Plato

by Roy Jackson

  The role of reason

  How are we to attain this knowledge of the Forms? Plato was a rationalist. He believed that you cannot rely upon the senses for your knowledge and that, ultimately, the power of reason is the key to knowledge. Many more recent philosophers, known as empiricists, argue that all of our knowledge comes from experience of the world (see also ‘empirical method’ in Chapter 1). That is, we only know that 2 + 2 = 4, for example, because we have experience of adding up these objects. Plato, however, believed that this knowledge is something we can know merely by using our reason, without reference to the outside world.

  For Plato, therefore, reason plays a crucial role in the acquisition of knowledge and is an essential part of his political and educational agenda. When Plato spoke of the Forms residing in the soul of each man, he also perceived the soul as the seat of the intellect.

  The soul

  Plato, along with his student Aristotle, had a massive impact on Christian theology. For Plato this is perhaps most prevalent in both his concept of a ‘divine’ realm of immutable Forms, and in his dualist approach to the body and soul. Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament contains a belief in such a dualism; a separation between the material body and an immaterial soul. The Creeds (statements of faith used in Christian liturgy) explicitly state a belief in the resurrection of the body, although St Paul considers this a ‘spiritual body’. In the early centuries of the Church, Christian theology employed the ideas of Plato in its doctrine, and only then did the idea of an immaterial soul come about.

  The Greek work psyche suffers somewhat in translation, and perhaps ‘soul’ is not the best rendition because of the specifically religious connotations that have come down to us. A better translation might be something like ‘life-principle’. However, as ‘soul’ is the common usage, it will be used here.

  Our main source for Plato’s views on the soul can be found in his work the Phaedo. In this dialogue Socrates is in conversation with some friends in his prison shortly before his execution. On such an occasion, it is not surprising that Socrates speculates upon the nature of life after death, and the belief in an eternal soul. As with all of Plato’s works, we need to be careful as to how much these views can be accredited to Socrates, especially as Plato himself was not actually present on this occasion.

  PREPARING FOR DEATH

  In Phaedo, the character of Socrates explains that the true philosopher should look forward to death and that they should ready themselves for dying. Like the whole of Plato’s philosophy, his views on life after death are interlinked with his belief in the eternal Realm of the Forms. As this world is transient and unreal, the philosopher should surely wish to escape the distractions of the body and the world around him so that he can dwell in this realm of pure thought.

  The body is seen, then, as a hindrance, a distraction; the desire for food, sensuous satisfaction, illness and so on, are all weaknesses that get in the way of the mental pursuit for truth. The philosopher, in order to attain knowledge of the Forms, is in a constant battle with the world of the senses, and must continually engage in a process of what Plato described as katharsis.

  The philosophy of Woody Allen

  The comedian and filmmaker Woody Allen has quite a lot to say on knowledge and death. For example: ‘Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know?’ (The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose, Random House 2007). Or, ‘My relationship with death remains the same. I’m strongly against it.’ (Vanity Fair, 15 May 2010)

  • Katharsis

  The Greek word katharsis has come down to us as the English catharsis, which usually means to relieve an emotional or neurotic condition by relating a traumatic experience that has been repressed. It is used even more commonly when people talk of reading a book, seeing a film or listening to music that they find to be ‘cathartic’, that is, it allows them to let go of suppressed feelings and emotions.

  Katharsis, for Plato, was also a form of purification. Plato was deeply influenced by the mystic group known as the Pythagoreans, who practised a form of regular purification of the body by using types of herbal medicines, fasting, and the practice of music, dance and song.

  It is certainly not uncommon today, even in the secular world, for people to feel the need for an occasional purification, even if it is simply taking a day out from eating now and then. Among most religious traditions, forms of purification – most especially through lengthy periods of fasting – are common practice, and are a means of getting more in touch with the ‘spiritual’ side of one’s being, rather than being pre-occupied with bodily needs. More extreme forms of self-purification can involve a degree of self-mutilation, for example in cases of flagellation as a form of religious discipline and penance.

  By means of various austere practices the philosopher can become aware of the delusion of material gain and sensuous pleasures and instead be close to the Truth, which, in effect, is close to death. In death, the soul is released from the body and so is no longer subject to its distractions. In such a case, Plato argues, why should the philosopher fear death?

  THE NATURE OF THE SOUL

  The soul, Plato believes, is eternal. At the death of the body the soul continues in a disembodied existence as pure intellect. Plato makes clear links between the concept of the soul and the intellect here. The soul is actually possessed of intelligence as it resides within the Realm of the Forms. Therefore, when the soul enters the body, so does intelligence. Education, therefore, is not acquiring new knowledge, but recollecting what the soul possesses already. To attain knowledge you need to look within your own soul.

  REINCARNATION

  Plato also believed that the soul, once freed from the body, is weighed down by the corruption of the sensual world. If the person who dies has lived an immoral life, then the soul will be reborn into a vice-ridden existence. Drunkards and greedy people are reborn as asses, while tyrants will be reborn as birds of prey. However, if you have lived a virtuous life you may be reborn as a better human being. This idea would have seemed curiously foreign to many Greeks, and resembles more the Hindu concept of rebirth.

