Samayasara OR Nature of Self

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 13

SAMAYASARA
the opponent gets confounded in the debate and is made to confess that after all he was ignorant of the nature of the fundamental concepts. By this process of cross examination Socrates exposed the utter vanity and hollowness of the so-called learned Sophists of Athens Then he realised himself and made others realise how shallow was the knowledge of the so-called scholar. That was why he obtained the singular testimony from the Delphic Oracle that he was the wisest man living because he knew that that he knew nothing. This process of dialectical analysis so successfully employed by Socrates resulted in the building up of the Athenian Academy which gathered under its roof a number of ardent youths with the desire to learn more about human personality and its nature.
Plato, a disciple and friend of Socrates was the most illustrious figure of the school. In fact all that we know about Socrates and the conditions of thought about that period are all given to us by Plato through his immortal Dialogues. He systematized the various ideas revealed by his master, Socrates. He constructed a philosophical system according to which sense-presented experience is entirely different from the world of ultimate ideas which was the world of Reals. He illustrates this duality of human knowledge by his famous parable of the cave. According to this parable human being is but a slave confined inside a cave chained with his face towards the wall. Behind him is the opening through which all-illuminating sunshine casts shadows of moving objects on the walls of the cave. The enchained slave inside the cave is privileged to see only the moving shadows which he imagines to be the real objects of the world. But once he breaks the chain and • emerges out of the cave he enters into a world of brilliant light and sunshine and comes across the real objects whose shadows he was constrained to see all along. Man's entry into the realm of reality and realization of the empty shadow of the sense-presented world is considered to be the goal of human culture and civilisation by Plato. Instead of moving in the ephemeral shadows of the sensepresented world, man ought to live in the world of eternal ideas which constitute the scheme of Reality presided over by the three fundamental Ideas-Truth, Goodness and Beauty. This duality of