Theory Philosophy by One of the most significant individuals Plato
One of the most significant individuals, He is Plato
One of the most significant individuals in both the history of Western thought and the Ancient Greek world is the Athenian philosopher Plato (c. 428–347 B.C.). He explained and elaborated on the concepts and methods of his mentor Socrates in his written dialogues.
According to some sources, he established the first university in history, the Academy, where he also taught his most famous pupil, the philosopher Aristotle. Plato was always fascinated by the contrast between ideal forms and actual forms, and how these differences affected both individuals and society. In his best-known essay, “The Republic,” he envisioned a society run by a philosopher-king who would rule with unadulterated wisdom rather than by petty desires.
Plato: Early Life and Education
Around 428 B.C., in the latter years of Pericles’ Athens’ Golden Age, Plato was born. He came from both sides of the wealthy Athenian family. Plato lost his father Ariston when he was a young boy. Pyrilampes, a politician, was remarried by his mother Perictione. Growing up in the Peloponnesian War (431–404), Plato reached adulthood amid the decisive Spartan loss of Athens and the ensuing political unrest. He received instruction in philosophy, poetry, and gymnastics from eminent Athenians, such as the philosopher Cratylus.
Plato’s Influences
The youthful Plato developed into a committed disciple of Socrates; in fact, he was among the young people who Socrates was found guilty of corrupting. Plato’s early dialogues were inspired by his memories of Socrates’ unrelenting questioning technique and lived philosophy, known as the Socratic method. Historians believe that the dialogues of Plato, together with his “Apologia,” a written chronicle of Socrates’ trial, provide the most authentic portrait of the elder philosopher that is now available.
After Socrates’ forced suicide, Plato traveled for 12 years throughout Sicily, Egypt, and southern Italy, studying under other philosophers. These philosophers included Theodorus of Cyrene, the creator of the Pythagorean spiral (also known as the spiral of Theodorus), Archytas of Tarentum, and Echecrates of Phlius, all of whom were followers of the mystic mathematician Pythagoras. Plato’s interest in mathematics was sparked by his time spent with the Pythagoreans.
Parmenides and Zeno of Elea had a great influence on Plato’s Theory of Forms, which holds that the world as we know it is only a shadow of the real one. The two make appearances as characters in “The Parmenides,” a conversation by Plato.
The Syracuse ruling family, with whom Plato had a lifelong friendship, would eventually turn to him for guidance on changing the political climate in their city.
Platonic Academy
After returning to Athens in 387, the forty-year-old Plato established his philosophical school in the grove of the Greek hero Academus, which was located just outside the city walls. Nine tenths of the pupils at his open-air Academy were from outside of Athens, and he gave lectures to a diverse group of students from all across the Greek world.
Did you know? The section on music in Plato’s “Republic” suggests that in an ideal society flutes would be banned in favor of the more dignified lyre, but on his deathbed Plato reportedly summoned a young girl to play her flute for him, tapping out the rhythm with his finger while he breathed his last.
It appears that Plato’s teachings there served as the inspiration for many of his works, particularly the so-called later dialogues. Plato went against the teachings of Socrates, who never established a school and questioned the mere notion that a teacher could transmit knowledge, by founding the Academy.
At the age of 17, Aristotle traveled from northern Greece to join the Academy, where he spent the final 20 years of Plato’s life as a student and teacher. Plato passed away in Athens, and the Academy grounds are likely where he was interred.
Plato’s Dialogues
Every one of Plato’s extant works, with the exception of a collection of letters of questionable provenance, is written in dialogue, and all but one of them feature the figure of Socrates. His thirty-six dialogues are often categorized as early, middle, and late; nevertheless, style and content, not dates, define their chronological order.
Plato’s early dialogues provide a thorough examination of Socrates’ dialectic approach of dissecting and evaluating concepts and assumptions. In the “Euthpyro,” a religious scholar is forced to acknowledge that he doesn’t know what “piety” is by Socrates’ incessant probing. His students were forced to wrestle with the so-called Platonic forms—the indescribable ideals (truth, beauty, the ideal form of a chair) that serve as standards for judging other things.
Though they are never explicitly endorsed, Plato’s personal opinions and convictions come through in the middle conversations of the Socrates. In the “Symposium,” a collection of drinking-party lectures on the nature of love, Socrates asserts that the ideal course of action for romantic desire is to transform it into cordial truth-seeking—a notion that has been dubbed “Platonic love” by later authors. In the “Meno,” Socrates illustrates how knowledge is more about “recalling” what the soul already knows than it is about learning new things. He compares this to how an uneducated youngster can be guided to find a geometric proof on his own.
The epic “Republic” explores the soul of the individual as well as the nation in parallel. Plato discovers a three-tiered hierarchy in both: one for reason, passion, and desire; another for rulers, auxiliaries, and citizenry. Just as reason ought to be paramount in an individual, so too should wisdom govern a community.
The only people who can recognize the actual essence of things are the wise (ideally, a kind of “philosopher-king”). As Plato’s well-known example puts it, the experiences of the lower levels of the state and the soul are related to genuine knowledge in the same way as shadows on a cave wall are related to, but distinct from, the forms that cast them.
The late conversations of Plato are more like topical studies than true dialogues. The “Timeaus” discusses a geometry-infused cosmology in which the cosmos is composed of perfected three-dimensional shapes, such as cubes, pyramids, and icosahedrons, which are known as the “Platonic solids.” Plato departs from the pure theory of the “Republic” in his final dialogue, “The Laws,” arguing that history, experience, and wisdom may all be used to guide the administration of a perfect state.
Plato Quotes
Several expressions that are still in use today are attributed to Plato. Here are a few of Plato’s most well-known quotations:
“Love is a grave mental illness.”
“The mind talks to itself while it is thinking.”
“Desire, emotion, and knowledge are the three main sources from which human behavior flows.”
“Fools talk because they have to say something; wise men talk because they have something to say.”
“There is a moral law in music.” It gives the universe its spirit, the mind its wings, the imagination its flight, and the charm and joy of life to everything.
“Being ruled by your inferiors is one of the consequences of not getting involved in politics.”
Plato: Legacy and Influence
After Plato’s death, the Academy survived for almost three centuries until being destroyed in 86 B.C. during the Roman general Sulla’s siege of Athens. Aristotle eclipsed Plato in the Christian west, despite Plato being widely read in the Islamic and Byzantine empires.
Scholars such as Petrarch spearheaded a resurgence of Plato’s ideas, particularly his investigations into logic and geometry, during the Renaissance. In the 19th century, the Romantic movement included writers such as Percy Shelly and William Wordsworth, who found philosophical comfort in Plato’s dialogues.