History of Plato Essay

Plato was born around the year 428 BCE into an established Athenian household with a rich history of political connections — including distant relations to both Solon and Pisistratus. Plato’s parents were Ariston and Perictone, his older brothers were Adeimantus and Glaucon, and his younger sister was Potone. In keeping with his family heritage, Plato was destined for the political life. But the Peloponnesian War, which began a couple of years before he was born and continued until well after he was twenty, led to the decline of the Athenian Empire. The war was followed by a rabid conservative religious movement that led to the execution of Plato’s mentor, Socrates. Together these events forever altered the course of Plato’s life. The biographical tradition is unanimous in its observation that Plato engaged in many forms of poetry as a young man, only later turning to philosophy. Aristotle tells us that sometime during Plato’s youth the philosopher-to-be became acquainted with the doctrines of Cratylus, a student of Heraclitus, who, along with other Presocratic thinkers such as Pythagoras and Parmenides, provided Plato with the foundations of his metaphysics and epistemology. Upon meeting Socrates, however, Plato directed his inquiries toward the question of virtue. The formation of a noble character was to be before all else. Indeed, it is a mark of Plato’s brilliance that he was to find in metaphysics and epistemology a host of moral and political implications. How we think and what we take to be real have an important role in how we act. Thus, Plato came to believe that a philosophical comportment toward life would lead one to being just and, ultimately, happy. It is difficult to determine the precise chain of events that led Plato to the intricate web of beliefs that unify metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics into a single inquiry. We can be certain, however, that the establishment of a government by Sparta (after the chaos of Athens’ final defeat in 404), and the events that followed, dramatically affected the direction of his thinking. Following the turmoil of the war, a short eight month oligarchical tyranny known as the Thirty Tyrants governed Athens. Two of Plato’s relatives, Critias (his mother’s uncle) and Charmides (his mother’s brother) played roles in this regime. Critias was identified as one of the more extreme members and chief advocate of the government, while Charmides played a smaller role as one of the Eleven, a customs/police force which oversaw the Piraeus. The oligarchy made a practice of confiscating the estates of wealthy Athenians and resident aliens and of putting many individuals to death. In an effort to implicate Socrates in their actions, the Thirty ordered him to arrest Leon of Salamis. Socrates, however, resisted and was spared punishment only because a civil war eventually replaced the Thirty with a new and most radical democracy. A general amnesty, the first in history, was issued absolving those who participated in the reign of terror and other crimes committed during the war. But because many of Socrates’ associates were involved with the Thirty, public sentiment had turned against him, and he now had the reputation of being profoundly anti-democratic. In what appears to be a matter of guilt-by-association, a general prejudice was ultimately responsible for bringing Socrates to trial in 399 on the charges of corrupting the youth, introducing new gods into the city, atheism, and engaging in unusual religious practices. During his trial, which is documented in Plato’s Apology, Socrates explained that he had no interest to engage in politics, because a certain divine sign told him that he was to foster a just and noble lifestyle within the young men of Athens. This he did in casual conversations with whomever he happened to meet on the streets. When Socrates told the court that if set free, he would not stop this practice, claiming that he must follow the voice of his god over the dictates of the state, the court found him guilty (though by a narrow margin), and he was executed one month later. This final sequence of events must have weighed heavily on Plato, who then turned away from politics, somewhat jaded by the unjust behavior of the Thirty, disappointed by the follies of the democracy, and forever affected by the execution of Socrates. At this point Plato left Attica with other friends of Socrates and spent the next twelve years in travel and study. During this period, he sought out the