Plato’s Philosophy: Key Concepts and Ideas
Conditions
They are the four activities of the soul or levels of knowledge: two below conjecture or imagination (eikasía) and belief (pistis). Neither leads to truth, but rather to opinion, because their level of reality is the visible and physical. The two superior activities are intelligence (nous) and discursive thought (dianoia). These lead to truth itself.
Soul
Man is a dual creature, who participates in both the world of the senses (the perishable) and the world of Ideas (the eternal and immutable). Plato believed that the soul of every man existed in the realm of Ideas before incarnation. Once inside the body, the soul only vaguely remembers the Ideas. The things of this world remind us of Ideas. This memory awakens in the soul a desire to return to its true home. The body and the world of the senses are seen as imperfect and insignificant. The soul longs to break free from the chains of the body, as this connection is accidental and temporary. Given this, the philosopher must go against the majority of people, who cling to imperfect images and the mutable and corruptible. Only a few people are able to rise to the contemplation of Ideas: those elected are the philosophers. Philosophers, in addition to all these qualities, should be less concerned about material goods. The soul is a dynamic entity or force that has a tripartite nature.
Analogy/Similar
It is a similarity between things. Establishing a similarity empowers reasoning. The Idea of the Good has the Platonic expression of the sun. The sun is to the sensible world as the Idea of the Good is to the intelligible world.
Artisan
The Platonic Demiurge is a god or creator who does not create the world out of nothing, but makes it on the basis of an Idea, acting on matter that he has not made.
Good
In uppercase, it refers to the Idea of the Good. In lowercase, it refers to the good actions of sentient beings and has a moral sense.
Chains
It is an image from the allegory or myth of the cave. It is an attribute of the prisoners. The man chained inside the cave symbolizes the original human condition: ignorant and deceived. The inner world is the world of things.
Science (Episteme)
True knowledge is universal and necessary. It is the true, rational knowledge of the ideal or intelligible world.
Cognoscible
Plato applies it to intelligible beings, the science that can be compared with those who are sensitive can have an opinion.
Conjecture
Judgment is formed of a thing through signs and observations.
Belief (pistis)
It is having certainty about something that cannot be proven through understanding. In Plato, it is the highest form of opinion (doxa). It is not knowledge because its perceptions are sensitive and material.
Dialectic
The way to rise to truth or the rational process (discourse) which allows a progressive increase towards the understanding of the Ideas above. This method, somewhat inherited from Socrates, facilitates looking directly towards the Idea to reach the truth: the contemplation of the pure form of each thing, from which each of the things derives its reality and meaning in general. (In the book, page 47, it is defined.)
Education
It is the passage from ignorance to knowledge (supreme study). In the Platonic state, it is of great importance, since according to the most Socratic idea, “virtue is knowledge” (moral intellectualism). Education will significantly improve citizens through a process of instruction that has two levels. Primarily, all citizens are educated through gymnastics and music. A second tier, reserved for future governors, involves studying mathematics and dialectic.
In itself
Being itself is a trait that is opposed to being in another. Intelligible beings are beings “in themselves” because they are everything that their being allows them to be. They have no limitations, unlike us “different” beings that are material and mutable. It applies to beauty “in itself,” justice “itself,” the truth “in itself,” etc., which have the status of Ideas.
Essence
It is what makes a thing what it is. It is a way of being consistent and permanent. The essence of a thing is what a thing is in spite of changes in status or appearance.
State
It is the political organization whose purpose is to promote virtue and justice both individually and socially. It has a tripartite structure, corresponding to the soul. It is divided into social groups: producers (farmers, artisans, merchants, etc.), the guardians or auxiliaries (defense), and the rulers. A state will be just as each of the social groups plays the role that is proper to its natural state.
Supreme Study
It is the highest knowledge that the soul can access. Its object is the Idea of the Good. It represents the latest stage of study for rulers.
Guardian
The philosopher-rulers. They form the third group of the state, and their social virtue is wisdom itself. They have the mission to monitor and ensure that each part of the state fulfills its function. They always keep in mind that the purpose of the state is moral justice and happiness.
Idea
Derives from the Indo-European word veido which means “to see through the eyes of the mind.” In Plato, its meaning has different shades, although it is essentially related to the universal, archetypal, ideal reality or cause. Ideas are immaterial entities, absolute, perfect and immutable, independent of the physical world. They are more than concepts or mental representations.
Idea of the Good
It is the top and supreme object of study. It is what we must build everything upon in the world of sense. The Good is a principle of plenitude or perfection. It is the cause of the existence of Ideas and truth.
Ignorance
In the myth of the cave, it is the situation in which prisoners are before the educational process. Their knowledge of the world is wrong because they only know shadows. They are in the field of opinion.
Images
(Eikasía) are the beings that are at the lowest level of opinion. They are the shadows, the reflections in the water. We form conjectures about them.
Intelligible
It is the activity of intelligence. It is “seeing through the eyes of the mind,” it is to know the models, shapes, and essences that the objects of the same type have in common, it is to capture or to know the Idea.
Justice
In lowercase, it refers to justice as a virtue. It can be either individual (virtue ethics) or of the state (political). Politically, the state will be just if it is wise, courageous, and moderate. Justice is a consequence of these three virtues. At the ethical level, the individual will be just when each part of the soul behaves according to the virtue that is its own. Capitalized, Justice refers to the Idea of Justice.
Book VI
The general problem that dominates the Republic may then be considered in a new way. There are ways to state that the degeneration of the philosopher is difficult or even impossible, for this to have fully grasped all the objects of his love, are these printed on his soul and never again forgotten. Within this scale, that is the way to state that one must look for, a State possessing the virtues of a good man, with perfect arete (virtue). What predominates is the Idea of Good, and with Book VI, we reach the very heart of Plato’s solution to his problems. The greatest paradox must, moreover, be that the perfect state must be established by the perfect wise, and this, in turn, can not be more than the ideal state.
What is
A feature of intelligible beings. It applies to Ideas. These “are” must be different from the beings who become (becoming) “that can become.” The beings who “become” are sentient beings and are temporary. On the other hand are the beings “that are” (what is), which are beings beyond space and time.
Light
It refers to the light of fire, the sun, the moon, and the stars. It represents the various sources of being. The more “clear” they are, the closer they are to the superior Ideas. It is the effect of the highest on the least.
Opinion (Doxa)
It is a non-real, partial, insufficient, incomplete, changeable, and corruptible knowledge, specific to the sensitive world and even to the failure to obtain the essence of the truth of the intelligible world, which is absolute, immutable, and perfect, the world of forms or Ideas. It is based on experience or sensitivity. It is not true knowledge but belief.
Discursive Thought
It is the activity of the soul by which mathematical objects are known. The word refers to the discursive nature of the process in which consequences are deduced from a few principles.
Pleasure
Satisfaction, a pleasant sensation produced by the achievement of what we like. This is what the concupiscible soul experiences when it gets the desired object. According to Plato, pleasure can be a consequence of the good that man should pursue, but never the good itself.
By itself
Beings “by themselves” are intelligible beings. This term is opposed to “what is otherwise.” Ideas exist on their own and operate separately. The cause of their existence is not elsewhere. Sentient beings exist because of participation in the Ideas, i.e., they exist “through other” beings. By themselves, they are nothing.
Principle
Background, origin, reason, and cause of explanation of what is of principle. In mathematics, they are the cases where demonstrations are dug up. In Dialectic, it is also the conclusion that the reasoning of an Idea comes from a higher one. It explains the existence of Ideas.
Principle of Everything
The Idea of the Good. It is the beginning of everything because it is the cause of all beings and, therefore, explains all. It is the “unconditional principle.”
Prisoner
In the myth of the cave, it is the one living in chains.
The Problem of Knowledge
The problem of knowledge is presented as a gradual ascent of the soul, from the lower sensitive realities to the upper and truly intelligible ones. When we reach the top of the comprehension of a thing, we grasp its “Idea” or “eidos,” which is the timeless prototype of all truth and from which all truth and knowledge emanate to man. Obviously, in this process, we differentiate doxa (opinion) from episteme (science).
Reason
It refers to the soul’s ability to learn through two powers: intelligence and discursive thought.
Real
It has two senses. It applies to intelligible things because they are the real “who are” over-sensitive things that become (becoming) and change. Second, it is used to relate real beings pictured (by prisoners) with more ontologically real beings in the order of shadows-physical objects-mathematical objects-Ideas.
Republic
The Republic (translated from the Greek politeia, which means political, public life, or the relationship between the citizen and the state) is one of the major dialogues of Plato. It probably corresponds to the period of maturity of Plato’s thought. We can consider that in it, the major themes of Platonic thought are summarized in a systematic and programmatic way. But it is very risky to say this because Plato’s thought is by no means consistent: all subjects are treated to give the various dialogues are modified by others, according to different approaches, new shades, objections added, etc. In this sense, Plato is a true philosopher who seeks truth in all fields, not a dogmatic one with prejudice. The Republic is, in principle, a work of political philosophy. But it can only be considered so if it is understood that it is, at the same time, a play about ontology (“what is”) and the Greek paideia (“what to do and be” for man to reach perfection), i.e., a treatise on education. Ontology, paideia, and politics are inseparable in Plato’s terms: all three are equally interesting because he believes that only together are they possible.
Wisdom
One of the three virtues necessary to achieve justice in both political and ethical terms. It is proper to the rational soul.
Intelligible Beings
They are real, immutable, necessary, and universal beings. They generate true knowledge or science (episteme). They are mathematical objects and Ideas. They are the only ones that can be called “beings” as they are “in themselves” and are “by themselves.” They do not depend on the physical world or the subjects who think about them. They are one of the two fields of being. It is more real than the sensible world. It is the intelligible world.
Sensitive Beings
They are material beings, single, multiple, and changing, which are born and die (corruptible). They are beings who become, so they are not true beings. They are images, shadows, and physical beings, of which we have an opinion (doxa). It is less real than the intelligible world.
Sun
It represents the Idea of the Good. Through the sun, Plato explains the process of knowledge and degrees of reality. LIKE THE SUN-GOOD. This simile refers to what we call or know as the “Theory of Ideas” of Plato, which we talked briefly about above. This theory suggests several ways to see the world in Plato, in which Ideas are real beings who are with us at all times, and which share universality and uniqueness at the same time.
Shadows
In the myth of the cave, they can be the shadows of objects in the cave or the shadows of the prisoners in the cave, representing the images or the shadows of the outside natural beings, which represent intelligible beings. In the metaphor of the divided line, it refers directly to the sentient beings that are classified within the images.
Utensils and Figurines
In the myth of the cave, they are physical objects that passersby carry. The tools represent artificial beings, and the figurines represent natural beings, including the human body. They produce belief.
The Sun/The Good
(Outbreak or child) represents the sun in two respects. First, the sun exists through participation in the Good. Second, in the sensitive realm, it is analogous to the Good in the intelligible realm. The sun allows other sentient beings to exist (ontologically) and to be visible (epistemologically).
Truth
It has an ontological meaning. The real beings are the intelligible beings “who are.” They have the category of Being. The sensible beings have a lower reality; they become.