Plato: Philosophy in an Hour

Paul Strathern

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780007464951
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Plato in just one hour.

Plato is still seen by many as the greatest of all philosophers, inspiring many of the finest thinkers through the ages. Indeed, many see all later philosophy as nothing but attempts to answer the questions he raised. He founded the Academy, the world’s first university, in 387 BC and taught that the physical world is not reality but rather a reproduction of the true source.

Plato: Philosophy in an Hour is a concise, expert account of Plato’s life and philosophical ideas – entertainingly written and easy to understand. Also included are selections from his work, suggested further reading and chronologies that place Plato in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.

Further Information

From Plato’s Writings

Philosophy begins in wonder.

—Theaetetus, 155d

Here is a parable which shows how our nature may become enlightened or remain unenlightened. Imagine the condition of men as living in a sort of underground cavern, with a long entrance open to the light. Here men have existed since childhood, fettered by the leg and the neck, so that they cannot move or turn their heads in any way, and can only see in front of them. Higher up, and some distance behind them, is the light of a burning fire; and between the fire and the prisoners is a path with a parapet along it, like the screen at a puppet show which conceals the performers while they display their puppets above it.

I can picture it, he replied.

Now behind the parapet imagine there are men carrying all kinds of objects – including figures of men and animals, in stone and wood and various other materials – which project above the parapet. Some of these people would be speaking, and some would be silent.

This is a strange image you conjure up, he said, and those chained men are strange prisoners.

No, they are just like us, I replied. For, to begin with, do you think such prisoners would see anything of themselves, or of one another, except for the shadows cast by the firelight onto the wall of the cave facing them?

How could they see more if their heads are prevented from turning?

And they would see just as little of the objects being carried past.

Of course.

Now, if they were able to talk to one another, surely they would suppose that in naming the shadows they saw they were in fact naming the actual objects?

Certainly.

And if their prison had an echo from the wall facing them, when one of the passersby behind them spoke the prisoners would naturally assume this came from the shadow passing before their eyes.

By Zeus, they would indeed, he said.

In all ways, then, the prisoners would consider reality to be nothing else than the shadows of those artificial objects.

Inevitably, he agreed.

—The Republic, Book VII, 514a–c

We must then conclude that education is not, as some claim, the introducing into a soul of knowledge which was not there beforehand – as if they were introducing sight into a blind eye.

That is what they say it is.

But our argument shows that the capacity for understanding truth is innate in each man’s soul, and that the way in which he learns is like an eye which cannot be turned from the darkness toward the light except by turning the whole body. In the same way the entire soul must be turned away from this world of change and shadows until its eye is able to endure the bright shining light of reality, and the brightest of all realities, which we have called the Good.

—The Republic, Book VII, 518b–c

God is blameless.

—The Republic, Book X, 617e

Do not forget that popular favor is a way to achievement, whereas an arbitrary temper has solitude for company.

—Letters, IV, 321c

A man is just in the same way that a state is just. And we must not forget that justice in the state means that each of the three classes found within it is performing its proper function … each of us is just and does his duty only when each part of us performs its proper function…

—The Republic, Book IV, 441d (c in some translations)

It is the business of reason to rule, exercising wisdom and foresight on behalf of the entire soul, while the spirited element should act as its subordinate and ally…

When these two elements have been reared and trained to understand their own true functions, they should be set to rule over the mass of our appetites, which make up by far the largest part of our soul, and are by nature insatiable. These ever-demanding appetites must be watched over with constant vigilance, so as to prevent them from gorging themselves on the so-called pleasures of the body, and thus becoming so huge and insatiable that the body no longer fulfils its proper role but instead attempts to overturn and enslave the entire life of man.

—The Republic, Book IV, 441e, 442a

I had a dream, and in this dream I was told that the first elements out of which all things including you and I are made, are such that no one can give an explanation of them. Each of them by itself can only be named; we cannot attribute anything further to them. We cannot even say that they exist, or that they do not exist, if we mean to speak of them alone, for to do so would be to imply the attributes of existence or nonexistence…

We cannot define any of these primeval elements. They can only be named, for they have nothing but a name. Yet the things composed of these elements, because they are thus complex, are defined by a combination of names which makes up a description, for a description is the essence of their definition.

—Theaetetus, 201e (b in some translations), 202b

Suppose that when someone sees or hears or notices something he says to himself: ‘What I perceive looks rather like something else, though it is in fact only a poor imitation’. Don’t you agree that the person who receives this impression must have had previous knowledge of that ‘something else’, and is in fact being reminded of it?

Of course…

Then we must have had some earlier knowledge of equality before we first saw things which were almost equal, without being fully so.

I agree.

And at the same time we agree that we did not and could not have come by this notion of equality except by sight or touch or one of the senses. I am treating them as all being the same.

They are, Socrates, for the purposes of our argument.

So it must be by the senses that we become aware of the notion that things which are almost equal are not absolutely equal. Yet we must have a notion of this absolute equality, or there would be no standard with which to compare the things that we perceive as being almost equal.

That sounds logical enough, Socrates.

But surely we first see and hear and use our senses only at birth?

Of course.

But previously we agreed that we must have knowledge of equivalence and nonequivalence before we use our senses, or we would not be able to make any sense of them.

Yes.

Which means we must have had this knowledge before we were born.

So it appears.

Therefore, if we had this knowledge before we were born, and knew it when we were born, this means we had knowledge not only of equality and relative equivalence, but also of all absolute standards. And this same argument which we applied to absolute equality, applies just as much to the absolutes of beauty, goodness, morality, and holiness. And also, I maintain, to all those characteristics to which we apply the term ‘absolute’. This shows that we must obtain knowledge of such absolutes before we were born.

—Phaedo, 73c, 74e (end...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Plato’s Life and Works
• Afterword
• Further Information
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher