PLATO
(427 to 347 BC)

Plato and Democracy

Plato's Theory about the "Forms" or
        "Ideas"

The Path of Knowledge of Such
        Perfection

Plato's Perfect "Republic"

Plato's Larger Philosophical Legacy

Plato's Writings

Unsurprisingly, because of the self-destructive arrogance of the Athenian Assembly, and because of how easily the Athenian Assembly had been manipulated by suspicious commoners and the unscrupulous Sophists to order the ostracism of Thucydides and the death of Plato's much-beloved teacher Socrates, Plato came to have little use for democracy itself, dedicating himself to formulating in his writings – notably his famous work, Republic, instead a society dominated by a wise and moral philosopher-king. He obviously had in mind someone like himself as just such an enlightened individual ... an attitude taken up by many philosophers and intellectuals – and even "enlightened" monarchs, national leaders, and self-appointed social revolutionaries – down through Western history.   Thus Plato was no cynic.  Instead, in the face of the obvious ignorance that seemed to surround him everywhere, he devoted himself all the more to the search for Truth ... the Truth that he was certain was to be found well above mere human interest and its self-serving rationalization.

At the heart of the tremendous intellectual contribution that Plato made to Western thought was his theory about the "Forms" or "Ideas." A shadowy physical reality.  Quite in line with Greek mysticism –   especially a mysticism of the Pythagorean variety – Plato saw "reality" as merely a shadowy reflection of a "higher reality" ... one found well beyond our day-to-day world.  To Plato's way of thinking, the "reality" that we see directly around us is merely a shadowy reflection of a "higher reality" – one found well beyond our day-to-day world. This contrast between earthly reality and ultimate or ideal reality was a very important matter to Plato – and to all those who have been influenced by his thought ever since. The world around us that our senses perceive directly is an ever-changing, coming-and-going array of "particular things": the tree in our front yard, our neighbor next door, the brown cow just now eating clover in the field just outside the village, the beds and chairs in our house, the meal we are just about to sit down to, the yellow-orange sunset this evening, the song that we heard the tenor singing outside our window this morning, etc. These earthly things, these "particulars," have the sad quality of changing, aging, breaking down. The beauty of the flower, the sound of the beautiful song, the house we have just built, the strength of the athlete, etc. do not last very long in their splendor. And there is nothing on earth that is permanent, lasting or eternal. Not even the mountains – for they eventually wear down, even though the process may be slow and impossible to see directly. The Ideon (or Eidei).  Being thus ever-changing or "impermanent," these "particulars" are not truly "Real." And what is "Real"?  Nothing on earth.  But there is a realm of such Reality – which exists beyond our earthly domain – in the realm of the gods, in the realm of heaven.  This is the unseen world of the "Forms" or Ideas" (ideon or eidei, as he used both terms interchangeably) In this lofty "world beyond" exist a multitude of God-created Forms or Ideas or "Universals" – such as Socrates's Good, Truth, Beauty. They exist in perfection, just like the idea of a perfect circle, or the perfect relationship between radius of a circle and its circumference, in pure mathematical-like precision. They are Real, very real, the most real of all reality. They have transcendant and universal existence – like gods! Using the language of later Judaism and Christianity (which was heavily inspired by Platonist thought) this reality of the universal Forms or Ideas has its perfect existence only in the realm of God. This body of universals is what forms the very "Word" (Greek: Logos) of God. The things on earth are made after the image of such divine perfection--though themselves never perfectly or consistently so. Earthly things, though inspired to take on the shape or character of these universal Forms or Ideas, fall far short of the perfect glory or perfect reality of these transcendent Forms/Ideas. The Allegory or Parable of the Cave In his work Republic, Plato tells a story to illustrate his point about the flawed world we see around us and the purer, loftier realm of the Ideon. Suppose a person was born in a cave which had an opening high up that let light into the cave, but was so high that this person was unable to get out.  All that person was ever to know was the reality of the cave.  Now suppose that people outside walked in front of the cave from time to time, casting their shadows on the back side of the cave.  The person inside of the cave could not see these people.  But he could see their shadows.  It is natural that he would believe that these shadows were the reality of ‘people’ – when in fact they were only shadowy forms of true people.  So it is with us mortals in this world we so briefly inhabit.  We believe that the world around us that our senses perceive is the real world – when in fact it is merely a shadowy reflection of a higher world our senses are unable to perceive directly. Now suppose that one of those people were freed, to actually be able to see the real world. He would eventually painfully (because the light itself was so bright) eventually come to understand the difference between the shadowy world and the real world, much like a philosopher whose mind is freed to see the reality that lies well beyond the shadowy world that our physical senses are able to observe. Now also imagine the difficulty that the philosopher would face in returning to the cave to tell others of the existence of the greater world.  He would be mercilessly ridiculed as being totally "unrealistic"… possibly even killed for trying to lead to freedom those still locked inside the cave (like Plato's teacher Socrates, who was killed for trying to present to the Athenians what he understood to be Ultimate Truth)!

