 The Sulphus just got done turning everything you believe and know into garbage. They took your beliefs and twisted them and turned them around and, you know, said, you know, the truth is basically what you make of it and, you know, you just might as well just use it to meet your own ends. You know, it might be a bit of an unfair characterization, Sulphus, but that's not far from what they're doing. And pretty much, you know, direct opposite reaction to the Sulphus is Socrates. Socrates comes in and tries to give at least something of an idea of truth. The Sulphus are reacting to all of the work of the priestocratics, noting that there's all this disagreement, so there must not be any truth. And Socrates is going to come in and try to fix the situations because, you know, not all hope is lost. There's something that we can salvage from all of this. And there's something we can salvage from it, such that we can live full and good lives. So one of the first things we're going to look at is why Socrates rejects the Sulphus just, you know, really kind of using their own reasons. And from that even, he's going to try to provide his account of truth. One of the first things that Socrates notes with the Sulphus argument is that their arguments rely upon definitions, meanings or essences, what it means to be that thing. So for instance, Protagos relies heavily upon the idea of perception, knowledge, perception and knowledge. Thersemicus relies upon definitions of culture and justice, power. Gorgias relies upon definition, lots of definitions, right? Existence, comprehensibility, communicability, symbols. He relies, they all rely upon these definitions or essences. So Socrates asks a question, or he could, you know, say Socrates asks a question this way. Do you mean the same thing every time you use that word, or do you mean something different? Well, if you mean something different, then the argument isn't going to follow through. It's called equivocating. It's using multiple definitions for one word. So if I say to make a mistake as human, and I say to be human means to be a warm blooded to be a mammal that's bipedal and uses reason, and I infer therefore to make a mistake is to be a bipedal man who uses reason. Well, no, that's kind of a silly conclusion because you're using human in two different ways. And the first way we mean something like, well, it's very natural for a human being to make a mistake. And the second way, we're trying to give a biological definition of human. So if they're using the words and the meanings in different ways, their argument isn't going to follow through. Well, so we go with the other option. We say that they are using meaning, are using the word in the same way that there's one definition for the word to talk about one concept. So if you're using an argument that uses a meaning in different ways, the argument is not going to work. So we go the other way. We try to say that the meanings are fixed, that the meanings of the terms don't depend upon really anything else. Well, then guess what? You're talking about something that's fixed. You're talking about something that's permanent. That's true. That's real. So if you're dealing with these definitions, in order to make, in order to claim that, you know, if you're trying to make protagonists claim that everyone is right and you're trying to make gorgeouses claim that everybody is wrong, you're trying to make the simicists claim that morality is immoral, right, that justice is immoral, and you rely upon these fixed meanings of terms, then you're not dealing with some, with any kind of relativity. You're dealing with something absolute, you're dealing with some absolute truth. So Socrates' point here is to say, look, Sophus, you want to say that the truth is such a relative. The truth is what you want to make it. But you have to assume that what's true is fixed in order to make that argument. You're contradicting yourself from the beginning. And that is not a successful argument. So Socrates made this argument against the Sophus. He's made this point that the Sophus have to rely on something fixed, something absolute, something that doesn't change, something that's not relative. And that's meaning or definition or essence. So this becomes a really big, important thing for him, trying to figure out what a definition or an essence is. He's trying to figure out what the thing is, what makes that thing, that thing. And he basically starts a love affair of definition in the West. So So what is Socrates doing here? He says, look, when I look out into the world, and this should sound a little familiar, when I look into out into the world, I notice that there's lots of things changing. There's lots of change. There's very little is permanent or stable. But at the same time, I still call these things, I still identify these things. You know, like into kinds or groups. So I'm currently leaning up against a tree. But there this tree wasn't always here. And sadly, there were come a plant in which this tree will cease to exist. But there's lots of other trees, you can see some of them in the background. There are trees all over the place, and none of them look like this one. Even the ones that are the same breed, right, I think this is some kind of oak. Oaks come in a wide variety of trees, you know. You know, you got oak, you got pine, you got spruce, we got mesquite and cedar, you know, we got roughly at least two different kinds of trees with evergreens and the others. Not the biggest expert, Botany. Now, when looking at an individual thing that's changing of this tree, this tree goes through changes. But what is it that remains the same such that it's the tree? What is it about this tree compared to