A Little Night Reading

It's still nice to be needed, even though me thinks they do just fine without me. This is the second philosophy paper I've marked up only slightly via email. The first one was for her brother. My comments are in red. 

Platonic Dualism and the Body

The separation between the body and soul, or rather physical functions of the body and its spirit, has long been distinguished in both religion and society. This dualism, perpetrated by the philosophies of Plato and Socrates, not only encourages us to see this separation in our daily encounters and functions of the mind, but also leads us to believe that the spirit succeeds at usurping bodily necessities. (Perhaps the only ones that have their spirits usurping their bodies successfully are priests and monk like aesthetics. Odd word: usurping.)  But which is more vital to existence: spiritual ascension or the satisfaction of the body’s desires? As presented in Plato’s dialogues, the Allegory of the Cave, and the Theory of Forms, the body is not only considered an obstacle to a higher spiritual state, but it is also something whose needs must be suppressed in order to live an appeasing (interesting word- is it from the translation of Plato? Who are we being appeasing to? The soul?) life.

            This separation of the body and soul is particularly illustrated in the dialogue Phaedo, in which Plato asserts that not only has the soul existed before birth, but it will exist after death. Firstly, Plato asserts via Socratic dialogue, a “theory of recollection,” in which he claims that the knowledge of Forms (The study of philosophy is primarily a discussion of ideas with exactly defined terms, so if I remember I think Forms is akin to concepts that spring almost automatically from all of us without apparent coaching or instruction ie. Understanding  simple symbols or having the ability to draw a circle in the sand?) can be found in the soul before birth of the body. On page 110, Socrates states, “According to this, we must at some previous time have learned what we now recollect. This is possible only if our soul existed somewhere before it took on this human shape. So according to this theory too, the soul is likely to be something immortal” (Plato 110). This quote demonstrates that because the soul existed long before the creation of the body, they have become two distinct entities with the ability to survive one without the other. Plato then introduces the “argument from affinity” which distinguishes things that are immaterial and immortal from things that are material and visible. He writes, “…the soul is most like the divine, deathless, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, always the same as itself, whereas the body is most like that which is human, mortal, multiform, unintelligible, soluble, and never consistently the same…that being so, is it not natural for the body to dissolve easily, and for the soul to be altogether indissoluble, or nearly so?” (Plato 118-119). The soul, because of its commonly accepted characteristics, has become eternally dissoluble, while the erroneous body dissolves easily with time. Lastly, he presents a cyclical argument, stating that because living comes from death, the soul must exist in another world, in order to be born again. Plato’s claims regarding the soul: that it exists before birth, in a higher world, and after death, all aim to communicate the view that the spirit must be considered in separate terms than that of the body and physical world.

All three of these arguments effectively illustrate the divorcement (divorce?) between body and soul that Plato attempted to convey via Socrates’ dialogue in Phaedo. However, with this separation between the functioning of the soul, which exists independently from the physical universe of the body, comes a degradation of the body’s basic functions, deemed inferior to the workings of the spirit. In Phaedo in particular, the senses are deemed inaccurate means of understanding the world. Socrates states:

The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture. Moreover, if certain diseases befall it, they impede our search for the truth. It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so…in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body…everywhere in our investigations the body is present and makes for confusion and fear, so that it prevents us from seeing the truth. (Plato 103). (Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism)

This quote, in itself, concisely explains the manner in which Plato regards the body. The body’s requirements to live, such as nutrition and perhaps even sexual activity, impede the spirit from reaching higher conclusions regarding the state of man, and in some way, seems to prohibit effective philosophical pondering. He believes that the body is the source of all fear and desire, and therefore manages to confuse our minds, rendering them unable to purely understand the higher world presented in the Allegory of the Cave, and in Plato’s Theory of Forms.  (This also leads to the justification of western culture that allows us to destroy whatever we want because we disown our animalness and thus do not respect the world we live in.)

            The Theory of Forms is an ideology that is extremely complimentary to the ideas presented by Plato in the Phaedo dialogue, regarding both the separation of the body and soul, and of the debasement of the role of the body in the composition of man. The Theory of Forms is a rationale proposed by Plato that assumes that there are two levels of reality: one of pure Forms that stands above the physical world, and the visible reality which we encounter, in which we are only able to see shadowy imitations of these pure concepts. This theory is primarily discussed in the Allegory of the Cave, a segment of Plato’s larger work, The Republic. The Allegory of the Cave makes the separation between the body and soul very clear in the discussion of the steps necessary to become wise. Plato states, “…you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs, for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell, which desire of theirs is very natural” (Anthology 128). The soul, therefore, repels the presence of the physical ‘man’ in many respects, but rather attempts to rise, and dwell above normal concerns, into the world of true Forms. Once again, we are presented with a view of bodily necessities that is less than favorable. In discussion of philosophers, who have reached the world above and have been enlightened with truth and knowledge, Plato states that the procession of their lives would be much less burdened if they had been released from physical desires: “…and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the visions of their souls upon the things that are below…” (Anthology 129). In regarding these physical necessities as “impediments,” he encourages his readers, and his immediate society, to release themselves from their bodies, and reach forward with the mind, as the body is presented first and foremost as a fallible, almost harmful entity.

