Introducing Plato E-Book

Dave Robinson

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Introducing...
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 106

Beschreibung

"Introducing Plato" begins by explaining how philosophers like Socrates and Pythagoras influenced Plato's thought. It provides a clear account of Plato's puzzling theory of knowledge, and explains how this theory then directed his provocative views on politics, ethics and individual liberty. It offers detailed critical commentaries on all of the key doctrines of Platonism, especially the very odd theory of Forms, and concludes by revealing how Plato's philosophy stimulated the work of important modern thinkers such as Karl Popper, Martha Nussbaum, and Jacques Derrida.

Leseprobe

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39-41 North Road, London N7 9DPEmail: [email protected] 

ISBN: 978-184831-177-0

Text copyright © 2014 Icon Books Ltd

Illustrations copyright © 2014 Icon Books Ltd

The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights

Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

The King of Philosophers

The World of Athens

The Decline of Athens

Socrates

Foreign Travels

The Academy

The III-Advised Visits to Syracuse

The Peaceful Academic

Greek Civilization

Greek Thought

The City-States of Greece

Plato’s Warnings

Influences on Plato: the Pre-Socratics

The Religion of Mathematics

Heraclitus: Everything Changes

Pure and Applied Science

Socrates’ View of Knowledge

Socratic Dialogue

Virtue is Knowledge

Seek the Essences

Plato’s Socrates

The Euthyphro

The Apology

The Crito

The Phaedo

The Influence of Socrates on Plato

The Sophists: Wisdom for Money

Sophistic Relativism and Scepticism

Protagoras

The Meno

Problems with Anamnesis

Introduction to Plato’s Republic

Athens and the Perfect State

Preliminary Discussions

Thrasymachus

The Poor Response

Some Better Arguments

The Ideological View of Morality

Glaucon and Adeimantus

Psychological Egoists

The Social Contract Theory of Morality

But Is It True?

Plato’s Epistemology

What is Knowledge?

Universals and Particulars

Paradigms and Copies

The Puzzling World of Forms

Why Plato Needed the Forms

A Short Digression

Socratic Definitions

Words, Ideas and Things

Definitions and Forms

Forms and Particulars

The Relationship between Forms and Particulars

Linguistic Determinism

It’s All Greek

Perfect Knowledge: Perfect Republic

Neat Answers

Criticisms of the Theory of Forms

More Problems

Consequences

True and Certain Knowledge

So What Are Universals?

Plato’s Political Philosophy

Argument by Analogy

How Societies Begin

The Division of Labour

Educating the Republic’s Soldiers

The Myth of the Four Metals

The Myth of the Cave

What Does It Mean?

The Harmonious Beehive and the Soul

The Big Lie

The Bizarre Life of a Guardian

The Guardians and the Forms

Moral Absolutism

No Place For Art

The State of Art

The Paradox

Criticisms

The Ship of State

The Wild Beast

Plato and the People

Against Utopianism

What is the “Right” Government?

The Laws

Plato’s Second Republic

The Theocracy

What Would Plato Do with Socrates?

The Symposium

Homosexual and Heterosexual Love

So, What Is Love?

The Purer Forms

Alcibiades Enters

The Timaeus

Atlantis: Legend of the Lost City

Cosmology in The Timaeus

Triangular Particle-Theory

Plato and String Theory

The Chora

The Sophist: Puzzles and Confusions

Language, Thoughts and Things

The Thaetetus

Sensations and Knowledge

Theories of Perception

How Do We Have Wrong Thoughts?

The Phaedrus

What is Rhetoric?

Against Writing

Deconstructing Logocentrism

Private and Public Voices

Plato’s Inheritors: Aristotle

Platonists, Neo-Platonists and Others

What Sort of Philosopher Is He?

What Does a Philosopher Do?

Dialogue Interrogation

What Are the Answers?

The Quest for Ideal Perfection

Plato, the Escape-Artist

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Index

The King of Philosophers

Plato was probably the greatest philosopher of all time, and the first to collect all sorts of different ideas and arguments into books that everyone can read. He wanted to know about everything and constantly pestered his friends and fellow philosophers for answers to his disturbing questions. He also had resolute ideas of his own, some of which seem sensible enough, and some of which now seem extremely odd. But, from the start, he knew that “doing philosophy” was a very special activity…

ALL PHILOSOPHERS MUST SOAR WITH UNWEARIED PASSION UNTIL THEY GRASP THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS AS THEY REALLY ARE.

