Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn
The idea of the "examined life" is that is is examined by particular criteria, but which are not universal. — baker
Should you be determining whether some life, other than your own, is worth living or not, examined or not? — Harry Hindu
So it is your position that existentialists and phenomenologists are the ones that determine whether any life is worth living? Is this who examines your life to make this determination?You would need to have some familiarity with the existentialists and phenomenologists to understand what it could mean to fail to live your life. You strike me as someone who has read little philosophical literature and on account of that fails to show much nuanced understanding, and is thus given to making inapt comments. — Janus
Ohhhkay. This confesses much. :zip:I find that thinking logically is all that is needed and for that, reading computer programming books and trying your hand at computer programming would do you well, or else you fail to show much reasonable understanding, and thus given to asking silly questions. — Harry Hindu
...the examined life is of importance to Socrates in that it may lead to various terms that lead to a better life. Such terms can be called, "enlightened", "rational", "virtuous".
Yet, without context these terms are ambiguous in terms of living an examined life. If we to take what Socrates said as important to ourselves, then what does it mean to live an examined life, as surely it is to our benefit to do so?
Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so?
Or more technically, what kind of analysis or even methodology should a person incorporate when doing this examination? Isn't it really psychoanalysis?
Contemplation seems to be the natural arising thought in regards to the issue. So, what kind of contemplation? — Shawn
Your complete misread of what my remark is symptomatic of a profoundly misplaced (ass backwards) preference of computer programming (formal syntactics) to the exclusion of philosophical discourse (natural semantics) as a model, or ideal, of reasoning. — 180 Proof
Its the thought that counts. — DingoJones
This sounds like something out of an American self-help book, and certainly not universal.The most universal criteria for examining whether or not you are living your life is the question of whether or not you have the courage to own your fears and failings, and do your best to overcome them. — Janus
In another thread about the importance of psychology, I stated that the examined life is of importance to Socrates in that it may lead to various terms that lead to a better life. Such terms can be called, "enlightened", "rational", "virtuous".
Yet, without context these terms are ambiguous in terms of living an examined life. If we to take what Socrates said as important to ourselves, then what does it mean to live an examined life, as surely it is to our benefit to do so?
Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn
What should I fear? That I should suffer the penalty Meletus has assessed against me, of which I say I do not know whether it is good or bad? Am I then to choose in preference to this something that I know very well to bean evil and assess the penalty at that? Imprisonment? Why should I live in prison, always subjected to the ruling magistrates the Eleven? A fine, and imprisonment until I pay it? That would be the same thing for me, as I have no money. Exile? for perhaps you might accept that assessment.
I should have to be inordinately fond of life, gentlemen of the jury, to be so unreasonable as to suppose that other men will easily tolerate my company and conversation when you, my fellow citizens, have been unable to endure them, but found them a burden and resented them so that you are now seeking to get rid of them. Far from it, gentlemen. It would be a fine life at my age to be driven out of one city after another, for I know very well that wherever I go the young men will listen to my talk as they do here. If I drive them away, they will themselves persuade their elders to drive me out; if I do not drive them away, their fathers and relations will drive me out on their behalf.
Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us will you not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for man, you will believe me even less.
What I say is true, gentlemen, but it is not easy to convince you. At the same time, I am not accustomed to think that I deserve any penalty. If I had money. I would assess the penalty at the amount I could pay, for that would not hurt me, but I have none, unless you are willing to set the penalty at the amount I can pay, and perhaps I could pay you one mina of silver. So that is my assessment.
Plato here, gentlemen of the jury, and Crito and Critobulus and Apollodorus bid me put thepenalty at thirty minae, and they will stand surety for the money. Well then, that is my assessment,and they will be sufficient guarantee of payment.
The lesson I take away, in contrast to an unexamined life (of common sense), is that the "examined life" isn't worth living for a poor man who also lacks the good sense to shut up and ignore his voices when it's appropriate – wise – to do so (re: good sense e.g. Aristotle fled Athens, Galileo recanted before the Holy Inquisition).What do you gather from that (the Apology) about the unexamined life? — Moliere
The examined life is both an examination of life and a life of examination. It is both theoretical and practical. It is a critical examination of what I think, and say, and do. It is an examination of desires, and goals, choices, and values. But since we do not live in isolation, it is also about what others think, say, do, and so on. — Fooloso4
This sounds like something out of an American self-help book, and certainly not universal. — baker
There's a term in Indian philosophy, 'viveka' which means 'Sense of discrimination; wisdom; discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the self and the non-self, between the permanent and the impermanent; discriminative inquiry; right intuitive discrimination; ever present discrimination between the transient and the permanent' 1 . This is strongly reminiscent of the discussion of the discernment of the Forms in the Phaedo. — Wayfarer
Stranger
Then since there is, according to my reckoning, one art involved in all of these operations, let us give it one name.
Theaetetus
What shall we call it?
Stranger
The art of discrimination.
….
Stranger
And yet, in the instance of discrimination just mentioned there was, first, the separation of worse from better, and, secondly, of like from like.
Theaetetus
Yes, as you now express it, that is pretty clear.
Stranger
Now I know no common name for the second kind of discrimination; but I do know the name of the kind which retains the better and throws away the worse.
Theaetetus
What is it?
Stranger
Every such discrimination, as I think, is universally called a sort of purification.
Theaetetus
Yes, so it is (226c-d).
:rofl:Your "point" is irrelevant and amounts to a hasty generalization fallacy, typical of philosophically sub-literate spaghetti coders. — 180 Proof
Then it begs the question of what is truth, morality and justice? That is something that needs to be examined. If they are subjective aspects of our consciousness then it is impossible to always act in ways that are always good for yourself and others. What you consider good might not be examined and interpreted in the same way as someone else. Just the fact that there are so many people in the world that believe that their personal examinations of their life indicates that it would be good and righteous to tell others how to live their lives and define for others what is good and righteous. Many people aren't happy unless they are able to dictate to others how to live their lives.For Socrates (and Plato), the examined life is a constant examination of our beliefs and actions for the purpose of establishing what is true, good, and just.
Awareness of justice or righteousness (dikaiosyne) enables the philosopher to always act in ways that are good for himself and others. — Apollodorus
Then it begs the question of what is truth, morality and justice? — Harry Hindu
However, the method of argument is neither more nor less concerned with the art of medicine than with that of sponging, but is indifferent if the one benefits us little, the other greatly by its purifying. It endeavors to understand what is related and what is not related in all arts, for the purpose of acquiring intelligence; and therefore it honors them all equally and does not in making comparisons think one more ridiculous than another, and does not consider him who employs, as his example of hunting, the art of generalship, any more dignified than him who employs the art of louse-catching, but only, for the most part, as more pretentious. (227a-b)
Then it begs the question of what is truth, morality and justice? That is something that needs to be examined. If they are subjective aspects of our consciousness then it is impossible to always act in ways that are always good for yourself and others. What you consider good might not be examined and interpreted in the same way as someone else. — Harry Hindu
... you rated sophist, statesman, and philosopher at the same value, though they are farther apart in worth than your mathematical proportion can express. (257b)
After all, if you are an old man who has no money and knows you will continue to aggravate the youth against the established order, no matter where you go -- and you know that silence, on your part at least, is not attainable (cuz the gods/goods told ya it's good to talk about what's good) -- then perhaps it is better to die, because you realize that no matter which city you go to you will end up the same. Might as well die now, as a martyr, than later, as a prisoner. — Moliere
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