PLATO

One of the greatest of Greek philosophers; he incalculably influenced the nature and orientation of subsequent

thought. Plato was born in Athens (428 or 427 b.c.), of aristocratic parents, during the Peloponnesian War. Originally, he was called Aristocles, and only later was given the name Plato (πλάτων, meaning broad), a sobriquet for which various reasons have been offered: his wide forehead, his robust physique, the breadth of his knowledge. He was both athlete and poet, excelling in the Isthmian games at Corinth and composing dramatic and lyric verse. The most decisive influence in Plato's commitment to philosophy and in his intellectual formation was the life-and-death devotion of socrates to truth.

After the demise of Socrates in 399, Plato withdrew temporarily from the political tumult of Athens and found refuge with the philosopher Euclid at Megara. Between 390 and 388 he traveled extensively in Greece, Egypt, and Italy to acquaint himself with the principal schools of that time and to broaden his culture. About 387 he returned to Athens and founded his famous school, the Academy. Through this institution, Plato intended not only to promote philosophy and science but also to affect politics vicariously. His supervision of the Academy was interrupted on two occasions (367 and 361), when he journeyed to Sicily with the hope of making Dionysius II a philosopher-king and his city Syracuse an ideal state; both attempts, however, failed (Epist. 7). Henceforth, Plato remained at Athens, devoting all his powers of thought to philosophizing, teaching, and writing at the Academy, until his death at the age of 80. Already under way was the war that would bring Greece under the domination of Philip of Macedonia.

Works and Chronology. The authenticity of the writings in the Platonic corpus has been a matter of dispute since antiquity. The genuineness of four dialogues is still in question: Hippias Maior, Menexenus, Alcibiades I, and Epinomis; the first two are probably genuine, but the others are most likely spurious. Modern scholars generally agree that 24 dialogues and at least two epistles are definitely the work of Plato; they have also established the order of composition of these works. The chronology of Plato's writings represents the gradual evolution of his philosophy through four stages.

Initial Socratic Period (399–388). The dialogues of Plato's youthful philosophical life, before the foundation of the Academy, re-create and vindicate the spirit and mission of Socrates. In these dialogues of inquiry, there is a systematic pursuit of the one Form or Idea common to similar moral phenomena in order to arrive at the definition of a particular politicoethical virtue, e.g., courage. This group of writings is notably anti-Sophist in inspiration. In a manner characteristic of Socrates's confession of ignorance, most of these dialogues end without reaching any definite conclusion, thus emphasizing the need of seeking further enlightenment. This period includes the Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Laches, Ion, Protagoras, Charmides, and Lysis —all distinctly ethical dialogues.

Transitional Period (387–380). As his intellectual and literary powers advanced, Plato found his way to a personal explanation of vexing contemporary problems. In addition to intensifying his polemics against the sophists, he undertook the building of the Socratic concept into a metaphysical theory of Forms. Whereas the earlier dialogues are limited in their scope to one facet of virtue, the works of this transitional and formational period manifest a broadening and deepening of Plato's speculation concerning the greater questions of wisdom and the good life. Here are found the Gorgias, Meno, Euthydemus, Hippias Minor, Hippias Maior, Cratylus, and Menexenus. These represent the inchoative constructive stage of the Platonic mind and the beginnings of a systematic philosophy.

Mature Period (380–361). At the height of his genius, Plato fully evolved his ontological theory of Forms and expressed the ramifications of this doctrine in epistemology, psychology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. In dialogues of criticism and application, he subjected his speculative teachings to new facts and difficulties arising from other points of view. This period of maturity embraces the Symposium, Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus. Of all the dialogues, the Republic, Plato's teaching of the ideal state, appears as the full development of his constructive powers.

Final Period (361–348 or 347). In the last period of his activity, Plato's dramatic power declined, but his critical acumen advanced. A lifetime of reflective experience, the appearance of different problems, social and political changes—all these impressed on Plato the need for further investigation and for a reconsideration of his philosophy. With brilliant intellectual apperception, he critically elaborated his metaphysics and epistemology, modified his politicoethical concepts, made greater use of logic, and discovered new interest in the mystery of the cosmos. Written in the final period of his life were the Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws, and Epistles 7 and 8. The continual development of Plato's thought through these periods indicates that he never achieved a completely roundedoff system; it is an unfinished symphony of philosophy.