Discerning the Ideon.  How could Plato be so certain that such Forms or Ideas truly existed? For one thing, our minds can certainly contemplate what the perfect might be--though we have never actually seen it. Our minds can contemplate perfect beauty or perfect goodness--just as we can contemplate the perfect circle. Surely, the ability to contemplate such things points to the fact that they indeed exist – or our minds could not conceive of them. But Plato did also offer up some "empirical" (factual) evidence. Look at the movement of the heavens through day and night and season after season. There in the heavens perfection not found on earth certainly can be found. This seemed very compelling evidence (to Plato and the early thinkers) in testimony to the existence of the perfect in the heavenly realm. For Plato, the challenge facing us is to bring ourselves to the knowledge of such perfection. This was the highest calling of a human – to meditate on such perfection. Being occupied in such contemplation was the mark of true nobility in a person. Plato indeed felt that such noble thinkers (philosophers such as himself) should even be given the role of leading or governing the rest of society! Discovering the realm of God.  For Plato, the task of contemplating such perfection lay half-way between mystical thought and rational or mathematical thought (as it had been for most Greek philosophers, especially since the time of Pythagoras). The mind of God, the realm of the Forms or Ideas was not totally passive in this relationship – offering up to the inquirer the gift of inspiration or insight. Without such a gracious gift from the realm of God, no person could ever hope to attain heaven's insights. Yet we mortals were expected to put our thoughts on such matters: for in this state of readiness the truths of God would yield themselves up. But the process seemed to be as much an internal focusing as an external focusing. In other words, we didn't look for heaven "out there" as much as we looked for its evidence within our own thoughts, in the make-up of our own "souls". Plato had a sense of "fallenness" about the human: that we had the potential for perfect knowledge of the divine realm – but had lost it both over time and in the process of being born into this shadowy world. The recovery of this knowledge (knowledge of the divine Forms/Ideas) amounted to being joined to the mind of God, the immortal and eternal essence of the Forms or Ideas. Thus the task of the teacher was to help restore us to this original knowledge: to draw it out from us – rather than push it into us as if knowledge were something that existed out there apart from us. Knowledge, "pre-existed" within the soul and was led forth to realization by being touched by the mind. The mind, the memory, was fully loaded with divine knowledge – even of previous existences! Moreover, to Plato, death – which strikes terror in the human heart – was not an evil outcome of our all-too-brief human existences. Rather, he saw it as a process which separated the soul from the body: mind from matter, the heavenly from the earthly. Death had the effect of opening the person to perfect knowledge – knowledge which had been unavailable to our bodily senses while we were "alive" on earth. Thus death offered us the advantage of finally becoming true being – living in true light. The soul, which had existed somewhere before birth of the individual, now lived on in eternity, free and fully developed. In sum, Plato placed little stock in "empiricism:" the study through direct observation of the ways of the physical world around us. With the important exception of the study of the heavens, he felt that such study of the world "out there" was unlikely to reveal Truth – and in fact would likely only serve to deceive us by giving us the false impression that the shadowy world around us was indeed ultimate truth. To Plato this was a horrible thought – fit only for peasants and the very ignorant. Rather, Plato was interested in uncovering this perfect world of the Forms – in bringing it to light to human understanding.  Indeed, this was to Plato (and he many ‘Platonists’ who came after him) a religious enterprise – not just a matter of detached scholarship. The fact that his most famous student, Aristotle, took quite a different position on the matter (undertaking to give careful study of the earthly realm around us) was a source of disappointment to Plato. Nonetheless, Platonism, especially Middle-Platonism (about the time of Christ 300 years later) and Neo-Platonism (two hundred years after that), were to leave a powerful mark on the Western world-view.  In fact, Christianity found that Platonist thinking aided considerably in making the Gospel of Jesus Christ more readily understandable to the larger Greco-Roman culture beyond its immediate Palestinian-Jewish birthplace.

