Plato is the largest ancient Greek philosopher. His teacher was Socrates himself. Plato is the founder of the Academy - its own school of philosophy. Also note that it is he who is the founder of the idealistic direction of philosophy.
Plato's philosophy, which cannot be briefly discussed, has made a great contribution to the development of this science. This man was not only an excellent thinker, but also a teacher who was able to generate a craving for knowledge in students. Unlike his teacher, he left behind many written works. The most important of them:
- Apology of Socrates;
- The laws;
- The state;
- Gorgias;
- Parmeloid;
- Theodon.
Many of his works are written in the form of dialogues.
Philosophy of plato
As mentioned above, he is the founder of idealism. In his idealist teaching, the following ideas can be distinguished:
- the world around us is changing all the time. It does not exist as an independent substance;
- only disembodied (pure) ideas can really exist;
- the world is nothing but a reflection of pure ideas;
- pure ideas are constant, endless, true;
- all things around us are a reflection of the initial ideas - that is, pure ones.
Plato put forward the idea of the doctrine of the triad. According to it, at the heart of all things are three substances: the one, the mind, the soul.
The one in this case is the basis of any being, cannot be associated with any common signs. In fact, the philosophy of Plato assures us that it is precisely the one that is the basis of all pure ideas. One is nothing.
From the one comes the mind. It is not only separated from the one, but is also its opposite. It is a kind of essence of all things, a generalization of all living things.
The soul, in this case, appears to be a moving substance, connecting such concepts as “the one is nothing, ” as well as “the mind is living.” She also connects absolutely all the objects and phenomena of our world. The world and the individual have a soul. Its also have things. The souls of things and living beings are parts of the world soul. They are immortal, and earthly death is just an excuse to adopt a new shell. The change of body shells is determined by the natural laws of space.
The philosophy of Plato often offends the doctrine of knowledge - that is, epistemology. Plato argued that pure ideas should be the subject of knowledge for the reason that the whole material world is nothing more than their reflection.
The philosophy of Plato very often affects the problems of the state. Note that his predecessors practically did not touch on such issues. According to Plato, there are seven types of state:
- the monarchy. It is based on the just authority of one;
- tyranny. The same as the monarchy, but with unjust power;
- aristocracy. It is connected with the just rule of a group of people;
- the oligarchy. Here power belongs to a group of people who rule unfairly;
- democracy. Here power belongs to the majority, which rules fairly;
- timocracy. Unjust power of the majority.
The philosophy of Plato puts forward a peculiar plan for the device of the state. In this state, all people are divided into three broad categories: workers, philosophers, and also warriors. Everyone should do a certain thing. When considering this issue, Plato often thought about private property.
Plato and Aristotle
The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle have much in common. This is not surprising, since the second is a teacher of the first. Aristotle criticized Plato for his clean ideas, because he believed that the world is constantly changing - you can consider anything only taking into account the changes that have occurred around. According to Aristotle, there are only specifically defined and individual things, and pure ideas are actually impossible and illogical.
