Plato and the spiritual sense

[SeattleUte]

Plato believed in a spiritual sense. Indeed, he pioneered the concept. Plato indeed believed that the senses in fact obscure this spiritual sense, distract us from leading the kind of virtuous lives that make us sensitive to the spiritual side of existence. This belief of course is at the heart of Christianity and it is no coincidence--as I and others have noted here Plato was incorporated extensively into the Christian cosmology by Paul, Augustine, and other "Church fathers." This is perhaps the primary reason we revere Plato, as opposed to, say, Epicurus or Democrates, whose philosophies are more firmly rooted in the empirical tradition. Plato's low regard for the senses as a discerner of truth is evident from his allegory of the Cave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

The non-physical world that Plato regarded as the only real truth he called the Good or forms; unchanging and unchangeable absolute truth. Plato's pupil Aristotle shared Plato's belief in these concepts, except he had a much higher opinion of the senses and empiricism.

Socrates and other Greek philosphers such as Epicurus and Democrates seem to me materialists or atheists, if you will. In fact, in The Trial and Death of Socrates (as dramatized by Plato) Socrates says he knows not whether after his death he will be conversing with Homer (it's amazing to me how some five hundred years after the Iliad was composed its impact was still so profound on comlex characters like Plato and Socrates) or sleeping a dreamless sleep of infinite duration. He says he'd be delighted with either outcome because truth be told his dreamless sleeps have been more pleasurable than most of his wakeful days on earth.