Plato's Theory Of Ideas And The Ideal State

Ø Ancient Greek philosopher Plato founded the Academy and is the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence in Western thought

Ø Born circa 428 B.C.E., ancient Greek philosopher Plato was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle.

Ø His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language. Plato founded the Academy in Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world.

Ø He died in Athens circa 348 B.C.E.

Ø Both of his parents came from the Greek aristocracy. Plato's father, Ariston, descended from the kings of Athens and Messenia. His mother, Perictione, is said to be related to the 6th century B.C.E. Greek statesman Solon.

Ø As with many young boys of his social class, Plato was probably taught by some of Athens' finest educators.

Ø The curriculum would have featured the doctrines of Cratylus and Pythagoras as well as Parmenides. These probably helped develop the foundation for Plato's study of metaphysics (the study of nature) and epistemology (the study of knowledge).

Ø Plato's father died when he was young, and his mother remarried her uncle, Pyrilampes, a Greek politician and ambassador to Persia.

Ø As a young man, Plato experienced two major events that set his course in life. One was meeting the great Greek philosopher Socrates.

Ø Socrates's methods of dialogue and debate impressed Plato so much that he soon he became a close associate and dedicated his life to the question of virtue and the formation of a noble character.

Ø The other significant event was the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, in which Plato served for a brief time between 409 and 404 B.C.E. The defeat of Athens ended its democracy, which the Spartans replaced with an oligarchy.

Ø Two of Plato's relatives, Charmides and Critias, were prominent figures in the new government, part of the notorious Thirty Tyrants whose brief rule severely reduced the rights of Athenian citizens.

Ø  After the oligarchy was overthrown and democracy was restored, Plato briefly considered a career in politics, but the execution of Socrates in 399 B.C.E. soured him on this idea and he turned to a life of study and philosophy.

Ø After Socrates's death, Plato traveled for 12 years throughout the Mediterranean region, studying mathematics with the Pythagoreans in Italy, and geometry, geology, astronomy and religion in Egypt.

Ø  During this time, or soon after, he began his extensive writing. There is some debate among scholars on the order of these writings, but most believe they fall into three distinct periods.

Ø The first, or early, period occurs during Plato's travels (399-387 B.C.E.). The Apology of Socrates seems to have been written shortly after Socrates's death.

Ø Other texts in this time period include Protagoras, Euthyphro, Hippias Major and Minor and Ion. In these dialogues, Plato attempts to convey Socrates's philosophy and teachings.

Ø In the second, or middle, period, Plato writes in his own voice on the central ideals of justice, courage, wisdom and moderation of the individual and society. The Republic was written during this time with its exploration of just government ruled by philosopher kings.

Ø In the third, or late, period, Socrates is relegated to a minor role and Plato takes a closer look at his own early metaphysical ideas.

Ø  He explores the role of art, including dance, music, drama and architecture, as well as ethics and morality.

Ø  In his writings on the Theory of Forms, Plato suggests that the world of ideas is the only constant and that the perceived world through our senses is deceptive and changeable.

Ø Around 385 B.C.E., Plato founded a school of learning, known as the Academy, which he presided over until his death.

Ø Plato hoped the Academy would provide a place for future leaders to discover how to build a better government in the Greek city-states.

Ø  Plato's final years were spent at the Academy and with his writing. The circumstances surrounding his death are clouded, though it is fairly certain that he died in Athens around 348 B.C.E., when he was in his early 80s.

Ø  Plato's impact on philosophy and the nature of humans has had a lasting impact far beyond his homeland of Greece.

Ø   His work covered a broad spectrum of interests and ideas: mathematics, science and nature, morals and political theory.

Ø  His beliefs on the importance of mathematics in education have proven to be essential for understanding the entire universe.

Ø  His work on the use of reason to develop a more fair and just society that is focused on the equality of individuals established the foundation for modern democracy.

Ø  Platonic criticism,  based on the philosophical writings of Plato, especially his views on art expressed in Phaedrus, Ion, and the Republic.

