Plato: biography and philosophy

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:48

A student of Socrates, a teacher of Aristotle - the ancient Greek thinker and philosopher Plato, whose biography is of interest to historians, stylists, writers, philosophers and politicians. This is an outstanding representative of humanity, who lived in a troubled time of the crisis of the Greek polis, the aggravation of the class struggle, when the era of Alexander the Great replaced the era of Hellenism. The philosopher Plato lived a fruitful life. The biography, briefly presented in the article, testifies to his greatness as a scientist and the wisdom of his heart.

Life path

Plato was born in 428/427 BC. in Athens. He was not only a full citizen of Athens, but also belonged to an ancient aristocratic family: his father, Ariston, was a descendant of the last Athenian king Kodra, and his mother, Periktion, was a relative of Solon.

Short biography of Plato is typical for representatives of his time and class. Having received an education corresponding to his position, Plato at about the age of 20years got acquainted with the teachings of Socrates and became his student and follower. Plato was among the Athenians who offered a financial guarantee for the condemned Socrates. After the execution of the teacher, he left his native city and went on a journey without a specific goal: he first moved to Megara, then visited Cyrene and even Egypt. Having learned everything he could from the Egyptian priests, he went to Italy, where he became close to the philosophers of the Pythagorean school. The facts from Plato's life related to travel end here: he traveled a lot around the world, but he remained an Athenian at heart.

When Plato was already about 40 years old (it is noteworthy that it was to this age that the Greeks attributed the highest flowering of personality - acme), he returned to Athens and opened his own school there, called the Academy. Until the end of his life, Plato practically did not leave Athens, he lived in solitude, surrounding himself with students. He honored the memory of the deceased teacher, but he popularized his ideas only in a narrow circle of followers and did not seek to bring them to the streets of the policy, like Socrates. Plato died at the age of eighty, without losing the clarity of mind. He was buried at Keramika, near the Academy. Such a life path was passed by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. His biography, upon closer examination, is excitingly interesting, but much of the information about it is very unreliable and more like a legend.

Plato Academy

The name "Academy" comes from the fact that the plot of land that Plato bought specifically for his school was near the gymnasium dedicated to the hero Academy. On the territory of the Academythe students not only had philosophical conversations and listened to Plato, they were allowed to live there permanently or for a short time.

The doctrine of Plato developed on the foundation of the philosophy of Socrates on the one hand and the followers of Pythagoras on the other. From his teacher, the father of idealism borrowed a dialectical view of the world and an attentive attitude to the problems of ethics. But, as the biography of Plato testifies, namely the years spent in Sicily, among the Pythagoreans, he clearly sympathized with the philosophical doctrine of Pythagoras. At least the fact that the philosophers at the Academy lived and worked together is already reminiscent of the Pythagorean school.

The idea of political education

A lot of attention at the Academy was given to political education. But in antiquity, politics was not the lot of a small group of delegated representatives: all adult citizens, that is, free and legitimate Athenians, took part in the management of the policy. Later, a student of Plato, Aristotle, will formulate a definition of a politician as a person who participates in the public life of the policy, as opposed to an idiot - an asocial person. That is, participation in politics was an integral part of the life of the ancient Greek, and political education meant the development of justice, nobility, firmness of spirit and sharpness of mind.

Philosophical writings

For the written presentation of his views and concepts, Plato mainly chose the form of dialogue. This is a fairly common literary device in antiquity. Philosophical works of Plato in the early and late periods of his lifevery different, and this is natural, because his wisdom accumulated, and his views changed over time. Among researchers, it is customary to conditionally subdivide the evolution of Platonic philosophy into three periods:

1. Apprenticeship (influenced by Socrates) - Apology of Socrates, Crito, Fox, Protagoras, Charmides, Euthyphro and 1 book of the Republic.

2. Wanderings (under the influence of the ideas of Heraclitus) - "Gorgias", "Cratylus", "Menon".

3. Teaching (the predominant influence of the ideas of the Pythagorean school) - "Feast", "Phaedo", "Phaedrus", "Parmenides", "Sophist", "Politician", "Timaeus", "Critias", 2-10 of the book "States", " Laws.”

