Plato’s Philosophy: Key Influences and The Republic
Plato’s Life and Work
Periods of Maturity
Plato developed his theories to their maximum splendor during this period. Key works include:
- The Banquet
- Phaedrus
- Phaedo
- The Republic (on justice)
Critical Period and Old Age
In his later years, Plato expressed doubts and criticisms of his own work. Notable works from this period include:
- Theaetetus
- The Sophist
- Philebus
- Parmenides
- Timaeus
- Laws
Summary of The Republic
The Republic, consisting of 10 books, presents Plato’s vision of an ideal state. To achieve a just city, Plato argues for the education of philosopher-kings, including women. Book VII contains the famous Myth of the Cave, an allegory for the human condition. The cave represents the world of appearances, a prison from which we must escape to achieve freedom and truth. This involves leaving behind the sensible, material world. The true philosopher, freed from the sensible, is the only one fit to govern a state.
Philosophical Influences on Plato
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras was the first to introduce the concept of Nous (mind or intelligence), which influenced Plato’s later theological views on reality.
Heraclitus
Heraclitus believed that the arche (fundamental principle) arises from the struggle of opposites. This struggle, governed by a harmonious logos, drives the change of things and can only be grasped by the philosopher. This conception of being influenced Plato’s view of the tangible world.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras’s influence on Plato can be seen in three main areas:
- Anthropological Influence: The belief in the reincarnation and immortality of the soul. The universe is alive, and individual souls are fragments striving to rejoin the divine. Purification through study is necessary to achieve this union.
- Philosophical Influence: Emphasis on formalism, where structure is more important than matter. This is reflected in Plato’s Theory of Ideas. Mathematical knowledge is considered authentic.
- Political Influence: Plato adopted the Pythagorean ideal of a government ruled by philosophers.
Parmenides
Parmenides’s characteristics of being (except for uniqueness) were attributed by Plato to the Ideas. Being is static, eternal, without beginning or end, ungenerated, and imperishable. Parmenides’s two paths of truth are reflected in Plato’s two levels of knowledge: doxa (opinion) and episteme (intelligible knowledge).
Socrates
Socrates, through questioning, aimed to bring forth innate ideas, influencing Plato’s belief in the innateness of Ideas. He used the Mayeutica method to guide his interlocutors towards increasingly universal answers about moral concepts, helping them to bring forth ideas. Socrates was the first to promote episteme (true knowledge) through the search for the universal. This influenced Plato’s Theory of Ideas, which posits that truth resides in unique Ideas.
Socrates opposed the Sophists and championed a universalist philosophy, which Plato adopted. Socrates is credited with the invention of inductive argument, moving from particular definitions to universal ones. This is represented in the Myth of the Cave by the slaves’ journey from the interior to the exterior. Another key influence is Socrates’s moral intellectualism, the belief that there are no inherently good or bad people, only ignorant ones. Those who know the good will practice it.