The philosopher knows that the soul is superior to the body and should be its master rather than its slave. As the body desires pleasures of the flesh, so the soul desires wisdom. It is in this respect that the philosopher dishonors the body, for his soul runs away from the body and desires to be alone and by itself.

However he believed “if the soul is polluted and impure when it leaves the body, …, bewitched by physical desires and pleasures to the point at which nothing seems to exists but the physical, …, and if that soul is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid that which is dim and invisible to the eyes” (Phaedo 81b), then the …

Since the body is like one world and the soul like the other, it would be strange to think that even though the body lasts for some time after a person’s death, the soul immediately dissolves and exists no further.

This means that being alive comes from being dead, so there has to be death before life. Socrates solidifies this argument when he says, “Coming to life again in truth exists, the living come to be from the dead, and the souls of the dead exist”(72e).

Answer(s) Plato’s underlying attitude toward the body is that it is temporary, and something to be cast off. The body is not the person, it is a shell.

On The Soul

“The spirit and the body are the soul of man.” Latter-day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth.

Cebes says that though he follows the argument that the soul existed before birth, he is still not convinced that it is immortal. Unlike Simmias, he can believe that the soul survives the death of the body, but he does not take this in itself as evidence that it is eternal.

Nicholas of Cusa’s most complete set of proposals about what is real occurs in his best-known work of 1440, De docta ignorantia: On Learned Ignorance. Here Cusanus addresses the four categorical realities traditionally found in Christian thought: God, the natural universe, Christ and human beings.

Socrates was considered by many to be the wisest man in ancient Greece, his spoken words are still listened to and followed today. Meaning of – An unexamined life is not worth living. Through this statement, Socrates means that an unexamined human life is deprived of the meaning and purpose of existence.

Nicholas of Cusa

Docta ignorantia, or learned ignorance, is a Latin expression designating the limitations of human knowledge. Man knows and affirms what is true but in an incomplete and partial manner.

Socrates’ knowledge of ignorance may be distinguished from ignorance of knowledge, ex- emplified by the docta ignorantia (learned ignorance) of Nicholas of Cusa. According to the docta ignorantia, man is wise only to the extent that he can be aware of the limits of the mind in knowing the truth.

Socratic Ignorance in Plato’s Dialogues Socrates was incredulous since he didn’t consider himself wise.  So he set about trying to find someone wiser than himself. He found plenty of people who were knowledgeable about specific matters such as how to make shoes, or how to pilot a ship.

Plato distinguished between “simple ignorance” — the mere lack of information — and “double ignorance” — the absence of knowledge coupled with the delusion of having genuine knowledge.

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”

Plato observed that “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” I think he’s suggesting that an opinion (hopefully predicated on assessment of information at hand) reveals progress toward knowledge and a distancing from pure ignorance.

Here are 20 profound Plato quotes on life, love and human behavior. The greatest wealth is to live content with little. Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song.

Plato Quotes Here are some of Plato’s most famous quotes: “Love is a serious mental disease.” “When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.” “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”

On Plato’s view, success is determined not by the completion of some action, but by how one engages in all action with wisdom and intelligence […] success at acting wisely must always be available to a wise person, who has no need of further good luck (Russell, 2005: 30–1).