The Impact Of The Greek Philosopher Plato And Philosophy

The impact of the Greek philosopher Plato and Philosophy

Plato was an important Greek philosopher from the 5th century.C. He lived in classical Greece, in Athenian democracy. Among his bibliography we find this fragment belonging to the Republic, one of his four books of the "maturity period". In it, it exposes one of its main ideas: the State must be governed by justice and each man must deal with the subject for which he has been better endowed by nature so that this is possible. To better understand this idea, it will be necessary to explain the author’s philosophy: the so -called "anthropological duality", this will be the basis of harmony between its ethical and political ideas. Likewise, I must refer to the thematic issue that is addressed in the exercise: the origin of the cosmos in the presocratic current, that is, it is necessary to show the background that derives to Plato’s ideas, the historical and ideological context that makes them possible.

In the seventh century to.C. A series of thinkers emerged in ancient Greece who enabled the creation of philosophy and science, when questioning why it surrounds us and trying to seek an objective response that did not take into account either the gods or myths. It is the so -called "Myth to Logos". These thinkers, known as presocratics, focused their philosophies on the problem of the Physis Arché, in other words, formulated various theories about the first principle of the nature of the universe.

Grouped into two subgroups, we first found the "monists", who chose to defend that there was only one cause or arché. Among them include: Thales of Miletus that identified as arch the water, for being the nature of wet things and, therefore, of life; or Anaximandro de Miletus, disciple of such, which proposed that the arché could not be any of the known elements, since they did not reflect the contrarities between water and fire, but should be something undetermined, which he called Apeiron ("Of which existed at the beginning").

Beforea, the "pluralists" appeared who defended that the cause of everything should be in more than one element. Among which we can underline Pythagoras, who believed that the harmony of the cosmos depended on the numbers (also defended by Plato in the "myth of the line"); or Democritus, who advocated that the arché should be composed of atoms, infinite number of indivisible material units, and the emptiness that exists between them so that they can move and collide with each other.

However, the two presocratic philosophers who most influence Plato’s ideas were: Parmenides of Elea and Heraclitus of Ephesus. The two had contrary ideas and instead, we can find great similarities between their ideas and the Platonic. The first of them proposed that there are two ways of knowledge: the way of opinion composed of the non-being (represented in Plato as the sensitive world in its dualistic ontology) and the truth formed by being ( to which Plato would refer through the intelligible world). Meanwhile, Heraclitus stated that nothing is stable and that everything is in continuous change and movement, using the figure of the fire as a first cause that would represent the struggle between forces contrary to which the cosmos is subjected. This idea is reflected in Plato’s theory of ideas: the sensitive world or of the senses is in continuous change and movement and therefore should not be the object of science.

From the 5th century to.C The central theme of Greek philosophy changes and anthropological turn thanks to sophists and Socrates. From this moment, the reflections will occur about the human being, leaving aside the question for the arché. Socrates will greatly influence Plato, since he was his teacher for 20 years and admired him greatly. Because of this, Socrates’ death for drinking the hemlock as a result of a trial in Athenian democracy, causes in Plato the rejection of this form of government and that he postulates a completely different as we observe in the text.

Yes for Plato, reality is composed of two worlds (sensitive world and intelligible world), man is also composed of two parts: soul and body. This is the so -called: Anthropological Dualism. The body would be related to the sensitive world, while the soul would be related to the world of ideas due to its divine origin.

The tripartite division of the soul is evident to Plato and was collected in another of his books of "maturity", the Fredo, from the "myth of the auriga and the winged car". According to him the three souls that make up every human being are: the appetitive or concupiscible soul (the black horse) that represents the innobles passions: food and sex; The Irascible Soul (The White Horse) that manifests the noble passions of man: the will and character; And finally, the rational soul (the auriga) of divine nature.

In addition, each person would have according to Plato, one of the most developed souls, thus giving rise to three different virtues that would correspond to each of the souls and that make up his ethical philosophy. Those who have more developed the concupiscible soul (the majority of the population), their virtue is, according to Plato, temperance or moderation; In the case of the Irascible Soul, formed by a few people, the virtue that accompanies it is the strength or courage; And in the case of having more rational soul, which almost does not happen, the virtue that is related is prudence or wisdom. If each one is able to recognize the soul that he has in greater proportion, knowing himself, and developing the virtue or areté that corresponds to him, then he will be according to Platonic philosophy, happy. Because of this, virtue is a form of knowledge and wisdom, something that can be learned, from there, the importance attached to education or paideia.

According to these three types of virtues, there are three kinds of people who make up the society and ideal government for Plato: producers or artisans (tempered), the warriors or guardians (brave) who deal with protecting the population, and the rulers (wise) that would be formed by the philosophers. According to this, Plato proposes, as we see in the text, a form of government in which power is in the hands of a small group of sages, philosophers. This form of government would be called aristocracy, the aristocracy of knowledge, the only form of fair power according to the philosopher, in contrast to the rest of the forms of government: timocracy (dominated by the desires of the warriors), oligarchy (government of the government of the rich), democracy (the government of free men) or tyranny (the worst of all). Therefore, if there is a harmony between the soul, the virtues and the activities carried out by each person, we will live in a fair society in which education by philosophers prevails; If on the contrary, this does not happen, we will live in an unfair society.

In conclusion, Plato proposed a society in which each one, did what by nature he was best, according to his soul and virtue, thus finding a society in which the most wise governments, so that they would never be committed again injustices such as the death of his teacher Socrates. With the passage of time the philosophy of his was both rejected and criticized and praised by his critical eagerness and the creation of an entire complex philosophical universe. He was rejected by his disciple Aristotle, who preferred to focus his philosophy on the world we know, since for him, there is only one world.