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"As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief" (29c). Therefore, in a description of the physical world, one "should not look for anything more than a likely story" (29d). Timaeus suggests that since nothing "becomes or changes" without cause, then the cause of the universe must be a demiurge or a god, a figure Timaeus refers to as the father ...
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 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.
Of particular importance is the speech of Socrates, who attributes to the prophet Diotima an idea of platonic love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the divine, an ascent known as the "Ladder of Love". For Diotima and Plato generally, the most correct use of love of human beings is to direct one's mind to love of divinity. Socrates ...
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 states that he is a "seer". While he is not very good at it, he is good enough for his purposes, and he recognizes what his offense has been: if love is a god or something divine, as he and Phaedrus both agree he is, he cannot be bad, as the previous speeches have portrayed him.
Something is a meter long inasmuch as it is the same length as the standard meter bar, and likewise, something is good inasmuch as it approximates God. If one asks why God is identified as the ultimate standard for goodness, Alston replies that this is "the end of the line," with no further explanation available, but adds that this is no more ...