philosophers of his day. He met with the wise-men, priests, and prophets of many different lands, and he apparently studied not only philosophy but geometry, geology, astronomy, and religious matters. His exact itinerary is not known, but the earliest accounts report that Plato left Athens with Euclides and went to Megara from where he went to visit Theodorus in Cyrene. From there he went to Italy to study with the Pythagoreans (including Philolaus and Echecrates mentioned in the Phaedo), and then after Italy he went to Egypt. Whether or not Plato began to write philosophical dialogues prior to Socrates’ execution is a matter of debate. But most scholars agree that shortly after 399 Plato began to write extensively. Although the order in which his dialogues were written is a matter of strong debate, there is some consensus about how the Platonic corpus evolved. This consensus divides Plato’s writings into three broad groups. The first group, generally known as the â€Å"Socratic† dialogues, was probably written between the years 399 and 387. These texts are called â€Å"Socratic† because here Plato appears to remain relatively close to what the historical Socrates advocated and taught. One of these, the Apology, was probably written shortly after the death of Socrates. The Crito, Laches, Lysis, Charmides, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor and Major, Protagoras, Gorgias and Ion, were probably written throughout this twelve year period as well, some of them, like the Protagoras and Gorgias, most likely at its end. Plato was forty the first time he visited Italy. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Athens and founded the Academy, located nearly a mile outside the city walls and named after the Attic hero Academus. The Academy included a nice grove of trees, gardens, a gymnasium and many shrines — including one dedicated to Athena herself, the goddess of the city. Plato created his own cult association, setting aside a portion of the Academy for his purposes and dedicating his cult to the Muses. Soon this ‘school’ became rather well-known on account of its common meals and sympotic lifestyle, modified, of course, to suit a new agenda. Indeed, Plato’s Academy was famed for its moderate eating and talk as well as all the appropriate sacrifices and religious observances. Overshadowing all of that was, of course, its philosophical activity. It seems that over the next twenty six years Plato’s philosophical speculation became more profound and his dramatic talents more refined. During this period, what is sometimes called Plato’s â€Å"middle† or transitional period, Plato could have written the Meno, Euthydemus, Menexenus, Cratylus, Republic, Phaedrus, Symposium and Phaedo. These texts differ from the earlier in that they tend toward the grand metaphysical speculation that provides us with many hallmarks of Platonism, such as the method of hypothesis, the recollection theory and, of course, the theory of ideas, or forms, as they are sometimes called. In 367 Dionysus of Syracuse died, leaving his son as the supreme ruler of a growing empire. Dion, his uncle and guardian, persuaded young Dionysus II to send for Plato, who was to serve as his personal tutor. Upon arriving, Plato found the situation unfavorable for philosophy, though he attempted to teach the young ruler anyway. In 365, Syracuse entered into war, and Plato returned to Athens. (Around the same time, Plato’s most famous pupil, Aristotle, entered the Academy. ) In 361, Dion wrote Plato begging him to return. Reluctantly, Plato did so, setting out on his third and final voyage to Italy. But the situation had deteriorated beyond hope. Plato was soon spirited out of Syracuse from where he went back to Athens. We know little of the remaining thirteen years in Plato’s life. Probably sick of his wanderings and misfortunes in Sicily, Plato returned to the philosophical life of the Academy and, most likely, lived out his days conversing and writing. During this period, Plato could have written the so-called â€Å"later† dialogues, the Parmenides, Theatetus, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Critias, Philebus and Laws, in which Socrates plays a relatively minor role and the metaphysical speculation of the â€Å"middle† dialogues is meticulously scrutinized. Plato died in 347, leaving the Academy to Speusippus, his sister’s son. The Academy served as the model for institutions of higher learning until it was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, almost one thousand years later.

