Plato, Descartes, Hume
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In The Republic, Plato suggests the image of the Divided Line in book 6. The Line represents the Whole in two dimensions. The vertical axis of the Line shows the relationship between the intelligible and the visible world, and the soul stands in relation to its objects along the horizontal axis. These are the four stages that are represented by the Line. The top section represents intelligible realm and the soul's "insight," or noesis, in relation to these intelligible beings. The lower section of the Line represents both the visible things in the realm of becoming and the soul's state of "opinion" in relation to these things. The Line represents the Whole in that the intelligible and the visible domains are depicted as parts of one and the same line, and the Line also represents the close connection between the states of the soul and the character of its objects because the line is equally a likeness of both. The Line thus represents the journey taken over the whole of the Republic, and the continuity or integrity of the Whole depends on the imaging relationships binding together its elements along both axes. The Line elucidates and exemplifies eikasia, or imagination, meaning the power to make and recognize images enabling a philosophic education by allowing us to move vertically on the Line toward the originals. This relates to the allegory of the Cave, which refers to the horizontal phenomenon of psychic imitation or mimesis by which the soul takes on the chara
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ght doubt everything else because his senses may deceive him. He can thus deny that he has a body and senses because he perceives these things only through what he has called the senses, and all this data might be false. He asks then if it is possible that he can exist without the body and without the senses, and of course he can because the one thing he knows without the senses is that he exists. He exists in his mind, and he knows that he exists through the awareness of that mind. Even if there is some powerful force bent on deceiving the observer, the observer knows that he himself exists:
Let him deceive me as much as he will, he can never make me be nothing as long as I think that I am something. Thus, after having thought well on this matter, and after examining all things with care, I must finally conclude and maintain that this proposition: I Am, I exist, is necessarily true in every time that I pronounce it or conceive it in my mind (24).
Inherent in Descartes's argument is the mind-body problem and the need to understand what is the mind and what is the body as well as how they are connected and related. The mind is our awareness, the one thing that we can know is real. It is the site of rational thought. It i
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Divided Line, Human Nature, RenT Descartes, Inherent Descartes's, line represents, University Press, Republic Plato, John Cottingham, Arts Press, body senses, mind body, York Bobbs-Merrill, cartesian dualism, assume connection, Hackett Publishing, world forms, changeless world forms, intelligible visible, idea connection, relation objects, mind awareness,
Approximate Word count = 1576
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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