Plato suggested that the soul operates on three levels

Chapter Tbree

Plato

IMPORTANT DATES IN PLATO'S LIFE

427 B.C. 399 B.C. 399 B.C. 387 B.C. 387 B.C. 367 B.C. 361 B.C. 360 B.C. 347 B.C.

Plato is born in Athens Socrates is executed Plato leaves Athens and begins travels Plato visits Italy and Sicily Plato founds Academy in Athens Plato journeys to Syracuse Plato makes his third journey to Syracuse Plato returns to Athens Plato dies in Athens

No one, with the possible exception of Aristotle, comes close to chal-lenging Plato's prominence in the history of philosophy. But since Aristotle was Plato 's student, since much of Aristotle's work evolved as a reaction to Plato's theories, and since Aristotle's system as we know it would not have existed save for Plato, Plato's standing as valedictorian of the class of western philosophers seems secure.

O ur best information suggests that Plato was born around 427 B.C. and died eighty years later, in 347 B.C. His parents were wealthy Athen- ian aristocrats. His birth name was Aristocles, and "Plato" seems to have been a nickname referring to his rather robust physical appearance.

Plato showed little interest in philosophy until the execution of Socrates in 399 B.c. Many believe that the courage and honor that Socrates displayed at his death affected Plato greatly, resulting in a pursuit of philo- sophical knowledge similar to that modeled by Socrates. Dismay at Socrates' execution also led to Plato 's voluntary exile from Athens for many years. While Plato may have spent time in Egypt, he seems to have settled in Greek colonies in what is today southern Italy. While in Italy,

Plato's Life and Writings

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Plato From Fresco The School

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Seven Theories Opposed by Plato

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he came in contact with the school of thought known as Pythagoreanism. Several features of Pythagoreanism appear prominently in Plato's mature thinking, including mind-body dualism, the immortality of the soul, and a keen interest in mathematics.

At the midpoint of his life,1 tradition has Plato returning to Athens in 387 B.C. in order to found his great school, the Academy. 2 Plato seems to have made several trips to the city-state of Syracuse in Sicily in an effort to influence its leaders to enact some of his political ideas.3

Several different interpretations of Plato's thought exist. The techni- cal details of such disputes lie beyond the scope of this book. For the most part this book presents the majority opinion of Plato's work. While approximately thirty-six writings are attributed to Plato, possibly six to ten of them are forgeries that may have been written by some of Plato's followers in the Academy. All of Plato's great writings, including the Apol- ogy, Phaedo, the Euthyphro, Meno, The Republic, Timaeus, and The Laws are authentic. Plato's earlier writings are generally shorter, concentrate on ethical questions, and are inconclusive in the sense that they raise rather than solve questions 4 Plato's use of Socrates as the leading interlocutor in many of his dialogues was one way of honoring the great man who was responsible for his becoming a philosopher. In his earliest writings, such as the Apology and the Crito, Plato seems to present a faithful rep- resentation of Socrates' method and beliefs. In writings produced during his middle period, such as the Phaedo, Meno, and Republic, Plato often places his own beliefs into Socrates' mouth. Plato's later writings either drop any reference to Socrates or use him exclusively as a spokesman for theories the historical Socrates never entertained.

Plato opposed seven prevalent beliefs of his day. Several years ago a student pointed out to me that these theories can be arranged as an acronym that forms a misspelled version of my middle name: HERMMAN.

H-Hedonism E-Empiricism R-Relativism M-Materialism

1. This coincidence has led some scholars to question this chronology. The Greeks believed that the age of forty began the peak years of a philosopher's work.

2. The Academy continued to exist until A.D. 529, when the school closed at the order of the emperor Justinian. One should not think of the Academy along the lines of a mod- ern college.

3. Much of the reliability of the traditional picture of Plato's journeys depends on the authenticity of a long autobiographical letter known as his seventh epistle.

4. For one scholar's chronology of Plato's writings, see Frederick C. Copleston, A His- tory of Philosophy (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1962), vol. 1, chap. 18.