Plato's view on the "State."  From Plato's work Republic – but also his Laws and Statesman –  the ideal state is defined as a three-tiered (or caste) system of workers (carpenters, farmers, merchants, etc.), guardians (soldiers) and governors or rulers ('philosopher kings') ... the three tiers representing sort of the body, spirit and mind of society – with each social group shaped by a "soul" that they are naturally born with. Plato is convinced that giving the masses governing authority such as found in the Athenian Assembly (democracy) is a very bad idea.  Rather, society ultimately is best governed on behalf of everyone by those enlightened few, those who have been instructed or trained to look to the Higher Order of things for true understanding – those individuals who loved wisdom and knowledge and who were not ruled by the grosser emotions or senses.  They would be the ones to bring the wisest governance to any society.  The rest of society found their places below such rule according to "rational" principles of authoritarian community organization – something on the Sparta model. Much of this had to do with his being a spectator at the death-bed of his beloved teacher, Socrates, who was forced by the Athenian democracy to take poison for "leading the youth away from reverence for the gods." To Plato the death of such a marvelous philosopher was proof of the dangers of giving real power to the ignorant masses. Plato's disastrous experiment in Syracuse (Sicily).   Later in his life Plato was invited to Syracuse to instruct the quite dissolute young prince Dionysius II by his uncle Dion (a former student himself of Plato's) ... with the hope of turning Dionysius into a future philosopher king. By birth Dionysius was supposed to belong to the 'soul' of the ruling class ... and by Plato's own logic all Plato needed to do was bring out that soul in Dionysius through the discipline of education.  But things did not quite work out as planned. The actual ruler of Syracuse at that time, Dionysius the Elder (brother-in-law of Dion) arrested Plato (Plato's dislike of 'tyrants' irritated Dionysius immensely).  Plato was spared death only by being sold into slavery.  A friend purchased Plato's freedom ... who then returned to Athens.  But with the death of Dionysius the Elder, Dion requested Plato to come to Syracuse to try again to develop his nephew Dionysius II.  Plato accepted the offer.  At first Dionysius II appeared cooperative.  But then he and his uncle fought and Dionysius expelled Dion ... though he forced Plato to stay on.  Eventually Plato was able to leave Syracuse ... never to return! (popular uprising plus the outside involvement of Corinthian troops would eventually drive Dionysius permanently from power). It's hard to say what Plato actually learned from this experience, or how that would have altered any of his teachings.  Nothing in his writings points to such development.

In his huge body of writings focused on the concept of the divine Ideon, Plato brought together in a very comprehensive form the Kosmos of Pythagoras, the Logos of Heraclitus, and the Nous of Anaxagoras, that is, a strong sense of the presiding higher order standing well above the atomized physical world of Democritus and the Greek materialists.  Democritus and the materialists could well devote themselves to the exploration of the physical world and its ways.  But to Plato – and the many Platonists who followed after him – intellectual inquiry of merely the physical world would lead to no moral or structural progress in life itself.  True human progress, both individually and socially, required a strong connection – a virtual mental-spiritual or "mystical" unity – with the perfect realm of the Ideon (or Logos, or Nous, or Kosmos).  Otherwise humankind was destined to wander aimlessly through life, perhaps understanding certain features of life's earthly ways, but absolutely clueless as to life's grander purpose.  And tragically, a purposeless death was the ultimate outcome awaiting those materialists who could not get their eyes off the ground (or the back wall!) to see the higher realm of the Ideon, the divine Ideon that gave true meaning and purpose to life. Plato's thinking would live on centuries after him as "Platonism," or its evolved forms, Middle Platonism (about the time of Christ) and Neoplatonism (200 years after that).  Indeed, Platonism aided considerably in making the Gospel of Jesus Christ - and Jesus as the divine Logos – more readily understandable to the larger Greco Roman culture lying beyond Christianity's immediate Palestinian Jewish birthplace ... where most of the Jewish locals were instead expecting as a Messiah a warrior-deliverer on the order of the former King David.

Plato's major works or writings: Apology Charmides Critias Crito Euthydemus Euthyphro Gorgias Ion Laches Laws Meno Parmenides Phaedo Phaedrus Philebus Protagoras Republic Sophist Statesman Symposium Theaetetus Timaeus

Go to the history section: Ancient Greece (500 to 300 BC)

  Miles H. Hodges