PLATO

(427-347 BC)

BACKGROUND

FAMILY

• a wealthy and noble family
  • father - died when Plato was young
  • mother - remarried
  • connected through mother's remarriage to Pericles
•  born in Athens
• military service: 409 BC -- 404 BC
• Plato was preparing for a career in politics BUT
• the trial and eventual execution of Socrates (399 B.C.) changed the course of his life
• Plato abandoned his political career and turned to philosophy

SCHOOL:

• on the outskirts of Athens
• dedicated to the Socratic search for wisdom
• "the Academy" =
  • grove = sacred to Academus (demigod)
  • the 1st university in Western history
  •  operated from 387 B.C.-- A.D. 529
  • (closed by Justinian)
  • philosophy, physical science
  • astronomy, mathematics

BACKGROUND

WRITINGS:

• Plato = teacher AND writer
  • unlike Socrates
• writings = in the form of dialogues
  • Socrates = the principal speaker
  • dialectic

PHILOSOPHY:

• see major themes below
• Philosopher-King = best suited to rule
  • (see his political ambitions to the right)
• above the violence of 30 Tyrants, Athenian politics
• tried to make Dionysus II into PK
• Aristotle studied at the Academy @ 365 BC
• Theory of Forms
• art, politics, mathematics, religion

THEMES

MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS:

• his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it,
  • and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually;
• his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student,
  • but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves;
• his faith that the universe ultimately is good;
• his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society
  • and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.

THEMES

PHILOSOPHY:

• a rigorous & systematic examination of
• ethical, political, metaphysical, & epistemological issues (Stanford)

“THE ALLEGORY of the CAVE”:

• found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic:
  • a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice
  • often regarded as a utopian blueprint
  • dedicated toward a discussion of the education required of a Philosopher-King
•  The following selection is taken from the Benjamin Jowett translation (Vintage, 1991), pp. 253-261.

STYLE

WRITINGS:

• Plato = teacher AND writer
  • unlike Socrates
• writings = in the form of dialogues
  • Socrates = the principal speaker
  • dialectic -->
• In “The Allegory of the Cave”
  • Plato describes symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation.
  •  presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions

 STYLE

• asks question & proves wrong
• exposing false beliefs, inconsistencies, unrecognized errors AND eliciting truths, through questions
  • ask questions to reveal the error of the respondent's beliefs, thinking, logic
• dialoguing
• cross-examining
• Plato:  "The dialectic remains the only intellectual process whose method is that of dissecting hypotheses and ascending to first principles in order to obtain valid knowledge. Even when the soul’s eye is sunk in the muddy pit or barbarism, the dialectic will gently release it and draw it upward, calling upon the studies we recently examined to support its work of conversion. We should note here that habit has several times caused us to call these studies sciences. We really need another word that would connote something more enlightened than opinion but less pure than science. I believe we used the word understanding earlier." (St. 533d; S&S 227)
• Dialectic is the process by which thought leads one to knowledge. Discussion is the spur to dialectic. Through talking with each other, people can delve more deeply into problems and figure out an answer.  (Gorman)