gods love them, then moral
rightness is entirely arbitrary, depending only on the whims of the gods. If, on the other hand,
the gods love right actions only because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine
source of values, which we might come to know independently of their love.
In fact, this dilemma proposes a significant difficulty at the heart of any effort to define
morality by reference to an external authority. (Consider, for example, parallel questions with a
similar structure: "Do my parents approve of this action because it is right, or is it right because
my parents approve of it?" or "Does the College forbid this activity because it is wrong, or is it
wrong because the College forbids it?") On the second alternative in each case, actions become
right (or wrong) solely because of the authority's approval (or disapproval); its choice, then, has
no rational foundation, and it is impossible to attribute laudable moral wisdom to the authority
itself. So this horn is clearly unacceptable. But on the first alternative, the authority approves (or
disapproves) of certain actions because they are already right (or wrong) independently of it, and
whatever rational standard it employs as a criterion for making this decision must be accessible
to us as well as to it. Hence, we are in principle capable of distinguishing right from wrong on
our own.
Thus, an application of careful techniques of reasoning results in genuine (if negative)
progress in the resolution of a philosophical issue. Socrates's method of insistent questioning at
least helps us to eliminate one bad answer to a serious question. At most, it points us toward a
significant degree of intellectual independence. The character of Euthyphro, however, seems
unaffected by the entire process, leaving the scene at the end of the dialogue no less self-confident
than he had been at its outset. The use of Socratic methods, even when they clearly
result in a rational victory, may not produce genuine conviction in those to whom they are
applied.
Apology: The Examined Life
Because of his political associations with an earlier regime, the Athenian democracy
put Socrates on trial, charging him with undermining state religion and corrupting young
people. The speech he offered in his own defense, as reported in Plato's Απολογημα (Apology),
provides us with many reminders of the central features of Socrates's approach to philosophy
and its relation to practical life.
Ironic Modesty:
Explaining his mission as a philosopher, Socrates reports an oracular message telling
him that "No one is wiser than you." (Apology 21a) He then proceeds through a
series of ironic descriptions of his efforts to disprove the oracle by conversing with
notable Athenians who must surely be wiser. In each case, however, Socrates
concludes that he has a kind of wisdom that each of them lacks: namely, an open
awareness of his own ignorance.
Questioning Habit:
The goal of Socratic interrogation, then, is to help individuals to achieve genuine
self-knowledge, even if it often turns out to be negative in character. As his cross-examination
of Meletus shows, Socrates means to turn the methods of the Sophists
inside-out, using logical nit-picking to expose (rather than to create) illusions about
reality. If the method rarely succeeds with interlocutors, it can nevertheless be

19. effectively internalized as a dialectical mode of reasoning in an effort to understand
everything.
19
Devotion to Truth:
Even after he has been convicted by the jury, Socrates declines to abandon his
pursuit of the truth in all matters. Refusing to accept exile from Athens or a
commitment to silence as his penalty, he maintains that public discussion of the great
issues of life and virtue is a necessary part of any valuable human life. "The
unexamined life is not worth living." (Apology 38a) Socrates would rather die than
give up philosophy, and the jury seems happy to grant him that wish.
Dispassionate Reason:
Even when the jury has sentenced him to death, Socrates calmly delivers his final
public words, a speculation about what the future holds. Disclaiming any certainty
about the fate of a human being after death, he nevertheless expresses a continued
confidence in the power of reason, which he has exhibited (while the jury has not).
Who really wins will remain unclear.
Plato's dramatic picture of a man willing to face death rather than abandoning his
commitment to philosophical inquiry offers up Socrates as a model for all future philosophers.
Perhaps few of us are presented with the same stark choice between philosophy and death, but
all of us are daily faced with opportunities to decide between convenient conventionality and
our devotion to truth and reason. How we choose determines whether we, like Socrates, deserve
to call our lives philosophical.
Crito: The Individual and the State
Plato's description of Socrates's final days continued in the Κριτων (Crito). Now in prison
awaiting execution, Socrates displays the same spirit of calm reflection about serious matters
that had characterized his life in freedom. Even the patent injustice of his fate at the hands of the
Athenian jury produces in Socrates no bitterness or anger. Friends arrive at the jail with a
foolproof plan for his escape from Athens to a life of voluntary exile, but Socrates calmly
engages them in a rational debate about the moral value of such an action.
