IndexThe IonThe MenoThe PhaedoGeneral comparisonThe IonIn Plato's dialogue Ion seems to address a rather banal question: do the poets know what they are talking about? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay What is poetry? Conscious creation of the poet or divine inspiration? Starting from this question, Socrates develops the theory of divine inspiration in the Platonic dialogue of Ion. Essentially, Ion believes that poetry involves special knowledge and Socrates does not. Instead, he believes that the poet is possessed, and not simply inspired, by the Muse and transmits that power to the audience. A rhapsode is further in the chain from the source - he compares it well to a magnet and iron fillings - but still performs his craft in a non-rational way that requires no special knowledge. Many artists would describe the moment of creation as a sort of trance state, although very few would agree that art does not require technical knowledge. Technical knowledge is practical and often refers to mechanical, computer, mathematical, or scientific tasks. Some examples include knowledge of programming languages, mechanical equipment, or tools. Ion's dialogue obviously carries a particularly dramatic or dramatized style, which is gradually exacerbated not only by Socrates' Platonic attempt to reason logically about his interlocutor's thoughts, but above all due to Ion's attempt to respond to this "challenge". This point is important because, if poets have no special technical knowledge, they are probably not moral experts either. Indeed, many of his contemporaries regarded poets as moral guides and there are still those who would like to believe that art makes us better people. Despite the very obvious problem that a god can act through an artist to provide moral truth, Socrates argues that seeing artists as moral experts is a dangerous illusion. They arouse our emotions and provide us with entertainment, but ultimately they can hardly be our moral guides, since they don't even know what they are doing. This is a central idea in Plato: virtue is knowledge. We would be good if only we had the moral knowledge to do so. The Meno The dialogue opens with Meno asking Socrates how virtue is acquired. Socrates replies that this question cannot be resolved without first reaching agreement on a preliminary question, namely, what the nature of virtue is. As usual, Socrates claims not to know what virtue is and, furthermore, claims to have never met anyone else who does. Meno naively remarks that Gorgias knew, to which Socrates replies that he has "forgotten" what Gorgias said. Meno then agrees to act on Gorgias' behalf and inform Socrates of what Gorgias believed was virtue. This, of course, creates a vision that Socrates can examine and refute with his usual question-and-answer method. The Meno, since here for the first time the interlocutor called "Socrates" devotes considerable attention to a question outside the realm of moral philosophy; even if it begins with a typically Socratic question: what is virtue? Whether virtue should be taught; or if it is acquired. – Socrates does not find an adequate answer, he is soon faced with an unprecedented question about the legitimacy of his method of investigation, a question that tests our ability to emerge from a state of ignorance and gain knowledge. “Socrates” responds to this challenge by proposing a radical theory of knowledge according to which the human soul is born with the ability to remember what it has learned in a previous existence; and defends this theory by leadingan experiment where it is demonstrated that a slave can make significant progress towards understanding geometry if asked. This dialogue is an attempt to answer the question: is it possible to teach virtue? No one would ask or answer such a question in modern times. But in the age of Socrates, it was only by effort that the mind could rise to a general notion of virtue distinct from the particular virtues of courage, liberality, and the like. And when a confused conception of this ideal was achieved, it was only with further effort that the question of how virtue could best be taught became interesting to resolve. The Phaedo Phaedo is the fourth and final dialogue written by Plato depicting the trial and final days preceding the execution of Plato's teacher, Socrates (469-399 BC). Socrates was sentenced to death by the state of Athens. Following his dialogues are Euthyphro, Apology and Crito. Contains the first extended discussion of the Theory of Forms. More than most of Plato's other writings, the Phaedo is in constant dialogue with pre-Socratic theories of the world and the soul, particularly those of Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Heraclitus. The dialogue begins with a conversation between two characters, Echecrates and Phaedo, which occurred some time after the death of Socrates in the Greek city of Phlius. The Phaedo gives us three different arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul: The Argument from Opposites explains that the soul must be immortal and the opposite of our mortal bodies. It is also known as the Cyclic Argument because it explains the cycle of life, death and birth. The cycle involves the dead being created from the living and through death, the living are then created from the dead through their birth. Upon our death the soul withdraws completely intact from the physical body. The soul then enters another body at birth. The soul, which always bears life, is eternal and immutable. The second argument comes from the Theory of Recollection which can be interpreted as follows that humans have prior knowledge that was known to them before they were even taught that it was there, so this knowledge must have been acquired from their previous life. This theory suggests that we have non-empirical or non-factual knowledge that comes to us through the immortality of the soul. The Affinity Argument and the final argument, given in response to Cebes's objection. This argument is understood to mean that all human beings have a soul and therefore the ability to see from different perspectives than our body can see, and therefore all human souls have an afterlife, even when the body seems perish/die. Plato uses all these arguments to support the aspect of immorality in relation to the soul. The Final Argument, also known as the Form of Life Argument, holds that ideas (Form) are the cause of everything in the world and are the most important thing. accurate version of reality. The soul can never die. The study of ideas is the only true way to gain knowledge. What Socrates speaks of as Knowledge of existence is what I call the Purpose of Life. And is this Purpose for Man to discover who, what and why he exists? And once you know this, you no longer have any resistance to death. Indeed, death is welcomed as a liberation from the illusion of life. But all this is quite esoteric and can only be known by those who have accumulated the Virtues of Life that each Soul is slowly accumulating in each life experienced by their Soul. I conclude that Plato's arguments boil down to an irrevocable fact. Human beings do not have a soul. Plato nicknamed it "the soul" and it may be a synopsis of the neurotransmitters within our brain. Once the brain does not.