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Plato

May 02, 2023

For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation) and Platon (disambiguation).

Plato (/ˈpleɪtoʊ/ PLAY-toe;[1] Greek: Πλάτων Plátōn; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. In Athens, Plato founded the Academy, a philosophical school where he taught the philosophical doctrines that would later became known as Platonism. Plato (or Platon) was a pen name derived from his nickname given to him by his wrestling coach – allegedly a reference to his physical broadness. According to Alexander of Miletus quoted by Diogenes of Sinope his actual name was Aristocles, son of Ariston, of the deme Collytus (Collytus being a district of Athens).[2]

Plato
Roman copy of a portrait bust c. 370 BC
Born428/427 or 424/423 BC
Athens, Greece
Died348/347 BC (aged c. 80)
Athens, Greece
Notable work
EraAncient Greek philosophy
SchoolPlatonic Academy
Notable studentsAristotle
Main interests
Epistemology, Metaphysics
Political philosophy
Notable ideas
Allegory of the Cave

Cardinal virtues
Form of the Good
Theory of forms
Divisions of the soul
Platonic love
Platonic solids

Atlantis
Influences
Influenced

Plato was an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy. He raised problems for what later became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy. His most famous contribution is the Theory of forms, where he presents a solution to the problem of universals. He is also the namesake of Platonic love and the Platonic solids.

His own most decisive philosophical influences are usually thought to have been, along with Socrates, the pre-Socratics Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Parmenides, although few of his predecessors' works remain extant and much of what we know about these figures today derives from Plato himself.[a]

Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy.[b] Unlike the work of nearly all of his contemporaries, Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years.[6] Although their popularity has fluctuated, Plato's works have consistently been read and studied.[7] Through Neoplatonism Plato also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy (through e.g. Al-Farabi). In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."[8]

Biography

Further information: Life of Plato

Little is known about Plato's early life and education. He belonged to an aristocratic and influential family.[9] The exact time and place of Plato's birth are unknown. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina, between 428[10] and 423 BC.[11] Plato gives little biographical information about himself in his works, but often referred some of his relatives with a great degree of precision, including his brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon, who debate with Socrates in the Republic.[12] These and other references enable us to reconstruct Plato's family tree.[13] Plato may have travelled in Italy, Sicily, Egypt, and Cyrene,[14] but at the age of forty, Plato founded a school of philosophy in Athens, the Academy, on a plot of land in the Grove of Hecademus or Academus,[15] named after Academus, an Attic hero in Greek mythology. The Academy operated until it was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 84 BC. Many philosophers studied at the Academy, the most prominent one being Aristotle.[16][17] According to Diogenes Laërtius, throughout his later life, Plato became entangled with the politics of the city of Syracuse, where he attempted to replace the tyrant Dionysius,[18] with Dionysius's brother-in-law, Dion of Syracuse, whom Plato had recruited as one of his followers, but the tyrant himself turned against Plato. After Dionysius's death, according to Plato's Seventh Letter, Dion requested Plato return to Syracuse to tutor Dionysius II, who seemed to accept Plato's teachings, but eventually became suspicious of their motives, expelling Dion and holding Plato against his will. Eventually Plato left Syracuse. and Dion would return to overthrow Dionysius and rule Syracuse, before being usurped by Calippus, a fellow disciple of Plato. A variety of sources have given accounts of Plato's death. One story, based on a mutilated manuscript,[19] suggests Plato died in his bed, whilst a young Thracian girl played the flute to him.[20] Another tradition suggests Plato died at a wedding feast. The account is based on Diogenes Laërtius's reference to an account by Hermippus, a third-century Alexandrian.[21] According to Tertullian, Plato simply died in his sleep.[21]

 
Plato was a wrestler.

Name

The fact that the philosopher in his maturity called himself Platon is indisputable, but the origin of this name remains mysterious. Platon is a nickname from the adjective platýs (πλατύς) 'broad'. Although Platon was a fairly common name (31 instances are known from Athens alone),[22] the name does not occur in Plato's known family line.[23] The sources of Diogenes Laërtius account for this by claiming that his wrestling coach, Ariston of Argos, dubbed him "broad" on account of his chest and shoulders, or that Plato derived his name from the breadth of his eloquence, or his wide forehead.[24][25] While recalling a moral lesson about frugal living Seneca mentions the meaning of Plato's name: "His very name was given him because of his broad chest."[26] According to Diogenes Laërtius,[27] his birth name was supposedly Aristocles (Ἀριστοκλῆς), meaning 'best reputation'.[c], however modern scholars are divided on the reliability of this claim.[28][23]

Influences

 
Plato was one of the devoted young followers of Socrates.

Socrates

Main article: Socratic problem

Plato never speaks in his own voice in his dialogues; every dialogue except the Laws features Socrates, although many dialogues, including the Timaeus and Statesman, feature him speaking only rarely. Leo Strauss notes that Socrates' reputation for irony casts doubt on whether Plato's Socrates is expressing sincere beliefs.[29] Xenophon's Memorabilia and Aristophanes's The Clouds seem to present a somewhat different portrait of Socrates from the one Plato paints. Aristotle attributes a different doctrine with respect to Forms to Plato and Socrates.[30] Aristotle suggests that Socrates' idea of forms can be discovered through investigation of the natural world, unlike Plato's Forms that exist beyond and outside the ordinary range of human understanding.[31] The Socratic problem concerns how to reconcile these various accounts. The precise relationship between Plato and Socrates remains an area of contention among scholars.[32][page needed]

Pythagoreanism

 
The mathematical and mystical teachings of the followers of Pythagoras exerted a strong influence on Plato.
Main article: Pythagoreanism

Although Socrates influenced Plato directly, the influence of Pythagoras, or in a broader sense, the Pythagoreans, such as Archytas also appears to have been significant. Aristotle and Cicero both claimed that the philosophy of Plato closely followed the teachings of the Pythagoreans.[33][34] According to R. M. Hare, this influence consists of three points:

  1. The platonic Republic might be related to the idea of "a tightly organized community of like-minded thinkers", like the one established by Pythagoras in Croton.
  2. The idea that mathematics and, generally speaking, abstract thinking is a secure basis for philosophical thinking as well as "for substantial theses in science and morals".
  3. They shared a "mystical approach to the soul and its place in the material world".[35][36]

Pythagoras held that all things are number, and the cosmos comes from numerical principles. He introduced the concept of form as distinct from matter, and that the physical world is an imitation of an eternal mathematical world. These ideas were very influential on Heraclitus, Parmenides and Plato.[37][38]

Heraclitus and Parmenides

 
Heraclitus (1628) by Hendrick ter Brugghen. Heraclitus saw a world in flux, with everything always in conflict, constantly changing.
 
Bust of Parmenides from Velia. Parmenides saw the world as eternal and unchanging, that all change was an illusion.
Main articles: Heraclitus and Parmenides

The two philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, influenced by earlier pre-Socratic Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Xenophanes,[39] departed from mythological explanations for the universe and began the metaphysical tradition that strongly influenced Plato and continues today.[38] Heraclitus viewed all things as continuously changing, that one cannot "step into the same river twice" due to the ever-changing waters flowing through it, and all things exist as a contraposition of opposites. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Plato received these ideas through Heraclitus' disciple Cratylus.[40] Parmenides adopted an altogether contrary vision, arguing for the idea of a changeless, eternal universe and the view that change is an illusion.[38] Plato's most self-critical dialogue is the Parmenides, which features Parmenides and his student Zeno, which criticizes Plato's own metaphysical theories. Plato's Sophist dialogue includes an Eleatic stranger. These ideas about change and permanence, or becoming and Being, influenced Plato in formulating his theory of Forms.[40]

Philosophy

Main article: Platonism

In Plato's dialogues, Socrates and his company of disputants had something to say on many subjects, including several aspects of metaphysics. These include religion and science, human nature, love, and sexuality. More than one dialogue contrasts perception and reality, nature and custom, and body and soul. Francis Cornford identified the "twin pillars of Platonism" as the theory of Forms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the doctrine of immortality of the soul.[41]

The Forms

See also: Plato's theory of Forms

In the dialogues Socrates regularly asks for the meaning of a general term (e. g. justice, truth, beauty), and criticizes those who instead give him particular examples, rather than the quality shared by all examples. "Platonism" and its theory of Forms (also known as 'theory of Ideas;) denies the reality of the material world, considering it only an image or copy of the real world. According to this theory of Forms, there are these two kinds of things: the apparent world of material objects grasped by the senses, which constantly changes, and an unchanging and unseen world of Forms, grasped by reason (λογική). Plato's Forms represent types of things, as well as properties, patterns, and relations, to which we refer as objects. Just as individual tables, chairs, and cars refer to objects in this world, 'tableness', 'chairness', and 'carness', as well as e. g. justice, truth, and beauty refer to objects in another world. One of Plato's most cited examples for the Forms were the truths of geometry, such as the Pythagorean theorem. The theory of Forms is first introduced in the Phaedo dialogue (also known as On the Soul), wherein Socrates disputes the pluralism of Anaxagoras, then the most popular response to Heraclitus and Parmenides.

The soul

See also: Plato's theory of soul

For Plato, as was characteristic of ancient Greek philosophy, the soul was that which gave life.[42] Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife. In the Timaeus, Socrates locates the parts of the soul within the human body: Reason is located in the head, spirit in the top third of the torso, and the appetite in the middle third of the torso, down to the navel.[43][44]

Furthermore, Plato evinces a belief in the theory of reincarnation in multiple dialogues (such as the Phaedo and Timaeus). Scholars debate whether he intends the theory to be literally true, however.[45] He uses this idea of reincarnation to introduce the concept that knowledge is a matter of recollection of things acquainted with before one is born, and not of observation or study.[46] Keeping with the theme of admitting his own ignorance, Socrates regularly complains of his forgetfulness. In the Meno, Socrates uses a geometrical example to expound Plato's view that knowledge in this latter sense is acquired by recollection. Socrates elicits a fact concerning a geometrical construction from a slave boy, who could not have otherwise known the fact (due to the slave boy's lack of education). The knowledge must be of, Socrates concludes, an eternal, non-perceptible Form.

