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Single Idea 2061

[filed under theme 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change ]

Full Idea

The best things (such as a god, a healthy body, or a good soul) are least liable to alteration or change.

Gist of Idea

The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change

Source

Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 380e)

Book Ref

Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.1019

The 90 ideas from 'The Republic'

6562 Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin]
12043 Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas]
12122 Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato]
5574 Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant]
5094 Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle]
2630 If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato]
5945 The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato]
4115 Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato]
1869 The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus]
7 Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato]
2092 Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato]
5 Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato]
8 Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato]
6009 Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak]
2093 You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato]
2094 A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato]
2095 If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato]
2096 Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato]
19946 Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato]
10 After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato]
12 If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato]
13 Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato]
2097 Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato]
14 If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato]
15 Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato]
16 We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato]
19889 People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato]
19890 All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato]
2120 God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato]
2061 The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato]
23767 The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato]
2123 Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato]
2126 A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato]
23561 People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato]
2127 The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato]
1737 The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato]
6041 There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato]
23562 If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato]
2129 Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato]
2130 People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato]
2131 Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato]
2132 Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato]
2133 Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato]
2134 Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato]
2135 Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato]
2136 Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato]
23682 It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato]
2137 The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato]
2138 Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato]
2070 Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato]
4007 For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C]
2139 Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato]
2140 True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato]
2141 I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato]
2142 The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato]
2143 Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato]
2144 Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato]
21818 Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato]
2145 In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato]
2147 The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato]
2148 To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato]
4547 Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato]
2149 Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato]
9861 The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato]
9862 To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato]
9863 We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato]
9864 In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato]
8727 Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato]
8726 Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato]
2151 Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato]
2152 Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato]
2153 Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato]
2154 The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato]
4011 For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C]
2155 True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato]
23316 For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M]
2156 There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato]
2157 Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato]
2158 Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato]
17 A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato]
2159 Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato]
16565 Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato]
2160 Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato]
2162 If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato]
2163 Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato]
2164 Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato]
2165 Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato]
2166 We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato]
2168 Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato]
5944 For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato]