Plato’s Philosophy: Ideas, Soul, and the Cosmos

Posted on Dec 11, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Plato

A disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato became interested in politics, the origin of the cosmos, the origin of man, and his destiny after death. Plato’s work is preserved almost completely, written in dialogue form and with Socrates as the main interlocutor. The dictatorship of the Thirty Tyrants, Socrates, and living with his unjust death sentence changed the course of his life. In Athens, he founded a school called ‘The Academy,’ the first European university, due to the multiple studies that were pursued.

Plato thought that rulers should be philosophers. He grew up during the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens lost all sense of balanced justice. From this war and the death of Socrates, Plato became interested in finding out:

  • Metaphysical problem: What is reality?
  • Solution: Theory of Ideas.
  • Cosmological problem: What is the origin of the cosmos?
  • Solution: Ideas, Matter, the Demiurge.
  • Epistemological problem: How to reach the truth?
  • Solution: Theory of reminiscence.
  • Anthropological problem: What is man?
  • Solution: Soul-body dualism.
  • Ethical problem: How does one act well?
  • Solution: Virtue and harmony within the soul.
  • Political problem: How to organize a just society?
  • Solution: Harmony between social classes and the government of philosophers.

Theory of Ideas

For Plato, “idea” means intuition of being. Only the permanent allows one to find the truth, namely, in the intelligible world. There exists a mold or immaterial idea (form) which is the cause of all individuals where it can materialize without merging with them. The eternal are the intangible ideas whose image is copied into the physical world.

Ideas

  • Metaphysical causes of the physical world.
  • Immaterial and subsistent models.
  • Physical causes do not explain everything.

Two planes of being

  • Phenomenal and visible, grasped by the senses.
  • Intelligible, grasped with the mind.

The ideas are the true reality, called by Plato the “world of ideas.” Its properties are:

  • Immutability (never change).
  • Timelessness, eternity.
  • Uniqueness (no two equal ideas).
  • If material beings are imperfect copies, ideas are perfect models.
  • Intelligibility (they can only be known by reason, not by the senses).
  • Uniformity.
  • Transcendence.

After reviewing the theory several times, Plato stated that ideas must be linked and nested together, forming a kind of pyramid at whose apex is the supreme idea: Good. There are as many ideas as there are different realities in the world of sense since it is made in the likeness of ideas.

Sensible World (Material Entities)

  • The physical world is in constant flux.
  • Preexisting matter, chaotic, disordered.
  • Heterogeneous.
  • Multiple.
  • Has been engendered.

Three realities

  • The world of ideas.
  • The world of sense.
  • Empty space (container or receptacle of the sensible world, which makes movement possible. It is neither sensible nor intelligible).

The sensible world is formed from four causes:

  • Empty space.
  • Chaotic and formless matter.
  • Ideal models: ideas.
  • A Supreme Demiurge or Artificer: a good god that turns chaos into cosmos, modeling amorphous matter after ideas. It is also eternal.

The imperfection contained in the physical world should not be attributed to the Demiurge but to the resistance of the material to being molded. This theory is known as “metaphysical optimism.” Plato thought that the Demiurge modeled particulate matter in the form of geometric shapes.

Several Theses on Human Beings

  • Human reality is the union of two real elements, soul and body.
  • The soul is divine, immortal, and existed before the body.
  • The body is mortal and impure, a prison and tomb of the soul.
  • The fate of the body is death and corruption, but the soul endures after death.
  • The destiny of souls is not equal for all: they receive rewards or punishments, according to their works in this world.
  • If life has been virtuous, death is more desirable than feared.
  • The human being is the soul; the body is a burden that drags the soul down due to an ancient punishment. This punishment was because man, initially with a sound and comprehensive nature, upset by his “grandiose ideas,” tried to confront the gods, losing his first integrity. This punishment is hereditary.
  • The soul-body union is accidental and temporary.
  • Souls are eternal and immortal.
  • Man has three souls or three parts of the soul:
    • Rational.
    • Irascible.
    • Concupiscent.

This explains man’s inner struggle between reason and the desire for pleasure, responsible for our bad actions. The body is the root of all evil. If the soul is reincarnated in purified, it achieves increasingly perfect bodies, and when the cleansing is complete, it returns to the world of ideas. If not purified, it will be reincarnated in worse bodies, even in animal bodies. (Theory of reincarnation, metempsychosis). The soul knew ideas before incarnating, then following his punishment, he forgot them, but as the sensible world is a copy of the world of ideas, it provides an opportunity to slowly and with effort, occurring in the soul of reminiscence (anamnesis, knowing is a reminder) of what is already known.