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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.
But this would be impossible unless our soul had been somewhere before existing in this form of man; here then is another proof of the soul's immortality. [15] Socrates' second argument, the Theory of Recollection, shows that it is possible to draw information out of a person who seems not to have any knowledge of a subject prior to his being ...
Bodily objects moved from the outside have no soul, while those that move from within have a soul. Moving from within, all souls are self-movers, and hence their immortality is necessary. [Note 20] Then begins the famous chariot allegory. A soul, says Socrates, is like the "natural union of a team of winged horses and their charioteer".
Socrates is known for proclaiming his total ignorance; he used to say that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance, seeking to imply that the realization of one's ignorance is the first step in philosophizing. Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and has continued to do so in the modern era.
The Charmides (/ ˈ k ɑːr m ɪ d iː z /; Ancient Greek: Χαρμίδης) is a dialogue of Plato, in which Socrates engages a handsome and popular boy named Charmides in a conversation about the meaning of sophrosyne, a Greek word usually translated into English as "temperance," "self-control," or "restraint." When the boy is unable to ...
The philosophy of self examines the idea of the self at a conceptual level. Many different ideas on what constitutes self have been proposed, including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of the self, the self as a narrative center of gravity, and the self as a linguistic or social construct rather than a physical entity.
Socrates' response is to develop his theory of anamnesis and to suggest that the soul is immortal, and repeatedly incarnated; knowledge is in the soul from eternity (86b), but each time the soul is incarnated its knowledge is forgotten in the trauma of birth. What one perceives to be learning, then, is the recovery of what one has forgotten.
In the ensuing dialogue, the two men agree that the self is not the body, and neither is it some combination of soul and body; they therefore conclude that a man's self is "nothing other than his soul" (130a–c). [42] Socrates then considers how one should obtain knowledge of the soul (132c–133c).