Philosophical Views of Aristotle & Plato

In a different sense, though, Socrates also says that he is a gadfly, that he not only delves into himself and other men but seeks to get other people to think. He says that all he does is try to persuade young and old alike that they should address the most important thing, the improvement of the soul. This is his sole teaching, and he does not believe it can be a corrupter of youth. He says many of those he supposedly corrupted have not reached their maturity and know quite well that they have not been corrupted. These people are among his supporters, not his accusers. He has acted as gadfly to get these people to search their souls and to seek to improve those souls, and they have done so and now support him. Getting others to search their souls is also the work of the philosopher.

In The Republic, Plato has Socrates consider the role of the philosopher both in general and in the ideal city-state. The philosopher in Plato's conception

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he priest is doing good works, but Plato does not address the issue of doing good works. He is more interested in attaining a state of inquiry and contemplation, and this necessitates removing oneself as much as possible from the things of this world. The philosopher like Socrates values wisdom, which is the effort to inquire into the ideal and the good. To do this, it is necessary to divorce oneself from certain other needs, though not entirely. In The Republic, Plato has Socrates discuss the soul and the nature of the soul and to examine ways in which the soul may be said to be made up of divisions or parts rather than being a unified whole. What emerges from this discussion is a concept of the soul as having a tri-partite nature, with the three parts joined together. These three parts are delineated as follows: 1) reason; 2) the emotional or spirited part; and 3) desire. The three parts are not equal, and for Socrates reason is the part that is to dominate and that should keep the other two parts under control, though they can never be eliminated altogether. The three aspects of the soul can also be seen as three parts of the psychology of the mind--the reason, the emotions, and desire. The three operate in every mind
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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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