Throughout history each era has had within it a resounding voice;
a figure who embodies the very essence of that age.
And when we look back to the vibrancy of Periclean Greece
we can say without doubt that it is Plato who we hear.
It was his work that brought philosophy
out of the dark corner of academia where the common man,
if he so choose,
could laze in its light.
Even now, roughly 2000 years after his death,
there are still countless students enveloped in the radiance of his thought.
So let us step into the light and discover Plato.
If we are to believe the accounts of Diogenes Laertius we can say that he was born in Athens during the 88th Olympiad,
approximately 428 B.C.E.
It is thought that at birth his given name was Aristocles,
the moniker Plato would only come later on as a result of his unusually wide chest and shoulders,
or forehead depending on who you receive your information from.
He was said to have been an athlete, even competing and winning medals at the Isthmian games.
The game of Dialectics would only come to him after meeting Socrates,
and through the careful tutelage of the old Gadfly Plato would develop a passionate love for wisdom which would continue until his death in 348.
Upon the death of Socrates, Plato was then only 28, he would come under suspicion from the Athenian authorities for his part in plotting his escape.
Because of this his friends thought it best that he set off to see the world.
We are uncertain as to the places which he traveled, but it is thought that he went to
Egypt,
Italy,
Judea,
and India,
but again we simply do not know for certain.
He would spend at total of 12 years away from Athens,
but would eventually return in the year 387 at the age of 40.
It was then that he established one of the earliest known organized schools in western civilization
called The Academy.
From this tiny school on the outskirts of Athens he would write the famous dialogues which would carry his name through the ages.
Seeing his master put to death instilled in him two things,
a passionate contempt for democracy
and the desire to “find a method wherein the wisest and the best might be discovered, persuaded, and then enabled to rule” (Will Durant).
In short he wished to create the ideal state;
and so he did
in what is perhaps his greatest work The Republic.
He began by asking himself why such a state has never come into existence,
why with all our ideas has this dream never been realized.
His answer
– simply human nature,
our excess greed and ambition too soon cause states to war over the territory and resources.
Additionally if external wars are able to be avoided then class and cultural division will eventually bring internal strife;
wherever in the roundabout of governmental systems we begin the fate of each remains the same.
See aristocracy,
“limiting too narrowly the circle within which power is confined,” (Will Durant)
give way to oligarchy,
which then fails when “the incautious scramble for immediate wealth,” causes currency to accumulate in the hands of a few
creating anger and dissent in the hearts of the many.
Once this takes place there can only be one end,
that being revolution.
“Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power” (557).
But even democracy is not immune to the old ball and chain,
the failure of the state to adequately educate its people causing demagogues to be elected.
Once the state has been thoroughly thrust into chaos by these ill-informed, and ill-intentioned individuals the people demand order,
and whoever can deliver the greatest lie becomes the people’s champion,
I.E their autocrat.
This nauseating roundabout could only be prevented, Plato thought, by understanding first the nature of man.
Only then can we proceed, at least with any hope of success,
in building our Utopia.
Our process should begin by determining what drives individuals to behave in the way that they do,
after all,
“governments vary as the characters of men vary, . . . States are made out of the human natures which are in them” (544).
According to Plato human behavior originates from three main sources;
desire,
emotion,
and knowledge.
Desire holds within it impulse and instinct,
within emotion is ambition and courage,
and intellect and reason are encapsulated within knowledge.
How a particular individual behaves depends upon which source he drinks from most readily.
Those that take desire as their mainspring are best fit to be the producers of our society;
this is to say the farmers, businessmen, and merchants.
If emotion is what drives them
then these individuals are best fit to be our auxiliaries. They will fill the role of the military officers and top executive aides.
Last are the few who take knowledge as their guiding beacon,
these esteemed individuals will become our guardians,
our rulers,
our philosopher kings.
If we are to see our state succeed it is paramount that we enable each individual to acquire and perform the given tasks which their nature has best suited them for,
“ruin comes,”
said Plato,
“when the trader,
whose heart is lifted up by wealth
becomes ruler” (434).
In order to ensure that we choose our rulers properly, Plato has put in place an intricate system of selection,
I will summarize it here.
We must begin with complete equality of educational opportunity,
there will be no class, race, or gender barriers in our state;
whether it be a man or a woman, all they must do is demonstrate the ability to stand up to our process.
Let our search for prospects start by “sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old,”
Plato thought that “by taking possession of the children, (they) will be protected from the habits of their parents.”
Once there the children will begin their education,
and so for the first 10 years their education will consist of predominately physical and musical activities.
This sort of early education would allow us to figure out the natural disposition of a child.