  THE THREE PARTS OF THE SOUL

  In another of Plato’s dialogues, Phaedrus, Socrates is talking to a young man called Phaedrus while sitting under a tree in the countryside. Socrates is talking on the nature of the soul. The soul is immortal, with no beginning and no end. Further, it is immortal because the ever-moving is immortal. This description of the soul as ‘ever-moving’, as something that is also moved by its own accord and not by something else, is a property that is not mentioned in the Phaedo. However, remembering that the soul is perhaps best translated as ‘life-principle’, it would make more sense for the Greek mind to conceive of the soul, the psyche, as containing movement as one of its properties, for all life is in motion.

  In a famous image, Socrates presents a simile to describe the soul’s nature:

  • Imagine the soul to be a chariot with a charioteer and two winged horses; one white and one black.

  • The charioteer and the two horses together represent the three parts of the soul.

  • The charioteer represents the rational part of the soul.

  • The white horse represents spirit and energy.

  • The black horse represents the appetites.

  Leaving aside whether to believe that there is an actual soul or not, Plato does present an interesting view of psychology – as a struggle between the various elements of the psyche. As an example of how these three parts might interrelate, imagine you have a craving for a cigarette. This is your appetite, the ‘black horse’, talking, and it would be a simple matter to give in to the craving and have a cigarette. Yet your reason, your charioteer, tells you that it is bad for your health, one cigarette will lead to another, and so on. Reason alone, however, is insufficient to stop you from having the cigarette, what is also needed is courage and spirit, the white horse, to prevent you from doing so. Hence, if reason along with spirit work together and rule over
the appetites you will not have that cigarette!

  PLATONIC LOVE

  The significance of winged horses is that it is the natural tendency of the soul to strive upwards, towards the Realm of the Forms. In his later dialogue, the Symposium, the soul is not only controlled by the intellect, but is driven by desire, by the god of love, Eros, to unite with the eternal realm. However, the soul is trapped, imprisoned within the physical body. The black horse, of course, strives to move downward, while the white horse to fly upward. When the soul becomes entrapped within a body, its wings are destroyed. Socrates describes how true love helps these wings to grow once more, and therefore to be released. It is the natural state of the soul to gaze upon the forms of justice and beauty. When we gaze upon a beautiful object we are, therefore, ‘recollecting’ the pre-existence of our souls within the Realm of the Forms. The soul, therefore, is also the seat of love.

  Plato’s Eros is the soul’s impulse towards the Form of the Good. At the lowest level, this manifests itself in our desires for a beautiful person and our wish for immortality by having children with that person. At a higher level, love involves a spiritual union which leads to good within a social sense. However, the highest kind of love is the love of wisdom, of philosophy which, ultimately, can lead to the vision of the Form of the Good itself.

  What is interesting here is the move away from the emphasis on reason and intellect for the soul’s escape to the later work that emphasizes love as a way for the soul to grow and escape the world of the senses. In his middle period, Plato believed that the appetites were dangerous and needed to be controlled by reason, whereas in later life he gives the sensuous pleasures freer reign. However, Plato is keen to point out that the highest form of love, Platonic love, is to get away from pure sensual pleasure and to ascend to the blissful vision of Beauty itself. Plato argued that the power of Beauty is its ability to cause us to recollect the Realm of the Forms from which our soul has descended into the body. This particular interpretation was developed especially by the mystical elements of religious traditions with the emphasis on a love and union with God.

  The Cosmic Soul

  In Republic, Socrates makes reference to the ‘maker of the heavens’, and it is unsure what he means by this. What is the relationship between the Realm of the Forms, the gods, and the world of the senses? Is there a Creator God and did this God also create the Forms?

  In Plato’s later work, the Timaeus (see Chapter 11 for much more on this), Plato describes the whole universe as a living entity that has both body and soul. The Cosmic Soul rules the universe, including the gods such as Zeus. However, this Cosmic Soul was itself created by the ‘Demiurge’, a Divine Craftsman that created the whole universe using the eternal Forms as its model. This notion of a Craftsman goes back to what was said earlier in this chapter concerning Plato’s fascination with techne, with the crafts, so that even the universe is crafted and, also, like all products of the craftsman, has a function.

  This Demiurge exists, therefore, separately from the Forms, but is also separate from the Cosmic Soul. The Demiurge, rather, created the universe in its own image, but it is lesser than the Forms because, like human beings, it is contained within a ‘body’. Therefore, the Forms act as the perfect model for the Demiurge to create the universe. Whereas the Forms are perfect, eternal and unchangeable, the universe, since it is made of matter, is imperfect, temporal and changeable.

  Imagine a sculptor who wishes to create a statue of a beautiful person, but, as he is limited by his materials, creates something that can give the appearance of the beautiful person, but inevitably is a poorer image of the original. Nonetheless, it is possible to look within the sculpture and see the beauty within it. Here you perceive the true Form of the beautiful person, rather than its image, its ‘shadow’.

  Christian doctrine, of course, could not accept the belief in Forms that were separate from God, because then God would not be the creator of everything. Rather the Forms become ideas within the mind of God, who then creates the universe from these ideas.