M-Mechanism A-Atheism N-Naturalism

Hedonism

PLATO

Hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the highest good. Materialists like Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius rejected the existence of objective, transcendent standards of right and wrong and reduced the good life to the pursuit of pleasure. Plato believed hedonism is falsified by the wide- spread human recognition that some pleasures are evil. If that is so, then it follows that pleasure and the good cannot be identical. And if this is so, then hedonism is false.

Empiricism As we saw in chapter 2, empiricism is the belief that all human knowl- edge has its origin in human sense experience. Plato opposed empiricism throughout his writings, maintaining that it is impossible for the human senses to bring a human being to knowledge. I will have much to say about Plato's rejection of empiricism in his theory of knowledge.

Relativism Plato opposed two kinds of relativism. The first, ethical relativism, is the belief that the same moral judgment, such as murder is wrong, is true for some people and false for others. The second kind of relativism, episte- mological relativism, includes the belief that truth is relative.5 Both types of relativism were propagated in ancient Athens by thinkers known as Sophists. Plato opposed the Sophists and proclaimed the existence of absolute and unchanging standards that preclude moral and epistemo- logical relativism. Neither truth nor goodness is relative, Plato believed.

Materialism As we saw in chapter 2, most Greek philosophers before Socrates and Plato were materialists.6 The materialist strain of Greek philosophy is seen most clearly in the work of the atomists. In opposition to materialism, Plato argued for the existence of an immaterial or ideal world existing independently of the physical world we inhabit through our bodies.

5. Plato did recognize how people's sensible perceptions of things could differ. The temperature of the same body of water could seem warm to one person and cold to another. See the opening pages of Plato's Tbaeatetus. Since sense experience is not knowl- edge in Plato's thinking, his comments in this connection do not entail any kind of epis- temological relativism.

6. The Pythagorean school that existed in southern Italy seems to have been an exception.

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Mechanism Atomism also provides an excellent example of mechanism, the belief that everything happens according to laws and principles that operate mechanically without purpose or design. Plato's view of the universe was teleological in the sense that he believed that a divine intelligence and purpose is at work in the universe.

Atheism Plato's view of God is hardly a model of clarity. What is clear, however, is Plato's rejection of atheism. Nonetheless, scholars continue to debate whether Plato believed in one god, or two, or more.

Naturalism Naturalism is the belief that the natural, material universe is self-sufficient and self-explanatoty. Given the time devoted to both ancient and mod- ern versions of naturalism in chapter 2, it should be clear what issues are at stake in the naturalistic worldview. While Plato never compared natu- ralism's view of a closed universe with a box, his alternative can be described as the belief that outside the confines of the box, the natural order, there exists a world of eternal, transcendent, unchanging, and immaterial Forms or ideals.

O ne helpful way to highlight several central elements of Plato's sys-tem is to think in terms of a fundamental dualism. Plato's philoso- phy is marked by three kinds of dualism: metaphysical, epistemological, and anthropological.

1. The metaphysical dualism of Plato's philosophy is seen in his dis- tinction between two worlds, or two levels of reality-the imperfect, changing, temporal, material world of particular things over against the perfect, unchanging, nontemporal, nonmaterial world of the Forms.

2. The epistemological dualism of Plato is evident not only in his rad- ical distinction between sense experience and reason but also in his claim that sense experience always falls short of producing knowledge. True knowledge is attainable only by reason and then only as human reason apprehends the Forms.

3. Plato's anthropological dualism is apparent in his radical distinc- tion between body and soul. Just as there are two worlds (particular phys- ical things and Forms) and two ways of apprehending these two worlds (sensation and reason), so humans are a composite of two parts (body and soul).

PLATO

The heart of Plato's philosophy is his theory of Ideas, or Forms. Plato believed that human beings participate in two different worlds. One of these is the physical world that we experience through our bodily senses. Our contact with the lower world7 comes through our bodily senses, as in seeing or touching particular things like rocks, trees, cats, and humans. The physical things that exist in the lower world exist in space and time.

