Plato Given that Plato's Socrates is an Idealist and a dualist, the highest form of love is not the sexual or erotic kind, or that of family and friends, all of which are materialistic and impermanent. On the contrary, the highest form of love is for God (the Good), as expressed through the immortal soul, for God is a perfect and ideal Form and the soul longs for union with the divine. Love expressed for mortal bodies or any other material object in this world is necessarily of an inferior kind, a pale reflection or shadow of love for the Eternal and the Perfect. There existed a Divine Intelligence above all the other gods and demigods, which could only be contemplated and nurtured by the "pure intelligence" of the soul (Plato 27). This is perhaps one reason why the dialogue is set outside the walls of Athens, away from the city and its obsession with money, commerce and practical matters, which had so little appeal for Plato and Socrates. Phaedrus is a typical example of the shallow young men who pursue all the latest fads in the city, although Socrates is persistent in trying to enlighten him and open his eyes to the ultimate truths of philosophy. To attain true wisdom and enlightenment, the philosopher does have to soar above these narrow, material concerns: they affairs of the city and the physical world are the starting point, not the ultimate destination. Initially, Socrates gives a speech praising love in its physical and sexual aspects, but almost immediately he realizes that this is as shallow as the speech of the public orator Lysias -- a witty and clever speaker who willingly pontificates on any subject as long as he is paid....
He goes so far as to call his first speech "impious" for God was also Love and should not be spoken of in the same terms as love between mortal beings (Plato 22). He also is also sarcastic about the great rhetorician, asking rhetorically "you really imagine that I am going to improve upon the ingenuity of Lysias?" (Plato 13).
Plato and McLuhan: Truth and the Medium McLuhan does not directly address the idea of truth or reality but does state that by understanding the structure of various media forms, we can become more aware of how it shapes our thinking and our environment. McLuhan's idea of truth is to reveal the structure of media and thereby not succumb to its effects. He offers different ways in which we can attempt
Plato and McLuhan: Truth and the Medium In Understanding Media, McLuhan makes the case that the medium contains as much meaning as the content which the medium conveys. In a sense, McLuhan breaks deconstructs the process of communication to show that messages are not inseparable from the medium used to transfer them. Plato suggests however that messages are distinct from a medium in the sense that they relate to or do
Plato -- Life and Works Plato was born in Athens circa 425 BC, just after the onset of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. He lost his father at an early age, but through his mother's marriage to a friend of the leading statesman and general of Athens at the time, Plato became affiliated with some of the most influential circles of a city enjoying a Golden Age. The early
Plato vs. Freud on eros and sexuality Plato's concept of love mandates two rectifications. Both of these rectifications are necessary in order for us to appreciate the relevance of Plato's theory of love to contemporary problems. The first depiction comports with the non-sexual aspect of the loving relationship, because Plato's theory of love indeed includes sex. The second depiction, or rectification, is related inextricably to the heterosexual aspect of the loving relationship.
The issue of justice is also very closely related to that of morality. In the Republic, morality is again a function of the class division dictated by soul dominance. With every individual's place in society rigidly defined, social interaction were also defined. There would be a prescribed way of dealing with someone lese based on which class each member was, and since most immoral behavior has some form of jealousy
In essence this means that humanity lives in a state of illusion that has been technologically constructed by an intelligence that provides people with an illusionary reality. In the film it appears that humanity is being kept in a state of illusion in order to be used as an energy source. We can relate the scenario in the Matrix to the cave allegory in that the entire world has become
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