Of course Crito and the others know their teacher well, and they come prepared to argue the
merits of their plan. Escaping now would permit Socrates to fulfil his personal obligations in
life. Moreover, if he does not follow the plan, many people will suppose that his friends did not
care enough for him to arrange his escape. Therefore, in order to honor his commitments and
preserve the reputation of his friends, Socrates ought to escape from jail.
But Socrates dismisses these considerations as irrelevant to a decision about what action is
truly right. What other people will say clearly doesn't matter. As he had argued in the Apology,
the only opinion that counts is not that of the majority of people generally, but rather that of the
one individual who truly knows. The truth alone deserves to be the basis for decisions about
human action, so the only proper apporoach is to engage in the sort of careful moral reasoning
by means of which one may hope to reveal it.
Socrates's argument proceeds from the statement of a perfectly general moral principle to its
application in his particular case:
 One ought never to do wrong (even in response to the evil committed by another).
 But it is always wrong to disobey the state.
 Hence, one ought never to disobey the state.

20. And since avoiding the sentence of death handed down by the Athenian jury would be an action
in disobedience the state, it follows Socrates ought not to escape.
20
The argument is a valid one, so we are committed to accepting its conclusion if we believe
that its premises are true. The general commitment to act rightly is fundamental to a moral life,
and it does seem clear that Socrates's escape would be a case of disobedience. But what about
the second premise, the claim that it is always wrong for an individual to disobey the state?
Surely that deserves further examination. In fact, Socrates pictures the laws of Athens proposing
two independent lines of argument in favor of this claim:
First, the state is to us as a parent is to a child, and since it is always wrong for a child to
disobey a parent, it follows that it is always wrong to disobey the state. (Crito 50e) Here we
might raise serious doubts about the legitimacy of the analogy between our parents and the state.
Obedience to our parents, after all, is a temporary obligation that we eventually outgrow by
learning to make decisions for ourselves, while Socrates means to argue that obeying the state is
a requirement right up until we die. Here it might be useful to apply the same healthy disrespect
for moral authority that Socrates himself expressed in theEuthyphro.
The second argument is that it is always wrong to break an agreement, and since continuing
to live voluntarily in a state constitutes an agreement to obey it, it is wrong to disobey that state.
(Crito 52e) This may be a better argument; only the second premise seems open to question.
Explicit agreements to obey some authority are common enough—in a matriculation pledge or a
contract of employment, for example—but most of us have not entered into any such agreement
with our government. Even if we suppose, as the laws suggest, that the agreement is an implicit
one to which we are committed by our decision to remain within their borders, it is not always
obvious that our choice of where to live is entirely subject to our individual voluntary control.
Nevertheless, these considerations are serious ones. Socrates himself was entirely convinced
that the arguments hold, so he concluded that it would be wrong for him to escape from prison.
As always, of course, his actions conformed to the outcome of his reasoning. Socrates chose to
honor his commitment to truth and morality even though it cost him his life.
Plato: Immortality and the Forms
The most illustrious student Socrates had in philosophy was Plato, whose beautifully
written dialogues not only offered an admiring account of the teachings of his master but also
provided him with an opportunity to develop and express his own insightful philosophical
views. In the remainder of our readings from Platonic dialogues, we will assume that the
"Socrates" who speaks is merely a fictional character created by the author, attributing the
philosophical doctrines to Plato himself. In the middle and late dialogues, Plato employed the
conversational structure as a way of presenting dialectic, a pattern of argumentation that
examines each issue from several sides, exploring the interplay of alternative ideas while
subjecting all of them to evaluation by reason.
Plato was a more nearly systematic thinker than Socrates had been. He established his own
school of philosophy, the Academy, during the fourth century, and he did not hesitate to offer a
generation of young Athenians the positive results of his brilliant reasoning. Although he shared
Socrates's interest in ethical and social philosophy, Plato was much more concerned to establish
his views on matters of metaphysics and epistemology, trying to discover the ultimate
constituents of reality and the grounds for our knowledge of them.

21. Plato
428 – 348 BC
21
Meno
Plato's Μενων (Meno) is a transitional dialogue: although it is Socratic in tone,
it introduces some of the epistemological and metaphysical themes that we will see
developed more fully in the middle dialogues, which are clearly Plato's own. In a
setting uncluttered by concern for Socrates's fate, it centers on the general
problem of the origins of our moral knowledge.
