PLATO

A complete introduction
Roy Jackson
To Annette; the Form of Beauty and the Good
 Contents
Praise for Plato: a complete introduction
About the Author
Reference convention
How to use this book
1 The Presocratics and the beginning of philosophy
The birth of Western philosophy
The time of myth
Hesiod and Homer
The Materialists
The Milesians
The polis
Thales
The ontological superiority of ‘Being’
Anaximander and Anaximenes
2 Who was Socrates?
Socrates the man
The teachings of Socrates
Concern for ethical issues
The Sophists
The Socratic method
The scapegoat
3 Who was Plato?
Plato’s world
Plato: a life
Plato’s works
4 The Forms
The Analogy of the Cave
 The path to enlightenment
The Realm of the Forms
Criticisms of the Forms
5 Knowledge, opinion and ignorance
Protagoras and relativism
Heraclitus and change
The philosopher defined
The roots of knowledge
What does it mean to know?
The role of reason
The soul
The Cosmic Soul
6 How are we to live?
Justice
Glaucon and the Myth of Gyges
The soul of the state
The ideal state
The ‘City of Pigs’
The ‘Noble Lie’
The just state and the just individual
The healthy soul
7 The Philosopher-King
The three polis
The critique of democracy
The true philosopher
Education
The four imperfect societies
The root of all evil
8 Love and friendship
Pederasty
Lysis
Phaedrus
9 In praise of love: Symposium
The setting
The first three speeches
The speech of Aristophanes
Agathon’s praise of love
Socrates’ speech
Alcibiades barges in
10 Gorgias
Gorgias
The setting
11 Timaeus
The setting
Timaeus and organicism
The Demiurge
The universe and its natural state
The cosmos as animate
The Great Chain of Being
Being ethical
12 The war between philosophy and poetry and the Myth of Er
Republic Book III
Republic Book X
The Myth of Er
13 Plato’s legacy
Aristotle
The city of Alexandria
Neoplatonism
Muslim philosophers
Christian philosophers
Modern contributors
Plato’s writings
Answers
 Praise for Plato: a complete
introduction
“Remarkable in its scope, this book not only outlines all of Plato’s
dialogues, but also traces his context in early Greek thought and his legacy.
It does indeed provide a ‘complete introduction’ to this seminal thinker.
Clear and accessible, but really substantial in its coverage, Jackson’s style
is ideal for a book at this level. It should appeal equally to students and to
the general reader seeking to deepen his or her knowledge of Plato and
thus of the starting point for so much Western thought and culture.”
Dr Mel Thompson, author of Understand Philosophy and The Philosopher’s Beach Book

“Roy Jackson writes in a wonderful, clear and accessible way, and has
produced a first-rate introduction to Plato.”
Stephen Law, University of London, author of The Philosophy Gym and The Great Philosophers
 About the Author
Welcome to Plato – A complete introduction!
My first encounter with Plato was his Republic. I was a first-year undergraduate
at the time and, although there have been occasional frustrations and moments of
despair, the love affair with Plato’s works has remained fairly constant over the
years.
I am currently Reader in Philosophy and Religion at the University of
Gloucestershire in the UK. I have written books on Nietzsche, Plato, the
Philosophy of Religion, and Islamic Philosophy. Previous to lecturing at
university, I taught philosophy and religion in schools and sixth forms, and was
an A-level chief examiner. I have written A-level texts and accessible articles for
Dialogue and The Philosophers’ Magazine, and give talks at schools and
colleges.
Nothing gives me more satisfaction than teaching students about Plato,
especially when this results in a greater understanding and appreciation of what
Plato really says. This was also my main intention, and hope, in writing Plato –
A complete introduction.
 Reference convention
The system of reference used here is known as Stephanus pagination, named
after Henricus Stephanus who published the complete works of Plato in 1578.
He divided the works into numbers, with each number then divided into sections
a, b, c, d and e. Since then this system has often been used to reference Plato, for
example Republic, 331c. The advantage of this reference system is that, no
matter what translation or edition you use, the Stephanus reference will be the
same, even though the page number of that edition will be different.
How to use this book
This Complete Introduction from Teach Yourself® includes a number of
special boxed features, which have been developed to help you understand the
subject more quickly and remember it more effectively. Throughout the book,
you will find these indicated by the following icons.
The book includes concise quotes from other key sources.
These will be useful for helping you understand different
viewpoints on the subject, and they are fully referenced so that
you can include them in essays if you are unable to get your
hands on the source.
The case study is a more in-depth introduction to a particular
example. There is at least one in most chapters, and hopefully
they will provide good material for essays and class
discussions.
The key terms are highlighted throughout the book. If you
only have half an hour to go before your exam, scanning
through these would be a very good way of spending your
time.
The spotlight/nugget boxes give you some additional
information that will enliven your learning.

The fact-check questions at the end of each chapter are

designed to help you ensure you have taken in the most
important concepts from the chapter. If you find you are
consistently getting several answers wrong, it may be worth
trying to read more slowly, or taking notes as you go.
The dig deeper boxes give you ways to explore topics in
greater depth than we are able to go to in this introductory
level book.
 1
The Presocratics and the beginning of
philosophy
The historical figure that features most prominently in virtually all of Plato’s
writings is Socrates. However, before there was Socrates, there were other
philosophers – collectively known as the Presocratics – who were not only the
first to engage in philosophy as such, but also proved to be influential to the
thought of Socrates and Plato. This chapter, therefore, takes a look at just some
of these Presocratics and considers what philosophy is and how we distinguish it
from Greek myth. Some of the concepts presented by these Presocratics are
obscure and difficult to follow, so don’t worry if you struggle a bit with this first
chapter (you can, if you wish, safely move straight to Chapter 2) since you’ll be
joining the ranks of many philosophers who have likewise battled with these
thinkers.

The birth of Western philosophy

If you were to look at a map of the eastern Mediterranean and were asked to
point to the birthplace of Western philosophy, there is a strong possibility your
finger would land in Greece and then, more specifically, Athens. This would
certainly be a quite natural response for, after all, this is the birthplace of
Socrates and Plato and, in fact, to some extent it is correct to say that philosophy
did begin there in the sense that it was Greece where it developed into the
structured school of thought that we know today. But no school of thought
arrives to us fully formed as if from a vacuum. Before we had Socrates we had a
group of thinkers now commonly referred to as the Presocratics – those that
lived before and, in some cases, during the life of Socrates. When we look at
these Presocratics our finger will dance over this map, while only momentarily
resting on Greece. In fact, the first of these Presocratics, and the beginnings of
ancient ‘Greek’ philosophy, would actually be in what is today Turkey. But,
before we look at these early philosophers, it is worth considering what existed
even before there was philosophy. To the time of myth.

The time of myth

In order to understand what philosophy is, and who philosophers were, it helps
to determine what philosophy is not. Before the birth of philosophy, the Ancient
Greeks were by no means intellectually silent. Before philosophy, there was
myth. We can all of us re-tell, at least in parts, a Greek myth or two as they
continue, quite rightly, to be part of the school curriculum. We have been
brought up with the captivating stories of Helen of Troy, the Trojan Horse, the
Minotaur, Icarus and Daedalus, King Midas and so on. The Greek word mythos
can certainly be translated as ‘story’ and, for the modern reader, it is perhaps
common to associate the word ‘myth’ as a work of fiction, as a good yarn and
nothing more. But for the Ancient Greeks, the myths were an important channel
in attempting to explain key questions such as why are we here? why is there
anything rather than nothing? The myths teach us about what it means to be
human and provide moral and political guidance.

