The Philosopher-King
Ch6: Plato (427-348 B.C.E)
Query
• P125: How can an ignorant voter “choose”
anything? Remember, voting requirements have
been used to prevent women and people of certain
ethnic groups from voting
• P133: How might Plato answer the claim that if
they are so similar that they look identical to
humans. Identical means “indistinguishable”
Plato’s Life and Work
• Plato himself is our chief source of info.
• We still have all the works attributed to him by ancient
scholars: most important of these are philosophical dialogues
– The Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Theaetetus, Timaeus, Gorgias,
Protagoras, Meno, and the Republic
– + summaries and analysis of some of Plato’s doctrines
• Left by Aristotle, his greatest student
– More bio. Info than any other ancient philosopher
• Much from Diogenes Läerius’ Life of Plato
– 13 letters: controversial over authenticity
• Republic: read by more people than any other work of
Western philosophy
– Most impressive and important work
– Presents overall philosophy in a dramatic, organized, and brilliant
form
The Decline of the Aristocracy
• Plato = nickname for Aristocles, son of one of the oldest and
most elite Athenian family
– Mother side traces back to Solon, the lawgiver
– Father traces ancestry back to ancient Kings of Athens and even
further back to Poseidon
• Aristocles = “best, most renowned”
• Is said to have done well at everything: music, logic, debate,
math, poetry
• Attractive, a wrestler, won a prize for bravery in battle
• Plato = platoon = broad, wide
– He had wide shoulders in one story; wide forehead in another
• Born 2 yrs. After Pericles died; Athens in 20-yr war with
Sparta
– State of turmoil (like US during Vietnam) & surrendered in 404BC
Decline (cont.)
• Spartans set up new gov’t by supporting the Thirty
– Plato’s family members were in this group
– Overthrew democracy
– The same group that Socrates resisted when he was ordered to
condemn & execute Leon of Salamis in violation of the constitution
– Failed to restore rule by an elite based on bloodlines & reign lasted 8
months before democracy was restored
• It was the restored democracy that tried and executed Socrates
– Plato was in his early 20’s & these events impacted him
– Plato was disgusted with those who abused power & persecuted
Socrates
• Nobles (Thirty) were disturbed by changes due to war: loss of
elitist privileges that accompany increased democracy, breakdown
of traditions, Sophists’ use of debaters’ tricks to sway the mob,
emerging business class created power dependent on money &
aggressivness
Plato’s Disillusionment
• Was discouraged by both the mob and the elite
– Mob = represented by the jury at Socrates’ trial = irrational
and dangerous
– Elite = represented by behavior of the Thirty = cruel, selfcentered, and greedy
• Saw neither the aristocracy nor the common citizenry
capable of superior rule
• Concluded that most people are unfit to make
decisions that would result in a just society due to lack
of wisdom and self-restraint
• Believe that most make emotional responses based on
desire and sentiment, rather than on rational
considerations stemming from an objective view of
what is genuinely good for the individual society
– Example: Socrates’ trial and death shows what happened
when justice is reduced to a majority vote.
Plato’s Disillusionment (cont)
After the Revolt of the Thirty and Socrates’ death,
Plato left Athens and wandered for nearly 12 yrs.
• Studied w/ Euclid (pioneer of geometry) and
probably the hedonist Aristippus
• He seems to also have gone to Egypt
• Studied math & mysticism, both influenced his
philosophy
• Studied Pythagorean philosophy and emphasis on
mathematics as the basis of all things
Plato’s Epistemology
• Believed that a corrupt state produces corrupt citizens
• Tried to develop a theory that could refute sophistic skepticism and moral
relativism
– Hope to identify/articulate the difference between mere opinion and genuine
knowledge
• Then it would be possible to identify the structure of an ideal state based on knowledge
and truth—rather than the mere appearance of truth and personal whim
– Could not avoid the challenge of sophistic skepticism nor ignore philosophy’s
reputation for generating ludicrous doctrines that contradicted each other
• First he must tackle the problem of knowledge
– See examples of conflicting opinions of the Presocratics that led to
philosophical confusion and ethical abuses in the hands of extreme Sophists
• His success: exposure of error & inconsistency; less so in positive
knowledge
• Conclusion: though Presocratics, Sophists, and Socrates all made
distinction between appearance and reality, the exact nature of reality and
clear rational criteria for distinguishing reality from appearance had eluded
them.
