Know Thyself- Philosophy

My Part: Know thyself, and an unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates was a an eminent classical Greek Athenian philosopher played a major role in the contribution of philosophy. As for being the most influential thinker of the fifth century, he also had a fairly strong educational background in music, geometry, and gymnastics. Socrates had a comparable way in soughing to genuine knowledge, almost just as the way the Sophist’s did it. Though his beliefs had no writing, it is word of mouth through vast generations of his students and strong believed philosophers that have brought down his knowledge through time.

His well known belief of ‘Know Thyself’ is his major concept of teaching offering knowledge to others that it is vital for a person to know themselves. Through subjective studying of the use of nature, ‘Know Thyself’ highlights the term morality. In ancient Greece, “Know Thyself” are other ways of saying self realization, or self knowledge. Knowing thyself is being able to know about everything, and by doing so it makes us knowledgeable about all creation.

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This way, it clears up our feelings of unhappiness, doubt, fear, sadness, and all other kinds of negative emotions. Know Thyself” was one of the three sayings carved on the temple of Apollo at Delphi located in Greece. It is important to focus on the things in the world that make us immoral. By doing so, we must be able to study and know the differences between, good and bad, justice and injustice, love and hate- by doing so, it will help us know the difference between what’s true or false, and what’s right or wrong.

In more contemporary ways of looking at it, it defines how we must know our emotions, and being able to recognize them.

Only when we know ourselves, we know the world-giving us the power to survive in content. It is crucial to bear in mind that knowing ourselves is a objective method which is based on reasoning, instead of reasoning and feelings. Through the philosophical belief of ‘Know Thyself’, arises the context of ‘Unexamined life is not worth living’. The term unexamined derives from examine-a term portraying exploration, observation, and inspection. So this quote defines how we should look into our lives, observe it, and examine our actions, behaviours, and speeches on a daily basis.

This quote was used by Socrates to encourage his students to challenge the beliefs and to think for themselves. Socrates believed that it is not worth living if we don’t explore ourselves, behaviours, and actions. It is unfortunate that people avoid reaching an examined life due to lack of time and effort. However, for people who do examine their life- they think about where they’ve been, how they got there, how they’re going- are much happier people. No one’s life is out of troubles or free of tension, but having to examine our life from time to time kills the barriers and unburdens us from stress.

People who have an unexamined life dot have a concept of understanding and how all elements in their life fit together making them unhappy. When Socrates defines life, he refers to one’s own life consisting of nature, reality, relationships, motivations, and thoughts. This encourages spiritual growth, deeper contemplation in the subconscious level, and true happiness resulting us in being a moral, ethical and good person. In terms of being moral, ethical, and good-its defines how we are good members of society who follow laws, and perform positive behaviour which benefits others, and ourselves.

My Reflection on ‘Know Thyself and ‘Unexamined life is not worth living; Through my research, lectures in class, and experience down the road in the course of GS1002, Philosophy has changed my perspectives and vision towards various aspects in life. As for Socrates belief and way of thinking, i believe that it is vital to know thyself. Knowing myself through self contemplation and day to day experiences i have found myself in a different pair of shoes. It has given me the power to think maturely. I believe that knowing myself is important because it gives me a moral compass.

Knowing myself lets me set out my goals, motives, and wants in order and more vividly. As for criticizing Socrates, i don’t wish to do so because it clearly makes sense in all accuracy. However, it only makes me doubt how much of it his work is. Because there is no written evidence of his work, it makes me think that not all these beliefs are his and some of the concepts may be exaggerated and deformed-yet for the better. I believe his students and apprentices have had a major impact on his concepts changing it for the better.

As for ‘Unexamined life is not worth living’, I do happen to sit down every once in a while to explore myself and sometimes I do find myself organizing my behaviour and concluding to what is right and wrong due to my actions. Therefore, this concept developed by Socrates is absolutely brilliant and it makes complete sense. This concept has been introduced to offer betterment in the hands of individuals around the world. It brings the world in order by allowing people to follow laws, be ethical and moral.

Bibliography: http://www.safnet.com/literae/html/know.html http://www.musicanthology.org/?p=80 http://sum-zero.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

Know Thyself and Goals in Life

When early Greek philosophers developed theories in the premodern period, they challenged many dominant assumptions of this period. Socrates and Plato were two of the most influential early philosophers who addressed the issue of the good life. For these two philosophers, the good life was an ethical life. Socrates was famous for his statement “Know thyself.” Psychologists throughout history have echoed this. Plato had some revolutionary ideas on what it means to be human. He was responsible for bringing dualism into popular thought. This had a profound influence on religion, philosophy, and Western thought as a whole.

In life the Socrates’ famous statement “Know thyself” has great meaning to the lives of people today. Implications certainly come with this type of statement and Socrates and Plato provide ideas of how a human can change in order to under who they really are. While many think the “good life” is reachable so many do not know how to get to that point in their lives. Plato’s own understanding of human nature introduces dualism which shows another option to living the good life.

Life has key goals in it and in order to understand a person’s purpose it has to be understood what Socrates meant when he said the statement “Know thyself”. To Socrates that meant a way of achieving the good life. His two primary points of the good life were being ethical and having self knowledge; the most important tools to have. The statement “Know thyself” has conclusions such as how one should live and what they should seek. The answers to these questions come from seeking God and pleasure and living a moral and tempered life.

Socrates believed that humans obtain knowledge through analysis of concepts and rational process will bring objective truths. Additionally, he believed that with increase in knowledge comes increase in virtue. Half truths lead a person to a road of not knowing themselves fully but when they use the social, mental and physical knowledge they have together they can learn who they truly are. Human change cannot come without a person realizing a change is needed.

Plato’s beliefs were more on rational beliefs than on sensory beliefs and a theory of forms. In the theory of forms he believed souls were reincarnated into another body and the new body may still have recollections of the past body making it difficult for the soul to comprehend (King, 2009). He had his own metaphor “the eye of the soul” where he felt the world was perceived through memories, images that keeps the soul from seeing the true reality form. Also, there were three types of souls; rational, appetitive and affective. The rational is in the head, appetitive in the gut and affective in the chest. He also believed that we are all chained inside a cave unable to see the outside world because we rely on senses instead of forms but we can overcome this by escaping captivity through reason.