The Greeks and Philosophy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Greeks and Philosophy - Research Paper Example For, â€Å"†¦without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of   the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.†2 Philosophy is about finding points that will lead one to theorize. Philosophy includes â€Å"†¦steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 3 â€Å"Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument --unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science; --drea ming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus.†4 For Plato, what equaled philosophy included the truth. â€Å"And I thought that I had better have recourse to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence.†5 Naturally, the most logical thoughts that were reinforced as correct were what Plato considered philosophy, saying that â€Å"†¦I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue.†6 True philosophy, after all, lies â€Å"†¦in [the] asking and answering questions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 7 Rejecting the false and embracing the truth seems to have been what Plato was searching for all the time in his dialogues. The process of philosophy was about digging into the psyche to find a deeper truth. The process involves lots of rational thinking, evaluation, and critical thinking skills. Not only that, but Plato’s ideas of philosophy held fast to the ideas that what was good and virtuous were things that were worth philosophizing about. This process of parsing out what was good and virtuous in itself was worth it to Plato to take great pains to try to explain—in detail—what was worth expounding upon in his dialogues. Plato consistently maintained that philosophy was a constant search for that which was real, good, true, and reliable—versus that which was fake or a facade, bad, untrue, or inconsistent. Constistency is what made Plato such an emblematic figure in philosophy, because one knew what to expect from his type of logic. Therefore, his points were not only true but rational. B) Find at least two passages in the dialogues that were covered in this module where Plato shows Socrates entering into the dialectical process of Philosophy. Copy and paste the passages usi ng quotation marks and cite the source dialogue. You find two passages where Socrates is exchanging questions and answers with someone on a topic, issue or question. Where do you find these passages? Find them in any of these dialogues: ION EUTHYPHRO APOLOGY CRITO PHAEDO REPUBLIC SYMPOSIUM ?DO NOT USE THE SEVEN PASSAGES SUPPLIES IN PART A THAT DESCRIBE DIALECTICS! Those passages are not demonstrations of the process but are descriptions of it. How long do they need to be? Not the entire dialogue! Just submit a passage long enough to see the back