Plato and Aristotle are without a doubt two of the world’s greatest philosophers. Plato, a Greek philosopher and a student of Socrates, was born around 424-423 BC in Athens to a wealthy Athenian family and his death was around 347-348 BC. Following in the footsteps of Socrates, Plato wrote his works as dialogues. His notable […]
Throughout life, one will encounter many different people some with similar views and others with contrasting perspectives on reality. This topic and discussion on life and reality continues to rise debate since ancient times. Some of history’s most influential philosophers that attempt to describe life and reality are Aristotle and Plato. A student may choose […]
Human happiness has been a topic of discussion for thousands of years. The discussion focuses on how to reach true happiness, and the relevance of happiness to decision making. Over time, philosophers have mulled over human happiness, with Aristotle and Kant taking opposing stances. Aristotle believes happiness is the goal of human activity. Kant argues […]
Both Pericles’ Funeral Oration from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and Plato’s Apology of Socrates describe the Athenian democracy and society, however, they are very opposite views. According to Pericles, the written as well as unwritten laws of democracy, such as the administration being in hands of many citizens who are also the judges […]
Aristotle was taught by Plato who was taught by Socrates. In a sense they all their had own specific way of thinking of human nature but they also had a way of relating to each other. Plato believed in the Theory of Forms while Aristotle believed in metaphysics and Socrates believed in the key to […]
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Get startedAristotle believes that if one wants to live well, one should organize their life by reference to the very best thing that humans can obtain in action?”something he calls “the human good. He portrays that a good life should point towards eudaimonia, which may also be interpreted as happiness. However, unlike our modern understanding of […]
In Dan Millman’s embarks on a journey to find “unreasonable happiness”. He sets out to find the true meaning of happiness displayed by when he says, “All these years I had been sustained by an illusion – happiness through victory – and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no happier, no more […]
What is freedom and are we free? Freedom. A word redolent with benevolence. People like being “”free””. It is regularly introduced to society as an extremity: free articulation, free decision and majority rules system, versus suppression, restriction and absolutism. The idea of regular rights assumes a conspicuous job in legitimate and political talk of freedom. […]
Today virtue is considered a valuable trait to have. Something that shows true character and represents a fair and honorable person. Back then it meant the same thing. It was a quality used to represent noble people of all walks of life. From Generals in war to everyday citizens just going above and beyond showing […]
Survival has always necessitated the existence of communities for human beings. Over countless generations, people have evolved to be good at conforming into the societies they live in, since those who couldn’t were often the first to die. There’s safety in numbers, but to belong to a group and be protected there is always a […]
The allegory of the cave is a classic philosophical fable by Plato, which tells of a man who had been imprisoned at the depths of a winding cave. Inside, there were only the shadows of objects that had been projected by a fire. It can be argued that several aspects from the movie series The […]
Abstract In this paper the literary works of Plato and Martin Luther will be compared. In Plato’s “Socrates’ Apology” and Martin Luther’s “Speech at the Diet of Worms” the defense of one’s beliefs is the central focus. When their beliefs are called into question, both Socrates and Martin Luther stay true to their causes and […]
As mentioned above, Eudaimonia is defined as a supreme good, which becomes the ultimate goal of everyone pursues. What is the ultimate goal? It is the final purpose and will not be the way to achieve other purposes. For example, we can say that earning money is the purpose of working. So how about the […]
Explain, analyze, and interpret Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” from Book VII of Republic (p.193-198; 514a-519b). Plato was an ancient Athenian Philosopher who studied under fellow philosopher Socrates. He would later become one of the most influential philosophers of all time. One of Plato’s most notable works and most famous allegory was the “Allegory of the […]
The representation in news media and environmental literature mislead the viewer, or reader, into thinking humans cause more significant damage to the environment than the environment causes on humanity. Also, there is a need for more responsible and accurate news reports, articles, and environmental literature that focus on the effect the environment has on humanity. […]