The other world in which we participate is more difficult to describe, a fact that helps explain why Plato's teaching is so foreign to most of us. This higher world is composed of immaterial and eternal essences that we apprehend with our minds. Plato's ideal world (sometimes called the world of the Forms) is more real for Plato than is the physical world, inas- much as the particular things that exist in the world of bodies are copies, or imitations, of their archetypes, the Forms.

Upper World - Forms - No Space or time

Lower World - Particulars - In Space and time

For Plato, a Form is an eternal, unchangeable, and universal essence. Some of Plato's Forms are relatively easy to understand. He believed that what we encounter in the physical world are imperfect examples of such unchanging absolutes as Goodness, Justice, Truth, and Beauty that exist in an ideal, nonspatial world. Plato also believed that the world of the Forms contains exemplars of such mathematical and geometrical entities as numbers and the perfect circle. The imperfect circles that we encounter in the physical world are copies of one perfect and eternal circle that we know through our minds. It would be a mistake to think that Plato believed these Forms exist only in people's minds. The point to his the- ory is that these Forms have an objective or extramental existence. They would exist even if no human being existed or were thinking of them. Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the other Forms existed before there were any human minds. Only when human minds focus on the Forms does genuine human knowledge become possible.

Forms are also universals in the sense that they can be in several or many things at the same time. For example, greenness is a property that can be in grass, a sweater, and a piece of broccoli at the same time .

7. The language about higher and lower worlds does not appear in Plato's writings. I use it because many students find it helpful.

Plato's Theory of Forms

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Significant human speech typically occurs in cases where the speaker or writer attributes some predicate to a subject. And so we can say that A (some particular human act) is just, B is just, Cis just, and so on. The predicate just is applied to many different particular examples. Such pred- icates can be called universal terms because the one word is applied uni- versally to a number of different particular subjects. Since the word red is applied to many particular things, it too is a universal term.

Plato explained this feature of human language by saying there is a universal redness (the Form of redness) that serves as a standard or a norm for all the particular examples and shades of red found in the phys- ical world. When we encounter something in our experience that exem- plifies universal terms like "round" or "red," we are justified in applying the universal term to that subject. We call things red or round when the subject in question has the property of redness or roundness.

Sometimes Plato wrote as though there were a Form, or an arche- type, for every class of object in the physical world. This would mean that the world of the Forms contains a perfect dog, a perfect horse, and a perfect human, along with the other Forms already noted. The possi- bility of a perfect horse or dog raised some difficult questions for Plato, and some interpreters think he abandoned this position late in life.

I n the study of philosophy, there are times when it helps to approach difficult issues from different perspectives. The material in this section illustrates such a procedure. I will use various examples to help the reader understand Plato's theory of the Forms. If an example is difficult to grasp, drop it and move on to another.

Definitions Versus Examples In many of his earlier writings, Plato is interested in finding the proper definition of such important terms as "justice," "piety," and "virtue." In the Euthyphro, Socrates asks the young Euthyphro to define the meaning of piety. Instead of providing a definition, Euthyphro offers examples of piety. A contemporary American in the same situation might provide such examples of piety in terms of going to church, reading the Bible, pray- ing, and being a good neighbor. Socrates replies that he did not ask for examples of pious deeds; he wants to know instead what all of those examples have in common.

The relevant difference can be illustrated by ten or so vertical lines connected by one horizontal line. The vertical lines stand for different examples of the concept; the horizontal line represents the essence com- mon to all of the examples. When he seeks a definition, Plato does not want examples (the vertical lines); he wants the common essence (the horizontal line) . This universal element sought in definitions is an antic-

PLATO

ipation of Plato's universal Form, or essence. During our lifetime, each of us will presumably come into contact with many instances of such con- cepts as justice. But in each instance, there will be one essential element without which the particular act would not be an example of justice.

