Platos Symposium analysis Essay -- essays research papers

â€Å"Plato’s Symposium† Kaboom, that was the sound of Zeus’s thunder crashing towards the Earth. During this time period the people in Greece believed in these gods. Also happening at the same time period was when the worlds most famous philosophers began to come out and teach. Most importantly the philosophers did what they were suppose to, and that was to question the world around them. One of the most famous philosophers in the Greek period around 416 B.C. was a man named Socrates. Socrates was student of the Diotima which taught him things about love, ignorance, wisdom and right opinion, which he rehearses to the people attending the dinner of Agathon’s. We will first start by analyzing what Diotima has said about the four cognitive functions, which are: wisdom, understanding, right opinion and ignorance. She asks Socrates â€Å"do you think what is not wise, then it is ignorant?† and she continues with â€Å"Do you not perceive that there is something between wisdom and ignorance?† In these first quotes Socrates only believes that if something is not wise then it has to be ignorant and that there is no in between. Diotima then points out that doesn’t think see that there is an middle point between wisdom and ignorance. Diotima then replies â€Å"To have right opinion without being able to give a reason, is neither to understand (for how could an unreasoned thing be understanding?) nor is it ignorance (for how can ignorance hit the truth?). Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance.† In the second quote what Diotima tells Socrates is that right opinion is in between wisdom and ign orance. She explains this by telling Socrates that being incapable of giving a reason something cannot be considered knowledge, because how can knowledge be entirely lacking reason. She also points out that it can’t be considered ignorance because you can’t obtain the truth from ignorance, but then it is clearly something in between wisdom and ignorance which is called right opinion. Diotima explains the four cognitive functions more in depth a couple of paragraphs later on starting with â€Å"The truth is this: no god seeks after wisdom or desires to become wise—for wise he is already; nor does anyone else seek after wisdom, if he is wise already. And again, the ignorant do not seek after wisdom nor desire to become wise; for this is the worst of ignorance, that one who i... ... all equal forms, and from equal forms to equal practices, from equal practices to equal notions, until from equal notions he realizes the notion of absolute beauty, and finally knows what the essence of beauty is. Diotima explains that this is the life for which a man should live in the view of absolute beauty; a beauty that if you once touched you would not care of gold, clothing, and attractive boys, who’s presence entrances you; and you many a one would be satisfied to live seeing them and talking about them with out food or water, if that were possible, you only want to look to be closer to them and to stare at them. But what if man had eyes to see the true divine beauty, pure and undisrupted, not clogged with the pollutions of human life. To that place looking, and having ability to communicate with true beauty divine and simple? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be able to bring forward, not images of beauty, but realities for he has hold not of an image but of a reality, and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be a non-honorable life?"