Analysis Of The Four Major Identitys By Mark Lilla

Petrarch is a writer of great knowledge with a desire of theology and politics, as so many before him, while keeping the words and acts of humanism to be held sacred and gifts of our Heavenly Judge. He was a teacher of knowledge, sobriety, and humbleness. With the aid from the philosophies of Aristotle, Petrarch wrote with finesse and poise, which Petrarch only new in the Latin language, his driven thoughts in relation to that of Cicero, a roman poet and politician that died years before Petrarch was born, Petrarch was considered to be one of these learned men as so many others. He was patronized by the wealthy due to his style and ability to write with such power and grace. He refers constantly other great poets such as Euripides and biblical characters, such as, Jeremiah. All these display an attitude towards learning and kindness.

In Apology, Socrates is confronted with questioning of why he thinks people slander him the way they do. To answer, Socrates brings up the term of “human wisdom.” This is a type of wisdom that is not godly, and Socrates expresses that he is not wise at all. Human wisdom composes the notion that having great wisdom is having the ability to not think he knows what he does not know. In order to support his claim, Socrates brings up the Oracle story. Here, Chaerephon asked the Oracle if anyone was wiser then Socrates and “Pythian replied that no one was wiser.” In Socrates understanding of how he was most wiser, he told a story about going to three different types of people: politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Out of these three, it was understood that the hierarchy is reversed and the craftsmen are truly wise in their craft but felt this made them speak in other fields, when if fact they knew nothing about. These cases bring up the human wisdom and why Socrates is exploited as very wise, because he does not try to think and speak on something he does not know. The oracle brings up the “form” of what human wisdom is and uses Socrates as an example. In the end, the person who is wisest knows that his wisdom is worthless.

Socrates, an Athenian philosopher who lived from 469 BC until his very unnecessary death in 399 BC, has had his wisdom called into question many times since he has been studied. But to know whether some is wise, we must first know what it means to be wise. According to Websters Dictionary, to be is wise is : (1) having or showing good judgment; (2) informed; (3) learned; (4) shrewd amd cunning. From this definition, it is clear to me that Socrates was wise in every aspect of the word. He shows this wisdom while

James McBride has always struggled with his race and identity. Growing up with twelve brothers and sisters, both father figures in his life have passed away, and a white mother in a predominantly black community. In a time where being black is not so good. McBride never had it easy in his life. A lot of tragedy and self-discovery and acceptance had to happen in his life. Growing up in a time where all your heroes are white, in a school where you are just a joke and someone to pick on, and then trying to discover a part of your mother and yourself at the same time.

Identities are complex and as Phoenix and Pattynama argue, it is often necessary to consider the combination or intersection of different identities. (Phoenix and Pattynama, (2006) p169)

Philosophers are known to question, analyze and evaluate everything but do not always end with concrete conclusions. Plato’s Euthyphro and Apology, to no surprise, highlight one of such debate: the human characteristics of wisdom. Though Plato was one of the earliest philosophers, the topic of wisdom is still debated by modern philosophers today, contemplating questions such as “What are the classifications of ‘wisdom’?” According to Plato’s two dialogues, the characteristics of wisdom have a strong correlation with the characteristics of “being a good person”. This concept highlights the values of virtue and selflessness and at the same time juxtapose views on virtue while taking into account the different forms of rationality. In this paper, I will highlight how Plato uses his two dialogues to enforce his own opinion about the relationship between being wise and being a good person, and evaluate the inconsistencies within this claim.

Lord of the Flies, an allegorical novel by William Golding, holds truths about mankind’s true nature of existence. The novel explores the savagery in all men that lies dormant, yet when society’s rules cease to exist, the boy’s innocence perishes along with it. The boys attempt to band together and mock the society that they came from, but not understanding the complexity of the situation, results in their society falling into ruins. On the island the boys are returned to man’s primitive nature, without rules or discipline, and they slowly drift into anarchy. Without proper guidance, the boys resort to cloaking their innocence with body paint to survive. With the body paint coating their skin, the boys bury their old personas within and allow themselves to commit acts that society would frown upon. When Jack’s tribe uses the facade of body paint to dissociate themselves from civilization’s morals, they denote that hiding one’s true identity liberates them from the constraints of society.

