Plato

In Robin Waterfield’s translation of The Republic,Socrates attempts to give a definition of justice. At the end of Book II he began a detailed description of the construction of a good city. The good city is a relation to the human soul, and its four virtues. In the following paper I will discuss the virtues, what they are and where they are found. Also discussed will be the foundation, arrangement, and the interconnectedness with each one. Next discussed would be the 3 “H’s” and the understanding Aristotle has on the role of happiness in the moral life.

Lastly, I will discuss the experience that I ad that related to Leonitus. The four virtues used by Plato are prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. Plato relates the virtues to a community, which is made up of the rulers, army, and workers. Now the base line is the workers, and they do not try to blend with the army as the army doesn’t blend with the rulers. When all of these do their own job, the community becomes one. The first virtue to be discussed is prudence.

Prudence, also known as wisdom, is found in the rulers. The people who have it are those rulers” (428d) In order to have wisdom one must be resourceful, in which he/she has btained knowledge. Plato says, ” resourcefulness is obviously a kind of knowledge it’s not ignorance which makes people resourceful; it’s knowledge. ” (428b) The second virtue is courage, which is found in the military section of the community. Courage is not the virtue of standing in front of a tank and say it will not hurt me, that is stupidity. Courage is the ability to apply what you have been taught: what is to be feared and what is not to be feared.

Plato relates retention to courage, “I’m saying courage is a sort of retentionthe retention of notion. ” (429c) The ability for one to retain what one has learned s courage. “Ability to retain under all circumstances a true and lawful notion about what is feared and what is not to be feared is what I’m calling courage. ” (430b) The next virtue temperance, is found in the workers of Plato’s community. Temperance, also known as self-discipline, is needed by the workers, so that they do not desire to be in the ruler’s position.

It is seen that each position has its own importance in the community, and for the community to function correctly each one must agree on their position in life. Plato relates, ” in this community the rulers and their subjects agree on ho the rulers should be. ” (431e) Temperance is also used to control the desire to go against one’s free-will. Plato says, “To be self-disciplined is somehow to order and control the pleasures and desires. ” (430e) The last virtue to be discussed is Justice otherwise known as morality. Justice is found when all of the three work together, and no crimes are committed.

If one breaks pattern then the community becomes immoral, or if one becomes out of place then it is immoral. “when each of the three classes perform its own function and does its own job in the community, then this is morality” (434c) Now I will discuss the human soul, containing three parts. The human soul is a larger version of Plato’s community, therefore each of the virtues relate to the human soul. The first part is reason, which is the capacity to think rationally. Next is passion, which is the fighting for what is right, and the two together work as allies. the rational part is wise and looks out for the whole of the mind, isn’t it right for it to rule, and for the passionate part to be its subordinate and its ally. ” (441e)

As passion and reason work together, passion is found in the military. The last part is esire, which can be found in temperance, and is closely related to passion. Desire is the temptation to do what is wrong, but self-discipline corrects it. “desirous part, which is the major constituent of an individual’s mind and is naturally insatiably greedy for things. (442a) Justice is again found in all three parts of the soul, because when they all work together justly, the are successful.

The virtues are arranged in a hierarchical pyramid, in which the rulers are found at the top. The top resembles the highest position, in which the rulers are in charge of the community. The next position is the military, hich takes orders from the rulers and sends orders to the workers, which are last on the pyramid. The only virtue that cannot be placed in the pyramid is justice. Justice is found in all three of the virtues, therefore it reigns in all of them.

The way that the virtues are arranged makes it impossible for any of them to mix, be missing, or trade places. One must have all four virtues to be completely moral. Each virtue is directly related to each other in an indirect way. “The rational part will do the planning, and the passionate part the fighting. The passionate part will obey the ruling part and mploy its courage to carry out the plans. ” (442b) The three “H’s” which underlie each virtue are Head, Habitual, and Happiness. In the Head the person must contain the rational ability to know what he/she is doing.

In the Habitual, the person does something all the time aimed toward the good. In Happiness, the person must simply be happy at what they are doing. When the three “H’s” are obtained one is considered moral, or just, and also has underlied all of the virtues. Aristotle thinks that our aim in life is to live a moral life, and be happy doing it. All human actions are aimed toward the good, and to be real is o fulfill one’s goal. The story I will use for my reflection on Leonitus’ experience, began in my freshman year of high school.

There was a person in my freshmen class, that came across as the class nerd. He assumed a nickname of “Pottsy”, close to his last name. Pottsy began to run cross-country in his junior year to win an award his senior year. My senior year of cross-country was the best year of my life. I was the captain of the team, and was able to meet many different people from around the state and country. I was looked upon by all of my peers, and coaches treated me with the highest respect. Everyone was angry with him for oining, when all he wanted to do was be a part of something.

He wanted to be a part of the closest sport in high school. The sixty of us refused to let him in, and chided him all the way through the season. Being a captain I had to assume the right and not the wrong. At the beginning of the year I followed my rationality, but towards the end, my self-discipline gave in to pressure. I called him names, started more amusement, and lowered myself to a different level. This level went from ruler to worker, and made him the military. My triangle became shapeless, and the virtues that failed me were courage, and temperance.

This is because I lacked the courage to stand up for him, and I lost temperance for doing what is right. My temperance was reshaped, and my courage was rebuilt, when the coach lost respect in me. After attending a retreat, I remembered what I had done, and wrote him a letter of apology. I was utterly disgusted with myself, but I feel that you learn from experiences, and now my triangle has been reshaped. In conclusion, I enjoyed discussing the main elements of Plato’s Republic, the virtues. I have recaptured many events that have occurred in my life, and plan to live closer to the triangle.

Plato (circa 428-c. 347 BC), Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential thinkers in Western philosophy. Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens. When Plato was a child, his father died, and his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an associate of the statesman Pericles As a young man Plato had political ambitions, but he became disillusioned by the political leadership in Athens.

Plato witnessed the death of Socrates at the hands of the Athenian democracy in 399 BC. In 387 Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the institution often described as the first European university. Aristotle was the Academy’s most prominent student. Pursuing an opportunity to combine philosophy and practical politics, Plato went to Sicily in 367 to tutor the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, in the art of philosophical rule. Works

Plato’s writings were in dialogue form; philosophical ideas were advanced, discussed, and criticized in the context of a conversation or debate involving two or more persons. The earliest collection of Plato’s work includes 35 dialogues and 13 letters. The earliest represent Plato’s attempt to communicate the philosophy and dialectical style of Socrates. Several of these dialogues take the same form. Middle and Late Dialogues The dialogues of the middle and later periods of Plato’s life reflect his own philosophical development.

The writings of the middle period include Gorgias (a consideration of several ethical questions), Meno (a discussion of the nature of knowledge), the Apology (Socrates’ defense of himself at his trial against the charges of atheism and corrupting Athenian youth), Crito (Socrates’ defense obedience to the laws of the state), Phaedo (the death scene of Socrates, in which he discusses the theory of Forms, the nature of the soul, and the question of immortality), the Symposium (Plato’s outstanding dramatic achievement, which contains several speeches on beauty and love), the Republic (Plato’s supreme philosophical achievement, which is a detailed discussion of the nature of justice). The works of the later period include the Theaetetus (a denial that knowledge is to be identified with sense perception), Parmenides (a critical evaluation of the theory of Forms), Sophist (further consideration of the theory of Ideas, or Forms), Philebus (a discussion of the relationship between pleasure and the good), Timaeus (Plato’s views on natural science and cosmology), and the Laws (a more practical analysis of political and social issues). At the heart of Plato’s philosophy is his theory of Forms, or Ideas.

Ultimately, his view of knowledge, his ethical theory, his psychology, his concept of the state, and his perspective on art must be understood in terms of this theory. Plato’s theory of Forms and his theory of knowledge are so interrelated that they must be discussed together. Influenced by Socrates, Plato was convinced that knowledge is attainable. First, knowledge must be certain and infallible. One consequence of this view was Plato’s rejection of empiricism, the claim that knowledge is derived from sense experience. Furthermore, the objects of sense experience are changeable phenomena of the physical world. Hence, objects of sense experience are not proper objects of knowledge.

Plato’s own theory of knowledge is found in the Republic, particularly in his discussion of the image of the divided line and the myth of the cave. In the former, Plato distinguishes between two levels of awareness: opinion and knowledge. Claims or assertions about the physical or visible world, including both commonsense observations and the propositions of science, are opinions only. The higher level of awareness is knowledge, because there reason, rather than sense experience, is involved. The myth of the cave describes individuals chained deep within the recesses of a cave. The shadowy environment of the cave symbolizes for Plato the physical world of appearances.

Escape into the sun-filled setting outside the cave symbolizes the transition to the real world, the world of full and perfect being, the world of Forms, which is the proper object of knowledge. The theory of Forms may best be understood in terms of mathematical entities. For Plato, therefore, the Form “circularity” exists, but not in the physical world of space and time. It exists as a changeless object in the world of Forms or Ideas, which can be known only by reason. Forms have greater reality than objects in the physical world both because of their perfection and stability and because they are models, resemblance to which gives ordinary physical objects whatever reality they have. Circularity, squareness, and triangularity are excellent examples, then, of what Plato meant by Forms.

An object existing in the physical world may be called a circle or a square or a triangle only to the extent that it resembles (“participates in” is Plato’s phrase) the Form “circularity” or “squareness” or “triangularity. ” Plato extended his theory beyond the realm of mathematics. An object is beautiful to the extent that it participates in the Idea, or Form, of beauty. Everything in the world of space and time is what it is by virtue of its resemblance to, or participation in, its universal Form. The ability to define the universal term is evidence that one has grasped the Form to which that universal refers. Plato conceived the Forms as arranged hierarchically; the supreme Form is the Form of the Good, which, like the sun in the myth of the cave, illuminates all the other Ideas.

In philosophical language, Plato’s theory of Forms is both an epistemological (theory of knowledge) and an ontological (theory of being) thesis. The Republic, Plato’s major political work, is concerned with the question of justice and therefore with the questions “what is a just state” and “who is a just individual? ” The ideal state, according to Plato, is composed of three classes. The economic structure of the state is maintained by the merchant class. Security needs are met by the military class, and political leadership is provided by the philosopher-kings. Plato associates the traditional Greek virtues with the class structure of the ideal state.

Temperance is the unique virtue of the artisan class; courage is the virtue peculiar to the military class; and wisdom characterizes the rulers. Justice, the fourth virtue, characterizes society as a whole. Plato divides the human soul into three parts: the rational part, the will, and the appetites. Ethics Plato’s ethical theory rests on the assumption that virtue is knowledge and can be taught, which has to be understood in terms of his theory of Forms. As indicated previously, the ultimate Form for Plato is the Form of the Good, and knowledge of this Form is the source of guidance in moral decision making. Art Again, his approach is related to his theory of Forms. The physical flower is one step removed from reality, that is, the Forms.

This also meant that the artist is two steps removed from knowledge, and, indeed, Plato’s frequent criticism of the artists is that they lack genuine knowledge of what they are doing. Artistic creation, Plato observed, seems to be rooted in a kind of inspired madness. Plato’s influence throughout the history of philosophy has been monumental. Plato’s impact on Jewish thought is apparent in the work of the 1st-century Alexandrian philosopher Philo Judaeus. Under the leadership of Marsilio Ficino, members of the Academy studied Plato in the original Greek. Plato’s influence has been extended into the 20th century by such thinkers as Alfred North Whitehead, who once paid him tribute by describing the history of philosophy as simply “a series of footnotes to Plato. “

One of the most interesting and influential thinkers of all time was Socrates, whose dedication to careful reasoning helped form the basis for philosophy. Socrates applied logical tricks in the pursuit for the truth. Consequently, his willingness to call everything into question and his determination to accept nothing less than an adequate account of the nature of things made him one of the first people to utilize critical philosophy.