The Greek notion of αρετη [aretê], or virtue, is that of an ability or skill in some
particular respect. The virtue of a baker is what enables the baker to produce good
bread; the virtue of the gardener is what enables the gardener to grow nice flowers;
etc. In this sense, virtues clearly differ from person to person and from goal to goal. But
Socrates is interested in true virtue, which (like genuine health) should be the same for
everyone. This broad concept of virtue may include such specific virtues as courage, wisdom, or
moderation, but it should nevertheless be possible to offer a perfectly general description of
virtue as a whole, the skill or ability to be fully human. But what is that?
When Meno suggests that virtue is simply the desire for good things, Socrates argues that this
cannot be the case. Since different human beings are unequal in virtue, virtue must be something
that varies among them, he argues, but desire for one believes to be good is perfectly universal
Since no human being ever knowingly desires what is bad, differences in their conduct must be
a consequence of differences in what they know. (Meno 77e) This is a remarkable claim.
Socrates holds that knowing what is right automatically results in the desire to do it, even though
this feature of our moral experience could be doubted. (Aristotle, for example, would
later explicitly disagree with this view, carefully outlining the conditions under which weakness
of will interferes with moral conduct.) In this context, however, the Socratic position effectively
shifts the focus of the dialogue from morality to epistemology: the question really at stake is
how we know what virtue is.
The Basis for Virtue
For questions of this sort, Socrates raises a serious dilemma: how can we ever learn what we
do not know? Either we already know what we are looking for, in which case we don't need to
look, or we don't know what we're looking for, in which case we wouldn't recognize it if we
found it. (Meno 80e) The paradox of knowledge is that, in the most fundamental questions about
our own nature and function, it seems impossible for us to learn anything. The only escape,
Socrates proposed, is to acknowledge that we already know what we need to know. This is the
doctrine of recollection, Plato's conviction that our most basic knowledge comes when we bring
back to mind our acquaintance with eternal realities during a previous existence of the soul.
The example offered in this dialogue is discovery of an irrational number, the square root
of 2. Socrates leads an uneducated boy through the sophisticated geometrical demonstration
with careful questions, showing that the boy somehow already knows the correct answers on his
own. All of us have had the experience (usually in mathematical contexts, Plato believed) of
suddenly realizing the truth of something of which we had been unaware, and it does often feel
as if we are not really discovering something entirely new but rather merely remembering
something we already knew. Such experiences lend some plausibility to Plato's claim that
recollection may be the source of our true opinions about the most fundamental features of
reality. (Meno 85d) What is more, this doctrine provides an explanation of the effectiveness of
Socratic method: the goal is not to convey new information but rather to elicit awareness of
something that an individual already knows implicitly.

22. 22
The further question of the dialogue is whether or not virtue can be taught. On the one hand,
it seems that virtue must be a kind of wisdom, which we usually assume to be one of the
acquirable benefits of education. On the other hand, if virtue could be taught, we should be able
to identify both those who teach it and those who learn from them, which we cannot easily do in
fact. (Meno 96c) (Here Socrates offers a scathing attack on the sophists, who had often claimed
that they were effective teachers of virtue.) So it seems that virtue cannot be taught. Plato later
came to disagree with his teacher on this point, arguing that genuine knowledge of virtue is
attainable through application of appropriate educational methods.
Perhaps our best alternative, Socrates held, is to suppose that virtue is a (divinely bestowed?)
true opinion that merely happens to lack the sort of rational justification which would earn it the
status of certain knowledge. Whether or not we agree with this rather gloomy conclusion about
the unteachability of virtue, the distinction between genuine knowledge and mere true opinion is
of the greatest importance. For philosophical knowledge, it is not enough to accept beliefs that
happen to be true; we must also have reasons that adequately support them.
Phaedo
The Φαιδων (Phaedo) concludes Plato's description of the life of Socrates. Its final pages
provide what appears to be an accurate account of the death of one of the most colorful
personalities in the history of philosophy. (Phaedo 115b) But most of the dialogue is filled with
Plato's own effort to establish with perfect certainty what Socrates had only been willing to
speculate about in the Apology, that the human soul is truly immortal.
As Plato saw it, hope of survival comes naturally to the philosopher, whose whole life is one
of preparation for death. What happens when we die, after all, is that the human soul separates
from the human body, and it is concern for the soul rather than the body that characterizes a
philosophical life. In fact, Plato argued that since knowledge of the most important matters in
life is clearest to the soul alone, its customary attachment to a mortal body often serves only as a
distraction from what counts. Here I am, thinking seriously about eternal truth, and then . . . I get
hungry or sleepy, and the needs of the body interfere with my study. So, Plato concluded, the
philosopher may properly look forward to death as a release from bodily limitations.
