1、Plato,Plato,Platolife Platos philosophy Platos dialogues,429347 B.C Born in an aristocratic and influential family in Athens instructed in grammar, music, and gymnastics by the most distinguished teachers of his time. Socratesstudent and Aristotles teacher,Platolife,Plato founded one of the earliest
2、 known organized schools in Western Civilization. The Academdy operated until AD 529, when it was closed by Justinian I of Byzantium, who saw it as a threat to the propagation of Christianity. Many intellectuals were schooled in the Academy, the most prominent one being Aristotle.,A variety of sourc
3、es have given accounts of Platos death. One story, based on a mutilated manuscript, suggests Plato died in his bed, whilst a youngThracian girl played the flute to him. Another tradition suggests Plato died at a wedding feast. The account is based on Diogenes Laertiuss reference to an account by Her
4、mippus, a third-century Alexandrian.According to Tertullian, Plato simply died in his sleep.,Platos Death,Plato often discusses the father-son relationship and the question of whether a fathers interest in his sons has much to do with how well his sons turn out. A boy in ancient Athens was socially
5、located by his family identity, and Plato often refers to his characters in terms of their paternal and fraternal relationships. Socrates was not a family man, and saw himself as the son of his mother, who was apparently a midwife. A divine fatalist, Socrates mocks men who spent exorbitant fees on t
6、utors and trainers for their sons, and repeatedly ventures the idea that good character is a gift from the gods. Crito reminds Socrates that orphans are at the mercy of chance, but Socrates is unconcerned. In the Theaetetus, he is found recruiting as a disciple a young man whose inheritance has been
7、 squandered. Socrates twice compares the relationship of the older man and his boy lover to the father-son relationship (Lysis 213a, Republic 3.403b), and in the Phaedo, Socrates disciples, towards whom he displays more concern than his biological sons, say they will feel “fatherless“ when he is gon
8、e.,Platos philosophy,In several dialogues, Socrates floats the idea that knowledge is a matter of recollection, and not of learning, observation, or study.40 He maintains this view somewhat at his own expense, because in many dialogues, Socrates complains of his forgetfulness. Socrates is often foun
9、d arguing that knowledge is not empirical, and that it comes from divine insight. In many middle period dialogues, such as the Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife. More than one di
10、alogue contrasts knowledge and opinion, perception and reality, nature and custom, and body and soul.,Several dialogues tackle questions about art: Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness (drunkenness,
11、eroticism, and dreaming) in the Phaedrus (265ac), and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homers great poetry, and laughter as well. In Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. The dialogue Ion suggests that Homers Iliad functioned in the ancient Gre
12、ek world as the Bible does today in the modern Christian world: as divinely inspired literature that can provide moral guidance, if only it can be properly interpreted. Socrates and his company of disputants had something to say on many subjects, including politics and art, religion and science, jus
13、tice and medicine, virtue and vice, crime and punishment, pleasure and pain, rhetoric and rhapsody, human nature and sexuality, as well as love and wisdom,The Theory of Forms (or Theory of Ideas) typically refers to the belief that the material world as it seems to us is not the real world, but only
14、 an “image“ or “copy“ of the real world. In some of Platos dialogues, this is expressed by Socrates, who spoke of forms in formulating a solution to the problem of universals. The forms, according to Socrates, are archetypes or abstract representations of the many types of things, and properties we
15、feel and see around us, that can only be perceived by reason (Greek: ). (That is, they are universals.) In other words, Socrates was able to recognize two worlds: the apparent world, which constantly changes, and an unchanging and unseen world of forms, which may be the cause of what is apparent.,Th
16、irty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, though modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of at least some of these. Platos writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Platos
17、texts. The usual system for making unique references to sections of the text by Plato derives from a 16th-century edition of Platos works by Henricus Stephanus. An overview of Platos writings according to this system can be found in the Stephanus pagination article. One tradition regarding the arran
18、gement of Platos texts is according to tetralogies. This scheme is ascribed by Diogenes Laertius to an ancient scholar and court astrologer to Tiberius named Thrasyllus.,Platos dialogues,In the list below, works by Plato are marked (1) if there is no consensus among scholars as to whether Plato is t
19、he author, and (2) if most scholars agree that Plato is not the author of the work. Unmarked works are assumed to have been written by Plato.,I. Euthyphro, Apology (of Socrates), Crito, Phaedo II. Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman III. Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phaedrus IV. First Alcib
20、iades (1), Second Alcibiades (2), Hipparchus (2), (Rival) Lovers (2) V. Theages (2), Charmides, Laches, Lysis VI. Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno VII. (Greater) Hippias (major) (1), (Lesser) Hippias (minor), Ion, Menexenus VIII. Clitophon (1), Republic, Timaeus, Critias IX. Minos (2), Laws, Ep
21、inomis (2), Epistles (1).,Platonic love is a type of love that is chaste and non-sexual. The term is named after Plato, who philosophized about the nature of love. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Platos dialogue the Symposium, which has as its topic the subject of lov
22、e or Eros generally. It explains the possibilities of how the feeling of love began and how it has evolvedboth sexually and non-sexually. Of particular importance is the speech of Socrates, relating the ideas attributed to the prophetess Diotima, which present love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the divine. For Diotima, and for Plato generally, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to direct ones mind to love of divinity.,Platonic love,End,
