Definition and Division in Plato's Sophist (2024)

FAQs

What is collection and division in Plato? ›

Plato describes a way of reasoning that comprises two complementary operations, collection and division. Collection unifies many into one while division divides one into many. In other words, while collection brings together many parts into a whole, division divides a whole into many parts.

Plato's Republic constructs an ideal city composed of three parts, par- allel to the soul's reason, appetites, and fighting spirit. But confu- sion and controversy have long surrounded this three-way division and especially the prominent role it assigns to the angry and com- petitive spirit called thumos.

The works of Plato and Aristotle have had much influence on the modern view of the "sophist" as a greedy instructor who uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand and ambiguities of language in order to deceive, or to support fallacious reasoning.

The rules of division are: (1) that the members taken singly be inferiors, i.e., less than the thing divided, since every whole is greater than its part; (2) that all the members that divide the whole taken together fill up or equal the whole divided, the reason being that the whole is equivalent to all its parts taken ...

The divided line analogy provides a way to visualize the distinction between different states of mind and to understand which states of mind are more reliable than others. In The Republic, Plato describes how Socrates understood the divided line. He first distinguishes between a visible world and intelligible worlds.

Plato divides the population of the ideal state into three classes: rulers (philosopher-kings and guardians), auxiliaries (warriors and defenders), and producers (farmers, artisans, and laborers). Each class has a distinct function and role in the society, contributing to the overall harmony and stability of the state.

Plato's theory of the soul divides the soul into three parts. There is an appetitive part, Epithymetikon, that deals with bodily desires, a spirited part, Thymoeides, that deals with more reflective passions, and the rational part, Logistikon, that deals with thinking and truth.

Plato imagines these two worlds, the sensible world and the intelligible world, as existing on a line that can be divided in the middle: the lower part of the line consists of the visible world and the upper part of the line makes up the intelligible world.

Plato contended that justice is the quality of soul, in virtue of which men set aside the irrational desire to taste every pleasure and to get a selfish satisfaction out of every object and accommodated themselves to the discharge of a single function for the general benefit.

The Sophist taught that values are relative, and that the only measure of who is right is who prevails. Many argued that there were no such things as right and wrong—that objective moral standards did not exist. Some Sophists denied any possibility of objective truth and scoffed at the idea of objective knowledge.

Why does Plato not like Sophists? ›

Plato criticized the Sophists for various reasons, such as their use of exaggerations and taking money. The sophisticated rhetoricians sought to sway public opinion in their favor, and true justice is founded on the knowledge of the individual and the state.

The Sophists held no values other than winning and succeeding. They were not true believers in the myths of the Greeks but would use references and quotations from the tales for their own purposes. They were secular atheists, relativists and cynical about religious beliefs and all traditions.

Explained. Division in maths is the process of breaking a number up into equal parts, and finding out how many equal parts can be made. For example, dividing 15 by 3 means splitting 15 into 3 equal groups of 5. Division is represented by the symbol '÷' or sometimes '/'.

Division is the opposite of multiplication. If 3 groups of 4 make 12 in multiplication, 12 divided into 3 equal groups give 4 in each group in division. The main goal of dividing is to see how many equal groups are formed or how many are in each group when sharing fairly.

There are three main parts to a division problem: the dividend, the divisor, and the quotient. The dividend is the number that will be divided. The divisor is the number of “people” that the number is being divided among. The quotient is the answer.

According to Frederick Copleston, Aristotle divides Philosophy into three parts: (1) Theoretical Philosophy: (a) Physics or Natural Philosophy; (b) Mathematics; and (c) Metaphysics, including Natural Theology. (2) Practical Philosophy: Politics and Ethics. And (3) Poetical Philosophy: Aesthetics or Theory of Art.

These affections are described in succession as corresponding to increasing levels of reality and truth from conjecture (εἰκασία) to belief (πίστις) to thought (διάνοια) and finally to understanding (νόησις).