Although he was well known for his philosophical ways of thinking, Socrates never wrote anything down, so we re dependant on his students, like Plato, for any detailed knowledge of his methods or ways of thinking. One of the early dialogues in which Plato had written was Euthyphro. The Euthyphro dialogue begins with Socrates becoming involved in a touchy conversation with an over confident young man, Euthyphro. Socrates finds Euthyphro perfectly certain of his own ethical morality even in the situation of prosecuting his own father in court.

Socrates asks him to define what piety, or moral duty really is. He asks for something more than just ists of what pious actions are. Euthyphro is supposed to provide a general definition that captures the very basic nature of what piety is. Euthyphro claims that he knows what it is to be pious, but every answer he offers is subjected to the full force of Socrates’ critical thinking. Socrates systematically refutes Euthyphro’s suggestion that what makes right actions right is that the gods love, or approve of them.

First, there is the problem that since questions of right and wrong often create endless disputes, the gods re likely to disagree among themselves about moral matters just as often as we do, making some actions both right and wrong. Socrates lets Euthyphro off the hook on this one by agreeing with him, but only for purposes of continuing the discussion. More importantly, Socrates instigates a formal problem for Euthyphro from a deceivingly simple question, “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? Neither choice can do the justice for which Euthyphro intends his definition of piety.

If right actions are pious only because the gods love them, then moral rightness is completely optional, depending only on the impulses of the gods. But if the gods love right actions only because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine source of values, which we might come to know separately from their love. Plato’s final answer to the question of what makes a pious act pious is to say that there is a form, piety itself, by virtue of which a pious act is pious.

Speech was omnipotent to Gorgias. As a result, he spent all his time instructing exclusively in the art of Rhetoric. He claimed not to teach virtue, arete, because virtue is different for everyone. For example, political, excellence, and moral virtues differ from person to person. The focus of Gorgias is rhetoric. Plato’s views eventually work their way to the surface though his representation of characters in the dialogues. Some of the rhetorical views Plato presents in Gorgias, are the roles flattery plays in persuasion, the relationship between knowledge and truth, and a just use of rhetoric.

Gorgias taught a technique called karios, recognizing and acting at the opportune time. It involves having the right words to say at the right time and waiting for the best moment in time to make a statement or ask a leading question. In order to be a master of karios, one has to know what to say, what they are not allowed to say, and then decide between side stepping an issue and countering it. Realizing the moral fiber of the argument, in reference to the situation, is a key to having fine timing. Gorgias makes his rhetoric seem poetic by means of literary elements like antithesis and karios.

However, Socrates had a different view about rhetoric and its artistic qualities. According to Socrates, “rhetoric seems not to be an artistic pursuit at all, but that of a shrewd, courageous spirit which is naturally clever at dealing with men; and I call the chief part of it flattery” (23). Socrates sees through the artful poetry and views rhetoric as flattery. I agree that rhetoric is “smooth talk”, but it performs its purpose well. One of its purposes is persuasiveness. Using flattery can be a helpful tool for persuading.

Protagoras would probably counter Socrates’ argument by reminding him that although flattery is part of rhetoric, it is also a subject worth studying because of the need for public speaking. One must also be able to recognize an attempt to flatter and be able to counter it with the right response. Protagoras would counter Plato’s claim by emphasizing the need to study areas of rhetoric for survival in a community that is litigious, like Athens. One of the complaints Plato had with rhetoric is that a good rhetorician can persuade anything without having knowledge of the subject.

Near the beginning of the discourse, he talks about a physician that cannot convince his patient to take the medicine needed to restore the patients’ health. When the rhetorician is present, the patient is convinced. The rhetorician has limited medical understanding compared to the physician, but using skill of rhetoric, they able to assume qualifications to give advice. When Gorgias boasts that he can obtain patient obedience better than the physician, he is also saying that what he knows is more important than the knowledge of medicine.

In summary, the ability to persuade becomes more significant. Using this story, Plato manipulates that rhetoric creates belief without knowledge. Plato argues that for something to be “knowledge” it must be definite and factual. When Socrates is discussing this with Polus, he explains by saying, “truth, you see, can never be refuted” (37). I agree with the previous. Anyone can acquire information, but that is different from possessing understanding. Knowledge comes from truth. Beliefs are opinions and there fore created.

What shocks me is the potential for evil and injustice by creating false beliefs. If an excellent rhetorician can persuade someone to act certain way, without themselves having much knowledge in the area, the only thing keeping the rhetorician from persuading people through trickery are the virtues of the rhetorician. However, the Sophist Protagoras would completely disagree because one cannot know anything to be certain and true because truth is relative. Truth can be disguised because not all options are presented.

Using the apagogic method, one presents the feasible alternatives. This allows the audience to choose. Yet again, the advantage and power is on the rhetorician’s side in this case because they can choose to withhold possible alternatives to help guide or distract the audience. As a result, the rhetorician can use rhetoric unjustly to persuade and audience. Rhetoric, when used unjustly, exceeds its purpose as a virtuous art. According to Socrates, rhetoric is not an art, but a fake that deceives and misleads. “Rhetoric is justice what cookery is to medicine” (26).

In this statement, Socrates defines rhetoric as a false impression of justice and discusses what he believes are false arts, such as cookery and beatification. From his perspective, each of these flawed pursuits chases a more creditable counter part, such as medicine or gymnastics. The key distinction between the true and the false arts is that the false arts deceptively target the pleasant and create a false impression of value. Cooking tasty food is pleasant to eat, but will not cure any disease like genuine medicine will.

Just as the false routine of cookery is to the true art of medicine, rhetoric produces a vacant image of something more wholesome and real. I think that the invention of rhetoric and the influence to warp a belief that is available to the rhetorician that Plato dislikes about rhetoric. In an earlier discussion, Socrates states that, “The rhetorician, then is not a teacherbut merely a creator of beliefs” (14). Protagoras would deny his claim. He did not want to mislead, and is very notable for his desire to improve civil standards indirectly by influencing the education that significant leaders received.

He wanted to give men the education they needed to be successful contributors to civil life. Protagoras would probably argue against the way it is presented by Socrates’ biased views of rhetoric as something evil that is corrupted and abused. On the other hand, toward the end of the book Socrates gives a final address and he is says that there was another art that was overlooked. This art combines medicine and gymnastics. Socrates says, “This is the reason whythe art of medicine and gymnastic is by right their master” (96).

By now, his overall tone of rhetoric has changed and Socrates starts adapting rhetorical techniques that he disagreed with in the beginning discussions. Using rhetorical techniques, he begins to lead the conversation. His use of rhetoric become obvious at the end when Callicles says, “I don’t know how it is, Socrates, that you always manage to twist the argument around until it’s upside down! ” (87). Socrates now stars to manipulate the conversation by using rhetorical language. Callicles had good reason to question Socrates’ strategies.

Throughout the whole discussion Callicles was being pushed around by Socrates. Protagoras might say that Callicles is responding weak and irresponsible in his arguments. Plato’s Gorgias, is an interesting conversation that tackles thoughts and questions about rhetoric. Plato’s views of rhetoric are revealed through the role that flattery plays in persuasion, knowledge and truth, and the just use of rhetoric. As I read, I thought about how I would answer the questions that were presented. I realized that Plato’s claims of rhetoric are cloaked within the dialogue of the characters.

Plato was born around the year 428 BCE into an established Athenian household with a history of political connections — including distant relations to both Solon and Pisistratus. Plato’s parents were Ariston and Perictone, his older brothers were Adeimantus and Glaucon, and his younger sister was Potone. In keeping with his family heritage, Plato was destined for the political life. But the Peloponnesian War, which began a couple of years before he was born and continued until well after he was twenty, led to the decline of the Athenian Empire.

The war was followed by religious movement that led to the execution of Plato’s mentor, Socrates. Together these events forever altered the course of Plato’s life. Plato studied in many forms of poetry as a young man, only later turning to philosophy. Aristotle tells us that sometime during Plato’s youth the philosopher-to-be became acquainted with the doctrines of Cratylus, a student of Heraclitus, who, along with other Presocratic thinkers such as Pythagoras and Parmenides, provided Plato with the basis of his teachings.

Upon meeting Socrates, however, Plato directed his thoughts toward the question of virtue. The formation of a noble character was to be before all else. Indeed, it is a mark of Plato’s brilliance that he was to find in metaphysics and epistemology a host of moral and political implications. How we think and what we take to be real have an important role in how we act. Thus, Plato came to believe that a philosophical approach toward life would lead one to being just and, ultimately, happy.

It is difficult to determine the precise chain of events that led Plato to the intricate web of beliefs that unify metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics into a single inquiry. We can be certain, however, that the establishment of a government by Sparta (after the chaos of Athens’ final defeat in 404), and the events that followed, dramatically affected the direction of his thinking. Two of Plato’s relatives, Critias (his mother’s uncle) and Charmides (his mother’s brother) played roles in politics.

Critias was identified as one of the more extreme members and chief advocate of the government, while Charmides played a smaller role as one of the Eleven, a customs/police force which oversaw the Piraeus. The government made a practice of confiscating the estates of wealthy Athenians and resident aliens and of putting many individuals to death. In an effort to implicate Socrates in their actions, the government ordered him to arrest Leon of Salamis. Socrates, however, resisted and was spared punishment only because a civil war eventually replaced the corrupt government with a new and most radical democracy.

A general amnesty, the first in history, was issued absolving those who participated in the reign of terror and other crimes committed during the war. But because many of Socrates’ associates were involved with the corrupt government, public sentiment had turned against him, and he now had the reputation of being anti-democratic. In what appears to be a matter of guilt-by-association, a general prejudice was ultimately responsible for bringing Socrates to trial in 399 on the charges of corrupting the youth, introducing new gods into the city, atheism, and engaging in unusual religious practices.

During his trial, which is documented in Plato’s Apology, Socrates explained that he had no interest to engage in politics, because a certain divine sign told him that he was to foster a just and noble lifestyle within the young men of Athens. This he did in casual conversations with whomever he happened to meet on the streets. When Socrates told the court that if set free, he would not stop this practice, claiming that he must follow the voice of his god over the dictates of the state, the court found him guilty (though by a narrow margin), and he was executed one month later.

This final sequence of events must have weighed heavily on Plato, who then turned away from politics, somewhat jaded by the unjust behavior of the government, disappointed by the acts of the democracy, and forever affected by the execution of Socrates. Whether or not Plato began to write philosophical dialogues prior to Socrates’ execution is a matter of debate. But most scholars agree that shortly after 399 Plato began to write more frequently. Although the order in which his dialogues were written is a matter of debate. This divides Plato’s writings into three broad groups.

The first group, generally known as the “Socratic” dialogues, was probably written between the years 399 and 387. These texts are called “Socratic” because here Plato appears to remain relatively close to what the historical Socrates thought and taught. One of these, the Apology, was probably written shortly after the death of Socrates. The Crito, Laches, Lysis, Charmides, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor and Major, Protagoras, Gorgias and Ion, were probably written throughout this twelve year period as well, some of them, like the Protagoras and Gorgias, most likely at its end.

Plato was forty the first time he visited Italy. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Athens and founded the Academy, located nearly a mile outside the city walls and named after the hero Academus. The Academy included a nice grove of trees, gardens, a gymnasium and many shrines — including one dedicated to Athena herself, the goddess of the city. Plato created his own cult association, setting aside a portion of the Academy for his purposes and dedicating his cult to the Muses.

Soon this ‘school’ became rather well-known on account of its common meals and easy lifestyle, modified, of course, to suit a new agenda. Indeed, Plato’s Academy was famed for its moderate eating and talk as well as all the appropriate sacrifices and religious observences. Overshadowing all of that was its philosophical activity. It seems that over the next twenty six years Plato’s philosophical speculation became more profound and his dramatic talents more refined. During this period Plato could have written the Meno, Euthydemus, Menexenus, Cratylus, Republic, Phaedrus, Symposium and Phaedo.

These texts differ from the earlier in that they tend toward the grand speculation that provides us with many hallmarks of Platonism, such as the method of hypothesis, the recollection theory and, of course, the theory of ideas, or forms, as they are sometimes called. We know little of the remaining thirteen years in Plato’s life. Probably sick of his wanderings and misfortunes in Sicily, Plato returned to the philosophical life of the Academy and, most likely, lived out his days conversing and writing.