Epistemology

Main article: Platonic epistemology
 
A Venn diagram illustrating the classical theory of knowledge

Plato also discusses several aspects of epistemology. In several dialogues, Socrates inverts the common man's intuition about what is knowable and what is real. Reality is unavailable to those who use their senses. Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind. 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 the Theaetetus, he says such people are eu amousoi (εὖ ἄμουσοι), an expression that means literally, "happily without the muses".[47] In other words, such people are willingly ignorant, living without divine inspiration and access to higher insights about reality. Many have interpreted Plato as stating — even having been the first to write — that knowledge is justified true belief, an influential view that informed future developments in epistemology.[48] Plato also identified problems with the justified true belief definition in the Theaetetus, concluding that justification (or an "account") would require knowledge of difference, meaning that the definition of knowledge is circular.[49][50]

In the Sophist, Statesman, Republic, Timaeus, and the Parmenides, Plato associates knowledge with the apprehension of unchanging Forms and their relationships to one another (which he calls "expertise" in dialectic), including through the processes of collection and division.[51] More explicitly, Plato himself argues in the Timaeus that knowledge is always proportionate to the realm from which it is gained. In other words, if one derives one's account of something experientially, because the world of sense is in flux, the views therein attained will be mere opinions. Meanwhile, opinions are characterized by a lack of necessity and stability. On the other hand, if one derives one's account of something by way of the non-sensible Forms, because these Forms are unchanging, so too is the account derived from them. That apprehension of Forms is required for knowledge may be taken to cohere with Plato's theory in the Theaetetus and Meno.[52] Indeed, the apprehension of Forms may be at the base of the account required for justification, in that it offers foundational knowledge which itself needs no account, thereby avoiding an infinite regression.[53]

 
What is justice?

Ethics

See also: Form of the Good

Several dialogues discuss ethics including virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, crime and punishment, and justice and medicine. Socrates presents the famous Euthyphro dilemma in the dialogue of the same name: "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a) In the Protagoras dialogue it is argued through Socrates that virtue is innate and cannot be learned, that no one does bad on purpose, and to know what is good results in doing what is good; that knowledge is virtue. In the Republic, Plato poses the question, "What is justice?" and by examining both individual justice and the justice that informs societies, Plato is able not only to inform metaphysics, but also ethics and politics with the question: "What is the basis of moral and social obligation?" Plato's well-known answer rests upon the fundamental responsibility to seek wisdom, wisdom which leads to an understanding of the Form of the Good. Plato views "The Good" as the supreme Form, somehow existing even "beyond being". In this manner, justice is obtained when knowledge of how to fulfill one's moral and political function in society is put into practice.[54]

Politics

Main article: Plato's political philosophy
 
Oxyrhynchus Papyri, with fragment of Plato's Republic

The dialogues also discuss politics. Some of Plato's most famous doctrines are contained in the Republic as well as in the Laws and the Statesman. Because these opinions are not spoken directly by Plato and vary between dialogues, they cannot be straightforwardly assumed as representing Plato's own views.

Socrates asserts that societies have a tripartite class structure corresponding to the appetite/spirit/reason structure of the individual soul. The appetite/spirit/reason are analogous to the castes of society.[55]

  • Productive (Workers) – the labourers, carpenters, plumbers, masons, merchants, farmers, ranchers, etc. These correspond to the "appetite" part of the soul.
  • Protective (Warriors or Guardians) – those who are adventurous, strong and brave; in the armed forces. These correspond to the "spirit" part of the soul.
  • Governing (Rulers or Philosopher Kings) – those who are intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, well suited to make decisions for the community. These correspond to the "reason" part of the soul and are very few.

According to Socrates, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline from an aristocracy (rule by the best) to a timocracy (rule by the honourable), then to an oligarchy (rule by the few), then to a democracy (rule by the people), and finally to tyranny (rule by one person, rule by a tyrant).[56]

Rhetoric and poetry

Several dialogues tackle questions about art, including rhetoric and rhapsody. 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) in the Phaedrus,[57] and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homer's great poetry, and laughter as well. Scholars often view Plato's philosophy as at odds with rhetoric due to his criticisms of rhetoric in the Gorgias and his ambivalence toward rhetoric expressed in the Phaedrus. But other contemporary researchers contest the idea that Plato despised rhetoric and instead view his dialogues as a dramatization of complex rhetorical principles.[58][59][60]Plato made abundant use of mythological narratives in his own work;[61] It is generally agreed that the main purpose for Plato in using myths was didactic.[62] He considered that only a few people were capable or interested in following a reasoned philosophical discourse, but men in general are attracted by stories and tales. Consequently, then, he used the myth to convey the conclusions of the philosophical reasoning.[63] Notable examples include the story of Atlantis, the Myth of Er, and the Allegory of the Cave.

Works

Themes

 
Painting of a scene from Plato's Symposium (Anselm Feuerbach, 1873)
See also: List of speakers in Plato's dialogues

Plato never presents himself as a participant in any of the dialogues, and with the exception of the Apology, there is no suggestion that he heard any of the dialogues firsthand. Some dialogues have no narrator but have a pure "dramatic" form, some dialogues are narrated by Socrates himself, who speaks in the first person. The Symposium is narrated by Apollodorus, a Socratic disciple, apparently to Glaucon. Apollodorus assures his listener that he is recounting the story, which took place when he himself was an infant, not from his own memory, but as remembered by Aristodemus, who told him the story years ago. The Theaetetus is also a peculiar case: a dialogue in dramatic form embedded within another dialogue in dramatic form. Some scholars take this as an indication that Plato had by this date wearied of the narrated form.[64] In most of the dialogues, the primary speaker is Socrates, who employs a method of questioning which proceeds by a dialogue form called dialectic. The role of dialectic in Plato's thought is contested but there are two main interpretations: a type of reasoning and a method of intuition.[65] Simon Blackburn adopts the first, saying that Plato's dialectic is "the process of eliciting the truth by means of questions aimed at opening out what is already implicitly known, or at exposing the contradictions and muddles of an opponent's position."[65] Karl Popper, on the other hand, claims that dialectic is the art of intuition for "visualising the divine originals, the Forms or Ideas, of unveiling the Great Mystery behind the common man's everyday world of appearances."[66]

Textual sources and history

 
Volume 3, pp. 32–33, of the 1578 Stephanus edition of Plato, showing a passage of Timaeus with the Latin translation and notes of Jean de Serres
See also: List of manuscripts of Plato's dialogues

During the early Renaissance, the Greek language and, along with it, Plato's texts were reintroduced to Western Europe by Byzantine scholars. Some 250 known manuscripts of Plato survive.[67] In September or October 1484 Filippo Valori and Francesco Berlinghieri printed 1025 copies of Ficino's translation, using the printing press at the Dominican convent S.Jacopo di Ripoli.[68] The 1578 edition[69] of Plato's complete works published by Henricus Stephanus (Henri Estienne) in Geneva also included parallel Latin translation and running commentary by Joannes Serranus (Jean de Serres). It was this edition which established standard Stephanus pagination, still in use today.[70] The text of Plato as received today apparently represents the complete written philosophical work of Plato, based on the first century AD arrangement of Thrasyllus of Mendes.[71][72] The modern standard complete English edition is the 1997 Hackett Plato, Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper.[73][74]

Authenticity

Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters (the Epistles) have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, though modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of at least some of these. Jowett[75] mentions in his Appendix to Menexenus, that works which bore the character of a writer were attributed to that writer even when the actual author was unknown. The works taken as genuine in antiquity but are now doubted by at least some modern scholars are: Alcibiades I (*),[d] Alcibiades II (‡), Clitophon (*), Epinomis (‡), Letters (*), Hipparchus (‡), Menexenus (*), Minos (‡), Lovers (‡), Theages (‡) The following works were transmitted under Plato's name in antiquity, but were already considered spurious by the 1st century AD: Axiochus, Definitions, Demodocus, Epigrams, Eryxias, Halcyon, On Justice, On Virtue, Sisyphus.

Chronology

No one knows the exact order Plato's dialogues were written in, nor the extent to which some might have been later revised and rewritten. The works are usually grouped into Early (sometimes by some into Transitional), Middle, and Late period; The following represents one relatively common division.[76]

Whereas those classified as "early dialogues" often conclude in aporia, the so-called "middle dialogues" provide more clearly stated positive teachings that are often ascribed to Plato such as the theory of Forms. The remaining dialogues are classified as "late" and are generally agreed to be difficult and challenging pieces of philosophy.[78] It should, however, be kept in mind that many of the positions in the ordering are still highly disputed, and also that the very notion that Plato's dialogues can or should be "ordered" is by no means universally accepted,[79][e] though Plato's works are still often characterized as falling at least roughly into three groups stylistically.[3]

Legacy

 
Plato's Academy mosaic in the villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii, around 100 BC to 100 CE

Unwritten doctrines

Main articles: Plato's unwritten doctrines and Allegorical interpretations of Plato

Plato's unwritten doctrines are,[81][82][83] according to some ancient sources, the most fundamental metaphysical teaching of Plato, which he disclosed only orally, and some say only to his most trusted fellows, and which he may have kept secret from the public, although many modern scholars[who?] doubt these claims. A reason for not revealing it to everyone is partially discussed in Phaedrus where Plato criticizes the written transmission of knowledge as faulty, favouring instead the spoken logos: "he who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink, sowing them through a pen with words, which cannot defend themselves by argument and cannot teach the truth effectually."[84] It is, however, said that Plato once disclosed this knowledge to the public in his lecture On the Good (Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ), in which the Good (τὸ ἀγαθόν) is identified with the One (the Unity, τὸ ἕν), the fundamental ontological principle.

The first witness who mentions its existence is Aristotle, who in his Physics writes: "It is true, indeed, that the account he gives there [i.e. in Timaeus] of the participant is different from what he says in his so-called unwritten teachings (Ancient Greek: ἄγραφα δόγματα, romanized: agrapha dogmata)."[85] In Metaphysics he writes: "Now since the Forms are the causes of everything else, he [i.e. Plato] supposed that their elements are the elements of all things. Accordingly, the material principle is the Great and Small [i.e. the Dyad], and the essence is the One (τὸ ἕν), since the numbers are derived from the Great and Small by participation in the One".[86] "From this account it is clear that he only employed two causes: that of the essence, and the material cause; for the Forms are the cause of the essence in everything else, and the One is the cause of it in the Forms. He also tells us what the material substrate is of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in that of the Forms—that it is this the duality (the Dyad, ἡ δυάς), the Great and Small (τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρόν). Further, he assigned to these two elements respectively the causation of good and of evil".[86]

The most important aspect of this interpretation of Plato's metaphysics is the continuity between his teaching and the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plotinus[f] or Ficino[g] which has been considered erroneous by many but may in fact have been directly influenced by oral transmission of Plato's doctrine. A modern scholar who recognized the importance of the unwritten doctrine of Plato was Heinrich Gomperz who described it in his speech during the 7th International Congress of Philosophy in 1930.[87] All the sources related to the ἄγραφα δόγματα have been collected by Konrad Gaiser and published as Testimonia Platonica.[88]

Modern reception

See also: Transmission of the Greek Classics

Plato's thought is often compared with that of his most famous student, Aristotle, whose reputation during the Western Middle Ages so completely eclipsed that of Plato that the Scholastic philosophers referred to Aristotle as "the Philosopher". The only Platonic work known to western scholarship was Timaeus, until translations were made after the fall of Constantinople, which occurred during 1453.[89] However, the study of Plato continued in the Byzantine Empire, the Caliphates during the Islamic Golden Age, and Spain during Golden age of Jewish culture. During the early Islamic era, Persian, Arab, and Jewish scholars translated much of Plato into Arabic and wrote commentaries and interpretations on Plato's, Aristotle's and other Platonist philosophers' works (see Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes, Hunayn ibn Ishaq). Plato is also referenced by Jewish philosopher and Talmudic scholar Maimonides in his The Guide for the Perplexed. Many of these commentaries on Plato were translated from Arabic into Latin and as such influenced Medieval scholastic philosophers.[90]

 
The School of Athens fresco by Raphael features Plato (left) also as a central figure, holding his Timaeus while he gestures to the heavens. Aristotle (right) gestures to the earth while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand.

During the Renaissance, George Gemistos Plethon brought Plato's original writings to Florence from Constantinople in the century of its fall. Many of the greatest early modern scientists and artists who broke with Scholasticism, with the support of the Plato-inspired Lorenzo (grandson of Cosimo), saw Plato's philosophy as the basis for progress in the arts and sciences. The 17th century Cambridge Platonists, sought to reconcile Plato's more problematic beliefs, such as metempsychosis and polyamory, with Christianity.[91] By the 19th century, Plato's reputation was restored, and at least on par with Aristotle's. Plato's influence has been especially strong in mathematics and the sciences. Plato's resurgence further inspired some of the greatest advances in logic since Aristotle, primarily through Gottlob Frege. Albert Einstein suggested that the scientist who takes philosophy seriously would have to avoid systematization and take on many different roles, and possibly appear as a Platonist or Pythagorean, in that such a one would have "the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research."[92]

Criticism

Many recent philosophers have also diverged from what some would describe as ideals characteristic of traditional Platonism. Friedrich Nietzsche notoriously attacked Plato's "idea of the good itself" along with many fundamentals of Christian morality, which he interpreted as "Platonism for the masses" in Beyond Good and Evil (1886). Martin Heidegger argued against Plato's alleged obfuscation of Being in his incomplete tome, Being and Time (1927), and the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued in the first volume of The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) that Plato's alleged proposal for a utopian political regime in the Republic was prototypically totalitarian. Edmund Gettier famously demonstrated the problems of the justified true belief account of knowledge. That the modern theory of justified true belief as knowledge, which Gettier addresses, is equivalent to Plato's is accepted by some scholars but rejected by others.[93]

Notes

  1. ^ "Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans"[3]
  2. ^ "...the subject of philosophy, as it is often conceived — a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, armed with a distinctive method — can be called his invention."[4][5]
  3. ^ From aristos and kleos
  4. ^ (*) if there is no consensus among scholars as to whether Plato is the author, and (‡) if most scholars agree that Plato is not the author of the work. The extent to which scholars consider a dialogue to be authentic is noted in Cooper 1997, pp. v–vi.
  5. ^ Increasingly in the most recent Plato scholarship, writers are skeptical of the notion that the order of Plato's writings can be established with any precision.[80]
  6. ^ Plotinus describes this in the last part of his final Ennead (VI, 9) entitled On the Good, or the One (Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ ἢ τοῦ ἑνός). Jens Halfwassen states in Der Aufstieg zum Einen' (2006) that "Plotinus' ontology—which should be called Plotinus' henology—is a rather accurate philosophical renewal and continuation of Plato's unwritten doctrine, i.e. the doctrine rediscovered by Krämer and Gaiser."
  7. ^ In one of his letters (Epistolae 1612) Ficino writes: "The main goal of the divine Plato ... is to show one principle of things, which he called the One (τὸ ἕν)", cf. Montoriola 1926, p. 147.

References

  1. ^ Jones 2006.
  2. ^ Plato Dialogues org Frequently asked Questions: Plato's real name
  3. ^ a b Brickhouse & Smith.
  4. ^ Kraut 2013
  5. ^ "Plato and Aristotle: How Do They Differ?". Britannica. "Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) are generally regarded as the two greatest figures of Western philosophy".
  6. ^ Cooper, John M.; Hutchinson, D.S., eds. (1997): "Introduction."
  7. ^ Cooper 1997, p. vii.
  8. ^ Whitehead 1978, p. 39.
  9. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Plato, III
    • Nails 2002, p. 53
    Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 2005, p. 46
  10. ^ Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 2005, p. 46.
  11. ^ Nails 2002, p. 246.
  12. ^ Guthrie 1986, p. 11.
  13. ^ Kahn 1996, p. 186.
  14. ^ McEvoy 1984.
  15. ^ Cairns 1961, p. xiii.
  16. ^ Dillon 2003, pp. 1–3.
  17. ^ Press 2000, p. 1.
  18. ^ Riginos 1976, p. 73.
  19. ^ Riginos 1976, p. 194.
  20. ^ Schall 1996.
  21. ^ a b Riginos 1976, p. 195.
  22. ^ Guthrie 1986, p. 12 (footnote).
  23. ^ a b Sedley, David, Plato's Cratylus, Cambridge University Press 2003, pp. 21–22 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine.
  24. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Plato, IV
  25. ^ Notopoulos 1939, p. 135
  26. ^ Seneca, Epistulae, VI 58:29–30; translation by Robert Mott Gummere
  27. ^ Laërtius 1925, § 4.
  28. ^ see Tarán 1981, p. 226.
  29. ^ Strauss 1964, pp. 50–51.
  30. ^ Metaphysics 987b1–11
  31. ^ McPherran, M.L. (1998). The Religion of Socrates. Penn State Press. p. 268.
  32. ^ Vlastos 1991.
  33. ^ Metaphysics, 1.6.1 (987a)
  34. ^ Tusc. Disput. 1.17.39.
  35. ^ R.M. Hare, Plato in C.C.W. Taylor, R.M. Hare and Jonathan Barnes, Greek Philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 (1982), 103–189, here 117–119.
  36. ^ Russell, Bertrand (1991). History of Western Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 120–124. ISBN 978-0-415-07854-2.
  37. ^ Calian, Florin George (9 December 2021). Numbers, Ontologically Speaking: Plato on Numerosity. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-46722-4.
  38. ^ a b c McFarlane, Thomas J. "Plato's Parmenides". Integralscience. from the original on 22 February 2017. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  39. ^ John Palmer (2019). Parmenides. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. from the original on 20 October 2017. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  40. ^ a b Large, William. "Heraclitus". Arasite. from the original on 6 March 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  41. ^ Francis Cornford, 1941. The Republic of Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. xxv.
  42. ^ See this brief exchange from the Phaedo: "What is it that, when present in a body, makes it living? — A soul." Phaedo 105c.
  43. ^ Plato, Timaeus 44d & 70
  44. ^ Dorter 2006, p. 360.
  45. ^ Jorgensen 2018 is perhaps the strongest opponent to interpretations on which Plato intends the theory literally. See Jorgensen, The Embodied Soul in Plato’s Later Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Campbell 2022, on the other hand, represents a recent defense of the literal reading. See Campbell, "Plato's Theory of Reincarnation: Eschatology and Natural Philosophy," Review of Metaphysics 75 (4): 643-665. 2022.
  46. ^ Baird & Kaufmann 2008.
  47. ^ Theaetetus 156a
  48. ^ Fine 2003, p. 5.
  49. ^ Theaetetus 210a–b
  50. ^ McDowell 1973, p. 256.
  51. ^ Taylor 2011, pp. 176–187.
  52. ^ Lee 2011, p. 432.
  53. ^ Taylor 2011, p. 189.
  54. ^ Republic, Book IV.
  55. ^ Blössner 2007, pp. 345–349.
  56. ^ Blössner 2007, p. 350.
  57. ^ Phaedrus (265a–c)
  58. ^ Kastely, James (2015). The Rhetoric of Plato's Republic. Chicago UP.
  59. ^ Bjork, Collin (2021). "Plato, Xenophon, and the Uneven Temporalities of Ethos in the Trial of Socrates". Philosophy & Rhetoric. 54 (3): 240–262. doi:10.5325/philrhet.54.3.0240. ISSN 0031-8213. JSTOR 10.5325/philrhet.54.3.0240. S2CID 244334227.
  60. ^ Bengtson, Erik (2019). The epistemology of rhetoric: Plato, doxa and post-truth. Uppsala.
  61. ^ Chappel, Timothy. "Mythos and Logos in Plato". Open University. Retrieved 20 August 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  62. ^ Jorgensen, Chad. The Embodied Soul in Plato’s Later Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018 page 199.
  63. ^ Partenie, Catalin. "Plato's Myths". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. from the original on 27 May 2017. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
  64. ^ Burnet 1928a, § 177.
  65. ^ a b Blackburn 1996, p. 104.
  66. ^ Popper 1962, p. 133.
  67. ^ Brumbaugh & Wells 1989.
  68. ^ Allen 1975, p. 12.
  69. ^ Platonis opera quae extant omnia edidit Henricus Stephanus, Genevae, 1578.
  70. ^ Suzanne 2009.
  71. ^ Cooper 1997, pp. viii–xii.
  72. ^ Irwin 2011, pp. 64 & 74
  73. ^ Fine 1999a, p. 482.
  74. ^ Complete Works – Philosophy 11 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  75. ^ B Jowett, Menexenus: Appendix I (1st paragraph) 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
  76. ^ See Guthrie 1986; Vlastos 1991; Penner 1992; Kahn 1996; Fine 1999b.
  77. ^ Dodds 2004.
  78. ^ Cooper 1997, p. xiv.
  79. ^ Cooper 1997.
  80. ^ Kraut 2013; Schofield 2002; and Rowe 2006.
  81. ^ Rodriguez-Grandjean 1998.
  82. ^ Reale 1990. Cf. p. 14 and onwards.
  83. ^ Krämer 1990. Cf. pp. 38–47.
  84. ^ Phaedrus 276c
  85. ^ Physics 209b
  86. ^ a b Metaphysics 987b
  87. ^ Gomperz 1931.
  88. ^ Gaiser 1998.
  89. ^ C.U. M.Smith – Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience (page 1) 23 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine Springer Science & Business, 1 January 2014, 374 pages, Volume 6 of History, philosophy and theory of the life sciences SpringerLink : Bücher ISBN 94-017-8774-3 [Retrieved 27 June 2015]
  90. ^ See Burrell 1998 and Hasse 2002, pp. 33–45.
  91. ^ Carrigan, Henry L. Jr. (2012) [2011]. "Cambridge Platonists". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc0219. ISBN 9781405157629.
  92. ^ Einstein 1949, pp. 683–684.
  93. ^ Fine 1979, p. 366.

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Further reading

  • Alican, Necip Fikri (2012). Rethinking Plato: A Cartesian Quest for the Real Plato. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V. ISBN 978-90-420-3537-9.
  • Allen, R. E. (1965). Studies in Plato's Metaphysics II. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-7100-3626-4
  • Ambuel, David (2007). Image and Paradigm in Plato's Sophist. Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-04-9
  • Anderson, Mark; Osborn, Ginger (2009). Approaching Plato: A Guide to the Early and Middle Dialogues (PDF). Nashville: Belmont University.
  • Arieti, James A. Interpreting Plato: The Dialogues as Drama, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-8476-7662-5
  • Barrow, Robin (2007). Plato: Continuum Library of Educational Thought. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-8408-6.
  • Cooper, John M.; Hutchinson, D.S., eds. (1997). Plato: Complete Works. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-87220-349-5.
  • Corlett, J. Angelo (2005). Interpreting Plato's Dialogues. Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-02-5
  • Field, G.C. (1969). The Philosophy of Plato (2nd ed. with an appendix by Cross, R.C. ed.). London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-888040-0.
  • Fine, Gail (2000). Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology Oxford University Press, US, ISBN 0-19-875206-7
  • Finley, M.I. (1969). Aspects of antiquity: Discoveries and Controversies The Viking Press, Inc., US
  • Garvey, James (2006). Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-9053-7.
  • Guthrie, W.K.C. (1986). A History of Greek Philosophy (Plato – The Man & His Dialogues – Earlier Period), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-31101-2
  • Guthrie, W.K.C. (1986). A History of Greek Philosophy (Later Plato & the Academy) Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-31102-0
  • Havelock, Eric (2005). Preface to Plato (History of the Greek Mind), Belknap Press, ISBN 0-674-69906-8
  • Hamilton, Edith; Cairns, Huntington, eds. (1961). The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters. Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09718-3.
  • Harvard University Press publishes the hardbound series Loeb Classical Library, containing Plato's works in Greek, with English translations on facing pages.
  • Irvine, Andrew David (2008). Socrates on Trial: A play based on Aristophanes' Clouds and Plato's Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, adapted for modern performance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-9783-5, 978-0-8020-9538-1
  • Hermann, Arnold (2010). Plato's Parmenides: Text, Translation & Introductory Essay, Parmenides Publishing, ISBN 978-1-930972-71-1
  • Irwin, Terence (1995). Plato's Ethics, Oxford University Press, US, ISBN 0-19-508645-7
  • Jackson, Roy (2001). Plato: A Beginner's Guide. London: Hoder & Stroughton. ISBN 978-0-340-80385-1.
  • Kochin, Michael S. (2002). Gender and Rhetoric in Plato's Political Thought. Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80852-1.
  • Kraut, Richard, ed. (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-43610-6.
  • LeMoine, Rebecca (2020). Plato's Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190936983.
  • Lilar, Suzanne (1954), Journal de l'analogiste, Paris, Éditions Julliard; Reedited 1979, Paris, Grasset. Foreword by Julien Gracq
  • Lilar, Suzanne (1963), Le couple, Paris, Grasset. Translated as Aspects of Love in Western Society in 1965, with a foreword by Jonathan Griffin London, Thames and Hudson.
  • Lilar, Suzanne (1967) A propos de Sartre et de l'amour , Paris, Grasset.
  • Lundberg, Phillip (2005). Tallyho – The Hunt for Virtue: Beauty, Truth and Goodness Nine Dialogues by Plato: Pheadrus, Lysis, Protagoras, Charmides, Parmenides, Gorgias, Theaetetus, Meno & Sophist. Authorhouse. ISBN 978-1-4184-4977-3.
  • Márquez, Xavier (2012) A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy & Law in Plato's Statesman, Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-79-7
  • Melchert, Norman (2002). The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-19-517510-3.
  • Miller, Mitchell (2004). The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman. Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-16-2
  • Mohr, Richard D. (2006). God and Forms in Plato – and other Essays in Plato's Metaphysics. Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-01-8
  • Mohr, Richard D. (Ed.), Sattler, Barbara M. (Ed.) (2010) One Book, The Whole Universe: Plato's Timaeus Today, Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-32-2
  • Moore, Edward (2007). Plato. Philosophy Insights Series. Tirril, Humanities-Ebooks. ISBN 978-1-84760-047-9
  • Nightingale, Andrea Wilson. (1995). "Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy", Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-48264-X
  • Oxford University Press publishes scholarly editions of Plato's Greek texts in the Oxford Classical Texts series, and some translations in the Clarendon Plato Series.
  • Patterson, Richard (Ed.), Karasmanis, Vassilis (Ed.), Hermann, Arnold (Ed.) (2013) Presocratics & Plato: Festschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn, Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-75-9
  • Piechowiak, Marek (2019). Plato's Conception of Justice and the Question of Human Dignity. Peter Lang: Berlin. ISBN 978-3-631-65970-0.
  • Sallis, John (1996). Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21071-5.
  • Sallis, John (1999). Chorology: On Beginning in Plato's "Timaeus". Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21308-2.
  • Sayre, Kenneth M. (2005). Plato's Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved. Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-09-4
  • Seung, T.K. (1996). Plato Rediscovered: Human Value and Social Order. Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 0-8476-8112-2
  • Smith, William. (1867). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. University of Michigan/Online version.
  • Stewart, John. (2010). Kierkegaard and the Greek World – Socrates and Plato. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6981-4
  • Thesleff, Holger (2009). Platonic Patterns: A Collection of Studies by Holger Thesleff, Parmenides Publishing, ISBN 978-1-930972-29-2
  • Vlastos, Gregory (1981). Platonic Studies, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-10021-7
  • Vlastos, Gregory (2006). Plato's Universe – with a new Introduction by Luc Brisson, Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-13-1
  • Zuckert, Catherine (2009). Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-99335-5

External links

 
Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Platon

May 02, 2023
plato, other, uses, disambiguation, disambiguation, play, greek, Πλάτων, plátōn, ancient, greek, philosopher, born, athens, during, classical, period, ancient, greece, athens, founded, academy, philosophical, school, where, taught, philosophical, doctrines, th. For other uses see Plato disambiguation and Platon disambiguation Plato ˈ p l eɪ t oʊ PLAY toe 1 Greek Platwn Platōn 428 427 or 424 423 348 347 BC was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece In Athens Plato founded the Academy a philosophical school where he taught the philosophical doctrines that would later became known as Platonism Plato or Platon was a pen name derived from his nickname given to him by his wrestling coach allegedly a reference to his physical broadness According to Alexander of Miletus quoted by Diogenes of Sinope his actual name was Aristocles son of Ariston of the deme Collytus Collytus being a district of Athens 2 PlatoRoman copy of a portrait bust c 370 BCBorn428 427 or 424 423 BCAthens GreeceDied348 347 BC aged c 80 Athens GreeceNotable workEuthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Meno Protagoras Gorgias Symposium Phaedrus Parmenides Theaetetus Republic TimaeusEraAncient Greek philosophySchoolPlatonic AcademyNotable studentsAristotleMain interestsEpistemology MetaphysicsPolitical philosophyNotable ideasAllegory of the Cave Cardinal virtues Form of the Good Theory of forms Divisions of the soul Platonic love Platonic solids AtlantisInfluences Pythagoras Heraclitus Parmenides SocratesInfluenced Virtually all subsequent Western philosophyPlato was an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy He raised problems for what later became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy His most famous contribution is the Theory of forms where he presents a solution to the problem of universals He is also the namesake of Platonic love and the Platonic solids His own most decisive philosophical influences are usually thought to have been along with Socrates the pre Socratics Pythagoras Heraclitus and Parmenides although few of his predecessors works remain extant and much of what we know about these figures today derives from Plato himself a Along with his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy b Unlike the work of nearly all of his contemporaries Plato s entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2 400 years 6 Although their popularity has fluctuated Plato s works have consistently been read and studied 7 Through Neoplatonism Plato also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy through e g Al Farabi In modern times Alfred North Whitehead famously said the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato 8 Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Name 2 Influences 2 1 Socrates 2 2 Pythagoreanism 2 3 Heraclitus and Parmenides 3 Philosophy 3 1 The Forms 3 2 The soul 3 3 Epistemology 3 4 Ethics 3 5 Politics 3 6 Rhetoric and poetry 4 Works 4 1 Themes 4 2 Textual sources and history 4 3 Authenticity 4 4 Chronology 5 Legacy 5 1 Unwritten doctrines 5 2 Modern reception 5 2 1 Criticism 6 Notes 7 References 7 1 Works cited 8 Further reading 9 External linksBiographyFurther information Life of Plato Little is known about Plato s early life and education He belonged to an aristocratic and influential family 9 The exact time and place of Plato s birth are unknown Based on ancient sources most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 428 10 and 423 BC 11 Plato gives little biographical information about himself in his works but often referred some of his relatives with a great degree of precision including his brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon who debate with Socrates in the Republic 12 These and other references enable us to reconstruct Plato s family tree 13 Plato may have travelled in Italy Sicily Egypt and Cyrene 14 but at the age of forty Plato founded a school of philosophy in Athens the Academy on a plot of land in the Grove of Hecademus or Academus 15 named after Academus an Attic hero in Greek mythology The Academy operated until it was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 84 BC Many philosophers studied at the Academy the most prominent one being Aristotle 16 17 According to Diogenes Laertius throughout his later life Plato became entangled with the politics of the city of Syracuse where he attempted to replace the tyrant Dionysius 18 with Dionysius s brother in law Dion of Syracuse whom Plato had recruited as one of his followers but the tyrant himself turned against Plato After Dionysius s death according to Plato s Seventh Letter Dion requested Plato return to Syracuse to tutor Dionysius II who seemed to accept Plato s teachings but eventually became suspicious of their motives expelling Dion and holding Plato against his will Eventually Plato left Syracuse and Dion would return to overthrow Dionysius and rule Syracuse before being usurped by Calippus a fellow disciple of Plato A variety of sources have given accounts of Plato s death One story based on a mutilated manuscript 19 suggests Plato died in his bed whilst a young Thracian girl played the flute to him 20 Another tradition suggests Plato died at a wedding feast The account is based on Diogenes Laertius s reference to an account by Hermippus a third century Alexandrian 21 According to Tertullian Plato simply died in his sleep 21 Plato was a wrestler Name The fact that the philosopher in his maturity called himself Platon is indisputable but the origin of this name remains mysterious Platon is a nickname from the adjective platys platys broad Although Platon was a fairly common name 31 instances are known from Athens alone 22 the name does not occur in Plato s known family line 23 The sources of Diogenes Laertius account for this by claiming that his wrestling coach Ariston of Argos dubbed him broad on account of his chest and shoulders or that Plato derived his name from the breadth of his eloquence or his wide forehead 24 25 While recalling a moral lesson about frugal living Seneca mentions the meaning of Plato s name His very name was given him because of his broad chest 26 According to Diogenes Laertius 27 his birth name was supposedly Aristocles Ἀristoklῆs meaning best reputation c however modern scholars are divided on the reliability of this claim 28 23 Influences Plato was one of the devoted young followers of Socrates Socrates Main article Socratic problem Plato never speaks in his own voice in his dialogues every dialogue except the Laws features Socrates although many dialogues including the Timaeus and Statesman feature him speaking only rarely Leo Strauss notes that Socrates reputation for irony casts doubt on whether Plato s Socrates is expressing sincere beliefs 29 Xenophon s Memorabilia and Aristophanes s The Clouds seem to present a somewhat different portrait of Socrates from the one Plato paints Aristotle attributes a different doctrine with respect to Forms to Plato and Socrates 30 Aristotle suggests that Socrates idea of forms can be discovered through investigation of the natural world unlike Plato s Forms that exist beyond and outside the ordinary range of human understanding 31 The Socratic problem concerns how to reconcile these various accounts The precise relationship between Plato and Socrates remains an area of contention among scholars 32 page needed Pythagoreanism The mathematical and mystical teachings of the followers of Pythagoras exerted a strong influence on Plato Main article Pythagoreanism Although Socrates influenced Plato directly the influence of Pythagoras or in a broader sense the Pythagoreans such as Archytas also appears to have been significant Aristotle and Cicero both claimed that the philosophy of Plato closely followed the teachings of the Pythagoreans 33 34 According to R M Hare this influence consists of three points The platonic Republic might be related to the idea of a tightly organized community of like minded thinkers like the one established by Pythagoras in Croton The idea that mathematics and generally speaking abstract thinking is a secure basis for philosophical thinking as well as for substantial theses in science and morals They shared a mystical approach to the soul and its place in the material world 35 36 Pythagoras held that all things are number and the cosmos comes from numerical principles He introduced the concept of form as distinct from matter and that the physical world is an imitation of an eternal mathematical world These ideas were very influential on Heraclitus Parmenides and Plato 37 38 Heraclitus and Parmenides Heraclitus 1628 by Hendrick ter Brugghen Heraclitus saw a world in flux with everything always in conflict constantly changing Bust of Parmenides from Velia Parmenides saw the world as eternal and unchanging that all change was an illusion Main articles Heraclitus and Parmenides The two philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides influenced by earlier pre Socratic Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Xenophanes 39 departed from mythological explanations for the universe and began the metaphysical tradition that strongly influenced Plato and continues today 38 Heraclitus viewed all things as continuously changing that one cannot step into the same river twice due to the ever changing waters flowing through it and all things exist as a contraposition of opposites According to Diogenes Laertius Plato received these ideas through Heraclitus disciple Cratylus 40 Parmenides adopted an altogether contrary vision arguing for the idea of a changeless eternal universe and the view that change is an illusion 38 Plato s most self critical dialogue is the Parmenides which features Parmenides and his student Zeno which criticizes Plato s own metaphysical theories Plato s Sophist dialogue includes an Eleatic stranger These ideas about change and permanence or becoming and Being influenced Plato in formulating his theory of Forms 40 PhilosophyMain article Platonism In Plato s dialogues Socrates and his company of disputants had something to say on many subjects including several aspects of metaphysics These include religion and science human nature love and sexuality More than one dialogue contrasts perception and reality nature and custom and body and soul Francis Cornford identified the twin pillars of Platonism as the theory of Forms on the one hand and on the other hand the doctrine of immortality of the soul 41 The Forms See also Plato s theory of Forms In the dialogues Socrates regularly asks for the meaning of a general term e g justice truth beauty and criticizes those who instead give him particular examples rather than the quality shared by all examples Platonism and its theory of Forms also known as theory of Ideas denies the reality of the material world considering it only an image or copy of the real world According to this theory of Forms there are these two kinds of things the apparent world of material objects grasped by the senses which constantly changes and an unchanging and unseen world of Forms grasped by reason logikh Plato s Forms represent types of things as well as properties patterns and relations to which we refer as objects Just as individual tables chairs and cars refer to objects in this world tableness chairness and carness as well as e g justice truth and beauty refer to objects in another world One of Plato s most cited examples for the Forms were the truths of geometry such as the Pythagorean theorem The theory of Forms is first introduced in the Phaedo dialogue also known as On the Soul wherein Socrates disputes the pluralism of Anaxagoras then the most popular response to Heraclitus and Parmenides The soul See also Plato s theory of soul For Plato as was characteristic of ancient Greek philosophy the soul was that which gave life 42 Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife In the Timaeus Socrates locates the parts of the soul within the human body Reason is located in the head spirit in the top third of the torso and the appetite in the middle third of the torso down to the navel 43 44 Furthermore Plato evinces a belief in the theory of reincarnation in multiple dialogues such as the Phaedo and Timaeus Scholars debate whether he intends the theory to be literally true however 45 He uses this idea of reincarnation to introduce the concept that knowledge is a matter of recollection of things acquainted with before one is born and not of observation or study 46 Keeping with the theme of admitting his own ignorance Socrates regularly complains of his forgetfulness In the Meno Socrates uses a geometrical example to expound Plato s view that knowledge in this latter sense is acquired by recollection Socrates elicits a fact concerning a geometrical construction from a slave boy who could not have otherwise known the fact due to the slave boy s lack of education The knowledge must be of Socrates concludes an eternal non perceptible Form Epistemology Main article Platonic epistemology A Venn diagram illustrating the classical theory of knowledge Plato also discusses several aspects of epistemology In several dialogues Socrates inverts the common man s intuition about what is knowable and what is real Reality is unavailable to those who use their senses Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind 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 the Theaetetus he says such people are eu amousoi eὖ ἄmoysoi an expression that means literally happily without the muses 47 In other words such people are willingly ignorant living without divine inspiration and access to higher insights about reality Many have interpreted Plato as stating even having been the first to write that knowledge is justified true belief an influential view that informed future developments in epistemology 48 Plato also identified problems with the justified true belief definition in the Theaetetus concluding that justification or an account would require knowledge of difference meaning that the definition of knowledge is circular 49 50 In the Sophist Statesman Republic Timaeus and the Parmenides Plato associates knowledge with the apprehension of unchanging Forms and their relationships to one another which he calls expertise in dialectic including through the processes of collection and division 51 More explicitly Plato himself argues in the Timaeus that knowledge is always proportionate to the realm from which it is gained In other words if one derives one s account of something experientially because the world of sense is in flux the views therein attained will be mere opinions Meanwhile opinions are characterized by a lack of necessity and stability On the other hand if one derives one s account of something by way of the non sensible Forms because these Forms are unchanging so too is the account derived from them That apprehension of Forms is required for knowledge may be taken to cohere with Plato s theory in the Theaetetus and Meno 52 Indeed the apprehension of Forms may be at the base of the account required for justification in that it offers foundational knowledge which itself needs no account thereby avoiding an infinite regression 53 What is justice Ethics See also Form of the Good Several dialogues discuss ethics including virtue and vice pleasure and pain crime and punishment and justice and medicine Socrates presents the famous Euthyphro dilemma in the dialogue of the same name Is the pious tὸ ὅsion loved by the gods because it is pious or is it pious because it is loved by the gods 10a In the Protagoras dialogue it is argued through Socrates that virtue is innate and cannot be learned that no one does bad on purpose and to know what is good results in doing what is good that knowledge is virtue In the Republic Plato poses the question What is justice and by examining both individual justice and the justice that informs societies Plato is able not only to inform metaphysics but also ethics and politics with the question What is the basis of moral and social obligation Plato s well known answer rests upon the fundamental responsibility to seek wisdom wisdom which leads to an understanding of the Form of the Good Plato views The Good as the supreme Form somehow existing even beyond being In this manner justice is obtained when knowledge of how to fulfill one s moral and political function in society is put into practice 54 Politics Main article Plato s political philosophy Oxyrhynchus Papyri with fragment of Plato s Republic The dialogues also discuss politics Some of Plato s most famous doctrines are contained in the Republic as well as in the Laws and the Statesman Because these opinions are not spoken directly by Plato and vary between dialogues they cannot be straightforwardly assumed as representing Plato s own views Socrates asserts that societies have a tripartite class structure corresponding to the appetite spirit reason structure of the individual soul The appetite spirit reason are analogous to the castes of society 55 Productive Workers the labourers carpenters plumbers masons merchants farmers ranchers etc These correspond to the appetite part of the soul Protective Warriors or Guardians those who are adventurous strong and brave in the armed forces These correspond to the spirit part of the soul Governing Rulers or Philosopher Kings those who are intelligent rational self controlled in love with wisdom well suited to make decisions for the community These correspond to the reason part of the soul and are very few According to Socrates a state made up of different kinds of souls will overall decline from an aristocracy rule by the best to a timocracy rule by the honourable then to an oligarchy rule by the few then to a democracy rule by the people and finally to tyranny rule by one person rule by a tyrant 56 Rhetoric and poetry Several dialogues tackle questions about art including rhetoric and rhapsody 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 in the Phaedrus 57 and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homer s great poetry and laughter as well Scholars often view Plato s philosophy as at odds with rhetoric due to his criticisms of rhetoric in the Gorgias and his ambivalence toward rhetoric expressed in the Phaedrus But other contemporary researchers contest the idea that Plato despised rhetoric and instead view his dialogues as a dramatization of complex rhetorical principles 58 59 60 Plato made abundant use of mythological narratives in his own work 61 It is generally agreed that the main purpose for Plato in using myths was didactic 62 He considered that only a few people were capable or interested in following a reasoned philosophical discourse but men in general are attracted by stories and tales Consequently then he used the myth to convey the conclusions of the philosophical reasoning 63 Notable examples include the story of Atlantis the Myth of Er and the Allegory of the Cave WorksThemes Painting of a scene from Plato s Symposium Anselm Feuerbach 1873 See also List of speakers in Plato s dialogues Plato never presents himself as a participant in any of the dialogues and with the exception of the Apology there is no suggestion that he heard any of the dialogues firsthand Some dialogues have no narrator but have a pure dramatic form some dialogues are narrated by Socrates himself who speaks in the first person The Symposium is narrated by Apollodorus a Socratic disciple apparently to Glaucon Apollodorus assures his listener that he is recounting the story which took place when he himself was an infant not from his own memory but as remembered by Aristodemus who told him the story years ago The Theaetetus is also a peculiar case a dialogue in dramatic form embedded within another dialogue in dramatic form Some scholars take this as an indication that Plato had by this date wearied of the narrated form 64 In most of the dialogues the primary speaker is Socrates who employs a method of questioning which proceeds by a dialogue form called dialectic The role of dialectic in Plato s thought is contested but there are two main interpretations a type of reasoning and a method of intuition 65 Simon Blackburn adopts the first saying that Plato s dialectic is the process of eliciting the truth by means of questions aimed at opening out what is already implicitly known or at exposing the contradictions and muddles of an opponent s position 65 Karl Popper on the other hand claims that dialectic is the art of intuition for visualising the divine originals the Forms or Ideas of unveiling the Great Mystery behind the common man s everyday world of appearances 66 Textual sources and history Volume 3 pp 32 33 of the 1578 Stephanus edition of Plato showing a passage of Timaeus with the Latin translation and notes of Jean de Serres See also List of manuscripts of Plato s dialogues During the early Renaissance the Greek language and along with it Plato s texts were reintroduced to Western Europe by Byzantine scholars Some 250 known manuscripts of Plato survive 67 In September or October 1484 Filippo Valori and Francesco Berlinghieri printed 1025 copies of Ficino s translation using the printing press at the Dominican convent S Jacopo di Ripoli 68 The 1578 edition 69 of Plato s complete works published by Henricus Stephanus Henri Estienne in Geneva also included parallel Latin translation and running commentary by Joannes Serranus Jean de Serres It was this edition which established standard Stephanus pagination still in use today 70 The text of Plato as received today apparently represents the complete written philosophical work of Plato based on the first century AD arrangement of Thrasyllus of Mendes 71 72 The modern standard complete English edition is the 1997 Hackett Plato Complete Works edited by John M Cooper 73 74 Authenticity Thirty five dialogues and thirteen letters the Epistles have traditionally been ascribed to Plato though modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of at least some of these Jowett 75 mentions in his Appendix to Menexenus that works which bore the character of a writer were attributed to that writer even when the actual author was unknown The works taken as genuine in antiquity but are now doubted by at least some modern scholars are Alcibiades I d Alcibiades II Clitophon Epinomis Letters Hipparchus Menexenus Minos Lovers Theages The following works were transmitted under Plato s name in antiquity but were already considered spurious by the 1st century AD Axiochus Definitions Demodocus Epigrams Eryxias Halcyon On Justice On Virtue Sisyphus Chronology No one knows the exact order Plato s dialogues were written in nor the extent to which some might have been later revised and rewritten The works are usually grouped into Early sometimes by some into Transitional Middle and Late period The following represents one relatively common division 76 Early Apology Charmides Crito Euthyphro Gorgias Hippias Minor Hippias Major Ion Laches Lysis Protagoras Middle Cratylus Euthydemus Meno Parmenides Phaedo Phaedrus Republic Symposium Theatetus Late Critias Sophist Statesman Timaeus Philebus Laws 77 Whereas those classified as early dialogues often conclude in aporia the so called middle dialogues provide more clearly stated positive teachings that are often ascribed to Plato such as the theory of Forms The remaining dialogues are classified as late and are generally agreed to be difficult and challenging pieces of philosophy 78 It should however be kept in mind that many of the positions in the ordering are still highly disputed and also that the very notion that Plato s dialogues can or should be ordered is by no means universally accepted 79 e though Plato s works are still often characterized as falling at least roughly into three groups stylistically 3 Legacy Plato s Academy mosaic in the villa of T Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii around 100 BC to 100 CE Unwritten doctrines Main articles Plato s unwritten doctrines and Allegorical interpretations of Plato Plato s unwritten doctrines are 81 82 83 according to some ancient sources the most fundamental metaphysical teaching of Plato which he disclosed only orally and some say only to his most trusted fellows and which he may have kept secret from the public although many modern scholars who doubt these claims A reason for not revealing it to everyone is partially discussed in Phaedrus where Plato criticizes the written transmission of knowledge as faulty favouring instead the spoken logos he who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful will not when in earnest write them in ink sowing them through a pen with words which cannot defend themselves by argument and cannot teach the truth effectually 84 It is however said that Plato once disclosed this knowledge to the public in his lecture On the Good Perὶ tἀga8oῦ in which the Good tὸ ἀga8on is identified with the One the Unity tὸ ἕn the fundamental ontological principle The first witness who mentions its existence is Aristotle who in his Physics writes It is true indeed that the account he gives there i e in Timaeus of the participant is different from what he says in his so called unwritten teachings Ancient Greek ἄgrafa dogmata romanized agrapha dogmata 85 In Metaphysics he writes Now since the Forms are the causes of everything else he i e Plato supposed that their elements are the elements of all things Accordingly the material principle is the Great and Small i e the Dyad and the essence is the One tὸ ἕn since the numbers are derived from the Great and Small by participation in the One 86 From this account it is clear that he only employed two causes that of the essence and the material cause for the Forms are the cause of the essence in everything else and the One is the cause of it in the Forms He also tells us what the material substrate is of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things and the One in that of the Forms that it is this the duality the Dyad ἡ dyas the Great and Small tὸ mega kaὶ tὸ mikron Further he assigned to these two elements respectively the causation of good and of evil 86 The most important aspect of this interpretation of Plato s metaphysics is the continuity between his teaching and the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plotinus f or Ficino g which has been considered erroneous by many but may in fact have been directly influenced by oral transmission of Plato s doctrine A modern scholar who recognized the importance of the unwritten doctrine of Plato was Heinrich Gomperz who described it in his speech during the 7th International Congress of Philosophy in 1930 87 All the sources related to the ἄgrafa dogmata have been collected by Konrad Gaiser and published as Testimonia Platonica 88 Modern reception See also Transmission of the Greek Classics Plato s thought is often compared with that of his most famous student Aristotle whose reputation during the Western Middle Ages so completely eclipsed that of Plato that the Scholastic philosophers referred to Aristotle as the Philosopher The only Platonic work known to western scholarship was Timaeus until translations were made after the fall of Constantinople which occurred during 1453 89 However the study of Plato continued in the Byzantine Empire the Caliphates during the Islamic Golden Age and Spain during Golden age of Jewish culture During the early Islamic era Persian Arab and Jewish scholars translated much of Plato into Arabic and wrote commentaries and interpretations on Plato s Aristotle s and other Platonist philosophers works see Al Kindi Al Farabi Avicenna Averroes Hunayn ibn Ishaq Plato is also referenced by Jewish philosopher and Talmudic scholar Maimonides in his The Guide for the Perplexed Many of these commentaries on Plato were translated from Arabic into Latin and as such influenced Medieval scholastic philosophers 90 The School of Athens fresco by Raphael features Plato left also as a central figure holding his Timaeus while he gestures to the heavens Aristotle right gestures to the earth while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand During the Renaissance George Gemistos Plethon brought Plato s original writings to Florence from Constantinople in the century of its fall Many of the greatest early modern scientists and artists who broke with Scholasticism with the support of the Plato inspired Lorenzo grandson of Cosimo saw Plato s philosophy as the basis for progress in the arts and sciences The 17th century Cambridge Platonists sought to reconcile Plato s more problematic beliefs such as metempsychosis and polyamory with Christianity 91 By the 19th century Plato s reputation was restored and at least on par with Aristotle s Plato s influence has been especially strong in mathematics and the sciences Plato s resurgence further inspired some of the greatest advances in logic since Aristotle primarily through Gottlob Frege Albert Einstein suggested that the scientist who takes philosophy seriously would have to avoid systematization and take on many different roles and possibly appear as a Platonist or Pythagorean in that such a one would have the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research 92 Criticism Many recent philosophers have also diverged from what some would describe as ideals characteristic of traditional Platonism Friedrich Nietzsche notoriously attacked Plato s idea of the good itself along with many fundamentals of Christian morality which he interpreted as Platonism for the masses in Beyond Good and Evil 1886 Martin Heidegger argued against Plato s alleged obfuscation of Being in his incomplete tome Being and Time 1927 and the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued in the first volume of The Open Society and Its Enemies 1945 that Plato s alleged proposal for a utopian political regime in the Republic was prototypically totalitarian Edmund Gettier famously demonstrated the problems of the justified true belief account of knowledge That the modern theory of justified true belief as knowledge which Gettier addresses is equivalent to Plato s is accepted by some scholars but rejected by others 93 Notes Though influenced primarily by Socrates to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many of Plato s writings he was also influenced by Heraclitus Parmenides and the Pythagoreans 3 the subject of philosophy as it is often conceived a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical political metaphysical and epistemological issues armed with a distinctive method can be called his invention 4 5 From aristos and kleos if there is no consensus among scholars as to whether Plato is the author and if most scholars agree that Plato is not the author of the work The extent to which scholars consider a dialogue to be authentic is noted in Cooper 1997 pp v vi Increasingly in the most recent Plato scholarship writers are skeptical of the notion that the order of Plato s writings can be established with any precision 80 Plotinus describes this in the last part of his final Ennead VI 9 entitled On the Good or the One Perὶ tἀga8oῦ ἢ toῦ ἑnos Jens Halfwassen states in Der Aufstieg zum Einen 2006 that Plotinus ontology which should be called Plotinus henology is a rather accurate philosophical renewal and continuation of Plato s unwritten doctrine i e the doctrine rediscovered by Kramer and Gaiser In one of his letters Epistolae 1612 Ficino writes The main goal of the divine Plato is to show one principle of things which he called the One tὸ ἕn cf Montoriola 1926 p 147 References Jones 2006 Plato Dialogues org Frequently asked Questions Plato s real name a b Brickhouse amp Smith Kraut 2013 Plato and Aristotle How Do They Differ Britannica Plato c 428 c 348 BCE and Aristotle 384 322 BCE are generally regarded as the two greatest figures of Western philosophy Cooper John M Hutchinson D S eds 1997 Introduction Cooper 1997 p vii Whitehead 1978 p 39 Diogenes Laertius Life of Plato III Nails 2002 p 53Wilamowitz Moellendorff 2005 p 46 Wilamowitz Moellendorff 2005 p 46 Nails 2002 p 246 Guthrie 1986 p 11 Kahn 1996 p 186 McEvoy 1984 Cairns 1961 p xiii Dillon 2003 pp 1 3 Press 2000 p 1 Riginos 1976 p 73 Riginos 1976 p 194 Schall 1996 a b Riginos 1976 p 195 Guthrie 1986 p 12 footnote a b Sedley David Plato s Cratylus Cambridge University Press 2003 pp 21 22 Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Diogenes Laertius Life of Plato IV Notopoulos 1939 p 135 Seneca Epistulae VI 58 29 30 translation by Robert Mott Gummere Laertius 1925 4 see Taran 1981 p 226 Strauss 1964 pp 50 51 Metaphysics 987b1 11 McPherran M L 1998 The Religion of Socrates Penn State Press p 268 Vlastos 1991 Metaphysics 1 6 1 987a Tusc Disput 1 17 39 R M Hare Plato in C C W Taylor R M Hare and Jonathan Barnes Greek Philosophers Socrates Plato and Aristotle Oxford Oxford University Press 1999 1982 103 189 here 117 119 Russell Bertrand 1991 History of Western Philosophy Routledge pp 120 124 ISBN 978 0 415 07854 2 Calian Florin George 9 December 2021 Numbers Ontologically Speaking Plato on Numerosity Brill ISBN 978 90 04 46722 4 a b c McFarlane Thomas J Plato s Parmenides Integralscience Archived from the original on 22 February 2017 Retrieved 12 February 2017 John Palmer 2019 Parmenides Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Archived from the original on 20 October 2017 Retrieved 18 October 2017 a b Large William Heraclitus Arasite Archived from the original on 6 March 2017 Retrieved 3 March 2017 Francis Cornford 1941 The Republic of Plato Oxford Oxford University Press pp xxv See this brief exchange from the Phaedo What is it that when present in a body makes it living A soul Phaedo 105c Plato Timaeus 44d amp 70 Dorter 2006 p 360 Jorgensen 2018 is perhaps the strongest opponent to interpretations on which Plato intends the theory literally See Jorgensen The Embodied Soul in Plato s Later Thought Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2018 Campbell 2022 on the other hand represents a recent defense of the literal reading See Campbell Plato s Theory of Reincarnation Eschatology and Natural Philosophy Review of Metaphysics 75 4 643 665 2022 Baird amp Kaufmann 2008 Theaetetus 156a Fine 2003 p 5 Theaetetus 210a b McDowell 1973 p 256 Taylor 2011 pp 176 187 Lee 2011 p 432 Taylor 2011 p 189 Republic Book IV Blossner 2007 pp 345 349 Blossner 2007 p 350 Phaedrus 265a c Kastely James 2015 The Rhetoric of Plato s Republic Chicago UP Bjork Collin 2021 Plato Xenophon and the Uneven Temporalities of Ethos in the Trial of Socrates Philosophy amp Rhetoric 54 3 240 262 doi 10 5325 philrhet 54 3 0240 ISSN 0031 8213 JSTOR 10 5325 philrhet 54 3 0240 S2CID 244334227 Bengtson Erik 2019 The epistemology of rhetoric Plato doxa and post truth Uppsala Chappel Timothy Mythos and Logos in Plato Open University Retrieved 20 August 2017 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Jorgensen Chad The Embodied Soul in Plato s Later Thought Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2018 page 199 Partenie Catalin Plato s Myths Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archived from the original on 27 May 2017 Retrieved 29 October 2017 Burnet 1928a 177 a b Blackburn 1996 p 104 Popper 1962 p 133 Brumbaugh amp Wells 1989 Allen 1975 p 12 Platonis opera quae extant omnia edidit Henricus Stephanus Genevae 1578 Suzanne 2009 Cooper 1997 pp viii xii Irwin 2011 pp 64 amp 74 Fine 1999a p 482 Complete Works Philosophy Archived 11 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine B Jowett Menexenus Appendix I 1st paragraph Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine See Guthrie 1986 Vlastos 1991 Penner 1992 Kahn 1996 Fine 1999b Dodds 2004 Cooper 1997 p xiv Cooper 1997 Kraut 2013 Schofield 2002 and Rowe 2006 Rodriguez Grandjean 1998 Reale 1990 Cf p 14 and onwards Kramer 1990 Cf pp 38 47 Phaedrus 276c Physics 209b a b Metaphysics 987b Gomperz 1931 Gaiser 1998 C U M Smith Brain Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience page 1 Archived 23 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine Springer Science amp Business 1 January 2014 374 pages Volume 6 of History philosophy and theory of the life sciences SpringerLink Bucher ISBN 94 017 8774 3 Retrieved 27 June 2015 See Burrell 1998 and Hasse 2002 pp 33 45 Carrigan Henry L Jr 2012 2011 Cambridge Platonists The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization Chichester West Sussex Wiley Blackwell doi 10 1002 9780470670606 wbecc0219 ISBN 9781405157629 Einstein 1949 pp 683 684 Fine 1979 p 366 Works cited Primary sources Greek and Roman Apuleius De Dogmate Platonis I See original text in Latin Library Aristophanes The Wasps See original text in Perseus program Aristotle Metaphysics See original 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Islamic Philosophy In Craig Edward ed Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol 7 Routledge pp 429 430 Cooper John M Hutchinson D S eds 1997 Plato Complete Works Hackett Publishing Dillon John 2003 The Heirs of Plato A Study of the Old Academy Oxford University Press Dodds E R 1959 Plato Gorgias Oxford University Press Dodds E R 2004 1951 The Greeks and the Irrational University of California Press Dorter Kenneth 2006 The Transformation of Plato s Republic Lexington Books Einstein Albert 1949 Remarks to the Essays Appearing in this Collective Volume In Schilpp ed Albert Einstein Philosopher Scientist The Library of Living Philosophers Vol 7 MJF Books pp 663 688 Fine Gail July 1979 Knowledge and Logos in the Theaetetus Philosophical Review 88 3 366 397 doi 10 2307 2184956 JSTOR 2184956 Reprinted in Fine 2003 Fine Gail 1999a Selected Bibliography Plato 1 Metaphysics and Epistemology Oxford University Press pp 481 494 Fine Gail 1999b Introduction Plato 2 Ethics Politics Religion and the Soul Oxford University Press pp 1 33 Fine Gail 2003 Introduction Plato on Knowledge and Forms Selected Essays Oxford University Press Gadamer Hans Georg 1980 1968 Plato s Unwritten Dialectic Dialogue and Dialectic Yale University Press pp 124 155 Gadamer Hans Georg 1997 Introduzione In Girgenti Giuseppe ed La nuova interpretazione di Platone Milan Rusconi Libri Gaiser Konrad 1980 Plato s Enigmatic Lecture On the Good Phronesis 25 1 5 37 doi 10 1163 156852880x00025 Gaiser Konrad 1998 Reale Giovanni ed Testimonia Platonica Le antiche testimonianze sulle dottrine non scritte di Platone Milan Vita e Pensiero First