Comparing Plato's Arguments Of Affinity And The Forms

In response to the long-standing philosophical question of immorality, many philosophers have posited the soul criterion, which asserts the soul constitutes personal identity and survives physical death. In The Myth of the Soul, Clarence Darrow rejects the existence of the soul in his case against the notion of immortality and an afterlife. His primary argument against the soul criterion is that no good explanation exists for how a soul enters a body, or when its beginning might occur. (Darrow 43) After first explicating Darrow 's view, I will present what I believe is its greatest shortcoming, an inconsistent use of the term soul, and argue that this weakness impacts the overall strength of his argument.

In this two Christian philosophers, Richard Swinburne and Tim O'Connor, discussed the concept of neuroscience and the soul. The first philosopher, Swinburne, believed in the idea of substance dualism while O’Conner supported the argument for emergent individualism.

Before modern philosophy, Plato wrote numerous important philosophical works during his lifetime, but some of the more important ones are his works involving Socrates. With these works, Plato touched upon important beliefs that seem clear-cut to us, but are much more complicated than believed. One of these beliefs involves the meaning and importance of knowledge. The topic of knowledge is important in his works Protagoras, Euthydemus, and Meno. There are three points he brings up involving proper knowledge: the importance of good teaching, the necessity of knowledge to do what is best in the world, and how virtue is a type of knowledge. In the end, I will explain why I agree with the argument of knowledge that Plato has raised in these three

His arguments are valid because after he states his beliefs, he explains why he thinks what he thinks to be true. He created the theory of, “Either death is a state of nothing ness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world by another” (Plato). This is an example of false dilemma because he only stated there were only two options when one will die. Although this may not be true, explains about going to another world to live the life he never had. The other part of the theory justifies if one dies and is in a state of unconsciousness

In Plato’s, Phaedo, one of the arguments that Socrates makes for justifying his theory about the soul being immortal is the argument of opposites. The argument of opposites is found from 70c to 72c in the Phaedo. The argument is not logically valid as there are a few fallacies that occur with the definition of opposites with which Socrates defines his argument. This argument ultimately fails at being logically valid as contrary to premise 1, all things that have an opposite do not come from only their opposites. Socrates also does not specify in this argument whether he is referring to the soul dying or the body dying in the final premises. If the body is the one that dies then his argument becomes logically invalid and it would ultimately fail because that would mean that living bodies come from dead

In Plato’s Meno, Socrates comes to the conclusion of his argument through the following five steps:

Socrates in the dialogue Alcibiades written by Plato provides an argument as to why the self is the soul rather than the body. In this dialogue Alcibiades and Socrates get into a discussion on how to cultivate the self which they both mutually agree is the soul, and how to make the soul better by properly taking care of it. One way Socrates describes the relationship between the soul and the body is by analogy of user and instrument, the former being the entity which has the power to affect the latter. In this paper I will explain Socrates’ arguments on why the self is the soul and I will comment on what it means to cultivate it.

In the sixth meditation, Descartes postulates that there exists a fundamental difference in the natures of both mind and body which necessitates that they be considered as separate and distinct entities, rather than one stemming from the other or vice versa. This essay will endeavour to provide a critical objection to Descartes’ conception of the nature of mind and body and will then further commit to elucidating a suitably Cartesian-esque response to the same objection. (Descartes,1641)

For example, given Plato’s logic a painting isn’t beautiful because of brush strokes and the meticulous placement of them, yet it is because the painting holds the essence of beauty and participates in the form of beauty. However, given difference of opinion not everyone will find the painting beautiful, and so how are innate forms classified and when? Another question being as to when the soul leaves the body. For example, if a heart is still beating while the brain is dead does the body still carry the essence of immortality and thus the soul? While we may never know, I still find Plato’s explanations vacuously platitudinous, hardly truly giving an explanation at all and instead to be grasping at straws to ease Socrates own fears of death before execution within the

The trial and death of Socrates is a book with four dialogues all about the trail that leads to the eventual death of Socrates. The four dialogues are Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. It will explain the reasoning that brought Socrates to trial in the first place and give us a glimpse into the physiological thought of this time, and in this paper will describe some of the differences today.

Socrates was a great philosopher of the Greek world. He was quite an atypical and distinctive person. Being different from all the other philosophers of the land, Socrates was teaching his students ideas totally out of the ordinary from what the society believed was right. As a result, he displeased many people so much that they decided to get rid of him. Socrates was put to trial, accused of spoiling the youth of Athens, tried and sentenced to death. His personal defense is described in works two of his students: Xenophon and Plato. Both of them wrote papers called Apology, which is the Greek word for “defense”. In this essay I used Apology by Plato as the main resource, since it contents a more full account of the trial of Socrates and his words. Despite the fact that the philosopher attempted to defend himself and explain the reasons for saying and doing the things he did, it did not do any good for his justification. On the contrary, Socrates’ words seemed to make the jury harden their hearts and condemn him.

I am saying that “human beings are more than merely physical beings.” In Plato’s dialogues Phaedo and Meno “Theory of Recollection”, I began to understand that the soul carries innate knowledge. In Meno, the way that Socrates is able to prove this is by showing how a slave boy seems to have the ability to understand basic geometric principles. Socrates then concludes that the slave boy’s soul possessed the knowledge of geometry the whole time. From this, you could say that Plato hold’s deductive reasoning within ourselves that we have no business knowing, and that they must have been carried from a previous existence. Plato’s theology involves some kind of reincarnation. To Plato, this affirms that the idea of immaterial soul, which must

Plato breaks the justification of knowledge down into two types of realms that show what can be known by reason and what can be known by the five senses. These realms, then divided into two other unequal parts based on their clarity and truthfulness, make up what is known as The Divided Line. By understanding The Divided Line we can fully grasp the differences between the perceptual, also known as becoming, realm and the conceptual, also known as being, realm.

In Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, he explains the soul and comes to the conclusion that the soul is immortal. Through describing the last hours of Socrates life before his execution, he lays out three arguments in support of the idea that while the body may cease to exist the soul cannot perish. In this paper, I will explicate Socrates three arguments for the immortality of the soul and their objections. Then I will argue on the presupposition of the Law of Conservation of Mass, that the universe, entailing the soul, must be cyclical.

In thinking of Socrates we must recognize that what we have is four secondhand sources depicting him. That of Plato, Xenophanes, Aristophanes, and Aristotle. All having radically different accounts on Socrates and his views. Out of all them we consider Plato’s to be the most possible account, even though we face a problem of different versions of Socrates. The existence and continual study of Socrates’ philosophy regardless of differing accounts is astonishing in itself since it survived not through the specific philosopher, but through other people. Which is a testament of the impact that a man, such as Socrates, can make. When we think of Plato, who is regarded as a father of western philosophy, we are quick to think of his major work The Republic, his student Aristotle, and his writing on Socrates. (We think of his writings on Socrates as mere footnotes in philosophical thought without examining them.) “Nothing comes from nothing,” Parmenides proudly claimed, and this philosophical doctrine applies to Plato’s thought.