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Intro to Plato's and their work
Plato was a classical Athenian philosopher in ancient Greece. Scholars widely
consider him one of the most important figures in Western philosophy and human
history. He is best known for his theories of Forms, known as Platonism. In this
philosophy, Plato rejected the materialism common to ancient philosophy in favor of
metaphysics. He believed in the existence of an immaterial world of perfect objects
and Forms (ideas). His theory of Forms suggests that all objects and ideas in the
material world (the real world) are a copy of their perfect counterparts from the
immaterial world.
Plato learned from and influenced many Greek philosophers, including Socrates (his
teacher) and Aristotle (his most famous student), and the pre-Socratic scholars
Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Cratylus.
Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher whose writings are still a major part of
philosophical thought. Learn about the philosopher’s life and his notable
contributions to the study of philosophy.

Who Was Plato?

Plato was a classical Athenian philosopher in ancient Greece. Scholars widely
consider him one of the most important figures in Western philosophy and human
history. He is best known for his theories of Forms, known as Platonism. In this
philosophy, Plato rejected the materialism common to ancient philosophy in favor of
metaphysics. He believed in the existence of an immaterial world of perfect objects
and Forms (ideas). His theory of Forms suggests that all objects and ideas in the
material world (the real world) are a copy of their perfect counterparts from the
immaterial world.
Plato learned from and influenced many Greek philosophers, including Socrates (his
teacher) and Aristotle (his most famous student), and the pre-Socratic scholars
Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Cratylus.

A Brief Biography of Plato

The records of Plato’s life are incomplete, and scholars disagree about the exact
details of his childhood, education, and later life. Here’s a general biography
that many scholars agree on:

Early life: Plato was born to wealthy parents Ariston and Perictione, likely in
Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE (amid the Peloponnesian War). His birth
name may have been Aristocles, and he may have had several siblings, including
Adeimantus, Glaucon, and Potone. His uncle, Pyrilampes, was possibly connected to
Pericles, the leader of Athens’s democratic faction.
Education: Scholars believe that Plato had a good education, learning traditional
ancient Greek subjects like grammar, music, and gym. Many ancient accounts say that
Plato was also an accomplished wrestler. Plato was also a student of Socrates, a
famous Greek philosopher. Nearly all of Plato’s philosophy and writings feature
Socrates (rather than Plato) as the central character.
Middle life: During his middle life, Plato wrote an impressive body of writing on
political philosophy, including The Republic. He also became involved in the
political landscape of ancient Syracuse, then under rule by a tyrant named
Dionysius and his uncle, Dion.
Founding the Academy: Around the age of forty, possibly after a trip to Egypt or
Sicily, Italy, Plato founded what became known as the Academy, the earliest
recorded institution of higher learning. It was at the Academy that Plato tutored
his most famous student, Aristotle.
Death and legacy: Scholars believe that Plato died in his eighties, though accounts
disagree on the reason—some say he died in his sleep, while others claim he passed
away at a wedding feast. Regardless, his body of work is one of the best-preserved
of all ancient Greek philosophy, and scholars consider him one of the biggest
influences on Western thought.
Overview of Plato’s Published Works
Plato used a format known as a “Socratic dialogue” or “dialectic” to record most of
his philosophy—in which two or more characters discuss theory in a back-and-forth
conversation. Scholars count thirty-five dialogues in Plato’s complete works—the
largest body of work still intact from ancient Greek philosophers. Here are some
notable works from Plato:

Charmides: This dialogue features Socrates discussing self-control with two other
characters: a young man named Charmides and his mentor, Critias.
Crito: Most of Plato’s dialogues deal with the trial, conviction, or death of
Socrates. In Crito, Plato writes about the time after Socrates’s conviction.
Euthyphro: In this piece, Plato describes the Euthyphro dilemma: whether something
is holy because the gods condone it, or the gods condone it because it is holy.
Gorgias: This work features a dialogue between Socrates and many sophists—teachers
of philosophy in ancient Greece—at dinner while they debate the true definition of
rhetoric (the ability to persuade by debate).
Hippias Major and Minor: Plato writes about beauty and attempts to define it—
without success—in these two dialogues.
Ion: In one of Plato’s shortest dialogues, he discusses poetry and whether poetic
ability comes from skill or the gods.
Lysis: Plato writes about friendship in this notable work that offers a rare
instance of Socrates as a character speaking in the first person.
Phaedo: In this early dialogue, Plato’s character Socrates discusses ethics with
interlocutors. This dialogue takes place after Socrates’s trial and conviction
where he tried to defend against charges that he disbelieved in the gods and
corrupting others.
Phaedrus: Phaedrus is an eclectic dialogue that discusses erotic love, platonic
love, rhetoric, and metempsychosis.
Philebus: In Philebus, Plato defines the concepts of physical pleasure, or
hedonism, and higher pleasures.
Protagoras: Plato discusses virtue in these writings, arguing that it is innate in
every human being and therefore, cannot be taught or learned.
Meno: In this notable work, Plato discusses geometry. He uses a more dramatic form
than in many of his other dialogues, with no narrator.
The Republic: Arguably the most influential of Plato’s dialogues, The Republic of
Plato analyzes the idea of justice, asking whether a just person lives a happier
life than an unjust one. Plato also discusses different forms of rule, from
oligarchy to democracy, eventually proposing a utopian city-state under rule by a
philosopher-king. Plato’s Republic contains many allegories, including “Atlantis”
and the “Myth of Er”—his most famous allegory, called “The Allegory of the Cave,”
illustrates the role of education in a person’s understanding of the physical
world.
Symposium: Plato sets this dialogue at a banquet during a contest of speeches
between several characters, including Socrates.
Theaetetus: In this work, Plato criticizes the materialist philosophers of his day,
arguing that many real things aren’t tangible.
Timaeus: A late dialogue, Plato outlines the parts of the soul and where they exist
in the body—appetite in the torso, the spirit in the chest, and reason in the head.

Summary of The Republic Book 10

Earlier in the dialogue, Socrates suggested that certain kinds of music and poetry
should not be permitted in the curriculum of study for the future rulers of the
State because some art did not seem to be morally uplifting, hence perhaps bad for
children. Here, Socrates considerably broadens his attack on the visual and
dramatic arts.

Socrates begins by seeking an agreement on definition; he posits the idea that

artists are said to create things; hence, it is commonly held that they are
creative artists. Thus, Socrates argues, it follows logically that we might argue
an example of something an artist produces; we may argue the example of, say, a
bed. But when a painter paints a picture of a bed, we agree that it is not a real
bed: The artist has probably seen a bed that some craftsman built and copied his
picture of a bed. But we have all agreed that a bed upon which people repose is not
even a real bed. The truly real bed is the Form of Bed, just as something perceived
as being beautiful partakes of the Form of Beauty. Only the Forms are real; the bed
is a copy of the Form of Bed and the painting is a copy of a copy, an image of an
image.

What is true of painters is true also of poets and dramatists; we agree that they
paint pictures in words, "creating" what we call images. So when they pretend to be
authorities on morality, religion, nature and all sorts of truths, that is all,
simply put, pretense.
Philosophers, we are reminded, know the Forms and Goodness itself. Artists do not
know the Truth. Take the example of the painter and extend it: Suppose the painter
wants to paint a picture of a bridle. He has to copy a bridle made by some
craftsman, a bridle-maker. The bridle-maker knows more about the bridle than the
painter knows. And the bridle-maker made the bridle for some horseman, who knows
how he wants the bridle made. And the real bridle is the Form of Bridle. Ergo, the
knowledge the painter possesses is thrice removed from reality.

Socrates at this point tries to establish the attractiveness of the visual and
dramatic arts, for which argument he adopts a kind of critical process analysis of
painting and drama. Socrates points out that we are in everyday existence
surrounded by spurious information and illusory experience which only our exercise
in reason can correct, and that is precisely what is wrong with the arts: They deal
in things illusory, depending upon illusion to accomplish their end. Painters, for
example, create the illusion of depth in their works, and they can use line and
proportion in the service of the illusion they are trying to accomplish. Any
illusion is spurious, contradictory to man's best virtue, reason.

Socrates says that the same fault may be discerned in poets and dramatists, in that
they employ language to create unstable tragic and comic characters of men and
women who seem to be driven by their emotions and desires, people who lack reason.
It is true that some drama and poetry is exciting, but the excitement it provokes
is irrational.
Socrates concludes that the arts have a morally corrupting impact on men in that
dramatic presentations, for example, provoke us to become enraged, or to burst into
tears, or to laugh uproariously; they make men act like women or buffoons. We are
deluded into sympathizing with the artifice of the stage, and that is simply bad
for our characters.

Socrates closes his discussion of the arts and their place in the Ideal State by
saying that there is no place for them. Perhaps we may allow some hymns to the gods
and some poems in praise of famous good men, but the most of poetry and drama,
including Homer, must be banned from the state.