Tapping into innate knowledge is a mystery that has baffled generations of learned men and women denying them the ability to state for certain and true that knowledge is liken unto a shared casserole at a family or company picnic; that everyone can reach within and draw forth the realization of corporeal understanding from the resources of disembodied knowledge and make the same their own. According to the Advanced English Dictionary, knowledge is “the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning”, while the psyche is “that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason”, finally episteme is “the body of ideas that determine the knowledge that is intellectually certain at any particular time” all of which indicate the possibility of pre-knowledge before the birth of a child. Where does this ‘knowledge’ come from? Where does the soul come from?
If one was to take into consideration the Christian Holy Bible, Genesis 2: 7 which states: “And the lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Socrates’ argument of innate knowledge stands along with the beliefs of Christianity, because Adam formed of the dust of the earth and Eve from his rib were given knowledge of everything. Socrates states: “Thus the soul, since it is immortal and has been born many times, and has seen all things both here and in the other world, has learned everything that is. So we need not be surprised if it can recall the knowledge of virtue or anything else which, as we see, it once possessed” (Meno 81c).
Socrates continues to prove to Meno with the example of the boy and the area of a square. “Observe Meno, the stage h...
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...hat as the sun set in the west that his soul would return to the presence of god and he would be totally healed and purified from all of earth’s hindrances and toils. What greater epithet could friends bestow upon a departed soul, “Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man” (Phaedo 118a).
The body decays and returns to the dust from which it was created and the soul returns to that which loaned the essence of life to the body, Socrates knew as the swan sang more beautifully as death approached, that death was not to be feared but embraced.
Works Cited
Hamilton, Edith & Cairns, Huntington. Plato: The Collected Dialogues including the letters. 20th Edition. Princeton: Bollingen Foundation. 2009. Print.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius
Plato, Phaedo, In: The Collected Dialogues Of Plato Including The Letters, Editors: E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1961.
Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve. Plato Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
With the use of Socrates’ elenchus , Meno finds himself in aporia , and leads him to introduce us to, what is titled, the paradox of knowledge. It is, as he states:
...ing death (or failures) in honor of something greater, more poetic; and their balanced manner, it is clear that; if one obsesses about death or one’s failures, one will never be able to overcome it. Realizing that the most important inner quality is facing death and taking risk with respect to rationality; because if one does not, one will never amount to anything more beautiful (in a poetic sense) in their life. When one faces death or a failure, one is accepting the biggest challenge of all. And lastly, I strive to be like Aristotle’s courageous individual because I want to live a balanced life, and I want to live within a mean. I do not want to overly exercise fear and become cowardly, nor do I want be overly confident and lead a rash life.
In Plato’s dialogue, Phaedo, Echecrades asks Phaedo the details of Socrates’ last day alive. Phaedo first describes his own countenance as well as the rest of Socrates’ companions as “an unaccustomed mixture of pleasure and pain” because they all know that Socrates’ death is imminent, however they see that Socrates appears happy and without fear (58, e). The conversation with Socrates turns to why a philosopher should not fear death. Socrates defines death as the separation of the soul from the body (64, c). He states that the body is a constant impediment to a philosopher in their search for the truth. Socrates says that the body “fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that… no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the [it].” (66, c). He claims that philosophy itself is “training for dying” and philosophers purify their souls by detaching it from the body (67, e). Socrates concludes that it would be unreasonable for a philosopher to fear death because they will obtain the truth they sought in life upon the separation of their body and soul, or death (67, c). After successfully proves the soul’s immortality, Socrates goes on to tell his companions a myth. This myth tells o the judgment of the dead and their journey through the underworld (107, d). It explains the shape of the Earth and how it has different surfaces (108, c- 113, d). It also tells of the punishment for the maimed souls and the reward for the pure souls, those of philosophers (113, c – 114, d). After concluding this myth, Socrates seems to emphasize that the exact details of the story are not important and “no sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them” but it is important to “risk the bel...
The debate on nature versus nurture has existed for thousands of years. Ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle formed the argument through conflicting beliefs on the basics of human knowledge. Plato felt wisdom was innate, that all people were born with knowledge, and their experiences only helped to remind them of what they once knew. Aristotle challenged this through his belief of obtaining information through experiences. He viewe...
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Plato, Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds. The Collected Dialogues of Plato (New York: Pantheon, 1966).
Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Bollingen Series LXXI. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
Throughout history, the concept of death and an afterlife has always been present regardless of the culture or religion. It has also been very influential in literature and other writings. In the epic poem The Odyssey, by Homer, there is a portrayal of the Greek beliefs of the afterlife. The Bible addresses this theme as well in the gospel of Matthew. Between these two works, there are noticeable differences about the beliefs of death due to the different cultures in which they were written. Despite the many variations, there are some slight similarities regarding the afterlife. Although the two writings were composed in different cultures and time periods, the notions of an afterlife in each piece can be easily related.
Socrates and Plato had a very distinct view on the human life and what constitutes a living of a “good life”-a life that would allow man access to the forms. Socrates was Plato’s teacher, and throughout much of Plato’s works, Socrates is the main character, who is ultimately the mouthpiece to express Plato’s ideas about life. These ideas were centralized around the idea of an immortal soul and one’s location of critical thinking and reasoning. Socrates and Plato believed that the soul was the home to reasoning and the body was a mere obstacle that hindered the pursuit of true knowledge. However, this theory may not be valid due to the knowledge that we possess today about the brain, senses, and biology of the human body.
Plato. 1941 [385 B.C.E.]. The Republic of Plato. Trans. Francis Macdonald Cornford. New York: Oxford University Press.
Socrates also believed that philosophers look upon death with good cheer and hope. This I find