Poetry and its Power Essays - Diospyros, Persimmon, Emotion

Poetry and its Power Essays - Diospyros, Persimmon, Emotion Poetry and its Power English 002 Online Professor Cobene Essay 4 Poetry and its Power There is a significant power in all poetry. There is symbolism and power in the words. Poetry creates and gives us all the power of what we cannot say or may not want to say. Instead, we use poetry to convey our loves, or wants and desires, and all of our innermost feelings and thoughts that we normally cannot divulge or say to people in normal writings or settings. Poetry becomes the vehicle by which we can use to move people through our thoughts, feelings, experiences, and lives, and we can tell our story of our journeys along the way. Jane Hirschfield, author and poet of Poetry and the Mind of Concentration puts six central realms or energies onto what lies beneath poetry. In the exploration of poetry, Hirschfield explains that there are six realms that poetry can be put into: music, image, emotion, sound, rhetoric, and voice. Here, we eliminate music and voice, although they are not totally void in these poems, but we focus more on image, emotion, sound, and rhetoric. In the poetry by Li-Young Lee, Persimmons, we find the imagery of a fruit, the persimmon with its taste and look. The author Lee, gives us a vivid rendition of the fruit, by saying what it looks like, what it might smell like, and what it is. Lee writes about ripe persimmons as being soft and brown spotted. He also writes about how they are sweet and fragrant, and how you eat the fruit. There is a joy in this fruit because it invokes images of being sweet, ripe, and smelling good. Lee then goes on to talk about Donna, a woman lying in the grass with him, who is also sweet and smells good. Lee goes on to talk about watching his mother tie yarn, and make animals out of the yarn. Lee talks about how his mother said every persimmon has a sun inside, and we can see the images of a persimmon looking like it has a sun inside of it, in our heads. Lee talks about his father, and him holding the persimmons, and we can see this image as well. We can see Lee in the cellar rummaging through, look ing for different things in his cellar. In the poetry by Debra Allbery, Chronictown, we can see a young girl affected by the fact that she has had to deal with adversity growing up, because those images are described so vividly. Our imagination goes to what Allbery is writing, and we can see every word she is writing. We can hear the metal rattle of the elevator freight lift in her building, and we can see the mattresses on the floor, because it takes our minds there. Allbery wants us to see the life she was living, how she grew up, and what experiences she had had. The poetry by Allbery leads our imaginations to see green floors and walls. This is where the poet wants our minds to go with the imagery. I think that both Lee and Allbery are using imagery to talk about times of their pasts. I think they are outlining or detailing their experiences, and wanting us to share in them, so they are sharing them with us. They are making us see what their lives were like, when they were little, or when they were growing up. For Lee, I think the most important things to him are remembering his times growing up, his mother, his father, and his love or maybe even first love, and comparing a sweet life to sweet fruit. Allbery shows us a different life, one that was close to the nurses and the ill and the sick. In other works, I believe Allbery is showing us the imagery of the hospitals clinics, saying that she then got over that, grew up, and here she is. I think the Allberys works could center on overcoming what was, and Lees work could focus on becoming who he is, from what was. I see the emotion in both of the poems by Lee and Allbery as emotion from the past of emotion from growing

Globalization and Global Governance essays

Globalization and Global Governance essays The globalization of technology has most significantly helped by making jobs, entertainment, education, safety, accessibility, more efficient and organized. One of the most prominent effects of technological advances is how much more compacted everything has become. No longer do we need a planner, a watch, access to the Internet, a calculator, an address book, a camera etc., now all these necessities are conveniently combined into one small contraption. The globalization of technology has enabled most modernized countries to live life much easier and more enjoyable through the Internet, through cellular phones or generally the inventions in digitization. As the human race is in constant intellectual competition, more and more inventions are being created to make the lives of individuals easier. As author Joseph E. Stiglitz better summarizes, Fundamentally [Globalization] is the closer integration of the countries and people of the world which has been brought about by the enormous reduction of costs of transportation and communication, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to the flows of goods, services, capital, knowledge and people across borders (Stiglitz 2003, 9). Since the twenty- first century approached, more and more individuals are using modern technology as vital tools in their everyday lives. These technological advances have been spreading at a fast pace nationwide which has improved the lives of many and will continue to do so. Anti-globalists might argue that globalization is becoming irreversible, and that technology is becoming over connected and dehumanizing. A common thought that globalization is irreversible is better described by author Thomas L. Friedman explaining: Globalization is very difficult to reverse because it is driven both by enormously powerful human aspirations for higher standards of living, and by enormously powerful technologies which are integrating us more and more every...