Father of idealism

Plato is considered the founder of idealism, the term itself comes from the central concept in his teaching - eidos. The bottom line is that Plato imagined the world divided into two spheres: the world of ideas (eidos) and the world of forms (material things). Eidoses are prototypes, the source of the material world. Matter itself is formless and ethereal, the world takes on a meaningful shape only thanks to the presence of ideas.

The dominant place in the world of eidos is occupied by the idea of the Good, and all the others flow from it. This Good represents the Beginning of the beginnings, the Absolute Beauty, the Creator of the Universe. The eidos of each thing is its essence, the most important, hidden thing in a person is the soul. Ideas are absolute and unchanging, their existence flows beyond space-time boundaries, and objects are impermanent, repeatable and distorted, their existence is finite.

As for the human soul, the philosophic althe teaching of Plato allegorically interprets it as a chariot with two horses driven by a charioteer. He personifies a reasonable beginning, in his harness a white horse symbolizes nobility and high moral qualities, and a black horse symbolizes instincts, base desires. In the afterlife, the soul (charioteer), along with the gods, is involved in eternal truths and cognizes the world of eidos. After the new birth, the concept of eternal truths remains in the soul as a memory.

Space - the whole existing world, there is a completely reproduced prototype. Plato's doctrine of cosmic proportions also stems from the theory of eidos.

Beauty and Love are eternal concepts

From all this it follows that the knowledge of the world is an attempt to discern in things a reflection of ideas through love, fair deeds and beauty. The doctrine of Beauty occupies a central place in Plato's philosophy: the search for beauty in man and the world around him, the creation of beauty through harmonious laws and art is the highest destiny of man. Thus, evolving, the soul goes from contemplating the beauty of material things to understanding beauty in art and sciences, to the highest point - the comprehension of moral beauty. This happens like an illumination and brings the soul closer to the world of the gods.

Together with Beauty, Love is called to raise a person to the world of eidos. In this regard, the figure of the philosopher is identical to the image of Eros - he strives for the good, representing a mediator, a guide from ignorance to wisdom. Love is a creative force, beautiful things and harmonic laws of human beings are born from it.relationships. That is, Love is a key concept in the theory of knowledge, it consistently develops from its bodily (material) form to its spiritual, and then spiritual, which is involved in the sphere of pure ideas. This last love is the memory of the ideal being, preserved by the soul.

It should be emphasized that the division into the world of ideas and things does not mean dualism (which was so often later blamed on Plato by his ideological opponents, starting with Aristotle), they are connected by primordial ties. Genuine being - the level of eidos - exists forever, it is self-sufficient. But matter appears already as an imitation of the idea, it is only “present” in ideal being.

Plato's political views

Biography and philosophy of Plato are inextricably linked with the understanding of a reasonable and correct state structure. The teachings of the father of idealism about the management and relationships of people are set forth in the treatise "The State". Everything is built on the parallel between the individual aspects of the human soul and the types of people (according to their social role).

So, the three parts of the soul are responsible for wisdom, moderation and courage. In general, these qualities represent justice. It follows from this that a just (ideal) state is possible when each person in it is in his place and performs the functions established once and for all (according to his abilities). According to the scheme outlined in the "State", where a brief biography of Plato, the result of his life and the main ideas found their final embodiment, to control allmust philosophers, bearers of wisdom. All citizens are subject to their reasonable beginning. Warriors play an important role in the state (in other translations of the guard), these people are given increased attention. Warriors should be brought up in the spirit of the supremacy of the rational principle and will over instincts and spiritual impulses. But this is not the coldness of the machine, which is presented to modern man, and not an understanding of the highest harmony of the world clouded by passions. The third category of citizens are the creators of material goods. A just state was described schematically and briefly by the philosopher Plato. The biography of one of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind indicates that his teachings found a wide response in the minds of his contemporaries - it is known that he received many requests from the rulers of ancient policies and some Eastern states to draw up codes of laws for them.

Plato's later biography, teaching at the Academy and a clear sympathy for the ideas of the Pythagoreans are connected with the theory of "ideal numbers", which was later developed by the Neoplatonists.