(Phaedo 67d)
But is there really any reason to believe that the soul can continue to exist and function after
the body dies? Plato supposed that there is, and his arguments on this point occupy the bulk of
the Phaedo.
The Cycle of Opposites
The first argument is based on the cyclical interchange by means of which every quality
comes into being from its own opposite. Hot comes from cold and cold from hot: that is, hot
things are just cold things that have warmed up, and cold things are just hot things that have
cooled off. Similarly, people who are awake are just people who were asleep but then woke up,
while people who are asleep are just people who were awake but then dozed off.
But then, Plato argues by analogy, death must come from life and life from death.
(Phaedo 71c-d) That is, people who are dead are just people who were alive but then
experienced the transition we call dying, and people who are alive are just people who were
among the dead but then experienced the transition we call being born. This suggests a perpetual
recycling of human souls from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead and back.
If this is an accurate image of reality, it would certainly follow that my soul will continue to
exist after the death of my body. But it also supposes that my soul existed before the birth of my

23. 23
body as well. This may seem like an extravagant speculation, but Plato held that there is ample
evidence of its truth in the course of ordinary human life and learning.
The Forms
As Socrates had proposed in the Meno, the most important varieties of human knowledge are
really cases of recollection. Consider, for example, our knowledge of equality. We have no
difficulty in deciding whether or not two people are perfectly equal in height. In fact, they are
never exactly the same height, since we recognize that it would always be possible to discover
some difference—however minute—with a more careful, precise measurement. By this
standard, all of the examples we perceive in ordinary life only approach, but never fully attain,
perfect equality. But notice that since we realize the truth of this important qualification on our
experience, we must somehow know for sure what true equality is, even though we have never
seen it. (Phaedo 75b)
Plato believed that the same point could be made with regard to many other abstract
concepts: even though we perceive only their imperfect instances, we have genuine knowledge
of truth, goodness, and beauty no less than of equality. Things of this sort are the Platonic
Forms, abstract entities that exist independently of the sensible world. Ordinary objects are
imperfect and changeable, but they faintly copy the perfect and immutable Forms. Thus, all of
the information we acquire about sensible objects (like knowing what the high and low
temperatures were yesterday) is temporary, insignificant, and unreliable, while genuine
knowledge of the Forms themselves (like knowing that 93 - 67 = 26) perfectly certain forever.
Since we really do have knowledge of these supra-sensible realities, knowledge that we
cannot possibly have obtained through any bodily experience, Plato argued, it follows that this
knowledge must be a form of recollection and that our souls must have been acquainted with the
Forms prior to our births. But in that case, the existence of our mortal bodies cannot be essential
to the existence of our souls—before birth or after death—and we are therefore immortal.
A general metaphysical and epistemological theory. Central to all of Plato’s thought, but
nowhere systematically argued for. Not stated in any one dialogue; we must cull from several
(but principally Phaedo and Republic). A theory of postulated abstract objects, deriving from the
Socratic “What is X?” question, which presupposes that there is a single correct answer to the
“What is X?” question.
The correct answer is not a matter of convention, of what we all (or most of us) think.
What makes such an answer correct: it is an accurate description of an independent entity, a
Form.
Forms are thus mind-independent entities: their existence and nature is independent of
our beliefs and judgments about them.
The Phaedo contains an extended description of the characteristics and functions of the
forms:
Unchangeable
Eternal
Intelligible, not perceptible
Divine
Incorporeal (passim)
Causes of being (“The one over the many”)
Are unqualifiedly what their instances are only with qualification
Forms are sometimes called “Ideas” - Plato’s words are eidos and idea, and the latter
suggests the English “idea.” But this gives the wrong idea. For Plato’s Forms are not mental

24. 24
entities, nor even mind-dependent. They are independently existing entities whose existence
and nature are graspable only by the mind, even though they do not depend on being so
grasped in order to exist. The forms are postulated to solve certain philosophical problems:
1) Epistemological: what are the objects of knowledge? How is knowledge possible? How is
knowledge distinguished from (mere) belief or opinion?
Plato’s objection to the physical universe: it’s Heraclitean (as he conceived Heraclitus’s
theory). Objects in flux can’t be known.
2) Metaphysical: What things are real? Is there a mind-independent reality? Is there anything
permanent behind the changing phenomena that can be perceived?
The two-worlds theory: Cf. the Allegory of the Cave in Republic VII. The intelligible
world is Parmenidean, the visible world is Heraclitean. Forms in the intelligible realm are
postulated to be the objects of knowledge. The metaphysical theory is thus designed to fit
epistemological requirements.
