From: Patrick Jendraszak (indyibook_at_insightbb.com)
Date: Thu Feb 05 2004 - 19:17:33 PST
Going back to some of the earliest philosophers, I have to say that
"good", while maybe difficult to define, is a real concept that is
beyond subjective thought.
Since in reality everything is in a state of flux (beginning with
Heraclitus), empirical knowledge is not true knowledge but is merely a
set of opinions, which are subjective to the speaker. However, since
the World of Ideas (Plato) is eternal and immutable, that is where
knowledge lies. i.e. the truth will never change there.
For instance,Plato said that in the world we have an idea of what
beauty is – we have an innate knowledge of True Beauty or the Form of
Beauty. In the world we have examples of imperfect, reflected beauty
e.g. flowers yet we have never seen True Beauty. We are able to
recognise or recollect the Form of Beauty in flowers. The most
important Form is the Form of the Good and all other Forms are aspects
of Goodness. E.g. Justice is an aspect of Goodness.
Perhaps the Newton and the Mac simply remind us more of the Form of
Beauty than a PC or a Palm Pilot .... ;-)
Patrick Jendraszak
Fishers, IN
On Feb 5, 2004, at 5:48 PM, Newtopia wrote:
> Good and bad are simply relevant to everyone's
> interpretation and can't really be defined.
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