Concept

I I I I I I I I I I of Justice

Just Acts

A Set (Class) Versus the Members of the Set One can also approach Plato's theoty of the Forms in terms of the differ- ence between a set or class versus the particular things that make up that set. In some writings Plato seems to teach that every class of objects in the physical world has an archetype or a perfect pattern existing in the immutable, eternal, and immaterial world of the Forms.8 Any class of objects can serve as an example. Consider the class or set of all dogs.9 Suppose we use a circle to represent that class. Then think of a number of specific dogs that may include different breeds. We will indicate these particular dogs by x's inside the circle. What enables us to group all of these different particular animals into the same class? After all, there are significant differences between a collie and a mixed breed. Particular things are grouped into the same class if they possess similar essential properties. Utilizing this distinction, we come to recognize the difference between the class or set of all dogs (our circle) and the countless number of particular dogs that are members of that class (the x's inside the circle).

The Class __ .., ... X of All Dogs

8. See book 10 of Plato's Republic. Plato recognized significant exceptions to this point. There are no perfect exemplars for such things as mud, hair, dirt, or cow dung. See the early pages of Plato's Parmenides.

9. Sometimes (as in book 10 of his Republic) Plato wrote as though there were a Form for every class of objects in the physical world.

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Suppose we concede that the Form of a dog exists. Obviously, the Form of a dog does not exist in the physical world of particular things. The perfect dog (the Form) is a way of referring to the set of essential properties shared by all specific members of the set. Some people refer to this essence under the term dogginess . According to Plato, when we see a particular dog, we recognize in that imperfect specimen something that reminds us of the perfect Form. Similarly, we can think about horsi- ness, catness, and treeness.

Hence the circle represents some class or set, in this case the set of all dogs. The class concept exists in the world of the Forms while the particular members of the class exist in the lower world of particular things.

Mathematical Entities As Plato's thought matured, he seems to have paid less attention to forms of physical objects. In fact, he sometimes seems to be embarrassed by his former talk about a perfect dog or horse. 10 Eventually, or so many think, this facet of his theory fades away. Of more permanent importance in his system is his belief in the existence of perfect standards of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, as well as the kinds of eternal entities that we encounter in mathematics, such as the number one and the perfect cir- cle. Plato believed that the disciplines of mathematics and geometry prove the need for and the existence of eternal, nonmaterial Forms. Suppose we focus on the apparently simple matter of a circle .

What is a circle? Consider the following examples.

B 88 While no knowledgeable person would ever confuse A, B, and C with

a perfect circle, it should be possible to see why such figures might be thought to resemble something we call circularity. I can imagine some- one saying, "Figure B isn't really a circle, but it's closer to being a circle than A is. " Such language implies that there is a concept of a perfect cir- cle all parties to the discussion are familiar with in some way and that

10. Some interpreters believe this embarassment shows up in the early pages of Plato's Parmenides. For a helpful discussion of this difficult dialogue, see Gordon H. Clark, Thales to Dewey, 2d ed. (Unicoi, Tenn.: The Trinity Foundation, 1989), 85-90.

PLATO

the members of the group recognize that B comes closer to that ideal (Form) than A does. They would also concede that Cis a better example than is B.

But now let us reflect a bit about D. Is it a circle? To see my point, consider the definition of a circle: A circle is an enclosed line every point on which is equidistant from a given fixed point that is its center. It fol- lows that no figure we might encounter in the physical world is or can be a circle. A perfect circle would have to be bounded by a line that has only length and no width. The reason is that if the line of our circle has any width, that line segment moving from one side to the other would contain an infinite number of points. From which of those points do we measure the distance to the center of the circle? Lines that have length but no width do not exist in the physical universe, in what we have been calling the lower world. Neither do the kinds of points discussed in geom- etry. It then follows that no real or perfect circle can exist in the physical world; hence none of us can encounter such a circle through our bodily senses. See the illustration below:

Whatever else may be true about the perfect circle, it must match our definition, namely, a line each point of which is equidistant from another point, the center. If there is no such thing as a perfect circle, any claim to the effect that some of our earlier examples like A, B, C, and D are better instances of circularity would be nonsense. Surely we do not want to pretend that two or more people can correctly have differing concepts of a perfect circle. We must never assent to a situation in which someone could say, "You have your idea of a perfect circle and I have mine." If there is a perfect circle, and there must be, it can exist only in a different kind of reality, a world of eternal and unchanging essences, a world that can be apprehended only by the mind, a world in which lines can have length and no width. The so-called circles that we encounter in our every- day experience can be only copies or imitations of a perfect circle that exists in another world. The circles that we encounter in the physical world are but representations of perfect, ideal entities existing in some other sphere of existence.

