Plato and Inspiration to Superior Love - Assignment Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Plato and Inspiration to Superior Love Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2009 Introduction In this paper, I am going to talk about how love leads an individual to beauty and a place full of goodness; this was brought about by Plato. The paper also explores how Plato explains the journey from the shifting world of logic and opinion to the eternal world of authenticity and truth. The difference between common love and heavenly love is clearly brought out in the paper. Heavenly love is the joining of two people who are in love and join in both body and soul. I have also talked about how love, according to Plato, drives people into doing good things and not ugly ones. It brings people closer to God since God is beautiful and love is beautiful. Plato does not emulate the normal physical attraction or passionless friendship, but rather an ardent, amorous quest of the Soul of the Good. Finally, the paper exhaustively examines how Plato was the product of the greatest thought of his time for he taught what love really is and also he contributed a lot in philosophy. Inspiration to higher love means getting to reach the epitome where everything is full of good because love is goodness and beautiful. This inspiration is the movement up to a higher and higher sense of what love is, and as people rise they get closer to God through love prompting people’s own abilities to develop, first on the physical side, then on equally higher sides in the development of works of arts. This can vary from a piece of writing, to a relationship, to human beings (Moravcsik 1972). The people who track the good through love can finally get the happiness; the point of accomplishment where desire and need are satisfied. This ending is the perfect, the spirit of the good. This means that even if there are various ways in which someone can pursue the good, on the avenue that is filled with love will help someone to get the perfect ending. Then it is right to conclude that love is the love of possessing the good which is the perfect for oneself at all times. The whole process of finding the good is through creation by body and heart. The yearning to develop or procreate is a godly in a worldly creature, inspired by having some contact with things that are beautiful but is killed when someone experiences ugliness (Tuana 1994). Thus the love that does not embrace the yearning for eternal is not in the love of getting the good for someone at any time. Plato taught what love really is. Love is the affection for of something and it the yearning that which is love. For instance, incase love yearns for a thing it requires; there is essential relation between the yearning and item of love. From him, we got the philosophical knowledge that love is the safeguarding of what an individual has and needs to have in the future. Love is affection for of beautiful and good stuff not ugly ones (Moravcsik 1992). Plato exposes love, like wisdom to be full of life, a current of energy that runs all through, at every level of human awareness, joining and going beyond or dividing and descending as it runs. There are underlying possibilities in diverse kinds of love; to either pull people up to integrated and eventual good in the world of being, or to pull people down into an impenetrable, fragmented experience of the kinds. When someone loves he or she yearns for immortality; a unification with the perpetual, and even if we see holiness in all of life, it is enclosed in a variety of forms which can over and over again corrupt or alter it, in addition to precisely reflect it. This is the human state and predicament (Nehamas & Woodruff 1989). Heavenly love is a special type of love whereby two lovers come together to be one, to get unification in both body and heart. Heavenly love is the potential of individual love in that the longing for union with another person is figurative of the yearning of union with the fundamental nature of the good, or God. The union between two people who are genuinely in love is itself good and full of beauty. This unity ought to be ultimately with the real meaning of beauty, unity with another person is simply an experience on the way (Allen 1991). When people are motivated by love, they develop in several ways as well as the physical. In fact, all creations come as a result of love. Love is thus a creative power, a way through which people illustrate their own potential and help others to illustrate their potentials too (Nussbaum 1986). Thus the heavenly love is the one that should be encouraged and its pursuit should too be encouraged to attain a society that is healthy. The heavenly love only turns out to be ugly when certain lover aims at exploiting the other lover. The power of heavenly love can only be compared to the power of love to the human quest of completeness through introduction of myths, such as the myth of the fall, in which human beings were separated into male and female (Davidson 1998). All elements of the real love has the ability of taking people to the top by illustrating even if all types of love are there, factual happiness is in the meditation of the essence of beauty or the goodness which is only acknowledged through the mind and whose the ultimate objective of the human understanding with love. Central to Plato’s notion is the assumption of forms, which states that there is occurrence of area of forms, faultless principles whereby worldly things are just the imitations or copies that are not perfect. The world that is present is just an insipid shadow of the eventual reality. Things could look beautiful or simply, as they resemble the forms of beauty and goodness but the flawed and undependable world cannot confine the magnificence of the eternal and absolute forms. Plato supported people’s immortality, through provision of knowledge that people are aware of some specific things that they cannot probably have discovered in this life, and thus people ought to be remembering things that they knew before (Bett 1986). Love relationships possess