3)Moral: can there be moral knowledge? Are there objective moral truths? Is morality
founded in nature or convention?
For Plato, goodness and being are intimately connected. Plato’s universe is value-ridden
at its very foundations: value is there from the start, not imposed upon an antiseptic, value-neutral
reality by the likes of us - external imposers of value on what in itself has no intrinsic
value.
This connection explains why it is a single theory that aims to answer both metaphysical
and ethical questions. Understanding how this can be so is one of the hardest - but most
important - things to do in understanding Plato.
The Form of the Good is at the top of the hierarchy of Forms, illuminating all of the others
(as the sun illuminates objects in the visible realm, to use Plato’s famous metaphor from the
Republic).
An interpretation of this: knowing what something is can’t be divorced from knowing
whether it's good. One can’t know what it is to be an F unless one knows what it is to be a
good F: a non-defective example of its kind. Here is one way to see the connection: imagine a
good head of lettuce. Now imagine another head of lettuce, but not as good as the first. And
so on. There comes a point at which our example becomes so bad that it ceases to be a head
of lettuce at all. If there were no connection between goodness and being, there would be no
reason to expect this.
4)Semantical: what do general terms stand for? What is it that we grasp when we understand
something? Cf. again the Allegory of the Cave in Republic VII.
Immortality of the Soul
Use of the dialogue as a literary device made it easy for Plato not only to present his own
position (in the voice of Socrates) but also to consider (in the voices of other characters)
significant objections that might be raised against it. This doesn't mean that philosophy is merely
an idle game of argument and counter-argument, he pointed out, because it remains our goal to
discover the one line of argument that leads to the truth. The philosopher cautiously investigates
every possibility and examines every side of an issue, precisely because that increases the
chances of arriving eventually at a correct account of reality.
Thus, Simmias suggests that the relationship between the soul and the body may be like that
between musical harmony and the strings of a lyre that produces it. In this case, even though the

25. soul is significantly different from the body, it could not reasonably be expected to survive the
utter destruction of that physical thing. (This is an early statement of a view of human nature
that would later come to be calledepiphenomenalism.) But Socrates replies that this analogy will
not hold, since the soul exercises direct control over the motions of the body, as the harmony
does not over those of the lyre. Plato's suggestion here seems to be that it would become
impossible to provide an adequate account of human morality, of the proper standards for acting
rightly, if Simmias were right.
25
Cebes offers a more difficult objection: what if the body is like a garment worn by the soul?
Even though I continue to exist longer than any single article of my clothing does, there will
come a time when I die, and some of my clothes will probably continue to exist. In the same
way, even if the argument from opposites has shown that the soul can in principle outlast the life
of any particular human body, there might come a time when the soul itself ceases to exist. Even
if there is life after death, Cebes suggests, the soul may not be truly immortal.
In response to this criticism, Plato significantly revised the argument from opposities by
incorporating an additional conception of the role of the Forms. Each Form, he now maintains,
is the cause of all of every particular instance that bears its name: the form of Beauty causes the
beauty of any beautiful thing; the form of Equality causes the equality of any pair of equal
things; etc. But then, since the soul is living, it must participate in the Form of Life, and thus it
cannot ever die. (Phaedo 105d) The soul is perfectly and certainly imperishable, not only for
this life, but forever.
Despite the apparent force of these logical arguments, Plato chose to conclude the Phaedo by
supplementing them with a mythical image of life after death. This concrete picture of the
existence of a world beyond our own is imagined, not reasoned, so it cannot promise to deliver
the same perfect representation of the truth. But if we are not fully convinced by the certainty of
rational arguments, we may yet take some comfort from the suggestions of a pleasant story.
Plato: The State and the Soul
The Republic
The most comprehensive statement of Plato's mature philosophical views appears
in Πολιτεια (The Republic), an extended treatment of the most fundamental principles for the
conduct of human life. Using the character "Socrates" as a fictional spokesman, Plato considers
the nature and value of justice and the other virtues as they appear both in the structure of
society as a whole and in the personality of an individual human being. This naturally leads to
discussions of human nature, the achievement of knowledge, the distinction between appearance
and reality, the components of an effective education, and the foundations of morality.