At this time we should also instill a moral basis,
this we will do by supernatural authority.
Yes,
we must have a religion.
Not only will this lend to our moral basis,
but it will also enable those individuals who have not been given high office to accept their position without dispute and anger towards those who are placed higher than themselves.
Moving on;
at twenty years of age we will give to them what is to be their first of two examinations,
this will not only be an academic test,
but also a test of practical and theoretical skill.
Those who fail will become our producers, or the economic class of our state,
those who pass will be given ten more years of education.
At the age of thirty they will be presented with a second, more difficult examination.
Those who fail this test will be become our auxiliaries.
After this second examination, the ones who remain will then be taught philosophy for 5 years.
This will consist of mainly metaphysics and politics.
Once this training is complete they will be sent into the world to be educated by life itself.
This last and perhaps most difficult test will continue for 15 years more.
Those who have come to the end of their education successfully,
now 50 years of age,
would become automatically the rulers of the state.
It was Plato’s thought that this system would eliminate discrimination based on social status since each would be given an equal chance to become guardians based upon their own merit.
It would also eliminate the crux of democracy,
which again is its tendency to elect ill-fitted individuals into high public office.
After examining this political ideal many of you may be questioning,
as Plato did,
the practical plausibility of what he has laid out.
While it is true that this Utopia of which he speaks has not yet shown itself on the horizon
I think we will still gain from developing these ideas and images.
It may not be the magic formula to creating the perfect state that we expected,
but perhaps we can provide a few ingredients that will aid in the development of another’s state when the time comes that the opportunity presents itself.
Outside of the political digressions the entire premise of The Republic remains an ethical one,
that being the question of justice.
Though with this digression we allowed ourselves the ability to view justice in a larger sense,
which Plato thought would give us insight into how we might define it individually.
In Plato’s society the basic goal was for each individual to be placed into the role for which he or she is best suited for,
in achieving this Plato meets his definition of justice
which is
“the having and doing what is one’s own.”
In other words
“a just man is a man in just the right place, doing his best, and giving the full equivalent of what he receives,” (Will Duarnt)
and on the societal level it is the effective coordination of these individuals to the end of creating an efficient whole.
This is contrasted by the moral views of, say,
Jesus and Nietzsche;
the former puts emphasis on kindness and charity to the weak
while the latter on the power of the strong.
Plato believes a moral society is one that achieves harmony of the whole.
Something else to consider when investigating the ethics of Plato is how much variation occurs between the different dialogues.
Each scholar will come to a different conclusion depending upon which method they subscribe to.
You have the Unitarian view which takes the various works of Plato and sees them maintain
more or less
the same principles from start to finish.
Then there is the revisionist view
which believes that his work saw some fundamental changes during the later parts of his life.
And finally there is the Developmentalist view
which has gained traction in recent years;
these individuals believe that Plato’s ethical ideals continually evolved throughout his life.
Whichever avenue you choose to follow you will find that he,
like many other philosophers of his day,
followed a “virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics.”
By Eudaemonistic I mean an ethic based on happiness and the virtues that contribute to its attainment.
In order to fully discover his ethics I will save it for a separate video as it would take much more time to fully investigate its intricacies.
The Metaphysics of Plato is most readily demonstrated through his doctrine of ideas,
or as some call the theory of forms.
In this doctrine Plato sets out to explain the unperceived duality of our universe,
or in other words how our universe is separated into that which can be detected through our sense,
(The Physical realm),
and that which can only be conceived by reason and thought,
(The Realm of Forms).
With any given object,
say a dog,
we sense its features,
these features are part of the physical realm,
but behind these features is the general idea of idea or ideal of a dog,
an everlasting and changeless form which exists outside of what can be perceived by our senses.
Even if the color, age, or breed of the dog changes the general idea of a dog remains the same.
This idea,
Plato thought, is more real than what we perceive through our sense experience.
We can think of the physical realm as merely a temporary imitation of what lies within the realm of forms.
The laws by which a certain thing behaves is also part of this realm of forms,
he would often reference the laws of geometry here.
It was not without reason that above the door of The Academy he had placed a sign that read
“let no man ignorant of Geometry enter here.”
Without this eternal realm life would seem to us meaningless, only a bundle of sensations,
such as a newborn infant experiences.
In The Republic Plato uses the allegory of the cave to illustrate the philosopher seeking to look past his subjective reality in pursuit of the objective truth,
if you are interested in learning of this allegory I have created a video on this topic,
I will put the link in the description below.
If you enjoyed the video and would like to learn more about eastern and western philosophy consider subscribing to the channel,
and as always,
thank you for talking philosophy with me,
until next time.