During this period, Plato could have written the so-called “later” dialogues, the Parmenides, Theatetus, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Critias, Philebus and Laws, in which Socrates plays a relatively minor role. Plato died in 347, leaving the Academy to Speusippus, his sister’s son. The Academy served as the model for institutions of higher learning until it was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, almost one thousand years later. The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist.

The institutions of the state are more clearly laid out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other dialogue of Plato has the same view and the same style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old. Nowhere in Plato is there more use of imagery, or dramatic power. None of his works connect politics with philosophy as well as The Republic. The Republic is the center around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point to which ancient thinkers had attained.

Plato was the first who conceived a method of knowledge. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The Republic is the third part of a still larger work which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur.

This mythical tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood in the same relation to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for freedom, intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned, maybe because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years hindered the completion of it. In this section of the paper I will discuss the relation of certain texts of Plato’s writing, The Republic, to Christian teachings.

Plato believed the individual possessed three virtues: wisdom, courage, and justice. Also, if each man did their own work they would have no problem being just. A temperate man is a man at harmony that rules with reason. Plato asks the question,” Is justice to an individual the same as justice to the state? If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? “* This passage makes a small reference to the commandment, thou shall not steal.

This next passage makes a reference to three of our commandments. “A just man will never be guilty of sacrilege, theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country. No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonor his father and mother, or fail to follow religious duties. ” This reference to the commandments proves that our beliefs that are held by many people, even in the old world. Justice is an important virtue, it is needed to run yourself and a country properly, Plato believed this also. It is no secret to any person that being just is a proper way to live your life.

Many of the passages in The Republic discribe justice as an important virtue, justice is one of the virtues that Catholics are called to follow, too. Plato describes justice as being concerned with the inward man and not the outward, we must not let the appearance of a person block our judgement of right and wrong. A person cannot let their feelings for a person or object hinder their judgement either. It isn’t just a Catholic belief that we should look to the inside to judge a person’s character, humans are taught that from their parents early on in life.

A just man sets in order his own life, and is his own master and his own law. ” I agree with Plato on this point because before you can believe in anything you have to believe in yourself. Plato describes injustice as: ” strife which rises up against the three principles, it is like a rising up of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince. ” Another teaching is that the soul cannot be satisfied with the material goods of the world, but it needs just acts to feel “whole” or complete.

This is also something the church teaches, nothing can take the place of God in your life, you won’t feel whole unless you fill the void in your soul with faith and not the material things. According to Plato, justice is the beauty and well being of the soul and vice the disease and weakness of the soul, this is very similar to the teaching that sin is tainted on the soul, something like a virus or a smudge on a mirror. If we act justly we can strengthen our soul to ward off temptation.

Plato’s Symposium provides us with many different views and theories about love. This drunken discussion of Eros presents ideas which have not lost their relevance in the millennia since. Many things have changed and there have been a lot of different views on almost every subject known to man, but the thoughts voiced in the Symposium still hold truth today. However being what it was, and that is many different peoples thoughts on the subjectof Eros, there is a wide variety of theories to choose from. Which of these speculations strikes a chord of truth in one’s soul?

Diotima speaks through Socrates (who is speaking hrough Plato) when she gives her version of where love came from. She says that Love is the child of Resource and Poverty, conceived on the day that Aphrodite was born. Poverty had come to the feast to beg and found Resource drunk and passed out. Poverty saw an opportunity to gain more resources, so she slept with him and became pregnant with Love. Love is a follower of Aphrodite because He was conceived at the party following her birth, and because “He is naturally a lover of beauty and Aphrodite is beautiful”(Gill, 203c) Because of who His mother is Love is always poor and homeless.

He is quite tough from sleeping n the ground or in doorways and from wearing no shoes. Because of who His mother is, He is always in need, but because of who His father is He is constantly scheming to get good and beautiful things. He’s clever, and skilled in hunting, magic and acquiring knowledge. Neither immortal nor mortal, Love can spring to life in a day and then die before that day is over. He can come back to life again like his father Resource, but cannot hold onto the resources he has.

Being between mortality and immortality, Diotima calls Love “a great spirit”(Gill,202e). These great spirits are sort of go-betweens for the Gods nd Humanity. They convey prayers and sacrifices from us to the Gods, and commands and gifts from the Gods to us. Because of them the universe is all interconnected and whole. The Gods never communicate directly to Humans, but always use these spirits to convey their commands. These are what priests, prophets and oracles speak to. Love is also between wisdom and ignorance, since neither the gods nor the ignorant love wisdom.

The Gods already have it so the do not desire it, therefore love has no part in it. The ignorant don’t love wisdom or want it, because they are satisfied with themselves. Since they do not think they need wisdom, they do not desire or love it. Therefore Love lies between wisdom and ignorance. In fact the only ones who love wisdom are those between wisdom and ignorance, such as Love himself. Wisdom is beautiful, and Love is a lover of beauty, ergo Love is a lover of wisdom. Since Love is for things that Love does not yet have, this too proves that He is not wise.

Yet it would not do to call the great spirit Love completely ignorant, so we again see that he falls between the two. The reason for this is his parents: “His father is wise and resourceful while his other has neither quality”(Gill,204c). Diotima tells Socrates (and Socrates tells the Symposium) that Love is also between beautiful and ugly, since love must be of something that it does not have and Love is of beauty. Therefore Love cannot have beauty. But one cannot call Love ugly, so He ends up between these two as well.

Similarly Love is not good because love must be of good. But one could hardly call love bad, and so again He falls between the two. I think that this is definitely a plausible account of love. People like to think of love as being this sweet and wonderful thing, when really it can be quite ough and demanding. However you can’t say that it is a horrible and ugly thing (unless you have recently been burned by it, and even then the sentiment fades with time). Love falls between wondrous sweetness and the heart-wrenchingly bitter.

When we love something it is often something we cannot obtain, and once we have it in our possession we tend to fall out of love with it. From people to objects, Humans seem interested only in what they do not have at the time. We are constantly seeking that which is beautiful and good and that which we do not have. If we do get our hands on what we have been eeking after, and do not fall out of love with it immediately, we seek to hold on to it forever. Since nothing is permanent this is just another thing we cannot have and therefore want to love.

I loved the idea of Poverty and Resource being a God and Goddess. The whole Greek way of thinking about Gods and Goddesses sits well with me because I believe that we create them with our emotions and needs. Because of this it makes sense that the Gods and Goddesses would be fallible, and have many of the same quirks and problems that Humans have. In fact it makes sense that these same quirks and troubles ould be amplified, seeing how these creatures are so much more powerful than we. The idea of a Goddess coming to a feast to beg is an interesting one.

She is the representative of the impoverished who often come to the gates of houses in which feasts are being held to beg for food. But being a Goddess, would she even need food, and why could she not come by it herself? It is as if her very being is made up of necessity that cannot be come by, even to a Goddess. It is almost a humorous play on words that “Poverty formed a plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by Resource”(Gill,203c). Why didn’t anyone think of that before?? One would think that Resource would be quite popular indeed!

However her plan didn’t seem to work so well. Though we do not hear much about her after this point in the story, it does not seem that having a child like Love would help her situation very much: he is as homeless and shoeless as she. There were a few points I thought were weak. The Olympian Gods were definitely fallible, and did many things that seemed to mess things up for themselves and for the Human race. Often lecherous and greedy, these were definitely not the perfect infinite God of so many eligions today.

This is one of the things I like the most about them, but part of Diotima’s arguments were based on not calling the Gods bad, ugly, nor anything too negative. This could have been out of fearful respect, but if one wishes to have a meaningful philosophical conversation, one should not *censored*-foot around anything. Socrates seemed all too willing to agree that the Gods could not possibly be anything but beautiful and good. Another weakness in the argument is that Socrates accepts that Love cannot be ugly and bad because he wouldn’t “dare to suggest that any of the gods is not eautiful and happy”(Gill,202c).

But right after that it is decided that Love is not a God because a God must be beautiful and happy. It was already established that Love is not beautiful and happy because He wants things of beauty and goodness (which would bring Him happiness). So why can’t He be ugly and unhappy? He may be a great spirit, but no where is it written that great spirits have to be beautiful and happy. This myth about love is somewhat unusual. I have not seen one quite like it anywhere else, in other Greek mythology or any other religious or cultural mythology. It accurately sums up the qualities nd traits of love.

It discusses the pleasant side of love, as well as the side that can be unlikable. It provides us with an origin that makes some logical sense and which provides explanations for all of loves traits. I think that of all of the myths about love that I have read I like this one the best. It holds on to its relevancy even after more than two thousand years. The feelings and thoughts expressed in this story (and in much of the rest of the Symposium for that matter) act as a sort of time capsule proving that while many things change, Human emotions mostly stay the same.

Plato (428-347 BC) The Greek philosopher Plato was among the most important and creative thinkers of the ancient world. His work set forth most of the important problems and concepts of Western philosophy, psychology, logic, and politics, and his influence has remained profound from ancient to modern times. Plato was born in Athens in 428 BC. Both his parents were of distinguished Athenian families, and his stepfather, an associate of Pericles, was an active participant in the political and cultural life of Periclean Athens.

Plato seems as a young man to have been destined for an aristocratic political career. The xcesses of Athenian political life, however, both under the oligarchical rule (404-403) of the so-called Thirty Tyrants and under the restored democracy, seem to have led him to give up these ambitions. In particular, the execution (399) of Socrates had a profound effect on his plans. The older philosopher was a close friend of Plato’s family, and Plato’s writings attest to Socrates’ great influence on him.

After Socrates’ death Plato retired from active Athenian life and traveled widely for a number of years. In 388 BC he journeyed to Italy and Sicily, where he became the friend of Dionysius the Elder, ruler of Syracuse, nd his brother-in-law Dion. The following year he returned to Athens, where he founded the Academy, an institution devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and the sciences. Most of his life thereafter was spent in teaching and guiding the activities of the Academy.

When Dionysius died (367), Dion invited Plato to return to Syracuse to undertake the philosophical education of the new ruler, Dionysius the Younger. Plato went, perhaps with the hope of founding the rule of a philosopher-king as envisioned in his work the Republic. The visit, however, ended (366) in failure. In 361, Plato went to Syracuse again. This visit proved even more disastrous, and he returned (360) to the Academy. Plato died in 347 BC. Plato’s published writings, of which apparently all are preserved, consist of some 26 dramatic dialogues on philosophical and related themes.

The precise chronological ordering of the dialogues remains unclear, but stylistic and thematic considerations suggest a rough division into three periods. The earliest dialogues, begun after 399 BC, are seen by many scholars as memorials to the life and teaching of Socrates. Three of them, the Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, describe Socrates’ conduct immediately before, during, and after his trial. The early writings include a series of short dialogues that end with no clear and definitive solution to the problems raised.

Characteristically, Plato has Socrates ask questions of the form “What is X? ” and insist that he wants not examples or instances of X but what it is to be X, the essential nature, or Form, of X. In the Charmides the discussion concerns the question “What is temperance? ; in the Laches, “What is courage? in the Euthyphro, “What is holiness? ” The first book of he Republic may originally have been such a dialogue, devoted to the question “What is justice? Socrates holds that an understanding of the essential nature in each case is of primary importance, but he does not claim himself to have any such understanding.

A formal mode of cross-examination called elenchus, in which the answers to questions put by Socrates are shown to result in a contradiction of the answerer’s original statement, reveals the ignorance of the answerer as well. Typically, these answerers are self-professed experts (the title characters of the Gorgias and Protagoras, for example, were eading Sophists; thus their inability to provide a definition is particularly noteworthy.

In the Apology, Socrates describes his mission as one of exposing this ignorance, an exposure he takes to be a necessary preliminary to true wisdom. Although the dialogues appear to end in ignorance, the dialectical structure of each work is such that a complex and subtle understanding of the concept emerges. The dialogues of the middle period were begun after the founding of the Academy. Here more openly positive doctrines begin to emerge in the discourse of Socrates. The dialogues of this period include what is widely hought to be Plato’s greatest work, the Republic.