Platonic Method. The Platonic method, in general, consists in an intellectual and moral conversion from particular, concrete sense phenomena to universal, abstract Forms. Motivated by Eros, an inborn love of good, man can purge himself of bodily desires and rise to a knowledge of true being (Phaedo 65–68). This conversion is accomplished in three different, but complementary ways, according to the object under consideration. First, on the occasion of experienced sensible things, the mind can formulate a hypothesis and logically deduce from it true conclusions. The mathematician, for example, proceeds from a hypothesis such as a triangle to a knowledge of the essence of this object. Second, moral truths are treated by way of myth, the exposition of a concept or event in poetic imagery. The eschatological myths in the Gorgias (523–527), Phaedo (107–114), and Republic (613–621) present the soul as immortal, free within the limits set by necessity, and responsible, under God's government, throughout all its transmigrations. Third, the supreme means in the soul's ascent to the highest principles is dialectic, which "by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense" (Rep. 532A), advances "from Forms, through Forms, and in Forms she ends" (Rep. 511C). The dialectic method is masterfully dramatized by the give-and-take conversation of the dialogues, the major part often and very appropriately being taken by Plato's dynamic spokesman, Socrates.

Teachings. Plato's primary intuition is Form, the rest of his philosophy being a function of this central constant. With the influx of other insights, Plato critically explicated the implications of Form and developed what scholars generally recognize as a dynamic, dichotomous dualism, pervading four dominant aspects of reality—the epistemological, the metaphysical, the psychological, and the politicoethical.

Epistemological Dualism. In his famous Allegory of the Cave and Simile of the Line (Rep. 509E–511, 514–517), Plato distinguished between universal knowledge and particular opinion. Since sense perception, on the one hand, concerns only continually changing, relative, shadowy images, it admits at most fallible opinion. True scientific knowledge, on the other hand, is oriented toward the stable, absolute, and universal properties of cognition realizable only in intellection (Crat. 440B, C). In this clear distinction between sensation and understanding, Plato exposed the Protagorean error of confusing the former with genuine knowledge and refuted the relativism of the Sophists. Socrates's quest for truth, then, was defended and justified by Plato's epistemology.

Metaphysical Dualism. Corresponding to the two kinds of cognition, Plato also distinguished two radically different entities: the object of understanding is absolute reality; that of sense perception is relative phenomena. Universal concepts have an objective reference to transcendent Forms (Phaedo 102B)—unalterable, universal, intelligible realities. Since reality is rational only so far as it is unchanging, then immutable, suprasensible Forms alone, e.g., Justice itself, are fully real and fully intelligible (Phaedo 65C, D, 100C, E; Symp. 210B, D). In this realm of true reality, there is a hierarchy of beings culminating in the Form of Forms, the Good—the paramount principle of intelligibility, unity, and order. According to Aristotle (Meta. 987b 14–988a 15), Plato taught later a mathematical dualism in which the One is conceived as the supreme principle of limit and the indeterminate great-and-small as the cause of plurality. This doctrine of ultimate principles does not imply, however, that Plato ever dropped the theory of the Ideas. The identification of the One and the Good, confirmed both by Aristotle and Aristoxenus, must be accepted as well founded.

The lesser pole of Plato's ontological dualism is the empirical object of perception—relative phenomena. Because fluctuating phenomena are neither truly real nor fully knowable, the cosmologist cannot attain an exact and altogether self–consistent explanation of the physical world, but must be satisfied with a probable account (Tim. 29D). Yet the reality present in phenomena Plato discerned in terms of a rational order and uniformity, pointing to something fully real and implying its dominating presence. Sensible things are relatively real and intelligible only so far as they participate in absolutely real and intelligible Forms. For instance, a flower "can be beautiful only in so far as it partakes of absolute beauty" (Phaedo 100C). The unparticipating is the ultimate raison d'être of the participating. Participation or imitation, therefore, is the bridge by which Plato spanned the Parmenidean realm of being, unity, and permanence, and the Heraclitean realm of becoming and plurality.

