I propose a discussion on my PDF-PowerPoint "Plato on the liberation from evil".
I used this PDF-PowerPoint for the lecture held on 27th March 2025 at the TWO-DAY NATIONAL SEMINAR on DIALOGUES ON VALUES: INDIAN AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES, organized by the Department of Philosophy, Manipur University, Canchipur, Imphal, Manipur, 27th-28th March 2025. In my study, I investigate some questions related to Plato’s discussion of the origins of Evil in the individual’s soul and of the possible solutions to the presence of Evil in the individual’s soul. The lack of the correct equilibrium between the parts of the soul exposes the individual to the moral degeneration; conversely, exclusively the correct equilibrium between the parts of the soul leads the individual to the correct composition between the parts of the soul. In particular, exclusively the development of the rational part of the soul, and the consequent leadership of the rational part of the soul over the other parts of the soul, bring the individual to the right formation of the soul. The development of the rational part of the soul will not come about by itself: it needs an appropriate education, which can be reached only after a long and difficult process. The development of the rational part of the soul can be reached only through the disciplines preparing the philosophical education and through the philosophical education itself. The development of the rational part of the soul brings the individual nearer to the dimension of Being, thus opening for the individual a new dimension of experience, of knowledge and of life. At the same time, the philosophical education diminishes the attention of the individual’s soul for the dimension of Becoming. The cultivation and strengthening of the rational part bring about a progressive diminution of the force of the other parts of the soul, in particular, of the appetitive part of the soul. I concentrate my analysis on passages of Plato’s Republic.
Dear Doctor
Go To
THE SOURCES OF EVIL ACCORDING TO PLATО
HAROLD CHERNISS
Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
(Read November 13, 1953)
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, VOL. 98, NO. 1, FEBRUARY, 1954.
[So, while all positive evil, both absolute and relative, in this world is caused directly by soul moving its objects intentionally but in ignorance of truth, soul, whether virtuous or evil, is also unintentionally and indirectly the source of evil that is necessarily incidental to its direct influence upon phenomena, whereas the negative evil inherent in the existence of the world as phenomenal is only the obverse of its goodness as a reflection-though only a reflection and therefore a derogation-of perfect reality. The question concerning the cause or source of evil is not the same, however, as the question of moral responsi- bility, with which it is often unconsciously confused. This confusion alone explains, I believe, such arguments as the one that it is grotesquely un-Platonic to make soul itself the cause of the instability of becoming and that therefore we must not take at its face value Plato's categorical assertion that soul is the cause of all motion and change.45 For negative evil, whether the cause be considered the existence of space itself or the reflection that is an immediate consequence of its existence, nothing and no one is responsible; and for incidental evil, of which soul is certainly the ultimate cause though the necessary condition is the nature of phenomena once moved by soul to move one another, soul is not responsible either. There is moral responsibility only for the positive evil, of which soul is directly the cause, and for the ignorance of truth in which moving intentionally it produces such evi1.]
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