Discussion

First, consider Ion:

After listening to a dramatic reading of Plato’s very short and early dialogue at this link,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkgWbg-0OcMI (Links to an external site.)

consider the following. 

Ion was the Brad Pitt or Will Smith of his time.  Ion was well-known, well-dressed, well-liked, and wealthy.  Ion was a celeb.  Socrates was, well, just a guy with a lot of questions and far fewer accessories – Socrates is described as ‘dressing down’ in his simple clothes and with no footwear, despite customs in Athens to the contrary.

What does Socrates find out from Ion about how much Ion actually knows?

What does Socrates say about what Ion purports to know? How do Socrates’ interview with Ion tell us something about Plato’s view of art, as described briefly on page 340 of our text? 

Watch Hank Green’s Crash Course in Philosophy #31: Aesthetics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDL4Zf2yEa4 (Links to an external site.)

What standards if any should we use to evaluate art? For instance, must art imitate or emulate something, must art be pleasing, must art bring us closer to truth or a higher moral sensibilities; must art help us transcend the commonplace to a higher level of consciousness or awareness or reality?

Upload an image or sound or sound/image that represents art. Tell us why. Upload an image or sound or sound/image that fails to represent art.  Tell us why.
Second, consider the matter of what is justice and the exchange between the young and fiery sophist Thrasymachus and Socrates (pages 25-26 in our Velasquez text. If you haven’t the text, you can listen to the audio link, mentioned below.)

Listen to the section of an audio clip of Book 1 of Plato’s Republic, whose central theme is the question of justice . As you listen to the audio clip, starting at 28:00, you can follow along in our textbook on pages 10 to 11. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OK72QTQvU

Describe Thrasymachus’s view of justice and describe Socrates’ method of refuting Thrasymachus’s argument.  What is your view of Thrasymachus’s view of justice?

write and upload a substantive post of 200-300 words, as instructed