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Plato’s Doctrine of Recollection
Plato’s doctrine of recollection, however, addresses such criticism by saying that souls are born with the concepts of the forms, and just have to be reminded of those concepts from back before birth, when the souls were in close contact with the forms in the Platonic heaven. Plato is thus known as one of the…
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A Dialogue on Ethics, Death, Responsibility, and Neuroscience
Socrates: If the mind or soul precedes the body, Platohagel, then our first question must be this: How ought one to live under such an arrangement? For ethics always follows ontology. I. Ethics Reconsidered Socrates: If the soul is primary and the body secondary, then is ethics merely the management of impulses? Platohagel: No. Ethics…
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A Dialogue on Ek-sesthai — Standing Outside Oneself
Socrates: When you invoke ek-sesthai, Platohagel, what do you take it to mean? Platohagel: To stand outside oneself—to be displaced from the ordinary center of identity. Socrates: Good. And note carefully: this “outside” is not madness by necessity. It is not dissolution, but de-centering. One steps out of the narrow ego without vanishing altogether. Now…
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Eskesthai(Ek-sesthai) to Ekstasis
The Ethical Risk of Ek-sesthai Socrates: But now we must be careful. Not all standing-outside is truthful. There is: ek-sesthai toward meaning, and ek-sesthai toward dissolution. Jung warned of this sharply. When the ego abdicates without integration, archetypes possess rather than instruct. The gods do not educate the unprepared; they overwhelm them. Platohagel: So ecstasy requires…
