Different Philosophical Ideas And Their Role - Plato And Augustine
Meriam Webster Dictionary defines philosophy as “all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts. ” Plato and Augustine of Hippo were two of the most influential philosophers in history. Augustine came along around 800 years after Plato died but still was influenced greatly by Plato’s writings and thinking. Plato, the world’s first true philosopher, focused more on the fact that knowledge and intellect is gained from humans doing good. His main goal in life was to help other people reach fulfilment. Augustine leans more towards God being the main factor in knowledge for humans and believes that humans are never going to be just in God’s eyes. One of the main questions that scholars still ask today is why were the writings and ideas of these famous philosophers so important?
To start off, Augustine believed that God is a personal being and that God created every living thing under his free will. He thought that it was possible to have a personal relationship with God himself. Augustine was more religious than Plato because he thought that God is the only one who can save the human race. He believed that we are united in sin and that we want to turn against God in everything we do. Plato believes that as long as humans kept being focused on themselves and trying to better their own lives, they would never achieve true happiness.
In Plato’s The Apology he focuses on Socrates being in trial for denying deities that the Romans believed in. Augustine also believed that humans could not be perfected. In his writing The City of God, Augustine dissected this idea and proposed that original sin came from Adam. This meant that every human is twisted and could not be perfect ever because we are all heirs to the original sin. Plato thought about this in a different way. He knew that people would never reach full fulfillment in their lives and that they were always going to feel like they were lacking something. In Augustine’s Two Cities, he distinguishes the differences between the City of Man and the City of God. The City of God focused more on a perfect way of living where everything was just, and people lived in harmony. However, Augustine made it clear that men could never build this kind of city in the first place and were strictly bound to the City of Men. The City of Men is a place where nothing is just and money rules all. The lust of humans takes over their senses and control their every move.
Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave explains that any knowledge you gain using your senses is solely relative to your opinion which means that nothing is definite. Augustine believed in a definitive God that gives us our free will and lets everything happen according to him. He thought we cannot properly love because we are overwhelmed by our own self-pride and egos. This can be applied to today because people are still obsessed with their own self-image especially with the implementation of social media in the last ten years. This just shows that Philosophers from long ago are still relevant today.
Augustine believed that there could never be justice in the world. He thought that God couldn’t give good people power or take things away from those who lacked it. This meant that all power had to have been predestined based on how the people will behave later in life. In Augustine’s Two Cities, he distinguishes the differences between the City of Man and the City of God. The City of God focused more on a perfect way of living where everything was just, and people lived in harmony. However, Augustine made it clear that men could never build this kind of city in the first place and were strictly bound to the City of Men. The City of Men is a place where nothing is just and money rules all.
The lust of humans takes over their senses and control their every move. Augustine thought that humans should not be able to judge each other based on success alone. Plato believed humans were always running too much and didn’t give themselves time to think. Also, humans tend to follow along with popular opinions such as you need money to be happy, Plato believed that power should be given only to people whose special talents equip them to use it wisely. In the book “The West” by A. Daniel Frankforter and William S. Spellman, they explain that Plato had the belief that democracy.
