Plato 's Views On Perception

Plato was a philosopher during the Classical Greek Era. He studied under Socrates and agreed with many of his teacher’s views. These views were based on the absolutes which were the pursuit of the ideal. They pursed order, rationality, truth, harmony, balance, beauty, and many other ideas. Another ideal they pursued was the concept of a good soul and life after death. Plato’s world view of death revolves around having a good soul and if a person has a good soul they will have a good life after death; he shows this through rebuking materialism, his views of death, and the fact that he believes he has a good soul and in return he will have a good life in death .

Plato’s theory of the simplicity of the soul is seen in the Phaedo. Through the mouthpiece of Socrates, Plato argues for a simple soul which only has one true aim. He states that the soul only seeks truth and that all other senses and experiences are merely distractions through the soul being embodied ‘the soul reasons best when none of these senses troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor pleasure, but when it is most by itself, taking leave of the body and as far as possible having no contact or association with it in its search for reality.’ (Plato, 1997, §65c). The simple soul can only aim to grasp the truth of reality which it gets closer to as man becomes closer to death. This is why, in Plato’s opinion, a philosopher in particular can

John Spayde’s article What Does it Mean to Be Educated (June 1998) offers insight into the world of philosophical questions and studies of our educational system. Spayde shares and responds to the opinions of different novelists, journalists, professors, and colleges that have taken a stance on what it means to be educated. His article briefly covers topics such as; educational decisions, financial division, entitlement, humanities, and technology. Spayde also discusses the importance of being connected and learning from a real-life experience. Spayde believes that having a connection to the world around you allows you to use any experience as a learning mechanism to further your education.

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Questioned if you are completely able to see from the outside looking in? Philosopher Plato, presents his view of reality through an allegory to explain the concept, and how we gain knowledge of our reality. Two other philosophers that I will mention both touch base with their description of reality and how it relates to Plato’s conception. All three of these philosophers believe knowledge is attainable through acts of realization and simple knowledge, and each philosopher presents his/her main point of reality through different ways of attaining it. I will further mention the relevance of Plato’s theory in today’s world and why I believe it to be valuable.

Education is a life-altering event that involves becoming more open- minded. When one’s horizons are expanded they begin to understand and view more. The process of becoming knowledgeable through education can differ from the individual or situation. The overall experience as well can change the perception. Two passages, “Learning to Read” by Malcom X and “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato both contain an individual who goes through the path of gaining wisdom. Although both passages contain similarities involving one going through an experience resulting in the enlightenment of education, there are several differences in how the acknowledgement is approached and the type of predicament the individual is in.

Plato made the source of his hope abundantly clear in his dialogue, Phaedo, “There is good hope that on arriving where I am going, if anywhere, I shall acquire what has been our chief preoccupation in our past life” (Phaedo, 67b-c). Plato’s ultimate hope and desire was to attain real wisdom. He had a true conundrum, however: he believed that the physical world was by very nature evil. Not only that, but he believed the physical dimension to which our bodies bind us was altogether false. In fact, he

In his article “The Neglect of the Intellect: Sloth,” Mortimer J. Adler asserts that the disuse of a person’s intellect is a moral injustice. Adler coins the term “sloth” to describe the people committing this moral crime. He believes that people should use their intellectual abilities for their own personal pleasure rather than for economic or political gain. Adler employs an aggressive tone when describing the abuse of the intellect, and appeals to the reader’s emotion when portraying intellect as a way the only way to live a morally good life. Adler’s purpose is to convince his readers that intellect should be used solely for the purpose of increasing knowledge. While Adler’s article gives a reasonably convincing argument about learning for your own well-being, he fails to support his claims, baffles his readers with the overuse of intelligent sounding words, and neglects to explain why you should be intellectual just for the sake of it.

“If the truth of all things always existed in the soul, then the soul is immortal” (The Philosophical Journey 89). This states that since the soul has all knowledge integrated, one recollects this knowledge through situations in an individual’s life and use one’s reasoning. With the dialogues of the Meno and Phaedo, Plato discusses the ideas of recollection and immortality of the soul in general. As well, the Republic, through the three different situations shown, Plato shows the ideas of the forms and what is real and what is not.

