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UID:26@prometheustrust.co.uk
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20240913T174500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20240913T200000
DTSTAMP:20240907T172249Z
URL:https://prometheustrust.co.uk/events/the-phaedo-the-mysteries-of-life-
 and-death-exploring-platonic-philosophy/
SUMMARY:The Phaedo - the Mysteries of Life and Death: exploring Platonic ph
 ilosophy
DESCRIPTION:What is Platonic philosophy? It can be argued that this philoso
 phy has been profoundly misunderstood for many centuries\, and that modern
 ism has sought to reduce the philosophy of the Platonic tradition to a dry
  and logical puzzle with no great insights into the deepest questions of l
 ife and death. Thus the soul – the very point of focus for Plato and the
  men and women who trod the same path as him – has been exiled from her 
 own place of light\, swept away by our mechanistic and materialist culture
 \, like Cinderella to sit among the ashes.\n\nBut Plato embraced not only 
 rational thinking but also mythic and initiatory experiences – so that w
 e are encouraged to treat philosophy as a deep and living practice. He wro
 te\, “a thing of this kind cannot be expressed by words like other disci
 plines\, but by long familiarity\, and living in conjunction with the thin
 g itself\, a light as it were leaping from a fire will on a sudden be enki
 ndled in the soul\, and there itself nourish itself.”\n\nPlatonic philos
 ophy is the West’s deep-rooted counterpart to those of the East where en
 lightenment is sought through intelligent thought\, deep compassion and a 
 life-time of constant aspiration.\n\nWe’ll look at this long-neglected p
 ath\, using one of Plato’s best known dialogues\, the Phaedo\, to expl
 ore these matters – drawing upon the myths of Theseus and the Minotaur\;
  the Orphic mystery cult’s understanding the Dionysus story\; touching o
 n the Platonic tradition’s teachings concerning the immortality of the s
 oul\, her virtues\, and the power of ideas\; and finally coming to rest in
  the culmination of the dialogue’s drama as Socrates drinks the Hemlock\
 , thus embodying Plato’s vision of the hero soul passing serenely acro
 ss the boundaries of life and death.\n\n\nThis event is free but donations
  are encouraged\, circumstances allowing. We'll start the session at 6.15p
 m: tea/coffee and cake will be available just beforehand. No need to book.
 \n\nThese evenings include short talks and/or readings from Platonic writi
 ngs – but we hope they will be genuinely interactive\, with all particip
 ants invited to contribute to our collaborative search for truth. No prev
 ious experience of formal philosophy is required. Every effort is made to 
 make these type of evenings accessible to the newcomer\, while allowing th
 e great profundity of the Platonic tradition to step forward and speak to 
 us at whatever level our present understanding sits.\n\nPlease download he
 re a PDF of the extracts we'll be looking.\n\nThe Trust has run similar ac
 tivities for some 18 years\, and in our experience they allow the most pro
 found questions concerning human life\, the nature of reality\, and our in
 teractions\, to be explored at once both seriously and with good cheer. O
 ur aim is to provide a forum for honest and straight-forward enquiry\, but
  which is unafraid to explore inward-moving paths too often neglected by m
 odern schools of thought.\n\n
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://prometheustrust.co.uk/wp-content/uploads
 /2024/08/The_Death_of_Socrates_MET_DT40.jpg
CATEGORIES:Open session,workshop
LOCATION:Bookshop: Bound and Infinite\, 70 Tib Street\, Manchester\, M4 1LG
 \, United Kingdom
GEO:53.483687;-2.234697
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=70 Tib Street\, Manchester\
 , M4 1LG\, United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Bookshop: Bound and I
 nfinite:geo:53.483687,-2.234697
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