Hesiod and Homer

Before the coming of the philosophers in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Greek
poets such as Hesiod and Homer attempted to explain mankind’s role in the
known world by tracing the origins and actions of the gods.
The two epic poems Iliad and Odyssey are traditionally ascribed to a single
author – Homer – yet it is more likely that, rather than one individual, it was a
band of writers and singers who themselves drew upon an older tradition of
centuries of songs about a long time ago, dealing with one military campaign at
around the 13th century BC, or perhaps even longer ago than that, in which the
pastoralist Greeks besieged and destroyed the non-Greek city of Troy in Asia
Minor (modern Turkey). These epics with such heroes as Odysseus and Achilles
are central to the Greeks’ sense of being Greek, as opposed to the barbaroi
(those who spoke languages that seemed as meaningless to the Greeks as
uttering ‘ba-ba’), despite the fact that the Greeks themselves had a keen interest
in the neighbouring civilizations of Persia and Egypt and, to some extent, were
jealous of their civilization and culture. They are wonderful works that help us to
understand to this day the matters of who we are, about the transience of life and
the fragility of love.
In his work Theogony, Hesiod sets out to answer the question of why things are
as they are. Theogony is essentially a creation story, and it is concerned with the
origins of the world (cosmogony) and of the gods (theogony) beginning with the
primordial deities (the protogenoi): Chaos (goddess of air) first of all, followed
in quick succession by Gaia (the Earth goddess), Tartarus (god of the
Underworld) and then Eros (goddess of love).
While we might refer to Homer and Hesiod as ‘poets’, that word – as largely
understood today – does not quite sum up who these people were and what their
writings represent to the Ancient Greek mind. Perhaps a better description would
be something like ‘shaman’ or even ‘prophet’ – they who were inspired by those
divine to utter their words, hence:

‘… and they [the Muses] breathed into me wondrous voice, so that I should
celebrate things of the future and things that were aforetime. And they told me to
sing of the family of blessed ones who are for ever, and first and last always to
sing of themselves.’
Hesiod, Theogony, 2008

The Muses in the quote above were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne
(goddess of memory), and they represented the sources of all knowledge, related
orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and
myths. For example, Calliope was the source of epic poetry, Clio of history and
Urania of astronomy. Hesiod himself was apparently a poor shepherd (possibly
he lived just north of Lesbos island, in what is today Turkey), guarding his sheep
when the Muses ‘breathed into’ him knowledge in a way that seems familiar to
the experience of religious prophets and mystics. Hesiod, therefore, is a vehicle
for the Muses rather than the source.
It is this ‘illumination’ or ‘revelation’ that allowed Hesiod to tell the story of the
coming into being of the Greek gods and the natural world, and Hesiod can be
credited with referring to gods that were previously unknown.
At the beginning of Theogony, Hesiod says:

‘Tell me this from the beginning, Muses who dwell in Olympus, and say, what
thing among them came first.
First came Chaos [the Chasm]; and then broad-breasted Earth [Gaia]’
 Hesiod, Theogony, 2008

The Greek term khaos is sometimes translated into English as ‘chasm’, which is
perhaps a better translation than ‘chaos’, as it is not necessarily a reference to
disorder, but rather a formless or a void state that precedes the creation of the
universe, or cosmos (Greek, kosmos). Essentially, that which precedes the
existence of the universe is nothingness, the abyss, and it is from nothingness
that Earth is formed – but this inevitably begs the question how? Philosophically
speaking, this is problematic, for how can something come from nothing? Why
is there ‘something’, and what existed before the ‘something’? To answer with
‘nothing’ seems intellectually unsatisfactory. ‘Nothing’ is an ‘illegal’ concept in
the sense it cannot be conceived (just try thinking of ‘nothing’) and, by invoking
the Muses, it looks like Hesiod is copping out here to the extent that he does not
give an answer through observation or reason, but is ‘inspired’ by the Muses. An
interesting epistemological question is whether ‘inspiration’ counts as
knowledge at all, and many religious believers, mystics and, for that matter,
philosophers would claim that it does give us a form of knowledge that cannot
be provided through observation or reason, but why Hesiod is not regarded as a
philosopher is because his explanation for the existence of the universe
ultimately relies upon what the gods tell us.

The Materialists
As a youth, Socrates was attracted to the beliefs of the ‘physicalists’, or
‘materialists’, who tried to understand the universe in purely natural terms,
rather than appealing to the gods. In questioning the beliefs of his time, Socrates
was certainly not unique. What was different was the way he questioned them.
Socrates would have encountered some of the greatest minds of his time, as well
as being able to explore the beliefs of their predecessors. It was a time when the
enlightened Greeks, with leisure on their hands, could wonder about the origins
of the universe and our place within it. As a result, many began to question the
traditional beliefs in the gods and goddesses, and the creation myths contained
within such works as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. In many respects, this was the
beginning of science as we understand it today: the attempt to look for material –
rather than spiritual – explanations for the universe.
The Milesians
Look at your map again, for we are still away from Greece. As we leave Hesiod
behind, we nonetheless remain in what is today Turkey, and to a city called
Miletus. Many of the Presocratics lived everywhere but Greece; for example, on
the Ionian or Asia Minor coast, and others from the eastern coast of Italy and the
island of Sicily. The geographical aspect is important in understanding why
philosophy begins in these regions: because they were located at major trading
routes that exposed the people to many foreign ideas, and this is especially true
of the citizens of Miletus – the Milesians.
Although we may be in Turkey, we are nonetheless exploring the beginnings of
Ancient Greek philosophy because Miletus was a Greek ‘city-state’, or polis as
the Greeks called them.

The polis
To understand Plato and his works it helps to have some idea of the world in
which he lived. The Athenian empire at that time consisted of a league of semi-
autonomous city-states (polis) united by language and culture and formed as a
defence against the threatening Persian empire. The polis spread across the
Mediterranean Sea, getting as far west as Marseille.
The Greek word Hellas (‘Greekdom’) best sums up the strong sense of common
identity, or the collective mind of a community, that recognized each other
through a common language, religion and culture, irrespective of where they
might be located geographically. Even today, the Greeks themselves refer to
their nation as the Hellenic Republic, for it was the Romans who gave them the
name Graecia. To be ‘Hellenic’ meant to have the same gods – the Olympians –
to share a common language, and for each polis to have its own theatre large
enough to form an ekklesia (the public assembly of citizens). The gymnasia
(schools) shared a Hellenic curriculum, and every polis possessed a similar
social system that revolved around the symposium (a forum where citizens
would meet to drink and debate). It is sometimes said that the high streets of
towns today look much like any other and, to some extent, the same could be
said for the polis; for they each had distinctive Hellenic buildings in common,
such as the marketplace (the agora), city walls, an aqueduct, bath houses and so
on.
In terms of their politics, however, they could differ greatly: some were ruled by
a single individual, a tyrannos, while others were considered to be democracies:
to be ruled (kratos) by the people (demos). If we are looking for reasons why
philosophy developed where and when it did, perhaps the existence of
democracy (for Athens was, for some time, a democratic polis) could be put
forward as one possible explanation since it forced its citizens to take
responsibility for their community and to tackle such philosophical questions as:
what is the best community to live in? and what does it mean to be human within
it?
Philosophy, in order to thrive, also needs wealth and the luxury that comes with
this, allowing the people to engage in philosophical speculation; a poor and
hungry nation has little inclination or time for philosophizing. At the time of
these Presocratics, Miletus was one such wealthy polis, engaging in trade with
other nations and consequently being confronted by foreign beliefs that resulted
in the fertilization of new ideas. Three Milesians in particular – Thales,
Anaximander and Anaximenes – formulated a new set of questions: they
rejected the supernatural, religious explanation for the universe in favour of a
more naturalistic, scientific approach.
What these Presocratics thought in detail will most likely remain a mystery. Our
sources are poor. Consider what little we know about what medieval thinkers
thought, and then double this for the Ancient Greeks, and triple that for the
Presocratics! What we do have are scraps, called fragments, but even these are
most likely to be the work of later authors, or copies of books made by later
authors rather than originals and so, if we are lucky, they may have been copied
word for word, but there is no guarantee of that. Most of what we know about
these Presocratics are from works written by a later thinker telling us what an
earlier thinker thought, and these paraphrased reports are called testimonies or
doxographies. One of our richest sources for information here is Aristotle (384–
322 BC), but we must be wary for he perhaps tried to fit the Presocratics into his
own intellectual framework, rather than being entirely objective.

