Socrates,Plato,Aristotle

14 Pages 3385 Words

or, 1964) Socrates also intensely questioned many ‘accepted’ definitions and dismissed them based on the fact they were vague, too narrow or too broad to encompass all the necessary information.
In another one of Plato’s early dialogues, Callicles, Socrates had a debate over Callicles view that ‘good’ means ‘pleasant’. Although the basis for the discussion appears tedious, there are some appealing arguments. The basis for Callicles’ argument is that man cannot be doing well and doing poorly at the same time. Therefore a man cannot feel pleasure and pain at the same time, but Socrates countered citing an extremely thirsty man drinking water. Callicles went on to say that ‘good’ men are filled with virtue and goodness, in a sense pleasure- whereas ‘bad’ men are filled with cowardice and pain. Socrates countered this by stating the obvious that the lowliest thief and the most magnificent king feel pleasure and pain in roughly equal proportions. Because of this definition, ‘good’ men are not always pleasant and...