plato vs. descartes
Compare the arguments for the distinctness of body and soul [or 'psyche'] in Plato's Phaedo with Descartes' arguments for the distinctness of body and mind [in the Meditations and elsewhere]After reading Plato's Phaedo, we can see that there are many differences between the body and soul. Plato outlines these in some of the arguments given by Socrates. The first time the differences are brought to our attention, is when Plato talks about how a true philosopher would welcome death instead of being afraid of it. His reasoning for this is that a true philosopher who 'applies himself in the right way' will not be concerned with worldly, material matters and would rather use his soul to understand and reflect. He tries to disconnect himself from his body in order to be free from bodily distractions. There can be no certainty with bodily sensations; they cannot be trusted to be reliable. The truest perception of the real nature of any given thing can only be discerned by the soul and its own investigations rather than by any bodily perception. Therefore in this way the body is distinct from the soul. It is only with the explorations of the soul itself that man can discover the true nature of a given thing. If he were to use bodily
He cannot refer to himself as a thing with a body as this involves sensory perception. It seems that the material realm, which can be perceived via bodily experience, is easier to understand whereas the mental realm is harder to understand. This argument is based on the cyclical interchange by means of which every quality comes into being from its own opposite e. As aforesaid, this is an argument, which I believe to be true, the things that exist in the world around us may actually not exist, but maybe we are being led to believe by some super power that they do exist. Plato's Theory of Recollection follows on from the Cycle of Opposites and argues that all human knowledge is recollected from knowledge acquired before birth. In that case, the body is distinct from the soul in that the soul is immortal. But when we look out of the window and see people crossing the road, all that appears to the senses is the clothing. When he presents the last of the reasons, there are virtually no items in which he can have any confidence. perceptions, he would surely be led astray. As Plato said, they only confuse the mind when the two are used in conjunction with each other. This suggests that souls are brought back and forth from the dead to living and vice versa and therefore we can infer that our souls continue to exist after the death of our bodies and that our souls existed before the birth of our bodies. It would then follow that the soul can exist without the body, as it certainly does, yet the body cannot function without and is completely dependant upon the soul. One way to accomplish this, he says, is to doubt everything that he can suspect of error. We would have no way of knowing for sure unless we doubt their existence from the beginning. Descartes concludes that the continuity of the wax is established neither by sight, nor touch, nor imagination, but by an act of the mind alone.
Common topics in this essay:
Descartes Meditation,
Cycle Opposites,
Plato's Phaedo,
Descartes Meditations,
Equality Beauty,
Form Life,
Phaedo Descartes',
body soul,
,
evil genius,
Form Beauty,
continuity wax,
material realm,
soul soul,
mental realm,
Theory Recollection,
realm material realm,
true philosopher,
bodily experience,
cold hot,
continuity wax established,
people alive,
evil genius deceiving,
body distinct soul,
difference body soul,
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