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I don't wish to suggest that Plato's kind of reasoning cannot be chal- lenged. It would be interesting to see if any challenge can be successful. As much as I might like to fill in some additional gaps in the Platonist's argument for the existence of the petfect circle, constraints upon the length of this book oblige me to leave the matter where it is and move on.

In the instance of circles, the real object of human thought is not the imperfect circles that appear on a blackboard or in a textbook. As Plato sees it, the true object of our reflection about circles is the ideal, perfect circle grasped by the mind. The imitations of circularity we encounter in this world of material, particular things cannot satisfy the definition of a circle. Unless there were an ideal circle that we already knew in some way, our concept or thought of a circle would be vacuous; it would have no referent. And since the perfect circle cannot exist in the physical world, 11 since it must exist somewhere, and since things exist in either the lower world or the higher world, the perfect circle must exist in the world of the Forms.

Other Forms There is another class of Forms composed of normative ideals such as Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and Justice. For example, we apply the word good to many particular human acts. What grounds judgments such as these? Plato's answer is that we already have an idea of the Form or stan- dard of Goodness in our minds. As we go through life we see acts con- forming to the norm, and we judge human behavior in light of the standard.

A Summary For Plato, a Form is an eternal, unchangeable, and universal essence. The Forms are archetypes or ideal patterns in the sense that the particular things that exist in the physical world imitate or copy them. An essence is the set of essential properties without which a particular thing like this squirrel or that tree would not exist as a squirrel or a tree. The Forms embody the essence that marks the similarities among members of a class and enables us to group them into a set or class.

Forms can never change. Equality itself (that is, the concept or stan- dard of equality) can never change. If it ever did, Plato teaches, it would become inequality. The concept of oneness can never become twoness.

The Forms are also eternal. They existed before the physical world came into existence. They would continue to exist even if everything in the physical universe, the lower world, ceased to exist. Truth, Goodness,

11. Remember that the line marking the perimeter of the circle must have length but no width.

PLATO

and Justice are eternal, timeless entities that do not depend for their exis- tence upon the particular things that exist in this world.

Two errors common to beginning students of philosophy must be avoided. The first mistake is to assume that the physical world is more real than is the ideal world of the Forms. For Plato, the situation is the reverse . Just as the shadow cast by a tree is less real than the tree, so the physical world, which is only a reflection of the ideal world, must be less real than the world of the Forms.

The second error is to think that Plato viewed these Forms as exist- ing only in people's minds . The whole point to his theory is that these essences have an objective existence. They would exist even if no human being were thinking of them. Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the other Forms existed before there were any human minds. It does not follow, however, that the Forms exist independent of all minds. Many of Plato's followers have maintained that the eternal Forms exist as thoughts in the eternal mind of God. While Plato never entertained this possibility, Plot- inus and Augustine did.12

Humans live in two different worlds : the world of many particular things that are constantly changing and that are apprehended through our bodily senses plus a perfect, unchanging, and timeless world known through our minds.

Erpistemology is the technical name for the branch of philosophy that studies human knowledge. The first thing to note about Plato's epis- temology is the intrinsic connection that exists between being (what is real) and knowing. How humans know is related to what is . We have already seen that for Plato there are two distinct kinds of reality: the world of particular things and the world of the Forms. Corresponding to these two kinds of reality are two distinct epistemological states: opinion and knowledge .

In order for a human being to have genuine knowledge (as opposed to some other epistemological state, such as a belief or an opinion), the object of that knowledge must be unchanging. One can have knowledge only of that which is unchanging. But Plato believed that immutability (unchangeability) is an exclusive property of the Forms. Every particular thing existing in the physical world constantly undergoes change. Since our bodily senses provide only an awareness of the changing particular things in the physical world, it follows for Plato that our senses can never give us knowledge. If the only possible objects of knowledge are the unchanging Forms and if the only way to apprehend the Forms is through our reason, it follows that knowledge must be a function of our minds.