Beginning with a discussion on the nature of justice, the dialogue articulates a vision of an ideal political community and the education appropriate to the rulers of such a community. Justice is revealed to be a principle of each thing performing the function most appropriate to its nature, a principle of the proper adjudication of activity and being. In political terms, this principle is embodied in a society in which citizens perform the tasks for which they are best suited; in the individual human soul the principle is to be discovered when each part of he soul performs its proper and appropriate function.

Reason in both instances is to rule, but in both the political community and the individual soul, justice is ideally coupled with the virtue of temperance, the harmony and self-mastery that results when all elements agree as to which should do what. Thus the rule of reason is not a tyranny but the harmonious rule of the happily unified individual and society. In the middle books of this dialogue, Plato develops, as an account of the nature of being and understanding, the theory of Forms foreshadowed in his earlier writings.

The Form is introduced as a principle explaining individual instances of being X, the very thing itself that is meant by the name X and that is the transcendent object of understanding what it is to be X. The Forms constitute a realm of unchanging being to which the world of individual changing objects is subordinate. The Form of good enjoys a unique status, responsible for the being and intelligibility of the world as a whole. In the Theaetetus the nature of understanding itself is explored.

A critique of suggested definitions shows that understanding, or knowledge, involves judgment oncerning the being of things, not a mere acquaintance with them in perception or simple mental awareness. The Phaedo and the Symposium are dramatically elaborate pieces dealing, respectively, with death and love. The Phaedo, which represents Socrates’ final hours, considers the nature of the soul and portrays the philosophical life as a separation of soul from body, which prepares the philosopher for death. In the Symposium, Socrates portrays love as the creative attraction toward the beautiful and the good itself.

In the dialogues of the later period, begun after Plato returned from Syracuse, the figure of Socrates ecedes into the background. In the Sophist and Statesman the central figure is an unnamed visitor from Elea. The Sophist shows how a proper understanding of appearance depends on an account of being and nonbeing and of the relation between particulars and Forms. In the Parmenides the theory of Forms comes under exacting scrutiny, and arguments are presented to show that the Forms cannot be entities of the same sort as those whose being they explain.

The Timaeus presents a semimythical description of the origin and nature of the universe, and the Philebus considers the place of pleasure in the good life. In the Laws, Plato’s longest and last work a model constitution for an ideal city is considered. Central to Plato’s thought is the power of reason to reveal the intelligibility and order governing the changing world of appearance and to create, at both the political and the individual level, a harmonious and happy life. Socrates’ view that virtue is a form of understanding and that the good life must consequently be grounded in knowledge.

It is refined into the view that philosophical education is to effect a harmony between reason and passion, life of self-mastery in which reason governs the will not as something alien to it but as its natural guide and source. The doctrine of recollection, according to which learning is the remembering of a wisdom that the soul enjoyed prior to its incarnation, is a mythical statement of this view that neither reason nor the intelligible order that it reveals is alien to the human soul.

This order–seen by Plato as providing an account both of the being and of the intelligibility of the world of appearance–is articulated in the theory of Forms. Forms are the principles of being in the world, of the fact that the orld presents itself as instances of being this or that, as well as the principles of human understanding of those instances of being. The nature and intelligibility of the world of appearance can thus be accounted for, in Plato’s view, only by recognizing it as an “image” of the truly intelligible structure of being itself, which is the world of Forms.

The relationship between Forms and particulars, or between the world of being and the world of appearance, was recognized by Plato to be deeply problematic. He remained clear, however, that no theory could fail to recognize both features of the world ithout falling prey to either the relativism of Heraclitus or the monism of Parmenides, both of which destroy the very possibility of being and understanding. Plato sees the world of being itself governed by the Form of the good, as also the source of value and the object of proper desire.

The philosopher is thus pictured as in love with the Forms, that is, in love with the world as it truly is. His wish to see through the world of flux to the true principles of its being is thus basically an act of love. This love is not simply an attraction to the good but a creative force for the procreation of the good. Directed toward others, it is the power of education, the bringing to birth of understanding and virtue through the process of dialectic, as portrayed in Socrates’ relation to the youths about him.

Reason for Plato, as for the Greek tradition in general, is most clearly manifest in logos, the word, and language, as the medium in which reason articulates being, is a central topic throughout the dialogues. Plato was impressed by the fact that language has the capacity both to articulate the intelligibility of the world and to belie the world’s true being. He constantly addresses the question of how to purge anguage of its potential deceptiveness, how to win the fidelity of words to the world.

Bad poetry and bad rhetoric alike are pathological forms of the inescapable dissociation of word and world; the Platonic question is how to make this dissociation benign. The central vehicle that Plato envisions for this purpose is dialectic, the dialogue that refines and articulates the true shape and tendency of speech and understanding. This dialectic is presented mimetically in the dialogues themselves, which are thus not simply presentations of philosophical views but representations of philosophy at work, of human eings engaged in the distinctively human and highly civilized activity of rational conversation.

The influence of Plato’s thought is seen in the continuing vitality of the Platonic tradition through subsequent centuries. The major philosophers of late Hellenism, most notably Plotinus and Proclus, were self-professed Platonists. After the closing of the Academy, Neoplatonism continued to flourish in the Islamic and Byzantine world, and Latin Neoplatonism was a strong intellectual factor throughout the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance there occurred a great rebirth of Platonic thought in the West.

The Byzantine philosopher Giorgius Gemistus Pletho (c. 355-1452) introduced the study of Plato to Renaissance Florence, and the subsequent translations and commentaries of Marsilio Ficino and others laid the groundwork for a flourishing school of Platonic thought in the Florentine Academy. In 17th-century England the rationalistic theologians known as the Cambridge Platonists based much of their thinking on Plato. The 19th and 20th centuries have witnessed, besides the important influence of Plato on the Romantic Movement, the development of a strong Anglo-European tradition of Platonic scholarship.

Plato’s Symposium provides us with many different views and theories about love. This drunken discussion of Eros presents ideas which have not lost their relevance in the millennia since. Many things have changed and there have been a lot of different views on almost every subject known to man, but the thoughts voiced in the Symposium still hold truth today. However being what it was, and that is many different peoples thoughts on the subjectof Eros, there is a wide variety of theories to choose from. Which of these speculations strikes a chord of truth in one’s soul?

Diotima speaks through Socrates (who is speaking hrough Plato) when she gives her version of where love came from. She says that Love is the child of Resource and Poverty, conceived on the day that Aphrodite was born. Poverty had come to the feast to beg and found Resource drunk and passed out. Poverty saw an opportunity to gain more resources, so she slept with him and became pregnant with Love. Love is a follower of Aphrodite because He was conceived at the party following her birth, and because “He is naturally a lover of beauty and Aphrodite is beautiful”(Gill, 203c) Because of who His mother is Love is always poor and homeless.

He is quite tough from sleeping n the ground or in doorways and from wearing no shoes. Because of who His mother is, He is always in need, but because of who His father is He is constantly scheming to get good and beautiful things. He’s clever, and skilled in hunting, magic and acquiring knowledge. Neither immortal nor mortal, Love can spring to life in a day and then die before that day is over. He can come back to life again like his father Resource, but cannot hold onto the resources he has.

Being between mortality and immortality, Diotima calls Love “a great spirit”(Gill,202e). These great spirits are sort of go-betweens for the Gods nd Humanity. They convey prayers and sacrifices from us to the Gods, and commands and gifts from the Gods to us. Because of them the universe is all interconnected and whole. The Gods never communicate directly to Humans, but always use these spirits to convey their commands. These are what priests, prophets and oracles speak to. Love is also between wisdom and ignorance, since neither the gods nor the ignorant love wisdom.

The Gods already have it so the do not desire it, therefore love has no part in it. The ignorant don’t love wisdom or want it, because they are satisfied with themselves. Since they do not think they need wisdom, they do not desire or love it. Therefore Love lies between wisdom and ignorance. In fact the only ones who love wisdom are those between wisdom and ignorance, such as Love himself. Wisdom is beautiful, and Love is a lover of beauty, ergo Love is a lover of wisdom. Since Love is for things that Love does not yet have, this too proves that He is not wise.

Yet it would not do to call the great spirit Love completely ignorant, so we again see that he falls between the two. The reason for this is his parents: “His father is wise and resourceful while his other has neither quality”(Gill,204c). Diotima tells Socrates (and Socrates tells the Symposium) that Love is also between beautiful and ugly, since love must be of something that it does not have and Love is of beauty. Therefore Love cannot have beauty. But one cannot call Love ugly, so He ends up between these two as well.

Similarly Love is not good because love must be of good. But one could hardly call love bad, and so again He falls between the two. I think that this is definitely a plausible account of love. People like to think of love as being this sweet and wonderful thing, when really it can be quite ough and demanding. However you can’t say that it is a horrible and ugly thing (unless you have recently been burned by it, and even then the sentiment fades with time). Love falls between wondrous sweetness and the heart-wrenchingly bitter.

When we love something it is often something we cannot obtain, and once we have it in our possession we tend to fall out of love with it. From people to objects, Humans seem interested only in what they do not have at the time. We are constantly seeking that which is beautiful and good and that which we do not have. If we do get our hands on what we have been eeking after, and do not fall out of love with it immediately, we seek to hold on to it forever. Since nothing is permanent this is just another thing we cannot have and therefore want to love.

I loved the idea of Poverty and Resource being a God and Goddess. The whole Greek way of thinking about Gods and Goddesses sits well with me because I believe that we create them with our emotions and needs. Because of this it makes sense that the Gods and Goddesses would be fallible, and have many of the same quirks and problems that Humans have. In fact it makes sense that these same quirks and troubles ould be amplified, seeing how these creatures are so much more powerful than we. The idea of a Goddess coming to a feast to beg is an interesting one.

She is the representative of the impoverished who often come to the gates of houses in which feasts are being held to beg for food. But being a Goddess, would she even need food, and why could she not come by it herself? It is as if her very being is made up of necessity that cannot be come by, even to a Goddess. It is almost a humorous play on words that “Poverty formed a plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by Resource”(Gill,203c). Why didn’t anyone think of that before?? One would think that Resource would be quite popular indeed!

However her plan didn’t seem to work so well. Though we do not hear much about her after this point in the story, it does not seem that having a child like Love would help her situation very much: he is as homeless and shoeless as she. There were a few points I thought were weak. The Olympian Gods were definitely fallible, and did many things that seemed to mess things up for themselves and for the Human race. Often lecherous and greedy, these were definitely not the perfect infinite God of so many eligions today.

This is one of the things I like the most about them, but part of Diotima’s arguments were based on not calling the Gods bad, ugly, nor anything too negative. This could have been out of fearful respect, but if one wishes to have a meaningful philosophical conversation, one should not *censored*-foot around anything. Socrates seemed all too willing to agree that the Gods could not possibly be anything but beautiful and good. Another weakness in the argument is that Socrates accepts that Love cannot be ugly and bad because he wouldn’t “dare to suggest that any of the gods is not eautiful and happy”(Gill,202c).

But right after that it is decided that Love is not a God because a God must be beautiful and happy. It was already established that Love is not beautiful and happy because He wants things of beauty and goodness (which would bring Him happiness). So why can’t He be ugly and unhappy? He may be a great spirit, but no where is it written that great spirits have to be beautiful and happy. This myth about love is somewhat unusual. I have not seen one quite like it anywhere else, in other Greek mythology or any other religious or cultural mythology. It accurately sums up the qualities nd traits of love.

It discusses the pleasant side of love, as well as the side that can be unlikable. It provides us with an origin that makes some logical sense and which provides explanations for all of loves traits. I think that of all of the myths about love that I have read I like this one the best. It holds on to its relevancy even after more than two thousand years. The feelings and thoughts expressed in this story (and in much of the rest of the Symposium for that matter) act as a sort of time capsule proving that while many things change, Human emotions mostly stay the same.

Critics of The Republic, Platos contribution to the history of political theory, have formed two distinct opinions on the reasoning behind the work. The first group believes that The Republic is truly a model for a political society, while the other strongly objects to that, stating it as being far too fantastic for any society to operate successfully by these suggested methods.

