I have to write a paper for my philosophy class this week. It’s not long, only 8-10 pages, double spaced, but it is the first serious 8-10 page paper I have written in about 15 years. This paper is to be the gauge by which my knowledge of Classical Greek Philosophy is judged. The overall subject is Plato and Aristotle. I have chosen to examine a concept that both men used for the core of their philosophies, primarily Ethics and Well-Being. ‘Well-Being’ in the classical form is not the simple modern day feeling of how-you-are-doing. It is more complex and more of a foundation for all living. Let’s start with Plato…
Plato’s metaphor of The Cave is central to all of his analysis of life, particularly that of self-actualization, or well-being. He believed that the top of the pyramid of knowledge, the pinnacle of life, was actualization with The Forms. The Forms are The Real, beyond much of our comprehension or knowledge. Most of us are still in The Dark in some way when it comes to true understanding, anyway. Plato used a myth to explain the process of enlightenment and knowable growth.
Most men are chained and blinkered in The Cave, looking at the wall facing away from the entrance. They cannot turn around, and truthfully, they feel that there is no real reason to do so, because all of their reality is right in front of them. They see shadows and shapes, indistinct and random. Of course the shadows and shapes are not indistinct to them, because these men do not know any different. To them, what they see is all that there is to life and their universe. They are happy, or at least they think they are happy. If they could turn around, though, they would have an epiphany of sorts. They would see, walking behind them, other men, carrying statues of living things: horses, people, birds, fruit, etc…Suddenly all reality is changed because no longer are the shadows on the wall the be all and end all of truth. It is revealed that these shapes are the source of the shadows on the wall. As I’ve said, some men turn around, but not all men. Some are still content to stare at the wall, and some are willing to turn around now, after being told by their comrades about the miracle behind them. At this point the dialectic continues. Most of the supposedly enlightened group will be content to see the statues as the real thing, reality of form and all that there is. A few, though, who have the compulsion to do so, will continue towards the mouth of the cave where it will be revealed, yet again, that there is a cause of the shadows on the wall, not just a subject. The sunlight streaming through the mouth is illuminating the statues, which are making the shadows appear. As in the last example, some men will be content that they know all that there is about life. They will however, go back in to the cave and try to educate their fellows about the new discovery. This new discovery may or may not be accepted by the ignorant, as we saw in the first stage. They may even think the enlightened one to be a heretic of some sort and persecute him for his blasphemy. They may even kill him. Some will not feel this way and will follow the light to the mouth of the cave. This is not the end, however. The mouth of the cave is not the source of all knowledge. It isn’t until the former shackled man has looked into the Sun and has seen the Sun as the source of all light and change in the Universe. Upon returning to the cave his mind will be plunged back into the old darkness. He may be thought of, yet again, as an heretic, be ridiculed and perhaps killed. His search for knowledge will be seen as something that has blinded him from the old truth. Plato wrote, ” In the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty is the essential Form of Goodness. Once it is perceived, the conclusion must follow that, for all things, this is the cause of whatever is right and good; in the visible world it gives birth to light and the lord of light, while it is itself sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of intelligence and truth.”. (‘Republic’ by Plato, pg.514, translated by F.M.Cornford, {Oxford, New York, 1945}) So the more our fellow learns about The Forms, the more he should want to learn. The more he learns about them, the closer he comes to the ultimate truth of life well-being, and the Self-Actualization with The Forms. The closer he comes to Self-Actualization, the better he becomes as a man and more perfect in ethical thought and behavior.
So that’s a quick run down Plato’s ethical philosophy. As I said, this philosophy was the core of all of his thinking, without which he could not write about politics, art, or war.
Tomorrow we’ll discuss Aristotle…
Johnnyboy