Myths and beliefs

His position on myth is interesting: as a philosopher, Plato, whose biography and works that have survived to this day clearly indicate the greatest intellect, did not reject traditional mythology. But he proposed to interpret the myth as a symbol, an allegory, and not to perceive it as an axiom. Myth, according to Plato, was not a historical fact. He perceived mythical images and events as a kind of philosophical doctrine that does not describe events, but only provides food for thought and reassessment of events. In addition, many ancient Greekmyths were composed by common people without any style or literary processing. For these reasons, Plato considered it expedient to protect the child's mind from most of the mythological subjects, saturated with fiction, often rudeness and immorality.

Plato's first proof of the immortality of the human soul

Plato is the first ancient philosopher whose writings have come down to the present not in fragments, but with full preservation of the text. In his dialogues "State", "Phaedrus" he gives 4 proofs of the immortality of the human soul. The first of them was called "cyclic". Its essence boils down to the fact that opposites can exist only in the presence of mutual conditioning. Those. the larger implies the existence of the smaller, if there is death, then there is immortality. Plato cited this fact as the main argument in favor of the idea of the reincarnation of souls.

Second proof

Due to the idea that knowledge is memory. Plato taught that in the human mind there are such concepts as justice, beauty, faith. These concepts exist "by themselves". They are not taught, they are felt and understood at the level of consciousness. They are absolute entities, eternal and immortal. If the soul, being born into the world, already knows about them, then it knew about them even before life on Earth. Since the soul knows about eternal entities, it means that the soul itself is eternal.

Third argument

Built on the opposition of a mortal body and an immortal soul. Plato taught that in the worldeverything is dual. Body and soul are inextricably linked during life. But the body is part of nature, while the soul is part of the divine principle. The body strives to satisfy base feelings and instincts, while the soul gravitates towards knowledge and development. The body is controlled by the soul. By the power of thought and will, a person is able to prevail over the baseness of instincts. Therefore, if the body is mortal and corruptible, then, in contrast to it, the soul is eternal and incorruptible. If the body cannot exist without the soul, then the soul can exist separately.

Fourth, final proof

The most difficult teaching. It is characterized most vividly by the dialogue between Socrates and Kebetus in the Phaedo. The proof comes from the assertion that every thing has an unchanging nature. Thus, what is even will always be even, what is white cannot be called black, and what is just will never be evil. Proceeding from this, death brings corruption, and life will never know death. If the body is capable of dying and decaying, then its essence is death. Life is the opposite of death, the soul is the opposite of the body. So, if the body is perishable, then the soul is immortal.

The meaning of Plato's ideas

These are, in general terms, the ideas that the ancient Greek philosopher Plato left to humanity as a legacy. The biography of this extraordinary man has turned into a legend over two and a half millennia, and his teaching, in one or another of its aspects, has served as the foundation for a significant part of the current philosophical concepts. His student Aristotle criticized the views of his teacher and built a philosophical philosophy opposite to his teaching.materialistic system. But this fact is another evidence of the greatness of Plato: not every teacher is given the opportunity to raise a follower, but perhaps only a few are a worthy opponent.

The philosophy of Plato found many followers in the era of antiquity, knowledge of the works and main postulates of his teaching was a natural and integral part of the education of a worthy citizen of the Greek polis. Such a significant figure in the history of philosophical thought was not completely forgotten even in the Middle Ages, when the scholastics resolutely rejected the ancient heritage. Plato inspired the philosophers of the Renaissance, gave endless food for thought to European thinkers of subsequent centuries. The reflection of his teachings is visible in many existing philosophical and worldview concepts, Plato's quotes can be found in all branches of the humanities.

What the philosopher looked like, his character

Archaeologists have found many busts of Plato, well preserved from ancient times and from the Middle Ages. Many sketches and photos of Plato were created based on them. In addition, the appearance of the philosopher can be judged from chronicle sources.

According to all the bits and pieces of data collected, Plato was tall, athletic, broad in bone and shoulders. At the same time, he had a very docile character, was devoid of pride, swagger and pride. He was very modest and always kind not only to his equals, but also to representatives of the lower class.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato, whose biography and philosophy did not contradict each other,confirmed the truth of his worldviews through his personal life path.