In an exchange between Crito and Dionysius, this argument is first introduced, with Crito siding with those who agree that The Republic is a realistic political model, and Dionysius arguing on behalf of those who doubt it as being realistic, claiming it to be a criticism of politics in general. Both sides have legitimate arguments, and there is evidence within the text to support each opinion. When Plato wrote Gorgias, he made it clear where exactly he stood on his personal involvement in politics (Cornford 1941, xix).

Unlimited power without the knowledge of good and evil is at the best unenviable, and the tyrant who uses it to exterminate his enemies and rivals is the most miserable of men–a theme to be further developed in The Republic (Cornford xx). But here, Plato was referring to the politics of his time, and critics who sided with Crito believed that The Republic was Platos way of introducing a political system in which he would feel comfortable supporting (Plato 204). Conversely though, The Republic itself is summed up this way:

Well, one would be enough to effect all this reform that now seems so incredible, if he had subjects disposed to obey; for it is surely not impossible that they should consent to carry out our laws and customs when laid down by a ruler. It would be no miracle if others should think as we do; and we have, I believe, sufficiently shown that our plan, if practicable, is the best. So, to conclude: our institutions would be the best, if they could be realized, and to realize them, though hard, is not impossible (Plato 210-211).

Critics of The Republic, Plato’s contribution to the history of political theory, have formed two distinct opinions on the reasoning behind the work. The first group believes that The Republic is truly a model for a political society, while the other strongly objects to that, stating it as being far too fantastic for any society to operate successfully by these suggested methods.

In an exchange between Crito and Dionysius, this argument is first introduced, with Crito siding with those who agree that The Republic is a realistic political model, and Dionysius arguing on behalf of those who doubt it s being realistic, claiming it to be a criticism of politics in general. Both sides have legitimate arguments, and there is evidence within the text to support each opinion. When Plato wrote Gorgias, he made it clear where exactly he stood on his personal involvement in politics (Cornford 1941, xix).

Unlimited power without the knowledge of good and evil is at the best unenviable, and the tyrant who uses it to exterminate his enemies and rivals is the most miserable of men–a theme to be further developed in The Republic (Cornford xx). But here, Plato was referring to the politics of his time, and critics who ided with Crito believed that The Republic was Plato’s way of introducing a political system in which he would feel comfortable supporting (Plato 204).

Conversely though, The Republic itself is summed up this way: Well, one would be enough to effect all this reform that now seems so incredible, if he had subjects disposed to obey; for it is surely not impossible that they should consent to carry out our laws and customs when laid down by a ruler. It would be no miracle if others should think as we do; and we have, I believe, sufficiently shown that our plan, if practicable, is the best. So, to conclude: our institutions would be the best, if they could be realized, and to realize them, though hard, is not impossible (Plato 210-211).

These institutions of which Plato speaks are described in the body of The Republic, and not only does Plato explain how they are carried out in current society, but he offers his own alterations, which is the primary cause of the arguments over the content of the book (Plato 222). In his fifth chapter, entitled The Problem Stated, Plato introduces what he believes to be wrong with the current system of politics (Plato 41). He starts by describing the Social Contract theory (Plato 53), the method used during his time, a method Plato rejected.

It says: all the customary rules of religion and moral conduct imposed on the individual by social sanctions have their origin in human intelligence and will and always rest on tacit consent. They are neither laws of nature nor divine enactments, but conventions which man who made them can alter, as laws are changed or repealed by legislative bodies. It is assumed that, if all these artificial restraints were removed, the natural man would be left only with purely egotistic instincts and esires, which he would indulge in all that Thrasymachus commended as injustice (Plato 41-42).

In response to this description, Plato wrote, First, I will state what is commonly held about the nature of justice and its origin; secondly, I shall maintain that it is always practiced with reluctance, not as good in itself, but as a thing one cannot do without; and thirdly, that this reluctance is reasonable, because the life of injustice is much the better life of the two–so people say. That is not what I think myself, Socrates; only I am bewildered by all that Thrasymachus and ever o many others have dinned into my ears; and I have never yet heard the case for justice stated as I wish to hear it (Plato 43).

Throughout this chapter, Plato makes a point to say how difficult it is to do what is right, since it seems so much easier to take the easy way out, to do the wrong (Plato 49). And in summing up this chapter, Plato had one final contribution, You must not be content with proving that justice is superior to injustice; you must make clear what good or what harm each of them does to its possessor, taking it simply in itself and leaving out of account the reputation it bears (Plato 52).

At this point, Plato has revealed his mental viewpoint on the problems in current government, and the remainder of the book deals with the ways he intends to do away with that which cripples those in politics, including corruption, various conflicts, and many traditional practices. Plato continues on to describe how luxuries are not necessities, as many prominent figures of his time had believed (Plato 61). Soonafter came his suggestions on how society should be educated (Plato 231). Not only did he intend to totally alter the curriculum, but he also wanted to change people who were educated.

To him, education was not to be limited to the wealthy, it was to be focused primarily on those who showed the greatest potential, the greatest talents. His most radical idea was to reform society based on his method of education. He rejected the idea of having a person’s place in society based on family name or wealth (Plato 111). His ideal society would have rank based on merit, ability and talent, and should a woman possess these skills, then she would have a high rank in society (Plato 153).

Not only did he want women to be included, but he also made his system of education almost rigorous, hoping to eed out those who did not belong, or who showed more talent as say a soldier rather than a mathematician (Plato 102-103). To finalize his suggested society, Plato wrote, But in reality justice, though evidently analogous to this principle, is not a matter of external behavior, but of the inward self and of attending to all that is, in the fullest sense, a man’s proper concern.

The just man does not allow the several elements in his soul to usurp one another’s functions; he is indeed one who sets his house in order, by self- mastery and discipline coming to be at peace with himself, and bringing nto tune those three parts, like the terms in the proportion of a musical scale, the highest and lowest notes and the mean between them, with all the intermediate intervals.

Only when he has linked these parts together in well- tempered harmony and has made himself one man instead of many, will he be ready to go about whatever he may have to do, whether it be making money or satisfying bodily wants, or business transactions, or affairs of state. In all these fields when he speaks of just and honorable conduct, he will mean the behavior that helps to produce and to preserve this habit of mind; and y wisdom he will mean the knowledge which presides over such conduct.

Any action which tends to break down this habit will be for him unjust; and the notions governing it he will call ignorance and folly…. we… have discovered the just man and the just state, and wherein their justice consists (Plato 142). The final installment in Plato’s ideal society is the ruler (Plato 122). He devotes and entire chapter describing the duties of a philosopher king (Plato 205).

His main arguments in favor of such a ruler include when strength fails nd they are past civil and military duties, let them range at will, free from all serious business but philosophy; for theirs is to be a life of happiness, crowned after death with a fitting destiny in the other world (Plato 207). With that said, there is now an overview of what Plato feels to be the ideal society. Elements discussed include how society is educated, categorized, as well as ruled. And some people accepted this model, and argued on Plato’s behalf, including Crito.

But as in all arguments, there must be a second party, and that group viewed this as impossible to accomplish as well as destined for ailure. Even though the arguments against The Republic are not in plain text, those who do not see eye to eye with Plato do have a valid argument, and there is enough evidence hidden between the lines of The Republic to support their statement. When Plato discussed virtues within a state (Plato 119), he mentioned wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice as the virtues that make up a state.

Those arguing against The Republic can refer to a statement made by Plato reading, Strangest of all, every one of those qualities which we approved– courage, temperance, and all the rest–tends to ruin its possessor and to wrest is mind away from philosophy (Plato 198). Here is probably the most obvious statement Plato makes that is anti-political, saying that the ideal political state cannot successfully contain elements of philosophy (Plato 29). Mentioned in the exchange is the Allegory of the Cave (Plato 227-235).

Here, Plato tries to explain why he should be taken seriously, for he is one of the few who has seen this light, and he is trying to adjust society in such a way that it would resemble the world he was exposed to when he left the cave. But he does not think that ordinary people would accept these proposals, and may ven fear Plato to be insane (Plato 231). Many other of his simplified stories can be mistaken for deliberate attacks on politics in general, rather than methods by which politics could be improved.

Among these are the ideas that women could be equal to men in Plato’s ideal society (Plato 144), as well as Plato’s suggestions that such traditions as Olympian religion and poetry were not important in his educational scheme (Plato 67, 321). Although the evidence in favor of The Republic is far greater than that which opposes it, the argument itself cannot really be won. Plato consistently xpresses doubt throughout his work, which favors the opposition.

But, his ideas themselves are in no way impossible to accomplish. Plato had this to say to sum up all his beliefs, there will never be a perfect state or constitution, nor yet a perfect man, until some happy circumstance compels these few philosophers who have escaped corruption but are now called useless, to take charge, whether they like it or not, of a state which will submit to their authority; or else until kings and rulers or their sons are divinely inspired with a genuine passion for true philosophy.

If either alternative or both were impossible, we might justly be laughed at as idle dreamers; but, as I maintain, there is no ground for saying so. Accordingly, if ever in the infinity of time, past or future, or even today in some foreign region far beyond our horizon, men of the highest gifts for philosophy are constrained to take charge of a commonwealth, we are ready to maintain that, then and there, the constitution we have described has been realized, or will be realized when once the philosophic muse becomes mistress of a state. For that might happen.

Philosopher. According to sources, Plato was born on or around May 21, 427 (or 428) B. C. in Athens, the son of Ariston and Perictione, both of Athenian aristocratic ancestry. He lived his whole life in Athens, although he traveled to Sicily and southern Italy on several occasions, and one story says he traveled to Egypt. Little is known of his early years, but he was given the finest education Athens had to offer the scions of its noble families, and he devoted his considerable talents to politics and the writing of tragedy and other forms of poetry.

His acquaintance with Socrates altered the course of his life. The compelling power which Socrates’s methods and arguments had over the minds of the youth of Athens gripped Plato as firmly as it did so many others, and he became a close associate of Socrates. The end of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC) left Plato in an irreconcilable position. His uncle, Critias, was the leader of the Thirty Tyrants who were installed in power by the victorious Spartans. One means of perpetuating themselves in power was to implicate as many Athenians as possible in their atrocious acts.

Thus Socrates, as we learn in Plato’s Apology, was ordered to arrest a man and bring him to Athens from Salamis for execution. When the great teacher refused, his life was in jeopardy, and he was probably saved only by the overthrow of the Thirty and the reestablishment of the democracy. Plato was repelled by the aims and methods of the Thirty and welcomed the restoration of the democracy, but his mistrust of the whimsical demos was deepened some four years later when Socrates was tried on trumped up charges and sentenced to death.

Plato was present at the trial, as we learn in the Apology, but was not present when the hemlock was administered to his master, although he describes the scene in vivid and touching detail in the Phaedo. He then turned in disgust from contemporary Athenian politics and never took an active part in government, although through friends he did try to influence the course of political life in the Sicilian city of Syracuse. Plato and several of his friends withdrew from Athens for a short time after Socrates’s death and remained with Euclides in Megara.

His productive years were punctuated by three voyages to Sicily, and his literary output, all of which has survived, may conveniently be discussed within the framework of those voyages. The first trip, to southern Italy and Syracuse, took place in 388-387 BC, when Plato made the acquaintance of Archytas of Tarentum, the Pythagorean, and Dion of Syracuse and his infamous brother-in-law, Dionysius I, ruler of that city. Dionysius was then at the height of his power and prestige in Sicily for having freed the Greeks there from the threat of Carthaginian overlordship.

Plato became better friends with Dion, however, and Dionysius’s rather callous treatment of his Athenian guest may be ascribed to the jealously which that close friendship aroused. On Plato’s return journey to Athens, Dionysius’s crew deposited him on the island of Aegina, which at that time was engaged in a minor war with Athens, and Plato might have been sold as a prisoner of war had he not been ransomed by Anniceris of Cyrene, one of his many admirers.

On his return to Athens, Plato began to teach in the Gymnasium Academe and soon afterward acquired property nearby and founded his famous Academy, which survived until the philosophical schools were closed by the Christian emperor Justinian in the early 6th century A. D. At the center of the Academy stood a shrine to the Muses, and at least one modern scholar suggests that the Academy may have been a type of religious brotherhood. Plato had begun to write the dialogues, which came to be the hallmark of his philosophical exposition, some years before the founding of the Academy.

To this early period, before the first trip to Sicily, belong the Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Lysis, Protagoras, Hippias Minor, Ion, Hippias Major, Apology, Crito, and Gorgias. Socrates is the main character in these dialogues, and various abstractions are discussed and defined. The Laches deals with courage, Charmides with sophrosyne (common sense), Euthyphro with piety, Lysis with friendship, Protagoras with the teaching of arete (virtue), and so on. The Apology and Crito stand somewhat apart from the other works of this group in that they deal with historical events, Socrates’s trial and the period between his conviction and execution.

The unifying element in all of these works is the figure of Socrates and his rather negative function in revealing the fallacies in the conventional treatment of the topics discussed. Plato’s own great contributions begin to appear in the second group of writings, which date from the period between his first and second voyages to Sicily. To this second group belong the Meno, Cratylus, Euthydemus, Menexenus, Symposium, Phaedo, Republic, Phaedrus, Parmenides, and Theaetetus. Development of ideas in the earlier dialogues is discernible in these works.

The Meno carries on the question of the teachability of virtue first dealt with in Protagoras and introduces the doctrine of anamnesis (recollection), which plays an important role in Plato’s view of the human’s ability to learn the truth. Since the soul is immortal and has at an earlier stage contemplated the Forms, or Ideas, which are the eternal and changeless truths of the universe, humans do not learn, but remember. The impetus for learning or remembering the truth is revealed in the Symposium, where the ascent from corporeal reality to eternal and incorporeal truth is described.

The scene is a dinner party at the house of the tragic poet Agathon, and each guest contributes a short speech on the god Eros. Socrates, however, cuts through the Sophistic arguments of his friends and praises Eros not as a separate and independent god but as an intermediary between gods and men. It is Eros who causes men to seek beauty, although for a time the unenlightened lover may think that what he is really seeking is the corporeal body of his beloved.

Ultimately, however, one progresses from love of the body to love of the beauty which the body represents, and so forth, until one realizes that the ultimate goal sought is contemplation of beauty itself and of the Forms. The Forms are the true reality and impart their essence in some way to ephemeral, corporeal objects, and man may come to know this true reality through rigorous discipline of mind and body, and Plato went so far as to draw up a rough outline for a utopian state in his Republic.

Socrates is again the main character in the Republic, although this work is less a dialogue than a long discussion by Socrates of justice and what it means to the individual and the city-state. The great utopian state is described only as an analogue to the soul in order to understand better how the soul might achieve the kind of balance and harmony necessary for the rational element to control it. Just as there are three elements to the soul, the rational, the less rational, and the impulsive irrational, so there are three classes in the state, the rulers, the guardians, and the workers.

The rulers are not a hereditary clan or self-perpetuating upper class but are made up of those who have emerged from the population as a whole as the most gifted intellectually. The guardians serve society by keeping order and by handling the practical matters of government, including fighting wars, while the workers perform the labor necessary to keep the whole running smoothly. Thus the most rational elements of the city-state guide it and see that all in it are given an education commensurate with their abilities.

The wisdom, courage, and moderation cultivated by the rulers, guardians, and workers ideally produce the justice in society which those virtues produce in the individual soul when they are cultivated by the three elements of that soul. Only when the three work in harmony, with intelligence clearly in control, does the individual or state achieve the happiness and fulfillment of which it is capable. The Republic ends with the great myth of Er, in which the wanderings of the soul through births and rebirths are recounted.

One may be freed from the cycle after a time through lives of greater and greater spiritual and intellectual purity. Plato’s second trip to Syracuse took place in 367 B. C. after the death of Dionysius I, but his and Dion’s efforts to influence the development of Dionysius II along the lines laid down in the Republic for the philosopher-king did not succeed, and he returned to Athens. Plato’s final group of works, written after 367, consists of the Sophist, the Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, and the Laws.

The Sophist, takes up the metaphysical question of being and not-being, while the Statesman concludes that the best type of city-state would be the one in which the expert is given absolute authority with no hindrance to his rule from laws or constitution. The Timaeus discusses the rationality inherent in the universe which confirms Plato’s scheme, while the Laws, Plato’s last work, once again takes up the question of the best framework in which society might function for the betterment of its citizens.

Here great stress is laid on an almost mystical approach to the great truth of the rational universe. Plato’s third and final voyage to Syracuse was made some time before 357 B. C. , and he was no more successful in his attempts to influence the young Dionysius than he had been earlier. Dion fared no better and was exiled by the young tyrant, and Plato was held in semicaptivity before being released. Plato’s Seventh Letter, the only one in the collection of 13 considered accurate, perhaps even from the hand of Plato himself, recounts his role in the events surrounding the death of Dion, who in 357 B.

C. entered Syracuse and overthrew Dionysius. It is of more interest, however, for Plato’s statement that the deepest truths may not be communicated. Plato died in 347 B. C. , the founder of an important philosophical school, which existed for almost 1,000 years, and the most brilliant of Socrates’s many pupils and followers. His system attracted many followers in the centuries after his death and resurfaced as Neoplatonism, the great rival of early Christianity.

Plato’s suggestion that female guardians do everything male guardians do is a radical and revolutionary proposal in a time when women were viewed as property. However there are complexities and contradictions in the Platonic text on female equality. He makes obvious statements and allusions those women are more cowardly, less trustworthy, innately worse then men. In Book V, he emphasizes that women, as a class are equals to men in capacity, although on the whole, weaker in all pursuits. Plato’s ideal society is inadequate for the emancipation of women from the standpoint of feminism today.

His proposal is not in the interest of woman as a class whom he supposes to be depraved, but in the interest of the state. The ideal state is emancipation from woman and a complete “de-feminization” of politics. Through out the dialogues women are classed as natural inferiors, with children, slaves, and foolish people in general. “Now, one finds all kinds of diverse desires, pleasures, and pains, mostly in children, women, household slaves, and in those of the inferior majority who are called free. ” (Book IV 431c my emphasis). Plato also assumes that there is behavior specific to women and to cowardly men. …to delete the lamentations of famous men, leaving them to women (and not even to good women, either) and to cowardly men” (Book III 387d my emphasis). In Book VIII Plato states that woman are like children, amused by shiny objects; ”

And many people would probably judge it to be so, as women and children do when they see something multicolored. ” (p. 228 557c my emphasis). Even thou he states that woman and men have identical natures (Book V, 453a) in Book X he is inconsistent and observes a distinction between manly and womanish nature. this is the manly thing to do and that the behavior we praised before is womanish” (p. 277 605d). In Book V he states “it’s small minded and womanish to regard the body as your enemy” (469d my emphasis). Plato’s Republic is ambiguous and inconsistent in its treatment of woman; misogynist content contrasted with claims that both sexes have identical natures. The statement that the two sexes are not different in kind but only in degree, woman is the weaker man – always inferior in capacity (Book V, 454e), is problematic in itself.

Women are associated with men in all human activities, but that association is not one of equals (Book V, 454e). Everywhere, women are only secondary if at all “women”. Remarkably, Plato comes to the conclusion that females are first and foremost human beings, even if decidedly inferior human beings, when evaluated according to their ability to engage in characteristics human activities” (Book V, 454e). In addition, Plato considered the differences among members of the same sex far greater than average differences between the sexes in all the relevant aspects to the guidance of an ideal society” (Bluestone188).

Plato intends that the guardian class should be composed of both men and women. He maintains that there is nothing in female nature to prevent women’s participation, arguing, “there is no way of life concerned with the management of the city that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a men because he is a men, but the various natures are distributed in the same way in both creatures. Women share by nature in every way of life just as men do, but in all of them women are weaker then men. ” (Book V, 454e).

Then women of this sort must be chosen along with men of the same sort to live with them and share their guardianship, seeing that they are adequate for the task and akin to the men in nature ” (Book V, 456a). Plato’s concept of justice is based on each person’s doing what he is best suited for (Book III, 352d-354a). He explicitly states that there are no specifically female traits, either biological or psychological, that would naturally exclude women from these pursuits (Book V, 456a). In the Ideal State, human beings are differentiated by their natural inclinations to various pursuits.

Plato demonstrates that biological differences are relevant only to reproductive activities (Book V, 454a-454e). Plato ruptures the connection between family, private property, and woman’s roles. Childrearing will not interfere with the education and other activities of women of the guardian class (Book V, 457d). Plato establishes a set of social arrangements in which there will be no conventional family structures. Children who will be born as a result of brief periods of co-habitation in designated festival, “will be taken over by the officials appointed for the purpose, men or woman or both” (Book V, 460) and raised communally.

He does not automatically assume that children’s upbringing is by nature a female task. Men are equally competent for the task of caring for children (Book V, 458d). Woman’s special abilities were used to vindicate maintaining them out of sanctioned male fields. A patronizing determination that woman are especially dexterous for jobs associated with childcare or nurturance has conveyed the idea that woman do these things better then men there for they ought to remain in those sectors.

Plato argues that women have no special competence, men can do any thing woman can – better. Plato advocated extending the binding force of family ties to the society as a whole. He is not concerned with woman’s desires or needs. He does not care whether their present roles frustrate them, or whether they will lead more fulfilling lives as guardians then as housewives. Plato breaks the bond between mother and child and limits women’s participation in household management and nurturance if they are to participate in governance. Gender division of labor ceases.

Men and woman have identical natures and merit identical roles. Plato never discusses how to reconcile the private/public dichotomy and identical male/female natures among the third class. “Plato’s arguments are authoritarian rather then liberal and far from the arguments that woman should have equal opportunity because otherwise they lead stunted and unhappy lives and lack the means for self-development” (Bluestone 97). His Seemingly egalitarian statements about women’s capacity to rule go against the common opinion that woman are unfit for ruling.

When structuring his ideal society Plato never had women’s emancipation in mind, his primary interest was the good of the state (Book V 452a-452b). “State is only half a state if its women are allowed to run to waste” (Bluestone 42). The maturation of women was dwarfed, and the state lost the usefulness of half of its district. Plato emancipated women from the captivity of their homes, in order to subject them again to the service of the community. Plato argues for woman’s duties and not women’s rights. “Woman are to belong in common to all men” (Book V, 457c).

Rewards of more frequent intercourse are offered solely to the bravest male (Book V, 460b), displaying unequal treatment since rewards for women are ignored. Plato is amazingly liberal in his attitude towards women, he provides them with more freedom then the traditional Greeks. He does not display fear of woman’s sexuality; they were free to handle their sexuality exactly as they please as long as no children resulted (Book V, 460c). Excellent woman has usually implied a virtuous woman in terms of sexual morality, that is a chaste woman, whereas “an excellent man ” carries no such connotation.

This notorious “double standard” has been eliminated in Plato’s state (Bluestone 56). His program of eugenic control (Book V, 457c-459e) is not rationalized in the modern term’s of woman’s rights. However the enforced regulation of sexuality, until after forty, is less restrained then the sexual life of the upper-class Greek wife, whose sex life was regulated and whose mental capacities were denigrated. Plato grants women equal share in the pursuits and the education of men, as the ideal education was also for the best woman (Book V 452a).

Nevertheless, the ideal education inhibited and surpressed feminization, it was designed for future guardians, molding women into the male paragon. Plato judged men to be biologically more competent as a class in all activities, the limbs should be trained as far as possible, woman should do what men do only so far as possible (Book V, 457e). Women have always been at a disadvantage, Plato did not consider that educational practices ought to be designed to compensate for this fact. He did not think any methods were possible to correct women’s slight disadvantage.

With out changes in gender expectations, there is no way that education can be identical. Plato believed women have the capacity for education identical to men’s Book V, 457b). Equal education for female and male guardians would be sufficient to guarantee the development of an androgynous, superior group composed of assertive, dominance-oriented de-sexed females and men. He gives freedom for men and woman to develop to their highest capacities, standard male capacities. The exercises will not be modified for female needs, women will simply be added to an already existing structure.

