Paper Topic:

Plato and Aristotle

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Plato

How do we come to know virtue in Phaedo

We attain virtue in the soul through its purification from the body This is when we distend our soul from the sense - hearing , seeing , etc - and instead seek out our innate knowledge through reasoning . This is because our impulses give rise to internal conflict by evoking desires that corrupt . One has to despise the body

Why does not everyone know virtue ? What gets in the way

The physical body cannot be aware

of the Forms - beauty , piety , justice goodness , yet they do exist . They are therefore known by the soul , and if this be so , the said knowledge of the forms must have been either acquired at birth or always been known . The fact that many people are not conversant with the forms is because they have not applied themselves to recollect them

According to the Meno , can virtue be taught or practiced ? Why or why not

Seemingly , virtue cannot be taught . If the position were taken that it can be taught , then that position would present the problem of who the teacher is and who the student is . Rather , virtue can be educed , or aided to come back to recollection through education that education does not impart any new knowledge

How can we come to be virtuous without already `knowing ' what virtue is

As per the theory of recollection , we all possess some abstract knowledge when we are born , implying the existence of the...

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