[II]. Wider application given to the dialectic method by Plato, [179]—He goes back to the initial doubt of Socrates, [180]—To what extent he shared in the religious reaction of his time, [181]—He places demonstrative reasoning above divine inspiration, [182]—His criticism of the Socratic ethics, [183]—Exceptional character of the Crito accounted for, [184]—Traces of Sophistic influence, [185]—General relation of Plato to the Sophists, [186]—Egoistic hedonism of the Protagoras, [188].
[III]. Plato as an individual: his high descent, personal beauty, and artistic endowment, [189]—His style is neither poetry nor eloquence nor conversation, but the expression of spontaneous thought, [190]—The Platonic Socrates, [191]—Plato carries the spirit of the Athenian aristocracy into philosophy, [192]—Severity with which great reformers habitually view their own age, [192]—Plato’s scornful opinion of the many, [194]—His loss of faith in his own order, [195]—Horror of despotism inspired by his intercourse with Dionysius, [195]—His dissatisfaction with the constitution of Sparta, [196]—His theory of political degeneration verified by the history of the Roman republic, [196]—His exclusively Hellenic and aristocratic sympathies, [197]—Invectives against the corrupting influence of the multitude and of their flatterers, [198]—Denunciation of the popular law-courts, [199]—Character of the successful pleader, [200]—Importance to which he had risen in Plato’s time, [200]—The professional teacher of rhetoric, [201].
[IV]. Value and comprehensiveness of Plato’s philosophy, [202]—Combination of Sicilian and Italiote with Attic modes of thought, [203]—Transition from the Protagoras to the Theaetêtus, 205—‘Man is the measure of all things’: opinion and sensation, [206]—Extension of the dialectic method to all existence, [207]—The Heracleitean system true of phenomena, [208]—Heracleitus and Parmenides in the Cratylus, [209]—Tendency to fix on Identity and Difference as the ultimate elements of knowledge, [210]—Combination of the mathematical method with the dialectic of Socrates, [210]—Doctrine of à priori cognition, [211]—The idea of Sameness derived from introspection, [212]—Tendency towards monism, [213].
PLATO AS A REFORMER pages 214-274
[I]. Recapitulation, [214]—Plato’s identification of the human with the divine, [215]—The Athanasian creed of philosophy, [216]—Attempts to mediate between appearance and reality, [216]—Meaning of Platonic love, [217]—Its subsequent development in the philosophy of Aristotle, [218]—And in the poetry of Dante, [219]—Connexion between religious mysticism and the passion of love, [219]—Successive stages of Greek thought represented in the Symposium, [220]—Analysis of Plato’s dialectical method, [221]—Exaggerated importance attributed to classification, [222]—Plato’s influence on modern philosophy, [223].
[II]. Mediatoral character of Plato’s psychology, [223]—Empirical knowledge as a link between demonstration and sense perception, [224]—Pride as a link between reason and appetite, [224]—Transition from metaphysics to ethics: knowledge and pleasure, [225]—Anti-hedonistic arguments of the Philébus, [226]—Attempt to base ethics on the distinction between soul and body, [227]—What is meant by the Idea of Good? [228]—It is probably the abstract notion of Identity, [229].
[III]. How the practical teaching of Plato differed from that of Socrates, [229]—Identification of justice with self-interest, [230]—Confusion of social with individual happiness, [231]—Resolution of the soul into a multitude of conflicting impulses, [232]—Impossibility of arguing men into goodness, [233].
[IV]. Union of religion with morality, [234]—Cautious handling of the popular theology, [234]—The immortality of the soul, [235]—The Pythagorean reformation arrested by the progress of physical philosophy, [237]—Immortality denied by some of the Pythagoreans themselves, [237]—Scepticism as a transition from materialism to spiritualism, [238]—The arguments of Plato, [239]—Pantheism the natural outcome of his system, [240].
[V]. Plato’s condemnation of art, [241]—Exception in favour of religious hymns and edifying fiction, [241]—Mathematics to be made the basis of education, [242]—Application of science to the improvement of the race, [242]—Inconsistency of Plato’s belief in heredity with the doctrine of metempsychosis, [243]—Scheme for the reorganisation of society, [244]—Practical dialectic of the Republic, [245].