Plato

Biography

The life of Plato is rather badly known; as for much of other philosophers of the Antiquité, it is often difficult to make the distinction between what concerns the Histoire, of the legend or simply of the ragot.

It was born under the archontat from Aminias, a May 21st, in Athens in the Dème of Collytos in 428/427 and died there towards 348 at the time of a wedding banquet. It belonged to an aristocratic family: his/her father, Ariston, claimed to go down from the last king d' Athènes (Codros), and his/her mother, Périctioné, went down from certain Dropidès, near from Solon. She was also the cousin of Critias, one of the Thirty Tyrants.

Favorinus, in its universal History , gives birth to Plato in the house from Phidiadès, wire of Thaïes, with Égine where his/her father had received a batch of ground, when the Athenians had decided to expel the inhabitants of the island, and to send a colony to it. The chronology does not make impossible this tradition; only it obliges to admit that Plato was born in the year even where this colonization took place. However the historian adds that his/her Ariston father returned to Athens only when Lacédémoniens winners restored Éginètes in the possession of their island and the invaders had driven out some, i.e. at one time when Plato had twenty-six years, and, as this detail agrees by no means with what we know of the education of our philosopher, whose Masters lived Athens, one generally prefers to reject all the account of Favorinus, and to follow that of Apollodore. The date is less certain still: one usually fixes it at the third year of the 87e Olympiad, to the 7 of the month thargélion, which would correspond to May 21st of year 429 before our era.

The precise day, that with certainty the festivals would seem to fix by which its disciples celebrated the birthday a long time of it, however presents characteristics which wake up suspicions. Socrate had been born the 6 from the same month thargélion, and old themselves had been struck of this bringing together. “The Ion poet,” known as Plutarque “was right to say that, in spite of the difference which is between wisdom and fortune, their effects are très-souvent similar. At least they extremely by the way seem to have laid out the birth of Socrate and that of Plato, by making initially that they were followed from fort near; then, that of oldest, and who was to be the Master of the other, in the day order that preceded immediately by the second. ” In spite of the doubt that given birth to involuntarily the too significant bringing together from these two days of the birth of Plato and that from Socrate, there is perhaps there only the fortuitous one. But there is another thing still: while Socrate had been born the day when Athens celebrated by a solemn sacrifice the birth of Déméter Chloé, favourable day between all, and where the city was purified, its disciple came in the world the day when Athens and the Ionian colonies celebrated with Délos the birth of Apollon, the god of arts, poetry, of the eloquence, the god of the harmony, the grace and the beauty. One knows the predilection of the Néo-platonicien S for these myths symbolic systems intended to express in a popular and poetic form certain ideas or certain reports/ratios. With this natural Love on their premises of the allegory and symbol, united the desire to oppose to the Légende S Christianisme incipient from the traditions not less marvellous, and to remove the privilege to him to seize imaginations and the hearts by the prestigious attraction supernatural, always powerful, and at that time the Almighty on the spirits. From there all kinds of Myth S, and particularly those whose Plato was the object, and who attach it all to Apollon.

This day of birth, coinciding with the birthday of the birth of Apollo, thus seems selected, like the other myths which relate to it, to express the impression which its genius made and the idea that one conceived some: it is too significant, too expressive not to be suspect (Z). A so beautiful genius could not be the son of a man:

He was thus the son of Apollo, who had ordered to the husband of his mother not to approach his wife during the first ten months of his marriage: what does not want completely to say, as the interpreter Saint Jerome, that the Greek traditions made of the prince of philosophy the son of a virgin. We see these myths reproducing at all the times of its life. Hardly he was born, that his/her parents will make a sacrifice on the mount Hymette and will devote their son to Pan, with the Muses and Apollon. It is there, during the sacrifice, that Abeille S come to deposit their honey on the mouth of the deadened child, so that checked in its person it worms of Homère:

Greek.