Because it covers so many issues, The Republic can be read in several different ways: as a
treatise on political theory and practice, as a pedagogical handbook, or as a defence of ethical
conduct, for example. Although we'll take notice of each of these features along the way, our
primary focus in what follows will be on the basic metaphysical and epistemological issues,
foundational questions about who we are, what is real, and about how we know it. Read in this
fashion, the dialogue as a whole invites us to share in Plato's vision of our place within the
ultimate structure of reality.
What is Justice?

26. 26
Book I of The Republic appears to be a Socratic dialogue on the nature
of justice (Gk. δικαιωσυνη [dikaiôsunê]). As always, the goal of the discussion is to discover the
genuine nature of the subject at hand, but the process involves the proposal, criticism, and
rejection of several inadequate attempts at defining what justice really is.
The elderly, wealthy Cephalus suggests that justice involves nothing more than telling the
truth and repaying one's debts. But Socrates points out that in certain (admittedly unusual)
circumstances, following these simple rules without exception could produce disastrous results.
(Republic 331c) Returning a borrowed weapon to an insane friend, for example, would be an
instance of following the rule but would not seem to be an instance of just action. The
presentation of a counter-example of this sort tends to show that the proposed definition of
justice is incorrect, since its application does not correspond with our ordinary notion of justice.
In an effort to avoid such difficulties, Polemarchus offers a refinement of the definition by
proposing that justice means "giving to each what is owed." The new definition codifies
formally our deeply-entrenched practice of seeking always to help our friends and harm our
enemies. This evades the earlier counter-example, since the just act of refusing to return the
borrowed weapon would clearly benefit one's friend. But Socrates points out that harsh
treatment of our enemies is only likely to render them even more unjust than they already are.
(Republic 335d) Since, as we saw in the Phaedo, opposites invariably exclude each other, the
production of injustice could never be an element within the character of true justice; so this
definition, too, must be mistaken.
The Privilege of Power
At this point in the dialogue, Plato introduces Thrasymachus the sophist, another
fictionalized portrait of an historical personality. After impatiently dismissing what has gone
before, Thrasymachus recommends that we regard justice as the advantage of the stronger; those
in positions of power simply use their might to decree what shall be right. This, too, expresses a
fairly common (if somewhat pessimistic) view of the facts about social organization.
But of course Socrates has other ideas. For one thing, if the ruling party mistakenly legislates
to its own disadvantage, justice will require the rest of us to perform the (apparently)
contradictory feat of both doing what they decree and also doing what is best for them. More
significantly, Socrates argues that the best ruler must always be someone who knows how to
rule, someone who understands ruling as a craft. But since crafts of any sort invariably aim to
produce some external goal (Gk. τελος [télos]), good practitioners of each craft always act for
the sake of that goal, never in their own interest alone. Thus, good rulers, like good shepherds,
must try to do what is best for those who have been entrusted to them, rather than seeking their
own welfare. (Republic 342e)
Beaten down by the force of Socratic questioning, Thrasymachus lashes out bitterly and then
shifts the focus of the debate completely. If Socrates does happen to be right about the nature of
justice, he declares, then it follows that a life devoted to injustice is be more to one's advantage
than a life devoted to justice. Surely anyone would prefer to profit by committing an act of
injustice against another than to suffer as the victim of an act of injustice committed by someone
else. ("Do unto others before they do unto you.") Thus, according to Thrasymachus, injustice is
better than justice.
Some preliminary answers come immediately to mind: the personal rewards to be gained
from performing a job well are commonly distinct from its intrinsic aims; just people are rightly
regarded as superior to unjust people in intelligence and character; every society believes that
justice (as conceived in that society) is morally obligatory; and justice is the

27. 27
proper virtue (Gk. αρετη [aretê]) of the human soul. But if Socrates himself might have been
satisfied with responses of this sort, Plato the philosophical writer was not. There must be an
answer that derives more fundamentally from the nature of reality.
Is Justice Better than Injustice?
When Thrasymachus falls silent, other characters from the dialogue continue to pursue the
central questions: what is justice, how can we achieve it, and what is its value? Not everyone
will agree that justice should be defended as worthwhile for its own sake, rather than for the
extrinsic advantages that may result from its practice.
It helps to have a concrete example in mind. So Glaucon recounts the story of Gyges, the
shepherd who discovered a ring that rendered him invisible and immediately embarked on a life
of crime with perfect impunity. The point is to suggest that human beings—given an opportunity
to do so without being caught and therefore without suffering any punishment or loss of good
reputation—would naturally choose a life of injustice, in order to maximize their own interests.
