My Examined Life

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My Examined Life In one of our first classes, we learned about two major philosophers Plato and Socrates. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates went around asking questions and because of that we have what is know as the Socratic Method which is what is used in counseling and therapy. Plato, Socrates student, wrote for Socrates and talked about the unexamined vs. the examined life frequently in his works. This semester I’ve given a lot of thought about the importance of living an “examined life,” and what needs to be done to do that. Using the texts and lecture, I will develop and elaborate on why is it beneficial to live an examined life and explain how I think it should be done. In Ashra Taylor’s book “Examined Life,” she speaks with 8 what she calls contemporary thinkers, and asks their opinion on this exact topic, as well as some other topics such as cosmopolitanism, ecology, and interdependence. After reading Cornel West’s on Truth, I found that to be a great first chapter, and a great place to start my journey. West talks about achieving a death in life. “Philosophy’s a meditation on and a preparation for death”- Plato. West says that we have to learn how to die by examining ourselves and transforming ourselves into a better self. By doing this, we will “actually live more intensely and critically and abundantly (Taylor 3).” West talks about being transformed. When we die, we have that transformation. We aren’t actually dying, but instead the death in life refers to there being no more transformation or change. Without those transformations we will die (Taylor, 3). We need to create a new self and love that new self, according to West (Taylor, 4). “We know that love is fundamentally a death of an old self that was isolated and the emergence of a new self now entangled with a another self, the self that you fall
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