1. Watch this video.
2. Read both handouts concerning the soul and the Forms.
3. Write up (in the sections comment of this post) a 2-3 paragraph summary on the soul and the Forms. What role does the soul play with the Forms? What role does the body play? What is the main point of the Plato's Symposium as it related to the soul and the Forms?
Plato acknowledges the complexity of the soul in his works. Plato states the soul is at war with the human body. The soul is a prisoner to the body. The body and all of the sense sit possesses are mere distractions to our soul that knows real Truth. Plato states that in order to keep a healthy soul we must use reason and acknowledge that we are currently in the shadows of the cave, thus taking our first steps into the light.
ReplyDeletePlato states that the soul is not of the human world. The body is part of the human world. Our soul is merely confined here. However, true forms of us and all we know exist in another realm. The physical world has many forms. However, the non-physical world has just One Universal forms.
In Plato's Republic we are introduced to the idea of perfection being contained by imperfection. Our soul is a prisoner to the body. Our body is chained in the cave, unknowing of the light and of Truth. By first admitting this you have taken the first step towards conquering your ignorant nature. We must nurture our soul through logic and reason. By doing so we will have defeated our instincts and fallible nature as humans. And by doing so we will help free our soul from its prison.
Humans are dualistic beings, made up or both the body, and the soul. Plato says the soul is a world of ideas and the body is a phenomenal world. The soul is not able to touch the physical world. The body is based off of senses and emotions, therefore it's not the creator of ideas and concepts. The process of acquiring knowledge is all recollection, because humans have every idea and thought in their soul from the beginning, they do just not come to think of it until a certain point. Most things will never be thought of in the human body life span.
ReplyDeleteThe Forms in the world are all unique in it of itself, and are found in a different realm than the physical aspects. They are non physical and out of this world. Forms are ideas, completely mental and within a soul. The soul is where ideas are located, and in that it's how the soul can bring ideas into a physical world. Plato is saying that every human is presented with the issue of getting past all physical and worldly things to achieve the state of understanding the soul and reason. The main objective is to break through the barrier between the physical to the forms. When that happens the body can act and think more rationally, and accept everything for what it is rather than living in one moment and asking why things happened they way they did.
The body is the physical thing that carries out what goes on in the soul. The physical world is a huge finite variable. In the body they're can be many different emotions, actions, and thoughts. This is particular because nothing ever lasts, everything is temporary but can be subjective to change and difference I between every person. The body can be thought of us a confinement, it has a limit to its potential, unlike the Forms which is infinite in its ideas. Everybody dies, there is no avoiding it, it's how the physical world works with humanity. Plato is trying to say that the real success is finding a satisfaction within Forms, because the fact humans can be aware and conceptualizer the body and soul in one world means we should be able to accept living with the soul as the main judge in the physical world.
One key part to Plato's philosophy is his depiction of the two realms: the realm of Ideas/Forms and the physical realm. He stresses that what we see in the physical realm is only appearances or interpretations of the Ideas in the realm of Forms. Plato also notes In his dialogues about the soul and it's importance. He goes on to talk about its role in the real of Forms and its relationship with the body.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious role the soul plays with the realm of Forms is that it is a part of that realm. Plato says that our soul does not perform the daily tasks we usually perform as that is the body's function. With our soul we can transcend into the realm of the Forms so we can see the truth in all things and see the true forms or ideas of all objects of life. The second role the soul plays is that it is itself the realm of the Forms. It is there that we possess all past, present, and future knowledge within ourselves at all times. Plato expresses this idea in the Theory of Recollection. Plato also tells us of our body's role. He says that the body's role is to distract us from the real realm of Forms and to keep our souls from transcending.
Another place we can find the relationship between the soul and the realm of the Forms can be seen in Plato's Symposium. The main point that can be drawn from this dialogue of Plato's is that our primary goal in life is to transcend into the realm of the Forms with our souls. The inference that can be made here is that our body is a tether to our soul and that we need to break free in order to see the real world of the Forms. And it is there we find unity and justice.
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ReplyDeleteIn Plato's Symposium, he reflects on who often the humans senses are the only things that help us determine what is beautiful. he believes that in order for us to determine whether something is beautiful, we have to see the beauty in all aspects of things . We have to see the beauty in nature, love, art, compatibility, etc in order to understand one body as beautiful. Plato also believes that beauty can be diminished or created, nothing can affect it, and that these things have always been this way.Plato's main point is that beauty relies in the connection of the souls.
ReplyDeletePlato believes that human nature allows our senses to dominate our thoughts and emotions. In acquiring knowledge, we often let these things cloud our ability to do so. Plato thinks that the soul can only be truly accessed without total use of the senses, That we can only obtain pure reality by freeing ourselves from illusions and distractions that come with using our senses to form ideas. Plato believes that the body deceives, therefore the less we rely on them , the closer we can come to examining our souls.