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Essay Example There were several moments when Finn had to undergo moral conflict as he went against the usual social norms by protecting Jim. Moral of Huck Finn Finn has been portrayed as an extremely loyal and courageous boy who because of his unique childhood did not get proper education. His sense of right and wrong is guided by the social structure in which he has been brought up. In the entire trip with Jim, Huck was faced with internal conflicts. On the one hand he felt it is his duty to surrender Jim to the authorities, on the other hand his loyalty and compassion makes him take extreme measures to save him. Several times he was torn between his â€Å"reason and desires – where he believes the former is correct and the latter wrong† (Kleist, 258). Every time he followed his heart and fulfilled his desire to save his friend thus performing the right action even thought he felt that he was wrong. The question arises that why Finn performed such moral deeds. The general ideas are that enslaving people because of their color is an immoral act, Jim deserves to enjoy freedom like a white man, or it is an obligation of a decent man to protect the oppressed. Throughout the novel Finn was never struck by these thoughts. On the contrary he kept on telling himself that by protecting Jim he was doing wrong and going against his moral duties. Although there is no way to know the exact reasons of his actions, it can be concluded that Finn was saving Jim because â€Å"his heart is in the right place† (Kleist, 259). Finn is a character who rejects the perspectives of civilization on what is right and wrong. He makes decisions based on what his heart instructs him. Throughout the journey made in this novel, Finn undergoes an â€Å"inner growth† and he does not surrender to the conventional values of the society. He learns to be compassionate to others irrespective of their races. In the end, Finn decides to â€Å"construct a new life among men who, like hi m, have left a patterned society† (Cummins). Value of friendship The portrayal of the warm and compassionate friendship between Finn and Jim is a major aspect of this novel. Belonging to two different backgrounds in a society where one (Finn) must always neglect the other (Jim) these two characters stand out to form an unbreakable bond. Jim who is one of the â€Å"noblest characters in American literature† (Wrobel, 6) knows how to value true friendship. In one sequence he sacrificed his sleep so that Finn can take some rest. Finn appreciated this gesture by saying that Jim was a good person. This revealed the â€Å"warm and cordial† (Wrobel, 6) side of Jim and he cared for Finn like a parent. Another day on Jackson’s island they find a house which they loot. Inside the house was a corpse which Jim did not want Finn to see because the face was â€Å"too gashly† (Twain, 47). This proved how Jim wanted to protect Finn from the ugly things. Finn too fel t â€Å"safe and comfortable† with Jim (Wrobel, 6). At one time Finn and Jim observed some men looking for slaves who escaped. During that time Finn felt a moral obligation to hand over Jim to Miss Watson because he belonged to her and protecting him means taking care of stolen property. But then Finn listened to his heart and saved Jim by lying to the men that his father is on the raft and is recovering from small pox, hearing which the men fled. This was a very

California Challenges and Future Industry Paper Research

California Challenges and Future Industry - Research Paper Example According to the economic status of California, it has power besides global link that can help to end the challenges it faces despite that it lacks legal attributes and policy makers of a sovereign country to tackle the problems. This has been a key central issue faced by most Californians in recent years. For instance, California people have been experiencing power blackouts without notices besides having neither immediate nor lasting solutions. This power blackout has decimated the State’s budgetary surplus leading to great economic loss, as all major government industries are unable to escape such calamities. This has been bringing about great concerns despite the leaders showing no or less concern where they usually play blame games on each other hence ending up with no concrete solution over the menace. This electricity saga started when an opportunity availed itself for the state to consider restructuring its power system in making it more flexible and responsive to changing the economic conditions (Sweeney 2008). Following the implementation of this restructuring it was imperfect in some way that the state political leadership failed in the year 2000 to implement fully the effectiveness of tight electricity markets. Besides which in the year 2001 they mismanaged the issue making it a major crisis. Thereby this era burdened the state with a hard task of long-term obligation correlated with electricity. Because of this hard period caused by the states governor together with other state leaders the saga continues haunting the state up to date as they still try to recuperate from their past era (Sweeney 2008). The state of California has been experiencing water shortage problems since 19th century. This is because of the many changes caused by human activities over the years. For instance, the growing population in both Mexico and United States has inhabited some of the areas previously occupied by the

