Platonism

Plato is an ancient Greek philosopher and is known as one of the founding fathers of Western Philosophy. He wrote, The Republic, one of his best-known and influential works in 381 BC. In the books dialogue, Plato discusses the concepts of justice, the just man, and the just society. This ideal city is based on education, specialization, and social structures that define family, behavior, and loyalty to the city. The just city is a larger version of the just man, with three social classes:…

Often the most widely consumed by the general public, architectural renderings are oddly inconsequential in the actual realization of a physical building or structure. Clearly the most common way to engage with a piece of architecture is to simply be there, experiencing the space first hand as the designer intended it. However, when entering the beginning stages of the long architectural process clients understandably prefer to have some idea of what they are investing their time and money in…

In “Plato’s Republic: Justice and the Good Life”, Socrates explores the subject of morality and justice within the soul. His quest to find the answer first involves analyzing justice in a city, and then in the soul and lastly by answering the question why be moral? He accomplishes this by analyzing different levels of justice in the soul from different individuals. First, I will reconstruct Plato’s account of justice as three parts of the soul, those being the rational, spirited and appetite…

A central theme in Plato’s The Meno is virtue. It is approached through posing two questions: How does one acquire virtue? And what exactly is virtue? Meno poses the question “can virtue be taught?” (70a) Meno’s goal is to understand how one can acquire virtue, but Socrates inquires as to what virtue is. Meno attempts a few definitions of virtue, which Socrates deems inaccurate through the usage of the elenchus, where he dissects each suggestion to show Meno that it does not hold all the…

Whether we like it or not education has play a significant role in individual’s life. “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, both articles talk about a man who got enlightened, while he was in prison. In Plato’s article “The Allegory of the Cave,” one of the former prisoners have the privilege to go out from the cave to experiment new things as actual objects and the light. At the beginning, would be hard to the prisoner to get use to the journey since he…

Renaissance and humanism basically stem from Petrarchian ideology which encourages the emulation of Greco-Roman antiquity without imitation; Renaissance “rebirth” ideally transforms and exemplifies continuity. According to Soltes, around 1508, Raphael was one of several artists called to Rome and commissioned to execute frescos in the Vatican Palace by Pope Julius II. Raphael’s School of Athens (Vatican, 1510-1512) represents a pinnacle of humanism and Renaissance thought. A proverbial…

I think that the main points illustrated by Plato's Allegory of the Cave are that people only know what they experience and only choose to accept what they have experienced, people who have knowledge have a responsibility to share it and that ignorance is bliss. The men trapped in the cave demonstrate how people will only believe what they have experienced by shunning the man who tries to tell them of the outside world. They aren't willing to accept that there is more to life than the wall and…

Plato’s Allegory of the cave; Society of the spectacle ‘Picture human beings as thought they were in an underground cave-like dwelling. They are in bonds… and see nothing except the shadows cast by a fire on the wall of the cave… they are like us’. The current society that we are living in has already been widely manufactured; commodity and the media have already colonies our social life. People choose not to understand the real world, the remaining become imbedded and gaze upon he…

Plato’s book, The Republic contains “Allegory of the Cave” which consist of a conversation between Socrates and Plato’s brother, Glaucon. The Republic addresses many issues with relating to political work and in “The Allegory of the Cave” concept presented by Socrates it gives an example to this. Socrates tells the story of humans being in a cave with a chain around their neck and feet so that they may not turn their heads to see what is around them, thus being forced to look at this one wall on…

Plato’s writings often focus on finding the essence; or eternal, unchanging form of a concept, what is the essence of tree, or piety, or justice. When Socrates questions characters in the dialogues as to what they think he is often given an example instead of a definition. Plato, in his writings, tried to do the opposite to determine the form and then in turn determine how that would be represented in the physical world. Plato’s Ontological hierarchy begins with living true to your being which…