The Socratic Psyche
I will begin this paper with a brief account of Socrates. I
feel this is necessary for those who are not familiar with
Socrates. It is as follows: Socrates (C. 470-399 B.C.)
Athenian philosopher who allegedly wrote down none of his
views, supposedly from his belief that writing distorts ideas.
His chief student, Plato, is the major source of knowledge
about his life. Socrates questioned Athenians about
their moral, political, and religious beliefs, as
depicted in Plato^s dialogues; his questioning technique,
called dialectic, has greatly influenced Western philosophy.
Socrates is alleged to have said that ^the unexamined life
is not worth living.^ In 399 B. C., he was brought to
trial on charges of corrupting the youth and religious heresy.
Sentenced to die, he drank poison.
Of the early life of Socrates, there is little to go on.
Looking at W.K.C. Guthrie^s History of Greek Philosophy Vol.
III, we can extract some useful background information.
Socrates was a native Athenian and he was the son of
Sophroniscus and Phaenarete. His father is thought to have been
a stone mason or sculptor. Some even think that Sophroniscus
owned the stone-cutting shop and was quite wealthy. Socrates^
mother is believed to have come from a good family (378).
Socrates was also involved in active military service during
the Peloponnesian war as a hoplite. Socrates would to have had
the wealth and status associated with this position. Socrates
had earned high praise for his courage and coolness in battle.
He took part in three campaigns and his feats of endurance were
well known (Guthrie 379). We also know that Socrates was an
excellent soldier and that neither heat nor cold affected him
and that his fortitude was well known among fellow hoplites and
acquaintances (Symp. 220b). Socrates was not a handsome man, at
least outwardly. He had bulging eyes, a broad, flat, turned-up
nose, thick lips and a paunch (Guthrie 387). Socrates speaks
of an inner voice, given to him by a god. Socrates said that he
did not understand the meaning of this voice, but that it
guided him to seek the truth, the just, what he felt were
virtuous. This inner voice propels him to seek the truth, to
steer him away from what is wrong. As Socrates goes about
seeking the truth and knowledge, he tells people that he knows
nothing and understands even less (Apology 31d) I would call
this inner voice the morality of Socrates; the innate knowledge
of what is right/wrong and what is just/unjust, voices that are
mostly negative for people. This voice, though, leads him to
seek the answers for unresolved questions.
Born on December 25, 1921, Clara grew up in a family of four children, all at least 11 years older than her (Pryor, 3). Clara’s childhood was more of one that had several babysitters than siblings, each taking part of her education. Clara excelled at the academic part of life, but was very timid among strangers. School was not a particularly happy point in her life, being unable to fit in with her rambunctious classmates after having such a quiet childhood. The idea of being a burden to the family was in Clara’s head and felt that the way to win the affection of her family was to do extremely well in her classes to find the love that she felt was needed to be earned. She was extremely proud of the positive attention that her achievement of an academic scholarship (Pryor, 12). This praise for her accomplishment in the field of academics enriched her “taste for masculine accomplishments”. Her mother however, began to take notice of this and began to teach her to “be more feminine” by cooking dinners and building fires (Pryor, 15). The 1830’s was a time when the women of the United States really began to take a stand for the rights that they deserved (Duiker, 552). Growing up in the mist of this most likely helped Barton become the woman she turned out to be.
Clara Barton was born during 1821 in Massachusetts. As a young child, Barton learned a great deal of schooling from her older siblings; she learned a wide variety of different subjects. She seized every educational opportunity that she was given and she worked hard to receive a well rounded-education. Clara Barton would later use her education to create her own school and eventually help start an organization that is still used today. As a young child, Clara was extremely shy; nevertheless, after many years she was able to overcome this. Even as a young child Clara thrived helping others. She tended to her sick brother who was severely injured by a roofing accident on a regular basis. The skills she learned from helping her brother proved to be used again when she was on the front-line of the Civil War helping wounded soldiers.
For these two articles that we read in Crito and Apology by Plato, we could know Socrates is an enduring person with imagination, because he presents us with a mass of contradictions: Most eloquent men, yet he never wrote a word; ugliest yet most profoundly attractive; ignorant yet wise; wrongfully convicted, yet unwilling to avoid his unjust execution. Behind these conundrums is a contradiction less often explored: Socrates is at once the most Athenian, most local, citizenly, and patriotic of philosophers; and yet the most self-regarding of Athenians. Exploring that contradiction, between Socrates the loyal Athenian citizen and Socrates the philosophical critic of Athenian society, will help to position Plato's Socrates in an Athenian legal and historical context; it allows us to reunite Socrates the literary character and Athens the democratic city that tried and executed him. Moreover, those help us to understand Plato¡¦s presentation of the strange legal and ethical drama.
Clara Barton was born on December 25, 1821 (Cobb, 2014). Her full name is Clarissa Harlowe Barton and she grew up in North Oxford, Massachusetts (Cobb, 2014). When she was young she was constantly found helping and taking care of others, whether it be her brothers and sisters or neighbors according to the article Barton, Clara. She was taught to read by her sisters and taught mat by her brother (Cobb, 2014). Clara also for a time was a teacher. She taught in a town called Bordentown, New Jersey and raised enrollment from six students to six hundred students by offering to teach for free so that parents did not have to pay in order to send their children to school. She probably would have continued to teach except for the fact that when the town chose a principal they passed over her and chose a male. She then resign from the school (“Clara Barton Biography,” 2014). She then for a time worked the as a clerk in Washington, D.C. in the Patent Office until harassment and new presidency left her without a job ("Blood facts and,”).
