Plato Read online

  PLATO

  A complete introduction

  Roy Jackson

  To Annette; the Form of Beauty and the Good

  Contents

  Praise for Plato: a complete introduction

  About the Author

  Reference convention

  How to use this book

  1 The Presocratics and the beginning of philosophy

  The birth of Western philosophy

  The time of myth

  Hesiod and Homer

  The Materialists

  The Milesians

  The polis

  Thales

  The ontological superiority of ‘Being’

  Anaximander and Anaximenes

  2 Who was Socrates?

  Socrates the man

  The teachings of Socrates

  Concern for ethical issues

  The Sophists

  The Socratic method

  The scapegoat

  3 Who was Plato?

  Plato’s world

  Plato: a life

  Plato’s works

  4 The Forms

  The Analogy of the Cave

  The path to enlightenment

  The Realm of the Forms

  Criticisms of the Forms

  5 Knowledge, opinion and ignorance

  Protagoras and relativism

  Heraclitus and change

  The philosopher defined

  The roots of knowledge

  What does it mean to know?

  The role of reason

  The soul

  The Cosmic Soul

  6 How are we to live?

  Justice

  Glaucon and the Myth of Gyges

  The soul of the state

  The ideal state

  The ‘City of Pigs’

  The ‘Noble Lie’

  The just state and the just individual

  The healthy soul

  7 The Philosopher-King

  The three polis

  The critique of democracy

  The true philosopher

  Education

  The four imperfect societies

  The root of all evil

  8 Love and friendship

  Pederasty

  Lysis

  Phaedrus

  9 In praise of love: Symposium

  The setting

  The first three speeches

  The speech of Aristophanes

  Agathon’s praise of love

  Socrates’ speech

  Alcibiades barges in

  10 Gorgias

  Gorgias

  The setting

  11 Timaeus

  The setting

  Timaeus and organicism

  The Demiurge

  The universe and its natural state

  The cosmos as animate

  The Great Chain of Being

  Being ethical

  12 The war between philosophy and poetry and the Myth of Er

  Republic Book III

  Republic Book X

  The Myth of Er

  13 Plato’s legacy

  Aristotle

  The city of Alexandria

  Neoplatonism

  Muslim philosophers

  Christian philosophers

  Modern contributors

  Plato’s writings

  Answers

  Praise for Plato: a complete introduction

  “Remarkable in its scope, this book not only outlines all of Plato’s dialogues, but also traces his context in early Greek thought and his legacy. It does indeed provide a ‘complete introduction’ to this seminal thinker.

  Clear and accessible, but really substantial in its coverage, Jackson’s style is ideal for a book at this level. It should appeal equally to students and to the general reader seeking to deepen his or her knowledge of Plato and thus of the starting point for so much Western thought and culture.”

  Dr Mel Thompson, author of Understand Philosophy and The Philosopher’s Beach Book

  “Roy Jackson writes in a wonderful, clear and accessible way, and has produced a first-rate introduction to Plato.”

  Stephen Law, University of London, author of The Philosophy Gym and The Great Philosophers

  About the Author

  Welcome to Plato – A complete introduction!

  My first encounter with Plato was his Republic. I was a first-year undergraduate at the time and, although there have been occasional frustrations and moments of despair, the love affair with Plato’s works has remained fairly constant over the years.

  I am currently Reader in Philosophy and Religion at the University of Gloucestershire in the UK. I have written books on Nietzsche, Plato, the Philosophy of Religion, and Islamic Philosophy. Previous to lecturing at university, I taught philosophy and religion in schools and sixth forms, and was an A-level chief examiner. I have written A-level texts and accessible articles for Dialogue and The Philosophers’ Magazine, and give talks at schools and colleges.

  Nothing gives me more satisfaction than teaching students about Plato, especially when this results in a greater understanding and appreciation of what Plato really says. This was also my main intention, and hope, in writing Plato – A complete introduction.

  Reference convention

  The system of reference used here is known as Stephanus pagination, named after Henricus Stephanus who published the complete works of Plato in 1578. He divided the works into numbers, with each number then divided into sections a, b, c, d and e. Since then this system has often been used to reference Plato, for example Republic, 331c. The advantage of this reference system is that, no matter what translation or edition you use, the Stephanus reference will be the same, even though the page number of that edition will be different.

  How to use this book

  This Complete Introduction from Teach Yourself® includes a number of special boxed features, which have been developed to help you understand the subject more quickly and remember it more effectively. Throughout the book, you will find these indicated by the following icons.

  The book includes concise quotes from other key sources. These will be useful for helping you understand different viewpoints on the subject, and they are fully referenced so that you can include them in essays if you are unable to get your hands on the source.

  The case study is a more in-depth introduction to a particular example. There is at least one in most chapters, and hopefully they will provide good material for essays and class discussions.

  The key terms are highlighted throughout the book. If you only have half an hour to go before your exam, scanning through these would be a very good way of spending your time.

  The spotlight/nugget boxes give you some additional information that will enliven your learning.

  The fact-check questions at the end of each chapter are designed to help you ensure you have taken in the most important concepts from the chapter. If you find you are consistently getting several answers wrong, it may be worth trying to read more slowly, or taking notes as you go.

  The dig deeper boxes give you ways to explore topics in greater depth than we are able to go to in this introductory level book.

  1

  The Presocratics and the beginning of philosophy

  The historical figure that features most prominently in virtually all of Plato’s writings is Socrates. However, before there was Socrates, there were other philosophers – collectively known as the Presocratics – who were not only the first to engage in philosophy as such, but also proved to be influential to the thought of Socrates and Plato. This chapter, therefore, takes a look at just some of these Presocratics and considers what philosophy is and how we distinguish it from Greek myth. Some of the concepts presented by these Presocratics are obscure and difficult to follow, so don’t worry if you strugg
le a bit with this first chapter (you can, if you wish, safely move straight to Chapter 2) since you’ll be joining the ranks of many philosophers who have likewise battled with these thinkers.

  The birth of Western philosophy

  If you were to look at a map of the eastern Mediterranean and were asked to point to the birthplace of Western philosophy, there is a strong possibility your finger would land in Greece and then, more specifically, Athens. This would certainly be a quite natural response for, after all, this is the birthplace of Socrates and Plato and, in fact, to some extent it is correct to say that philosophy did begin there in the sense that it was Greece where it developed into the structured school of thought that we know today. But no school of thought arrives to us fully formed as if from a vacuum. Before we had Socrates we had a group of thinkers now commonly referred to as the Presocratics – those that lived before and, in some cases, during the life of Socrates. When we look at these Presocratics our finger will dance over this map, while only momentarily resting on Greece. In fact, the first of these Presocratics, and the beginnings of ancient ‘Greek’ philosophy, would actually be in what is today Turkey. But, before we look at these early philosophers, it is worth considering what existed even before there was philosophy. To the time of myth.

  The time of myth

  In order to understand what philosophy is, and who philosophers were, it helps to determine what philosophy is not. Before the birth of philosophy, the Ancient Greeks were by no means intellectually silent. Before philosophy, there was myth. We can all of us re-tell, at least in parts, a Greek myth or two as they continue, quite rightly, to be part of the school curriculum. We have been brought up with the captivating stories of Helen of Troy, the Trojan Horse, the Minotaur, Icarus and Daedalus, King Midas and so on. The Greek word mythos can certainly be translated as ‘story’ and, for the modern reader, it is perhaps common to associate the word ‘myth’ as a work of fiction, as a good yarn and nothing more. But for the Ancient Greeks, the myths were an important channel in attempting to explain key questions such as why are we here? why is there anything rather than nothing? The myths teach us about what it means to be human and provide moral and political guidance.

  Hesiod and Homer

  Before the coming of the philosophers in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Greek poets such as Hesiod and Homer attempted to explain mankind’s role in the known world by tracing the origins and actions of the gods.

  The two epic poems Iliad and Odyssey are traditionally ascribed to a single author – Homer – yet it is more likely that, rather than one individual, it was a band of writers and singers who themselves drew upon an older tradition of centuries of songs about a long time ago, dealing with one military campaign at around the 13th century BC, or perhaps even longer ago than that, in which the pastoralist Greeks besieged and destroyed the non-Greek city of Troy in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). These epics with such heroes as Odysseus and Achilles are central to the Greeks’ sense of being Greek, as opposed to the barbaroi (those who spoke languages that seemed as meaningless to the Greeks as uttering ‘ba-ba’), despite the fact that the Greeks themselves had a keen interest in the neighbouring civilizations of Persia and Egypt and, to some extent, were jealous of their civilization and culture. They are wonderful works that help us to understand to this day the matters of who we are, about the transience of life and the fragility of love.

  In his work Theogony, Hesiod sets out to answer the question of why things are as they are. Theogony is essentially a creation story, and it is concerned with the origins of the world (cosmogony) and of the gods (theogony) beginning with the primordial deities (the protogenoi): Chaos (goddess of air) first of all, followed in quick succession by Gaia (the Earth goddess), Tartarus (god of the Underworld) and then Eros (goddess of love).

  While we might refer to Homer and Hesiod as ‘poets’, that word – as largely understood today – does not quite sum up who these people were and what their writings represent to the Ancient Greek mind. Perhaps a better description would be something like ‘shaman’ or even ‘prophet’ – they who were inspired by those divine to utter their words, hence:

  ‘… and they [the Muses] breathed into me wondrous voice, so that I should celebrate things of the future and things that were aforetime. And they told me to sing of the family of blessed ones who are for ever, and first and last always to sing of themselves.’

