Term Paper on "Plato Was Born to an Aristocratic Family"

Term Paper 7 pages (1913 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens, Greece. His father, Ariston, is believed to have descended from the early kings of Athens (Vincent, 2005). Perictione, his mother, was a distant relative of the 6th-century B.C. lawmaker Solon. When Plato was a child, his father died, and his mother remarried. Plato's stepfather was Pyrilampes, an associate of the statesman Pericles.

Throughout his youth, Plato expressed an interest in politics. However, the political leadership in Athens disillusioned him (Vincent, 2005). Eventually, he became a disciple of Socrates, accepting his basic philosophy and dialectical style of debate: the pursuit of truth through questions, answers, and more questions. Plato witnessed the death of Socrates at the hands of the Athenian democracy in 399 B.C. Shortly after this event, Plato left Athens, traveling to Italy and Egypt. Many believe he left Athens because he felt unsafe there.

An explorer by nature, in Egypt he discovered a water clock and later introduced it to the Greeks (Field, 1956). In Italy he learned to appreciate the value of mathematics. This was a very important discovery since from the ideas Plato gained from mathematical philosophers, he formed his idea "that the reality which scientific thought is seeking must be expressible in mathematical terms, mathematics being the most precise and definite kind of thinking of which we are capable (Field, 1956). The significance of this idea for the development of science from the first beginnings to the present day has been immense."

In 389 B.C. Plato founded the "Academy" in Athens, which is often referred to as the first European university (Vincent, 2005). The Academy provided a comprehensive curriculum with a variety of subjects, including astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory, and philosophy. Plato aimed to cultivate thought through these classes to lead to a restoration of decent government in Greek cities.

In 367 B.C., Plato traveled to Sicily to tutor the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, in the art of philosophical rule (Vincent, 2005). His experiment failed. Plato traveled to Syracuse in 361 B.C., but again his involvement in Sicilian affairs achieved little success. The final years of his life were spent lecturing at the Academy and writing. He died at about the age of 80 in Athens in 347 B.C.

Plato wrote 26 dialogues on a variety of philosophical themes, with Socrates as the main character in the majority of them (Vincent, 2005). His dialogues appear to have been written over a series of three periods, the early, middle, and late.

In his dialogues, Plato discussed the philosophy of mathematics, political philosophy on controversial topics, and religious philosophy (Field, 1956). In his theory of Forms, Plato rejected the physical world that we are aware of through our senses, challenging us to seek instead his world of ideas that were constant and true.

In the Phaedo Plato discusses objects in the real world trying to be like their perfect forms (Field, 1956). He considers thinner and thinner lines that are tending in the limit to the mathematical concept of a line but never reaching it. An example from the Phaedo is as follows: "The instance taken there is the mathemtical relation of equality, and the contrast is drawn between the absolute equality we think of in mathematics and the rough, approximate equality which is what we have to be content with in dealing with objects with our senses (Field, 1956)."

The early dialogues, which were written after 399 B.C., are perceived by many as memorials to the life and teaching of Socrates. Three of them, the Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, provide great detail on Socrates' conduct immediately before, during, and after his trial, which lead to his death. Plato's early writings include a series of short dialogues that end with no real solution to the problems discussed.

According to Vincent (2005): "Characteristically, Plato has Socrates ask questions of the form 'What is X?' And insist that he wants not examples or instances of X but what it is to be X, the essential nature, or Form, of X. In the Charmides the discussion concerns the question 'What is temperance?'; in the Laches, 'What is courage?'; in the Euthyphro, 'What is holiness?'"

Plato's middle period dialogues started after he founded the Academy. In these dialogues, he seems dissatisfied with his earlier negative procedure and adopts more openly positive doctrines in the dialogues of Socrates.

Plato's middle period dialogues include what many believe is his best work, the Republic. It starts with the question "what is justice?" And describes his ideal political community and the proper education of its citizens (Vincent, 2005). In Plato's opinion, justice is a principle of each thing performing the function most appropriate to its nature. This principle is personified politically in the idea that citizens carry out the tasks for which they are best suited. As far as individuals are concerned, this principle is executed when each part of the soul performs its proper function. Reason is the ruler in both cases, and along with the virtue of temperance, the rule of reason is the harmonious rule of the individual and society.

Plato's ideal society would be one ruled by philosopher-kings, and the children would receive a superior education with a very military physical part and a non-degrading music part, since he believed that degrading art corrupts the soul (Vincent, 2005). Plato's best students who were destined to be leaders would receive greater education in advanced mathematics.

In Plato's late dialogues, which include Parmenides and Theaetetus, Socrates fades into the background (Vincent, 2005). In the Parmenides the theory of Forms is closely critiqued, and Plato argues that the Forms cannot be entities of the same sort as those whose being they explain. The Theaetetus is Plato's most successful work in analytical philosophy, in which perception, knowledge, truth, and subjectivity are discussed and critiqued.

According to Harris (2000): "No reader of Plato can fail to recognize the important role which mathematics plays in his writing, as would indeed be expected for an author about whom the ancient tradition maintains that he had hung over the entry to his school the words 'Let No One Un-versed in Geometry Enter'. It seem that Plato was mainly interested in the level of ability to work with abstract concepts as students that had never studied Greek geometric materials would find many passages in Plato's lectures which would be scarcely intelligible to them. Modern readers, versed in a much higher level of mathematical abstraction that our society can offer, have sometimes felt that Plato's famous "mathematical examples'" were illustrations rather than central to his arguments, and some of Plato's mathematical excursuses have remained incomprehensible even in modern days."

Plato's well-known theory of knowledge is described in the Republic, especially in his discussion of the image of the divided line and the myth of the cave (Vincent, 2005). In the image of the divided line, Plato distinguishes between two levels of awareness: opinion and knowledge. Claims or assumptions about the physical or visible world, including both observations and the propositions of science, are only opinions. Some of these opinions are well founded; others are not; but none of them can really qualify as genuine knowledge. The higher level of awareness is knowledge, because reason, rather than sense experience, is involved in knowledge. Reason results in intellectual insights that are certain, and the objects of these rational insights are the abiding universals, the eternal Forms or substances that make up the real world.

Plato's myth of the cave tells the story of humans chained deep within the recesses of a cave. Because their vision is restricted, they cannot see one another (Vincent, 2005). The only thing they can see is the wall of the cave upon which they see shadows cast by models or statues of animals and objects that pass before a brightly burning fire. One day, one of the captives escapes from the cave into the light of day. He sees for the first time the real world and returns to the cave with the message that the only things they have seen so far are shadows and appearances. He tells them that the real world is out there waiting if only they are willing to break free of their bonds.

For Plato, the shadowy world in the cave represents the physical world of appearances (Vincent, 2005). The sun-filled setting outside the cave symbolizes the transition to the real world, the world of full and perfect being -- the world of Forms, which Plato saw as the proper object of knowledge.

The theory of Forms is best described in terms of mathematical entities (Vincent, 2005). A circle, for instance, is defined as a plane figure that is made up of a series of points, all of which are equidistant from any given point. This figure has never actually been seen, though. According to Vincent (2005): "What people have actually seen are drawn figures that are more or less close approximations of the ideal circle. In fact, when mathematicians… READ MORE

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