Personality - Plato

According to the most reliable accounts, Plato was born in the spring of year 427 BC, in the island of Agina, near Athens. His father was Ariston. His mother was Perictone who belonged to the highly esteemed family of Solon, the early Greek philosopher.

Critias and Charmides, two leaders of The Thirty Tyrants, were respectively cousin and brother of Perictone; both were friends of Socrates, and through them Plato must have known the philosopher from boyhood.Plato studied music under Dracon. He also then occupied himself with painting and poetry.

Plato spent some portion of his years in camp, perhaps as a cavalryman. Even in ordinary times, the young Athenian was required to perform garrison and sentry duty. Much more so at an epoch like this, when Athens was straining every nerve to meet the attack of Sparta.

Plato’s own early ambition, under Socrates’ influence and disillusioned by what he saw of Athenian politics in his youth, including the tyranny led by his relatives, and culminating in Socrates’ condemnation and execution. Mankind’s fate was hopeless unless there was a deep change in men’s education, specially for statesmen. He therefore never took part in active politics himself.

Year 399 BC proved a turning point for Plato. With condemnation and execution of Socrates, in that Plato’s years of study ended and years of travel begun.The next dozen years 387-398 BC were spent by Plato in extended travels. A few short or long visits to his city might have interrupted these years, but his travels were not done in any restless hurry. He desired to see and admire the wonders of nature and art to gain knowledge of those subjects more fully studied abroad than in Athens of that day. Not least of all, his object was to see "the men of many cities" and learn to know their "mind".

Plato travelled in Greece, Egypt and Italy. He himself stated that he visited Italy and Sicily at the age of 40 and was disgusted at the gross sensuality of life there, but found a hundred spirit in Dion, brother-in-law of Dionysius I, the ruler of Seracuse.


He did not intend to let the Athenians silence and forget Socrates by executing him. He intended to show that Socrates was as he claimed to be a public benefactor, not a criminal. On return from his voyages, Plato decided to set up a school, a specific institution designed for exploring, discussing, recording and perhaps experimenting for continued advancement of knowledge. Plato established his educational centre on the adjoining ground, and thus it acquired the name THE ACADEMY. It was designed to be a university – a small replica of the universe it was to study. It was to carry forward Socrates’ ideas of inquiry and so it was given a teaching as well as a research function.

The Academy was a great success and quickly achieved reputation in Greece and beyond. In 361 BC Plato went to Seracuse again to act as a mediator between Diongsiusil and Dion, but was unsuccessful.During 387-347 BC Plato worked hard till his death. After opening the Academy, Plato began to see more clearly how his ideas could be combined in a new system of philosophy. In his later dialogues of this period he shared his new vision with his readers.

For the last 20 years of his life, Plato worked in his school, leading discussion, writing and investigating. His last dialogues are much more technical and analytical than his earlier works.When he died at the age of 80, Plato was still hard at work on The Laws, a monumental detailed model legal code for cities of the time.Of Plato’s character and personality, little is known and little can be inferred from his writings. But it is worth recording that Aristotle, his most able pupil, described Plato as a man "whom it is blasphemy in the base even to praise," character that bad men should not even speak about him.

A very rough measure of Plato’s importance in Western intellectual history is indicated by the facts that the Academy continued as a centre of learning until 529 AD, and that Platonism remains, down to the present day, one of the major traditions in Western philosophy.Plato was born in Athens, about 427 B.C., and died there about 347 B.C. In early life Plato saw war service and had political ambitions. However, he was never really sympathetic to the Athenian democracy and he could not join wholeheartedly in its government. He was devoted follower of Socrates, whose disciple he became in 409 B.C., and the execution of that philosopher by the democrats in 399 B.C. was a crushing blow. He left Athens, believing that until "kings were philosophers or philosophers were kings" things would never go well with the world. (He traced his descent from the early kings of Athens and perhaps he had himself in mind.). Thus he gave immense weightage to philosopher.

For several years he travelled in the Greek cities of Africa and Italy, absorbing Pythagorean beliefs, and then in 387 B.C. he returned to Athens. (En route, he had been captured by pirates and held for ransom.) There, the second half of his long life, he devoted himself to philosophy. In the western suburbs he founded a school that might be termed the first university. Because it was on the grounds that had once belonged to a legendary Greek called A cademus, later on it was called the Academy, and this term has been for schools ever since.

Plato remained at the Academy for the rest of his life, except for two brief periods in the 360s. At that time he visited Syracuse, the chief city of Greek Sicily, to serve as tutor for the new king, Dionysius II. Here was his chance to make a king a philosopher. It turned out very badly. The king insisted on behaving like a king and of course made the Athenian democrats look good by comparison. Plato managed only with difficulty to return safely to Athens. His end was peaceful and happy, for he is supposed to have died in his sleep at the age of eighty after having attended the wedding feast of one of his students.

Then Plato died, he was succeeded at the head of the Academy, not by Aristotle, who, by then, had been for about twenty years student and then teacher at the Academy, but by his nephew, Speusippus. The Academy kept functioning, under different guises, for centuries after Plato's death.

But one thing we don't have the slightest piece of material evidence about is when Plato wrote each one of his dialogues, and even whether all or part of them were "published" (that is, made available outside the Academy) while he was still alive, despite strong statements to that effect from most scholars, who take it for granted without further proof.

IDEOLOGIES

When I was young, I felt like so many in that situation: I expected, as soon as I would become master of myself, to go straight to the city's affairs. And here is, how I happened to find the state of public affairs then: many being dissatisfied with the existing constitution, a revolution took place.... and fifty-one men took the leadership of the revolution, eleven in town and ten in Piraeus - each one of these two groups having in charge the marketplace and all the urban affairs - while thirty assumed full power as commanders in chief. Of these were some of my relatives and acquaintances... who Immediately asked me to join them, as in something fit for me. Feeling not the least surprised, owing to my youth, I expected them to govern the city so as to lead it from a life of injustice toward a just behavior, and so I watched with the utmost attention what they would do, only to see these men make in very little time the former state of affairs look like a golden age.

Among other things, they called on my friend, old Socrates, whom I wouldn't shy to call the most just man there was in his time, to join some other men in arresting one of their fellow citizens who was to be put to death, in order to involve him in their activity, whether he liked it or not. But he didn't obey, preferring to expose himself to all sorts of troubles rather than getting associated with their impious deeds....

Seeing all this, and other no less serious affairs, I couldn't stand it and fled away from the evils of the time. It didn' take long, though, for the Thirty to fall, and with them, all their constitution; so, once again, though more languidly, the desire to get involved in public affairs and politics was dragging me. Yet there were, like in any such troubled time, many unbearable deeds, and there is nothing surprising that, in revolutions, some people take greater revenge on those that have become their enemies. However that may be, those who came back from exile at the time displayed in truth great fairness. And yet, by a twist of fate, some of those in power brought that same Socrates, our friend, to court, throwing at him a most sacrilegious accusation, one least of all deserved by Socrates; it is for impiety that the ones assigned him, while the others condemned and put to death the one who at the time had not accepted to take part in an impious deed against one of their then banished friends, when they were in distress, being themselves banished....

Considering all this, and the kind of men who where active in politics and ultimately the laws and manners, the more deeply I considered these things while growing older, the more difficult it appeared to me to be right in managing public affairs. Neither was it possible to act without friends and trusted associates, nor was it easy to find some among those in charge, for our city was no longer managed according to the manners and habits of our fathers and it was impossible to easily win new ones; besides, the legislative records and the manners were corrupted and relaxed to such an amazing degree that I, at first full of zeal for working in public affairs, looking at all this and seeing everything going in all directions, ended up feeling dizzy; yet, on the one hand, I didn't give up watching if by chance all these things, and especially the whole constitution, might in any way improve, while on the other hand, I kept always waiting for the right time to act, until I ended up understanding that all the cities of this time are all together badly administered - actually, the state of their laws is almost incurable without incredible preparations along with luck - and I was of necessity driven to acknowledge, in praise of true philosophy, that through it only is it possible to come to fully conceive justice in public as well as private affairs; therefore, humankind will not put an end to evils until either the kind of those who rightly and truly philosophize takes a leading role in public affairs, or that of those who hold power in cities, by some sort of divine share, really gets to philosophizing. Such was the state of my thoughts when I went to Italy and Sicily for the first time.

The soul is then immortal and has come to life a number of times. It has seen what is here and in the underworld and everything and there is nothing which it has not come to know. Small wonder it can call to mind what it has previously known about virtue and other things…the whole of research and learning is only recollection.