The World of Athens

Plato was born in 427 B.C.E. into an aristocratic family, and lived in Athens for most of his life. The 5th century city-state of Athens was probably the most civilized place in the world – a home to astronomers, biologists, logicians, artists, mathematicians, and all sorts of thinkers then loosely categorized as “lovers of wisdom” or “philosophers”.

THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE EXTENDED THROUGHOUT THE MEDITERRANEAN. AND IT WAS MAINTAINED WITH RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY.

All of the dull hard physical work was performed by slaves, so most Athenians had plenty of leisure time in which to think and talk about ideas.

BUT THEY AVOIDED THINKING TOO HARD ABOUT THE ETHICAL ISSUE OF SLAVERY ITSELF. WOMEN DIDN’T HAVE MUCH SAY IN THE INTELLECTUAL OR PUBLIC LIFE OF THE STATE.

The actual city of Athens was small enough for everyone to know everyone else, which means that Plato’s philosophy was probably directed at a specific elite audience of intellectual friends and acquaintances.

The Decline of Athens

Plato lived through a turbulent and finally disastrous period of Athenian history. In the Golden Age of Athens, the great statesman Pericles (c. 495-429 B.C.E.) had been able to unite nearly all of the other Greek city-states into a temporary alliance against the Persians, who were always threatening to invade. The union was short-lived.

THE CITY-STATES OF ATHENS AND SPARTA SPEND MOST OF THEIR TIME FIGHTING FUTILE AND INCONCLUSIVE WARS AGAINST EACH OTHER. UNTIL THE YEAR 405 B.C.E., WHEN SPARTA FINALLY WON A DECISIVE VICTORY.

It is extremely likely that Plato fought in this last war as a cavalryman. It would have been very odd for a citizen like him not to have done so. Like other young upper-class Athenians, he was probably rather ambivalent about the war.

WE ADMIRED SPARTA AS AN ARISTOCRATIC SOCIETY THAT WAS EFFICIENT AND STABLE BECAUSE IT STOOD NO NONSENSE FROM THE LOWER ORDERS.

After the war, Sparta imposed a puppet government on Athens. Plato would probably have become a part of it, like his relatives Critias and Charmides, if history had been slightly different.

Socrates

Plato met a charismatic philosopher called Socrates (470-399 B.C.E.) who completely changed his life. Socrates was a popular guru for many young Athenians, even though his appearance, personal habits and philosophical views were mocked and lampooned in the Athenian theatres and in public life. Socrates maintained that philosophy couldn’t be taught, because it was really an attitude of mind rather than a body of knowledge. And like all gurus, he usually spoke in riddles and paradoxes.

THE WISE MAN IS THE ONE WHO KNOWS THAT HE IS IGNORANT. SOCRATES INSISTS THAT PHILOSOPHERS HAVE TO QUESTION CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND CHALLENGE TRADITIONAL BELIEFS. YOUNG PEOPLE MUST THINK FOR THEMSELVES AND TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED.

Socrates was encouraging the sort of rebellious behaviour that governments and authorities usually hate. The citizens of Athens eventually threw out the puppet government of the “Thirty Tyrants”, restored a democratic government, and in 399 B.C.E. had Socrates executed by forcing him to drink poison. The rather unconvincing charges against him were that he was blasphemous and that he was corrupting young people. In fact, he was probably condemned because of his continuing close friendship with two ex-pupils – Critias (“The Tyrant”) and Alcibiades (“The Spartan Traitor”). Socrates, like his pupil, Plato, seems to have made disastrous choices when it came to friends.

Foreign Travels

Socrates’ execution was a highly traumatic event for many young Athenians, including Plato, who left the city disgusted with all Athenian politics and politicians. At the time, he said that…

UNTIL KINGS BECOME PHILOSOPHERS OR PHILOSOPHERS, KINGS, THINGS WILL NEVER GO WELL IN THIS WORLD.

He travelled around the Mediterranean, may have visited Egypt, may have been kidnapped and ransomed by pirates, and almost certainly did visit some Greek colonies in Southern Italy, before he finally settled briefly in Sicily at the court of King Dionysius I. Here he met an attractive young man called Dion, who made a big impression on the middle- aged Athenian refugee. He also met the philosopher Archytas of Tarentum, who encouraged his interest in Pythagorean mathematics.

The Academy

The homesick Plato eventually returned to Athens where, circa 387 B.C.E., he established the first ever European university – called “The Academy” – in the western suburbs. In this educational institution, fulltime scholars ate around the same table, argued about everything that was known, and kept the spirit of Socratic debate alive. Plato gave lectures to students on mathematics, astronomy and his theory of “Forms” whilst walking around his garden. He had a small library and perhaps even a mechanical model of the planetary orbits. Like the Pythagorean scholars of southern Italy, the members of the Academy believed that a study of mathematics held the key to all understanding.