Thales
Given such paucity of source material it is not surprising that in the case of our
very first Presocratic and, thus, the first philosopher of the western world, almost
nothing about him can be said with any certainty. Born in Miletus, it is believed
that Thales successfully predicted the eclipse of the sun, which has allowed
astronomers to place him as living during the eclipse that occurred in that region
in 585 BC. Accounts date Thales as born in about 625 BC, and dying around 545
BC. None of his writings, if indeed he wrote at all, have survived, and so our
knowledge of his views depends entirely on later reports. There are, for example,
a number of stories about him from the historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC),
who was writing a hundred years later.
One Thales story

According to one story about Thales, after he had travelled the known world in his quest for knowledge, he
returned to Miletus and his mother encouraged him to settle down and take a wife, but Thales was reluctant
in this regard. When she was asked why he wouldn’t marry, he would answer: ‘It’s not yet time.’ This did
not stop people asking him, until later in life he would reply with: ‘It’s too late.’

According to Aristotle, Thales was the first natural philosopher; the first to give
a logos to nature. The Greek word logos can be variously translated as ‘speech’,
‘word’, ‘discourse’, ‘account’ etc., and so what Aristotle means here is that
Thales attempted to provide an account, a rational explanation, of nature.

‘…most of the early students of philosophy thought that first principles in the
form of matter, and only these, are the sources of all things; for that of which all
things consist, the antecedent from which they have sprung, and into which they
are finally resolved (in so far as being underlies them and is changed with their
changes), this they say is the element and first principle of things. As to the
quantity and form of this first principle, there is a difference of opinion; but
Thales, the founder of this sort of philosophy, says that it is water…’
Aristotle, Metaphysics, i. 3; 983 b 6

The quote above is an example of a doxography, in this case from Aristotle’s

work Metaphysics. While a bit of a mouthful, if we were to unpack it there are a
few key terms and phrases here that can tell us a lot about the philosophical
quest.
One word used in the quote above is ‘principle’, and the idea of there being a
first principle. The Greek word here is arche, which can also be variously
translated as ‘ruler’, ‘source’, ‘origin’, ‘beginning’ and so on – hence such
English words as ‘archaic’ and ‘archaeology’. Thales, like so many of the
philosophers to come after him, including Plato, believed that underneath the
many things of which the universe consists, there is one ultimate thing: an
ultimate building block – a foundation – from which all things derive. This idea
is known as the law of parsimony or the rule of simplicity. Methodologically,
parsimony serves us well in scientific investigations at least: for example, people
from a variety of ages, races, gender, social background, etc. can all contract the
same illness, so science looks for underlying causes and can help us to choose
between competing theories. Here, philosophers (and scientists) can extrapolate
further in postulating some one basic stuff for which all else can be explained.
The Presocratics were as much scientists as they were philosophers, for they
looked to nature and attempted to find naturalistic explanations for why things
are as they are, and do what they do. Thales, typically of the philosophers, does
not see his arche as a god or gods. For the Greeks there was no separation
between the material and the spiritual. The gods lived among us, usually
invisible, so investigating the inner workings of nature that governs mortals and
gods was not considered offensive to the gods but, unlike Hesiod, the
philosophers did not look to the gods as an explanation for the world. For
Hesiod, his arche is chaos, nothingness, what is unintelligible: there is no
explanation and our understanding of the world is essentially unreachable, for it
is only for the gods to know. What Thales does, and what philosophers do, is
place the responsibility for an explanation in the hands of human beings and
human reason. In the case of Thales, he uses empirical method: he uses sense-
experience in order to get information about the world (see also Chapter 4).
Now, Thales’ explanation was wrong of course: read that quote by Aristotle
again, and what does Thales’ arche consist of? Water! Water is the antecedent
from which all things have sprung and into which they are finally resolved. It is
the first principle of things. Thales presents us with a vision of the universe as a
continuous process of Being and Becoming that is so central to our
understanding of Plato’s philosophy, too. ‘Being’ is that which endures, while
‘Becoming’ is the process of coming into being and going out of being. When
you open your eyes and look around you what you see is only ‘becoming’;
things constantly in a process of change, of movement, of ageing, of
transforming. In many cases this may be so slow to our eyes that it is not
noticeable – a rock does not appear to us to be in a process of change – but in the
grand scale of things and over millions of years, even solid rock is being worn
down.
 Another Thales story

Plato, in his dialogue Theaetetus (174a), gives us a picture of Thales that is typical of an absent-minded
thinker with his head in the clouds. One day, while looking up at the stars, Thales fell into a well. He was
teased by his slave-girl who said that ‘he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven that he could
not see what was before his feet’. Plato states that this is typical of all philosophers who, although
‘searching into the essence of man’ are nonetheless ‘wholly unacquainted with his next-door neighbour’.

The ontological superiority of ‘Being’

Given that all we see with our senses suggest only ‘becoming’, the notion that
there is something that does not change seems un-empirical. Yet Thales’ appeal
to water does make empirical sense to some extent, as Aristotle himself noted.
When you look at water through your senses, you note the following:

• It is ‘plastic’ in that it can move rapidly between various states (liquid, solid,
gas).
• Steam seems very different from ice, which explains why things appear very
different. Water at least has the ability to take on different forms.

• Virtually all living things require water for life, and human beings are
composed largely of water! Therefore something common to all living things
is water.
Therefore what Thales is doing here is observing how water operates in nature
and then extrapolating from that to conclude that water is the underlying
substance for all things. His conclusion is inevitably inductive, as scientific
method is, and we now know this to be a wrong conclusion, but it must be
stressed that so much of science today is inductive and has conclusions that
inevitably take leaps from the observable to the speculative. The ‘Big Bang’ is
still a theory because no one observed the ‘Big Bang’. The best science can do is
to observe with the senses and to make what is considered the best explanation
possible, given the current evidence, but it may prove to be wrong in the sense
that it may be overridden by a newer theory in the future.
I recall one well-respected scientist once telling me that most of what scientists
do even today is basically ‘wrong’ or will, in time, be proven to be so, and I
suspect most of the great scientists of today would be quite embarrassed by their
own doctoral thesis, which they produced so proudly in their youth. But, to some
extent, science isn't really about ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and is more about ‘good
induction’: looking at the world as it is currently perceived and deriving the best
explanation and the most coherent conclusions from it. Knowledge in this sense
is not static, but is forever changing which, as we shall see, was of great concern
for Plato.
One might conclude that there is only ‘becoming’, and we will consider that
below, but the philosophical implications for the non-existence of ‘Being’ are
frightening to consider. There is an ‘ontological superiority’ to be had from
‘Being’. Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, and ‘Being’
– in the sense of something that is unchanging and the origin of all things – is
considered superior because it is unchanging. Consider what the central goal of
philosophy is: to search for truth. However, if all things are in a process of
change, then how can we pin ‘truth’ on anything at all? Truth implies that
something is always the case, regardless of time or place but, for that, we need
‘Being’. This idea, such a central concern for Plato, will be considered later.

Anaximander and Anaximenes

In the same way that Plato is the successor to Socrates, it was possible that
Anaximander (c. 610–540 BC) was Thales’ pupil (and maybe even a relation),
and hence continued to carry the torch of early philosophy. Like Thales,
Anaximander liked to investigate natural phenomena, including eclipses and
meteorological events, as well as zoology and cosmology. It is said that he was
the first Greek to construct a map of the land and sea and he is also credited with
inventing the sundial!
Also, like Thales, this successor looked for an arche, for an explanation for
everything, but he differs in one very important respect: for Anaximander the
basic stuff of the universe cannot possibly be something we can observe, such as
water. He postulated something more basic than the elements, because the
elements are problematic: water is certainly malleable, but it is hard to conceive
of it as forming fire! Also, water is too identifiable and ordinary and, therefore,
too much like other things to be something ‘other than’ other things. Contingent
(dependent for its existence on other things), everyday things are definite,
visible, definable, have boundaries, and so on, but surely Being must be
something other and different from the world of contingent things, something
boundless, indefinable, with no properties (size, shape, etc.). A definite thing, by
definition, is limited, and so the arche cannot be a definite thing. Instead, the
arche for Anaximander is apeiron. As Aristotle in his work Physics points out:

‘But it is not possible that infinite matter is one and simple; either, as some say,
that it is something different from the elements, from which they are generated,
or that it is absolutely one. For there are some who make the infinite of this
character, but they do not consider it to be air or water, in order that other
things may not be blotted out by the infinite; for these are mutually antagonistic
to one another, inasmuch as air is cold, water is moist, and fire hot; if one of
these were infinite, the rest would be at once blotted out; but now they say that
the infinite is something different from these things, namely, that from which they
come.’
Aristotle, Physics, iii. 5; 204 b 22