And the purest knowledge will be that of the man who approaches each subject as far as possible with thought alone, who makes no use of…any other perception along with his reason… freeing himself as much as possible… from his body. For when body participates, it does not allow the mind to acquire truth and wisdom.

I am not dogmatic as to the manner of its presence, but I insist that it is through beauty that all beautiful things are beautiful.

Ordinary men are brave though fear of worse happening – their virtue is fake.

My dear Simmias, this is not the right way to goodness – to exchange pleasure for pleasure, pain for pain, fear for fear, the bigger for the smaller like coins – wisdom alone in proper medium for which all should be exchanged. For with this, and with this alone, is courage real courage, and self-control and in a world true virtue, with wisdom, with or without pleasure and fear and all other such things.

There are three kinds of life, that of the lover of wisdom which is actuated by a passion for truth, that of the ambitious which is actuated by a passing of honor and victory, and the "passionate" properly so called, whose main object is the qualification of physical desires which gives the most pleasure ?

Three things are essential to a correct judgement : experience, knowledge and power of expressing it… the money-maker knows nothing of the joy that comes from the discovery of truth, whereas the philosopher must have experienced from childhood the advantages of money and the physical pleasures; honor comes with success to all three kinds of men, so that the philosopher also knows the pleasure it gives; while with the pleasures of research he alone is acquainted…clearly then the philosopher alone has the experience, the wisdom and the power of expression required to make any comparison; his opinion therefore will be the true one.

He then makes an important concession :

As for the desires of the greedy and the ambitious parts of the soul, if they obey the commands of reason and with its help seek and grasp such pleasures as wisdom dictates, they too will attain pleasures that are as near truth as possible for them.

We have discussed the ways of life one should follow, and the kind of man one should be, but we have restricted ourselves to what one may call divine, and have not spoken of what is but human. Yet we must do so, for we are speaking for man, not Gods. It is pleasures, pain and passion that are by nature most human.

We all want pleasure, pain we neither choose nor want. What is neither one nor the other we do not prefer to pleasure, but we want relief from pain. Little pain we choose if accompanied by greater pleasure, greater pain with less pleasure and pain are equally balanced, we must reason as before: we will choose whichever is more pleasant to a friend, not to an enemy…

To yield for profit or honor is shameful. As in everything else depends upon the way the thing is done, and the only worthy association is that which has moral excellence as its aim. When the physical association tends to educate the beloved in wisdom and courage, then and then alone is it free from blame. It is the motive that counts.

The opposites hot and cold, bitter and sweet and the like must be harmonized by means of Eros’ desire. This is the aim of medicine, as also of music to make harmony out of discords and it requires scientific knowledge. To reduce things to order we must yield to the better kind of desire and this is the love called heavenly… by encouraging desires that lead to justice and piety.
Beauty is the object of love, it is not love itself. Love aims at happiness, which is the aim of all men. Men love the good, and they wish to possess it always. Furthermore, Eros aims at creation in beauty, whether in the body or in the soul. That is its final object.

Nothing is more precious than the beautiful beloved. Mother, brother, friends are all forgotten, fortune lost through neglect is of no account. Law and manners, in which it (soul) formerly took pride, are all despised and it is ready to be a slave and to sleep as near the object of desire as one allows it. And besides revering the beautiful one it finds in him the only healer of its greatest travail. That is the state that men call love…

Death is a born to the thinker, indeed… the pursuit of philosophy is but a practice for death. Death is separation of soul from body and it is the aim of the philosophic soul to free itself, even during life, from the obstacles, such as distracting pleasures and confusing sensations, which the body puts in the way of the soul’s development."In truth then justice appears to be something of this kind. It is not concerned with external actions but with the inner state of a man and his several parts. He must not allow every part of himself to interfere where it has no lousiness, the different kinds of soul must not hinder one another. The just man puts his own house in order, thus ruling over himself harmonizing (himself into) a unity…

Such was the state of my thoughts when I went to Italy and Sicily for the first time.

The soul is then immortal and has come to life a number of times. It has seen what is here and in the underworld and everything and there is nothing which it has not come to know. Small wonder it can call to mind what it has previously known about virtue and other things…the whole of research and learning is only recollection.

When a man’s passion inclines violently in one direction, they are as we know, weakened in other directions by this fact, like a stream that has been canalized

When they flow towards study and things of that kind and are concentrated upon the pleasures of the mind (psyche) alone, the physical pleasures are given up; when a man, that is a true philosopher and does not merely pretend to be.