Antibiotics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Antibiotics - Essay Example In response to the bacterium’s ability to mutate, scientists developed large numbers of different antibiotics, including semisynthetic variants of penicillin such as methicillin, in an attempt to keep ahead of the bacterium’s ability to develop resistance. In the 1950s some cases emerged in which the bacterium was resistant to even this antibiotic, giving rise to the name â€Å"Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus† or MRSA. One recent study found that a small number of Staphylococcus aureus genotypes have evolved out of epidemic strains of MRSA, and this explains why MRSA is now endemic in many hospitals and care homes (Enright et al., 2002). The consequence for human health is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to counter this bacterial infection in precisely these contexts. The pharmaceutical industry has very few effective antibiotics left which can deal with MRSA and the proposed strategy to deal with its advance is to improve hospital and care home cleanliness and to keep researching new antibiotic formulae. This will undoubtedly be successful in the short term, but it is difficult to know how long scientists can keep this up, given the ability of the bacterium to evolve

No Child Left Behind Essay Example for Free

No Child Left Behind Essay The education policy that I chose is on education today and the influence of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. In 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. The NCBL is a United States Act of Congress, which includes Title 1 (program for disadvantaged students offered by the government). This Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills. Each state is required to give these assessments to all students to receive federal school funding. This Act does not set the standards nationwide; each individual state sets the standards. Diane Ravitch, an education philosopher was a supporter of this Act when it was being passed. She believed that every child had the right to a proper education. As the years passed she acquired more experience and knowledge on the Act, and is now completely opposed to the NCLB Act. Ravitch believes that the states dumb down the standards in light of the NCLB. The question now is: is the No Child Left Behind Act seeking to repair the problem, or is it the cause? Under NCLB, the accountability of a childs education is examined by the Federal government and turned into the hands of the state. This was the first time an American president has set a goal of universal proficiency in reading and mathematics for all children. The federal emphasis on literacy, reading, and mathematics emphasizes teacher and school accountability, with negative consequences when schools do not meet established improvement goals (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). Under NCLB the state must have accountability provisions that include how they will close the achievement gap. According to the Department of Education the achievement gap is defined as such; The difference between how well low-income and minority children perform on standardized tests as compared with their peers. For many years, low-income and minority children have fallen behind their white peers in terms of academic achievement (Department of Education, 2002). States must also monitor that every student not excluding the disadvantaged achieve academic proficiency. Yearly assessments must be produced to inform parents of the progress of both the state and the  community. Schools that do not meet the academic proficiency standards must offer supplemental services and take corrective action. If within five years the school is still not making yearly progress, than dramatic changes in the schools academic direction must be made. Dramatic changes according to the Department of Education are defined as follows; †¦additional changes to ensure improvement. The definition raises the question of whether there is a plan for failure at all. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, in its National Report Card shows that these goals may be falling short. Students in fourth grade show temporary improvement in math right after No Child Left Behind became a law, but returned to pre-reform growth rate. The NAEP estimates that by 2014 less than 25% of financially challenged and African American students will achieve NAEP proficiency in reading. Using the same time frame less than half the financially challenged and African American students will obtain proficiency in math. With so much pressure on the states to perform well, a trend is becoming apparent that they are inflating proficiency levels of students. This causes discrepancies between the NAEP and state assessments especially among the financially challenged, African American, and Hispanic students. With no sufficient evidence shown on that NCLB is working, the question is as follows; is the federal government capable of running our school systems? There are undoubtedly dangers in the public school system teaching a federally mandated curriculum. When one controls peoples perception of history, one controls the present. There is, of course, a point to be made that if the nations children are kept in watered down public schools, positions of power will be opened to the children of the aristocracy, who without fail, are being sent to private schools. So many of those Politicians who stand in the way of allowing poor