Apeiron, then, is something different from all other things. It lacks any intrinsic
features and so could be translated as ‘boundless’, ‘indefinite’ or ‘eternal’.
Importantly, what Anaximander is demonstrating here is that Being, by its very
nature, defies definition and this is something that Plato, too, was aware of
when, through the character of Socrates, he was pressed to define what he meant
by the Forms (see Chapter 4) and could only respond by using analogy. It also
makes Anaximander more like Plato in that we are moving further away from
what the senses reveal to us and relying upon our ability to reason in order to
postulate something beyond our senses.
Finally, a mention of the third of our three Milesians, for if Anaximander was
sitting in the front of the class while Thales lectured on water, a younger
Anaximenes was sitting a little further back, taking it all in so as to come up with
his own theory. Anaximenes (c. 585–c. 528 BC) does agree with Anaximander
that the arche, the ‘Being’, must be different from the things of the everyday
world, the ‘Becoming’, but he found Anaximander’s notion of Being as
‘indefinite’ as unintelligible as saying it is ‘chaos’, for nothing can be said or
conceived if, by definition, it is boundless. This, Anaximenes realized, is
problematic for philosophers, given their task is to know. His solution, therefore,
may seem something of a backwards step to Thales, for he replaces the Being of
water with air. He did this because air, to some extent, gives us a synthesis of
Thales and Anaximander, for air is determinate and empirically detectable, while
also being less determinate and detectable than water. Hence we have another
important early philosophical question here: is Being definite and ‘thing-like’ or
is it an indefinite ‘nothing’?
 Two philosophical extremes

The Milesians give us a picture of the cosmos as a world of Being and Becoming, two separate ‘worlds’
that are nonetheless interrelated. The multiplicity, variety and change of the sensible world is derived from
one source, which can be discovered, either through empirical observation (Thales and Anaximenes) or
through abstract theorizing (Anaximander). In other words, it is the task of the philosopher to penetrate
Being itself – the world as it really is, without recourse to gods or spirits of any kind. It raises interesting
philosophical questions such as how can something that is unchanging (Being) have changing things
(Becoming) that derive from it, given that this would change the nature of Being? Or how can something
that is motionless ‘move’ the Earth by creating it? Or how can something that is timeless act in time? Such
questions will be familiar to students of philosophy of religion for, in the monotheistic traditions, Being
becomes God.
One possible option of resolving these questions is simply to get rid of Being altogether (although religion
cannot so readily get rid of God!), and this is what Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BC) did. Heraclitus was also
from the Ionian coast – Ephesus – which is some 40 miles from Miletus. He was nicknamed ‘the Obscure’
for perhaps obvious reasons, as Socrates himself states when attempting to read his work On Nature: ‘The
part I understand is excellent, and so, I dare say, is the part I do not understand; but it needs a Delian diver
to get to the bottom of it.’ However, his key point is to argue that there are not two ‘worlds’ of Being and
Becoming; there is only Becoming. His most famous quote is: ‘Into the same rivers we step in and we don’t
step in, we are and we are not.’ What he is saying here is that though we may give a river a name, it is never
the same river from one moment to the next and, more than that, we are not the same person from one
moment to the next. All is becoming, in a state of constant change. Material objects, which seem at first
sight to be static, are actually in a state of flux. An iron bell is subject to rust, a cliff erodes, a tree grows, a
man ages. The philosophical implications for this view are immense, especially in terms of identity and
morality. If nothing remains stable then, again, nothing is ‘true’ in any universal sense. The things that
really matter, ourselves, our families, our values, our political views, and so on, are constantly changing,
which makes it difficult to ‘grasp’ anything.
However, we also have another extreme philosophical position: there is no Becoming at all, there is only
Being. This was proposed by Parmenides (c. 6th century BC). We won’t go into this complex argument
here, but suffice to say this is a fascinating example of the use of reason to argue beyond what our senses
seem to tell us, for Parmenides is saying that, although your senses may tell you that things are changing,
you are getting older, objects and people are moving around you, and so on, this is in fact an illusion. If
nothing else, Parmenides deserves to be given credit for taking this enormous leap from experience.
 Key terms

Apeiron: Really indefinable, but could be translated as ‘boundless’, ‘indefinite’ or ‘eternal’.

Arche: A Greek term that can variously be translated as ‘ruler’, ‘source’, ‘origin’, ‘beginning’.
Doxography: In this case, an account by a historian or philosopher of the thoughts of the Presocratics.
Empirical method: A way of understanding our world by using our senses.
Fragment: A term used to describe the remains of original writings of the Presocratics.
Induction: Induction is to consider a number of pieces of evidence and to reach a conclusion based upon
this evidence. The conclusion may ultimately be wrong, but is considered the most likely given the
evidence available.
Logos: The Greek word can be variously translated as ‘speech’, ‘word’, ‘discourse’, ‘account’ etc., but,
more broadly, is a term used to apply to the animating principle for the cosmos.
Materialist: Also known as physicalists. Those believing that the world is made up of nothing but matter
and that it is possible, therefore, to reduce all things to the basic fundamentals of matter.
Ontology: The philosophical study of ‘Being’ in the sense of what it means for something to have
existence.
Philosophy: Broadly, the pursuit of knowledge, although – starting with Plato especially – it developed into
a more rigorous and precise discipline.
Polis: Greek for ‘city-state’.
Presocratics: A collective term for those philosophers who lived before the time (or at the same time) of
Socrates.
Dig deeper

Barnes, J. (1982), The Presocratic Philosophers. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. & Schofield, M. (1983), The Presocratic Philosophers (2nd ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Nicolson, A. (2014), The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters. London: William Collins.
Osborne, C. (2004), Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roochnik, D. (2004), Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Shields, C. (2003), Classical Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge.
West, M. L. (trans.) (2008), Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days. Oxford: Oxford University Press
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is an excellent website, especially for material on the
presocratics (but also good on Plato and Aristotle): http://plato.stanford.edu/
The Hanover Historical Texts Project is also a good website for providing fragments with commentary of
the works of the Presocratics: http://history.hanover.edu/project.php
Fact check

1 Who were the ‘Presocratics’?

a Disciples of Socratics
b Philosophers who, chronologically, came before Socrates
c Ancient Egyptian thinkers
d Writers of Greek myth
2 Which one of the following is the name of an epic poem attributed to Homer?
a Iliad
b Enterprise
c Achilles
d Theogony
3 Which one of the following is attributed to Hesiod?
a Theology
b Philosophy
c Theogony
d Odyssey
4 Who, philosophically, are the ‘materialists’?
a People who like to collect physical things
b Rich philosophers
c Philosophers who attempt to look for a material, rather than a spiritual, explanation of the universe
d Philosophers who like to make lists of physical things in the world
5 What is the polis?
a An Ancient Greek police force
b The Greek word for a city-state
c The Greek word for ‘Greece’
d The study of politics
6 Which of the following is a definition of an account by a historian or philosopher of the Presocratics
a Doxography
b Biography
c Hagiography
d Autobiography
7 What, for Thales, is the fundamental element from which all things derive?
a Fire
b Water
c Air
d Wind
 8 What, for Anaximenes, is the fundamental element from which all things derive?
a Fire
b Water
c Air
d Wind
9 What is meant by the term apeiron?
a The ‘boundless’ or ‘indefinite’
b Chaos
c The gods
d The Greek city-state
10 What is the study of ontology?
a Ancient Greek monuments
b Presocratic texts
c Origin of words
d Philosophical study of ‘Being’
 2
Who was Socrates?
In the previous chapter we looked at the Presocratics, those who, in most cases,
came before Socrates and who started the ball rolling in terms of philosophy as a
distinct discipline. A much more rigorous approach to philosophy, however,
usually begins historically with Socrates himself, as perceived through the
writings of Plato. Plato was hugely influenced by his teacher Socrates, and it is
not possible to appreciate Plato’s teachings without first considering those of his
mentor.