This paper serves as an examination of the similarities and differences in the views of two philosophers, Plato and Nietzsche, relating top human nature and ethics as expressed in Plato’s The Republic and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche writes this volume as the end of his life approaches and uses it as an instrument […]
Anarchy. Self-government. Aristocracy. Tyranny. Democracy. In every society there lie a social contract amongst peoples on how to conduct themselves and daily business, or rather, the rule-of-the-land. This social contract is declared and enforced by both legal authorities (i.e. government) as well as through the participation of its citizens. This paradigm has come to be […]
In this essay we will be looking at Aristotle’s Ethics most importantly book v of his Nichomachean Ethics, which is concern with Justice. As a virtue theorist Aristotle believes that the best form of life is to cultivate virtue. There are different virtues and the way Aristotle defines virtue as the means between excess and […]
Within every state, the typical goal of every citizen is to have an efficient system of government that gives priority to its citizens regardless of their position or class within the community. Individuals who owe allegiance to a given state may show diversity, but the core of their focus is working towards having a better […]
Define allegory in your own words. Explain the main elements of the allegory in the excerpt from the Republic. An allegory is a story, or a parable, based on human experience meant to act as a moral guide. The allegory from Plato’s Republic is a cautionary tale that expresses how human life can be expressed as […]
Plato was an ancient Athenian Philosopher who studied under fellow philosopher Socrates. He would later become one of the most influential philosophers of all time. One of Plato’s most notable works and most famous allegory was the “Allegory of the Cave”. Plato uses the “Allegory of the Cave” as a tool to show us, readers, […]
In the movie The Matrix we discover a character by the title of Neo and his battle adjusting to the truth to reality. This story is closely similar to an antiquated Greek content composed by Plato called “The Purposeful anecdote of the Cave.” Presently both stories are diverse but the thoughts are essentially the same. […]
Everyone views democracy differently; some people think it’s not the best way to run a government and others feel that it’s the only way. Both Socrates and Aristotle have strong views on democracy. In Book Six of The Republic Plato describes a conversation between Socrates and another character called Adeimantus. Socrates compares democracy to a […]
When people are asked what life is, the response is always somewhere along the lines of “Life is what you make of it.” I can tell you that there is a lot that can be contradicted with this assumption. People can argue that it is not just about what you make of everything you do, […]
This week in class we were introduced to the topic of our first essay: determining whether an examined life is the only morally worthwhile life. The concept of an examined life was introduced by Socrates and recorded by Plato, in Apology. We were also provided with a recommended process by which to write this argumentative […]
Anet Toroosian Online English 104: Dr. Kwa Essay One Final Draft Epilogue to Plato’s Cave To start, what would your life be like if you were stuck in a world where you could not see the end? Would you be content with just being alive? This question reminds me Plato’s “the allegory of the cave”. […]
The Allegory of the Cave begins by introducing three men that are placed in a cave since childhood. The things these men experience and express have greater meanings than their literal text. The men are facing the wall of the cave and their legs and necks are chained to keep them from seeing what is […]
As an educator you will see many different types of students throughout your career. Students from all walks of life. It is up to us to know how to handle these students and find different ways to teach each one. Because all students learn at a different pace and learn from different styles of teaching. […]
St. Augustine was an important figure in history for philosophy and had many contributions throughout his career that made other important philosophers question themselves and him. We get to know St. Augustine as he tells his audience about his life and his ideas by his work while he was alive. He had written many famous […]
Some philosophers think that abortion should be done at beginning stages before the fetus has consciousness. As for others, they think that it’s important for moral permissible of an abortion, whether the fetus is at a stage where parts of the brain that exists supports a certain capacity of consciousness and self-consciousness. In the Politics […]
Essay about Plato
According to David Foster’s This Is Water we revolve ourselves around certain beliefs that we think are a matter of fact. We do not even think for once that they can be questioned too. In this way our brain creates a circuit making us unaware that we are imprisoned by our beliefs.
