Plato

notesfromthedigitalunderground.net/the-soul-of-plato-the-seat-of-logos

(Plato supposedly described Cynic Philosopher Diogenes as “a Socrates gone mad.”)

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Dinesh ^club

Plato was not just physically daunting; he was also an intellectual giant. Later in life, he founded a school so important that its name – the Academy – is still used to this day to describe seats of learning. In his Academy, Plato wrote works of pHilosophy. But he didn’t write long prose. He wrote a series of debates that came to be known as dialogues. In all but one of these the main speaker was his own tutor, Socrates, whom he loved dearly.

It’s hard to overestimate how important these dialogues were. More than two millennia later, the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/described all the philosophy that came after them as “a series of footnotes to Plato”. But without the events of that deeply emotional day when Plato lay sick in bed in 399 BCE, and those that led up to up to them, he might have just been another of the hundreds of great thinkers who have been lost to time. Because of the same day that Plato was nursing his illness, Plato’s teacher, Socrates, ws being executed. Plato's feelings about that were, well, complicated. ~page 12

Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas about emotion and the soul came to form the cornerstone of Western thought and politics for nearly two thousand years. One or the either, or both, influenced every philosopher who followed, as well as civilizations, political movements, and religious beliefs. The theories of emotion that Plato and Aristotle offered helped to establish the cultures and beliefs of the entire Western World. They helped millions of people around the world understand themselves, and it wan’t until the 1600s that anyone seriously challenged them. Page 26

5 weeks ago. Edited 5 weeks ago.

Dinesh ^club

5 weeks ago.

Dinesh ^club

. . . Plato describes in ‘Philebus: “The young man who had drunk for the first time from that sprint is as happy as he had found a treasure of wisdom; he is positively enraptured. He will pick up any discourse, draw all its ideas together to make them into one, then take them apart and pull them to pieces. He wil puzzle first himself, then also others, badger whoever comes near him, young and old, sparing not even his parents, nor anyone who is willing to listen. . .”

This quotation is about twenty four centuries old but contemporary observer could not describe more vividly what happens when a person first discover the flow of the mind. ~ page 142

5 weeks ago. Edited 5 weeks ago.

Dinesh ^club

Plato’s Republic

Perhaps no other book has divided historical opinion as deeply as Plato's ‘Republic’. For some it’s the bracing common sense that once inspired British broadening schools; for others, the terrifying tool kit for a brave new world. Rousseau, presiding spirit of the french revolution, considered it “the most beautiful educational treatise ever written.”

Plato believed in the meritocracy of intellect drawn from every section of society, formed by natural abiolity and perfected through education. Mankind, he thought, was naturally divided into gold (the guardians” of the Republic), silver (the wealth creators), and bronze (farmers and artisans). Since talent was not always inherited, society had to undergo a continual process of re-sorting.

Some of Plato
S ideas – about communal childbearing or the “noble lie” of the state propaganda – are repugnant to us today. Others, such as the his insistence on social mobility and equality between men and women, strike us as ahead of his time. And his most profound message still resonates of the vital importance of education to the health and stability of the community ~ Page 41

2 weeks ago. Edited 2 weeks ago.

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