children to escape failing schools, send their own children to private schools (sic). In New York City, where I have spent most of my professional life, both the current and the past chancellor of schools sent their children to private schools. Six of the seven members of the now-defunct Board of Education had  also sent their children to private schools at one time or another. One might add to the list other notables in New York-the governor, the mayor, the leaders of both houses of the legislature, and the junior U.S. senator (and former first lady). In fact, I cannot remember a mayor of the city who sent his children to public school (Viteritti, 2003). The reports of success of NCLB are encouraging to those who support the project. There have been schools in Sterling, Virginia and New York City that have received No Child Left Behind blue ribbons for their success in closing the achievement gap. Other schools have earned national praise for instituting such curriculum as Fit for the Future, a standards-based health and fitness curriculum for grades 1-10; and an anti-bullying intervention program in York, Pennsylvania (Department of Education, 2005). These programs are used to show the benefits of NCLB but are they academic necessities? The curriculum in a kindergarten class in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin included a lesson entitled The Little Convincer. In which a state trooper came into the classroom with a mechanism designed to simulate a car accident. In a discussion about car seat laws, a topic critics of the curriculum call too heady for kindergarteners, the students, ages five to six years old, were asked repeatedly which one of them were actively using car seats, and whether their parents wore seat belts as well. One child who innocently told the officer that his daddy did not wear his seatbelt was told by the trooper that his daddy could go through the windshield and the glass would cut his face and arms like ribbons, and once he hit the road, the car would roll on top of him. The dramatic lesson ended with each of the students taking a turn in the mechanism that simulated the car crash. The officer would speak softly to the child asking them questions about their class or the clothes that they were wearing and when the child began to speak would jerk them forward violently to teach them that an accident could happen at anytime. The question is, are these academic lessons that parents assume that their children are attending school for? Is placing the curriculum in the hands of legislators going to further our childrens grasp of the three Rs as most parents hope, or are they going to be taught how to become complacent law abiding citizens? The problem in purposing that the public school system is flawed beyond repair is offering an alternative that people are comfortable with. When a conversation about privatizing the school system begins many questions must be answered to abate the fears of the public. Would privatizing schools be affordable to all families? Many debates have waged on the validity of a voucher program, allowing families to choose any school they desire whether it is parochial, private, public, or chartered. Without public schools, there are no taxes necessary to support the program, and that money can be returned to the families of school aged children, creating extra funds for private education. In a system of free market education the individual and specialized institutions of learning would have to compete for students, because the money would be linked to the students themselves. Never in the history of the free market have advances been made without competition. When the monopoly on our childrens future ends, a true marketplace of ideas will be born. In an interview with US News, Ravitch was asked What needs to happen to make the law more effective for school? she responded I think the main thing to change is . . . to get rid of the remedies and the sanctions because the remedies dont work and the sanctions dont work. What No Child Left Behind has given the United States is an atmosphere of punitiveness. The word accountability has come to be a synonym for punish. If students dont learn, its the teachers fault. Fire the teachers. Close the schools. Were now on a wrecking mission to destroy American public education. Ravitch has completely rejected this Act, and believes we should do something to make our education system stronger. I questioned? Is the No Child Left Behind Act seeking to repair the problem, or is it the cause? I now have the answer. The NCLB Act sounded very tempting as it was passed by congress, and many like Diane Ravitch had hopes in such a great project for our education system, but everything is not perfect. The NCBL offers great support to schools, although standardized testing is not the correct way of determining the amount of financial support each school deserves or requires. After long hours of research I believe that the No Child Left Behind Act has taken a part in the cause of our problem in our education system today. Schools will not improve if the value is set only on what is tested. The tests we have now provide useful information about students progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education. (Ravitch. The Death and Life of The Great American School System, pg. 226) In order to improve our public school system we must start by focusing on our schools, offering them an authentic and sincere education that encourages our students to learn.