Rhetoric

I have been thinking a lot about Katherine's comment on Wednesday when I brought up about how vague the word Freedom is and how it can often be used for negative outcomes. To recap, she commented that even words that may seem more specific such as access, can still be twisted in ways that seem to help the many, but actually just end up hurting us. I have thought about what she said and I agree with her comment. It is important not to overlook how strong rhetoric can actually be, which I had overlooked when I commented that there has to be a better word to use than Freedom. Anything, it seems, can be twisted into different meanings. It's just like how some people believe that Plato's thought experiment was meant to be taken as a serious manuscript as to how to form a government. His work has been completely manipulated and sometimes misinterpreted. It's just interesting to me because I never really considered how easy it could be to manipulate people and how any word can be victim to negative rhetoric like Katherine suggested.

A Recap and Future thoughts

I would first like to apologize for the delay in this blog post. Spring break has delayed my thoughts in general I believe. I would like to suggest a beginning discussion of book 4 and how it progresses into book five on Monday. We did not really get to discuss it due to the missed class and I think it would be interesting especially with out new insights on book five. Another thing that I have been thinking about it talking to each other about our midterm thoughts? I have not solidified an idea yet but I think it would be cool to hear others thought of their projects and to give feedback. What do you guys think?

A Hierarchy of Needs

On Monday, we had a long class discussion about virtue in the Meno as it related to the discussion of justice in the Republic. At one point in the class the concept of the Ring of Gyges was mentioned and I believe that it was Mike who brought up the idea that depending on where someone was in their life would depend on what they would do if they had the ring. This made me think about Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and how it might relate to the idea about virtue. The idea that Mike brought up was that people of power or wealth do not need much so they might have an easier time resisting the temptation of the ring whereas people who needed things would struggle with the temptation no matter how virtuous. In a similar way, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a pyramid of different things people need in order to reach the top of the pyramid which is self-actualization. This related to Mikes idea because people who are lower down on the pyramid would have a harder time navigating virtue if presented with the Ring of Gyges than those who have reached self-actualization. In a way, the argument of the ring is flawed because it is difficult to even consider virtue if you are a person who is struggling to meet the bottom requirements of the pyramid. To me, virtue is something that relates to privilege. I believe that anyone can be virtuous but it would be harder to consider it when someone is struggling to make it to self-actualization.