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Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundamental level, Platonism affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to exist in a third realm distinct from both the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism. [1]
The first English use of the expression "meaning of life" appears in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), book II chapter IX, "The Everlasting Yea". [1]Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle.
One term Plato used was idea (ἰδέα; from a root meaning to see), a word that precedes attested philosophical usage, alongside other words which mainly relate to vision, sight, and appearance. Plato uses these aspects of sight and appearance from the early Greek concept in his dialogues to explain his Forms, including the Form of the Good ...
The unexamined life is not worth living" is a famous dictum supposedly uttered by Socrates at his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, for which he was subsequently sentenced to death.
In contrast, living things are capable of driving themselves. Plato uses this observation to illustrate his famous doctrine that the soul is a self-mover: life is self-motion, and the soul brings life to a body by moving it. Meanwhile, in the recollection and affinity arguments, the connection with life is not explicated or used at all.
The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. [1] [2] [3]
Plato (/ ˈ p l eɪ t oʊ / PLAY-toe; [1] Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn; born c. 428–423 BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms.
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. [1] [note 1] [note 2] The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers.