Philosophy (83 total posts)

Was Plato a precursor of Freud?

April 3, 2017
Despite the twenty-four centuries separating the two men, both Plato and Freud shared the same pessimism regarding human nature: man is driven by his desires or what Freud called ‘drives’ or instincts. The latter was a scientist who firmly believed in the power of...

Plato’s rejection of Athenian politics

March 22, 2017
In his alleged Seventh Letter, Plato recounts his three visits to Sicily at the court of Dionysius, the tyrannical ruler of Syracuse and his vain efforts to change his political views. However, before embarking on his first sea-journey, Plato casts his mind back to...

Plato’s Allegory of the Ship and the True Navigator (Part 1)

December 23, 2016
One of the most famous illustrations of Plato’s defence of philosophy is to be found in the section of The Republic dedicated to the Allegory of the Ship (488a-489c) in which Socrates illustrates the negative attitude of his contemporaries towards the true...

Plato’s dialectic as the exercise of pure thought

November 25, 2016
The mathematical sciences studied by the apprentice philosopher in The Republic are only a prelude to the crowning stage of the philosopher’s education, namely, the study of dialectic, leading to the intellectual apprehension of the Form of the Good. Mathematics is,...

Is your life intense enough?

November 16, 2016
The ancient conception of wisdom entailed a well-planned winding down of futile daily activities in order to reach a state of contentment through a life of measured soul-management. We are unfortunately a long way from the ideal of the Stoics and Renaissance humanists...