Boethius and the Material World Essay

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It follows that the material search for riches and honor, the desires of the flesh and other aspects that constitute the material world"...lead people astray from what is their true good." (Boethius - the Consolation of Philosophy)

This view is also related to other philosophical questions, such as the difference between good and evil and why evil exits in the world in the first palace. Evil is defined as a lack of reality and therefore the material world is also evil in the sense that it has no true reality. This discussion can be found in Book IV of the Consolation of Philosophy. As one commentator notes:

Philosophy shows how those who are good are strong because everyone seeks the good, and the ability to attain it is evidence of power while the evil are weak because they have not attained it. Those who are called evil are not capable of all, because they have limited themselves by their desire to a partial reality

Boethius - the Consolation of Philosophy)

Therefore, Boethius' vision of the material world is that in comparison to true and transcendental reality it has no real significance and that "...

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. all material goods, whether they be things, pleasures, even one's body, degenerate with time into nothingness. (Transcendent Truths: The Literary Classics of Boethius and Goethe) Philosophy then attempts to show the prisoner (Boethius) the path to truth and enlightenment and emphasizes the fact that the world of materialism is nothing more than chaos and degeneracy. In fact the material world is even seen as a "trap" and one has to transcend this world in order to find truth and reality. (Transcendent Truths: The Literary Classics of Boethius and Goethe)

Therefore, in the final analysis, the critique of the material world that we encounter in the works of Boethius is that material existence is inferior to transcendental reality and should not be mistaken for true reality. All our suffering and woes are a result of this mistaken view......

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