The day when his/her father presents it to Socrate, it is that this one had just told with his/her friends a dream which it had had the night before. It had seemed to him to see to fly away furnace bridge devoted to the Amour, in the Academy, small a swan which took refuge in its center, and sprang then towards the skies, charming the gods and the men of a suave melody. Plato himself, a few moments before dying, sees, in dream, transformed into swan, - it is the bird of Apollo - and, to escape the hands from the bird-catchers, wheel of tree out of tree. Lastly, it is noticed that it reached in its life the number crowned and perfect 81, which announced, says Sénèque, a nature more than human.

From there, in the honor of its manes, a sacrifice offered by magi who were by chance in Athens. Indeed, this number of 81 is the square of 9, and 9 is the number of the Muses, girls and partners of Apollo. All these myths thus seem to mark the impression that made its genius on the old ones and express the idea that they were formed some. Like Homère, to which they like to bring it closer, Plato is for them the alive and human type of the moral beauty, measurement and the harmony whose Apollon is the divine type.

Its real genealogy gave him an origin not less glorious than that which this mythology symbolic system allotted to him: it belonged to greatest and more famous families of Athens, and by its father as by his/her mother was of royal and even divine race. Ariston, his/her father, made go up the origin of its family until Codros, wire of Mélanthos, which descended itself from Nélée and Neptune.

According to the use of the big families of his country, Plato took the name of his Aristoclès grandfather, whom it changed later, to take that under which it is universally known, and which was given to him, that is to say because of the width of its chest; either because of the beauty of its broad face, or finally because of the broad and wide character of its spirit. The true name of Plato would be thus Aristoclès , name of his/her grandfather, Plato being supposed to be a nickname meaning width , perhaps in reference to its size: it is its Master of gymnastics which would have given it to him. Another explanation is that he spoke abundantly (but he had a voice hails), or that he had the broad face.

The family of its mother, Périctione, played a great part in the interior history of Athens and her revolutions and political agitations. She was attached by Glaucon and Critias to Dropide, brother or cousin of Solon, which also went down from Codrus. Critias, wire of Callæschros, its great-uncle, Charmide, his/her maternal uncle, had taken party for the oligarchical government, and after being itself there made, the first especially, a sad celebrity, had died the same day in the combat that Thrasybule delivered to the Tyrants, and whose success delivered Athens of their violent and bloody domination. Plato thus had the closest relationships to the aristocratic party, and seems not to have been insensitive with the illustration of his family, which it mentions in the Charmide and the Timée . It is by this relationship, and in consequence of its intimate relationship with Critias and Charmide, which one wanted to explain the character of his political ideas and his marked preferences, although accompanied by reserves expresses, for the aristocratic mode whose Lacédémone was the type.

Plato had two brothers; Adimante and Glaucon, which appears in the République , and a named sister Potone, whose son Speusippe succeeded his uncle in the Academy.

The elements which, according to the ideas of the Greeks, constituted a perfect education, it missed none. It had as a Master of gymnastics Ariston d' Argos, and one even wants that it benefitted rather well from his lessons to gain two prices with the Olympic Games and the Isthmian Jeux. The music was taught to him by Dracon, raises famous Damon, and by Métellus d' Agrigente. All its dialogs, and particularly the Timée , attest that it had pushed extremely far the theoretical studies from this art, which, in antiquity, were attached narrowly to mathematics. It was Denys the grammairien, mentioned in the Lovers , who initiated it with this whole of liberal knowledge that the old ones called grammar, and a long time before its voyage in Egypt it had perhaps heard in Athens celebrates it mathematician Theodore de Cyrène, who had come to visit this city before the death of Socrate.

The importance of mathematics was undoubtedly large in its eyes; Plato was one of the largest promoters of this science, and if it is necessary to believe of it a tradition brought back by Proclus, it is with him that the invention of the analytical method and the conic sections is due.

According to documents of family which Speusippe had preserved, her spirit, as of childhood, sharp and fast, flexible and modest, burning and hard, made profitable this education-liberal; but, in spite of the legitimate hopes that could give birth to and the large supports from its family and her own talents, he renonça early with the political life, only however which was worthy of a man, according to the feeling of all antiquity, and which itself non-seulement regarded more the great honor, the greatest duty of a good citizen, but as the perfection and so to speak the crowning of the philosophical life. If one believes of it VIIe letter, whose authenticity is accepted, and whose testimony appears considerable with the very eyes of those which dispute it, it would have tested of the policy, and even taken some share with the government of the Thirty, but it quickly would have given up it, disgusted by excesses and the furies of the parties:

“Of the time of my youth, I indeed felt the same thing as much in this case; I thought that at once become Master of myself, I would go straight to occupy me of the common businesses of the city. And here is how the chance made that I found the things of the city. The mode of then being indeed subjected to violent the critics of the greatest number, a revolution occurred. (…) And me, indicator thus that, and the men who dealt with policy, more I examined in-depth the laws and the habits at the same time as I advanced in age, more it appeared to me that it was difficult to manage the businesses of the city righteously. It was indeed not possible to do it without friends and associates worthy of confidence - and it was not easy to find some among those which one had under the hand, because our city was not managed any more according to the habits and the practices of our fathers. ” ( Letter VII )

It was initiated with painting, wrote lyric poems, panegyrics, worms and tragedies.

He was pupil of Cratyle (disciple of Héraclite d' Éphèse) and of Hermogène (disciple of Parménide), then became the pupil of Socrate towards the age of 20 years. Following this meeting, Plato gave up the idea to contribute for the tragedy and burned all his works. Plato will transmit the teaching of his Master by adapting it and by transforming it.

After the death of Socrate (to which it did not assist), it left for Mégare. He travelled then in Egypt, with Cyrène, in Italy (where he met Philolaos and Timée) and in Sicily. He was accepted at the court of Denys, Syracuse, and gained with Dion philosophy, brother-in-law of the Tyran. But it was not long in displeasing to the tyrant, either because of his teaching, or because of its radiation on the characters of the court.

Close to Column and Gymnasium of Acadèmos, it created a school, the Academy, on the model of the pythagoricians.

The young person Aristote (known as the “reader” by its Master) will follow his lesson, then will be detached some to found its own school: the College.

The philosophy of Plato

Socrat and Plato

The meeting between Socrate and Plato was essential for the evolution of the thought of this last. It is indeed in the thought of Socrate which Plato found the germs of many his theories that it is in ethics, political philosophy or with regard to the Théorie of the Ideas.

The influence of Socrate on Plato was so large that the work of this last was written partly with the memory Socrate its Master as show it especially the Phédon , the Banquet and the Apologie for Socrate .

This bond if close friend who binds the thought of Plato explains that it is often difficult to distinguish historical Socrate from Socrate of Plato more especially as the texts of Plato are by far the richest testimonys which we had on Socrate.

The dialog at Plato

The most obvious characteristic of the Platonic texts is that they are written in dialogued form. There exist two approaches different from this fact.

The first affirms that it is not absolutely necessary of one external characteristic and of no importance on the Platonic designs. This approach was systematized and defended since following work and of the translations of the German scholar Schleiermacher. This approach is found for example in Robin in France or Natorp in Germany. It is still nowadays defended per much of which by the School of Tübingen (Tübinger Schule) present in Germany (with Krämer for example) and in Italy (with Reale).

A second approach on the contrary considers that the dialogued form is important for the comprehension of the texts themselves and that they do not constitute a simple literary process. It is the case in Germany de Wieland and in the United States de Leo Strauss. The dialogued form could have a specific philosophical effect well: it is not certain that the properly Platonic point of view is expressed in the mouth of one or the other character of the dialog, was this Socrate itself. It would be then to the reader himself to form his own judgment, obviously suggested by the exchange between the characters of the dialog. One however generally admits that the more Plato advances in the writing of the successive dialogs, the more the character of Socrate would become the spokesperson of what would become little by little the " doctrines platonicienne". But even in the dialogs of " maturité" , the text gives a report on uncertainties which justify the use of the dialogued form.

Philosophy at Plato

The Philosophe is one of the central figures of the dialogs of Plato. It is the nature and the place of this type of man who is often the object of his reflections. The philosopher, according to Plato, must become a legislator and a reformer Politique in order to obtain the introduction of the Justice in the quoted. However, according to certain dialogs as the République it should be forced to become it, because it is extremely probable which he does not agree “to turn over in the cave”. But, if this is carried out in turn by all the philosophers, and for the good of all, it is extremely probable which they accept.

It is in addition interesting to notice that Plato did not write any dialog bearing the name of " The philosophe" , whereas it bequeathed a Sophiste and a Politique. In fact, if the question of the philosopher often returns in this author, the portrait of this last is to be constituted starting from several dialogs, and often in hollow, in opposition to figures opposed to the philosopher - with knowing before all the sophist.

Theory of knowledge

Problem of significant knowledge

In addition to the difficulties of a science of the good, Plato must fight against the sophistical relativism according to which “the man is the measurement of any thing” (Protagoras). This relativism indeed destroys knowledge by making it depend on a subjective and empirical state of the individual. The problem which arises for Plato is thus that of the foundation of the knowledge; one can formulate it as follows: the intelligence that we have of the things must have a nonsignificant origin, without what very thought would be necessarily false.

Theory of the Ideas

Method of knowledge

In addition to the Dialectical of the dialogs socratic, Plato developed several methods of control of the reasoning:

method of the consequences, which consists in examining all the consequences of an assumption;
method of division, which consists in dividing the object that one seeks to define while carrying out the analysis of the species and the differences that it contains.

It is the Réminiscence which according to Plato enables us to know the Idée S. This thesis supposes the immortality of the heart which, while remaining in an understandable world higher than the empirical world, remembers divine realities that she saw there.

Political and moral philosophy

Political philosophy is inseparable from moral philosophy according to Plato (just like for all traditional Greek philosophy). To expose one thus means to expose the other. We will start with the moral philosophy which in his turn is inseparable from what one could call the “psychology” of Plato.

Theory of the heart

The theory of the heart at Plato is closely related to his moral philosophy on the one hand as the République but also on the other hand with its demonstration of the immortality of the heart shows it.

For Plato in the Phédon, the heart:

is a being connected with the ideas;
has an own movement;
is immortal;
is divided into three parts:

the us (or " logismos" ) is the rational element
the thumos , called irascible element sometimes, could be translated by “heart”; it is this part of the likely heart of transport, anger, courage
the épithumia , or concupiscible element, is the seat of the desire, passions

Plato exposes this tripartite constitution of the heart in the Phèdre and in the Republic . The us, or the reason, as it deals with understandable, is noblest of the three. The second, characteristic of the will of personal enrichment, good reputation and the attempts at prowesses which result from this, is useful only if it is put at the service of the reasonable element, in order to control the third, which leads irremediably to the defect. In other words, the good life supposes that is established, between these three parts of the heart, a hierarchy: the us control surface the thumos , which controls the épithumia . Each one of these parts thus has a Vertu which is clean for him: the Wisdom, the Courage and the Temperance; the harmony of these three parts is the virtue of Justice.

Plato believed the immortal heart and sought to prove there it (without claiming to arrive) in the Phédon , which tells the last day of Socrate. This immortality binds to the thesis of the migration of the hearts and their purifications after the death which it describes in three myths, at the end of the Gorgias , of the Republic and of the Phédon .

The Platonic City

Plato estimates that the Science (or contemplation of the Idées) is higher than the practice, with the Art, simple the empirical Technique: the candidate with the To know (the Philosophe), above crowd slave of the passions and the illusions of the direction is only truth Politique (as Socrate thought it of itself). The Politique of Plato is thus a Politique which claims to govern the life of the men completely, by organizing them in a system of functions whose tripartition (philosophers, guards and workers) is of Indo-European origin . This organization Politique must prevent that the companies do not fall in decline. Plato refuses all consequently Individualisme, all Droit to the originality and the subjective Liberté (which is only one lack of discipline, the result of a defective education), because the Vérité is one and absolute: it is it only whom one must follow, and it is known only Philosophe.