Socrates the man

Socrates (c. 470–399 BC) was born when Athens was at its peak. It was the
greatest power in the Mediterranean, a major trading centre, one of the world’s
earliest democracies (to call it the world’s first democracy, as some books do, is
probably being somewhat Eurocentric) and the centre of a mighty naval empire.
Its ruler of the time, Pericles (c. 495–429 BC), embodied all of Athens’
achievements: a self-made man and a hero who had defeated the mighty
Persians. Gathering the finest sculptors and craftsmen from around the Greek
world, Pericles invested in a massive reconstruction programme that included
the building of the Parthenon. This remarkable temple was completed in only 15
years. In the main auditorium stood a 40-foot-high statue of the goddess Athena,
made of gold and ivory and studded with precious jewels. The Parthenon, which
can be visited today, became the spiritual heart of the city and a symbol of the
power of Athens.
Yet at the death of Socrates, the city of Athens was ruined by war, its people had
lost everything, Pericles had died from the ravages of a plague that had killed a
third of the city’s population, and what was supposedly an enlightened city was
responsible for the execution of its greatest mind, Socrates himself. How could
such a thing have occurred?
We know so little about the real Socrates, other than he really was a historical
figure and that he was executed in 399 BC. Socrates did not, so far as we know,
write down anything himself, and so we must rely upon other sources, especially
Plato. However, Plato is not our only source. Xenophon (430–354 BC) was a
historian and a student of Socrates and he also wrote in the same form as Plato,
that of Socratic dialogues. These include Memoirs of Socrates, in which Socrates
is portrayed in a somewhat comic way at a symposium, and Apology, which is an
account of the defence speech that Socrates gave at his trial. Xenophon,
however, is not as poetic as Plato, nor is he as well-versed in philosophy, and
what he gives us is a picture of a wise man, but somewhat difficult to distinguish
from other wise men. It is something of a pedestrian view, as a man more
conventional and ascetic who happily dishes out advice about exercise and diet,
or finance and family relationships, but fails to portray any degree of the
philosophical subtleties of the Socrates portrayed by Plato. Xenophon does tell
us that Socrates was married to a strong-willed wife called Xanthippe, and that
he had three sons named Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus.

Socrates’ wife

One follower of Socrates, called Antisthenes, asked him why did he put up with such an argumentative and
resistant wife, to which Socrates responded: ‘If I can put up with her, I shall find it easy to get along with
any other human being.’

Xenophon’s Socrates comes across as pleasant enough, with a high degree of

common sense, and always willing to give advice on the importance of children
honouring their parents and not overeating, but this is hardly an inspiring figure
that legends are made of. For this we must look to Plato, who can perhaps be
accused of going too far the other way: of transforming Socrates into a new and
higher ideal of what humans can become but, consequently, divorcing the true
man from the superhuman ideal. The truth is we do not know if Socrates was
even a philosopher at all, and it is largely due to Plato who creates Socrates the
philosopher. The extent to which we are given a true picture is such a debatable
one.
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) once wrote a series of
talks called The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1980), and
here, inspired by a card reproduction of a medieval depiction of Plato standing
behind Socrates (a drawing by Matthew Paris, 1217–59), he imagines Plato
hovering over Socrates’ shoulder and dictating his philosophy to Socrates rather
than the other way around. The point is well taken, for to what extent is the
mouthpiece of Socrates the philosophy of Socrates, or that of Plato?
What we do get from Plato’s Socrates is someone much more interesting,
contentious, philosophically intense, and entertaining; certainly much more the
kind of person you would like to share a drink with in a symposium than
Xenophon’s somewhat boring and sensible version.
The teachings of Socrates As the British
philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)
said of the time of Plato and Socrates in
Ancient Greece: ‘It was possible in that
age, as in few others, to be both intelligent
and happy, and happy through
intelligence.’ (Bertrand Russell, History of
Western Philosophy, 2nd ed. London,
1961, p. 77) Though perhaps an over-
romanticized vision, it nonetheless has an
element of truth. Philosophers, scientists,
physicians, mathematicians, astronomers,
artists and architects all flocked to Athens
to network and discuss their theories with
their peers. If the Hellenic League were the
United Nations of its day, Athens was its
New York.
Athens, during its renaissance, was enjoying a time of relative peace and
prosperity, when many Athenians, bathed in self-confidence, were garbed in
expensive robes and enjoyed luxurious food and wine. However, there was one
man who would wander the streets of the Athens marketplace, known as the
Agora, in his bare feet and dressed in unkempt and dirty garments. This man,
known as Socrates, was considered the ugliest man in the city, for his head was
too big, his nose misshapen, and his eyes bulged. In every sense, he seemed the
very opposite of the fine classical lines of Greece. In itself this tells us much, for
his followers were not concerned with superficial looks, but what lay behind: the
beauty of his mind.
Plato’s early dialogues deal with subjects that were of interest to Socrates.
Although it is difficult to know where Socrates’ philosophy ends and Plato’s
begins it is nonetheless helpful to place the combined thought of these two great
thinkers into three main categories: • Rejection of traditional beliefs. Socrates
was always prepared to throw out coveted traditions and beliefs if he believed
them to be wrong, and he encouraged his followers to do likewise.

• Concern for ethical issues. Socrates was mostly concerned with morality and
the belief that there can be universal definitions for such terms as ‘goodness’.

• Conversation as a practical method to acquire knowledge. People learned

from Socrates through conversation. Conversation was a means – a logical
process – by which definitions are attained and truths acquired.
As we do not know whether this really is what Socrates believed, future
references in this book to Socrates (of which there are very many) have to be
understood in the light of Plato’s Socrates.
In Plato’s work, Apology, it is recorded that Socrates experienced a ‘conversion’.
Socrates’ friend Chaerephon had visited the famous Delphic Oracle to ask its
priestess whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates. The priestess replied
that there was none wiser. Socrates took this to mean that the truly wise man is
one who recognizes that he is really ignorant. Socrates adopted this as his own
philosophy based on the pronouncement of the Delphic Oracle – ‘Know thyself’.
Socrates was a great believer in the power of human reason to learn absolute
truths. To discover the truth is to know what it means to live the good life and to
live it virtuously.
In one of Plato’s other works, Meno, the character of Meno asks Socrates the
following question: ‘Can you tell me, Socrates, whether goodness is a thing that
is taught; or is it neither taught nor learned in practice, but comes to men by
nature, or in some other way?’ In this one question we have the very essence of
what was both Plato’s and Socrates’ concern: what is the right way to live? For
‘goodness’ can be variously translated as ‘virtue’, ‘excellence’ and so on, and is
from the Greek arete. And so, what does it mean to be ‘good’, and how can we
know this ‘good’ and teach this to our children? This is as much a concern today
as it was in Plato’s time; and we can see how it encompasses not only moral
philosophy, but also politics, education and the question as to where our
knowledge comes from.

Concern for ethical issues At the time of

Socrates, Greek mathematics was making
great strides, and Socrates was influenced
especially by Pythagoras (see Chapter 3) to
the extent that a cosmology is presented of
an ordered cosmos governed by universal
laws. However, while we should recognize
the important contribution the Presocratics
made to the philosophical tradition, Plato’s
Socrates comes across as opposed to these
materialist thinkers, which he saw as a
threat to the political and moral order of
Athenian society. This is because
materialism sees the universe as a largely
‘valueless’ place, which lacks any purpose
or moral weight, other than mathematical
principles. One example of this is the
Presocratic philosopher Democritus (c.
480–370 BC), who saw the universe as
consisting of atomos (Greek for
‘undivided’ or ‘indivisible’), which are
tiny, invisible particles (hence the English
word ‘atom’). These tiny particles are
different shapes, some are triangle shaped,
some hexagonal, etc., and they have
‘hooks’, allowing them to connect with
other atoms that causes them to form into
the objects we see in the world. However,
as the quote from Democritus below states,
that is all that there is. For example, one set
of atoms forms to constitute, say, honey,
and another set of atoms forms a person’s
taste buds. When these two connect, there
is an experience of ‘sweetness’, but there is
no such thing as ‘sweetness’ itself, only the
interaction between atoms. However, that
means that some other creatures’ taste buds
may experience the honey as bitter, and so
this is what Democritus means ‘by
convention’.