Knowledge and Being
• In order to refute the sophistic assault, fundamental issues
such as these must be clarified
– The relation between appearance and reality
– The problem of “the one and the many”
– The nature of change
• Reasoned that Sophists can’t find truth because they were
only concerned with the HERACLITEAN world of sensibles
(ever changing perception)
• To Plato, the essence of knowledge is unchanging
– What is true is always true; therefore, whatever is relative and
always changing cannot be true
– Truth/knowledge in another realm of reality: the level of being
Parmenides tried to characterize
– What is eternal is real; what changes is only appearance
– We can have knowledge of what is eternal (being), of
appearances (becoming) there can be only opinions
The Theory of Forms
• Plato’s metaphysics, being consists of timeless
essences/entities called Forms
• Platonic Forms: independently existing, nonspatial,
nontemporal “somethings” (‘kinds,” “types,” or “sorts”)
known only through thought and that cannot be
known through the senses; independently existing
objects of thought; that which makes a particular thing
uniquely and essentially what it is.
– Form = basic structure/essence
• What Plato meant by form is heatedly debated
because he does not have a well worked out theory of
Forms
• It is the basis for his theory of an ideal state
What Are Forms?
• Form = eidos (idea)
– Some translated eidos are archetype or essence
• To him, each Form exits__pure and
unchanging__regardless of continuous shifts in
human opinions
– Independent of human consciousness
• Existed before any perceivers (animals or people)
• Thus “roundness” is not a property that depends on human
minds for existence; roundness is unchanging
– Universal types that exist outside of space and time
• Truths about mathematical objects exist whether
we know them or not; Plato thinks the same is true
for moral and aesthetic facts
Forms (cont)
Are not physical objects; more like abstract objects
which is more real than concrete physical objects
• Example of forms: geometrical, mathematical, logical
relations, virtues, sensible properties (roundness,
beauty, redness)
– Infinite number of particular things that “share” some
element of redness
– Round glass beads may look uneven or minutely pitted
under the microscope
– 2 “identical” glass beads would have to contain exactly the
same silica molecules, atoms, quarks, neutrinos, and in the
same place at exactly the same time = impossible
• It would be one bead .
Why Plato Needed the Forms
• Wanted the theory of Forms to provide a rational explanation of how knowledge is
possible.
– Forms = his bold answer to Sophists’ assault on knowledge and to their relativistic
rejection of universal truths
• Needed to offer more than faith in the existence of absolutes, more than
authoritarian and dogmatic pronouncements
– Or he will fail to meet the challenge of relativism
• His question bears on important epistemological question: Is everything a matter
of opinion? If not…
1.
2.
Is there any way to show that knowledge is possible?
Is there any way those of us who are not wise or enlightened can identify those who
are? If answer to 2 is no
1.
3.
4.
•
Then were at the mercy of unverifiable beliefs, rule by force, rhetoric, and seduction
If one opinion is ultimately as good as any other, then one form of gov’t is no better
than any other, and there is no pint in seeking truth or wisdom
If knowledge is possible, and if some opinions really are better than others, how can
we justify democracy, a form of government that treats each citizen’s opinion as
equal
Plato struggled to refute relativism and thereby preserve the distinction
between knowledege and opinion
–
Hoped to justify and preserve real (objective) distinctions between right and wrong,
true and false, better and worse.
Query
• P134 Is it possible to know that no one does know?
How do you know that you don’t know?
• P143: Do you think the Allegory of the Cave
accurately expresses the way we experience
knowledge? What level are you on?
– Have you escaped the Cave and seen the Good?
Knowledge and Opinion
• To Plato, knowledge = fixed, absolutely and
eternally true (correct); opinions= changeable and
“unanchored”
• Scientific knowledge of particulars is impossible
– Science consists of necessary and universal truths about
the objects (forms) that science studies
• In Plato’s metaphysics, the level of change is the
level of growth and decay, life and
death__becoming.
What Happens When We Disagree?
• Michael believes 2x3=4
– We can say this is false belief because it’s not a matter of opinion
• Patricia believes 2x3=6 because her family said so
• Emma believes 2x3=6 because her teacher said so
• Emma & Patricia (true belief) does not know anymore than
Michael does.
– Their answers are still just beliefs (opinions)
• All three lack sufficient understanding to make an informed
determination; they don’t know what it is.
• Like those 3, we’re at the mercy of uninformed preference,
“unanchored” and act based on habit, tradition, personal
preference, and impulse
– He warns us repeatedly in the Republic
– Warns against even true opinion without grounding knowledge
The Divided Line p137
Divided Line
• shows that both knowledge and opinion deal with
Forms
• Illustrates the relationship of knowledge to opinion,
reality to appearance, metaphysics to epistemology,
and the world of being to the world becoming.