  Hesiod, Theogony, 2008

  The Muses in the quote above were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory), and they represented the sources of all knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths. For example, Calliope was the source of epic poetry, Clio of history and Urania of astronomy. Hesiod himself was apparently a poor shepherd (possibly he lived just north of Lesbos island, in what is today Turkey), guarding his sheep when the Muses ‘breathed into’ him knowledge in a way that seems familiar to the experience of religious prophets and mystics. Hesiod, therefore, is a vehicle for the Muses rather than the source.

  It is this ‘illumination’ or ‘revelation’ that allowed Hesiod to tell the story of the coming into being of the Greek gods and the natural world, and Hesiod can be credited with referring to gods that were previously unknown.

  At the beginning of Theogony, Hesiod says:

  ‘Tell me this from the beginning, Muses who dwell in Olympus, and say, what thing among them came first.

  First came Chaos [the Chasm]; and then broad-breasted Earth [Gaia]’

  Hesiod, Theogony, 2008

  The Greek term khaos is sometimes translated into English as ‘chasm’, which is perhaps a better translation than ‘chaos’, as it is not necessarily a reference to disorder, but rather a formless or a void state that precedes the creation of the universe, or cosmos (Greek, kosmos). Essentially, that which precedes the existence of the universe is nothingness, the abyss, and it is from nothingness that Earth is formed – but this inevitably begs the question how? Philosophically speaking, this is problematic, for how can something come from nothing? Why is there ‘some-thing’, and what existed before the ‘some-thing’? To answer with ‘no-thing’ seems intellectually unsatisfactory. ‘Nothing’ is an ‘illegal’ concept in the sense it cannot be conceived (just try thinking of ‘nothing’) and, by invoking the Muses, it looks like Hesiod is copping out here to the extent that he does not give an answer through observation or reason, but is ‘inspired’ by the Muses. An interesting epistemological question is whether ‘inspiration’ counts as knowledge at all, and many religious believers, mystics and, for that matter, philosophers would claim that it does give us a form of knowledge that cannot be provided through observation or reason, but why Hesiod is not regarded as a philosopher is because his explanation for the existence of the universe ultimately relies upon what the gods tell us.

  The Materialists

  As a youth, Socrates was attracted to the beliefs of the ‘physicalists’, or ‘materialists’, who tried to understand the universe in purely natural terms, rather than appealing to the gods. In questioning the beliefs of his time, Socrates was certainly not unique. What was different was the way he questioned them. Socrates would have encountered some of the greatest minds of his time, as well as being able to explore the beliefs of their predecessors. It was a time when the enlightened Greeks, with leisure on their hands, could wonder about the origins of the universe and our place within it. As a result, many began to question the traditional beliefs in the gods and goddesses, and the creation myths contained within such works as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. In many respects, this was the beginning of science as we understand it today: the attempt to look for material – rather than spiritual – explanations for the universe.

  The Milesians

  Look at your map again, for we are still away from Greece. As we leave Hesiod behind, we nonetheless remain in what is today Turkey, and to a city called Miletus. Many of the Presocratics lived everywhere but Greece; for example
, on the Ionian or Asia Minor coast, and others from the eastern coast of Italy and the island of Sicily. The geographical aspect is important in understanding why philosophy begins in these regions: because they were located at major trading routes that exposed the people to many foreign ideas, and this is especially true of the citizens of Miletus – the Milesians.

  Although we may be in Turkey, we are nonetheless exploring the beginnings of Ancient Greek philosophy because Miletus was a Greek ‘city-state’, or polis as the Greeks called them.

  The polis

  To understand Plato and his works it helps to have some idea of the world in which he lived. The Athenian empire at that time consisted of a league of semi-autonomous city-states (polis) united by language and culture and formed as a defence against the threatening Persian empire. The polis spread across the Mediterranean Sea, getting as far west as Marseille.

  The Greek word Hellas (‘Greekdom’) best sums up the strong sense of common identity, or the collective mind of a community, that recognized each other through a common language, religion and culture, irrespective of where they might be located geographically. Even today, the Greeks themselves refer to their nation as the Hellenic Republic, for it was the Romans who gave them the name Graecia. To be ‘Hellenic’ meant to have the same gods – the Olympians – to share a common language, and for each polis to have its own theatre large enough to form an ekklesia (the public assembly of citizens). The gymnasia (schools) shared a Hellenic curriculum, and every polis possessed a similar social system that revolved around the symposium (a forum where citizens would meet to drink and debate). It is sometimes said that the high streets of towns today look much like any other and, to some extent, the same could be said for the polis; for they each had distinctive Hellenic buildings in common, such as the marketplace (the agora), city walls, an aqueduct, bath houses and so on.