Such a man will be controlled and will never be greedy for wealth.

The intellect alone is immortal as the most divine part of the soul. It is that which is akin to the Gods and that alone which is the work of the Maker…"Of divine things He Himself is the maker, mortal things. He orders his own offspring to bring about. They received from Him the immortal first principle of soul and next in imitation of Him fashioned around it a mortal body as a carriage for it and within this they built another part of the soul, which holds strange and compelling attributes within itself.

All soul is immortal. For that which is ever in motion is immortal… That, alone which moves itself, since it never fails, never ceases to move, but is the source and beginning of motion for all other things that move. For the beginning never came to be. And from the beginning all that comes to be is born, whereas itself it derives from none. For if the beginning was born of something else, it would no longer be the beginning."However, he adds, in this kind of state .

Harmony is ensured in the individual when the rational part of his soul is in command; with regard to society, when philosophers are its rulers because philosophers – Platonic philosophers – have a clear understanding of justice, based on their vision of the Form of the Good.

Dialectic is, etymologically, the art of conversation, of question and answer; and according to Plato, dialectical skill is the ability to pose and answer questions about the essences of things. The dialectician replaces hypotheses with secure knowledge, and his aim is to ground all science, all knowledge, on some ‘unhypothetical first principle’.

The Laws, Plato’s longest and most intensely practical work contains his ripest utterances on ethics, education and jurisprudence, as well as his one entirely nonmythical exposition of theology. The immediate object is to provide a model of constitution making and legislation to assist in the actual founding of cities. The problem of the dialogue is thus not the construction of an ideal state as in the Republic but the framing of a constitution and code that might be successfully adopted by a society of average Greeks. Hence the demands made on average human nature, though exacting, are not pitched too high; and the communism of the Republic is dropped.

Purely speculative philosophy and science are excluded from the purview of the Laws, and the metaphysical interest is introduced only so far as to provide a basis for a moral theology. In compensation the dialogue is exceptionally rich in political and legal thought and appears, indirectly, to have left its mark on the great system of Roman jurisprudence.The Laws also create a natural theology. There are three false beliefs, Plato holds that they are fatal to moral character : atheism, denial of the moral government of the world, and the belief that divine judgement can be bought off by offerings.

And what is the best way to live one’s life ? For Plato, one should always aspire toward "Truth" – and even if one can’t reach it, one should never cease to strive for it. And what is this Truth ? For Plato, Truth was permanence, the unchanging, the constant, the reliable, the reasonable, the rational.Above all, Plato wanted to try to lead people to search for the ultimate Truth, which has been most commonly translated as the "Good" or the "Fine". If everyone made this pursuit of Truth their life’s goal, then people would live the best of all possible lives. The problems that have caused so much hardship (war, famine, crime) would vanish.

Nothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are playing in the sky. He has finished his thinking before he brings it to the reader, and he abounds in the surprises of a literary master. He has the opulence which furnishes, at every turn, the precise weapon he needs. As the rich man wears no more garments, drives no more horses, sits in no more chambers than the poor,- but has that one dress, or equipage, or instrument, which is fit for the hour and the need; so Plato, in his plenty, is never restricted, but has the fit word. There is indeed no weapon in all the armory of wit which he did not possess and use,- epic, analysis, mania, intuition, music, satire and irony, down to the customary and polite. His illustrations are poetry and his jests illustrations. Socrates' profession of obstetric art is good philosophy; and his finding that word "cookery," and

adulatory art," for rhetoric, in the Gorgias, does us a substantial service still. No orator can measure in effect with him who can give good nicknames. What moderation and understatement and checking his thunder in mid-volley !

He has good-naturedly furnished the courtier and citizen with all that can be said against the schools. "For philosophy is an elegant thing, if any one modestly meddles with it; but if he is conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts the man." He could well afford to be generous,- he, who from the sunlike centrality and reach of his vision, had a faith without cloud. Such as his perception, was his speech : he plays with the doubt and makes the most of it : he paints and quibbles; and by and by comes a sentence that moves the sea and land. The admirable earnest comes not only at intervals, in the perfect yes and no of the dialogue, but in bursts of light.

