Plato Summery

PLATO

 INTRODUCTION

About the great thinker: Plato is remembered along with Socrates and Aristotle as one of the greatest thinkers of the Western world. His family was prominent in the scene of Athenian politics, and it was considered but natural for him to follow the same course. However, he chose not to enter politics, disgusted by the violence and corruption of Athenian political life, especially by the execution of his friend and teacher, Socrates, in 399 BC. Inspired by Socrates ' inquiries into the nature of ethical standards. Plato tried to understand the ills of society not through politics but through philosophy, and arrived at his fundamental and lasting conviction that those ills would never cease until philosophers became rulers or rulers philosophers. In the early 4th century BC. He founded in Athens the Academy. The first permanent institution devoted to philosophical research and teaching, and the prototype of all western universities. He traveled extensively, notably to Sicily as political adviser to Dionysius II, ruler of Syracuse. Plato wrote over twenty philosophical dialogues. His literary activity extended over perhaps half a century.

 

 SUMMARY

Plato occupies an important place in Greek philosophy. He was born in 427 B.C. and died in 347 B.C. He was the best student of Socrates and a best teacher of Aristotle. He was deeply impressed by the dialectic of Socrates. As a young man he horned Socratic circle and learn philosophy under the guidance of Socrates. He became under his influence a great lover of wisdom. Socrates transformed Plato's life. Much of his philosophy is a development of Socratic themes. Plato harrowed the theory of ideas from Socrates .Republic is the greatest work of Plato. It is in dialogue form in which Socrates and others discuss the nature of justice, its importance in the ideal state and the qualities required in the rulers and citizens of such a state. Plato was really a master of poetry and drama as well as prose but he chooses the life of a philosopher. He wrote on many topics like metaphysics, ethics, politics, psychology, mathematics, education etc. Plato was born in an aristocratic family of Athens. The city was at war with neighboring Sparta. Some members of the Plato's own family seized power and created oligarchy which executed Socrates. He was about thirty when Socrates died. Under these circumstances he was urged by his friends that Athens was not a safe place for him and he went to Egypt and then to Sicily. After returning from his journey he founded his academy, which became a seat of higher learning and intellectual pursuits in Greece for the next one hundred years.

 Plato's writings have been roughly divided into three main groups. The first consists of dialogues on the pursuit of moral excellence and with the definitions of virtue and qualities such as courage and piety. The second category which includes the Republic shows the development of important platonic doctrines such as theory of knowledge and human soul. The third group of writings deals with logical issues such as virtue into its different subdivisions. To this group of dialogues belong the laws, the statesman and the Phoebus.

 In Plato's writings, the theory of forms has not been presented in any systematic way. Plato sometimes uses the Greek word “idea ' the character of a ruler which Plato has argued is that the just ruler of a state is one who has philosophical knowledge of the good. Therefore, he sets out the kind of education that can produce a just ruler Plato's famous allegory of the cave, in Republic Book VII, illustrates the ascent to knowledge in a way that relates not just to the education of the rulers of a state but to the intellectual development of any person. The whole process of education for rulers, or Guardians, as Socrates calls them, takes fifteen years. It was his student Aristotle who first of all rejected the Platonic theories. The thoughts of Plato and Aristotle are still relevant for the present generation.