Thus, by his fundamental thesis of a ultimate Reality on which the philosophers establish to them Autorité, one could say that the platonism is politico-theological doctrines preceding the totalitarian developments of the Communisme.

Plato reconsiders the problem of the city in his Lois . He makes discuss several old men on the value of the constitution of several cities. Seeking the best means of inculcating the virtues, Plato speaks in particular about the educational virtues of the drinking bout (Book I).

Parallels between the man right and the City right

It is in the Republic that Plato exposes the theories mentioned above. The goal of this work is to define justice at the man. But before studying this notion on the scale of the individual, Plato makes a study with greater width, within the framework of the city.

First of all, the City right is defined as being that which is controlled by the philosophers, supported by the guards ( oi phulakes ), in order to dominate the mass and to impose the rightest possible decisions to him.

Plato then establishes a parallel with the human heart: in the heart of the Juste, the reasonable element, supported by the irascible element, dominates the concupiscible element, thus preventing it from harming.

The concept of justice, with final, thus results from the introduction of an order strict and in conformity with nature, in order to carry out what is good, and this, on some scale that it is.

Classification of the modes

In the Republic (545c - 576b), Plato describes the way in which one passes from one political regime to the other. This sequence does not have for Plato an historical value: as in the Timée, it is a question of presenting a primarily logical succession (each mode carries in him another mode) in a chronological form.

the government of the philosophers, or “aristocracy” (government of best), is the only perfect mode; it corresponds to the ideal of the “philosopher-king” who joins together capacity and wisdom between his hands. This mode is followed by four imperfect modes:
the Timocratie (mode based on the honor)
the Oligarchy (mode based on the richnesses)
the Democracy (mode based on the equality)
the Tyranny (mode based on the desire); this last mode marks the end of the policy, since it abolishes the laws.

Imbalance in the cities, by which one passes from one mode to the other, corresponds to the imbalance which falls under the hierarchy between the parts of the heart (see higher). Just as a life right supposes as the us control surface the thumos , and than this one controls the épithumia , the city right implies the government of the philosophers, whose us (reason) is the essential virtue. On the contrary, the mode timocratic corresponds to the government of the thumos (courage and warlike heat, essential virtue of the soldiers, or guards of the city), and the tyrannical mode with that of the épithumia (tyranny is a mode or only passions of the tyrant dominate).

Cosmology

Use of the myth

Plato uses the myth on several occasions. This use, in the case of the description of the world is explained by the following difficulty: if, to know a thing, its causality should be known, how to know the creative act of the Cause?

The act of Connaissance must indeed be the reflection of a creative act which is inconceivable: how in this case speech of the origin of the world? Isn't the creative act beyond any rational speech? However the creative act founds the possibility of rationality. Thus Plato wonders how to speak about the origin of the sensitive world, since the knowledge Dialectique, which articulates the understandable Forms, is inoperative here. One can speak about the world only by a Discours which resembles to him: a Myth probable, related with the sensitive . The probable myth describes a situation while transposing in the space and the Temps the relations that the Pensée conceives without being able to expose them dialectically; the myth must thus be interpreted, it should not be confused with the Réalité. It is necessary to translate into report/ratio of ideas what the myth assembled in fact. The account of the organization of cosmos by the demiurge will give an example of it.

The organization of the cosmos by the demiurge

To know the world, it is necessary to refer to its cause. The question is to know how to express the logical anteriority of a cause compared to its effect in the account.

Thus, in the Timée , Plato describes the Démiurge; so that the sensitive world exists, it is necessary that a demiurge creates it. However, that does not mean that the demiurge existed before in the world: it is about a simple ontological dependence. It is thus necessary to read a rationality behind the course of the facts.