published as Testimonia Platonica Quellentexte zur Schule und mundlichen Lehre Platons as an appendix to Gaiser s Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre Stuttgart 1963 Gomperz H 1931 Plato s System of Philosophy In Ryle G ed Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Philosophy London pp 426 431 Reprinted in Gomperz H 1953 Philosophical Studies Boston Christopher Publishing House 1953 pp 119 124 Grondin Jean 2010 Gadamer and the Tubingen School In Gill Christopher Renaud Francois eds Hermeneutic Philosophy and Plato Gadamer s Response to the Philebus Academia Verlag pp 139 156 Guthrie W K C 1986 A History of Greek Philosophy Volume 4 Plato The Man and His Dialogues Earlier Period Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 31101 4 Hasse Dag Nikolaus 2002 Plato Arabico latinus In Gersh Hoenen eds The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages A Doxographic Approach De Gruyter pp 33 66 Irwin T H 1979 Plato Gorgias Oxford University Press Irwin T H 2011 The Platonic Corpus In Fine G ed The Oxford Handbook of Plato Oxford University Press Jones Daniel 2006 Roach Peter Hartman James Setter Jane eds Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary 17 ed Cambridge University Press Kahn Charles H 1996 Plato and the Socratic Dialogue The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 64830 1 Kierkegaard Soren 1992 Plato The Concept of Irony Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 02072 3 Kramer Hans Joachim 1990 Catan John R ed Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics A Work on the Theory of the Principles and Unwritten Doctrines of Plato with a Collection of the Fundamental Documents State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 7914 0433 1 Lee M K 2011 The Theaetetus In Fine G ed The Oxford Handbook of Plato Oxford University Press pp 411 436 Kraut Richard 11 September 2013 Zalta Edward N ed Plato The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Stanford University Retrieved 3 April 2014 Lackner D F 2001 The Camaldolese Academy Ambrogio Traversari Marsilio Ficino and the Christian Platonic Tradition In Allen Rees eds Marsilio Ficino His Theology His Philosophy His Legacy Brill Meinwald Constance Chu 1991 Plato s Parmenides Oxford Oxford University Press McDowell J 1973 Plato Theaetetus Oxford University Press McEvoy James 1984 Plato and The Wisdom of Egypt Irish Philosophical Journal 1 2 1 24 doi 10 5840 irishphil1984125 ISSN 0266 9080 Archived from the original on 5 December 2007 Retrieved 3 December 2007 Montoriola Karl Markgraf von 1926 Briefe Des Mediceerkreises Aus Marsilio Ficino s Epistolarium Berlin Juncker Nails Debra 2002 The People of Plato A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics Hackett Publishing ISBN 978 0 87220 564 2 Nails Debra 2006 The Life of Plato of Athens In Benson Hugh H ed A Companion to Plato Blackwell Publishing ISBN 978 1 4051 1521 6 Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm 1967 Vorlesungsaufzeichnungen Werke Kritische Gesamtausgabe in German Walter de Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 013912 9 Notopoulos A April 1939 The Name of Plato Classical Philology 34 2 135 145 doi 10 1086 362227 S2CID 161505593 Penner Terry 1992 Socrates and the Early Dialogues In Kraut Richard ed The Cambridge Companion to Plato Cambridge University Press pp 121 169 Meinwald Constance Plato Britannica Online Plato Encyclopaedic Dictionary The Helios Volume XVI in Greek 1952 Plato Suda Popper K 1962 The Open Society and its Enemies Vol 1 London Routledge Press Gerald Alan 2000 Introduction In Press Gerald Alan ed Who Speaks for Plato Studies in Platonic Anonymity Rowman amp Littlefield pp 1 14 Reale Giovanni 1990 Catan John R ed Plato and Aristotle A History of Ancient Philosophy Vol 2 State University of New York Press Reale Giovanni 1997 Toward a New Interpretation of Plato Washington DC CUA Press Riginos Alice 1976 Platonica the anecdotes concerning the life and writings of Plato Leiden E J Brill ISBN 978 90 04 04565 1 Robinson John 1827 Archaeologica Graeca Second ed London A J Valpy Archived from the original on 1 July 2014 Retrieved 4 February 2017 Rodriguez Grandjean Pablo 1998 Philosophy and Dialogue Plato s Unwritten Doctrines from a Hermeneutical Point of View Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy Boston Rowe Christopher 2006 Interpreting Plato In Benson Hugh H ed A Companion to Plato Blackwell Publishing pp 13 24 Schall James V Summer 1996 On the Death of Plato The American Scholar 65 Schofield Malcolm 23 August 2002 Craig Edward ed Plato Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Routledge Archived from the original on 10 October 2008 Retrieved 3 April 2014 Sedley David 2003 Plato s Cratylus Cambridge University Press Slings S R 1987 Remarks on Some Recent Papyri of the Politeia Mnemosyne Fourth 40 1 2 27 34 doi 10 1163 156852587x00030 Slings S R 2003 Platonis Rempublicam Oxford University Press Smith William 1870 Plato Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology Strauss Leo 1964 The City and the Man Chicago University of Chicago Press Suzanne Bernard 8 March 2009 The Stephanus edition Plato and his dialogues Retrieved 3 April 2014 Szlezak Thomas A 1999 Reading Plato Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 18984 2 Taran Leonardo 1981 Speusippus of Athens Brill Publishers Taran Leonardo 2001 Plato s Alleged Epitaph Collected Papers 1962 1999 Brill Academic Publishers ISBN 978 90 04 12304 5 Taylor Alfred Edward 2001 1937 Plato The Man and His Work Courier Dover Publications ISBN 978 0 486 41605 2 Taylor C C W 2011 Plato s Epistemology In Fine G ed The Oxford Handbook of Plato Oxford University Press pp 165 190 Vlastos Gregory 1991 Socrates Ironist and Moral Philosopher Cambridge University Press Whitehead Alfred North 1978 Process and Reality New York The Free Press Wilamowitz Moellendorff Ulrich von 2005 1917 Plato His Life and Work translated in Greek by Xenophon Armyros Kaktos ISBN 978 960 382 664 4 Further readingAlican Necip Fikri 2012 Rethinking Plato A Cartesian Quest for the Real Plato Amsterdam and New York Editions Rodopi B V ISBN 978 90 420 3537 9 Allen R E 1965 Studies in Plato s Metaphysics II Taylor amp Francis ISBN 0 7100 3626 4 Ambuel David 2007 Image and Paradigm in Plato s Sophist Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 04 9 Anderson Mark Osborn Ginger 2009 Approaching Plato A Guide to the Early and Middle Dialogues PDF Nashville Belmont University Arieti James A Interpreting Plato The Dialogues as Drama Rowman amp Littlefield Publishers Inc ISBN 0 8476 7662 5 Barrow Robin 2007 Plato Continuum Library of Educational Thought Continuum ISBN 978 0 8264 8408 6 Cooper John M Hutchinson D S eds 1997 Plato Complete Works Hackett Publishing Company Inc ISBN 978 0 87220 349 5 Corlett J Angelo 2005 Interpreting Plato s Dialogues Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 02 5 Field G C 1969 The Philosophy of Plato 2nd ed with an appendix by Cross R C ed London Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 888040 0 Fine Gail 2000 Plato 1 Metaphysics and Epistemology Oxford University Press US ISBN 0 19 875206 7 Finley M I 1969 Aspects of antiquity Discoveries and Controversies The Viking Press Inc US Garvey James 2006 Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books Continuum ISBN 978 0 8264 9053 7 Guthrie W K C 1986 A History of Greek Philosophy Plato The Man amp His Dialogues Earlier Period Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 31101 2 Guthrie W K C 1986 A History of Greek Philosophy Later Plato amp the Academy Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 31102 0 Havelock Eric 2005 Preface to Plato History of the Greek Mind Belknap Press ISBN 0 674 69906 8 Hamilton Edith Cairns Huntington eds 1961 The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters Princeton Univ Press ISBN 978 0 691 09718 3 Harvard University Press publishes the hardbound series Loeb Classical Library containing Plato s works in Greek with English translations on facing pages Irvine Andrew David 2008 Socrates on Trial A play based on Aristophanes Clouds and Plato s Apology Crito and Phaedo adapted for modern performance Toronto University of Toronto Press ISBN 978 0 8020 9783 5 978 0 8020 9538 1 Hermann Arnold 2010 Plato s Parmenides Text Translation amp Introductory Essay Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 71 1 Irwin Terence 1995 Plato s Ethics Oxford University Press US ISBN 0 19 508645 7 Jackson Roy 2001 Plato A Beginner s Guide London Hoder amp Stroughton ISBN 978 0 340 80385 1 Kochin Michael S 2002 Gender and Rhetoric in Plato s Political Thought Cambridge Univ Press ISBN 978 0 521 80852 1 Kraut Richard ed 1993 The Cambridge Companion to Plato Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 43610 6 LeMoine Rebecca 2020 Plato s Caves The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0190936983 Lilar Suzanne 1954 Journal de l analogiste Paris Editions Julliard Reedited 1979 Paris Grasset Foreword by Julien Gracq Lilar Suzanne 1963 Le couple Paris Grasset Translated as Aspects of Love in Western Society in 1965 with a foreword by Jonathan Griffin London Thames and Hudson Lilar Suzanne 1967 A propos de Sartre et de l amour Paris Grasset Lundberg Phillip 2005 Tallyho The Hunt for Virtue Beauty Truth and Goodness Nine Dialogues by Plato Pheadrus Lysis Protagoras Charmides Parmenides Gorgias Theaetetus Meno amp Sophist Authorhouse ISBN 978 1 4184 4977 3 Marquez Xavier 2012 A Stranger s Knowledge Statesmanship Philosophy amp Law in Plato s Statesman Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 79 7 Melchert Norman 2002 The Great Conversation A Historical Introduction to Philosophy McGraw Hill ISBN 978 0 19 517510 3 Miller Mitchell 2004 The Philosopher in Plato s Statesman Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 16 2 Mohr Richard D 2006 God and Forms in Plato and other Essays in Plato s Metaphysics Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 01 8 Mohr Richard D Ed Sattler Barbara M Ed 2010 One Book The Whole Universe Plato s Timaeus Today Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 32 2 Moore Edward 2007 Plato Philosophy Insights Series Tirril Humanities Ebooks ISBN 978 1 84760 047 9 Nightingale Andrea Wilson 1995 Genres in Dialogue Plato and the Construct of Philosophy Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 48264 X Oxford University Press publishes scholarly editions of Plato s Greek texts in the Oxford Classical Texts series and some translations in the Clarendon Plato Series Patterson Richard Ed Karasmanis Vassilis Ed Hermann Arnold Ed 2013 Presocratics amp Plato Festschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 75 9 Piechowiak Marek 2019 Plato s Conception of Justice and the Question of Human Dignity Peter Lang Berlin ISBN 978 3 631 65970 0 Sallis John 1996 Being and Logos Reading the Platonic Dialogues Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 21071 5 Sallis John 1999 Chorology On Beginning in Plato s Timaeus Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 21308 2 Sayre Kenneth M 2005 Plato s Late Ontology A Riddle Resolved Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 09 4 Seung T K 1996 Plato Rediscovered Human Value and Social Order Rowman and Littlefield ISBN 0 8476 8112 2 Smith William 1867 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology University of Michigan Online version Stewart John 2010 Kierkegaard and the Greek World Socrates and Plato Ashgate ISBN 978 0 7546 6981 4 Thesleff Holger 2009 Platonic Patterns A Collection of Studies by Holger Thesleff Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 29 2 Vlastos Gregory 1981 Platonic Studies Princeton University Press ISBN 0 691 10021 7 Vlastos Gregory 2006 Plato s Universe with a new Introduction by Luc Brisson Parmenides Publishing ISBN 978 1 930972 13 1 Zuckert Catherine 2009 Plato s Philosophers The Coherence of the Dialogues The University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 99335 5External links Philosophy portalPlato at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Data from Wikidata Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article Platon Works available online Works by Plato in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Plato at Perseus Project Greek amp English hyperlinked text Works by Plato at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Plato at Internet Archive Works by Plato at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Other resources Plato at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project Plato at PhilPapers Plato and Platonism Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Plato amp oldid 1150606443, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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