Interesting...so we long companionship because we feel we are missing the other gendered half of ourselves? Huh.

Seems like a lot of things slide in the name of love. Nowadays people are not quick to accept romantic relationships that involve any sort of exchange.

This is interesting. Made me think of love as a sort of intoxication, like people understand why we do spontaneous and extravagant actions when it is in the name of love.

Do we need a loving companion to know when we are acting shamefully? Can't we be ashamed of ourselves? Can't we be proud of ourselves when we act well?

Interesting that they talk about love in the context of the gods when we typically associate love with bodily emotion and sentiment

Making the argument that everything comes from its opposite....if something is to grow larger, it must first be smaller?

Our material bodies that navigate and discover "truth" through our senses are innately deceptive and keep us from ultimate wisdom and truth. We cannot access that truth until our bodies and minds are entirely separate

We can only access true wisdom through reason alone, which must be distanced from the deceptions of bodily senses

Is Socrates arguing that philosophers spend their entire lives preparing for death? Does he mean hypothesizing about the afterlife? Or witnessing the immortality of the soul? Or detaching the mind from the physical body?

Suggesting that we are possessions of the gods, and suicide is escaping our duties to god. A wise man would not commit suicide because he acknowledges that he will not be protected by god once he escapes, whereas a foolish man does not.

Suicide can only be justified when god has indicated that one's life must come to an end (ex. Socrates being sentenced to death penalty), but that judgement is up to god and cannot be made by an individual

Because his dreams were telling him to "cultivate the arts", Socrates pushed himself past practicing philosophy and began writing poetry in prison to ensure that he satisfied his conscience

grrr....

I think Phaedo has a crush...

Ironic because Socrates was accused of corrupting the "good youth"

Virtue is not an innate characteristic that we all posses. It depends on the way in which the soul directs things that are "good". For example, a foolish man could turn courage into recklessness, while a wise man could turn courage into an act of bravery.

So virtue is only virtuous in the context of wisdom?

Socrates searching for the essence of virtue– not the application of it to men, women, etc. He wants a concise definition (per usual)

we love to see this...

Like Socrates, Athenians acknowledge that they cannot answer that question

Socrates sees the value in acknowledging what we do not know. To make bold, definitive claims (like Gorgias does) is somewhat ignorant. Perhaps his modesty regarding Athens in this section is not entirely genuine.

a national religion would be restricting to the natural intellectual development of the population

Example of how religious affiliation does not defy State laws

Formation of religious communities requires approval from the State and governance under existing Japanese laws which would cause

Buddhism did not have the strong pull/ unifying factors in Japan that Christianity had in Europe, but devotion to the Emperor was a common trait among all Japanese citizens

what

what is the point in allowing belief/ identification with other religions if you are not able to publicly practice that religion

ability to calmly protest against the government if they abuse their power, want to protect civil rights as a population

democracy!

Allowed religious freedom with restrictions that would prevent uprising against established government/ national religion... didn't want national conversion to Christianity/ imported religion, wanted to maintain Japanese roots

Shinto as non-religion, but rather way to boost nationalism

needed government permission to "import" religions that did not exist at the time the constitution was written

dark side to forced Shinto conversation, hardcore/ intense nationalism

Perhaps an Eastern/Western hemisphere distinction?

Why is this? Is it because of the stigma behind "Japanese Christianity"? Because of the historical resistance to it? Is it because of the use of a country's name in the subsection of Christian religion?

Is there a difference between identifying a subpart of a religion vs. making that subpart affiliated with a certain culture?

State support of Shinto decreased

Campaign led by Shinto priests to increase state awareness of the aspects of Shinto "religion"/// created symbols, rituals, and shrines that corresponded with Shinto

Shift from traditional Buddhist roots to new Shinto

Socrates will only agree to escape if the Athenian state agrees that it is just, as he refuses to break the rules of the state. If Socrates has followed those rules for all of his life, he cannot change his behavior just because his circumstances have changed.

I feel like the hole in Socrates' evidence here is that doctors and physical trainers don't give advice based on opinion. Rather, they pass along knowledge that they have learned throughout their training to be an expert.

It seems that Socrates and Crito have entirely different views on the verdict of Socrates' trial. Crito wants to oppose the final decision by sneaking Socrates out of jail, while Socrates sees his punishment in accordance with the laws of Athens. If he were to escape from jail, he would be seen as a non-law-abiding citizen, which would be worse than death for Socrates.

Completely disputes Euthyphro's claim that pious things are made pious when they are loved by the gods, because that is impossible. Something would have to first be pious to be loved by the gods, who would then name that thing pious. Very confusing. I don't like it.

If being pious means having the approval of the gods, how can the gods themselves be pious if they don't have the total approval of other gods? Wouldn't these quarrels cause a severe contradiction in Euthyphro's argument?

What is virtuous in the eyes of the gods is not allowing injustices to go without prosecution, no matter your relation to the perpetrator

So the father didn't technically murder the man because the hunger was the thing that eventually killed him? Does this mean that if one person pushed another person off a cliff, they wouldn't technically be a murderer because the impact of the ground is what kills the victim?

Begs the question of whether or not murder is an immoral act in and of itself. Is there a spectrum? What if it is self-defense?

Humans cannot live together without laws, because they would suffer from each others' tendency for wrongdoing. Therefore laws and justice rule over humans because they are tied to our nature as humans (this doesn't offer analysis, it's mostly just me thinking out loud)

Suggests that violence is a part of human nature, but laws were created to subdue that innate tendency of humans to create a sort of moral conduct for all humans to follow

It doesn't matter if Helen physically committed the wrongful act, it only matters who persuaded her to commit it. Helen, therefore, deserves no blame whatsoever. Not sure how much I agree with this reasoning... could anyone ever be responsible for anything at all?

I think that he is saying because all things that we assume as knowledge are based solely on our own personal perceptions, there cannot be such a thing as a contradiction because no knowledge is absolutely true.

Whereas many sophists claim to have this profound knowledge about the world, Protagoras has a unique perspective where he believes we cannot truly understand beings (gods) beyond the human realm, it seems like an honest account. I like it!

argument that atoms are attracted to similar atoms?

I don't understand his argument that the motion of atoms is through necessity

If there is no vacuum of space where nothing exists, there would be no way to observe what is "being", what does exist..... ????

So the only thing that differentiates observable objects is their arrangement/ motion at a given time?

Similar to our modern-day scientific view of atoms

Values reason over sentiment, and rejects that reality can be perceived through our senses, but must be perceived through reason alone. Completely strays from the path of thinking that previous philosophers had

People can never be certain of what ultimate truth or higher power truly exists, but perhaps this is because there is a limit set by the gods regarding what information we can obtain on Earth. Maybe we are not supposed to fully understand this higher truth. On the flip side, this statement may be encouraging people to search for their own truth.

If the gods created these things (thieving, adultery, deceiving one another), do they have any position to judge those who partake in those activities?

Possible reference to some sort of belief in reincarnation? Reminds me of last class' reading, in which Pythagorus believed that the soul was immortal, and when it left a human body, it cycled through the bodies of all other living things.