A filosofia como modo de vida a partir de Platão

Abstract

Part of contemporary philosophy proposes a broadly theoretical discourse and distant of the issues of human existence. In its origin, despite love of wisdom, philosophy was partly a choice of philosophical life, however, this function of philosophy was relegated on behalf of a life within theory and increasingly deprived from the pursuits of human being who intends to philosophize. The main objective of this dissertation is to propose philosophy as existential stance, as a propaedeutic to the search for knowledge and virtue, and its implication on the very human existence. The dissertation presents itself into three chapters, revisiting three platonic dialogues. The first chapter proposes (a) an interpretation of Plato’s Philebus, emphasizing that the main thesis of that dialogue is to seek the good in human life, through a kind of philosopher’s own existential dialectic, which allows him to make choices that makes him better through an option for a median life, mixed between pleasure and knowledge; and (b) the interpretation of the Philebus by Gadamer, from his habilitation thesis, which not only corroborates our thesis and emphasizes the dialectical deliberative factor, but determines ontological moments that present themselves in moments of Dasein, i.e., ensure the course in searching for the good in human existence. The second chapter presents (a) an interpretation of Plato’s Sophist, so that if the first chapter has emphasized the way the philosopher acts searching for the good life, the second emphasizes who the philosopher is and how he is defined, via negativa, by the definitions of the sophist and his way of being; and (b) an interpretation from Heidegger’s lectures on the Sophist, emphasizing the hermeneutic methodology of reading Plato through the Aristotelian categories, the phenomenological interpretation and the stress on Dasein and the way the philosopher behaves and the correspondence of his authentic discourse compared to the sophist’s way of existence, and his inauthentic discourse, uncommitted to his way of being. The third chapter introduces (a) an interpretation of Plato’s Alcibiades I, in which we approach the core of our dissertation, namely, of philosophy understood as a care of the self and a way of practice that rebuild the philosopher’s existence; (b) the reconduction of Plato’s Alcibiades I, through Foucault’s incorporation—in his late philosophical thesis—, which highlights philosophy as practices of the self, by which the subject comprehends himself, creates a relationship with the truth and tries to turn his own existence more authentic; and (c) the contributions of Hadot’s thesis, whom Foucault owes his inspiration and who first developed the notion of philosophy as a spiritual exercise, since platonic and post-platonic traditions, as something practical, a conversion of the self. In conclusion, we present a reintroduction of contemporary philosophy, rethought since the Ancient Greek philosophical practices, interconnecting the three dialogues, its commentators and presenting a philosophy much more related to the philosopher’s existence.