Thinker
4 readings
Plato
Thinker · 4 readings
Plato’s dialogues argue about examination, knowledge, justice and education. What a speaker says in a dialogue belongs to a role, not to a historical voice we recover directly.
All readings
4 readings · Title A–Z
Guided course · Module 5 · Lesson 20
An examined life in the city
Plato’s Socrates questions Euthyphro’s confident account of piety. How can exposing inconsistent beliefs matter when the definition, and the portrait of the historical Socrates, remain unsettled?
Guided course · Module 5 · Lesson 22
Justice in a person and a city
Plato compares a just city with a well-ordered soul. Inner harmony might guide conduct, but order alone does not establish fair treatment of others.
Guided course · Module 5 · Lesson 21
Knowledge, appearance and education
Plato’s sun, line and cave distinguish correct belief from understanding and picture education as a turning around. What do these images explain, and what do they leave unproved about knowledge and authority?
Guided course · Module 5 · Lesson 26
What if inquiry does not settle the dispute?
Sextus Empiricus gives reasons for suspending judgment while inquiry continues, and shows how a skeptic can still act. His challenge is set beside Plato’s search for a starting point that rests on no assumption.