A structure that demands their de-feminization. Plato indicates how women might live is a man’s world, but there is little doubt that it is a man’s world. Woman might become a guardian, but only by becoming honorary men: by having, men make room for them within male-defined structures. Woman will be equally responsible for formulating and enforcing the laws and establishing which traits are to be valued, however. They will be socialized into the orienting assumptions of patriarchy and be disinclined to challenge them.

Patriarchy is a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women. It is based on an ideology of men’s superiority over women. The subordination takes various forms: discrimination, disregard, insult, control, exploitation, oppression, and violence. De-feminized women will be perpetuating the “polis-centric” perspective of patriarchy; the valued traits will be those historically valued as masculine. The dominant group frames all competing definitions within its own perspective framework; Plato’s philosopher-queens will be unable to challenges the hegemony imposed on them.

The ideal state is liberation from woman. Woman will have same opportunities and responsibilities as man. They cease being woman and begin doing exactly what men do. In a “Feminized State” women have evident decision making position and an impact on the procedure system within the legislature (Vickers 115). In the de-feminized republic, woman will have decision-making positions but they will be thinking like men, and will have no desire to systematically introduce balancing perspectives from the “other” standpoint.

The number of women will not play a role in raising the importance of women’s problems because Distinction between men and women become meaningless, woman will adapt to the male norm. The men in the ideal society will be freed from woman’s issues because there will not be any woman’s issues. Plato denies the difference between men and women; he fails to consider women’s experience on its own terms, making female experience a norm, too. According to Plato, Woman differs from men in sexual function (Book V, 454d); she is in all other functions of life a weaker man, possessed of the same capacities but not the same strength Book V, 454e).

The ideal society will train its members to eliminate all sex difference – Women will have to adapt the ideal of manhood. Plato does woman a disservice by turning them into men, there will be no distinctions between the personality traits values in men and those valued in women because the only traits valued will be masculine. Plato’s ideal humanity is unconditionally masculine and polis-centric. He has no interest in equality for the sake of woman’s individual fulfillment. The Ideal State he envisions is one that would secure the greatest happiness for men like him.

He fails to re-claim a marginalized, devalued, subordinated, silenced, subjugated, and repressed perspective on the human condition. The Ideal City fails to balance feminine and masculine elements. (differences between the sexes are reduced to their role in procreation) This society gives woman more sexual and academic freedom then Plato’s contemporary states and perpetuates the idea that labor should not be based on gender but on ability, ideas that our society still struggles with. However, Plato’s androcentric perspectives are deficient from the standpoint of feminists today.

Equal right and responsibilities for women are not enough when “men” is center and “woman” is “other”. Plato suggests the male as the norm that woman should confound to he de-values women and fails to recognize the female as a legitimate a norm as well. Traces of misogyny (and the idea of common ownership of woman), which are exhibited throughout the dialogues, reinforce the idea that in his proposition to change the status of woman, Plato aspired to liberate men from women instead of emancipating women.

Bibliography

Plato (427 – 347 BC) is the son of an Athenian citizen. According to its social status, it came from the Athenian slave-owning aristocracy. And of course, he was his own man in the Socratic circle. In his youth, he was a student of the Heraclitus-Kratila study group, where he became acquainted with the principles of objective dialectics, and Kratil’s tendency toward absolute relativism also influenced him. At the age of 20, he was preparing to take part in the competition as the author of the tragedy and accidentally heard a discussion in front of the Dionysian Theater in which Socrates participated. She was so fascinated that he burned his poems and became a student of Socrates. It was about the time when the Athenian fleet won the last significant victory in the Perepelon war.

Plato shared an aversion to Athenian democracy with the whole circle. After the condemnation and death of Socrates, at a time when the Democrats returned to power again, Plato went to one of the older students of Socrates – Euclid – in Megara. However, he soon returns to the city and takes an active part in her public life. After returning to Athens, he embarked on his first voyage to Southern Italy and Sicily. He is trying to realize his ideas and took part in political life on the side of the local aristocracy, then headed by Dion, son-in-law of Dionysius the Elder. Dion was a follower of Pythagorean philosophy and in his community represented an extremely reactionary wing. Political activities of Plato was not successful. Dionysius betrayed him, as a military man, to the ambassador of Sparta. At the slave market, his friends bought him, and he returns to Athens.

In Athens, Plato works intensively in the field of philosophy. During his travels, he became acquainted with the Pythagorean philosophy, which later influenced him. Diogen Laertsky believes that the teachings of Plato is a synthesis of the teachings of Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Socrates. In the same period, Plato founded his own school of philosophy, the Academy, which became the center of ancient idealism in the garden dedicated to the demigod Academ.

During the reign of the tyrant Dionysius the Younger in Syracuse, Plato again tries to get involved in the political struggle. And this time, his desire to carry out his thoughts in life do not find the expected understanding. Depressed by political failures, he returns to Athens where he dies at the age of 80.

Three periods of creativity.

His work has approximately three periods: The first begins after the death of Socrates. He creates the first dialogues and a treatise “The Apology of Socrates”. The form of all the dialogues of this period is similar in them. Socrates always speaks. He speaks with some prominent Athenian or other citizens. Socrates asks questions to someone who is considered an expert on the subject. Skillfully selected questions Socrates makes the opponent more accurately formulate his answers, and the result reveals a number of “contradictions” and absurdities. Socrates consistently, weighing all the pros and cons, draws certain conclusions.

The second period coincides with the first trip to Italy. He departs from the proper Socratic “ethical idealism” and lays the foundations of objective idealism. During this period, the influence of the philosophy of Heraclitus and the Pythagorean approach to the world somewhat intensified in Plato’s thinking. In the second half of this period, which can be roughly limited to the first and second voyages to Syracuse, Plato gives a whole positive statement of his system. Much attention during this period, Plato pays questions of the method of knowledge of ideas. He uses the term “dialectic” to define it and equates this method with the friction of a tree against a tree, which, in the end, gives rise to a spark of knowledge.

The beginning of the third period is considered the dialogue “Parmenides”. He overestimates his previous understanding of the idea, rationalizing it, giving it the character of community. Understanding the idea acquires a certain inertia (stasis). In it, the dialectic of ideas is determined by the conflict of being and non-being, which occurs directly in the realm of ideas. Thus, movement and development are introduced into the realm of ideas. The dialectic of ideas was designed to support Plato’s idealistic monism, which is the pinnacle of his rationalism. In subsequent works, the influence of Pythagorean philosophy, which strengthens mysticism and irrationalism, is becoming increasingly apparent.

The main question of philosophy.

He solves the basic question of philosophy unequivocally – idealistically. The material world that surrounds us and that we know with our feelings is only a “shadow” and is produced from the world of ideas, i.e. the material world is secondary. All phenomena and objects of the material world are transient, arise, perish and change (and therefore cannot be truly real), ideas are immutable, motionless and eternal. For these properties, Plato recognizes them as genuine, real being and elevates to the rank of the only subject of true true knowledge. Between the world of ideas, as genuine, real being, and non-being (ie, matter as such, matter in itself) exists according to Plato, apparent being, derived being (ie, the world of really real, sensually perceived phenomena and things) which separates true being from non-being. Real, real things are a combination of a priori ideas (true being) with passive, formless “receiving” matter (non-being). The relation of the idea (being) and real things (seeming being) is an important part of his philosophical doctrine. Sensually perceived objects are nothing but a likeness, a shadow in which certain patterns are reflected — ideas. But he can also meet the statement of the opposite nature. Ideas are present in things. This attitude of ideas and things opens up a certain possibility of movement towards irrationalism. He pays a lot of attention to the issue of “hierarchization of ideas”. This hierarchy represents a certain ordered system of objective idealism. The idea of ​​beauty and goodness is one of the most important ideas for Plato. It not only surpasses all real goodness and beauty in that it is perfect, eternal, and unchangeable (just like other ideas), but it also stands out above other ideas. Knowledge, or achievement, of this idea is the pinnacle of real knowledge and evidence of the usefulness of life. (works – “Feast”, “Law”, “Fedr”).

Dialogue “Menon”.

In the dialogue “Menon”, Plato demonstrates the theory of memory with the example of Socrates with a certain youth. The boy had never studied mathematics before and had no education. Socrates, on the other hand, posed the questions so well that the young man independently formulated the Pythagorean theorem. From what Plato concludes that his soul earlier, in the realm of ideas, met with the ideal attitude, which is expressed by the Pythagorean theorem. To teach in this case is nothing more than to force the soul to memories. Based on the theory of memories, he produces a certain hierarchization of the soul.

Soul.

According to Plato, the soul is incorporeal, immortal, it does not arise simultaneously with the body, but exists forever. The body obeys it. It consists of three hierarchically ordered parts: 1. mind, 2. will and noble desires 3. attraction and sensuality.

Souls in which the mind prevails, supported by will and noble aspirations, will advance the farthest in the process of remembrance. “The soul that has seen the most, falls into the fruit of a future admirer of wisdom and beauty or a person loyal to muses and love; the second is after her as the fruit of a king who observes the laws, a belligerent man and able to rule; the third is the fruit of a statesman, owner, earner; the fourth is in the fetus of a person who is diligently engaged in exercises or healing of the body; the fifth in order will lead the life of the soothsayer or the person involved in the sacraments; the sixth will follow a struggle in poetry or any other area of ​​imitation; the seventh is to be an artisan or a farmer; the eighth will be a sophist or demagogue, the ninth a tyrant. ”

Creation of the world.

“Wishing that everything was good and that nothing was as bad as possible, God took care of all the visible things that were not at rest, but in a disorderly and erratic movement; he led them from disorder to order, believing that the latter is certainly better than the former. It is impossible now and it was impossible since ancient times that the one who is the highest good, produce something that would not be the most beautiful; meanwhile, reflection has revealed to him that of all things, by nature visible, no creation, devoid of mind, can be more beautiful than that which is endowed with mind, if we compare the two as a whole; and the mind cannot dwell in anything but the soul. Guided by this reasoning, he arranged the mind in the soul, and thus built the soul in the body in the Universe, meaning to create a most beautiful creation and by its nature the best. So, according to plausible reasoning, it should be recognized that our cosmos is a living being endowed with soul and mind, and it was truly born with the help of divine providence. ”

State stand in the understanding of Plato.

The most significant for us was the work of Plato dedicated to the state system. According to his theory, the state arises because a person as an individual cannot ensure the satisfaction of his basic needs.

Several works of Plato are devoted to social and political issues: 1. treatise “The State” 2. dialogues “Laws”, “Politician”.

Written in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and other philosophers. In them, he talks about the model of the “ideal”, a better state. The model is not a description of any existing system. On the contrary, the model of such a state that has never existed anywhere, but which should arise, that is, Plato speaks about the idea of ​​the state, creates a project, a utopia.

What did he mean by an “ideal” state, and what did he refer to as a negative type of state? The main reason for the destruction of society, and at the same time the state system, lies in the “domination of vested interests”, which determine the actions and behavior of people. In accordance with this basic weakness, Plato subdivides all existing states into four varieties in order of increasing, increasing “mercenary interests” in their structure.

1. Timocracy – the power of ambitious, according to Plato, still retained the features of the “perfect” system. In a state of this type, rulers and warriors were free from agricultural and handicraft work. Much attention is paid to sports exercises, however, the desire for enrichment is already noticeable, and “with the participation of women” the Spartan way of life turns into a luxurious one, which causes the transition to oligarchy.

2. Oligarchy. In the oligarchic state, there is already a clear separation between the rich (the ruling class) and the poor, which make it possible for a completely carefree life of the ruling class. The development of oligarchy, according to the theory of Plato, leads to its degeneration into democracy.

3. Democracy. The democratic system further intensifies the disunity of the poor and rich classes of society, uprisings, bloodshed, power struggles arise, which can lead to the emergence of the worst state system – tyranny.