  Key terms

  Cartesian Doubt: Named after René Descartes, who engaged in a philosophical method of doubt to determine what we can know with certainty.

  Catharsis: To relieve emotional or neurotic condition by means of relating a traumatic experience that has been suppressed.

  Dualism: Dualism is a belief that there are two separate entities: a body and a soul.

  Empiricism: Empiricism is the belief that all our knowledge comes from our senses, from our experience of the world.

  Epistemology: Also known as the ‘theory of knowledge’, a branch of philosophy that examines what we can know and how we can know. Comes from the Greek word episteme.

  Ergon: Greek for ‘function’; it is what something does or what it is intended for.

  Eros: In Greek mythology, the god of love.

  Rationalism: Rationalism is the belief we can use the power of reason alone to acquire knowledge.

  Solipsism: The belief that we cannot know whether other minds or an external world really exists.

  Techne: Greek for ‘craft’ or ‘skill’.

  Dig deeper

  Clarke, D. M. (trans.) (2000), René Descartes: Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. London: Penguin Classics.

  Martin, R. M. (2010), Epistemology: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Oneworld Publications.

  Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2004), Plato: Theaetetus. London: Penguin.

  Fact check

  1 Who said, ‘Man is the measure of all things’?

  a Pythagoras

  b Plutarch

  c Plato

  d Protagoras

  2 What is epistemology?

  a The study of knowledge

  b The study of morality

  c The study of political systems

  d The study of mathematics

  3 Who saw the world as in a constant state of flux?

  a Parmenides

  b Heraclitus

  c Theaetetus

  d Democritus

  4 What is the meaning of katharsis?

  a A method to help you remember things

  b A healing drug

  c A form of poison

  d A form of purification

  5 What does the word ‘philosopher’ originally mean?

  a Wisdom-lovers

  b Sight-lovers

  c Nature-lovers

  d Music-lovers

  6 What kind of knowledge would you be tested on in a general knowledge quiz?

  a ‘knowing that’

  b ‘knowing of’

  c ‘knowing how’

  d ‘knowing when’

  7 What is the Greek word for ‘function’?

  a techne

  b episteme

  c ergon

  d zygon

  8 Which one of the following describes an empiricist?

  a Someone who believes you cannot rely upon your senses for the foundation of knowledge

  b Someone who believes that our experience of the world forms the basis for our knowledge

  c Someone who believes that knowledge comes from God

  d Someone who believes that knowledge is a permanent and absolute thing

  9 What is philosophical dualism?

  a A belief that the universe was created by two gods

  b A belief that humans were split into two halves when they were created

  c A belief in a separation between the material body and an immaterial soul

  d A belief in a heaven and a hell

  10 Who is the Greek god of love?

  a Cupid

  b Psyche

  c Kamadeva

  d Eros

  6

  How are we to live?

  In the previous chapter we looked at Plato’s theory of knowledge: what can we know for certain and how might we come about this knowledge. Key to this is Plato’s Theory (if we can really call it a ‘theory’) of the Forms which, as we saw, relates to his view on the s
oul and the afterlife. But Plato’s Theory of the Forms and his views on the concept of the soul have important implications for his political and educational philosophy. His work, Republic, represents Plato at his peak and it is important as it incorporates all of his views in a comprehensive system.

  It is very easy to isolate one aspect of his political philosophy without appreciating how it connects to his views on epistemology, morality, and so on. This would be a mistake, and it has caused many critics to declare Plato as totalitarian, anti-liberal and elitist. To an extent these criticisms are justifiable, but should be tempered by considering the age Plato lived in as well as his genuine concern for the welfare of his beloved state. It should also be stressed that Plato placed great importance on the practicality of his political theory only if it is actually possible to access the Realm of the Forms, especially the Form of the Good. This by no means excuses him, but it should help to understand him.

  What is so special about Republic? What sets it apart from other philosophical works? Republic is one of the world’s greatest works of philosophy and literature. It is Plato’s magnum opus and it set the standards and boundaries for future Western philosophy. It is the first major work of political philosophy and presents a comprehensive and radical theory of the state that views the role of the state as not merely an agent of control, but as an agent of virtue. The state is an educational tool to nurture, nourish and develop individual behaviour. In this respect, Plato had great faith in the ability of the state to wield its power wisely. However, Republic is more than just a political theory, for it is also very personal. The individual is an indelible part of the state; the two cannot be separated.

  Justice

  In presenting his political agenda, Plato is also concerned with the personal lives of individuals. At the very beginning of Republic, the character of Socrates asks: ‘What is justice?’ But the word ‘justice’ is a somewhat unsatisfactory translation of the Greek word dikaiosune. The word covers both individual and social morality, and so the concern is with the right way to live both for the individual and the community. By asking what is justice, Socrates wants to address the broader question of duties and obligations, of the individual’s role in society. These are profound and important questions that are as relevant today as they were in Plato’s time. Why should I be good? What do I owe the state, and what does the state owe me? What is the meaning of right conduct? In Republic, the political and personal are merged, for the individual mind is ultimately shaped through the political system. Plato is only too aware of how powerful the environment is in moulding individuals.