124. Philosophy � Greek

Socrates (470 ? - 399 ? B.C.)

Socrates believed that he had received a calling (Spiritual Enlightenment, SELF realization) to pursue philosophy (the study of the inner spiritual SELF where all things are already known or recognized) and could serve his country best by devoting himself to teaching and by persuading the Athenians to engage in "self-examination."* Any person who has a spiritual, religious or mystical experience of self-realization knows without a doubt that the gift or discovery of the true state of all human beings must be proclaimed. The tending to their souls (the "inner self" found in meditation and silence), is the only true purpose of life and the teaching of it once it is discovered or uncovered.

Socrates's idea that reality is unavailable to those who use their senses is what puts him at odds with the common man, and with common sense. Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind, and this idea is most famously captured in his allegory of the cave, and more explicitly in his description of the divided line. The allegory of the cave (begins Republic 7.514a) is a paradoxical analogy wherein Socrates argues that the invisible world (spiritual consciousness) is the most intelligible ("noeton") and that the visible world ("(h)oraton") is the least knowable, and the most obscure.

Socrates says in the Republic that people who take the sun-lit world of the senses to be good and real are living pitifully in a den of evil and ignorance. Socrates admits that few climb out of the den, or cave of ignorance, and those who do, not only have a terrible struggle to attain the heights, but when they go back down for a visit or to help other people up, they find themselves objects of scorn and ridicule.

According to Socrates, physical objects and physical events are "shadows" and just as shadows are temporary, inconsequential epiphenomena produced by physical objects, physical objects are themselves fleeting paenomena caused by more substantial causes.

The allegory of the cave is intimately connected to his political ideology (often said to also be Plato's own), that only people who have climbed out of the cave and "cast their eyes on a vision of goodness" are fit to rule. Socrates claims that the enlightened men of society must be forced from their divine contemplations and compelled to run the city according to their spiritual enlightenment. Thus is born the idea of the "philosopher-king", the wise person who accepts the power thrust upon him by the people who are wise enough to choose a good master. This is the main thesis of Socrates in the Republic, that the most wisdom the masses can muster is the wise choice of a ruler.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

-Jesus, Matthew 5:16

The love of wisdom is not the love of intellectual knowledge, but is the love of the state or condition of BE-ing that produces transcendental wisdom (remembrance).

Philosophy is: the research and study on how to attain unconditional love and transcendental wisdom. The research and study of guiding others to their highest potential (Arete).

Every person has full knowledge of ultimate truth contained within...the soul needs only to be spurred to conscious reflection in order to become aware of it.

-Socrates

"The unexamined life is not worth living.

-Socrates

 Notes:

*Any person who has a spiritual, religious or mystical experience of self-realization knows without a doubt that the gift or discovery of the true state of all human beings must be proclaimed. Be a light and show it forth for all to follow.