Essay Example: Philosophical Food of Thought

As my main course for the food of thought, I would have Plato simply because he is one of the earliest philosophers, even ahead of Aristotle, whose philosophical findings have found basis and application even in the current society. Plato used a unique approach to inquiry throughout his life's work of dialogue, which he found suitable for questioning and answering different issues and ideas. Plato was always realistic in his approach or view of the world. He noted that our view or the appearance of the world is error-filled; however, it is surrounded and real and perfect realm that are associated with entities that are eternal in some sense of structure and character. These abstract items are of importance to the world since they are not confined to space or time and include beauty, goodness, bigness, unity, sameness, etc. The enquiry of forms and ideas that make up the material world was addressed well in the Allegory of the Cave. He states that the present state of man is that of a person chained to the darkness of a cave with only the false light of a fire. The only way he perceives the world outside is by looking at the shadows on the wall; therefore, he does not get to see the true' reality of the world. If by any chance released to the world, he might be scared by the reality and opt to return to darkness, whereas, if he is one of the enlightened he would look directly into the sun and look at things from the realistic a realistic view.

In my next course, I would start by eating Anaximanders pre-Socratic philosophy. Anaximander expanded his philosophy from his predecessor's advancement. He proposed his basic principle to be the unlimited.' Whereas Thales had proposed the basic elements like water, Anaximander moved back and argued that the form of the world was as a result of an unlimited number of basic materials including, air, water, earth, fire etc. His philosophy proposes that the limited things were as a result of unlimited things with unique properties that eventually made it special. Personally, I would take this course with the knowledge that its basic principle forms the basis for most Greek philosophy and understanding. That is, the limitation of the unlimited makes things stable for the greater part, though eventually, it falls back to its unlimited state over time. This could be conceptualized to make up the ideas or forms as defined by Plato, which in this case are formed through the limitation of unlimited factors.

In most cases, Plato's thoughts and ideas were contradictory to the Buddhist beliefs. However, for the third course in my food of thought, I would take the Indian's Buddhist philosophy. Buddha was one of the most famous philosophers of India whose major concern in inquiries made was to liberate man for dukkha (suffering), which he believed could only be attained from ethical in actions to avoid karma, and by meditating into the nature of things as they are. Different from Plato, Buddha mostly avoided most of the metaphysical questions especially if they would not result in liberation by further speculation. This was a middle way' in between bodily denial and the extremes of asceticism and sensual indulgence. However, Buddhism is cautious of the constant change in the state of man, which is more or less similar to what Plato implies by the implication of errors in the perception of reality.

In China, Daoism (Taoism) and Confucianism are the greatest philosophies. Personally, I will indulge in the Confucian school of thought as developed from the teachings of Confucius during the warring period of Chinese history. Confucianism is constructed along the line of some concepts: ren (humanity) Zhengming (the concept of heaven), Zhong (loyalty), li (ritual) amd xiao (filial piety). I favor Confucianism over Taoism due to the inherent similarity between Plato and Confucius considering that they both wrote their texts a time when the war was imminent. They are especially similar in their view of virtue; however, they differed in terms of the approach to virtue.