Libraries, Digital Information, and Plato
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Peter Young argues in an article in Daedalus that the world is increasingly dependent on digital information technologies to define meaning and provide a contextual framework for our activities and our identities (Young, 103). He contends that we are hurtling toward a postmodern "decentered, fragmented, fluid, opaque, and nonlinear cultural" society, which has destabilized the old print order and consequently the nature of librarianship (Young, 103). This newly networked information world cannot be controlled by traditional librarian methods of organizing and ordering information resources (Young, 103). Rather, this new information technology world is too fluid, volatile, and dynamic for traditional librarian methods. Instead, the librarian must now develop new approaches with network service providers, software designers, and media specialists to learn to understand and order the interactive nature of the digital information/communications processes (Young, 103).However, Young also points out that the access to information resources now made simple by dynamic and intelligent software "agents" that function as knowledge guides raises the question of the need for librarians in an information age (103). Basically, if commercial online services can provide instantaneous access to an increasingly vast array of global digital information resources capable of being accessed and downloaded by individuals for home use, why would anyone need a library to store the same knowledge (Y
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al objects are the "Forms." Forms are eternal immutable forms or ideas that are the essence and ideal of all things (Hundersmarck, 21). In the cave, the shadows represented people's opinions, which in our ignorance we rely on as the thing in itself (Kelley, 1).
We now return to the cave transformed and only at the beginning of our journey. We know now that an absolute truth exists and that we have the capacity to know this truth. We know now that the goal of our intellectual inquiry must be to discover these absolute truths. This, Plato argues, is the way a true philosopher seeks wisdom (Hundersmarck, 21). These eternal truths, already in the mind, can be recalled by the immaterial and immortal intellect. The purpose of education is to perfect the whole person in order to achieve self-mastery and self-realization. Education has as its goal, as should all human acts, knowledge of the good, for ignorance of the good leads to evil (Hundersmarck, 21).
Plato argues that a perfect society is the external reflection of harmoniously integrated souls whose appetite and desire are under the command of reason (Hundersmarck, 21). At the core of Plato's philosophical enterprise is the conviction that the point of intellectual inquiry is to sea
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1579
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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