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Plato Biography

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PLATO founder of a school of Greek philosophy, born in Athens in 429 B. C.; died there in 347 B. C. He was the founder of the first of the four great schools of philosophy, which was called the Academic school; while Aristotle founded the Peripatetic; Epicurus,; the Epicurean; and Zeno, the Stoical. His early life is not clearly known, but it is certain that he was carefully educated from the fact that he was connected by his mother with Solon and by his father with Codrus, one of the kings of Athens. His education embraced gymnastics, music, and literature, and his first efforts were devoted to poetry, but when twenty years of age he became a student under Socrates, who influenced him by his teaching to embrace philosophy as a study. He was a favorite pupil of that great teacher, and appears to have been with him much of the time until his death, in 399 B. C. It is quite certain that Plato took part in at least three great battles, but made no serious attempts to enter political life, rather preferring to teach the doctrines of government than enter into official positions.

After the death of Socrates, he and other disciples of that teacher took refuge in Megara for some time, but later he made an extensive tour through Lower Italy, Sicily, Cyrene, Egypt, and Asia Minor for the purpose of improving his mind. Other journeys are attributed to him by various writers, but it is not certain that accounts of them are more than traditional. These journeys include one to Sicily, in which he is credited with coming into relationship with the younger Dionysius; and one to Palestine, Persia, and Babylon, where he is said to have studied the wisdom and philosophy of the East. He returned to Athens about 388 B. C., and there began his teaching in the Academy, a beautiful park in the western part of the city, so named from Academus. The profound topics which he treated were enlivened by wit, fancy, humor, and picturesque illustrations. His style was considered so perfect that an ancient said of him, "If Jupiter had spoken, he would have spoken like Plato." The Academic Gardens were thronged by the populace of Athens to listen to the speeches of the master. Though the Athenian women were excluded from the intellectual groves, yet they shared in the universal eagerness, and, disguised in male attire, stole in to hear the philosophy of Plato. His instruction was given without remuneration, and his support seems to have come almost entirely from the inheritance received from the estate of his parents. Among the many noted disciples of Plato was Aristotle.

Plato made use of the methods of teaching employed by Socrates, and like him held that the end of philosophic teaching is to lead the mind of the inquirer to discover truth, rather than seek to impart it by making statements without giving evidence, or by employing positive assertions. This inductive method was so formed that general definitions were reached by systematic conversational forms. The writings of Plato are classed as "Dialogues" and "Letters," though the latter are not generally admitted as genuine. The "Dialogues" are generally accepted as coming from Plato, but the exact order in which they appeared has not been established. Schleiermacher and Hermann have prepared chronological sections, but these two scholars differ somewhat in their constructive arrangement. According to the former there are three sections of the "Dialogues." The works of most importance in the first division include "Phoedrus;" "Parmenides;" "Protagoras;" "Laches;" "Lysias;" "Charmides," and "Euthyphron;" in the second, "Sophistes;" "Theaetetus;" "Politicus;" "Phaedo," "Philebus;" "Meno;" "Gorgias;" "Euthydemus;" "Cratylus," and "Symposium;" and in the third, the "Republic Timaeus," the "Laws," and "Critias." The "Dialogues" of Plato contain his philosophical teaching, but aside from this they are of great literary value and embody the highest perfection attained in Greek prose. The author idealizes Socrates as one of the speakers, and he is made to represent to the student the philosophy of the early Greek; and the systems taught by the different teachers. This plan is followed not only for its historical value, but in it Plato analyzes the opinions of the different philosophers, thus bringing his student in contact both with historical and philosophic themes.

As a whole, the philosophy of Plato comprises a grand effort of the mind to compass the problem of life. He is the first to divide philosophy into the three branches of physics, ethics, and dialectics and his disciple Xenocrates, was the first to apply these names. The "Phaedo" treats mainly of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and Plato is perhaps best known by this doctrine, He believed in one eternal God, without whose aid no man can obtain wisdom or virtue, and in a present as well as a future existence. Since he held that the soul has an existence before the body, he thought that all earthly knowledge is but the recollection of ideas gained by the soul in its disembodied state, and, as the body is only a hindrance to perfect communion with the eternal essence, it follows that death is to be desired rather than feared. These ideas he understood to be the perfect patterns of intelligence and virtue that were common to the soul in its existence before the body, and, since they existed as perfect types of the original intelligence from all eternity, they cannot be perceived by human intelligence. After leading his disciples to discover the realm of ideas, he induced them to follow him in surveying it throughout. The highest forms he regarded as justice, beauty, and virtue, and the dominant principle of the whole realm is the idea of the good. He harmonized intelligence with goodness, and this constitutes the aim of his philosophy.

The "Republic" is one of his best known writings, and is a work on public education, in which he also presents the elements of an ideal commonwealth. Both his system of education and that of a republic are ideal, and in both the individual and the family are sacrificed to the state. Education is to fit every individual to become a part of the state, and receive not only an intellectual and artistic culture, but to acquire physical perfection by training in gymnastics. The "Laws" is the work of his old age, and in it much of the radical element expressed in the "Republic" is qualified. He renounces the distinction of social caste, and gives a practical and minute application of education to all children without distinction of classes. The end of education he sets forth in this excellent definition: "A good education is that which gives to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable." While the "Republic" is a work of pure imagination, the "Laws" forms a commentary on the actual state of practice. In both we find what was nearest the soul of Plato--the constant search for a higher morality.