A Brief Profile of the Great Philosopher, Plato

About

SOCRATES ARISTOTLE PYTHAGORAS

• Politics

Early Writing Days

• Aesthetics

• Cosmology• Epistemology

•PLATONIC LOVEA type of love that is chaste and non-sexual. The term is named after Plato, who was the first to describe this kind of love. Plato and his students.

Reality of Ideas

•PLATONIC IDEALSPlatonic philosophy attempted to capture essence in a different way. Plato thought what we see in the physical world is a dim reflection of the true ideal thing. For example circular objects are crude approximations to the ideal perfect circle.

BASIC INFORMATION• Birthdate: some sources say around 428 BC, others claim 424 BC• Gender: Male• Country: Athens• Education: Philosophy, Poetry, and Gymnastics

He grew up on a chaotic world

An ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.

Plato and Socrates

Plato’s life took a different path, however, when he met the great teacher Socrates and was inspired by his philosophy of the pursuit of knowledge and virtue. It’s ironic, considering that Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens, including Plato.

Plato left Athens

Plato wrote his early Dialogues

He featured Socrates and his teachings. Since Socrates did not write any books of his own, these Dialogues represent one of the few pictures of the legendary philosopher and his style of discourse.

Plato returned to Athens

He founded The Academy around 387 BC. The Academy is thought to be the first Western institution of higher learning. Here, one could attend open-air lectures in astronomy, biology, mathematics, politics, and philosophy

The Fall & Resurrection of the Academy

If these questions lead logically to a contradiction, a new candidate for truth must be adopted.Generations were educated at the Academy until it was destroyed in 86 BC when Athens was conquered by the Romans during the First Mithridatic War. The Academy was revived in the early 5th century by Neoplatonists, who saw themselves as successors to Plato. In 529, Emperor Justinian I of Byzantium closed The Academy once and for all. He saw it as a threat to Christianity.

Plato Amassed 35 Dialogues and 13 Letters

Although the authenticity of some of these works has been called into question. Although he was reluctant to write about himself, several of Plato’s family members appear in these works. Most historians consider this a sign of Plato’s pride in his distinguished family.

The order in which Plato’s works were written is not known for certain, although some rough grouping is traditionally done by historians as follows: The earliest dialogues, including the Apology and Crito, presented the teachings of Socrates. Later dialogues, such as The Republic and The Symposium, introduce Plato’s Theory of Forms and the relationship between the soul, the state, and the cosmos.

• The order in which Plato’s works were written is not known for certain, although some rough grouping is traditionally done by historians as follows: The earliest dialogues, including the Apology and Crito, presented the teachings of Socrates. Later dialogues, such as The Republic and The Symposium, introduce Plato’s Theory of Forms and the relationship between the soul, the state, and the cosmos.• Finally, his most mature works are grouped together

because they are considered stylistically similar. These include The Laws and Timaeus, and address such topics as law, mathematics, and natural science.

His Mature Works

The Theory of Forms

• At the heart of Platonism - In Plato’s view, reality is unavailable to those who completely rely on their senses. He explained that every object that we could see or interact with in our experience of reality was actually just a mimic of a Form (capital F). For instance, we recognize a brick when we see it, even though every brick is a little bit different, because they are all reflections of some essential, true brick that is the real, Ideal brick. Plato argued that these Forms and other abstract ideas were more real than those things we could see and hear and touch. Universals, such as Justice, Beauty, and Equality are not accessible to the senses, but are understood only through reason.

• Plato’s view of the condition of humankind is perhaps best captured in his Allegory of the Cave as written in The Republic. The words of this parable are spoken by Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon, but it is considered to be Plato’s own ideology. Socrates describes to Glaucon a group of prisoners, chained for their entire lives in a cave, shackled in such a way that they can only look in front of them at one of the walls of the cave. Behind them is a fire, burning brightly. In between the fire and the prisoners is a platform, where objects are exhibited. The prisoners cannot see the reality of these objects, only the shadows they cast on the wall of the cave. If we rely solely on our senses, we are like the prisoners in the cave, who cannot sense the reality behind them, only the poor copies of the real world projected before them. The real word of Ideals can only perceived by reason. Hence the vital importance of the Academy.

The Allegory of the Cave

• Plato spent his last years writing and teaching at the Academy. Undoubtedly we cannot know all of what Plato thought, especially since he preferred speaking to writing as a means of transmitting knowledge. • According to the writings of his students, Plato

had a set of Unwritten Doctrines which were taught only orally. Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle, came to study at the Academy in 367 BC and remained there for the next 20 years. He would go on to found his own academy, called the Lyceum, where he would carry on the great tradition of Plato and Socrates. Plato died around 348 BC, and is believed to be buried on the grounds of the Academy.

The Death of Plato

Julius A. Sison