the rest such that they're all trees? Another way of saying it, in the midst of all the changes, what is the essence? What is the meaning that remains behind and survives them? This tree will cease to exist, but the meaning, the essence, the universal of tree will continue to exist. You destroy all trees, you still understand what a tree is. So this is what Socrates is getting at when he's talking about this definition, this essence. What is it about this thing and about the things behind it? About the other trees that you've seen, such that they're trees. When you start understanding what that is, then you know what the meaning of a tree is. It's fixed. Now Socrates isn't interested just in trees. He actually is interested in some really big, important things, goodness, beauty, truth. So the way to start investigating these things is to start looking at things that are good, things that are beautiful, things that are true. What do they have in common? What is it that makes them good things, beautiful things, true things, compared to things that are not good, not beautiful, not true? What's the difference? You have to start with the individual things in order to know the meaning, the essence, truth. Well, let's just say for giggles that right now I'm only interested in the meaning of tree, the definition of tree. How do we go about doing this? Well, Socrates has pointed the way that we have to understand the particular things, the individual things, in order to understand the definition. The meaning. So looking over at this fine tree over here, I start inspecting it. This is noting the particular thing, noting its properties, what it looks like, what it's made of. I see bark, it's rigid, prior to cut it open I'd see wood, maybe some rings. I'd see sap, you can't see it too well, but up there are needles for the tree. And I start kind of cataloging the details, the particulars of that tree. This is called inspection. Inspection is when you look at the particular things. Now returning to what Socrates had to say about definition, the definition is what all the trees have in common. That's called a universal, what they all have in common. The universal is the definition, the essence, the meaning, the abstract. But that right there, that's a particular tree. So the process I start with is inspecting that particular tree and I note what's particular to that. I even begin observing the tree at a young age and see how it changes. I wouldn't stop with just that tree, I would look at other trees. I'd look at the ones behind it, because, well, that one's a little bit different. There isn't an oak within sight now, but I would look at oak trees. I would start noting the similarities and the differences, still looking for what's common to all of them, what's universal to all of them. And finding that universal, that's interpretation. Through inspection, we find the facts, the particulars, the observations, the details. Through interpretation, we interpret the facts. We find what it means. We find what these facts mean, what the definition is that comes from them. There's two very different processes. Inspection happens here, with your senses. Looking at the tree, feeling the tree, that's inspection. Interpretation happens here. Well, we have a good and a bad new situation here with defining, with finding out these differences, these definitions, these meanings, these universals. The good news is you're not alone, because we're all involved in the same project. The bad news is you're not alone, and we don't always agree. So finding this definition, this meaning, is going to involve inspection and interpretation. But you're not alone in this endeavor. You're always going to have to, inevitably, compare your ideas, your interpretations to other people's interpretations. And this starts a process that is called dialectic, it's kind of a back and forth. And the idea is that we're trying to, in a sense, test the definition versus the particular instances, versus the cases. So for instance, this begins kind of a back and forth discussion. And we might even characterize it as suggestion, objection, reply, rebuttal, rejoinder. So these are kind of fancy words for describing a dialectic going back and forth. Suggestion is the initial idea trying to provide the definition. The objection is showing where there's a problem. The reply either tries to reject the objection or tries to fix it, then there's rebuttal and then rejoinder. So it involves this back and forth. Now when we are comparing ideas of one another, we're engaging this dialectic, a lot of the times we're trying to compare definitions against cases. So for instance, I might say something like, well, all trees have leaves. That's what makes a tree a tree, is that it has leaves. Now the objection can work something like this, well, these things have leaves, but this is ivy, this isn't a tree. So I might try again, say, well trees are always upright and they have leaves. Well the objection, you know, the counter example, the problem there, I said, look, here's a tree. It's not upright. So dialectic begins this process of back and forth, comparing ideas, trying to test the ideas versus particular instances. Every so often, when you're engaging a dialectic, somebody or one of the objectors can show a contradiction, and a contradiction would be something like, you know, your definition says that, you know, suppose my definition of tree says that this is a tree and it isn't a tree. When you show a direct contradiction like this, well, when Socrates did this, this is called an elencus, an elencus, or an elencus, excuse me, and he engaged in this process quite a lot. The dialogues are full of examples of this, where he took somebody's