Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Phaedrus' and 'works'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions
Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie]
     Full Idea: Plato had a conception of the emotions and our bodily appetites as being like wild horses, to be harnassed and controlled by reason.
     From: report of Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE]) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Education'
     A reaction: This seems to make Plato the patriarch of puritanism. See Symposium, as well as Phaedrus. But bringing up children can often seem like taming wild beasts.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / c. Animal rationality
Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial'
     A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived.