Review Guide for Plato Exam #3
Parmenides
1. Who are the characters in the dialogue?
2. What is the thesis of Zeno's book?
3. Explain Socrates' Theory of Forms (129a-e).
4. What does Socrates think there are Forms of? (130b)
5. What Forms is Socrates uncertain of? (130c)
6. What Forms does Socrates deny exist? (130d)
7. Explain the problem of objects participating in either only part of a Form or the Form
as a whole (131b-e).
8. Present The 3rd Man Argument (132a).
9. Present The Argument that the Forms are Unknowable (134a-b).
10. Present The Dichotomy of God's knowledge and human knowledge Argument
(134c-e).
11. Present The Nasty Constructive Dilemma Argument (135a-c).
12. What does Parmenides say about hypothesizing at 136a?
13. The 1st discourse on the hypothesis that the One is runs from 137c-142a. What
paradoxical properties of the One does Parmenides deduce in this first discourse?
14. Present The Argument that the One is Many (142b-143a).
15. Present The Argument for the Infinite Divisibility of Being
(143a-144c).
16. Present The Argument for the One's Opposite Pairs of Attributes
(144e-145a).
17. The 2nd discourse on the hypothesis that the One is runs from 142b-155e. What
paradoxical properties of the One does Parmenides deduce in the 2nd discourse?
18. The 3rd discourse on the hypothesis that the One is runs from 155e-157b. What
does Parmenides say about one and many, separating and combining? (156d). Explain
the significance of this remark.
19. The 4th discourse is on the properties things other than the One have, and it runs
from 157b-160b. Summarize the results of this discourse.
20. The 5th discourse is on the hypothesis that the One is not, and it runs from
160b-163b. Explain the paradoxical properties that deduce from this hypothesis.
21. Present The Argument that if One is not, then things other than one are neither Many
nor One (165e).
22. What are we to make of these five perplexing discourses in Parmenides?
How should we understand Parmenides in relation to other dialogues, like, for
example, Sophist?
Timaeus
23. Who are the characters in the dialogue?
24. How does Socrates begin the dialogue? (17a) How is this significant?
25. What other dialogue does Socrates summarize parts of from 17c to 19c?
26. What is said about imitators at 19d?
27. What is said about sophists at 19e?
28. How is Timaeus described at 20a? How is this significant?
29. Describe the story Critias tells (20d-25d).
30. What does Timaeus do before "setting out on his venture"? (27c)
31. Explain Timaeus' distinction between that which always is and that which
becomes. How is each grasped? What properties does each have? (27d-28a)
32. Present the Argument that the Universe (world) Has Come To Be
(28b-c).
33. Present the Argument that the Demiurge used the Eternal Model in Making the
World (29a).
34. Why did the Demiurge make the universe (world)? (29e)
35. Present the step-by-step account of How the Demiurge made the Universe a
Living, Intelligent Being (29e-30b).
36. Why is the universe one whole Living Thing? (31a)
37. What were the first two elements that came to be? (31b) What were the next two
elements? (32b)
38. What are the three reasons why all fire, earth, water, and air were used up in making
the universe? (32c)
39. What is the SHAPE of the universe and why does it have that shape? (33b)
40. Describe in detail the features the universe has and doesn't have and the explanations
for each (33c-34b). What does the universe do? Why must it be
a living thing?
41. Explain what the moving image of eternity is (37d).
42. Explain the metaphysics of is, was, and will be (37e-38b).
43. What are the Seven Wanderers? Name them in order from the 1st
circle to the last (38d).
44. What are the Four Kinds of living things? (39e)
45. What is said to be "the most god-fearing of living things"? Which is
the superior kind? (42a)
46. If a person masters his emotions and lives a just, good life, what happens to him?
(42b)
47. What does a person who has failed to live a good life come back as when born a second
time? (42b)
48. If a person lives a wicked second life, what does he come back as? (42b)
49. What part of the human body did the gods create first? (44d)
50. What was the first organ to be fashioned? (45b)
51. Describe what Timaeus says about this organ (in #50) and what inventions its use leads
to. Why did the god give us the power of this organ? (47a-b)
52. What are the two principles whose union begets the world? (48a)
53. What are the three cosmological entities identified at 49a?
54. What are the three types of things identified at 50c-d and what is
the function of each?
55. What are the three cosmic things described at 52a-b? Describe
how each is apprehended.
56. Name the five solid forms. How many sides does each one have? Which
element corresponds to which solid form? (54e-55c)
57. What is said about the knowledge and power of god and of human beings at 68d?
58. What are the two forms of cause identified at 68e-69a?
59. Describe the three parts of the soul and where they are located in the human body
(69d-70e).
60. What is said about gluttony at 72e-73a?
61. What is said about the natural and the unnatural at 81e?
62. What is said about willfully doing evil at 86d-e? What causes the soul so much
trouble?
63. What is said about the good, the beautiful, and the well-proportioned at 87c?
64. What balance or proportion is the most important one? (87d)
65. What is the one way for a person to preserve himself? (88b)
Plotinus
66. Approximately what were the years of Plotinus' birth and death? Where was he
born? Where did he study? Where did he teach from 245 to 268 CE?
67. Who edited Plotinus' writings? What name did his editor give to those writings?
68. What are the Three Hypostases?
69. ESSAY: Explain Plotinus' metaphysics.
Describe the nature, qualities, origin, powers, and interrelationships of the three
hypostases. Explain their relations to the Good and to Being. What is the role
of reason in Plotinus' metaphysics? Explain the ascent of individual souls.
Explain Plotinus' view of material reality. Explain the relationship between
Plotinus' metaphysics and the cosmology of Plato's Timaeus.