Compare and contrast Socrates’ teachings from those of the Sophists, and explain the ways in which Plato’s thought extends and in some respects differs from both traditions

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

1. Like the Sophists, Socrates taught that our beliefs are not the “truth” but are built on a foundation of prejudice and historical conditioning. However, he differed from the Sophists in his emphasis on virtuous behavior. For the Sophists, the true, the good, and the just were relative; for Socrates, they were not relative, and understanding the true meaning of the good, the true, and the just was a prerequisite for acting virtuously. For Socrates, true meaning resided in the psyche, the seat of both intelligence and character. Through inductive reasoning —moving from specific instances to general principles—it was possible, he believed, to understand the ideals to which human endeavor should aspire.
2. Plato and his teacher Socrates share the premises that the psyche is immortal and immutable and that we are all capable of remembering the psyche’s pure state. But Plato advances Socrates’ thought in several important ways. Plato’s philosophy is a brand of idealism—Plato believes that there is an invisible world of eternal Forms, or Ideas, beyond everyday experience and that the psyche, trapped in the material world and the physical body, can only catch glimpses of this higher order. Socrates’ death at the hands of the state also inspired Plato to think deeply about government: the result was The Republic, in which Plato proposes that only an elite cadre of the most highly educated men were to rule—those who had glimpsed the ultimate Form, or Idea—the Good. This vision of government opposes the individualistic world of the Sophists.