Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 1

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

Plato’s life & times Life - 428-348 B.C. The decline of the Golden Age (480-

431 B.C.) & the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)

Student of Socrates from ca. 408 to Socrates’ death in 399.

Ca. 385, founded the Academy (continued to 529 A.D.)

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 2

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

Wrote ca. 24 dialogues Died in 348, only 10 years before the

conquest of ancient Greece by Philip of Macedonia

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 3

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

Plato on happiness & the ultimate goal of life (selection from the Euthydemus, written in the early 380s) What is happiness?

Having wealth, or good looks, or noble birth, or power, or honor?

Knowing how to use these things? This requires a kind of wisdom

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 4

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

The highest kind of wisdom is knowledge of the good (9)

Comment: Plato is offering a theory of salvation (a theory about deliverance from the perils of human existence)

For Plato, salvation = a certain kind of wisdom, knowledge of the good

Cf. Christianity, Buddhism

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 5

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

More on salvation - the Phaedo (ca. 384) The aim of philosophy is “to practice

dying and death” (10) Death is the separation of soul & body The philosopher is concerned with the

soul But as long as the soul is with the

body, it is constantly distracted by the body’s needs.

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 6

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

The body is the cause of war, civil discord . . . the body prevents us from seeing the truth (13)

It is only through the soul, & especially its reasoning part, that persons can grasp “the Just itself” and “the Beautiful, and the Good” (12).

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 7

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

Plato’s theory of Ideas or Forms & his metaphysical dualism -- parallels his human nature dualism

World of Ideas soul

Physical world body

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 8

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

The goal of the philosopher is to purify himself as much as possible from the body, to “escape the contamination of the body’s folly” (13)

But this only takes place in its purest form when the soul is separated from the body.

“Those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men” (14).

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 9

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

Only then can the soul find pure wisdom in the realm of Ideas.

Comments Plato’s extreme dualism

Sometimes called “substance dualism”

Problem with this -- denigrates the body & the physical, the relationship between soul & body

Plato on salvation, mind-body, & human destiny ~ slide 10

Plato on salvation, on mind-body, & on ultimate destiny

Plato’s conception of ongoing life Immortality