For example there is a form of beauty, which explains why we can all understand and know what beauty is, without the need to be told every time. However, we have our own opinions on what beauty it. This is because we don’t know forms fully, as only our souls (our only eternal aspect) is part of the Realm of the Forms and the concept gets mixed as we are not perfect. The Form of the good is 100% good, perfect, unchanging, eternal and outside this world. Plato’s definition of good is not the same as the good we define.
Second, Socrates and Aristotle contrast in their view of what knowledge we possess at birth. Socrates supports the doctrine of Innatism, which claims that we enter this world with prior knowledge. All people possess immortal souls; therefore, the knowledge acquired in one life can be transferred into the next reincarnation. However, we forget the knowledge at the shock of birth and we then spend the rest of our lives trying to retrieve the lost knowledge. In contrast, Aristotle's doctrine of Tabula Rasa, or blank slate, states that we are born without any knowledge.
Aristotle has a monist approach to the soul, unlike Plato he says that the soul cannot exist without the body. The soul is not a body but something that belongs in a body, comparable to the brain; it is necessary and is within all humans and it gives us reason, intellect and an innate sense of justice. This therefore can make his theory more convincing than Plato’s as the soul isn’t ‘immortal’ and dies along with the body, thereby eliminating the theory of reincarnation which is hard for anyone who isn’t Hindu to believe as it is contradictory to their religious views. Aristotle states that all reason is associated with the pure thought of the Prime Mover and the soul is what gives the body its shape and form; he argued that the soul is not a substance but the reason and shape behind the matter. Best described by using the example of a marble statue, as the marble stature is essentially a block of marble but it has a shape and form and like the body the soul, the shape and form cannot be removed from what the statue is, in the same way the body cannot be separated from the soul.
Soft materialists agree to a point but their key belief is that everything emerges from the physical, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that everything can be reduced to the physical. They would argue that material is the base of everything and the mind emerges from the material - this is backed up by the example that while there would be no thoughts without brains, thoughts can’t be simply reduced to the brain as a material object. Gilbert Ryle is an advocate of Materialism and argues that talking of the soul is a ‘category mistake’. He argues that the soul is not a quantifiable phenomena that can be
Therefore, which of these two concepts is more logically coherent? Some would say that reincarnation is entirely more logical than resurrection. As Descartes suggests, if body and soul divide into two categories the body is admittedly perishable and this idea is therefore constant as we have evidence that corpses remain on earth. The possibility of a separate soul is also plausible and difficult to dispute therefore the soul is constant and as Plato suggests a direct link to the form of life, suggesting that the soul must live eternally in some form, as it is unable to die. This is more possible than the idea of resurrection because the souls is not dependent on the body, the theory of reincarnation is logical in saying that the soul passes consistently through this world, entering a different flesh form.
Critically assess Dawkins’ claim that since life is no more than DNA reproducing itself, there can be no life after death. Richard Dawkins strongly rejects the notion that there is a life after death, and similarly that humans have no ‘soul’ – as in the traditional sense of a soul being a spiritual object which is distinct from our bodies. He argues that we are purely a product of our own genes, and all that our genes are concerned about is surviving and reproducing, meaning that we are no different from a plant or an animal. Personally, in my opinion, it seems realistic that Dawkins’ claim is true, because of the evidence of neuroscience, as well as the fact that it provides the most scientific explanation. Those that would argue against Dawkins’ ideas may consider themselves dualists; the most famous dualist would be Plato.
Explain what Aristotle meant by Final Cause: [25] Aristotle’s Final Cause is his theory that all objects have a fundamental reason or purpose for its existence. He questioned why material was the way it was and looked beyond its physicality to what was its purpose and why it exists in our material world. Unlike his teacher Plato, Aristotle believed in only the material world and opposed Plato’s world of the Forms. To him, the final cause was important as the material efficient and formal causes would be pointless without the end product. This is the final cause.
They both argued that the fact of motion needs a prior agency to motivate it and this mover itself would not need a further mover itself as it would be a prime mover, a necessary being. Aristotle said ‘the series must start with something since nothing can come from nothing’. Plato identified many different types of motion such a growth and decay so he argued that the power to produce motion is prior to the power to receive motion and pass it on, therefore there must be a first cause which itself is uncaused and is the origin of that movement. Aristotle separate the prime mover from the material world stating it must be good, perfect, non-spatial and eternal. A prime mover such as this could not fit in an ordinary chain of material causes.
In #10 he asks us to ask ourselves what capacity we have within ourselves to deal with a particular situation, “If hardship comes to you, find endurance,” (p14) so that we might not let outside influences affect our own happiness, and that our happiness can be created only by our own judgments, perceptions, decisions and actions. Plato, on the other hand addresses happiness as attainable through the actions of the just man. Through Socrates he points out that the man who never falls sick is happier than the man who is cured from sickness, “Happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having them,” which could be what Epictetus is suggesting – avoiding negativity all together – or at the very least, not perceiving these situations to be negative. All three of the Ancients address the function of human beings in some form or another. Aristotle says that we are considered to be good when we perform our function well, when we are excellent at our purpose in life.
In this perspective, Dao is not a religion as the concept of gods and afterlife is vague and almost nonexistent. Daoism’s main concern is here and now, how to live a pleasant life without causing unnecessary commotion or distress to yourself or what’s around you. It is the natural law behind all creation and those who can harmonise with it will find bliss (taoistic:N.d. Para :1). A person can be Daoist without embracing any of its religious aspects. Dao is an expression of the unity of the universe and of the path human beings must take to join that peaceful unity (religion: n.d: para:3).