Ø   In practice Platonic criticism is part of an extensive approach to literature, involving an examination of the moral, ethical, and historical effects of a work of art.

Ø  In modern criticism the term refers to discussions and investigations of the work of art not in terms of its intrinsic, formal qualities but rather in recognition of its value as shaping social attitudes and in its vision of universal truths.

Ø  For Plato, the visual world was an imitation of the ideal forms, which alone were real.

Ø   Art, therefore, was no more than an imitation of an imitation and of value only insofar as it directed the soul toward the real—i.e., Truth, Beauty, or the Good.

Ø   Firstly, Plato compares literature to politics because both uses the same raw material, which are words, to influence their audience.

Ø   He claims that words are capable of making an audience susceptible to the bidding of both a writer and a politician which subversively undermine the yeast of teaching and indoctrination which has led in the structuring of the society. The suspicion of Plato about literature is grounded upon the capability of literature to “implant an evil constitution” in the minds of the audience.

Ø  Plato accepted, without alteration, the Socratic theory of knowledge—knowledge according to him is neither perception, nor belief or opinion.

Ø   All knowledge is knowledge through concepts. Concepts being fixed as they are identical with definitions, they do not vary from individual to individual as opinion or perception or belief vary.

Ø  So concepts give us objective knowledge. “Knowledge is founded on reason, and reason is the faculty of concepts.”

Ø  For Socrates, concepts were mental. These help us in thinking about a whole class of particular things.

Ø   Concepts, being nothing but definitions, have only a regulative value in thought says Socrates.

Ø  We compare any animal with the definition of man in order to ascertain whether it is a man.

Ø  Plato builds upon this teaching of Socrates, a new and wholely un-Socratic metaphysics of his own.

Ø   He converts Socratic theory of knowledge into a theory of the nature of reality—says Prof. Stace. As B. Russell puts it “There is, however, something of great importance in Plato’s doctrine which is not traceable to his predecessors, and that is the theory of ideas or forms.”

Ø  Plato’s philosophy was influenced not only by Socrates, but also by the philo­sophical outlook of Pythagoras, Parmenides and Heraclitus.

Ø  .Plato’s Theory of Ideas or Forms is partly logical and partly metaphysical. The logical part deals with the meaning of general words.

Ø  There are many animals of which some are called “cats”. What do we mean by ‘cat’? The word ‘cat’ means something which is different from each particular cat.

Ø  An ani­mal is a cat because it has the common and essential character of catness.

Ø   Language needs these general words (like cat) to mean different classes of things, not this or that particular thing.

Ø  An Idea means this class-essence. This general word is not born when a particular cat is born, and does not die when it dies.

Ø  In fact, it is not in space and time, it is eternal. This logical part of the doctrine is independent of the meta­physical part, which deals with the theory that the word ‘cat’ means a certain ideal cat, “the cat” created by God and unique-particular cats are copies of ‘the cat’, but more or less imperfect copies.

Ø   It is only due to this imperfection that particulars are many. The cat is real, the particular cats are appearances. In this last book of the Republic Plato explains his theory of Ideas very clearly.

Ø  Here Plato explains that wherever a number of individuals have a common name they have also a common ‘idea’ or ‘form’.

Ø  For instance, though there are many tables there is only one “idea” or ‘form’ of a table. Just as a reflection of a table in mirror is only apparent and not ‘real’, the various particular ‘tables’ are unreal, being only copies of the ‘idea’ Table which is the only real table and is made by God.

Ø  Of this one table, made by God, there can be knowledge, but in respect of many tables made by carpenters, there can be only opinion.

Ø  A philosopher wants to know the truth, the ultimate reality or in Plato’s language the Idea or Form or the Universal. The com­mon man wants to know the appearance only.

Ø  Plato’s Theory of Ideas is unique in the sense that his theory is the theory of the objectivity of concepts.

Ø  That the concept e.g., “man”, is not merely an idea in the mind but something which has a reality of its own, outside and independent of the mind—This is the essence of the philosophy of Plato.

