Principia Mathematica

Dogbrain said:
Socrates was brought to trial because he was a mentor to a Quisling for the Spartans and took part in the Spartan occupational government.
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Here is a description from SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) of how Socrates was brought to trial:



This brings us to the spring and summer of 399, to Socrates' trial and execution. Twice in Plato's dialogues (Symposium 173b, Theaetetus 142c-143a), fact-checking with Socrates took place as his friends sought to commit his conversations to writing before he was executed. [spring 399 Theaetetus] Prior to the action in the Theaetetus, a young poet named Meletus had composed a document charging Socrates with the capital crime of irreverence (asebeia): failure to show due piety toward the gods of Athens. This he delivered to Socrates in the presence of witnesses, instructing Socrates to present himself before the king archon within four days for a preliminary hearing (the same magistrate would later preside at the pre-trial examination and the trial). At the end of the Theaetetus, Socrates was on his way to that preliminary hearing. As a citizen, he had the right to forgo the hearing, allowing the suit to proceed uncontested. He also had the right to exile himself voluntarily, as the personified laws remind him (Crito 52c). Socrates exercised neither right. Rather, he set out to enter a plea and stopped at a gymnasium to talk to some youngsters about mathematics and knowledge.

Ref: Socrates (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Quislings and Spartans were certainly part of the deal, but it was Socrates new ideas, related to "failure to show due piety toward the gods of Athens" and "mathematics and knowledge", which threatened the establishment.
 
shawn said:
Socrates response to Meno and his sophistic paradox is to develop his theory of anamnesis.
He suggests that the soul is immortal, and repeatedly incarnated; knowledge is actually in the soul from eternity, but each time the soul is incarnated its knowledge is forgotten in the shock of birth.
What one perceives to be learning, then, is actually the recovery of what one has forgotten.
(Once it has been brought back it is true belief, to be turned into genuine knowledge by understanding.)
And thus Socrates (and Plato) sees himself, not as a teacher, but as a midwife, aiding with the birth of knowledge that was already there in the student.

So the cave dweller who leaves and returns after to the cave is then in the role of midwife to assist others in the process of anamnesis.

From amnesia (darkness) through anamnesis (remembering) to the light (remembrance/knowing/gnosis).
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Interesting analysis. This notion of the "soul" seems like it leaves much to be desired. More on this from later philosophers.
 
shawn said:
What do you mean by that?
Maybe give a bit more data than merely a brief quip.
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We may study the smallest sub-atomic particles known to humankind. The quarks, leptons and bosons are all real and we can investigate how they behave.

The universe can be described in terms of black holes, quasars and pulsars. We can speculate on the philosophical importance of these and other constituents of the universe as well as how the universe was created.

The concept of the soul has been supplanted by "archtypal psychology" (see work by James Hillman) in modern science. That is where we will find the significant questions.
 
Hillman has his own definition of soul. Primarily, he notes that soul is not a “thing,” not an entity. Nor is it something that is located “inside” a person. Rather, soul is “a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint towards things… (it is) reflective; it mediates events and makes differences…”(1975). Soul is not to be located in the brain or in the head, for example (where most modern psychologies place it), but human beings are in psyche. The world, in turn, is the anima mundi, or the world ensouled. Hillman often quotes a phrase coined by the Romantic poet John Keats: “call the world the vale of soul-making.”
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I would agree with the idea that we inhabit in the soul rather than the soul is located here or there.
I subscribe to the native American understanding of the soul being like a luminous egg which envelopes our body.
I am of the mind that things which we chop up into segments for analysis are not actually different parts as we are a single being, but we can do so for purposes of comprehension, so, by extension, we are mind soul and body (if you will) ......yet we are, simply just are.
We possess a body, yet the animating force is so deeply intertwined, so we are one with it.
I do not agree with Keats however as I do not see this place as the vale of "soul-making".
The life force which animates us has not been created here.
People do not "create" a soul when they make a baby IMO.

So BR, what are the significant questions presented by archetypal psychology in your learned estimation?
 
Bertrand_Russell said:
You will find the main points about archtypal psychology summarized here:

Archetypal psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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I thought this sounded familiar...seems Jung got his two cents in on this as well.

So, if we go to extremes, then are the people in the cave simply not far enough along in gestation to be born? Are they locked in the womb merely to relive the shades, which I would think to be an archtypal semblence of evil, particularly since they shun the healing and restorative power of the fire / light?

Of course, the reference mentioned the people were bound in chains from birth to stare at the wall...which is a far different scenario from what I understood here to mean the people stared at the wall by custom or tradition. And that the "chosen" one was plucked away by an outside(r) influence, not that that person through any manner of choice, volition or accident made their way out of the cave. These subtle details are clues to why I struggle with imaginary examples...particularly examples that are deliberately vague.
 
shawn said:
So BR, what are the significant questions presented by archetypal psychology in your learned estimation?
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I'm not BR, but I've suspected from the beginning it was to learn more about us (or we to learn about ourselves) than about any profound insight.

It's not the words....it's the interpretation, and how that can reveal the inner workings of a person's thought processes.
 
shawn said:
So BR, what are the significant questions presented by archetypal psychology in your learned estimation?
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Because I am a philosopher, I would be pleased to discuss archtypal psychology with you ad infinitum.

However the purpose of this tread, in my mind, is to move our discussion toward analytic philosophy. My interests primarily relate to logic, mathematics, freedom of thought and pacifism. I am strongly for nuclear disarmament.

I would also like to discuss some of the interactions with existential thinking. I have started to do this on Coberst's new thread related to "self".
 
BR response to greymare said:
Haven't we all acted this way at one time or another ?
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That was in response to greymare's "The cave dwellers on the other hand, know no other way than what is in front of them, and as most humans go, are resistant to change, because change causes uncertainty, and insecurity"

I have met a few people that are so well adapted to life that they spontaneously begin experimenting. It is random chance for them whether they keep pointed at the fire or turn around, yet they do not see a reason to leave the cave. For them it is not about insecurity but that to them the cave is a wonderful place. I do not think it affects your example that much, but I just want to mention that these people are part of the picture, too. You can walk them outside, and they like what they see but then go right back in. For them "Its all good." Have you ever met someone like this?
 
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