Through out Plato's book, he uses many theories to explain his ideas of philosophy. The three main themes that I will be focusing on are the argument from opposites, the arguments from affinity, and the argument form recollection. Each of these themes relates to Pieper's ideas of philosophy in a general way. Pieper aims to explain the whole idea of philosophy in various terms, where as Plato focuses his discussions on certain arguments in order to prove his ideas. Each of these authors have a significant opinion on philosophy and they do tend to somewhat relate on certain levels.
In Piepers writings, he discusses the idea of philosophy and if there could ever be true philosopher. He talks about how it seems as if no one can ever know all there is to know. But, even though we may not be able to learn everything, we can still study and at least try and learn something. I believe that what I just stated is a reaction that Pieper would have to Plato's argument from opposites that says, " Opposites come to be only from their opposites-in the case of all things that actually have an opposite- (pg. 17:70e). In this argument, Socrates is trying to explain something that Pieper doesn't know if it is possible. Socrates states that everything comes out of its opposite, and everything that exists has an opposite. It is understood that nothing comes into existence simultaneously, but rather everything has an opposite that it is derived from. Socrates uses the example of life and death, where they can be thought of as a continuous cycle that never ends, but rather one comes into being through the other. Pieper may be able to relate to this argument but would say that we can not prove the argument of opposites. We can assume that it is true, but not confirm it. But even though we can not prove it, Pieper thinks we should still try to learn about it so that we can know even something about the subject at hand.
