Ways of the philosopher : what Plato didn't say

Socrates' search is for direction in life, for how one should live. For him, an unexamined life is not worth living. The suggestion in this thesis is that Plato follows Socrates in asking the extremely relevant and practical question that seeks to discover the sort of life worthy of the human individual. For Plato, the answer involves the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, it is, in short, to do philosophy. Socrates regards genuine philosophy as active and dialectical. Plato accepts the challenge of conveying this through the written word. Implicit in his dialogues is the idea that human wisdom is a fusion of the spiritual and the rational. The philosophic life is realised in practice by following the three interdependent ways of the philosopher, these are the ways of dialectics, death and love. These identify the philosophic life with a critically detached, yet passionate attitude to the world. However, this practical teaching is guided and informed by Plato's metaphysics, in particular his idea of the Good. A major task of this thesis is to show how the idea of the Good is relevant to ordinary human conduct.