Adeimantus narrows the discussion even further by pointing out that the personal benefits of
having a good reputation are often acquired by anyone who merely appears to act justly,
whether or not that person really does so. (Republic 363a) This suggests the possibility of
achieving the greatest possible advantage by having it both ways: act unjustly while preserving
the outward appearance of being just, instead of acting justly while risking the outward
appearance of injustice. In order to demonstrate once and for all that justice really is valuable for
its own sake alone, Plato must show that a life of the second sort is superior to a life of the first
sort.
Thrasymachus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus have given voice to a fundamental issue at the
heart of any effort to improve human conduct by appealing to the principles of moral
philosophy. If what I am morally required to do can (in some circumstances) be different from
what I would choose do for my own benefit, then why should I be moral? Plato wrote the
remainder of The Republic in an attempt to provide an adequate, satisfying answer to this
question.
After Book I, the entire dialogue is pervaded by an extended analogy between the justice of
individual human beings and the that of an entire society or city-state. Since the crucial elements
of justice may be easier to observe on the larger scale (Republic 369a), Plato began with a
detailed analysis of the formation, structure, and organization of an ideal state before applying
its results to a description of personal life.
Why We Form a Society
Imagining their likely origins in the prehistorical past, Plato argued that societies are
invariably formed for a particular purpose. Individual human beings are not self-sufficient; no
one working alone can acquire all of the genuine necessities of life. In order to resolve this
difficulty, we gather together into communities for the mutual achievement of our common
goals. This succeeds because we can work more efficiently if each of us specializes in the
practice of a specific craft: I make all of the shoes; you grow all of the vegetables; she does all
of the carpentry; etc. Thus, Plato held that separation of functions and specialization of labor are
the keys to the establishment of a worthwhile society.
The result of this original impulse is a society composed of many individuals, organized into
distinct classes (clothiers, farmers, builders, etc.) according to the value of their role in
providing some component part of the common good. But the smooth operation of the whole

28. society will require some additional services that become necessary only because of the creation
of the social organization itself—the adjudication of disputes among members and the defense
of the city against external attacks, for example. Therefore, carrying the principle of
specialization one step further, Plato proposed the establishment of an additional class of
citizens, the guardians who are responsible for management of the society itself.
In fact, Plato held that effective social life requires guardians of two distinct sorts: there must
be bothsoldiers whose function is to defend the state against external enemies and to enforce its
laws, and rulerswho resolve disagreements among citizens and make decisions about public
policy. The guardians collectively, then, are those individuals whose special craft is just the task
of governance itself.
28
Training the Guardians
In order to fulfill their proper functions, these people will have to be special human beings
indeed.Plato hinted early on that one of their most evident characteristics will be a
temperamental inclination toward philosophical thinking. As we've already seen in
the Apology and in the Phaedo, it is the philosopher above all others who excels at investigating
serious questions about human life and at judging what is true and best. But how are personal
qualities of this sort to be fostered and developed in an appropriate number of individual
citizens? (Republic 376d)
The answer, Plato believed, was to rely upon the value of a good education. (Remember, he
operated his own school at Athens!) We'll have an opportunity to consider his notions about
higher education later, but his plan for the elementary education of guardians for the ideal state
appears in Book III. Its central concern is an emphasis on achieving the proper balance of many
disparate components—physical training and musical performance along with basic intellectual
development.
One notable feature of this method of raising children is Plato's demand for strict censorship
of literary materials, especially poetry and drama. He argued that early absorption in fictional
accounts can dull an person's ability to make accurate judgments regarding matters of fact and
that excessive participation in dramatic recitations might encourage some people to emulate the
worst behavior of the tragic heros. (Republic 395c) Worst of all, excessive attention to fictional
contexts may lead to a kind of self-deception, in which individuals are ignorant of the truth
about their own natures as human beings. (Republic 382b) Thus, on Plato's view, it is vital for a
society to exercise strict control over the content of everything that children read, see, or hear.
As we will later notice, Aristotle had very different ideas.
Training of the sort described here (and later) is intended only for those children who will
eventually become the guardians of the state. Their performance at this level of education
properly determines both whether they are qualified to do so and, if so, whether each of them
deserves to be a ruler or a soldier. A society should design its educational system as a means to
distinguish among future citizens whose functions will differ and to provide training appropriate
to the abilities of each.