Plato is trying to prove that everyone is in darkness until they choose to find the light. In the book Plato’s Republic there are many examples of turning blindness into knowledge. Plato says “They say that they can pretty much put knowledge into sounds that lake it, like putting sight into blind eyes.” (Plato, trans C.D.C Reeve, Hackett,1999, p. 212) Plato is explaining that anyone can be knowledgeable with the right tools or instructor. Even someone who isn’t the smartest can still gain useful amounts of knowledge to create good in the world if they have the correct guidance. Plato also believes that anyone who has told lies will always believe lies since they never heard the truth. Plato mentions the divided line which is between realm of intelligible and the realm of invisible which explains the difference between opinion and actual facts. On the bottom of the divided line there are opinions or untruths; On top of the divided line there are truths such as math’s, sciences, and factual information. Images are often based off of opinions and people don’t want to look away from images, phones and other gadgets are often used nowadays to describe things. Phones are smaller devices are taking away from the real learning process and the “truth. People don’t want to to turn off their cell phones which is realm of invisible, and move onto realm of knowledgeable because people don’t want to get closer to knowledge.

In the days of Plato’s existence, the soul was a living, non-material entity that was created before the person and would continue on after the person was no more, unlike contemporary concepts of the soul, this concept was not based on religion or religious views as it didn’t exist then (Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). Plato believed that one must endeavour to take care of their soul as it is eternal and more important than the body (Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). Plato’s tripartite theory of the mind, is one of the most notable ancient theories of the soul in the fourth century, as well as in contemporary philosophical study (Lorenz, 2009). It focusses around the idea that the mind or soul - both terms are used interchangeably - is divided into three parts which are appetite, reason and spirit (Lorenz, 2009; Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). Since Plato, there have been other similar concepts, especially in modern psychology, formed around the idea that an individual is subject to multiple divisions of oneself, the most memorable being Sigmund Freud’s notion of the conscious and subconscious with the Id, ego and superego (Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). The notions of weakness of will and self-control can be explained through the exploration of Plato’s tripartite theory, as they can be seen as a representation of unbalance and balance between appetite, spirit and reason. Throughout this essay, I will explain the

Plato says that the soul is immortal as it has no physical aspects, and so cannot be affected by physical events of time. Plato’s philosophical ideas were inspired by Socrates. Plato based his work off of Socrates’ as a foundation for his own. For Plato morality needs to be comprehended without taking into consideration its consequences.(9) Righteousness is a reward on its own, rather an end in itself and not a

Philosophers have conventionally defined knowledge as a belief that is both true and justified. Plato first introduces this concept of knowledge in Thaeaetetus where he presents knowledge, to be justified true belief. This definition sufficed until, Edmund Gettier, an American philosopher, pointed out that the conditions could be fulfilled inadvertently, in ways that did not amount to what Plato intuitively regarded to as knowledge. The goal of the Gettier problem is to showcase that one can have a belief which is true and justified, yet still not amounting to knowledge. By analyzing the concepts of Plato’s theory, I will bring to light its inadequacies, proving the complication Gettier poses to be a genuine philosophical problem.

As I reflect on the philosophical studies of this course I realize that knowledge and reason are both central to human beings functionality. The abundant amount of information acquired by these philosophers’ abilities alone makes one wonder, what is the capacity of the human brain and its byproducts. These amazing men who by reason and knowledge alone has changed cultures and has influenced kingdoms for centuries. Learning about their philosophies has enlightened my mind in areas I could never imagined.

I also like how Plato stated that it took a while for the man who got out of the cave to adjust to the outside world because everything was so bright and all the different objects and colors were so overwhelming. I feel like Plato is trying to describe what it is like when you first truly submerge yourself in a new way of thinking and surround yourself in the new knew teachings and after a while of reading a studying you truly get a grasp on all the concepts and it is no longer overwhelming. Another detail that I really liked that Plato added was that when the man went back to the cave he was not used to the darkness and couldn’t perceive the shadows to be anything. I thought of this detail as once you have discovered a new way of thinking

There are multiple ways to define wisdom, and ones definition of wisdom might vary from another’s. Wisdom has the ability to connect people, despite their ethnic, cultural and socio economic backgrounds. It is applicable to the teachings of philosophy and religion to list a few. Wisdom has a lot to offer as long as one remains open minded, willing to learn from real life experiences, and never pretend to know something that they are not actually educated about. Wisdom is a complex value with many facets to it yet, I hope to scratch the surface on what it means to be wise. In this paper I will address and analyze some of the text read in class, and then apply the information gained to assist in answering the question of what my understanding of wisdom is. I will also be addressing how wisdom has affected my education and my ultimate relationship with it.