The Practice of Philosophy in Plato and Plotinus: An Exploration

Plato said over 2500 years ago that an unexamined life for a man is not worth living. To examine ones life on a regular basis cannot but lead to a consideration of virtue which in turn leads to a search for the Good which both Plato and Plotinus say all men naturally seek. What we call a good informs the value system we live by but a good can only reflect the Good if it is good for our soul and the soul of our neighbor any more than we can claim virtue with a mote in our eye. Are the wrongs perceived in society also in ourselves for where else could they have come from? So we need a different kind of inquiry and a different order of reflection; an inquiry that reveals errors in how we see things and a reflection that seeks a spiritual dimension to how we see things and it does not matter if it is called contemplation or meditation for the principle of prayer has been with us ever since man first intimated the presence of the Divine.