His original name was Aristokles, but later he was renamed Plato because of his strong body and broad forehead (in Greek, Platus means "flat and broad"). Ranked fourth in the family. Plato was nicknamed by his PE teacher.
He was born in Athens, and after his parents were noble families, he received a complete education from an early age. He loved literature in his early years, wrote poems and tragedies, and was interested in politics. After associating with Socrates around the age of 20, I became fascinated with philosophical research. In 399 BC, Socrates was tried and sentenced to death, which made him completely disappointed with the existing regime, so he left Athens and traveled to Egypt, Sicily and other places for more than ten years.
In 387 BC, Plato returned to Athens and established his own school-Academie (or Academie) near a garden and sports ground in the northwest corner of the city to commemorate the Greek hero Akkadem. The name of the college is related to the address of the college, and the location of the college is related to the legendary Greek Heroes College, hence the name. This is the earliest institution of higher learning in the West, hence the name of the later Academy, which is the predecessor of the universities developed in the Middle Ages in the West. The college existed for more than 900 years until it was closed by Justinian the Great in 529 AD. The college is greatly influenced by Pythagoras, and its curriculum is similar to the traditional topics of Pythagoras school, including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and acoustics.
In 367 BC, Plato traveled again. At this time, the college has been established for more than 20 years. He went to Sicily twice in an attempt to realize his political ambitions and put his ideas into practice, but both were forced into exile. In 360 BC, he returned to Athens and continued to give lectures and write in the college. Until 347 BC, Plato died at the age of 80.
Plato was quick-thinking, widely read and wrote a lot. There are more than 40 works handed down in his name, 13. Plato's main philosophical thoughts are recorded in the form of dialogue. In Plato's dialogues, there are many dialogues in the name of Socrates, so it is difficult to distinguish Socrates' thoughts from Plato's. After painstaking and meticulous research by later scholars, 24 letters and 4 letters were identified as original works, mainly including:
Socrates' defense
Granular tablet
republic
Parmenides of Elea
Drinking supplies
Fedo
Feiderou tablets
Minot tablets
Timeo's chapter
Clerides
"Protect Gora"
"gorgias"
sage
politician
Philipp's chapter
Legal chapter
Plato's works are mostly written in dialogue genre, with vivid characters, vivid and interesting scenes, beautiful and gorgeous language, rigorous and meticulous argumentation and rich and profound content, which realizes the high unity of philosophy and literature, logic and rhetoric, and has extremely important significance and value in both philosophy and literature.
2. Plato's thoughts
Plato believes that any philosophy must include a theory about nature and the universe if it is universal. Plato tried to grasp the eternal truth about the individual and nature, so he developed a natural philosophy that was suitable for and subject to his political and theological views.
Plato believes that tangible things in nature are fluid, but the "form" or "idea" that constitutes these tangible things is eternal. Plato pointed out that when we say "horse", we don't mean any horse, but any kind of horse. The meaning of "horse" itself is independent of all kinds of horses ("tangible"). It does not exist in time and space, so it is eternal. But a concrete and tangible horse that exists in the sensory world is "moving", will die and rot. This can be used as a preliminary explanation of Plato's theory of ideas.
Plato believes that we can't really understand those changing and flowing things. We only have opinions or opinions about them. The only thing we can really understand is the "form" or "concept" that we can understand with reason. So Plato thinks that knowledge is fixed and certain, and there can be no wrong knowledge. But the view may be wrong.
In Plato's Republic, there is a famous cave metaphor to explain idealism: a group of prisoners are in a cave, their hands and feet tied, and their bodies can't turn, so they can only turn their backs to the hole. There is a white wall in front of them and a fire burning behind them. On that white wall, they saw their own shadow and something between them and the fire. Because they can't see anything else, prisoners will think that shadows are real things. Finally, a man broke free from the shackles and groped his way out of the hole. He saw the real thing for the first time. He went back to the cave, trying to explain to others that those shadows are just illusory things and show them the bright way. But for those prisoners, this man seems to be more stupid than before he escaped, declaring to him that there is nothing in this world except the shadow on the wall.