an exceptional prospective in developing spirituality, for in looking for and acknowledging the heavenly in the beloved, one finds out the godly in oneself, and comes to make out that, in all its kinds, holiness is one and the same. This implies that, love can raise one upwards and the beauty of love is in its capacity to do this for individuals or humans. It is a development, not a finish in itself, in which individuals can get hold of the heavenly and in this status of discernment the spiritual experience takes place, a unification of the human being spirit with God. This experience is in due course the most important of human experiences, purest and most developed in quality, and love, in all its diverse forms, can facilitate someone to get there, over and over again (Bett 1986). Love, as a result, which is renowned as a gratification and desirability between human beings, he asserts to be unprolific of higher understanding. Form this, Plato’s objective is to praise love to an objective for the higher and better. The passion or encouragement of Love is the supreme of Heaven's blessing and it is offered for the sake of producing the utmost blessedness. According to Plato, love infers between gods and men, passing on to the gods the prayers and offerings of men, and to men the guidelines and responds of the gods. Love mediates who covers the gap that separates them; through love all is hurdled together and by love the arts of the diviner and priest, their offerings and instigations and allures, and all prophecy and invocation find their way (Irwin 1995). For God mixes not with men, but by Love all the communication and dialogue of God with men, if awake or asleep, goes on. The wisdom which comprehends this is holy; every other wisdom, like that of arts or skills, is mean and offensive. Now these holy nature fundamentals or mediators are many and various, and one of them is Love. Plato displayed superior interest in fundamentals of human nature which are severely subsidiary to the coherent soul (Pelletier & Zalta 2000). Obviously there are major contributions that Plato made in philosophy since the best basic description of the European philosophical practice is that it consists of a sequence of cross-references to Plato. Moreover, from the Plato’s symposium, we discover that the facture nature of love, its position in human beings, understanding gotten at the top, followed by the discussions earlier reflect the incline from Becoming to Being in making people understand clearly what love really is, and the proceedings following imitate a fall back into the mortal world. Philosophically we get to discover what love is and the most apparent facts concerning love; love is akin to an enormous god, that love is one of the most forceful powers behind people’s actions and still love is a greater romance. Again, love is whereby someone is ready to die for the person he or she loves. There is one kind of love that is basically common is founded on being physical, does not follow any system in that it works randomly and may lead to children being born. On the other hand, there is type of love which is heavenly; this is founded on desiring each others companionship, entails involvement of pursuits that are mental and heart oriented. The end result of the heavenly love is virtue. In heavenly love, there is a lot conscious preference or the two people who experience heavenly love basically chose to do so and it does not happen accidentally (Pelletier & Zalta 2000). Plato teaches that the impartially real views are the establishments and rationalization of scientific knowledge. Plato presumes a world of ideas not together with the world of our experience, and infinitely superior to it. According to him, all human souls were present at one time in that superior world. When, as a result, we regard in the shadow-world around us an experience or manifestation of something, the mind is moved to a commemoration of the Idea which it previously reflected. In its glee it wonders at the difference and by amusement is led to bring to mind as flawlessly as possible the perception it enjoyed in a preceding existence. This is the duty of philosophy. Philosophy, hence, consists in the attempt to go up from the understanding of phenomena, or manifestations, to the one of realism. Among all ideas, though, the idea of the love shines out through the exceptional mask more evidently than any other; thus the commencement of all philosophical doings is the love and high regard of the Beautiful. It is through Plato that philosophy came from. The science and arts of the current time, which are impeached with so much assiduity, are phony and momentary. The accomplished innovations and developments in mechanism have barely a longer period. What appears at the moment to be elementary fact is very definite to be found, tomorrow, to be reliant on something beyond. But Philosophy, piercing to the profounder truth and consisting of the over-Knowledge in its area, does not grow old, never turns out to be outdated, but puts up with through the ages in persistent freshness. Plato was utterly free. His individuality is everywhere; implied by his philosophy. When Plato boomed in philosophy, philosophical world had passed through great transformations. Philosophy, initially emerging in Ionia had come forth into bolder outlook, and set itself upon the solid foundation of philosophical truth. Plato achieved to all, to the Synthetists of the Mysteries, the Dramatists of the Stage, to Socrates and those who were philosophers before him (Davidson 1998). He was the product of the greatest thought of his time. In a definite logic there has been no original religion. Each world-faith comes from elder ones as the consequence of new encouragement, and Philosophy has its basis in religious reverence. Plato acknowledged the ancient Wisdom-Religion as "the most unalloyed structure of worship, to the Philosophy of which, in ancient ages, Zoroaster created several additions drawn from the Mysteries of the Chaldeans. Plato gave influence to it, and we find the heart of the Oriental Wisdom in his dialectic. His leading