The Musing Tapestry

The Republic What most people know of Plato’s The Republic is the idea of the Philosopher Kings, which was the ideal form of government set forward by Socrates in the dialogue. However in the beginning the discussion starts about what is just and what makes one a just person. Socrates and Polemarchus had just finished hammering out the first conclusion of the dialogue: A just person is a good person, their role is not to harm anyone with the understanding that the role of a just person was to help others and make them more just. At this point Thrasymachus interrupts and claims that justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger citing as his example that the rulers of a state make laws which are beneficial to themselves which those ruled over must obey. However Socrates shows that a craft considers what is advantageous for that which it governs : medicine considers what is advantageous for the body, not what is advantageous for medicine. Therefore the craft...

Pity, Sympathy, and Empathy are similar forces that move us to compassion, but they are not the same and have their own unique characteristics. In the medical profession these elements are tied to bedside manner and in philosophy they can often be viewed as a part of ethics. Let us look briefly at the distinction: Pity is a compassionate action that always contains an element of superiority. It is often spontaneous and isolated. An example of this as a person giving money or food to a homeless person, even if overall they find homeless people to be an annoyance or a burden. Pity doesn't make one a bad person by any means, but it is the least lasting and involved of the three and most likely the least one a person would not want in their physician or policy makers. Sympathy  is an intellectual understanding of a situation. If we continue with our example, someone who is sympathetic the the homeless would have a good understanding of the economic, racial, and mental health issues...

 There are two aspects of a quote: its meaning and its context. In many cases, the meaning is the goal and can stand on its own. However, there is also context to these quotes which, if you just grab them for their meaning, may net you some strange results. I am fully aware that many people won't really care if the context makes the quote not quite work, but all the same, a little research for something important can save you from some smirks, snark, and side eye down the road. I will look at two examples from our present day. When the 9/11 memorial museum chose a quotation to emblazon their wall, they chose a line from Book IX of Vergil's Aeneid: Nulla dies uuquam memori vos eximet aevo. Which means "No day shall erase you from the memory of time." This is a quite beautiful sentiment, and it is understandable why the meaning of this line would be chosen for such a monument. However, the troubling aspect of the context is that the "you" in that quot...