For philosophical psychopomp work: https://premieretat.com/coaching-consulting/ Follow me on Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/fXnF9i6mf5Ig/ You can find a corresponding essay on my blog here: https://premieretat.com/on-the-soul-platos-four-arguments-for-immortality-in-the-phaedo/ In this video, I consider Plato's four arguments for the immortality of the soul set forth in the Phaedo. The Phaedo recounts Socrates' last dialogue before being executed at the hands of the Athenians. As a result, he takes the time to remind cheer his friends and attempt to convince them that there is a life beyond the sensible world. In his day, as in ours, many were dubious that the soul could survive the death of the body, and Socrates addresses this doubt by offering four arguments for the immortality of the soul. The first argument is grounded in the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, the idea that the soul reincarnates after death. Socrates tries to provide a philosophical argument for such a view by noting that, in the world of becoming, things come from their opposites in an unending cycle. And, since life and death are opposites, one should expect life to come again from death. The second argument uses the doctrine of recollection. On this view, all knowledge is really a remembrance of the realm of the forms. But, since this realm is immaterial, we must have previously been immaterial to have been previously acquainted with what resides there. Third, he argues that the soul would be most akin to the invisible realm, and the body to the visible. And, since the invisible world is deathless, we have reason to believe that the soul is also imperishable. Finally, the fourth argument turns on the exclusion relations among forms. In order for something to be what it is, it must rule out its contrary properties. The number three, for example, is necessarily odd, and thus cannot be even. And, Socrates argues, that the soul is defined as what gives life. This entails that life belongs to it essentially, and so it necessarily excludes death. It is thus deathless.

For coaching and consulting: https://premieretat.com/coaching-consulting/ Follow me on Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/fXnF9i6mf5Ig/ You can find a corresponding essay here: https://premieretat.com/the-usurpation-of-the-university/ In this video I discuss the current state of the university and attempt to draw some lessons from Homer's Odyssey. These thoughts were originally formulated several years ago as my own contribution to quit lit, but they remain relevant. In it, I argue that the best way to view the current state of academia is through the concept of usurpation. The values that have previously guided higher education, values such as beauty, truth, goodness, and nobility, have been displaced by business interests. I go on to contend that lessons can be drawn from Homer's Odyssey, if we liken our own plight to that of Telemachus as his patrimony is wasted away by brazen suitors. The images used in this video are in the public domain and memes were made on imgflip.

In this video, I explore the philosophy of Thales, a philosopher whom many believe to have inaugurated the Western philosophical tradition. Most contemporary accounts of Thales portray him as cutting ties to Greece's mythological past and instead adopting a thoroughly naturalistic and empirical approach to reality, an approach that is said to characterize the whole of Western philosophy. In this video, I contend that this naturalistic picture of Thales is misguided and substantially outstrips our available historical evidence. First, I show how this interpretation requires a naïve appropriation of Aristotle's assertions concerning Thales. When we look at Aristotle's account in context, we can see that he isn't so much trying to articulate an objective historical account of previous philosophers as he is trying to set forth a whigish history of philosophy that culminates in his own metaphysics. Second, I demonstrate that contemporary interpreters also ignore Aristotle's observations that Thales account parallels the mythological accounts of Homer and Hesiod. Third, I show that the contemporary view ignores the animistic implications of Thales claim that "all things are full of gods" and I argue against a Spinozistic interpretation of Thales' assertion. Fourth, I show that even the standard anecdotal stories about Thales life are more ambiguous than the naturalistic interpretation would have us believe. And finally, I argue that Goethe offers a better myth of Thales than the current naturalistic myth by examining the Classical Walpurgis Night scene in Faust Part 2. A corresponding essay can be found here: https://premieretat.com/beyond-naturalism-demythologizing-thales/ The images used in this video are in the public domain.

For coaching, consulting, and noematic psychopomp work: http://premieretat.com/coaching-consulting/ A corresponding essay can be found here: http://premieretat.com/platos-republic-book-viii-on-the-fall-of-civilizations/ In this video I turn to Book 8 of the Republic to explain Plato’s account of civilizational decline. Plato believes that all that comes to be in time must also perish, and the ideal city is no exception. He believes that philosophical aristocracy (rule by the best) inevitably falls to timocracy (rule by military honor), timocracy to oligarchy (rule by the wealthy), oligarchy to democracy (rule by the mob), and democracy to tyranny (rule by a tyrant). The fall of the ideal city has more of a mythological character to it. Plat claims that it declines because even the best of human sages will fail to correlate the human reproductive cycle with the ideal electional times established by Pythagorean numerology. As a result, baser natures are born who neglect philosophy. Timocracy results as a compromise position between those who want to retain the traditions of the city, with those who would use it to gain wealth for themselves. Yet the subsequent stages of degeneracy unfold with logical consistency. Plato argues that the dialectic is generated by the logic of each city’s false conception of the good. As a result, each lesser city has the seeds of its own destruction within itself. Plato’s dialectical account should not be confused with modern account such as Hegel’s which see progress in the unfolding of history. For Plato did not see this dialectic as a steady march of freedom, but as the inevitable decline into tyranny that results once man turns his gaze from heaven. The images used in this video are either in the public domain, under a creative commons license, or were screenshots and were otherwise created by me. Images can be found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/xJY-7gtC38o?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RWS_Tarot_16_Tower.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gottlieb_Schick_Achille_and_Agamemnon_1801.jpg Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/SZl4UAnkztY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink Photo by Layton Findlater from Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-wearing-yellow-pink-and-purple-hair-witg-1165854/ https://www.pexels.com/photo/honeycomb-insect-bees-honey-53444/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Confusion_of_Tongues.png Photo by Lukas Hartmann from Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-white-wolf-in-the-forest-1261736/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WTC_smoking_on_9-11.jpeg is under a creative commons license and was created by Michael Foran. https://unsplash.com/photos/BtU2LKWjAsA Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/jbHLLCgWs3M Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-s-face-covered-with-bloody-hands-2902966/ Photo by lilartsy from Pexels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RWS_Tarot_21_World.jpg https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-honey-comb-4111270/ Photo by Archana GS from Pexels Photo by Johann Piber from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/macro-shot-photography-of-black-and-yellow-bees-702935/ Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/unrecognizable-local-workers-harvesting-tea-leaves-in-field-4544167/ Photo by Wilson Vitorino from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-wearing-costume-3230473/ Photo by Jason Hafso on Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/Mwkd5QQ9b3k Photo by Rosemary Ketchum from Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-holding-flags-and-posters-while-standing-in-front-of-building-1464216/