The concern of certainty is a legitimate worry for philosophers because many things that we are certain of turns out to be totally opposite, wrong, and deceptive. When eventually it is dawned upon us that our beliefs were wrong or they can be counter questioned, our self-centered behavior gets hurt. Ultimately it produces chaos inside us. We should need to understand that change is the most powerful law of nature. And we cannot be certain about even certain things.
Worry of Plato and Descartes on the unexamined everyday world:
Plato has acknowledged with the quote that “ An unexamined life is not worth living” by Socrates during his trials. Their worry is justified because when we examine anything we try to understand it. Examined life leads you to live a transparent life. When you start examining you come to know what you are living. Socrates was the philosopher and philosophy means to question everything. If we will stop examining everything, the philosophy would simply be fallen down or completely vanished. They were worried that if the examining would be stopped, there would be no attraction to live for.
According to Descartes, if a belief has even the slightest tint of doubt, reject it. This thought is called radical skepticism where every belief is counter questioned and challenged. He concluded this experiment in a statement that physical senses cannot be relied upon as they have deceived him earlier. This phenomenon is known as sensory deception. This led him to think that every believer can be doubted that is perceived by five senses. He also explained that it is difficult to differentiate between waking life and dream states. So we cannot say that whether we are in the awake state, living in reality or asleep, living a dream. This he named as dream hypothesis. He also postulated the evil demon hypothesis. He stated that all external realities may be just an illusion framed by the evil demon trying to deceive the man. Moreover, he said that previous memories can be merely imaginations and not strong realities. These all statements and theories made him doubt the theory of the existence of anything.
Plato presented the allegory of the cave. He postulated a story. He said there are few prisoners present in the depths of a cave. The cave is all dark. The prisoners are sitting behind a wall. A fire is lit behind the prisoners which cast shadows of them on the wall. Few prisoners among them are puppeteers who make puppets on the wall from the light of the fire. They make noises while making puppets on the wall. According to their perception, truth is nothing more than shadows.
In other words, prisoners are unaware of this illusion and consider these shadows a reality. One day a prisoner unchained himself and went to move around the cave. At night he saw stars and in the day he saw light. It was then dawned upon him that the true source of light is the sun. then he realizes that his previous life in the cave was just an illusion. He depicts prisoners as people with false beliefs about reality. They gave their hold to senses which eventually manipulated the reality.
After getting to know about their experiments in detail, both of them thought that senses are illusory. Our senses can be manipulated easily and they can interfere with our perception of reality. Moreover, the evil demon hypothesis of Descartes is relevant to prisoners whose perception is distorted by puppeteers. For both of them the intellect is the only means for getting insight into true knowledge. Senses are deceptive.
I think their projects differ at one point. Descartes provides the initial point to modern sciences by just not relying on five senses whereas Plato told us about the way of life, how to spend it logically and the essence of seeking true knowledge. Moreover, Plato’s theory represented the conclusive point whereas Descartes’s theory opened the gates of further investigation.
The preferred method to think about the possibility of illusion or deception is the escape from the cave. This approach is more applicable and practical because those who acquire it can come back to the cave and teach others who are still unaware of the reality.
I would try to increase the people in logical reasoning and to break the circles of false consciousness. The darkness in the cave can be overcome by true knowledge and intellect. In this way this goal can be practical. Wisdom and knowledge come through seeking and questioning. It is enlightened on you when you move out of your cave and start observing your surroundings closely. In this cave analogy of Plato, cave and its darkness abbreviate unawareness and light and its source abbreviates awareness and truth. Moreover, we should note that intellect is not served to us in a decorated plate but we have to go and strive for it.
To educate others after getting yourself enlightened is the best possible way to take others out of the cave and the darkness. We should try to look beyond physical appearances as they can cause delusion. (Palmer, 2017)
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