I regularly review your reputable philosophical literature and its moral ethics. I am writing this letter to proclaim how your philosophy has been helpful to me in handling my everyday decision-making reasoning. The concept of happiness has helped me achieve my existence, nature, and self-happiness. I have used the idea of happiness and disobedience in The Allegory of the Cave as therapy for my soul in my daily life challenges. This philosophy has influenced learners to be self-aware and free thinkers in an ignorant and wretched culture of unsatisfied desires.
According to old wisdom, self-control, continence, and sobriety make us unhappy and unfulfilled. Plato’s concept of happiness from his philosophical perception went the opposite direction by stating that mastering oneself rules the pleasures and appetites that lead to misery and dissatisfaction. In eudemonia, the main objective is the possession of goodness or happiness. According to Muir (10), when someone cannot fulfill their desires, they achieve satisfaction and eventually become happy. The practice of self-discipline has made it possible to enlighten people to achieve happiness and satisfaction in their daily lives.
According to one of the narratives about your concept of happiness, there are two people, each with packed pots. The first person’s pots were intact and packed, and the second person’s pots were rotten and leaking, so he kept filling them to prevent them from running dry (Muir 7). The moral lesson here was to compare our souls to these pots. When one is satisfied with what they have, they are compared to the packed pots, relaxed and happy. When one is not content with what they have, their soul is compared to the leaking pots, and they have to keep filling up to feel complete. The empty and nagging feeling of needing more and more pleasure all the time will demand something, which will lead to unhappiness.
The story is a metaphor for the lives of informed people in society in The Allegory of the Cave. The sun is the enlightenment, and the cavemen represent people before education. When truth-tellers convey their knowledge to those who have dedicated themselves to living in ignorance, they can expect estrangement like the returning philosopher (Świercz 116). According to the literature, most things that excite us, such as success, a perfect marriage, and high-paying positions, are far less natural. Our society has projected phantasms onto the fortification of our delicate and irrational minds.
In conclusion, your argument in the concept of happiness is that the just man will always be happier than the unjust man. However, justice is valuable both for its purpose and the external benefits. Even if a man receives no benefit from it, justice is still the best thing. It is not simply about man-to-man connections to right and wrong, fairness and injustice. Essentially, these are the internal spiritual conditions of an individual, a healthy and pathological psyche state. The Allegory of the Cave taught me that telling someone they are wrong will not bring required results. This causes deep offense and may endanger their life, just like Socrates was put to death. Therefore, from your experience, I learned to use the gentle Socratic method of administering philosophical education. Thank you for your time looking forward to more enlightenment articles from you.
Works Cited
Muir, James R. The Legacy of Isocrates and a Platonic Alternative: History, Political Philosophy, and the Value of Education. Routledge, 2018.
Świercz, Piotr. “The Allegory of the Cave and Plato’s Epistemology of Politics.” Folia Philosophica 42 (2019): 115-139.