The soul and Forms are both things not of the physical world the soul is what gives or creates ideas for our body to entertain, the Forms are where the ideas come from. The soul interacts with the Forms by either taking ideas or using it to make new ones. The Forms are either from a world opposite of ours or they are with us from the very beginning. The soul keeps us innocent from evil by distracting us by the ideas which come forth from the Forms. Could we say that we are basically a train with our soul as a conductor, the body as the train, and the Forms as the fuel?
ReplyDeleteThe role of the body is to act as an obstacle for our souls to help guide until they are ready for heaven. Our body is basically a catalyst for the ideas which the souls bring from the Forms or create themselves. The forms are what give the body purpose by giving them the ideas to work out through the souls.
The main point of the symposium is to display the struggle between the soul and body to show that sometimes the body doesn't act on the ideas presented by the souls. It lets us see the difference in which the body and soul interests are how the body can feel love which can overcome the need to act on the ideas of the forms. Even though the body is not eternal as the soul or the Forms are it is just as important to the souls ascent into the body. Are we creating our own ideas or is it all left up to the Forms?
The soul plays a role in Forms and the body. The soul is where our ideas are located, rather than in our physical being. The soul is eternal and unchanging, or immortal. It is not a part of the physical world, but rather the "world of Ideas". "The soul reasons best when none of the senses troubles it", Plato said about this topic of the soul and it's non physical presence.
ReplyDeleteThe body plays the role of our physical being. Plato once said, "the human body is the prison of the soul". This tells how the soul is not a part of the physical world unlike the body. The body is a part of the "phenomenal world", meaning it will live its time and deteriorate. However, the soul is different, the soul with stay inside the body, and when the body has gone the soul will not go with it. The body will eventually die and the soul will not.
Plato's symposium speaks of beauty and things that our physical bodies see as beautiful. The soul may see something that we physically cannot, however. Our soul sees the things our bodies miss, we are nowhere near as observant as our souls are which is why the body is seen as a prison, because these ideas and thoughts the body sees are physical whereas the ideas and thoughts the soul sees are non physical.
In Plato's Symposium, the main idea has to do with beauty. The person is described as being attracted to beautiful bodies while young and progressing over time to find different forms of beauty. The person finds one body to love but then later realizes that loving only one beautiful thing is foolish. This person will find beauty in minds and will then become a lover of knowledge. After finding this love, the person will begin to see beauty in all. This person is an example of ascending from loving particular things to loving Beauty.
ReplyDeleteThe soul and the Forms relate to each other because the soul brings the Ideas of the Forms from the abstract realm and brings them to this world. The body acts as the keeper of the soul which, in Plato's opinion, keeps the soul held down. The soul is troubled by the senses while in the body. The soul is said to hold all knowledge and wisdom but the person must recollect the ideas of the soul. This recollection helps the person and their soul to ascend into a different way of thought.
The soul has a role with the Forms but the body plays a role for the soul. The Soul's role with the Forms is it is where the Ideas and Forms are located. The body's role on the Soul is that it distracts it. The soul is involved with both the body and the Forms.\
ReplyDeleteOur soul is where the Forms and Ideas are located. Plato believes we are born with all of the knowledge we need, our soul is where this knowledge is located. Our soul does not belong in the physical world because it is unchanging. All of the Forms and knowledge is located in our soul.\
Our body distracts our soul with emotions. Plato said " The human body is the prison of the soul." This means that our soul can not properly function within our body's because it is being constantly distracted. Our body is constantly changing which is why he says our body is apart of the phenomental world. The soul is distracted by the body and our emotions. }
Plato doesn't acknowledge a formal definition of the soul in any of his dialogues. The best that we can do in is interpret. He says that the soul is like the ideas. So in form, this idea that the soul can change from person to person. He also says that the soul does not belong in the physical world.
ReplyDeletePlato says that the body exists in the physical world in the Phaedo, Socrates asks "is the body an obstacle when one associates it in the search for knowledge?" Plato would probably agree with this since he emphasized the barrier between the body and the soul so much. The passage also talks about how only the body wants.
He says that only the body wants to try to love. By thinking about this one may be able to escape. Then he will be able to care for all. This has yet to be done though. As people go too far off of the track.
The role of the Soul when it pertains to Forms is that the soul contains those Forms. In this case, the Forms are knowledge. The soul is the world of Ideas. Forms are objective and universal, something that everyone may know and come to. The Forms that are contained in your soul are present at birth. Plato also believes that our soul can contain any reality and that it should be separated from our body.
