Friday, October 23, 2009

MF 09: ALcibiades's position

The first and second century. From Hellenisitic and Roman period we see a real development of the culture of the self. The culture in sense: 1.there is a set of value, 2. these values are both as universal but also as only accessible to a few.3. effort and sacrifice is required, 4. regular techniques and procedures are developed and taught

Alcibiades as the head and summary of Plato's works and that of Platonism.

Plato in Phaedrus: it is absurd not know oneself if one aspires to know everything else.

Socrates proceeded to philosophy through the precept of 'know yourself.'
gnothi seauton as the very foundation of philosophy.
The aim of this dialogue is knowing oneself, not in terms of body, not in terms of external objects, but in terms of the soul, not the vegetable, not the irrational soul, but the rational soul. The know yourself calls for a number of operations by which the subject must purify himelf and become, in his own nature, able to have contact with and to recognize the divine element withing him.

Care of the self has gradually emerged as a self-sufficient end, without the care of others being the ultimate aim and indicator by reference to which care of the slef is valued.

First, care of self is no longer one element among others, not a pivotal, not a relay, not a transitional element leading to something else, to the city-state or others. It is an activity focused solely on the self and whose outcome and satisfaction are found only in the self, in the activity itself that is exercised on the self.

The question of "what should I do to live properly?" will become identified with "What shall we o so that the self becomes and remains what it ought to be?"

Then: How must I transform my own self so as to be able to have access to the truth?
the art of living: tekhne tou biou

The concept of salvation. When the object of salvation is attained, you need nothing and no one but yourself.

The two great themes of ataraxy and autarchy are the two forms in which salvation, the act of salvation, the activity of savlation carried on throughout one's life find their rewards.

ataraxy: the absence of inner turmoil, the self-control that ensures that nothing disturbs one.
autarchy: the self-sufficiency which ensures that one needs nothing but the self.

The Hellenistic and Roman salvation: salvation is an activity, the subject's constant action on himself, which finds its reward in a certain relationship of the subject to himself when he has become inaccessible to external disorders and finds a satisfaction in himself, needing nothng but himself. The salvation is the vigilant, continuous, and completed form of the relationship to self closed in on itself. One saves oneself for the self, one is saved by the self, one saves oneself in order to arrive at nothing other than oneself.

No comments:

Post a Comment