Plato

Who is Plato?

Teacher Teacher

Socrates Plato Aristotle

Platophilosopher, mathematician, writ
★A Classical Greek
er of philosophical dialogues.

★Founder of the Academy in

Athens, the first institution of
higher learning in the Western
world.

★Along with his

mentor, Socrates, and his
student, Aristotle, Plato helped
to lay the foundations of
Western philosophy and science.

★Plato was originally a student

of Socrates, and was as much
influenced by his thinking as by
his apparently unjust execution.
PLATO….

• ⅠEarly life :1.Birth and family

• 2.Name
• 3. Education

• ⅡPhilosophy and main thoughts

• ⅢWorks:1.The Republic
• 2.The Laws

• Ⅳ Major Contribution
Birth and Family

The exact birth-date of Plato is

unknown. Based on ancient
sources, most modern scholars
estimate that he was born in Athens
427 b.c. in a aristocratic and
influential family.
His father was Ariston. According
to a disputed tradition, Ariston
traced his descent from the king of
Athens, and the king of Messenia.
Plato's mother’s family boasted of a
relationship with the famous
Athenian lawmaker and lyric poet
Solon.
Plato himself was the fourth kid in
 Name
• According to history, the philosopher
was named Aristocles after his
grandfather, but his wrestling coach
dubbed him "Platon", meaning
"broad," on account of his robust
figure.
• According to the sources Plato derived
his name from the breadth of his
eloquence, or else because he was
very wide across the forehead.
• In the 21st century some scholars
argued that the legend about his name
being Aristocles originated in the
Hellenistic age.
 Education
Plato's quickness of mind and modesty
as a boy, and the "first fruits of his youth
infused with hard work and love of
study".
Plato must have been instructed in
grammar, music, and gymnastics by the
most distinguished teachers of his time.
Plato had also attended courses of
philosophy; before meeting
Socrates, he first became acquainted
with Cratylus (a disciple of Heraclitus, a
prominent pre-Socratic Greek
philosopher) and the Heraclitean
doctrines.
• Plato may have traveled in Italy, Egypt to
realize his aristocratic political dream. Said to
have returned to Athens at the age of forty
failed, Plato founded one of the earliest known
organized schools on a plot of land in the Grove
of Academus in Western Civilization. The
Academy was "a large enclosure of ground that
was once the property of a citizen at Athens
named Academus. Some, however, say that it
received its name from an ancient hero", and it
operated until AD 529, when it was closed by
Justinian I of Byzantium, who saw it as a threat
to the propagation of Christianity. Many
intellectuals were schooled in the Academy, the
most prominent one being Aristotle.

• Throughout his life, Plato became entangled

with the politics of Syracuse. His main interests
lay in
Rhetoric, Art, Literature, Epistemology, Justice,
Virtue, Politics, Education, Family, Militarism .
Plato Back In ATHENS ….

• When Plato returned to Athens

in 387 B.C., he started a school
of learning called the
Academy, which was eventually
described as the 1st European
University
• At the Academy, he taught his
subjects
astronomy, biology, mathematic
s, political theory, and
philosophy.
 Philosophy

• A pupil of Socrates, Plato, too, had a

bias against democracy. He had an
aristocratic upbringing, and was
immersed in the culture of his day, but
his plan, abetted by relatives, to enter
politics was abandoned after he saw
what was done to Socrates.
 Philosophy and main thoughts…
• Plato holds his gestures to the heavens, representing
his belief in The Forms.
• In several dialogues, Socrates floats the idea that
Knowledge is a matter of recollection, and not of
learning, observation, or study. He maintains this view
somewhat at his own expense, because in many
dialogues, Socrates complains of his forgetfulness.
Socrates is often found arguing that knowledge is not
empirical, and that it comes from divine insight.
• In many middle period dialogues, such as the
Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus Plato advocates a
belief in the immortality of the soul, and several
dialogues end with long speeches imagining the
afterlife. More than one dialogue contrasts knowledge
and opinion, perception and reality, nature and
custom, and body and soul.
• Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the
muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of
this, and other forms of divine madness
(drunkenness, eroticism, and dreaming) want to outlaw
• Platonic realism
• "Platonism" is a term coined by scholars to refer
to the intellectual consequences of denying, as
Socrates often does, the reality of the material
world. In several dialogues, most notably the
Republic, Socrates inverts the common man's
intuition about what is knowable and what is
real. While most people take the objects of their
senses to be real if anything is, Socrates is
contemptuous of people who think that
something has to be graspable in the hands to
be real.
• In other words, such people live without the
divine inspiration that gives him, and people like
him, access to higher insights about reality.
Salient Points of his Philosophy….

• Knowledge is not sense-

perception, not what simply appears to
me.

• Like Socrates, Plato believes in “ virtue

is knowledge,” and the source of
knowledge is virtue. It is not
abstract, but concrete knowledge, not
theoretical but practical knowledge. A
man must know what is good so that
he may do good.
 • Virtue can be taught, and there are
four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage
or fortitude, temperance, and justice.

wisdom Rulers
Justice
“everyone courage
performs their Guardians
duties”
temperance Artisans
Plato’s Works
• He had 36 dialogues (books) and 13 letters-
“The Republic” – talks about Utopian society

• Give readers a sense of philosophy as a

living and unfinished subject, to which they
will need to contribute to finish

• Modern scholars doubt the authenticity

• After writing, his works were “lost” until the

Renaissance

• They have been steadily studied since

• Big influence in math and science

– Difference between arithmetic and logistic
Plato & Politics

• The Republic
– Virtues of Justice
– Courage
– Wisdom and Moderation (Individual and
Society)
• 3 Part Society
– Workers (producing)
• The “appetite” of the soul
– Warriors (protecting)
• The “spirit” of the soul
– Rulers (governing)
• The “reason” of the soul
Plato & Politics Cont.

Courage is not merely military

courage but primarily civic courage:
the ability to preserve the right, law-
inspired belief, and stand in defense
of such values as friendship and
freedom on which a good society is
founded.
Plato & Politics Cont.

Plato’s Government Would Have:

• Multiparty System
• Periodic Elections
• Professional Civil Service (Union)

Plato believed that that there could be a

body of knowledge whose attainment
would make it possible to completely
heal political problems.
The End of Plato…

• Plato died in 347 B.C.,

leaving the Academy.

• The Academy remained a

model for institutions of
higher learning until
Emperor Justinian closed
it
Contribution…

• Plato's major contribution was to the

field of psychology on the subject
matter of metaphysics. His thoughts on
the idea of the soul and its tripartite
division: intuition, logistikon
nous, which he equated with the
brain, and the active emotions
'spiritness' that reside in the
chest, served as a basis for future
psychologists and there studies.
•
What is Metaphysics??

• Metaphysics is the study of the nature

of things. Metaphysicians ask what
kinds of things exist, and what they are
like. They reason about such things as
whether or not people have free will, in
what sense abstract objects can be
said to exist, and how it is that brains
are able to generate minds.