Psychology. Between the realm of Forms and the purely sensible world there are mathematical objects, existing on an intermediate level (Aristotle, Meta. 987b 14–18). There is also Soul: the world-soul, celestial souls, and human souls. Souls share in both realms: in the ideal world insofar as they are immortal and closely related to the intelligible, and in the sensible world insofar as they are living and moving. The starting point in Plato's reasoning to the existence of a world-soul is the orderly motion and harmony in the empirical world. Since the motionless exemplary Forms by themselves cannot explain their exemplification in things, Plato found it necessary to posit the existence of a superlatively intelligent agent—the Demiurge. This preeminent intelligence is called God and Father of the world. As the Creator of Soul he must be ranked on the level of intelligible Being, which, in Plato's hierarchy, is placed directly under the One or the Good. The Divine Craftsman introduced harmony and symmetry into the primitive chaos of disorderly motion by fashioning the world according to the eternal exemplars (Soph. 265C–266C). Modeling the world after the Ideal Living Creature (Tim. 30B, C), the Demiurge formed the cosmic body by conferring geometrical patterns on the primary qualities in the indefinite space-receptacle—earth, water, air, fire—after having first formed the cosmic soul for its function of animating, ruling, and unifying the vast bodily sphere. Together with the world-soul, the Demiurge created the stars and planets with their souls, and next the souls of men. Then, at his request, the "created gods" (i.e., the star-souls) created bodies for the human souls.

Man is composed of soul and body, the former being akin to Forms and the latter to corporeal phenomena. The soul exercises two basic functions: as self-moving, it is the source of life; and as consciousness, it is the principle of intellectual and moral operations. From a fine analysis of the inner conflicting tendencies in man, Plato concluded to three diverse principles in the human soul: (1) the appetitive part, unruly and amenable to the siren of pleasure; (2) the spirited, noble and prompt to honor and courage; (3) the rational, the "god within man," able to contemplate Forms, and as charioteer, to check and direct the impulses of the instinctive and spirited steeds for the good of man (Rep. 436–441; Phaedrus 246–247). Thus the human soul is tripartite.

Nevertheless, Plato's dualism passes sharply and deeply through his notion of the human soul. The irrational parts, like the body, are mortal, whereas the rational principle is immortal. The immortality of the rational soul is maintained in four main arguments: (1) Opposites generate opposites; as the living die, so the dead return to life (Phaedo 70–72). (2) As self-moving, the soul necessarily lives and survives death (Phaedrus 245C, E). (3) The soul is akin to the Forms that it contemplates; it is simple and imperishable (Phaedo 79D, E). (4) The soul, living in virtue of its essential participation in the Form, Life, can never share in the contradictory Form, Death; a dead soul is an impossibility (Phaedo 95–106; Rep. 608–611). In the cognitional dualism between reason and Forms, Plato linked the knower and the knowable by his theory of anamnesis, or reminiscence. The repeated experience of changing, relative, particular, sensible images is the occasion of the soul's recalling the stable, absolute, universal, intelligible Forms it once contemplated in a preexisting state, but that have been forgotten since its ingression into the body. Knowledge is basically recollection (Meno 82, 86; Phaedrus 246, 248).

Politicoethical Dualism. The speculative dualism of Plato finds its practical application and extension in his contrast between ideal values and phenomenal values. Platonic ethics is objectively oriented toward ideal values, primarily the Form, Good, as its supreme ontological goal. The ethos of man's life is to care for his soul (Apol. 29; Phaedo 114D, E), gradually liberating it from the bonds of the body that, like Prometheus unbound, it may freely wing its way to an ever-clearer vision of the Good and True and Beautiful—man's foremost subjective happiness. The essential means by which man participates in formal values is virtue. Virtue is knowledge, and consequently, teachable (Meno 87B–89C); with knowledge of good, "no man voluntarily pursues evil" (Prot. 358C). The virtues are many in one, different expressions of wisdom in diverse fields of activity. Wisdom is the rational charioteer of the soul, courage the rein of the spirited steed, and temperance the rein of the appetitive steed, while justice is their proper functioning, right order, and cooperation for the good of the whole soul (Rep. 428–441). Plato admitted a phenomenal value to relative goods, e.g., innocent pleasure and moderate emotions. Hence, Plato's ethics is tensely dualistic, inasmuch as it attempts a delicate and harmonious balance between man's irrational attraction to relative goods and his rational proclivity to absolute Good.

Plato's political theory unfolds in the Republic, Statesman, and Laws, as inseparably related to his ethics. The disorders and injustices of actual empirical city-states can be rectified only by reforming and reorganizing them after the archetypal City-State. The organization of the ideal State parallels the threefold structure of the human soul: (1) The lowest class, the numerous workers who provide the economic necessities, are marked by a desire for things of the senses and so are in particular need of temperance. (2) Higher in hierarchy are the guardians—their membership including also qualified women—who valiantly defend the state against hostilities within and without, and faithfully enforce the decisions handed down by the rulers. The ideal State requires that all their property, wives, and children be possessed in common, lest these auxiliaries be impeded in their singular purpose of serving the common interest of the state. Rulers, however, must exercise strict eugenic supervision of marriages for the good of the social organism. (3) The political counterpart of human reason is the superior class of rulers, the elite in knowledge, bravery, and patriotism, who wisely govern in the light of ideal values. When each individual performs his due function, and the lower classes are properly subordinated to the prudent ruler, justice prevails. The unshakeable basis of the just state is absolute Justice.

