Comparing Plato’s Symposium and David Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Philosophy, when broken down into the original Greek, is philos, which means love, and logos, which means word. Thus philosophy is the love of words or linguistics. There is not one way of viewing this love of words. Both Plato and David Hume examine philosophy in their texts, Symposium and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, respectively. I will outline, then compare, these two philosophers’ views of philosophy to show that philosophy is a balance.
Plato’s Symposium is a dialogue of speeches given by different orators on the topic of love. These discourses allow several views of philosophy to be expressed. These philosophical views relate and compliment the speaker’s view of love. Pausanias introduces two kinds of love: heavenly and common. In contrast to Eryximachus’ speech where “the love manifested in health (heavenly) is fundamentally different from the love manifested in disease (common/vulgar)” (Plato: 186B). Pausanias holds that “love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace – its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to” (Plato: 183D). Pausanias views love as good and bad by what it brings. He sees that love with women and with little boys is of the vulgar kind, but love between older men, however, can have a powerful force in the community and therefore be honorable and heavenly. Therefore, in Pausanias’ eyes, love can be a valuable force within the community if implemented correctly. “Love’s value to the city as a whole and to the citizens is immeasurable, for he compels the lover and his loved one alike to make virtue their cen...
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...nsion is located in the soul; the philosophical study of love allows those aspects of the soul to be released, which in turn ties together all the perspectives of philosophy aired in the Symposium with this concept of balance. This balance of philosophy is not going to teach you anything you do not already know, rather it allows you to release what is in your soul. Hume stipulates that not only must there be a balance between the active and reasonable sides of humans, but also a balance of human understanding against abstruse and confused issues. Therefore, from the examination of Plato and Hume, there exists a common theme: philosophy is a balance.
Works Cited
Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 2nd edition. Hackett Publishing: Indianapolis. 1993.
Plato. Symposium. Trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Cambridge: Hackett, 1989.
As the late Baroque period morphed into the new period known as the classical period, technological advances and new compositional techniques and ideas created new opportunities for the musicians of the period. The changes allowed for new performance techniques, forms, performance venues, and newly available compositional orchestrations to be improved and evolved into something new and improved for the new period.
In classical Greek literature the subject of love is commonly a prominent theme. However, throughout these varied texts the subject of Love becomes a multi-faceted being. From this common occurrence in literature we can assume that this subject had a large impact on day-to-day life. One text that explores the many faces of love in everyday life is Plato’s Symposium. In this text we hear a number of views on the subject of love and what the true nature of love is. This essay will focus on a speech by Pausanius. Pausanius’s speech concentrates on the goddess Aphrodite. In particular he looks at her two forms, as a promoter of “Celestial Love” as well as “Common Love.” This idea of “Common Love” can be seen in a real life context in the tragedy “Hippolytus” by Euripides. This brings the philosophical views made by Pausanius into a real-life context.
In the Symposium, a most interesting view on love and soul mates are provided by one of the characters, Aristophanes. In the speech of Aristophanes, he says that there is basically a type of love that connects people. Aristophanes begins his description of love by telling the tale of how love began. He presents the tale of three sexes: male, female, and a combination of both. These three distinct sexes represented one’s soul. These souls split in half, creating a mirror image of each one of them. Aristophanes describes love as the search for the other half of your soul in this quote: “When a man’s natural form was split in two, each half went round looking for its other half. They put their arms around one another, and embraced each other, in their desire to grow together again. Aristophanes theme is the power of Eros and how not to abuse it.