dissertations, those which are most definitely genuine, are typified by the inductive process. He displays a huge amount of facts for the rationale of inferring an all-purpose truth. He does not attempt so much to establish his own assurance as to allow the hearer and reader to achieve one astutely, for themselves. He is in quest of philosophy, and directing the argument to that objective. Plato was not so much educating as illustrating to others how to learn. His intention was to show the character of man and the last part of his being. The enormous query of whom, when and whether, consist of what he attempted to demonstrate. Instead of assertive assertion, Plato is a person who is like us, closely and tolerantly leading us on to exploration as though. Plato instilled the value of alienating arrogance and pedantic supposition in philosophy. The entire Platonic philosophy is based upon the concept of absolute Goodness. Plato was brilliantly conscious of the massive greatness of the subject. To find out the Creator and Father of this earth, in addition to his operation, is without a doubt complex; and when revealed it is not possible to reveal him." In him Truth, Justice and the Beautiful are forever one. Thus the idea of the Good is the utmost subdivision of study (Hackforth 1952). There is a decisive factor by which to make out the truth, and Plato sought it out. The annotations of sense fail absolutely to supply it. For example, the law of right for example, is not the law of the toughest, but what is at all times practical for the strongest. The decisive factor is as a result no less than the idea inborn in each human soul. These recount to that which is true, since it is always abiding. What is true is forever right — right and hence supreme: everlasting and thus all the time good. In its innermost core it is being itself; in its structure by which philosophers are able to reflect it, it is impartiality and virtue in the idea of essence, influence and energy. These concepts are in each human soul and decide all types of our thought. Philosophers come across them in our most ordinary experiences and acknowledge them as widespread principles, unlimited and supreme (Heath 1989). However concealed and inactive they may seem, they are ready to be stimulated, and they permit us to differentiate impulsively the wrong from the right. They are memoirs, we are guaranteed, that belong to our deepest being, and to the everlasting world. They go along with the soul into this section of time, of always becoming and of intellect. The soul, consequently, or rather its innermost spirit or understanding, is of and from infinity. It is not very much an occupant of the world of nature as a traveler from the perpetual region. Its trend and clandestine destination are as a result toward the commencement from which it initially set out (Rowe, 1986) All the things relating to the present world and sense is continually changing, and anything it unveils to people is deceptive. The rules and motives of things have to be discovered somewhere else. From Plato, philosophers learnt that searching ought to be done in the world that is further than manifestations, beyond feeling and its fantasies. There are in every mind positive traits or principles which inspire the power of knowing. The philosophies are older than experience, because they preside over it; and while they unite more or less with our annotations, they are greater and widespread, and they are seized by people as vast and supreme (Heath 1989). They are our recollections of the life of the perpetual world, and it is the prefecture of the philosophic area to call them into action as the principles of integrity and truth and beauty, and thus arouse the soul to the acknowledging of God. This canon of thoughts or idealities is established basing on the Platonic teachings. It presumes first of all, the occurrence and functions of the Supreme Intelligence, a spirit that transcends and holds the philosophy of goodness, truth, and organization. Each structure or principle, each relation and each opinion of right ought to be always present to the Divine Thought. Establishment in all its particulars is essentially the representation and demonstration of these ideas. "That which conveys truth to inevitable things," says Plato, "that which offers the knower the power of discovering the truth, is the plan of the Good, and one is to envisage of this as the foundation of understanding and truth. Cognition of the occurrence of the universe might not be considered as a bona fide knowing. Philosophers ought to make out that which is established and static, — that which really is. It is not sufficient to in a position to consider what is beautiful and reflect the correct conduct. The philosopher, the lover of wisdom, looks further than these to the Concrete Beauty, — to decency itself. This is the episteme of Plato, the advanced, inspirational knowing. This awareness is definite partaking in the everlasting philosophies themselves — the owing of them as fundamentals of our own being (Sheffield 2006). From Plato, we discover that human beings have a twin nature, occurring in matter with the prospective of the divine. People are a microcosm in the macrocosm. Love epitomizes this yearning to realize the divine inside us and to assist others to realize their potential. Love helps us to discover an affiliation between the two worlds we exist in. On this, Plato gets foundation regarding the principle of our immortality. These values, the principles of truth, loveliness and goodness are eternal, and those who own them are ever-living. Getting to know all these is merely the bringing of them into wary commemoration. For Evil, Plato never regarded it as innate in human nature. According to him, no one is readily evil. But when commits an evil act, it is simply as the anticipated way to some good finish. But usual manner, there ought to be a something against the good. It can’t have its seat with the gods, being absolutely conflicting to them, and so of inevitability lingers round this fixed mortal personality and this section of time and