‘By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention

cold, by convention colour. But, in reality, atoms and void.’
Democritus

The implications in terms of knowledge and morality are immense, for it

suggests that the universe is nothing more than connected atoms, lacking any
purpose or reality other than the atoms themselves. All things become relative to
the person (or any other creature) that is encountering the world of objects; for
one creature a flower may be yellow, while for another it is monochrome. In
terms of ethics, nothing can be said to be inherently good or bad, for ‘atoms’ are
not ‘good atoms’ or ‘bad atoms’, and so what may seem like a morally good
action for one person, may not be so for another, for it is merely a matter of
‘taste’. The concern for Socrates was such a vision of the universe can lead to a
corrosive scepticism and to sophistry.
Democritus

Legend says that when Democritus was very old he deliberately blinded himself by staring at the rays of the
sun that were reflected from a silver shield. The reasons given for this are either that he did not want
anything to impair his inner vision of his soul, as he was nearing death, or it was also suggested it was
because it was too distressing to see beautiful women with the knowledge he was too old to make love to
them.

The Sophists
Whereas Socrates believed in absolute standards, there was a group of itinerant
teachers who thought the opposite: the Sophists. One of the greatest Sophists of
all, Protagoras (c. 490–420 BC) famously declared that ‘Man is the measure of all
things’. By that he meant that it was mankind that established what is right or
wrong, not the gods or the existence of a morality independent of man. Again,
we can see parallels with the world we live in today: with the decline in
institutional religion and the increase in the view that there is no one ‘truth’. This
raises the question of how we can teach moral standards when there are no
‘standards’, only what is relative. This is what is meant by moral relativism,
and it was this especially that both Socrates and Plato found abhorrent.
To understand what ‘goodness’ meant for the Ancient Greeks it helps to look at
how the children were educated at that time. In the golden age of Athens, the
sons of the aristocrats – for they were the only ones who received any kind of
decent education – were brought up to imitate the virtues of the gods and heroes
contained in the works of, for example, Homer and Hesiod (see Chapter 1).
‘Virtue’, for most ancient Greeks, did not mean the same thing as it does for the
Western Europeans of today. For the Greeks, virtue included such attributes as
courage, ambition, the acquisition of wealth, glory and acting for the good of the
polis.
The Sophists, however, were more concerned with teaching people to be ‘clever’
rather than the training of character. For example, today both Hitler and
Napoleon might be considered ‘clever’ politicians, yet neither would be
considered ‘virtuous’ in our modern sense of the term, although we might be
more prepared to see Napoleon as having more ‘character’ and ‘nobility’ than
Hitler. However, for the Sophist, what mattered was the acquisition of power,
not the kind of morally good person you are. Many of Athens’ great heroes were
leaders who would certainly not pass the test of being ‘good’ by our modern
standards; Pericles being a typical example of this. However, Pericles was also
seen as possessing the qualities admired and praised in the Greek myths, such as
courage and nobility and a genuine concern for the interests of the state.
For the Sophists, the laws of one society are no ‘truer’ than any other. Morality
was a matter of the conventions of the society you live in. Later Sophists were
more concerned with a desire to make money and winning arguments by
whatever means. Socrates considered them to be nothing more than illusionists
who could make people clever speakers but without possessing virtue or
selflessness. During Socrates’ later years, the politicians in power practised the
arts of sophistry, reflecting the general decline in moral standards in Athens at
that time, but the ability to speak and to be able to argue for your side was
crucial in Athenian society to the extent that your livelihood, and your life, could
depend upon it. In democratic Athens, major decisions were made through
debate, and reputations and positions of authority could be made or broken. A
man’s property and very life could be decided upon in a court, depending upon
not what evidence was supplied but on the defendant’s choice of advocate and
their ability to persuade the court of his innocence.

The Socratic method

The dialogue style of writing is particularly associated with Plato’s work
because it is in many ways unlike the writings of previous philosophers, which
were usually either long treatises using technical language and the impersonal
third-person or so poetic, ambiguous and abstract as to be difficult to
comprehend the actual meaning. Having said that, Plato’s writings were also
influenced by his predecessors, and there are similarities with them. Plato as a
young man wanted to be a poet, and so we need to see his philosophical works
as a blend of his enthusiasm for poetry, for the power of the word, with his
philosophical quest for knowledge. Plato’s writings are works of drama as much
as they are works of philosophy, and they are carefully crafted, with no ‘fluff’ or
accidents. One approach to studying the works of Plato is to break down and
analyse the logic contained within them, and this is very typical of the
philosophical method known as analytic philosophy, but there is a danger that
such analytic reductionism by necessity fails to see the whole; the importance of
the drama, of the myth, the story, the irony, the ambiguity, the characters, that
makes up the work. Plato uses dramatic techniques to draw the reader in, to
invite you to speculate and reflect. Some of Plato’s works are more drama-
driven than others, and if you wish to consider Plato at his literary best you could
do no worse than starting with Phaedrus or Symposium.
The leading character in his dialogues is usually Socrates and so they are often
referred to as Socratic dialogues. Characters are created within a scene and
engage in spontaneous conversation – not unlike a playwright would present his
work. It is not surprising that Plato’s works are also considered great pieces of
literature. Why did Plato adopt this form? In a way it was a tribute to his mentor,
for Socrates always believed that knowledge came through conversation.
Remember, he himself never wrote anything down, preferring the cut and thrust
of lively discourse. For Plato to recreate the character of Socrates it made sense
to present his words as a dialogue. In none of Plato’s works will you find
soliloquy, the speaking of one’s thoughts to oneself, which you find in, for
example, Shakespeare. By using the dialogue form, Plato himself is
acknowledging the soundness of the Socratic method; the use of dialectic, to talk
and to listen to get to the truth.
In terms of how the dialogue is structured, Plato commonly uses the following
approach. As an example taken from Euthyphro: • He begins with a simple
question in which nothing is presumed. For example, in Euthryphro, Socrates,
in his usual modest fashion, asks to be the ‘pupil’ of the much younger and
somewhat naive Euthyphro. Socrates begins by asking: ‘Then tell me, how do
you define piety and impiety?’

• The question is then examined and definitions given. Euthyphro would go

on to define what piety and impiety are: ‘What is agreeable to the gods is
pious, and what is disagreeable to them impious.’
• Assumptions are questioned. Here Socrates would then leap in and raise the
further question as to whether we can assume that what the gods do is always
right and also that the gods themselves seem in disagreement with this.
• Conventional views are dismissed or redefined. Euthyphro, for example,
adapts his definition: ‘I should say that piety is what all the gods love, and the
opposite, what all the gods hate, is impiety.’
Now Socrates, having forced Euthyphro to redefine what he meant by impiety,
could well sit back and leave things at that, but, like the ‘gadfly’ that he is, he
pushes on. Reading the dialogue you can sense Euthyphro’s growing unease and
frustration as he is compelled to yet redefine again until, eventually, the original
view of impiety bears no resemblance to the new definition. In the meantime, the
conversation will have meandered along through all kinds of objections that
could be either relevant or irrelevant to the original topic.
Like the characters in a novel, each has his role to play. The characters were
often taken from real life, but Plato would embellish them to bring out sharp
contrasts; making them more bullish, arrogant, complacent, impatient, careless,
assertive, aggressive, etc. than they actually were. This was necessary for
dramatic effect, although it can result in making Socrates seem rather unreal at
times – just a bit too ‘good’ to be believable. But every story must have its hero!
Perhaps the best way to see the Platonic dialogues is as if it is a philosophy class,
with, in most cases, Socrates as the most skilled in philosophy. However, the
skilled philosopher does not – or, at least, should not – simply stand up and
lecture while everyone else sits back, somewhat passively. Philosophy classes
should be, very much, what in modern terms is referred to as ‘active learning’:
all partake in doing philosophy and this is inevitably an intellectual struggle and
hard work. The problem Socrates does have, on occasion – and this is something
that philosophy teachers today can relate to – is that some participants are lazy,
some aggressive, some simply refuse to listen, and some want to be told the
answers rather than think for themselves. The Ancient Greeks were no different
from human beings today in terms of their temperament.
Socrates believed in the importance of conversation as a method to determine the
truth of things. Through a careful process, involving defining terms, questioning
those definitions, and then moving to a further definition, Socrates believed we
could eventually reach a clear and unalterable definition for such things as
‘goodness’. This ties in with his belief that there actually can be one true
understanding of goodness, unlike the Sophists who argued that ‘goodness’ is
merely a relative term depending on the time and place. This may well not be
achieved in a particular dialogue, but at least the interlocutors have struggled to
get somewhere rather than simply sitting back and remaining unreflective.
It could be argued that being taught the skill of persuasion, of getting on in life,
of ‘how to win friends and influence people’ can, indeed, be a very useful skill
to possess. This was true enough and the reason Socrates was usually associated
with the Sophists is because he himself used the same techniques. However, an
important difference is that Socrates said that his aim was to determine the truth
of things, whereas many of the Sophists were not concerned with ‘truth’, or even
believed that there was such a thing as truth: only persuasion. It was this ability
in particular that worried Plato and Socrates: a Sophist could claim to persuade a
sick man that he could heal him better than any doctor, but this does not make
the Sophist’s medical skills actually better than a doctor’s, and nor would it
benefit the patient to be treated by the Sophist, who lacks any medical
knowledge, rather than the doctor.
Being ‘clever’ could be used for good purposes, but it could also be used for bad
purposes. You might consider a modern parallel with the ‘spin doctors’ in
politics today whose primary purpose is to manipulate the perception of
politicians and their policies so as to make them palatable to the public. A
‘clever’ Sophist could persuade the sick man to be healed by him, but this does
not make him a good doctor either in the moral or technical sense. For both
Socrates and Plato, the concern was to produce good people. Therefore, a good
ruler should be someone who was both virtuous and technically skilled to rule in
the same way a doctor is both morally concerned to make his patients well and
technically skilled to do so.
And so, for Socrates as well as Plato, it was important to educate people in the
truth. Inevitably this raises the question of what is truth. Right at the beginning
of Meno, Socrates says he does not know whether goodness can be taught
without first determining what goodness is. This is a sensible enough remark to
make: you should understand what something is before you set out to teach it.
Therefore, if we are to teach what is right to our young we must know for sure
what is right. Here, to ‘know’ something is to be aware of the truth of something,
and so differs from what we may call ‘opinion’.