Conclusion :
Plato would willingly have a Platonism, a known and accurate expression for the world, and it should be accurate. It shall be the world passing through the mind of Plato. Every atom shall have the Platonic tinge; every atom, every relation or quality you knew before, you shall know again and find here, but now ordered; not nature, but art. And you shall feel that Alexander indeed overran, with men and horses, some countries of the planet; but countries, and things of which countries are made, elements, the planet itself, laws of the planet and of men, have passed through this man as bread into his body, and have become no longer bread, but body: so all this mammoth morsel has become Plato. He has clapped copyright on the world. This is the ambition of individualism – Plato’s ultimate. In the final analysis, Plato turns out to be the ultimate philosopher – body, soul, and mind – eternally.

Plato's Academy

If we combine the various traditions concerning Plato's Academy into a narrative account, a somewhat elaborate but nonetheless clear portrait of this philosophical diatribê emerges: About 388/7, the son of Ariston chose a remote and "unhealthy" locale to dedicate a Mouseion (Temple of the Muses). Plato established his temenos (an allotted piece of sacred land) to the Muses among the groves and gymnasium (exercise gardens) dedicated to the Attic hero Academus (Hekademos). The area rested on the Sacred Way, some distance Northwest from Athens (city proper). Plato dedicated this Mouseion following a trip to Sicily, and it was in the grove that he began writing and regular instruction to groups of followers. Plato continued his pursuit of philosophy for about forty years. He was later buried nearby, in a garden facing Colonus, and the sculptor Silanium erected a statue of the philosopher - dedicating it to the Muses as well.

Individuals soon came from all over Greece to pursue philosophy in the Academy, but Plato accepted only those "intoxicated to learn what was in their souls." A student then listened as Plato walked about the gymnasium lecturing, and they all enjoyed moderate but pleasant banquets. The meals were conducted according to an elaborate set of rules, but Plato did not hold these feasts simply to celebrate till dawn. He held his banquets so "that [he and his companions] might manifestly honor the gods and enjoy each others company and chiefly to refresh themselves with learned discussion."

The tradition that Plato's school was founded in an unhealthy locale is late Christian embroidery. The embellishment persisted in spite of the fact Cimon had renovated the gardens (Plutarch, Cimon 13.8), making them one of the most beautiful in the Attic countryside, and they remained as such well into Roman times. If Plato desired to found a "society of learner-companions" who dined together in honor of the Muses, allotting for himself its own land in a gymnasium, he would have formed a thiasos (cult association) - specifically, he would have formed a sussitos, i.e., a specific type of thiasos whose members gathered to dine in honor of the gods. Thiasoi were small close-knit socio-religious associations and crucial in the life of the polis. They shared religious rites and rituals and also provided ideal opportunities for social intercourse as well as engaged their memberships in financial and political activities.There are two opposing opinions about this school's "nature." Exactly what Plato discussed with his "learner companions" is a more complicated affair. First, there is Plato's own attested emphasis on definitions, geometry, and other more esoteric metaphysical-epistemological matters. Second, there exists more general reputation that the Academy produced philosophical statesmen. Side by side the two traditions appear to conflict with one another, or, it is difficult to understand how the former areas of study produce the latter applied results.


"Philosophy" was the principal focus of the Academy, but what exactly does this mean ? Mathematics, solid geometry, astronomy, natural science, and the "Theory of Ideas" are all attested subjects of study. In fact, over the entrance to Plato's Mouseion was the inscription "Ageometretos medeis eisito." There is also mention of a predilection with definitions -- by both Plato and many of his students -- as well as frequent references to "lectures" (skolê). For instance, there is a detailed report on Plato's only recorded public offering "On the Good." This was a discourse which digressed into an exposé on mathematics, numbers, geometry, astronomy, and the unity of goodness. Among all of this, would be, undoubtedly, discussions on Plato's dialogues. But there also exist cryptic remarks concerning Plato's "unwritten doctrines."

The issues are indeed difficult. Nevertheless, when attempted to analyze Plato's Academy carefully, we realize, we are facing three problems. Once disassociated, the overall uncertainty is more manageable. The first two problems are an issue of intention; the third is one of relationship. The initial two difficulties may be summed up with general questions: what purpose did Plato's teachings serve ? And what was the connection between Plato's writings and his oral discussions ? The final difficulty, however, is, by far, the most complex. It is, in essence, a doctrinal difficulty between that, which, we today can clearly see in Plato's writings versus that which Plato's students claimed to have understood from Plato's discussions.