The story contains the old tale of La Llorona, a woman who drowned her children and was cursed to walk the earth in search of their bodies. Woman Hollering Creek was written in the year of 1991, so it applies to the third wave feminism. The telenovelas were the thing that gave Cleófilas hope throughout her marriage and escaped. The author has it so to liberate how important the fact that Cleófilas ' returned to Mexico set her free. In the hard town of the United States, she had no option but to submit to her husband. However, in the warm town of Mexico, where she once lived, she is able to gain independence as a woman. The story ends with running away from her husband, with the help of a woman, Felice, who takes her back to Mexico. But leaving that world, and crossing the river in order to ultimately return to Mexico, gives Cleófilas a new perspective. Her companion, Felice hollers when they cross the river, but not in either anger or pain, when crossing over the creek means Cleófilas is returning to Mexico, and becomes not angry or painful, but
In an audio Interview, done by Don Swain, Cisneros explains how she got the title of the story." The Creek" she says "is a real place" she explains how she wanted the title to be in Spanish but she wasn't allowed to; the reason, she explained, was because she was a Mexican woman. "The creek called La Gretna is a reminiscent of popular folktale about La Lorona, a nameless tragic woman drowned herself and her children"(Mullen 1).Cisneros creates the character from a background which explains why she doesn't know what the reality of life is; she comes from a family of a six brothers and a dad and without a mom, a male dominated family. Jeff Thomas, from the article" What is Called Heaven" says: "The union of gender, and gender based ideologies, is essential to the strong, feminine characters of the later stories of Woman Hollering Creek."(l) What Thomas means is that Cisnores focuses more on gender problems, discriminations and the conflicts in this story rather than love story and the lifestyle. Although Cleofilas finds a way to learn her womanly attributes, through television series .she imagines her ideal life through television series which she watches religiously. Cisneros created a great example. In the third world countries, communication outside of a city or country is very hard, so Cisneros used the telenovelas as the only tool for Cleofilas to see how life can sometimes be. She doesn't know being beaten by her husband is not a normal thing. She is living in the suburbs with her husband with neighbors who in their own way, are trapped as well. Cisneros also shows how life can be for Cleofilas when a mom is not present to guide heir, again, Cleofilas's only guide are the television series.
I have always thought that there was only one type of love, which was that feeling of overwhelming liking to someone else. I am aware that Lust does exist and that it is separate from Love, being that the desire for someone's body rather their mind. In Plato's Symposium, Plato speaks of many different types of love, loves that can be taken as lust as well. He writes about seven different points of view on love coming from the speakers that attend the symposium in honor of Agathon. Although all these men bring up excellent points on their definitions on love, it is a woman that makes the best definition be known. I will concentrate on the difference between the theory of Common and Heavenly love brought up by Pausanias and the important role that Diotima plays in the symposium.
...t pater nisi...[a father cannot disinherit his son unless...]"(1-31). Ironically Faustus foreshadows his own end in the beginning.
Aristotle and David Hume share very clashing views on morality. Aristotle and Hume both believe in the possibility of being a virtuous person and both emphasize importance when it comes to reason, but their respective definitions of what virtue and reason actually mean differ drastically. Aristotle believes all human actions aim at some good, while Hume believes the reason behind everything is arithmetic and that human passions rule over reason. There is one supreme good according to Aristotle, but Hume believes what is good and bad all depends on perception. Both Aristotle and Hume take on the same topics in regards to morality, but take very different approaches.
with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and
Doctor Faustus can only be described as a man that had a fervent hunger for power. The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, or, which is commonly known as, just ‘Doctor Faustus’, is an Elizabethan story written by Christian Marlowe. The work represents the tragic life of a scholar, John Faustus, who later finds himself into damnation because of his decision to practice sorcery. Since he had deliberately sold his soul to the devil, he gains incredible knowledge and power through his involvement of necromancy. Though he feels he has endless power, he is later forced to face his downfall. When his 24 year period, the time he had agreed to, is over, he is taken and dragged to Hell realizing his lack of good sense.
At the movies, in stores, on the radio, many of the places you go to that have music playing have music that was written from the Classical Period. The Classical Period harbored famous and renowned composers and performers. Two composers who stand out are Mozart himself who composed many pieces including the famous piece Piano Concerto No. 22 and Ludwig van Beethoven who composed his astounding 5th Symphony. Through the centuries the Classical Period has still been honored and commemorated for its style beauty.
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There are 5 main eras of classical music which were in order: Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Contemporary. The Renaissance Period was a time where most of the music was sung by churches because it was the dark ages and they were asking god for forgiveness. The Baroque period had music that was very contrasting. Contrast is an important element in the drama of a baroque pieces. The distinction between soft and loud, group pieces and solo pieces, different instruments and timbres all play an important role in many baroque music. Compose...
The word “philosophy” is derived from two roots that are “philo” and “Sophia.” Philo means love whereas Sophia means wisdom. Therefore, philosophy means the love of wisdom. In actual practice, philosophy entails study of, pursuit, and enquiry into wisdom. A good number of great philosophers have referred to philosophy as the art of thinking. Others have only defined it as the systematic study of human feelings and thoughts.
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