Plato
Plato is one of the best-known Greek philosophers today. Born in Athens, around 428 BC, the philosopher comes from a noble family, which allowed him to dedicate himself to the most diverse areas of knowledge and sports throughout his life.
Plato was a disciple of Socrates, with whom he learned about human virtues and knowledge. After Socrates’ death, Plato immortalized his tutor’s knowledge in writings, in which he used the philosophical method of dialogue.
Plato’s Dialogues
Plato’s dialogues have Socrates as the main character and deal with various topics: politics, art, medicine, wisdom, sports, and religion. The constructed dialogues, generally between two characters, present Plato’s main ideas in dialogue form.
Plato Works
Plato is the philosopher with the largest number of preserved works. Around thirty of them are known to society. Most of the philosopher’s works are constructed in the form of dialogues and the most important and well-known of them are the ten volumes of The Republic.
In The Republic, Plato shows the search for the harmonious administration of a city, without it becoming chaotic. The characters in this dialogue are: Socrates; Plato’s two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus; Niceratus, Polemarchus, Lysias, Cephalus, and Thrasymachus.
Thrasymachus states that the use of force is a right and justice is guaranteed to the strongest. Socrates defines the act of governing as an action that is done to the governed, an action in which justice must be superior to injustice. Socrates defines that where there is justice, there is happiness.
The following dialogues define the principles of justice :
1. The first of these would be social solidarity or the way in which people contribute to collective well-being.
2. The second principle is that of detachment and the way in which individuals are truly interested in collaborating for the common good. This principle implies the emergence of three classes: the guardians, philosophers, and kings, responsible for the happiness of the State: the military, producers, and artisans.
In the following books, Plato presents the Cave myth, which makes an analogy to the search for knowledge, the decline of the city caused by the concentration of oligarchic power, and the emergence of tyranny. Finally, Plato suggests replacing poetry with philosophy as a way to guarantee the search for knowledge and learning.
Philosophy and methods
The philosophical model developed by Plato is called rationalism. Reasoning and speeches are produced from logic and the use of propositions, with the purpose of reaching conclusions, also rational. The philosophical model developed by Plato was so notorious that today this model of propositions and logical conclusions is called Platonic Realism.
The acquisition of knowledge in Plato is presented in a dualistic way, for the philosopher there are basically two worlds: the world of forms or ideas, also called intelligible, and the concrete and sensible world.
1. World of ideas: For Plato, each individual is born with prior knowledge, called innate knowledge. Innate knowledge is the forms or ideas that are found in the intelligible world and therefore, outside of space or time. Objects in the common world, in turn, are organized according to these ideas; but they are, however, only perfect imitations of those found in the world of ideas.
2. Concrete world: It is the world that is accessible and possible to touch. But it is also, according to Plato, a false world, since the true objects are found in the world of ideas.
In order for man to finally achieve knowledge, it is necessary to transport ideas and knowledge from the concrete world to the world of ideas, only then will the individual be able to achieve knowledge of true ideas.
Plato’s thoughts and works were taken up later, during the Middle Ages, by thinkers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas. Philosophers who return to Plato’s ideas are known as Neoplatonists.