Plato is Therapy, to Guide Us Out of the Cave of Bad Thinking: Phaedo part 3

This is part 3. You are welcome and will not be left behind, even if you missed part 1 or 2

We Need Epistemic Therapy, we do not know how to know.

1-Our view of knowledge is distorted. Plato offers not just a theory of truth, but a therapy for the soul—a way of seeing that can reshape how we live.

We will be discussing Plato and the forms by reading the Phaedo. Join us.

This is link to a free PDF of all Plato’s works. Use a translation that included the accepted academic numbering system.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xh7jrEn06i1lWiG2qlN056Eg0a7aGoo6/view?usp=drive_link

This is a link to what we are studying on April 24th.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dNax1k1nFaxuZU2ZB6XsBN4eWS8iyc4W?usp=drive_link

2-We all operate with an implicit epistemology—a “default” setting about what knowledge is and how we acquire it. Plato says our default is defective. To be healed, we must change how we see the world. The way we shape Knowledge shapes the Self

3-Epistemology is not just academic. The images we hold of the knower, the known, and their relationship deeply influence how we live. Knowledge forms us. The patterns of knowing shape the patterns of our lives.

4-In the modern West, we inherit what we might call the Knowledge-as-Information mindset:

• Knowledge = data, facts, bits.
• Knowing = analyzing, reducing, dissecting.
• Goal = power, control, predictability.

6-This framework narrows what counts as knowledge. We pattern ourselves after machines—seeking control, not understanding. In contrast, Plato offers a different vision of wholeness:

7-Knowing is an adventure—an encounter with what we do not yet grasp.
Knowledge is the profoundly human struggle to reach our toward (transcend) something yet unknown; knowledge is an integration of what reality really is (we put stuff together creating a whole); knowledge is a creative discovery, a Eureka…..!