ever-changing (Davidson 1998). When Plato declares that, thus we should fly, he does not mean that we should to make haste to die; for he educated that no one could run away from evil or get rid of it from himself through death. This departure is affected by resembling God to the greatest way possible and this similarity consists in turning out to be just and sacred through wisdom. There is no godly resentment or goodwill to be propitiated; nothing else other than being like the One, totally good. It is obvious then, that Plato imitates no simple bodily attraction, no passionless companionship, but a passionate, ardent pursuit of the Soul for the Good and the True. It goes beyond the earlier as the sky surpasses the earth. Plato explains it in glowing terms: he declares "We, having been instigated and acknowledged to the good vision, voyaged with the songs of heaven; beholding glorious beauties indescribable and owing inspirational knowledge; for we were rescued from the contagion of that earth to which we are held here, as an oyster to the shell. In a nutshell, he meant and passed knowledge that goodness is the establishment of ethics, and a celestial perception the core of all supposed doctrines. Plato recommended two ways in to which these two worlds could interact. Objects in the substantial world could be only deficient copies or imitations of the supreme, and things could take part in the form ness they are in place of. Plato could have reached at a new perceptive of the connection between the two worlds when dealing with the meticulous outline of Man. Plato seems to have articulated out an interior means through which men could make their way all the way through the world of Becoming to the world of Being. He illustrates how, through the most mystifying and potent medium of love, men could in the end reach the Highest Good, an innate and mystic state of perception. This is the only way in which people can experience the eventual meaning found for human beings (Hunter 2004). Plato came up with a two layer view of authenticity; the world of Becoming refers to the objective world we identify through our senses. Such world is constantly in motion, ever changing. On the other hand, the world of being is the world of outlines, or ideas. It is supreme, autonomous, and inspiring. It does not change and yet it causes the necessary character of things we make out in the world of Becoming. Plato recommended two ways in to which these two worlds could interact. Objects in the substantial world could be only deficient copies or imitations of the supreme, and things could take part in the form ness they are in place of. Plato could have reached at a new perceptive of the connection between the two worlds when dealing with the meticulous outline of Man. Plato seems to have articulated out an interior means through which men could make their way all the way through the world of Becoming to the world of Being. He illustrates how, through the most mystifying and potent medium of love, men could in the end reach the Highest Good, an innate and mystic state of perception. This is the only way in which people can experience the eventual meaning found for human beings (Moravcsik 1992). Therefore, Plato’s symposium on love basically represents human emotion and of love to be precise. According to him love is a celestial madness, if not entirely pleasing, expressive imbalance. It is apparent that Plato does not imitate the normal physical attraction or passionless friendship, but rather an ardent, amorous quest of the Soul of the Good. He states that we having been initiated and admitted to the adorable vision, moved along in the chorus of heaven. To be precise, Goodness is the foundation of Plato’s ethics, as well as the divine intuition, which formed the core of all his doctrines. It is however, worth noting that when we seek after derail together with the formula for either a religious or philosophic system, Plato tends to fail us. In this case, everyone has to minister to himself. There is need to come up with formulas on how to know the truth and the kinds of fields to explore. Truth makes us free. And we are free only when we perceive and apprehend the Good. Conclusion There before, people thought that there is only one type of love; the feeling of irresistible liking to someone else. Thus Plato brought the knowledge that lust exists and it is different from love, being that in lust the longing is for someone else’s body and not their mind. Plato brings about various kinds of love, love that could be taken as lust as well. Al least, there could occur two kinds of love; the common love and the heavenly love (Lear 1998). The common love is that when a man and a woman unite simply to gratify their sexual desires. Alternatively, the heavenly love is the kind that happens when two people are attracted to each other with a powerful force that surpasses the bodily appearance but comes from deep inside as if it is from the heart. To reach the highest love, one pursues beauty in practices and accumulation of knowledge. This will eventually make a person reach at ideal learning which is that of Beauty itself, whose perceiving is only through the mind. Bibliography Moravcsik, J., 1992, Plato and Platonism, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA. Pelletier, J. & Zalta, E., 2000, How to Say Goodbye to the Third Mans, 34 (2) 165-202. Allen, R. E., 1991, Plato's Symposium, Yale University Press, New Haven. Bett, R., 1986, “Immortality and the Nature of the Soul in the Phaedrus.” Phronesis 31: 1-26. Hunter, R., 2004, Plato's Symposium. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Heath, M., 1989, “The Unity of Plato's Phaedrus.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 7: 150-73. Sheffield, F. C., 2006, Plato's Symposium: The Ethics of Desire, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Lear, J., 1998, Open Minded: Working out the Logic of the Soul. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hackforth, R., 1952, Plato's Phaedrus, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 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