4. Tyranny. According to Plato, if some action is done too much, then this leads to the opposite result. Taki here: an excess of freedom in a democracy leads to the emergence of a state that does not have freedom at all, living at the whim of one person – a tyrant.

Negative forms of state power Plato contrasts his vision of an “ideal” social order. The author pays great attention to the definition in the state of the place of the ruling class. In his opinion, the rulers of the “ideal” state should be exclusively philosophers, in order for the state to be ruled by reason and reason. It is the philosophers who determine the welfare and justice of the state of Plato, because they are characterized by “… truthfulness, decisive rejection of any kind of lie, hatred for it, and love of truth.” Plato believes that any innovation in an ideal state will inevitably worsen it (it is impossible to improve the “ideal”). Obviously, it is the philosophers who will protect the “ideal” system, the laws from all kinds of innovations, because they possess “… all the qualities of the rulers and guards of the ideal state.” That is why the activity of philosophers determines the existence of an “ideal” state, its immutability. In essence, philosophers protect the rest of the people from the vice, which is any innovation in the state of Plato. No less important is the fact that, thanks to philosophers, the rule and the whole life of the “ideal” state will be built according to the laws of reason, wisdom, there will be no place for the impulses of the soul and feelings.

The basic law is that each member of society is obliged to perform only the work to which it is suitable. The author divides all residents of the “ideal” state into three classes: The lower class unites people who produce things that are necessary for the state or contribute to this; it includes a variety of people associated with handicrafts, agriculture, market operations, money, trade and resale – these are farmers, artisans, traders. Within this lower class, there is also a clear division of labor: the blacksmith cannot engage in trade, and the trader cannot become a farmer on a whim.

The second and third classes, the classes of warrior guards and rulers-philosophers, are no longer determined by professional, but by moral criteria. The moral qualities of these people Plato puts much higher moral qualities of the first class.

From all this we can conclude that Plato creates a totalitarian system of separating people into discharges, which is somewhat mitigated by the possibility of transition from class to class (this is achieved through long-term education and self-improvement). This transition is carried out under the guidance of the rulers.

It is characteristic that if even among the rulers there appears a person more suitable for the lower class, then he must be “lowered”. Thus, Plato believes that for the welfare of the state, each person should do the work for which he is best adapted. If a person does not do his own business, but inside his class, then it is not yet disastrous for the “ideal” state. When a person undeservedly from a shoemaker (first class) becomes a warrior (second class), or a soldier undeservingly becomes a ruler (third class), it threatens the entire state with collapse, therefore such a “jump” is considered a “supreme crime” against the system, because the good of the entire state as a whole, a person must do only the work to which he is best adapted.

He also believes that three of the four main virtues correspond to the three main classes:

1. Wisdom is the virtue of rulers and philosophers

2. Bravery is the virtue of warriors

3. Moderation – of the people.

The fourth justice does not apply to individual estates, but is “above estate”, a kind of “sovereign” virtue.

Interestingly, Plato, who lived in the days of the universal slaveholding system, does not pay special attention to slaves. All industrial concerns are placed on artisans and farmers. Here Plato writes that only “barbarians”, not Hellenes, can be converted into slavery during the war. However, he also says that war is an evil that arises in vicious states “for enrichment”, and in an “ideal” state of war it is necessary to avoid war, therefore, there will be no slaves. In his opinion, the highest ranks (castes) should not have private property in order to maintain unity. Nevertheless, in the “Laws” dialogue, where problems of the state structure are also discussed, Plato shifts the main economic concerns to slaves and foreigners, but condemns the soldiers. Philosophers, on the basis of reason, control the rest of the classes, restricting their freedom, and the warriors play the role of “dogs” holding the lower “herd” in obedience. This aggravates the already cruel division into discharges.

For example: Warriors do not live in the same places with artisans, working people. People of the “lower” breed exist to provide the “higher” with all necessary. The “higher ones” protect and direct the “lower ones”, destroying the weaker ones and regulating the lives of others.

The unity of people Plato considers the basis of his state. In the days of antiquity, the “golden age,” when the gods themselves controlled people, people were not born from people like now, but from the earth itself. People did not need material benefits and devoted a lot of time to philosophy. In many ways, the unity of the ancients was due to the absence of parents (all of them have one mother – the earth). Plato wants to achieve the same result, “socialized” not only human property, but also wives and children. According to Plato, men and women should not marry on their own whims. It turns out that philosophers secretly manage marriage, copulating the best with the best, and the worst with the worst. After giving birth, children are selected, and given to mothers after some time, and no one knows whose child he got, and all men (within the caste) are considered the fathers of all children, and all women are common wives of all men.

The prototype of power in Plato is a shepherd, herding a flock. If we resort to this comparison, then in the “ideal” state the shepherds are the rulers, the warriors are the guard dogs. To keep a flock of sheep in order, shepherds and dogs must be united in their actions, which the author seeks.

From the position of his ideal state, Plato classifies the existing state forms into two large groups: 1. Acceptable state forms 2. Regressive – depressive ones.

The first place in the group of acceptable state forms is its “ideal” state. To the declining, descending state forms, he attributed timocracy. In ancient Greece, Sparta of the fifth and fifth centuries referred to this type most of all. Oligarchy was significantly lower than timocracy – the power of several individuals, based on trade, usury. The main subject of irritation. Plato is a democracy in which he sees the power of the crowd, ignoble demos, and tyranny, which in ancient Greece since the 6th century. BC. represented a dictatorship against the aristocracy.

Art in understanding Plato.

Plato considers art only an imitation of the material world, i.e. not true being. And since he perceives the sensible world as a kind of ideas, art for him is only an imitation of imitation. Such contempt for art arises from the basic principles of his system of objective idealism. A certain role here is played by the fact that the heyday of ancient Greek art coincides with the heyday of slave-owning democracy that Plato hated. Understanding the power of art, the philosopher allowed it to exist in an ideal state. But it should serve religion and strengthen the power of the state. Plato puts forward a number of thoughts (the idea of ​​beauty, beauty, the social function of art, etc.), which contributed to the further development of the theory of art.

The works of Plato (427-347 BC) are a unique phenomenon in terms of highlighting a philosophical concept. This is a highly artistic, fascinating description of the very process of becoming a concept, with doubts and uncertainty, sometimes with unsuccessful attempts to resolve the question raised, with a return to the starting point, numerous repetitions, etc. It is rather difficult to single out any aspect in Plato’s work and systematically presenting it, since you have to reconstruct Plato’s thoughts from individual statements that are so dynamic that, in the process of evolution, thoughts sometimes turn into their opposite.

Plato repeatedly expressed his attitude towards mathematics and she was always highly appreciated by him: without mathematical knowledge, “a person with any natural properties would not be blissful”, in his ideal state he intended “to approve by law and convince those who intend to occupy high positions in so that they practice the science of numbering. ” The systematic widespread use of mathematical material takes place in Plato, starting with the Menon dialogue, where Plato leads to the main conclusion by means of a geometric proof. It was the conclusion of this dialogue that knowledge is a recollection that became the fundamental principle of Plato’s epistemology.

Significantly more than in gnoseology, the influence of mathematics is found in Plato’s ontology. The problem of the structure of material reality in Plato received the following interpretation: the world of things perceived through the senses is not the world of the truly existing; things continually arise and die. The world of ideas possesses true being, which are incorporeal, insensible, and act in relation to things as their causes and the images by which these things are created.

Further, in addition to sensory objects and ideas, he establishes mathematical truths that differ from sensory objects in that they are eternal and immobile, and from ideas in that some mathematical truths are similar to each other, but there is only one idea every time. In Plato, as the matter, the beginnings are big and small, and as the essence is one, for ideas (they are numbers) are obtained from big and small by introducing them to unity. The world of perception, according to Plato, is created by God. The process of building the cosmos is described in the Timey dialogue. After reading this description, it is necessary to recognize that the Creator was well acquainted with mathematics and at many stages of creation essentially used mathematical concepts, and sometimes carried out exact calculations.

Through mathematical relationships, Plato tried to characterize some of the phenomena of social life, as exemplified by the interpretation of the social relation “equality” in the dialogue “Gorgiy” and in the “Laws”. It can be concluded that Plato essentially relied on mathematics in developing the main sections of his philosophy: in the concept of “knowledge of recalling”, the doctrine of the essence of material existence, of the structure of the cosmos, in the interpretation of social phenomena, etc.

Mathematics played a significant role in the constructive design of his philosophical system. So what was his concept of mathematics?

According to Plato, mathematical sciences (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony) are bestowed upon man by gods, who “produced numbers, gave the idea of ​​time, and aroused the need to explore the universe.” The original purpose of mathematics is to “purify and revitalize that organ of the human soul, frustrated and blinded by other things,” which “is more important than a thousand eyes, because truth alone is contemplated by them.” “Only no one uses it (mathematics) correctly, as a science that invariably leads to reality.” The “incorrectness” of mathematics Plato saw above all in its applicability to the solution of specific practical problems. It cannot be said that he denied the practical applicability of mathematics at all.

So, part of the geometry is needed for the “location of the camps,” “for all constructions, both during the battles themselves and during the hikes.” But, according to Plato, “for such things … a small part of the geometric and arithmetic calculations is sufficient, some of which are large, extending further, should … contribute to the easiest assimilation of the idea of ​​good.” Plato spoke negatively about the attempts to use mechanical methods for solving mathematical problems that took place in the science of that time. His dissatisfaction was also caused by his contemporaries understanding of the nature of mathematical objects.

Considering the ideas of their science as a reflection of the real connections of reality, mathematicians, along with abstract logical reasoning, widely used sensory images and geometric constructions. Plato tries his best to convince that the objects of mathematics exist separately from the real world, therefore, when studying them, it is illegal to resort to sensual evaluation.

Thus, in the historically established system of mathematical knowledge, Plato singles out only a speculative, deductively constructed component and assigns it the right to be called mathematics. The history of mathematics is mystified, the theoretical sections are sharply contrasted to the computing apparatus, the application area is narrowed to the limit. In such a distorted form, some real aspects of mathematical knowledge were one of the reasons for constructing the system of objective idealism of Plato. Indeed, mathematics in itself does not lead to idealism at all, and in order to build idealistic systems, it has to be significantly deformed.

The question of the influence exerted by Plato on the development of mathematics is rather difficult. For a long time dominated by the belief that the contribution of Plato to mathematics was significant. However, a deeper analysis led to a change in this assessment.

So, O. Neugebauer writes: “His own direct contribution to mathematical knowledge, obviously, was equal to zero … The exceptionally elementary nature of the examples of mathematical reasoning given by Plato and Aristotle does not confirm the hypothesis that Evdox or Teeth learned something Plato …

His advice to astronomers to replace observations with speculation could destroy one of the most significant contributions of the Greeks to the exact sciences. ” This argument is quite convincing; one can also agree that the idealistic philosophy of Plato as a whole played a negative role in the development of mathematics. However, we should not forget about the complex nature of this impact.

Plato belongs to the development of some important methodological problems of mathematical knowledge: the axiomatic construction of mathematics, the study of the relationship between mathematical methods and dialectics, the analysis of the basic forms of mathematical knowledge. Thus, the proof process necessarily links a set of proven positions to a system based on some unprovable provisions.

The fact that the beginnings of the mathematical sciences are “the essence of assumptions” may raise doubts about the truth of all subsequent constructions. Plato considered such a doubt unfounded. According to his explanation, although the mathematical sciences themselves, “using assumptions, leave them in a stillness and cannot give them grounds,” the assumptions find their foundations through dialectics. Plato expressed a number of other provisions that proved fruitful for the development of mathematics.

So, in the dialogue “Feast” the concept of the limit is put forward; the idea appears here as the limit of becoming things.

The criticism to which Plato’s methodology and ideological system were subjected by mathematicians, for all its importance, did not affect the very foundations of the idealistic concept. To replace the methodology of mathematics developed by Plato by a more productive system, his doctrine of ideas, the main sections of his philosophy and, consequently, his view of mathematics, should be subjected to critical analysis. This mission fell to the lot of Plato’s disciple – Aristotle.