IT REVEALS ALL OF THE REGULARITIES AND HARMONIES THAT GOVERN THE NATURAL AND HUMAN WORLDS. THIS IS WHY THE SIGN ABOVE OUR GATE SAYS: “LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF MATHEMATICS ENTER HERE.”

The purpose of the Academy could sometimes confuse less studious Athenians. On one occasion, many citizens responded enthusiastically to an advertised public talk on “The Good Life”, expecting to hear about happiness and self-improvement, but found that they had to sit through an obscure and interminable lecture on higher mathematics.

The III-Advised Visits to Syracuse

When he was 60, Plato made another disastrous visit to Syracuse in Sicily at the request of his friend Dion. Plato was supposedly employed as tutor to the young King Dionysius II, but found himself in the middle of an appalling political hornets’ nest. Dion himself had been banished for plotting against the throne.

UNWISELY, I PLEADED ON HIS BEHALF…

As a result, Plato seems to have experienced some “difficulty” in leaving Syracuse when he wanted to return home. By now, the beleaguered king had sensibly decided that he had more pressing things to attend to than tutorials in metaphysics.

Plato, very unwisely, returned to Syracuse when he heard that Dionysius had promised to un-banish Dion. But Dion remained banished, all of his property was confiscated and Plato would have remained in Syracuse under permanent house-arrest had not a neighbouring ruler intervened on his behalf. In 357 B.C.E., Dion invaded Syracuse and overthrew Dionysius …

BUT HE WAS THEN ASSASSINATED BY CALLIPPUS, ANOTHER OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF MINE.

This complicated story of personal betrayal, blackmail, threats and very real violence would seem to indicate that Plato was a rather poor judge of character and political circumstances. He was clearly right to give up public life for good after this last visit and remain cynical about all politicians thereafter.

The Peaceful Academic

Plato finally returned to Athens, where he taught and argued in the Academy until his death in 347 B.C.E. The Academy’s most impressive student was a Macedonian from the north called Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.).

I STUDIED WITH PLATO FOR 20 YEARS, BECAME HEAD OF THE ACADEMY AFTER HIS DEATH, BUT LATER FOUNDED MY OWN SCHOOL, THE LYCEUM, IN 335 B.C.E.

The Academy itself continued for many centuries until it was eventually closed down in A.D. 529 by the Christian emperor Justinian. When Plato died, he was a few years over 80 and, like most individuals who have subsequently taken up the profession of philosophy, had very little in the way of money or possessions.

Greek Civilization

The civilization of 5th-century Athens was very special, primarily because it laid the foundations of our own modern Western beliefs and values. But although the Athenians were like us in many respects, in other ways they were quite different. They admired warrior virtues, and they were probably less individualistic and more “tribal” than we are now. Because their social and cultural world was very different to ours, this means that many Greek words are difficult to translate into clear modern English equivalents.

AN ATHENIAN DESCRIBED AS A “GOOD” MAN WASN’T NECESSARILY, AS WE MIGHT THINK, KIND AND GENEROUS … “GOOD” MEANS BEING COURAGEOUS AND SKILLED IN WARFARE, DUTIFUL, PROUD AND, ABOVE ALL ELSE, LOYAL TO THE STATE.

Greek Thought

The Greeks also had a teleological view of the world and themselves. This means that everything in the world aimed towards an ultimate purpose or design – a good knife had to be sharp, a horse strong and obedient, a government just and efficient, and so on. So a “good” human being was one who fulfilled his function, mostly by being a good citizen. Slaves were unfortunate – they were slaves because of their “natures”.

Greek religious beliefs were also very different. The Greek gods were a quarrelsome, promiscuous and often immoral bunch whom you were wise to compliment and make sacrifices to. Intelligent Greek citizens looked beyond official religion for their political and ethical values.

BY ASKING FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OUTSIDE OF MYTHS, WE STARTED “DOING PHILOSOPHY”. WE QUESTIONED EVERYTHING … MATHEMATICS, MORALITY, BIOLOGY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY, HISTORY, ASTRONOMY, ECONOMICS …

“Knowledge” was getting started, which means that Athenians didn’t draw the rigid distinctions that we now do between different disciplines. They were the first society to refuse to take traditional answers for granted. Their attitude of mind was critical and investigative, and it is that, more than anything else, that still makes them truly “modern”.

The City-States of Greece