            Though the establishment of the concept that the body and soul act independently from one another is quite easily achieved in regard to the philosophy of Plato, analyzing this theory itself is much more complicated. What are the consequences of this way of thinking about self, and do we still view the body in such a manner in contemporary society? Many modern-day intellectuals may argue that the body works in integration with the soul, because it is necessary to satisfy bodily desires in order for the brain to function properly. Or rather it is argued that the brain is simply a part of the being, and there is no separation between the two at all, as both express need and desire for material and immaterial things. Some may not even distinguish (realize or know?) the philosophy of Plato and Socrates in the formation of this concept, but rather see the cause of this unfavorable view of the body’s desires in the separation itself; as humans we are naturally predisposed to judge and classify objects, therefore we deem the metaphysical superior to the physical. (Tis an anorectic view and we treat people with drugs now because we don’t think starving oneself to become perfect is healthy.)

Despite these arguments, the body and soul are still considered as separate entities in contemporary society and the body is regarded to have little value (don’t know about this- what about those folks out here that spend millions have their bodies reshaped or the workout bodybuilders or the beauty pageant types?), because of the restatement of this dualism in not only philosophy through the ages, but also within the constraints of religious belief. Christianity, for example, has borrowed a certain number of Platonic theories in its construction. In Neoplatonism, Christians replaced the Forms with souls, and put forth the idea that the soul was an eternal substance, and the body was simply a shadow of this substance. Contemporary Christians continue to believe in a soul that will go to heaven or hell at the departure of the (I  like all of this about the religious parallels- Plato wasn’t Christian) physical body, along with fostering a suppression of bodily desires, which such as stated in the Seven Deadly Sins, among other necessities of the body that are considered sinful and repulsive. Christianity is not the only religion that partakes in the concept, but Zen Buddhism as well. In order to attain enlightenment, or Satori, Zen Buddhists meditate. They attempt to reach a higher place, or greater understanding, by releasing the soul to hover above the immediate bodily understanding of the world. These religions that advocate this separation, perhaps stemming from the concepts of Plato,(probably not the Eastern Religions like Zen)  or rather because of a natural procession of human thought, all have a great effect on contemporary society, and the manner in which we view the world around us, our own bodies, and our being.

The divorce of the spirit from the body, and the consequential negative view of the physical body, has become quite intrinsic to the way in which we see ourselves as humans. Therefore, we must perhaps determine individually the amount in which Platonic philosophy affects our relationship with our spirit and body’s development. Which shall be deemed superior, the possibility of spiritual ascension, or rather the satisfaction of bodily desires? Or will we rather find a balance, a weighing of instincts? Perhaps then we are destined to forever question our own beliefs as Socrates himself did, and discover a melding of both necessity and philosophy to guide us in our search for knowledge and understanding.

(You did a good job! Plato and Aristotle became the basis of all philosophy and then a basis for law making and psychology.  I’m not sure I would confess like you do in the words below. You are brilliant and can write in two days what it might take someone else two weeks,  I’ve often wondered, if Sophocles was indeed a Sophist, then perhaps his dialogues- that Plato put in his mouth by the way- were intended not to convince, but rather to invoke the opposite reaction and help create other contrary conclusions than the apparent ones. Or perhaps Plato didn’t really understand his teacher and wanted to make him over into his own image. Like we do with God. I’m sure Plato believed that the sun circled around the earth.

Process Notes

            First of all, I must admit that I wrote this essay in two days, when normally it takes me about a week and a half to write a coherent essay on a specific topic. I wasn’t quite sure to write about concerning Plato, because he writes dialogues that aim to communicate his own philosophies, which I think is interesting, but difficult to form a stance on, as the dialogues were long and incoherent at first glance.

            However, after I read Phaedo, I started to become interested in the Theory of Forms and the relationship between the soul and the body of humankind, and how we view our bodies often as things to be suppressed or ignored. So I decided that it would b appropriate to write an essay on the subject. I made an outline, and it developed rather naturally into a 5 page paper. Whether or not I actually clearly addressed any topic in particular in a coherent way, I am not sure. It’s difficult to write essays on philosophical topics, as I don’t have much experience in the matter, and I tend to write myself into mazes when attempting to do so.

            I think my main downfall in this paper is writing in a way that is long-winded and filled with large vocabulary words. I did not use a thesaurus in the writing of this paper, yet I still think that writing in this manner can consequent in a paper that sounds pretentious. I also can write in a way that is confusing, and not conversational, because though I find my topic interesting, I do not have a great passion for it.

Overall, however, I am pleased with this paper in the short amount of time that I wrote it, and my lack of immediate ideas in coming up with a topic (frankly, the number of assignments I must do before thanksgiving break is stressful and daunting). I think that I may do a revision of this paper in the future, because I doubt it will be received as well as my last paper.