Plato

Plato was born to a distinguished Athenian family in 427 BC one year after the death of Pericles and when Socrates was about forty-two years old. In 387 BC, he established the first European university. Plato never married or had children and died in 347 BC. 

Plato’s works are written as dialogues between Socrates, through whom Plato gives his point of view, and other characters often representing popular alternative views. The Republic is perhaps his most well-known and well-read work. The topics of the work are broad including ethics, politics, education, the mind, epistemology, and art to name a few. It does however have a main topic: justice. 

One of our greatest fears is to get to the end of our lives and look back with regret. Since we get no do-overs and only one life, such a situation is extremely undesirable. But what is the secret to contentment in old age? According to Cephalus, the father of one of Socrates’ friends, the way to such a state is to have lived a just life. But Socrates is not content with the answer. What exactly is a just life? So ensues the discussion of the Republic. 

Essentially, Plato’s answer is that justice is a state of harmony between parts. When every part is playing its role correctly, then justice is achieved. One can see what is meant by thinking of an ideal city in which traders, military, and police all perform their roles under the direction of the wisest people of the city. Plato proposes that the human soul is similar. It is composed of the appetites, the will, and reason. If reason directs the appetite, enforcing its diktats via the will, a state of justice will be achieved.

What makes reason the natural governor of the soul? For Plato, reality is ordered in such a way as to privilege objects that are unseen. These objects aren’t like cars, radishes, or even atoms. Instead, the objects are abstract ideals, which are immutable, eternal, and perfect. Plato called these objects ‘forms.’ We don’t access to the forms via our senses, but by using our intellect. Indeed, we wouldn’t be able to use our senses to understand the physical world unless we do so ‘in the light of’ the forms. Since the objects of our reason are perfect, the rational component of our souls—that which can access the forms—is in a privileged position. 

For Plato, forms are ideals. Even the best triangle we can draw won’t be as perfect as its form. We can only approximate the ideal in the physical realm. What’s true of triangles is true of everything else. 

The view that there is always an ideal version of something has far-reaching consequences. Thinkers such as Plutarch, the historian, applied Plato’s view to the use of historical biography. If Plato is right, then there are people who live closer to ideals than others. We should all attempt to live ideal lives. But how do we discern the more ideal from the less? Plutarch thought that his biographies of famous lives of Greeks and Romans could cause readers to observe and naturally apprehend the better from the worse. One could then imitate the ideals. Such a thought carried over to some theologians such a Thomas à Kempis who applied the same sort of methodology for Christians to imitate Christ. 

Consideration of ideas apart from experience also became a constant theme among subsequent philosophers. For example, Anselm’s ontological arguments for the existence of God are devoid of premises drawn from the empirically observable world (see my previous post). Instead, they begin with a purely rational reflection on the concept of God. In the modern era, the rationalists took seriously the claim that what is most important is not what one can observe but what one can think apart from experience. 

Plato’s analogy between the city and the soul has led many to seek to achieve the ideal polis after the pattern of Plato’s ideal city state. Suppose a few very smart people could direct all the activities of the city’s inhabitants. Wouldn’t we thereby create the best political state? Plato thought these people should be philosophers. For many, the idea that there are such people is myth at best. I, for one, would suggest not giving me or any other philosopher (or any fallen human being) any such powers! But the idea that a few people could manage everything if they were sufficiently trained has maintained a strong component of many a political philosophy despite the observational evidence that it never works for the good of the governed. 

Some theologians sought to modify Plato’s views in light of their theological commitments. Famously, Augustine ‘baptized’ Plato’s philosophy, arguing that although he is right to postulate a set of ideals, Plato’s ideals aren’t a separate realm from the mind. Instead, the forms are really aspects of the mind of God. When we think of an ideal, we are contemplating the divine. 

Most great philosophers influence not only those who agree with them, but those who don’t. In Plato’s case, Aristotle—one of Plato’s students—went on to take issue with Plato’s view of the forms. In so doing, he developed a philosophical system that came to dominate the western and much of the Arabic speaking world. His views had their own ‘baptism’ in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. 

If you would like to read some Plato, I suggest starting with his Apology and Republic. To see how his thought impacts Christian theology, see Philosophy for Understanding Theology by Diogenes Allen and Eric Springsted. For an introduction to his thought, try Richard Kraut’s introduction at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/.