Essay - Plato the Failure of Rationalism: a Response to Plato and...

Plato

The failure of rationalism: A response to Pla***** and Descartes

***** the "Republic," the ancient Greek rationalist Socrates admits that, to a great extent, his vision of an ideal society is just that—an *****. The concept ***** a world governed solely by philosopher kings cannot be perfectly realized, but as a 'Pl*****tonic ideal' he states that it is necessary to cr*****ically engage with t***** concept. His theoretical societal 'form' is perfect, he alleges, because it is supremely rational, ***** every individual *****ly placed in his or her social category, as determined by his or ***** innate abil*****ies. Nothing is left to chance, in ***** ***** governed by philosopher k*****gs, everything ***** rationally *****.

Plato's ideal begs us to ask a very obvio***** question: how rational can a society be, if it offers no guid*****nce as to how to negotiate the complexities of lived reality? What of the possibilities of these '***** philosophers *****coming tyrants? After all, communists believed that their society was a philosophical **********.***** And within the philosophical community, every *****w ***** then, an idealist philosopher rears his ugly head (as opposed to an idealistic philosopher) who explains *****, for example, eugenics might be morally justified in theory, even though such a policy might lead to genocide and a very clumsily executed *****m of genocide at th*****, given that no human ********** really possesses the wisdom to impartially decide who will live and die. Believing that a rational system ***** governance or just *****ity on an abstract level c***** exist in an objective fashion, without reference to the irrational, ugly, ***** biased impulses in human nature is perhaps the most 'irrational' idea of all.

One of the ***** ironies ***** the limits of ***** rationalism is seen in the example of Rene Descartes, who famously resolved that there was 'proof' of human *****ence, and God, because ***** must be a 'be*****g' doing his thinking ***** medit*****ting, a being somehow separate from the body. Descartes could not have known that modern scientific research would yield ***** stunning finding that it is the body that produces the mind, not vice versa (Descartes believed that somatic or bodily awareness came after the coming into ***** of consciousness and one's spiritual birth as a ***** entity). However, damage to the *****, such as occurs during a stroke, ***** a sobering reminder of how easily ***** thought patterns can alter our rational deductive capacity because of physical, neurological *****. This is one reason why Charles Darwin's findings were so d*****turbing to religious *****s, because he highlighted how human consciousness, as well as t***** human body, did not suddenly generate from nothing, but rather roots in physical, slowly evolving human evolution.

***** might be argued ***** what Darwin discovered with ***** logic could not have ********** possible, ***** at least, was supported ***** the author Francis Bacon's earlier stress on the need to restore the senses to their appropriate place in finding out what was the correct way to apprehend reality. Bacon's belief structures