western thoughts on human nature - plato

7/30/2019 Western Thoughts on Human Nature - Plato

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Plato


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"All western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato,"


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Recollection

DialecticDesire


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Before our souls were united withour bodies, we were acquainted withthe Forms.

Education is actually a process ofreminiscence.


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We arrive at the knowledge of theForms through the power ofabstracting the essence of thingsand discovering the relations of alldivisions of knowledge.


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Leads people step by step.

Example:

From the beautiful objectTo the beautiful thought

To the very essence of beauty itself


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For Plato there are two fundamentalaspects or realms of reality---therealm of the senses and the realm ofthe forms.


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For Plato it is the world of the Forms (the realm ofbeing) that is "really real" world; the world that weperceive with our senses (the realm of becoming) islittle more than an imitation of this ultimate reality.

He believes that for particular and imperfect thing thatexists in the sensible realm (a table, a just act, abeautiful model, a circle) there is a correspondingabsolute and perfect Form (Table, Justice, Beauty, aCircle).

Plato believed that there could be no science of physicsof our knowledge were limited to the physical things.


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1. Moral rules are fashioned deliberately byeach community and hav relevance andauthority only for the people in the place

2. Moral rules are unnatural and that peopleobey them only because of the pressure ofpublic opinion

3. The essence of justice is power, or thatmight is right

4. The good life is the life of pleasure


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Plato put forward the Socratic notion thatknowledge is virtue

He emphasized The concept of the soul

The concept of virtue as a function


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Three kinds of activity going on in a person:

1. There is an awareness of a goal or a value(REASON)

2. There is the drive toward the action(SPIRIT) which is neutral at first butresponds to the direction of reason

3. There is the desire for things of the body(APPETITE)


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Plato assumed that the soul is the principleof life and movement.

The body is inanimate and must be moved

by the principle of life.


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Reason works on spirit and appetite, andthese two also move and affect reason

Pleasure is a legitimate goal of life but

passions are simply drives towards thingsthat give pleasure

Plato and Socrates echoes that moral evil is

the result of ignorance


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The soul has two main parts: therational and the irrational (theirrational is made up of the spirit and

appetite).The rational part came from Demiurge

(the divine Craftsman)The irrational part, together with the

body, came from the celestial gods.


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Plato says that when perfect and fullywinged she [the soul] soarsupward...whereas the imperfect soul,

losing her wings and drooping in herflight at last settles on the solidgroundthere finding a home, she

receives an earthly frame...and thiscomposition of soul and body is calleda living and mortal creation.


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The soul has an unruly and evil naturein its irrational parts

The cause of evil is present even in the

souls preexistent state It is in heaven that the soul alternates

between seeing the Forms and truth

and forgetting this vision, whereuponit decline sets in.


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The soul is perfect in nature but oneaspect of its nature is the possibility tolapse into disorder, for the soul alsocontains the principle of imperfection.


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The souls entrance to the body causesmore disorder

The body stimulates search forpleasure, hunger, thirst, and desire toprocreate

Ultimately turns to lust


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It is the body that accounts forignorance, rashness, and lust

Upon entering the body, the formerknowledge is forgotten


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(1) Conception of the soul that existed first,independently of the body. In that state the soulenjoyed a basic harmony between its rational &irrational parts, a harmony wherein reason controlled

the spirit and appetites through its knowledge of thetruth.

(2) But because the irrational part of the soul had thepossibility of imperfection, it expressed this possibilityby being attracted through its appetites to the lowerregions, dragging with it the spirit and reason.


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(3) Then, upon entering the body, the originalharmony of the parts of the soul became furtherdisrupted, the former knowledge forgotten, andbecause of the inertia of the body, was even further

obstructed in recovering this knowledge.

(4) Morality consists of the recovery of ones lost innerharmony by means of reversing the process by whichreason had been overcome by the appetites & stimuliof the self


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Only knowledge can produce virtue because it isignorant or false knowledge that produced evil.

No one willingly choose an act that will be harmful tooneself.

One may do wrong acts, but they always assume somebenefit will come from it. This is false knowledge, atype of ignorance, which people must overcome inorder to be moral.

False knowledge must be replaced with an accurateappraisal of things or act and their values. Thus, notany knowledge will do. Only knowledge that is true.


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Be aware of that one is in a state of ignorance.

Once is awakened from sleep of ignorance into twoways: Process of Recollection as depicted in Platos Meno;

This is an internal source of awaking. Like the accountwith the slave-boy, knowledge is already there and so itmust be birthed out from memory.

The effective Teacher: The External Agent: The freed

prisoner from Platos Allegory. The effective teachermust turn the prisoner around so that he will shift hisgaze from shadows to the real world.


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The good life is the life of inner harmony, of well-being, of happiness.

Virtue and goodness were intimately connected withthe behavior that produced virtue & well-being.

Harmony could be achieved only if the parts of thesoul were doing what the nature of each was requiredto do; each part of the soul has a special function.


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Thus, virtue is grounded in the very nature of the soul.It is the very nature of reason to know & to direct thespirits and appetites.

Reason has a function,& reason is good only when it isacting as reason should.

Plato compares the good life to the efficientfunctioning of things: a knife is good when it cuts

efficiently, that is, when it fulfills its function.


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Corresponding to these 3 parts are three virtues, whichare achieved when those parts are respectivelyfulfilling their functions: Virtue of Temperance: Bodily needs function within

appropriate limits Virtue of Courage: Spirited element is performing its

heroic functions. Virtue of Wisdom: Reason masters the other 2 elements. Virtue of Justice: General virtue, which reflects a

persons attainment of well-being & inner harmony,which, in turn, is achieved only when every part of thesoul is fulfilling its proper function


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A Summary ofthe Theory ofForms


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Ralph WaldoEmerson, "Plato; Or ThePhilosopher"

"Plato is philosophy,

and philosophy,

Plato, -- at once the

glory and the shame

of mankind, since

neither Saxon norRoman have availed

to add any idea to his

categories. No wife,

no children had he,

and the thinkers of

all civilized nationsare his posterity and

are tinged with his

mind."

western thoughts on human nature - plato

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