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8. “No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.” 9. “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
Plato's theory of the soul, which was inspired variously by the teachings of Socrates, considered the psyche (Ancient Greek: ψῡχή, romanized: psūkhḗ) to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave. Plato considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of a person's being.
Socrates believed that a life devoid of introspection, self-reflection, and critical thinking is essentially meaningless and lacks value. This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and questioning one's beliefs, actions, and purpose in life. [2]
Plato's most self-critical dialogue is the Parmenides, which features Parmenides and his student Zeno, which criticizes Plato's own metaphysical theories. Plato's Sophist dialogue includes an Eleatic stranger. These ideas about change and permanence, or becoming and Being, influenced Plato in formulating his theory of Forms. [54]
Socrates now raises another topic: the relationship of pleasure to Being and Becoming. This refers to the philosophical distinction between the eternal, perfect, and self-sufficient Being on the one hand, and the transient, imperfect, and dependent Becoming on the other. Being is cause, Becoming is caused. All pleasure arises and passes away.
Francis Cornford described the twin pillars of Platonism as being the theory of the Forms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. [10] Indeed, Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that the soul was both the source of life and the mind. [ 11 ]
Plato's allegory of the cave by Jan Saenredam, according to Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604, Albertina, Vienna. Plato's allegory of the cave is an allegory presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a, Book VII) to compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature".
Plato relies, further, on the view that the soul is a mind in order to explain how its motions are possible: Plato combines the view that the soul is a self-mover with the view that the soul is a mind in order to explain how the soul can move things in the first place (e.g., how it can move the body to which it is attached in life). [10]