Ø  Plato, thus, is both an Idealist and a Realist. Plato is an Idealist in the sense that only Ideas are real and nothing else.

Ø  Ideas only exist. But Plato is a realist also, in the sense that, Ideas do not depend for this existence on human mind, but they are self-existent.

Ø  Plato’s Theory of Ideas is the theory of the objectivity of concepts.

Ø  Plato explains this point thus: there are many beautiful things.

Ø   The fresh red flower is beautiful, a young woman’s face is beautiful, the moonlight is beautiful. All are different.

Ø  Yet they are similar to each other. Our senses cannot give us this similarity, because it involves comparison and comparison is an act of the mind, not of the senses.

Ø  So the idea of beauty is in our mind with which we compare beautiful thing and recognise them as resembling our a priori idea of beauty in our mind.

Ø  Now, either this idea corresponds to something outside us, or does not.

Ø  In the latter case, our idea of beauty is a figment of imagination, not real. Therefore this beauty exists outside the mind and is something distinct from all beautiful things.

Ø  In this way all ideas e.g., the idea of the horse, or beauty, or justice or goodness—are real entities.

Ø   There are many horses, which are perceived by our senses, but there is only one idea horse,—as is evident from the fact that, we use one word to imply all horses.

Ø  The one ideal horse is the reality existing independently of all particular horses. What then is the ulti­mate reality from which all else is explained? It consists, for Plato, in Ideas.

Ø  Plato explains the extra-mental reality of Ideas in another way: Our soul is immortal; it carries its knowledge of Ideas from birth to birth.

Ø  Ideas of perfect straight line or perfect beauty were in the mind from our previous lives.

Ø  This idea of perfection is the standard by which we can judge all perceived triangles, straight lines or beautiful things as imperfect imitations or copies of the perfect Ideas corresponding to these.

Ø  So Ideas exist independently of our minds in the realm of reality.

Ø   Due to this attachment of the soul with body in this life, those ideas are now only obscure and vague.

Ø   It is the aim of proper education to make the vague ideas of perfection clearer and clearer.

Plato’s Ideal State:

Ø  Every reader of the Republic is told that Plato’s intention in discussing the just state is to illuminate the nature of the just soul, for he argues that they are analogous.

Ø  The state is the soul writ large, so to speak. For example, the divisions of the state correspond to divisions of the soul. But since the soul is difficult to analyze, in the dialogue Socrates says that he will first speculate on the state, and then rely on his speculations to illuminate the nature of justice in the individual.

Ø  He was dissatisfied with the city-states of his day, and was proposing an alternative. So let’s look at its details.

Ø  In Plato’s ideal state there are three major classes, corresponding to the three parts of the soul. The guardians, who are philosophers, govern the city; the auxiliaries are soldiers who defend it; and the lowest class comprises the producers (farmers, artisans, etc).

Ø  The guardians and auxiliaries have the same education, which begins with music and literature and ends with gymnastics.

Ø  The arts are censored for educational purposes: for example, any poetic writings which attribute ignoble doings to the gods cannot be taught.

Ø  Only poetry which nourishes the budding virtues of the pupils can be part of the curriculum.

Ø  Similarly, musical modes which sound sorrowful, soft, or feminine, are banished from the education of the guardians.

Ø  This apparently leaves only the Dorian and Phrygian modes, of which . Socrates approves because they incite the listener to courage, temperance, and harmonious living.

Ø  Certain instruments, such as the flute, are also forbidden from the ideal city-state, as are certain poetic meters, since Socrates associates them with vice.

Ø  Indeed, then, life in Plato’s ideal state has affinities with life under a totalitarian government. The laws which Socrates suggests are repressive.

Ø  People are allowed to have only one occupation – namely that for which they are best suited by nature.

Ø  Evidently there is no division between the public and the private. Only what is conducive to temperate living is encouraged, and excess and vice of any kind are strongly discouraged. Neither wealth nor poverty is permitted, as each leads to vice.