ReplyDeleteThe role of the Body is to act as an obstacle for our Soul. Plato says " Is the body an obstacle when one associates it in the search for knowledge?" and in my opinion, it is. People are tempted to use their senses but the senses just confuse our though and make us question things that should not be. Using our body would be to use our emotions which Plato believes is not the correct thing to do, and that one should use rational thought to come about their ideas.
The main point of Plato's Symposium is that of differentiating between the soul and body and Plato believing that true knowledge does come from senses. Plato says that "From personal beauty he proceeds to beautiful observances, from observance to beautiful learning, and from learning at last to that particular study which is concerned with the beautiful itself and that alone; so that in the end he comes to know the very essence of beauty." What Plato says here is that one must see something, observe it, and then learn about it to know the true beauty and the actual truth behind it. One must look deeper then the surface or appearance to understand something.
The soul is in Plato's mind akin to the Ideas therefore the soul is eternal and unchanging. The soul does not belong in the physical world unlike the body, whose prepose is to confuse or deceive the soul. If the prepose in of the body is to confuse the soul, then the bod by all rights is evil? Plato felt so, but one most understand that when Plato refers to the body he means the emotions or senses which the body has. Theses are the reason why so many lose sight of what the soul does, find the truth and wisdom. In the sense of Form the soul is what connects us to the Forms. The prepose of the soul is to find reason and understanding of Forms while the body acts to confuse the soul.
ReplyDeletePlato's Symposium main focuses is on the differences between the soul and the body and that true knowledge can be found in the scenes. Plato stresses the point of observation in order to learn the true beauty or nature of the being. This point is really brought out is this quote,"From personal beauty he proceeds to beautiful observances, from observance to beautiful learning, and from learning at last to that particular study which is concerned with the beautiful itself and that alone; so that in the end he comes to know the very essence of beauty." The essence of beauty comes from the soul therefore Plato feels that to have true knowledge one must look at the soul to find it.
How a person thinks comes from the soul. The soul is the leader for how a person perceives Ideas also known as Forms. The soul does not act alone; it acts with the body as well. The soul is closely related to Forms. The soul plays the role of the origin of the Forms. Without the soul there can be no Forms. The body on the other hand is physical. This is where the other forms come from. The body plays the role of the vehicle that transcends the Form into forms.
ReplyDeletePlato's main point of the Symposium is that no matter how well a man can see beauty in something, no man has or will ever see true beauty. He states that if we were to see true beauty, it would overwhelm us. True beauty is found in the Forms and that is something man cannot know no matter how hard he tries.
As we can see, Plato's dualism plays a big role in forming his ideas of the soul and forms. Plato's belief that the soul is connected to the world of ideas, and the body is connected to the phenomenal world. Which leads to the point that through the soul and recollection, we can come to know things in the intelligible world. Some examples of this are the Good, the Mathematical Ideas, thinking, and intelligence. On the other hand the bodies role is the sensible world, like images, and imagination. Through the body we may use the senses as well, however if we use our senses, they can be misleading to our own knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIn Plato's symposium, the main point we can notice is that as humans we must use our senses to come to a full knowledge. We can come to this full knowledge through these various stages. In example how we may go from liking someone, to loving them, and finding the true value of love and beauty. The Form of beauty is when the love turns to beauty, and through observations we can come to know this true idea of beauty. Finally, as humans as we talked in class about ascension, it is very key to this idea, we must ascend as humans into a wiser person.
The soul plays the role of the Ideas. Since the soul is unchanging and eternal, those Ideas never change. However, the soul and the body are different from each other. The article states that the soul is the world of Ideas and the body is the phenomenal world. Plato is saying that our physical body is blinding us from the reality that our soul searches for. In "Phaedo", a dialogue written by Plato, Simmias says "There is likely to be something such of a path to guide us out of our confusion, because as long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil, the body keeps us busy in a thousand ways.
ReplyDeleteThe main idea of Plato's Symposium is that we will never see true beauty because of our senses. Our senses are blinding our souls from finding the true beauty and the true Forms of the world. If we rely on our senses, then we are unable to grasp the full understanding of beauty and the Forms.
Plato expresses that the forms have a lot to do with how the soul is defined. First, the soul and forms are mainly talked about in his theory of ideas. Another way the soul is involved with forms is that it gives the examples of what is physical from non-physical. Lastly he doesn't ever specifically talk about the soul being his main focus but during all of his writings it can be traced back to ways of the soul.
ReplyDeleteThe role the body plays could be considered a major role. The reason in plays a major role is because the soul does not have a physical form but our bodies do. Also the soul is in another realm while our bodies live on our world. The bodies also plays a role in showing us what we look like in our world and the soul shows us what we could look like. The main point of plato's symposium is to show that we look at and love the one particular bodies we see, but we should look deeper into people's souls and bodies to uncover how they beautiful and knowing people actually are.