The demiurge puts the components of the world in order, by a unit proportional. He organizes the elements with the same relationship between them: it is the unit proportional of the visible and body world. Creation is thus done according to a measurement; time is manufactured according to the number. The sensitive world is a generated alive god: to increase this resemblance, the demiurge manufactures a mobile image of eternity, result of a producing activity, which regulates the movements of the stars to give them a uniform circular motion: the stars become the measuring instruments of time by their apparent revolution. Time imitates eternity insofar as it is driven in circle according to the number, eternity being eternally identical to itself. The eternal part of the heart is directly produced by the demiurge with the ingredients even of the heart of the world.

The demiurge does not produce the bodies directly, but delegates to gods subordinates who manufacture them such of the potters. On the other hand, the heart of the world is directly produced any part by the démiurge.
The world is an living being, a body and a heart, generated following a considered decision of a god, according to artisanal processes. The sensitive world is a cosmos (order, arrangement) which is constituted starting from elements which preexist to him. It is an assembly of understandable Forms and chaotic matter. It is thus not a creation ex nihilo .

The heart of the world is an living being which has heart, movement, animation; its movement is movement of knowledge, causes regularity of the celestial cycles. The heart is motorized, is driven itself and been thus principle of the movement of each being. It is thus also immortal and imperishable. Is the heart of the world principle and main cause of the universe? As a principle first, it must be inengendrée; however, in the myth, the demiurge the factory.

Each thing, city, universe, heart, hold a cosmos to which it must conform.

Platonism after Plato

Plato marked in a durable way philosophy of Antiquity is by the influence which he exerted (for example on Plotin) that is to say because one regarded it as the philosopher by report/ratio to which one was to be located. He was also a source of inspiration as well as a target of goods of criticisms.

Aristote, Epicure or the Stoical ones for example developed a more or less systematic criticism of ethics, theory of knowledge or political philosophy of Plato. As for Plotin or to the Fathers of the Church they did not fail to see as a Plato a quasi divine philosopher (Plotin) or in any case a source of important inspiration.

The significance of works of Plato was the subject of many controversies since the Antiquité. Some make of Plato dogmatic; others a skeptic. Plato was sometimes recovered by mystical currents (rise in the heart towards the good beyond the being), sometimes by purely rationalist philosophies. The diversity of its dialogs, their varied forms, many the Aporie S which are raised there explains these important divergences of interpretations.

In Antiquity, the whole of the dialogs was organized according to a progressive order of reading, whereas the modern ones, which claim with a more critical knowledge, especially endeavoured to establish the real order of their composition like their authenticity. These tests of organization of the corpus always depend in fact on the idea that one has platonism, which led criticisms to exclude more or less arbitrarily certain dialogs (and all the dialogs thus could be suspectés).

“The surest overall description of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of annotations in Plato. ” (A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality , 1929)

Platonic traditions

Old Academy: Eudoxe | Speusippe | Xénocrate | Polémon
New Academy: Arcésilas | Bion | Lacydès | Carnéade | Clitomaque | Philon of Larissa | Antiochos d' Ascalon | Cicéron
average Period: Potamon (eclectic platonism) | Plutarque | Théon of Smyrna | Maxime de Tyr | Apulée de Madaure | Galien | Celse | Numénius d' Apamée | Atticos | Alcinoos
Neo-Platonism: Ammonios Saccas | Plotin | Amélius | Porphyry of Tyr
Syrian School
School of Athens
School of Alexandria

Works

The whole of works of Plato is composed of 35 dialogs, letters, a book of definitions and six dialogs apocryphal books.

First dialogs:

Protagoras
Euthydème
Gorgias
Ménexène
Ménon
Cratyle
Apology for Socrate
Criton
Phédon
the Banquet (on the love and the Ethical )
Phèdre
the Republic
“7 {{E}} letter”
Théétète
Parménide
the Political Sophist
Philèbe
Timée
Critias
the Laws

doubtful Authenticity:

Hipparque
Rival
Théagès
Clitophon
Minos
Épinomis
Definitions

Dialogs apocryphal books:

Axiochos
Of Justice
Of the virtue
Démodocos
Sisyphus
Eryxias

Random links:

Parameters of Milanković | Achilles Compagnoni | Eupilio | 1632 with the theater | Harmoste