• Segments A,B,C,&D represents decreasing degrees of
truth
– A =pure intelligence, understanding, highest Form
– B= reasoning (mathematic & deductive) = Human (lower)
Form
– C= belief, common opinions about physical objects, morals,
politics, practical affairs (Mother Theresa)
– D= illusion, dominated by secondhand opinions and
uncritical impressions
Levels of Awareness
• D: No one inhabits this level all the time but can
occasionally slip into states of illusion
– Magic show or a movie = “willing suspension of disbelief”
– Can also have illusion without being aware of it when we
hold opinions based solely on appearances, unanalyzed
impressions, uncritically inherited beliefs, and unevaluated
emotions
• C: informed level of awareness
– We know that a desk made up of molecules and atoms in
motion = appearance is not what they are
• Do not have sophisticated knowledge built upon rigorous deductive
reasoning
• Opinions based on observation and perceptions of physical object
Levels of Awareness
• B: takes us out of “becoming” and opinion (D/C)
and into the world of being and the first stage of
knowledge (doesn’t change) acquired through
deductive reasoning
– Mother Theresa did grow and change
– Form Human does not change, grow, or decay according
to Plato
• A: highest level of reality. Soul has no need for
perception or interpretation. It “directly
apprehends” the “absolute Form of the Good.” At
this level, reason does not deduce the Forms
The Simile of the Sun
• He compared the “absolute Form of the Good” to
the sun:
– Sun (light) is necessary for vision and life = Good makes
Reality, Truth, and the existence of everything else
possible
• The GOOD can’t be observed with the 5 senses
– Can be known only through pure thought or intelligence
• Simile of the Sun = the act of apprehending the
highest truth in the form of the Good.
Visible World (C +D)
Intelligible World (A+B)
The Sun
Growth
Light
Visibility
The GOOD (source of intelligibility & reality)
Reality
Truth
Intelligibility
The Allegory of the Cave: book VII of the Republic
• Plato used this lesson to say why we should
discount the views and experiences of the vast
majority of people and listen o the claims of one
supposedly wiser person
• Includes Divided Line & Simile of the Sun in his
Form theory
• Allegory of the Cave:
– compares the level of becoming to living in a cave
– Describes the ordeal necessary for the soul’s ascent
from shadowy illusion to enlightenment
• From mere opinion to informed opinion to rationally based
knowledge of wisdom
Allegory of the Cave corresponds to the Divided Line
Segments p141
• D: Those chained to the wall of shadows are
imprisoned in the shadowy world of imagination
and illusion
• C:Those loose within the cave occupy the “common
sense” world of perception and informed opinion
• B: Those struggling through the passageway to the
surface are acquiring knowledge through reason
• A: The rich surface world of warmth and sunlight is
the highest level of reality, directly grasped by pure
intelligence
The Rule of the Wise
• Plato’s vision is hierarchical & aristocratic
– Not egalitarian and democratic
– Not based on gender, national origin
– Based on conviction that enlightenment is real
• More than mere intellectual ability
– The product of careful training, directed desire, hard
work, and the good luck of living in an environment that
does not prevent us from escaping the Cave
– Echoes Buddhist teaching that enlightenment is always
accompanied by a desire to help others escape the
bonds of illusion and ignorance
• Socrates closed the lesson with the advice of love-based
obligation of the wise person to guide and teach those less
wise, helping them escape the Cape
One method of extracting confessions was the Pope's
Pear:
Inquisition
Fatwa (death): Aayan Hirsi Ali, Salmon
Rushdie, Theo van Gogh
The Republic
• “You can’t persuade people who won’t listen,” said
Socrates
– Plato might refer to Socrates’ jury
– Plato believed Socrates made a mistake of going to the
people
• Plato believed not everyone is capable of
participating in rational discourse because they
either lack the will or intellect or both
– Even Socrates himself said that in matters of virtue and
wisdom, the majority is usually wrong, while only a few
are wise.
The Search for Justice
• A clear understanding of a just society will yield a
clear understanding of the just (healthy) individual.
– Society = “the individual writ large”
• Justice in the Republic covers right conduct or
morality in general
– Much more than fairness under the law
Function and Happiness
The Republic contrasts 2 views of morality
1. Right/wrong must be determined by the
consequences our acts produce
– Called instrumental theory of morality
•
Be good, get X; be bad; get Y
2. (Plato prefers) Right/wrong are in terms of their effect
on our overall functioning as human beings
– Called functionalist theory of morality
•
•
Each kind of thing has a natural purpose or function
“Happiness depends on conformity to our nature (function) as
active beings” said A.E Taylor, a Plato scholar
–
–
Only virtuous people can be happy
Happiness = result of living a fully functioning life
– Being please with what is good and displeased with what is
bad
The Ideal State
• The Republic reveals: A good life can be lived only in a good
society
– No one can live a truly good life in an irrational, imbalanced society,
with no social activities, obligations, and concerns
• Society originates because no individual is self-sufficient
• A just society meet these kinds of needs, which are met by the
corresponding types of people
1.