A man, with the guidance of his instructor, will first love one particular body. From that one body he must learn to love another, making him in love with two particular bodies ascending from two bodies he will then love all beautiful bodies. From personal beauty he will then love beautiful observances. From observances will come beautiful learning and finally the love and appreciation of beauty itself. This transformation of love is originating in the physical world and extends and ends in the realm of capital F Forms.
ReplyDeletePlato believes that us as humans are dualistic. This duality suggest that our mind and body are separate but apart of the same being. Our soul is apart of the world ideas and that is where we get the base ideas of what things in the physical world should look like. This physical world is where our body resides in his physical, tangible, and concrete.
The soul does not rely on the senses. Our senses do nothing but interfere with the reasoning of the soul. Things tend to be done more perfectly when approached with thought alone and not the senses. As long as the soul is together with the body it will be confused and we will be trapped in this confusion. There may be a path out of this confusion our body keeps us busy in 1000 ways.
The Soul plays the world of ideas. The Soul is eternal and unchanging. It does not belong to the physical world. The body belongs to the physical world. The body represents the phenomenal world.
ReplyDeleteIn Plato's symposium, the soul is the prisoner of the body. It has no reasoning of what the truth is through senses. Once the soul takes leave of the body , is when the soul will gain the true sense of reality. The whole body gives confusion to the soul which does not allow the soul to gain wisdom and truth.
The soul plays the role of the purpose of the body. It's more of a beyond out of this world there can be a soul with out a body but there is no body with out the soul. The soul is reason and logic and all things pertaining to knowledge. The body is the cage that keeps the knowledge within as if the soul Is a prisoner. The soul is non-physical and the non-physical leads to forms and ideas such as other mental realms. The Body is the spirited to a certain extent and the appetitive, In forms the body is an illusion, truths the fundamental desires of humans, A distraction. The Soul is Truth What is not what's seen The sun not the shadows.
ReplyDeleteThe main point of Plato's Symposium with the forms is him questioning the true existents of things playing with the idea that what we know isn't the full knowledge but that there is more knowledge awaiting to be Relearned in another mental realm. In the quote
"When a man has been thus far tutored in the lore of love, passing from view to view of beautiful things, in the right and regular ascent, suddenly he will have revealed to him, as he draws close of his dealings in love, a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature and this, Socrates is final object of all those previous toils. First of all, it is ever-existent and neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes; next, it is not beautiful in part and in part ugly" - Plato
In this quote he's saying if you let your soul ascend and explore your true knowledge of the higher realms you will see that the things you are accustomed to won't appear the same, beautiful May become ugly in other words.
As we read we come to understand that humans are made up of two different kinds of reality, soul and body. The soul is like the Ideas. With this said it suggests that the soul does not really belong to the physical world. The body on the other hand belongs to the physical world. The following correlataion is soul-world of ideas and body- phenomenal world. The body confuses the soul and does not allow it to aquire truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it. For whenever the soul trys to examine something with the body it is clearly decieved by it. As long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil, the body keeps us busy in a thousand ways.
ReplyDeleteThe main idea in Platos Symposium is simple, we will never see or realize true beauty because of our senses. Instead of being blinded by our senses, we must use our senses to come to a full knowledgement which no man can do. If we were to see true beauty it would simply overwhelm us vary.
As I read more of the text I understand that we are made up of two different realities of the soul and the body. The soul is rational logic and all things that come from knowledge. The body is of the physical world and presented as a cage or cocoon that blocks us from thinking rationally .
ReplyDeleteThe general idea of Plato's symposium is the questioning of what is the true and real existence that goes on in our minds,but we are so blind by our senses and emotions that we can not see the real truth of what existence is real.
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ReplyDeleteThe soul plays the role of not changing and being the inner part of us. The soul connects us to the world of forms because the world of forms is the philosopher's world where he sees past the illusion of the material world. The soul allows us to access the world of forms through opening our souls and minds in order to look past the material world that continually changes. Although only the philosopher is capable of seeing into the world of forms because he can see past his senses. The philosopher breaks free from the material world and frees the world of forms.
ReplyDeleteThe soul detaches itself from the body and that is the main concern of the philosopher. The body in a way protects the soul and is the confinement in which the soul is kept until the soul separates itself from thee body at death entering the afterlife. The main point of Plato's Symposium as it relates to the soul and forms is that it presents the love of wisdom as the highest form of love and philosophy as a refinement of our sexual urges that leads us to desire wisdom over sex. This leads us to know that we do not seek wisdom by first suppressing sexual desire and other distractions but rather by refining that desire and training it on a higher purpose. This is the key notion one must understand in order to truly understand the concept of Plato's works.