Plato used this story to tell us that "form" is actually something real in the sun, and all our sensory world can feel is the shadow on the white wall. Compared with the bright world of reason, our nature is dark and monotonous. People who don't understand philosophy can only see those shadows, and philosophers see external things in the sunshine of truth.
Plato's Republic also depicts an ideal utopia for us. Plato believed that countries should be ruled by philosophers. Citizens in Plato's Republic are divided into three categories: patriots, soldiers and ordinary people. The defenders of the country are a few elites who manage the country. It can be inherited, but outstanding children of other classes can also be cultivated into patriots, and the descendants of patriots may also be reduced to the ordinary class. The task of defending the country is to supervise the formulation and implementation of the code. Plato has a complete set of theories to achieve this goal. His utopia requires everyone to have his special function in society to meet the overall needs of society. But in this country, women and men have the same rights, and men and women are completely equal. When it is in the public interest, the government can lie. Everyone should do his own thing and should not disturb others. Today, Plato's utopia is a terrible totalitarian country. But "the ideal country is actually the view of scientists who manage the country in the right way", Plato himself did not try to realize the state machine in the ideal country.
Plato pointed out in the Law that a "constitutional state" is the best country after an ideal country. He also pointed out in the book that women and men should receive the same respect and training.
Plato tried to make astronomy a branch of mathematics. He believes: "Astronomy, like geometry, can be studied by asking questions and solving problems, regardless of celestial boundaries." Plato believed that the beginning of the universe was an indistinguishable chaos. This chaotic development is the result of the activities of supernatural gods. Plato believes that the most important feature of the universe from chaos to order is that the creator has made a rational plan for the world; The mechanical process of putting this scheme into practice is a natural event.
Plato's cosmology is basically a mathematical cosmology. He imagined that there were two kinds of right-angled triangles at the beginning of the universe, one was half of a square and the other was half of an equilateral triangle. From these triangles, four kinds of regular polyhedrons are reasonably produced, which constitute particles of four elements. Fire particles are regular tetrahedrons, gas particles are regular octahedrons, water particles are regular icosahedrons, and soil particles are cubes. The fifth regular polyhedron is a dodecahedron formed by a regular pentagon, and it is the fifth element that constitutes the matter in the sky, called ether. The whole universe is a sphere, because the sphere is symmetrical and perfect, and any point on the sphere is the same. The universe is also alive and moving, and a soul fills all the spaces. The motion of the universe is circular, because circular motion is the most perfect and does not need hands or feet to push it. The quantities of the four elements in the universe are as follows: the ratio of fire to gas is equal to the ratio of gas to water, and the ratio of water to soil. Everything can be named by a number, which is the proportion of the elements they contain.
3. Plato's position in the West
In the west, Plato received more respect and attention than his student Aristotle. Because his works are the basic documents of western culture. Among the schools of western philosophy, it is difficult to find one that has not absorbed his works. In later philosophers and Christian theology, Plato's thought maintained great radiation. Some historians of philosophy believe that it was not until modern times that western philosophy gradually got rid of the control of Plato's thought.
12 centuries ago, Aristotle's theory was rejected by the Vatican, and even Aristotle's works were no longer circulated in Europe. Plato's theory was dominant at that time, because St. Augustine borrowed and transformed Plato's thought and served theological doctrine. Until13rd century, Thomas Aquinas explained religious teachings with Aristotle's theory and established a complicated and huge scholasticism. Aristotle was re-valued.
4. Platonic love, also known as Platonic love, is a spiritual love between the opposite sex named after Plato, a western philosopher, who pursues spiritual communication and rejects sensuality. It was first put forward by Marsilio Ficino in15th century. As a synonym of Socrates' love, it is used to refer to the love relationship between Socrates and students.
Plato believes that when the mind abandons the body and yearns for the truth, then thought is the best. When the soul is infected by the sins of the body, people's desire for truth will not be satisfied. When human beings have no strong demand for sensuality, their mood is peaceful. Carnal desire is the expression of animal nature in human nature, and it is also the nature of every creature. People are so-called higher animals because human nature is stronger than animal nature, and spiritual communication is beautiful and moral.