initial definition for something and generated a contradiction. Now between inspection, interpretation, and then the dialectic, the idea is that we come to know what the definition of a thing is, because we continually refine our cases, and we come closer and closer, maybe arrive at the meaning of what this thing is. Well, you might start wondering at this point what the big deal is. I mean, after all, this is philosophy, not English. Why would philosophy be interested in definition? Why would Socrates be interested in definition? Okay, so maybe he finds this absolute truth, this, you know, fixed meaning of what things are, but how's that supposed to impact my life? Think about it a little bit. How do you care for a tree? You have to know what it is. You have to know what it is. If you think that part of being a tree is to lose all your leaves, you're gonna, to lose all the leaves, you're gonna kill the tree. There is something of what it means to be that thing, to thrive as that thing. So if you're a good botanist, yeah, you try real hard to know what a tree is in order to take care of it, veterinarian. You try to know real hard what it means to be a zebra in order to care for a zebra. Same thing is true with you. Socrates was really interested in the question of what it means to be human. If we know what it means to be human, if we understand what we are, then we know what it means to thrive, to be a human. And you already have some idea of this. Somewhere in the back of your head, you know, it's not good to be miserable. You're not thriving if you're miserable. You're not thriving if you're, you know, let's just start picking your favorites. You're not thriving if you're continually hungry all the time, right? You're never getting enough food. That's not thriving. Because part of what it means to be human is taking in nutrition. Not only, you know, energy, you know, food for energy, but food for building blocks of the body. You're not happy if you're not thriving as a human being if you're hopelessly addicted to heroin, right? It's not that people addicted to heroin are just bad people. They're miserable. So what Socrates is getting at here, with this idea of definition of how it's supposed to impact your life, is if you know what you are, you know how to thrive. You know how to be complete. You know how to be the best version of what you are. That's why it's important to know, you know, by the way, it's not enough just to know what you are. You have to thrive in the world. So you have to know at least something of what the world is in order to thrive. That requires a lot of knowledge. So this idea that there's something that means to be you, that means that there's something that means for you to thrive, is at the heart of Socrates' moral theory. His theory then about reality is teleological. The idea is that if there's something of what it means for you to thrive, then you have a purpose. Now, don't think of purpose as something that's kind of like added on to what you are. It's like, here, I'm going to tell you to do a particular job. That's not what he means by a purpose. That's not what he means by teleology. All he means is that, you know, it's hard to deny that people are better off thriving than not thriving, right? There's something of what it means to fulfill your being, to be complete. And the idea then is like your purpose is to complete your being, to be full, to be satisfied, to be happy. So Socrates has this idea of a purpose. And we know your purpose by knowing your meaning, by knowing what your definition is. So this leads to his ethical theory. And for Socrates, there is vice and there is virtue. Now we don't use these words very well in today's culture. The idea behind virtue is, you know, it's these things which help you complete your being, which help you thrive, to be what you're supposed to be. That's what a virtue is. A vice is what hinders you from that completion, even prohibits you from that completion. So, you know, under this picture, heroin use is a vice. Not because they're mean, cruel people who are morally less valuable and should be ignored. That's not what's going on with vice. Heroin is a vice because it hurts you. It prohibits you from being, from completion, it prohibits you from being what you should be. And there's lots of things that are vices. Now here's the interesting thing. So, Socrates thinks this is true. And we think this a lot of the times too, that nobody knowingly hurts themself. Nobody knowingly hurts themself. And in a sense, to use his language, everybody intends to follow virtue. And the reason is, is because virtue is what makes you better. Virtue is what makes you be complete, helps you thrive. So, but there are plenty of people out there who follow vices. I mentioned the unfortunate heroin addict. So what's going on there, Socrates, you know, so you might ask Socrates, what's going on there? Well, Socrates has something of a surprising conclusion. The heroin addict does not believe that the heroin is bad for the addict. So this follows from what he says. Nobody knowingly does what harms them. If they do something that harms them, it's because they have a false belief or they believe something else is going to help them or something like this. Nobody knowingly pursues vice. Nobody knowingly does what makes them miserable. It's a bit of a strong conclusion. That means that everybody out there who's doing something wrong, something bad, something evil is mistaken. They just made a mistake and reason. So this is the idea behind Socrates' claim that knowledge is virtue. If you know the good, you're going to do the good. Knowledge is virtue. Nobody knowingly does what's wrong. Hard to accept, hard to reject.