The Embodied Self in Plato

The Embodied Self in Plato PDF

Author: Orestis Karatzoglou

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 3110732491

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This book argues that, rather than being conceived merely as a hindrance, the body contributes constructively in the fashioning of a Platonic unified self. The Phaedo shows awareness that the indeterminacy inherent in the body infects the validity of any scientific argument but also provides the subject of inquiry with the ability to actualize, to the extent possible, the ideal self. The Republic locates bodily desires and needs in the tripartite soul. Achievement of maximal unity is dependent upon successful training of the rational part of the soul, but the earlier curriculum of Books 2 and 3, which aims at instilling a pre-reflectively virtuous disposition in the lower parts of the soul, is a prerequisite for the advanced studies of Republic 7. In the Timaeus, the world soul is fashioned out of Being, Sameness, and Difference: an examination of the Sophist and the Parmenides reveals that Difference is to be identified with the Timaeus’ Receptacle, the third ontological principle which emerges as the quasi-material component that provides each individual soul with the alloplastic capacity for psychological growth and alteration.

The Embodied Self in Plato

The Embodied Self in Plato PDF

Author: Orestis Karatzoglou

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 3110732459

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This book argues that, rather than being conceived merely as a hindrance, the body contributes constructively in the fashioning of a Platonic unified self. The Phaedo shows awareness that the indeterminacy inherent in the body infects the validity of any scientific argument but also provides the subject of inquiry with the ability to actualize, to the extent possible, the ideal self. The Republic locates bodily desires and needs in the tripartite soul. Achievement of maximal unity is dependent upon successful training of the rational part of the soul, but the earlier curriculum of Books 2 and 3, which aims at instilling a pre-reflectively virtuous disposition in the lower parts of the soul, is a prerequisite for the advanced studies of Republic 7. In the Timaeus, the world soul is fashioned out of Being, Sameness, and Difference: an examination of the Sophist and the Parmenides reveals that Difference is to be identified with the Timaeus’ Receptacle, the third ontological principle which emerges as the quasi-material component that provides each individual soul with the alloplastic capacity for psychological growth and alteration.

Plato and the Divided Self

Plato and the Divided Self PDF

Author: Rachel Barney

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-02-16

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0521899664

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Investigates Plato's account of the tripartite soul, looking at how the theory evolved over the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus.

Knowing Persons

Knowing Persons PDF

Author: Lloyd P. Gerson

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 2003-01-16

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0191531537

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Knowing Persons is an original study of Plato's account of personhood. For Plato, embodied persons are images of a disembodied ideal. The ideal person is a knower. Hence, the lives of embodied persons need to be understood according to Plato's metaphysics of imagery. For Gerson, Plato's account of embodied personhood is not accurately conflated with Cartesian dualism. Plato's dualism is more appropriately seen in the contrast between the ideal disembodied person and the embodied one than in the contrast between mind or soul and body. This study argues that Plato's analysis of personhood is intended to cohere with his two-world metaphysics as well as a radical separation of knowledge and belief. Gerson demonstrates that Plato's account of persons plays a key role not just in his theory of mind, but in his theory of knowledge, his metaphysics, and his ethics. A proper understanding of Plato's account of persons must therefore place it in the context of his doctrines in these areas. Knowing Persons fills a significant gap by showing the way to such an understanding.

The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought

The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought PDF

Author: Chad Jorgenson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-04-05

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1107174120

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Positively re-assesses the relationship between body and soul in Plato's later dialogues, focusing on the harmony between them.

Plato and the Body

Plato and the Body PDF

Author: Coleen P. Zoller

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2018-07-11

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1438470835

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Offers an innovative reading of Plato, analyzing his metaphysical, ethical, and political commitments in connection with feminist critiques. For centuries, it has been the prevailing view that in prioritizing the soul, Plato ignores or even abhors the body; however, in Plato and the Body Coleen P. Zoller argues that Plato does value the body and the role it plays in philosophical life, focusing on Plato’s use of Socrates as an exemplar. Zoller reveals a more refined conception of the ascetic lifestyle epitomized by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Republic. Her interpretation illuminates why those who want to be wise and good have reason to be curious about and love the natural world and the bodies in it, and has implications for how we understand Plato’s metaphysical and political commitments. This book shows the relevance of this broader understanding of Plato for work on a variety of relevant contemporary issues, including sexual morality, poverty, wealth inequality, and peace. Coleen P. Zoller is Professor of Philosophy at Susquehanna University.

The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought

The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought PDF

Author: Chad Jorgenson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-04-05

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1316805638

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In this book, Chad Jorgenson challenges the view that for Plato the good life is one of pure intellection, arguing that his last writings increasingly insist on the capacity of reason to impose measure on our emotions and pleasures. Starting from an account of the ontological, epistemological, and physiological foundations of the tripartition of the soul, he traces the increasing sophistication of Plato's thinking about the nature of pleasure and pain and his developing interest in sciences bearing on physical reality. These theoretical shifts represent a movement away from a conception of human happiness as a purification or flight of the soul from the sensible to the intelligible, as in the Phaedo, towards a focus on the harmony of the individual as a psychosomatic whole under the hegemonic power of reason.

Plato: A Very Short Introduction

Plato: A Very Short Introduction PDF

Author: Julia Annas

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2003-02-13

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 019157922X

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This lively and accessible introduction to Plato focuses on the philosophy and argument of his writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy, and the general themes of his thinking. This is not a book to leave the reader standing in the outer court of introduction and background information, but leads directly into Plato's argument. It looks at Plato as a thinker grappling with philosophical problems in a variety of ways, rather than a philosopher with a fully worked-out system. It includes a brief account of Plato's life and the various interpretations that have been drawn from the sparse remains of information. It stresses the importance of the founding of the Academy and the conception of philosophy as a subject. Julia Annas discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. She also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude to women, and to homosexual love, explores Plato's claim that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and touches on his arguments for the immortality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Time, Embodiment and the Self

Time, Embodiment and the Self PDF

Author: Andros Loizou

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781315199900

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"This title was first published in 2000: Beginning with a sustained argument against the new tenseless theory of time and against McTaggart's A series/B series distinction, the author of this essay goes on to provide a non-paradoxical, tensed, phenomenologically-based account of the 'going on' or 'taking place' of events in time that escapes the paradoxes endemic to 'passage' as understood via the A series/B series distinction. The author then turns his attention to the other main aim of the essay, which is to seek an understanding of time adequate to those more 'embodied' conceptions of the self that place character, and with it the 'constitutive attachments' or 'ground projects' of individual life circumstance, at the centre of the self. This involves a 'redrawing' of the self informed by a wider conception of the will than the one we have inherited via Descartes and Kant, by an account of ground projects, and by the theory of the tripartite psyche in Plato's Republic. It also involves extending the account of time developed in the second chapter in a way that draws on the notion of 'ecstatic temporality' that originates with Heidegger. The essay will be of use to philosophers and advanced students interested in the nature of the self, time, temporality, and phenomenology."--Provided by publisher.