Divisions of the State
The principle of specialization thus leads to a stratified society. Plato believed that the ideal
state comprises members of three distinct classes: rulers, soldiers, and the people. Although he
officially maintained that membership in the guardian classes should be based solely upon the
possession of appropriate skills, Plato presumed that future guardians will typically be the

29. offspring of those who presently hold similar positions of honor. If citizens express any
dissatisfaction with the roles to which they are assigned, he proposed that they be told the
"useful falsehood" that human beings (like the metals gold, silver, and bronze) possess different
natures that fit each of them to a particular function within the operation of the society as a
whole. (Republic 415a)
29
Notice that this myth (Gk. μυθος [mythos]) cuts both ways. It can certainly be used as a
method of social control, by encouraging ordinary people to accept their position at the bottom
of the heap, subject to governance by the higher classes. But Plato also held that the myth
justifies severe restrictions on the life of the guardians: since they are already gifted with
superior natures, they have no need for wealth or other external rewards. In fact, Plato held that
guardians should own no private property, should live and eat together at government expense,
and should earn no salary greater than necessary to supply their most basic needs. Under this
regime, no one will have any venal motive for seeking a position of leadership, and those who
are chosen to be guardians will govern solely from a concern to seek the welfare of the state in
what is best for all of its citizens.
Having developed a general description of the structure of an ideal society, Plato maintained
that the proper functions performed by its disparate classes, working together for the common
good, provide a ready account of the need to develop significant social qualities or virtues.
 Since the rulers are responsible for making decisions according to which the entire
city will be governed, they must have the virtue of wisdom (Gk. σοφια [sophía]), the
capacity to comprehend reality and to make impartial judgments about it.
 Soldiers charged with the defense of the city against external and internal enemies,
on the other hand, need the virtue of courage (Gk. ανδρεια [andreia]), the willingness
to carry out their orders in the face of danger without regard for personal risk.
 The rest of the people in the city must follow its leaders instead of pursuing their
private interests, so they must exhibit the virtue of moderation (Gk. σωφρσυνη
[sophrosúnê]), the subordination of personal desires to a higher purpose.
When each of these classes performs its own role appropriately and does not try to take over the
function of any other class, Plato held, the entire city as a whole will operate smoothly,
exhibiting the harmony that is genuine justice. (Republic 433e)
We can therefore understand all of the cardinal virtues by considering how each is embodied
in the organization of an ideal city.
Rulers
Wise Decisions
Soldiers
Courageous Actions
Farmers, Merchants, and other People
(Moderated Desires)

30. Justice itself is not the exclusive responsibility of any one class of citizens, but emerges from the
harmonious interrelationship of each component of the society with every other. Next we'll see
how Plato applied this conception of the virtues to the lives of individual human beings.
30
The Virtues in Human Souls
Remember that the basic plan of the Republic is to draw a systematic analogy between the
operation of society as a whole and the life of any individual human being. So Plato supposed
that people exhibit the same features, perform the same functions, and embody the
same virtues that city-states do. Applying the analogy in this way presumes that each of us, like
the state, is a complex whole made up of several distinct parts, each of which has its own proper
role. But Plato argued that there is ample evidence of this in our everyday experience. When
faced with choices about what to do, we commonly feel the tug of contrary impulses drawing us
in different directions at once, and the most natural explanation for this phenomenon is to
distinguish between distinct elements of our selves. (Republic 436b)
Thus, the analogy holds. In addition to the physical body, which corresponds to the land,
buildings, and other material resources of a city, Plato held that every human being includes
three souls (Gk. ψυχη [psychê]) that correspond to the three classes of citizen within the state,
each of them contributing in its own way to the successful operation of the whole person.
 The rational soul (mind or intellect) is the thinking portion within each of us, which
discerns what is real and not merely apparent, judges what is true and what is false,
and wisely makes the rational decisions in accordance with which human life is most
properly lived.
 The spirited soul (will or volition), on the other hand, is the active portion; its
function is to carry out the dictates of reason in practical life, courageously doing
whatever the intellect has determined to be best.
 Finally, the appetitive soul (emotion or desire) is the portion of each of us that
wants and feels many things, most of which must be deferred in the face of rational
pursuits if we are to achieve a salutary degree of self-control.
In the Phaedrus, Plato presented this theory even more graphically, comparing the rational soul
to a charioteer whose vehicle is drawn by two horses, one powerful but unruly (desire) and the
other disciplined and obedient (will).
On Plato's view, then, an human being is properly said to be just when the three souls perform
their proper functions in harmony with each other, working in consonance for the good of the
person as a whole.
Rational Soul (Thinking)
Wisdom
Spirited Soul (Willing)
Courage
Appetitive Soul (Feeling)
Moderation