[Neurons] 2008 Philosopher's Series #5

[Charles DesJardins]

Charles DesJardins

 

The Philosopher's Series #5

 

July 11, 2008

 

 

PLATO AND NEURO-SEMANTICS

 

Who is Plato? The British philosopher and mathematician Alfred White
Northhead stated that, "the history of Western philosophy is only a series
of footnotes to Plato." Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Plato is philosophy, and
philosophy is Plato." Plato spent eight years as a student of Socrates.
Plato is the philosopher who recorded the story of Socrates death. After the
death of his teacher (Plato was 28 years of age at the time) and mentor
Socrates, Plato left Athens and traveled to Egypt and Italy and spent some
time studying under the instruction of Pythagoras (some of you may know
Pythagoras from the Pythagorean theorem; that is to say, the study of
geometry) and acted as an adviser to a ruling family of Syracuse. After
doing this for several years Plato came back to Athens and started his own
school of philosophy called The Academy. 

 

Plato continued in some of the philosophies of Socrates, especially the
dialectic style of Socrates. Plato also added more dimension to the
philosophies of Socrates because of his interest in mathematics and the
relationship he saw between truth, knowledge, and mathematics. It has been
said that over the archway to the entrance of the Academy that Plato wrote,
'Let no one enter without geometry.'

 

The death of Socrates had a dramatic affect on the philosophy of Plato.
Plato came to believe that Socrates ultimate death sentence was the result
of a state (the city states) that was ruled by the many, and not a state
ruled by the wisest. This belief set the frames and states for most of
Plato's philosophical thoughts. Plato devised philosophic assumptions about
politics, truth, and the being of man through the frame of the pain of
losing a dear friend, a friend that was put to death by those who did not
understand or know political philosophy, truth philosophy (metaphysics,
axiology and epistemology), and the philosophy of the nature of man. The
next four articles will look at each of these philosophies and their
Neuro-Semantic equivalents or with Neuro-Semantic insights.

 

Plato and the Formation of His Frames

 

Plato saw a group mob who did not have the intelligence to decide the fate
of his friend Socrates. This picture that may have been in his head (for
Plato did use metaphor and visual language) was that this mob of people was
only concerned with their own good and that they did not have the knowledge
to rule a state. Plato wrote and believed that a state run by the many could
not produce the good human being and that the good human being would find
life impossible living in such a state. Maslow held similar ideas. He
believed that good people (self-actualizing) were needed to have a good
world, and a good world was needed to produce the good people
(self-actualizing). 

 

What frames did Plato and Maslow bring to their philosophies of culture?
Plato brought the death of his teacher into his frame as he developed his
philosophy and Maslow saw the killing and the destruction of life and
property in the second World War leading him to believe the world needed
good people and that good people needed a good world. In both Maslow and
Plato we see into the Matrix of their mind, the matrix of others, the matrix
of the world, the matrix of power; and in the case of Plato who believed
that the king should be a philosopher and the philosopher should be king,
maybe the matrix of self. We never leave home without them!

 

Dialectics - The Art of Questioning

 

As Plato set out to establish his philosophy, his methods of insight were
metaphors and dialectics. Socrates used dialectics in his search for truth
and to this day that form of questioning is known as the Socratic Method.
Plato also used the dialectical method for finding truth. Dialectics has
different meanings and the meaning of dialectics has changed as the ages,
the cultures, the social systems, and language has changed. The way Plato
used dialectics for finding truth was to ask questions. At times his
questions aimed to direct attention to opposites. If someone claimed to have
truth (that is, turned meaning and process into nouns and static events)
Plato would find a counter example to his or her truth. The method of
question and answer sounds all too familiar with the questioning and
Meta-Questioning of Neuro-Semantics and particularly Meta-Coaching.

 

When the coach or Neuro-Semantic Practitioner works with a client, he or she
uses questions to bring reflection, to bring insight, and to have the client
go inside and self-reflexively identify and question meanings. Plato could
be considered one of the first cognitive psychologists who when confronted
with cognitive distortions would ask, and not tell. A client states, "I
can't do that." Instead of a statement about that statement, "Oh yes you
can, you have the ego strength to do that," the Meta-Coach asks a question
to have the client elicit his or her own responses. "Oh, you can't?" "What
if you could? What would happen?" 

 

There is not a full correlation between the reason of dialectics or
questioning by Plato and the Meta-Questions of Meta-Coaching. Plato asked
questions to find truth, what is beauty, what is justice, what is courage?
The Meta-Coach uses questions for the client to find the resources needed to
live his or her truth, to use or update his or her map. But, the art of
questioning started with Socrates and onward from Plato.

 

The next article will focus on the construct in which Plato lived.

 

charles.desjardins at sbcglobal.net  

 

 

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