The most important institution in the transmission of culture and the maintenance of virtue is education. The state has the primary authority to educate its citizenry, even under compulsion. Education has two branches: gymnastics for the body; art, science, philosophy, and religion for the soul. Since art is an imitation of an imitation of true reality, and a creation inspired by the Muses but originating also from irrational forces in the artist, it must be conscientiously superintended by the magistrates of the state. The ideal State is open only to beautiful art—the representation of the true and good and enjoyable. Love of artistic beauty can lead the soul to the vision of Beauty itself.

Various historical states more or less approximate the ideal State. Measuring up least to the Form is tyranny, the lawless rule of a strong man whose reason is a slave to brutish passion and whose subjects are his slaves. Closer to the ideal is democracy, government by the unqualified masses without fixed standards, devotees of freedom and equality to the point of anarchy; weak and inefficient, it is the worst of all lawful governments and the best of all lawless ones. More perfect is oligarchy, rule of the affluent few for their own profit. Superior to plutocracy, or government by the wealthy, is timocracy, government by a militaristic minority who, though prizing honor and valor, are wanting in rational purpose. The ideal State is philosophical, a true polity in which one or more philosopher-kings, enlightened by abiding norms of reason, are the real statesmen piloting the ship of state on the right course of civilization for the good of all classes.

Conclusion. Plato was among the noblest embodiments of the ideal philosopher and his Dialogues contain one of the finest philosophies ever envisioned by the human mind. His all-pervading dualism is tense with inner opposition and difficulties; yet the poles of his thought are unified in a grand Olympian synthesis under his fundamental Zeus-like insight—Form. His Academy survived from 387 b.c. to a.d. 529—an enviable longevity. Even more important, his philosophy has persisted for more than 2,300 years, profoundly influencing such luminaries as aristotle, St. augustine, St. thomas aquinas, and Alfred North whitehead, and prodigiously advancing the life and thought of Western culture.

See Also: platonism; neoplatonism; cambridge platonists.

Bibliography: Life. plato, Epistles, tr. and ed. g. r. morrow (Indianapolis 1962), see Seventh Epistle. diogenes laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, tr. r. d. hicks 2 v. (Loeb Classical Library; London-New York-Cambridge, Mass. 1925) 1:3.2, 4–6,45. Editions and commentaries. plato, Platonis opera, tr. and ed. j. burnet, 5 v. (Oxford 1945–46); Dialogues, tr. and ed. b. jowett, 4 v. (4th ed. Oxford 1953); The Republic, tr. and ed. f. m. cornford (Oxford 1942); Plato's Theory of Knowledge: The Theaetetus and the Sophist, id. (New York 1957); Plato's Cosmology: The Timaeus, id. (New York 1957); Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides' Way of Truth and Plato's Parmenides, id. (New York 1957); Phaedrus, tr. and ed. r. hackforth (Cambridge, Eng. 1952); Phaedo, id. (Cambridge, Eng. 1955); Statesman, tr. and ed. j. b. skemp (New Haven 1952); Philebus and Epinomis, tr. a. e. taylor ed. r. klibansky et al. (New York 1956). a. e. taylor, A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (Oxford 1928). For translations of Plato's works, see volumes of the Loeb Classical Library. General studies. l. stefanini and g. santinello, Enciclopedia Filosofica 3:1411–44 (Venice-Rome 1957). r. demos, The Philosophy of Plato (New York 1939). g. c. field, The Philosophy of Plato (New York 1949). p. shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago 1933; repr. 1957). a. e. taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (6th ed. London 1949; repr.1955). w. jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture (New York 1945–) v. 2–3. c. j. de vogel, ed., Greek Philosophy, 3 v. (Leiden 1950–59). j. owens, A History of Ancient Western Philosophy (New York 1959). f. c. copleston, History of Philosophy (Westminster, Md. 1946–) 1:127–265. Bibliographies. g. a. de brie, ed. Bibliographia philosophica 1934–1945 (Brussels 1950–) 45–65. h. cherniss, "Plato 1950–1957," Lustrum 4 (1959) 5–308; 5 (1960) 321–648.

[p. j. aspell]