Barton’s training to become a hero started at a young age. She was brought up by her father, Capt. Steven Barton, a member of a local militia, who never actually attained the rank of captain. Her mother, Sarah Barton, was strict and industrious, and instilled the values of hard work into her children (Pryor 5). Barton’s tenure as a hero began early. When her brother, David, fell off the roof while building a barn and sustained serious internal injuries, Clara, who was just 11 years old at the time, took care of him and nursed him back to health (Krensky 18-20). This experience spurred Clara’s heroism, which would escalate during the Civil War. Clara Barton also set a precedent for women in the workforce. Barton started worked as a teacher for more than a dozen years before becoming the first female clerk in the U.S. Patent Office (Manning 121). Barton broke barriers as a woman in a male-dominated career, which opened the door for her heroism to shine, as she broke barriers in the Civil War
Clara Barton was born on Christmas in 1821 to Sarah and Stephen Barton (a former soldier). When Clara was 11 her brother David was injured in a farm accident. Clara helped nurse her brother after school for two years until he finally recovered (Clara Barton BIrthplace Museum). She grew up to become a teacher for several years and even started a school, but eventually resigned and moved to Washington D.C to become a clerk in a patent office. It was in Washington that she first encountered the soldiers of the civil war.
The human psyche is formed by conflict. The mind is in a constant state of figurative war – subconscious antitheses and opposites vying for control of the conscious self. Psychic cohesion relies on the resolution and balance of these opposites. In his essay On the Nature of the Psyche, Carl Jung delves into the conflict within the psychic spectrum. The most base level of the unconscious (he uses the Gnostic term “hylic” to describe it) focuses on the instinctual and the immediate, temporal world. It exists in direct contrast to the highest level, the pneumatic (another Gnostic title), a “supraconcious” wherein spirituality and intellect reign. Robertson Davies’ novel Fifth Business symbolizes this antithesis in the characters of Boy Staunton and Dunstan Ramsay. Boy represents the materialistic, sex-obsessed lower psychic realm. His attitude towards woman, guilt, and mythology illustrate the manifestation of the hylic level of the psyche. Dunstan is the direct counterpoint to Boy. Where Boy demonstrates a fixation on physical sexuality, Dunstan distances himself from any material sensuality. Where Boy only worships a capitalist god created in his image, Dunstan pursues a world of saints and spirituality. Dunstan is evidently a representation of the pneumatic complex. As the characters personify this psychic contrast, their respective failings reveal another crucial concept of the mind. When consciousness primarily exists in one specific psychic dimension, the psyche is no longer complete. The opposite half goes unrecognized. At the end of the novel, Dunstan eventually has a revelation that continues to elude Boy: establishing equilibrium betw...
The descriptive claim made by Psychological Egoists is that humans, by nature, are motivated only by self-interest. Any act, no matter how altruistic it may seem on the outside is actually only a disguise for a selfish desire such as recognition, avoiding guilt, reward or sense of personal ‘goodness’ or morality. For example, Mother Teresa is just using the poor for her own long-term spiritual gain. Being a universal claim, it could falter with a single counterexample. And being that I believe this claim to be bunk I will tell you why!
The first practical low-pressure models of “steam engines were invented by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen in 1698 and 1705, respectively” (Allen & Allen 144). Used exclusively as water pumps throughout the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, they drastically improved the mining industry. In Great Britain, the motherland of the Industrial Revolution, this resolved a severe energy crisis. Coal, extracted from earth by mining, now could be produced in sufficient quantities to replace firewood, supplies of which were practically exhausted. And since these water pumps were specifically designed to consume coal, it was extra beneficial to use them in the coal mining industry. As T. K. Derry and Trevor I. Williams stat...
69. What is the difference between a '' and a ''? What Causes ‘State of Mind’ that manifests in ‘HUMAN MATERIALISM’ aka EGOISM? Once more, the ‘ordinary science’ proves itself as the master of classification, inventing and defining the various categories of Egoism. Per example, psychological egoism, which defines the doctrine that an individual is always motivated by self-interest, then rational egoism, which unquestionably advocates acting in self-interest.
The youngest of five children, Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on December 25, 1821 to a middle class family in North Oxford, Massachusetts. In this rocky New England countryside, Clara, as she quickly became known, learned the value of hard work and hard principles through her labors on the family farm. From the beginning, Clara's family had an immeasurable influence on her. Her older siblings, who were all quite intelligent, helped educate Clara and could scarcely keep up with answering her never-ending barrage of questions. Her active mind readily absorbed new lessons and novel stories about famous ancestors. Something of a tomboy, she portrayed exceptional equestrian skills and could play sports with surprising aptitude, compliments of her brothers and male cousins.
It is important to be able to distinguish scientific, philosophical, religious, and speculative explanations and causes apart from each other. To be able to discern the four apart we need to first understand what they are and what their purpose is.
Ethical egoism is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, which claims that people can only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism, which holds that it is rational to act in one's self-interest.
Ethical egoism can be a well-debated topic about the true intention of an individual when he or she makes an ethical decision. Max Stirner brings up a very intriguing perspective in writing, The Ego and its Own, regarding ethical egoism. After reading his writing some questions are posed. For example, are human beings at the bottom? Following Wiggins and Putnam, can we rise above our egoism and truly be altruistic? And finally, if we are something, do we have the capacity to rise to a level that we can criticize and transcend our nature? These questions try to establish whether or not we are simple humans, bound to our intrinsic nature, or far more intellectually advanced than we allow ourselves to be.
Socrates was a wise man who realized that life was not something that could be easily understood. He knew that questioning life would lead to a stronger conception of life and reality. When he stated that “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 45), he truly meant that without questioning life, one would not be truly living. Actions would have no understanding of being right or wrong. For Socrates, a man who believed that life should be based on what was right, there would be no greater wrongdoing.