In Amin Maalouf’s book “In the Name of Identity” Maalouf emphasizes that we should not judge people on one singular identity. He argues that, “Identity can’t be compartmentalized. You can’t divide it up into halves or thirds or any other separate segments. I haven’t got several identities: I’ve got just one, made up of many components in mixture that is unique to me, just as other people’s identity is unique to them as individuals.” The essence of Maalouf’s argument is that one should not define another based solely on a singular component of their identity but rather their identity as a whole.

When one says that this elderly person has wisdom from various life experiences, he/she is not saying that the elderly person knows much about books and their profession. Instead, one would be speaking about the elderly person’s vast knowledge about what is important in life due to their multitude of experiences. While the elderly person may not be completely wise in the most encompassing form of wisdom, the elderly person does appear to have a more expansive understanding of what is important in life. Simply knowing what matters in life, however, does not satisfy the ultimate form of wisdom, for the wise must know why these things matter in life. That is, a truly wise person must have insight beyond the theoretical, into the practical. Beyond this, a wise person, in this view, must also know how to achieve what matters most, and, in knowing so, do what matters most. I say this because a truly wise person would be able to act upon what they know to be the most important thing in life. It is wiser for a person to act than to merely conceptualize what is most essential in life.

Socrates, to name a few. Each man at the dinner party has a different point of

The connotation of sage is that of a wise elder who is sought for advice by those of a lesser capacity. The sage Laozi describes in the Guodian text does not embody this connotation. “He is above the people, but the people do not make much of him.” (Guodian, A-I) He is not one who these people go to for wisdom or advice, he is simply one who lives by the Way, and living by the Way inherently makes one unremarkable. When I say it makes one unremarkable, I am referring to the inability to stand out or be exceptional. To be exceptional in any regard, such as skill, you must strive to be exceptional, according to Laozi striving to be exceptional is purposeful action, but the sage practices purposeless action. In this way the sage cannot be exceptional

Wisdom is a characteristic that one possesses due to their experiences in life and learning from those experiences. The societal qualities of people in the Elizabethan time were focused on how money equals power. However, to have money, that person had to be educated and wise. This put women of this particular era in a bind due to the fact that women were not supposed to be educated unless their wealth family demanded them to be. In the play The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare portrayed the character Portia as a dynamic, powerful woman with education and wisdom. Portia is used to represent how women are given and equal education to a man, they can prove that they are just as, if not wiser than any man that walks onto

Identity is what evolves us, it is what makes us think the way we do, and act the way we act, in essence, a person’s identity is their everything. Identity separates us from everyone else, and while one may be very similar to another, there is no one who is exactly like you; someone who has experienced exactly what you have, feels the way you do about subjects, and reacts the same to the events and experiences you have had. This became prevalent to me as I read through many books, that everyone goes through the process of finding who they are. A prevalent theme throughout literature is the idea that over time one develops their identity through life over time, in contrast to being born with one identity and having the same

Socrates finds that once evaluating his own life, he begins to have a new and deeper thought on life itself.  Through his life, he has been held to be by many people, one of the wisest men to exist.  The Oracle of Delphi had even spoke on this when asked by Chaerephron if there was even a wiser man, then Socrates (Plato, trans. 1871).  This didn’t stop him in the search to find the wisest man, asking politicians and such around him, and even decided to talk with one who he had believed was to be wiser then him.  After conversing with him, however, he saw that

While numerous philosophers have debated how to quantify personal identity, It is my contention that Rene Descartes presents the best argument .This essay will examine the strengths and weaknesses within his theory. This essay will also also compare Descartes argument to Rick Parfit and David Humes individual interpretations of what personal identity is. Lastly, this essay will examine the weaknesses within Descartes argument and the points some have contention with.