All 50 Uses of
Plato
in
Sophie's World
- Now we are going to meet the three great classical philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.†
Chpt 7 *Plato = ancient Athenian philosopher who did much to influence Western thinking (428-347 BC)
- The life of Socrates is mainly known to us through the writings of Plato, who was one of his pupils and who became one of the greatest philosophers of all time.†
Chpt 7
- Plato wrote a number of Dialogues, or dramatized discussions on philosophy, in which he uses Socrates as his principal character and mouthpiece.†
Chpt 7
- Since Plato is putting his own philosophy in Socrates' mouth, we cannot be sure that the words he speaks in the dialogues were ever actually uttered by him.†
Chpt 7
- So it is no easy matter to distinguish between the teachings of Socrates and the philosophy of Plato.†
Chpt 7
- It is Plato's portrait of Socrates that has inspired thinkers in the Western world for nearly 2,500 years.†
Chpt 7
- Perhaps he stood in an animated wrangle with one of the citizens—or held a subdued conversation with his young pupil Plato.†
Chpt 8
- We still speak of Socratic or Platonic philosophy, but actually being Plato or Socrates is quite another matter.†
Chpt 8
- That is Socrates and his young pupil, Plato.†
Chpt 8
- So now Plato will give you some questions to think about.†
Chpt 8
- My name is Plato and I am going to give you four tasks.†
Chpt 8
- Had she really seen Socrates and Plato on TV?†
Chpt 8
- Plato a longing to return to the realm of the soul Sophie woke with a start early the next morning.†
Chpt 9
- But she couldn't really have seen Plato and Socrates ...oh, never mind!†
Chpt 9
- She recalled that the video-Plato had given her some questions to answer.†
Chpt 9
- Then the video-Plato had looked into the camera and asked why all horses were the same.†
Chpt 9
- What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was always a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig.†
Chpt 9
- But surely Plato couldn't believe that what made all horses alike was that they were made with the same mold?†
Chpt 9
- Then Plato had asked her a really difficult question.†
Chpt 9
- It depended on what Plato meant by sensible.†
Chpt 9
- She opened it, drew out several typewritten pages, and began to read: PLATO'S ACADEMY Thank you for the pleasant time we spent together, Sophie.†
Chpt 9
- And since I have also introduced Plato, we might as well begin without further ado.†
Chpt 9
- Plato (428-347 B.C.) was twenty-nine years old when Socrates drank the hemlock.†
Chpt 9
- To Plato, the death of Socrates was a striking example of the conflict that can exist between society as it really is and the true or ideal society.†
Chpt 9
- Plato's first deed as a philosopher was to publish Socrate' Apology, an account of his plea to the large jury.†
Chpt 9
- But in the case of Plato, we believe that all his principal works have been preserved.†
Chpt 9
- In addition to Socrates' Apology, Plato wrote a collection of Epistles and about twenty-five philosophical Dialogues.†
Chpt 9
- That we have these works today is due not least to the fact that Plato set up his own school of philosophy in a grove not far from Athens, named after the legendary Greek hero Academus.†
Chpt 9
- ") The subjects taught at Plato's Academy were philosophy, mathematics, and gymnastics—although perhaps "taught" is hardly the right word.†
Chpt 9
- Lively discourse was considered most important at Plato's Academy.†
Chpt 9
- So it was not purely by chance that Plato's writings took the form of dialogues.†
Chpt 9
- So now I ask: what were the problems Plato was concerned with?†
Chpt 9
- Briefly, we can establish that Plato was concerned with the relationship between what is eternal and immutable, on the one hand, and what "flows," on the other.†
Chpt 9
- Then along comes Plato.†
Chpt 9
- To Plato, these two problems were one and the same.†
Chpt 9
- We can thus begin to glimpse at least the outline of Plato's philosophical project.†
Chpt 9
- Plato agreed with the proposition as such—but in quite a different way.†
Chpt 9
- Plato believed that everything tangible in nature "flows."†
Chpt 9
- That which is eternal and immutable, to Plato, is therefore not a physical "basic substance," as it was for Empedocles and Democritus.†
Chpt 9
- Plato's conception was of eternal and immutable patterns, spiritual and abstract in their nature that all things are fashioned after.†
Chpt 9
- Plato's point was that Democritus' atoms never fashioned themselves into an "eledile" or a "crocophant."†
Chpt 9
- If you solved this problem all by yourself, you arrived at the philosophical solution in exactly the same way that Plato did.†
Chpt 9
- Plato called these forms ideas.†
Chpt 9
- Plato came to the conclusion that there must be a reality behind the "material world."†
Chpt 9
- This remarkable view is known as Plato's theory of ideas.†
Chpt 9
- But you may be wondering whether Plato was being serious.†
Chpt 9
- Plato believed that everything we see around us in nature, everything tangible, can be likened to a soap bubble, since nothing that exists in the world of the senses is lasting.†
Chpt 9
- Plato's point is that we can never have true knowledge of anything that is in a constant state of change.†
Chpt 9
- Plato found mathematics very absorbing because mathematical states never change.†
Chpt 9
- An Immortal Soul As I explained, Plato believed that reality is divided into two regions.†
Chpt 9
Definition:
ancient Athenian philosopher who did much to influence Western thinking; pupil of Socrates; teacher of Aristotle (428-347 BC)
A memory trick to remember the relationships between Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and Alexander the Great is to put them in reverse alphabetical order: Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great.