Plato’s Philosophy and Influence
Influences
Presocratics
Heraclitus:
Everything changes = sensible world.
Parmenides:
Importance of reason, identification between thinking and being, division of the world into two, distrust of the senses to grasp the truth, skeptical ideas = unity.
Zeno:
Importance of rational discussion and dialectic.
Pythagoreans:
Interest in mathematical knowledge, theory of the immortality of the soul.
Anaxagoras:
Nous = Demiurge, ordering intelligence.
Sophists:
Interest in human and political ethics and the importance of education. Use of language as a critical weapon, and relativistic and skeptical stance.
Socrates:
Most important influence. Interest in universal concepts (especially morals), pursuit of knowledge through definition, importance of dialogue, Socratic method (Irony, Mayeutica and universal concept).
Impact
Academia:
Plato’s school and doctrine.
Aristotle:
Criticized his teacher for dividing the world into two and for explaining realities with ideas.
Neoplatonists:
Heirs of Plato’s mystical ideas, hierarchization of ideas, Idea of the Good = The One.
St. Augustine:
Synthesis of Plato’s theory (not purely through Neoplatonism) + Christianity.
St. Thomas Aquinas:
Derivation of St. Augustine, influenced by Neoplatonism, drawing on Plato’s ideas for his ethical and political conception.
Renaissance Utopias (Thomas More):
Political state that cannot be achieved, regulates the just and unjust.
Rationalists (Descartes):
Design of the mathematical universe, division of the world into res extensa and res cogitans.
Transcendental Idealism (Kant):
Three noumena (transcendental ideas), heir to Plato’s classification of ideas, Kantian ethics.
Marx and Nietzsche (in opposition):
Criticized Plato and Socrates, believing their thought led to the decay of Western civilization by betraying life to create a sensible world. They opposed dividing the world into two and the body-soul dualism.
Ortega y Gasset:
Society should be led by the intellectually best prepared, representing a Platonic ideal.
Existentialism (Sartre):
Criticizes the idea of an essential human nature, arguing that man is not born with any essence.
Karl Popper:
Recovered the Platonic world in his ontology. This brings us to the current situation, where a Platonic conception of reason based on the search for universal values is relevant.
Plato’s Theory of Knowledge
Types of Knowledge:
Doxa (Opinion):
Based on the senses.
Episteme (Knowledge):
Based on ideas.
Levels of Knowledge:
- Eikasia (Imagination): Belief or direct knowledge of sensible things.
- Pistis (Belief): Knowledge of sensible things through images and reflections.
- Dianoia (Discursive Thought): Mathematical knowledge, supported by reason.
- Noesis (Intelligence): Knowledge of Ideas, up to the Idea of the Good, achieved through reason and dialectic.
Dialectical Method:
Use of questions and dialogue to seek answers through the truth of the word. Its goal is to ascend to the Idea of the Good. It causes memory or reminiscence, which allows the soul to ascend and achieve knowledge.
Reminiscence:
Man can climb the levels of knowledge through remembering. Remembering presupposes the existence of the soul. If a man dies and his soul reaches the Idea of the Good, it returns; if not, it is reincarnated into a lower being.
Eros:
Dialectical and related to reminiscence. We know what we desire and love.