Nourishing (food, shelter, clothing)
•
2.
Protection (military, police)
•
3.
•
Warriors (soldiers, police officers, firefighters
Ordering (leadership and government)
•
–
Workers (computer programmers, banker, truck driver)
Guardians (philosopher-kings)
Only when all classes of people are virtuous according to heir natures
is the state whole, healthy, balanced, and just
Unjust state is dysfunctional & fails to meet some essential need;
a form of imbalance for Plato
–
When one part of the state tries to fulfill the function of another part
The Parts of the Soul
• For Plato, virtue = excellence of function, which
reflects Form
• Healthy human soul= all parts function harmoniously
1. Reason (go home & study for the test)
2. Spirit (This is awful…I don’t know what to do)
3. Appetite (I’d love a pizza & stay to party)
– Plato believes in the weakness of the will vs. Socrates’ “to
know the good is to do the good”
• Example of 3 parts = charioteer (reason) trying to
control the powerful wild horse (appetite) and the
responding horse (spirit)
– It is the function and therefore the duty and the right of the
driver to control the horses.
4 Cardinal Virtues
• 4 cardinal virtues necessary for the human soul
1. Temperance: self-control and moderation; important
for the worker class, but necessary for all 3 classes of
people. Same w/ state
2. Courage: of the warrior class to protect the
community and enforce the just laws of the
guardians
3. Wisdom: associated with the guardians
(philosopher-kings who have seen the Good); is
present when rational part of the soul is healthy
4. Justice: excellence of function for the whole. A just
state nurtures each individual by providing a lifestyle
appropriate to him or her: reason rules the spirit and
appetite.
Query
• P148: Discuss the need for hierarchy, authority,
and a governing order (family, marriages,
churches/mosques, schools, or factories)
• P149: Do you agree with Plato that democracy is
incompatible with self-discipline? What sort of
discipline do you think Plato was concerned
about?
• P152: Can you spot any symptoms in our society
of the pattern Plato attributes to injustice in
individuals and the state?
Societies and Individuals
• Utopia (outlined in the Republic and a dialogue
called Laws)
– Ideal/perfect society derived from Sir Thomas More’s
1516 novel of the same name: the word was created
from the Greek root meaning “nowhere’
– Plato’s ideal Form of government is rule by
philosopher-kings, not democracy
• An elitist alternative to our democracy?
The Origin of Democracy
• Plato argues (Book VIII of the Republic) that
democracy grows out of a type of government called
oligarchy, the rule of a wealthy few.
– Oligarchy’s chief goal is to get rich = create a
constitution/type of government that encourage the
acquisition of property
• Change into democracy due to lack of restraint about getting rich
– Thus, seeds of democracy derive from the love of
property/riches and correspond with the desire for a free
economy
• Love of money and adequate self-discipline in its citizens can’t
coexist; one must be neglected.
– His diagnosis: rich get richer, poor grow angrier until they
overthrow the rich, either through armed revolt or by
social and legal pressure
The Origin of Democracy (cont)
Democracy, he said, is diverse in human temperament, but
lack guidance, self-control, wisdom, and temperance
• Swayed by opinion, rather than grounded in knowledge
• In constant flux…always “becoming” & hostile to a fixed
hierarchy of being
• Violates the principle of functional order and rule by reason
• Is pleasant “by appearance”
• “you needn’t fight if there’s a war, or you an wage a private
war in peacetime if you don’t like peace”
• Democracy lacks the order and balance to provide such an
environment for individuals to grow up to be good without
good training from infancy.
The Pendulum of Imbalance
• To Plato, chief goal of democracy is “excessive
liberty”
• In a democracy according to Plato
– “The least vestige of restraint is resented as
intolerable.”
The Tyranny of Excess
• In a democracy, increasing self-indulgence from
generation to generation will tyrannize the soul
• Tyranny: Form of government in which all power
rests in a single individual, known as the tyrant
• Excesses of democracy become seeds of tyranny
– Tyrant = most imbalanced type of personality
• A person without control drugs or lust
• A politician who is a slave to his own lust for power and
domination
• What looks like freedom is in reality lack of
control, what looks like power is in truth a form of
enslavement
Commentary
• For Plato, do we have any supportable firsthand
evidence for believing in actual levels of reality
• Allegory of the Cave helped us decide who is
enlightened and who is deluded?
• The Divided Line & Simile of the Sun only reflect
certain psychological states?
• Are his categories of people too restricting?