The scapegoat

‘I hope that there is something in store for the dead, and, as has been said of old,
something better for the good than for the wicked.’
 Plato, Phaedo

During Socrates’ latter years, the city of Athens was in decline. Its defeat by
Sparta in 405 BC had been a massive blow to its confidence. The loss and
subsequent ravaging of the land led the people of Athens to question what had
gone wrong. Why had such a mighty power fallen? In seeking a scapegoat, the
masses – led on, no doubt, by the politicians themselves who followed the
prejudices and passions of the masses to gain support – blamed Socrates. He was
deliberately provocative. It was for this reason Socrates jokingly referred to
himself as a gadfly, biting away at his victims. However, this also resulted in
making him many enemies. Athens, seeking security, returned to its old
traditions, and saw in Socrates the man who most publicly questioned the belief
in gods and the old ways, as well as ‘corrupting the youth’ with his ideas.
When he was arrested Socrates could, like the Sophists, have gained the
sympathy of the public through persuasion if he had wished, but he remained
stubborn and resolute to the end. He neither sought sympathy nor forgiveness,
for he believed he had done nothing wrong except to seek out the truth. He was
condemned to death and he refused to escape or adopt the traditional method of
proposing another form of punishment, such as exile (which probably would
have been accepted), preferring to die with dignity and remain a good citizen of
the state that he so dearly loved. In choosing his method of death he drank a cup
of hemlock and died within half an hour. After his death, Socrates, in time, did
become a new kind of Greek hero replacing the more militaristic figures such as
Pericles. Socrates represented the person of conviction who follows the dictates
of intellectual conscience and it was this legacy that Plato promulgated.

‘Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius. See to it, and don’t forget.’
Socrates’ dying words in Phaedo by Plato

Socrates’ Last Words

Plato, in his dialogue Phaedo, describes Socrates’ last moments in his cell. Surrounded by a group of his
followers (though Plato himself was not present) the cup of hemlock was handed to him by the tearful
jailer: ‘Quite calmly and with no sign of distaste, he drained the cup in one breath.’ His followers broke
down in tears while Socrates was the one who comforted them as the poison worked its way through his
body. It was in these final moments that Socrates addressed one of his followers: ‘Crito, we ought to offer a
cock to Asclepius. See to it, and don’t forget.’ Crito replied that it would be done and, when he asked if
there was anything else, there was no reply; Socrates was dead. The meaning of these last words has
resulted in a lot of ink in scholarly articles, for it seems somewhat mundane from such a great thinker;
surely, many argue, there must be a deeper meaning? Asclepius, the god of healing, was a relatively new
(for Athens) but very popular divinity. No doubt this god’s popularity was due to the recent high levels of
death and suffering from the Peloponnesian Wars against Sparta and its allies. Perhaps, as Asclepius was
able to raise people from the dead, Socrates also hoped for more life, although this seems odd given his
welcoming of death in his speech to his followers. Or perhaps as he suffocates from the hemlock, he calls
out to the god of healing to ease his pain. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (see Case Study in
Chapter 12), in his work The Gay Science, argues that Socrates is giving thanks to the god of health for
ridding him of the disease of life, but, again, this seems at odds with Socrates’ attitude towards life, which is
far more positive than that! There are so many other explanations, all of which have equal weight, for we
can never know the real reason. It may be simple piety on Socrates’ part, or a last stab at irony. In many
ways, these final words represent the ambiguity that is Socrates himself: sometimes portrayed as a
philosophical riddler and logician, while other times modest, down-to-earth and plain-spoken.
 Key terms

Analytic philosophy: A method of doing philosophy that was particularly associated with English-
speaking countries in the 20th century by which philosophical problems are examined through analysis of
the terms in which they are expressed.
Dialectic: A method of attempting to get to the nature of truth by questioning concepts. The Socratic
method is a form of dialectic.
Moral relativism: Relativism means that all things relate to a particular time and place. Moral relativism,
therefore, is the belief that morality has no universal and absolute standards, but is relative to a time, place
or person.
Sophist/sophistry: A Sophist was, among other things, a relativist. Sophists were teachers who believed
that there is no such thing as true knowledge. What is ‘true’ is what society believes or is persuaded to
believe.
Dig deeper

Hughes, B. (2010), The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life. London:
Jonathan Cape.
Johnson, P. (2011), Socrates: A Man for Our Times. London: Penguin.
Taylor, C. (2000), Socrates: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tredennick, H. (trans.) (1990), Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates. London: Penguin.
Tredennick, H. (trans.) (2003), Plato: The Last Days of Socrates. London: Penguin.
Waterfield, R. (2009), Why Socrates Died: Dispelling The Myths. London: Faber & Faber.
Wilson, E. (2007), The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint. London: Profile Books.
Fact check

1 Which one of the following wrote about Socrates?

a Xenophon
b Xanthippe
c Xanix
d Xanadu
2 Which Ancient Greek city is Socrates from?
a Rome
b Athens
c Sparta
d Metropolis
3 What was the view of the Presocratic philosopher Democritus?
a That the universe was created by the gods b That the universe is made of atoms and nothing else
c That the universe consists of Platonic Forms d That the universe is just one of many universes
4 Which one of the following describes the Sophists?
a Citizens of a Greek city state that fought against Athens b Believers in an absolute moral standard
c Believers in moral relativism d Wise men who sat on sofas 5 Which following insect was
used to describe Socrates?
a A butterfly
b A greenfly
c A housefly
d A gadfly
6 How did Socrates die?
a Died of old age while in exile b Died laughing c Died choking on wine d Died by taking
poison 7 Which one of the following best describes the Socratic method?
a The use of dialectic b Writing books c Meditating silently d Library research 8 In which
century was Socrates born?
a Third century BC
b Fourth century BC
c Fifth century BC
d Sixth century BC
9 What was the motto that Socrates adopted that was based on the pronouncements of the Delphic Oracle?
a Know no one
b Know others
c Know thyself d Know all there is to know 10 Who said ‘Man is the measure of all things’?
a Socrates
b Aristotle
c Pythagoras
d Protagoras
 3
Who was Plato?
 ‘Reading Plato should be easy; understanding Plato can be difficult.’
Robin Waterfield, Republic

As one of the founding fathers of philosophy, and the best known of the thinkers
of Ancient Greece, Plato has had a massive impact on the history of Western
thought. He lived from around 427–347 BC, spending most of his time in Athens.
Curiously there are many biographies of Socrates, for whom we know so little,
yet you will struggle to find works on the life of Plato, for whom we know more.
Why this is the case is perhaps due to Socrates as something of a tragic figure, of
a man who died for what he believed in. Yet we would know considerably less
about Socrates if it were not for Plato who immortalized him in his dialogues.
As we saw in the previous chapter, Plato is not the only source for Socrates’
philosophy, but this is a book about Plato’s philosophy rather than that of
Socrates, although we will struggle to differentiate the two in terms of who said
what. Rightly or wrongly, Plato has become synonymous with Socrates, much to
the annoyance perhaps of other writers of Socratic dialogues.
Antisthenes

After the death of Socrates, a number of his followers began to write down their master’s philosophy. One
of these was Antisthenes (c. 445–c. 365 BC) who, unlike Plato, was present at Socrates’ death. The ascetic
Antisthenes was known as someone who baulked at pleasure, declaring: ‘I would rather go mad than have
fun.’ To annoy Plato, Antisthenes wrote a satirical dialogue called Satho, which, though it rhymes with
‘Plato’, is actually Greek for ‘prick’!

WHY IS PLATO’S WORK SO IMPORTANT?

‘The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is

that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.’
A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 39, Free Press, 1979

Plato was very creative and a great innovator. However, no one works in a
vacuum and, as we have seen, there were many philosophers before him and
Socrates who influenced Plato’s thought. Although we know so very little about
these shadowy figures of the past, it is apparent that the term ‘philosophy’ for
most of them covered a broad and varied school of thought. What they generally
all have in common is a quest to find a unifying principle, an arche, of the
cosmos – an order for the apparent chaos of the world they occupied.
Although also concerned with matters relating to cosmology, Plato and his
teacher Socrates are very different from the Presocratic philosophers before them
because of their more rigorous and rational method of enquiry. What they did
was to invent the method and terminology of philosophizing that is still used
today. The Socrates we know today is ultimately Plato’s creation, and the
Platonic dialogues are not just works of philosophy, but novelistic in their
development of characters. The main protagonist, Socrates, is deliberately used
by Plato to engage in his own (and to some extent Socrates’) thought
experiments and in his mission to establish philosophy as a discipline. This is
best expressed in his greatest work: Republic.
While nothing is certain, we can be fairly confident in stating that it is Plato, not
Socrates, who introduced to the world the analysis, cogent argument and a
rational approach to thought that laid the foundations for all philosophers who
came after him. This is why the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead
(1861–1947) famously said that European philosophy is but ‘a series of
footnotes to Plato’. (See Chapter 11 for a Case Study on Whitehead.) According
to the philosopher (and Plato’s pupil) Aristotle (384–322 BC), Socrates did not
come up with the famous Theory of the Forms (see Chapter 4) that is so central
to Plato’s philosophy (although Aristotle is not always the most reliable narrator
either). While remaining inevitably speculative, a picture emerges of Plato’s
Socrates as much more abstract, doctrinal and theoretical and less personable
than Socrates actually was, which is why we should see Plato’s works as to some
extent works of fiction when it comes to his characterization. It may well be that
in Plato’s early years (reflected in some of his writings) his main concern
initially, like that of Socrates, was with moral philosophy – with how we ought
to live our lives. However, although this was his main inspiration, as he matured
his writings covered many of the branches of philosophy, including political
philosophy, education, aesthetics, metaphysics and epistemology. Plato was also
something of a poet, and his writings are regarded as not only monumental
works of philosophy, but great literature as well. Plato is the earliest philosopher
whose own writings have survived to such an extent, and so they provide an
important insight into the culture and beliefs of the complex and cosmopolitan
society of Athens as it existed two and a half thousand years ago.
Plato founded the Academy in Athens and this institution has often been
described as the first European university. Here people studied works of
philosophy, mathematics, politics and the sciences for nearly a thousand years. A
great deal of religious thought in Europe was intermingled with Plato’s
philosophy; for example, in the writings of the Christian theologian St Augustine
(AD 354–430) and in medieval Islamic thought where it was translated and
preserved in Arabic. Plato’s works were later re-translated into Latin and Greek
and re-emerged as a force during the Renaissance. In the 19th century, Plato’s
work was a basis for Victorian values in Britain. His controversial political and
educational views have also played an important part in more recent debate. It is
certainly true to say that no student of philosophy can afford to ignore Plato and
his works.

Plato’s world
 Sparta

Also known as Lacedaemon, this Greek city-state was located on the banks of the Eurotas River in the
region of Laconia. In fact, the word ‘laconic’ derives from the name of this region because the Athenians
said the Spartans always spoke in a precise way. People have been fascinated by Sparta because of its
unique social system. It was a disciplined military state with a strict hierarchical structure. Its classes were
divided into Spartiates (free men born in Sparta), Mothakes (free men not originally from Sparta but
raised as Spartans), Perioikoi (literally ‘dweller around’; free men but not citizens of Sparta) and helots
(slaves).
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BC there were seven helots for each Spartan,
so it was important that such a massive, potentially rebellious, population was kept under control. One way
of doing this was through an annual event, called the Crypteia, whereby the Spartan leaders (ephors) would
declare temporary war on the helots, allowing the Spartan citizens to kill helots without any repercussions.
This was a properly organized affair: each autumn a group of young Spartan men who had completed their
educational and military training were chosen to practise their skills and were sent out at night with knives
to kill helots that they encountered, especially those helots who were considered troublesome. That way the
population was controlled and potential troublemakers were disposed of. Hence the name Crypteia, which
means ‘secret’ or ‘hidden’, since the chosen Spartans (cryptes) would also need to spy on the helots and
engage in stealth in order to determine who were suitable targets. It was this training that made Sparta a
state to be feared. In 480 BC it famously made a last stand against a massive Persian army at the Battle of
Thermopylae. Though defeated, a small number of Spartans – 300 being the usual number given – inflicted
much higher casualties on the Persians. It was this event that was depicted in the 2006 film 300.

To understand Plato and his work it helps to have some idea of the world in
which he lived. The Athenian empire at that time consisted of a league of semi-
autonomous ‘city-states’ (or polis, see Chapter 1) united by language and culture
and formed as a defence against the threatening Persian empire. During Plato’s
long life he witnessed the decline and fall of this Greek federation. It was an age
of war and political upheaval, yet it was also a period of great cultural activity.
Athens, especially, was an exciting and cosmopolitan place. The famous
Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, was built in the mid-5th
century BC, and Plato would also have been able to see some of the greatest
Greek tragedies performed in the squares and theatres of the city. Yet Plato’s
philosophy, his belief in order and suspicion of democracy, was also moulded by
the political climate of the recent past: • Between the 8th and 6th centuries BC,
Athens and Sparta became the two dominant cities of Greece. Each of these city-
states united their weaker neighbours into a league under their dominance.
Sparta, a state Plato admired for its order and discipline, was highly militarized
and a supporter of aristocracy. Whereas Sparta established its league largely
through conquest, Athens unified mostly (although not always) through mutual
and peaceful agreement.
• In the early part of the 6th century BC, a limited form of democracy replaced
hereditary Athenian kingship. This was the start of the greatest period of
Athenian history economically and culturally. The Athenians also succeeded
in defeating an invading Persian fleet, despite seemingly overwhelming odds.
As a result, Athens became the most influential state in Greece, and the Delian
League, which at first was voluntary, was formed with Athens at its head.
However, as Athenian power grew it became more tyrannical towards other
states in the league.

• During the 5th century BC, under the leadership of Pericles (c. 495–429 BC),
Athens entered its Golden Age: the Parthenon was built during this time;
tragedians such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides reached their zenith;
and the constitution was reformed to make Athens more democratic. During
the latter half of the century, however, Athens was constantly at war with
Sparta. Most likely Plato would have fought in the cavalry against the
Spartans.

• From 431–404 BC the Athenian Empire was engaged in the Peloponnesian

War with Sparta (as head of the Peloponnesian League). In 404 BC Athens
was defeated by Sparta, and the victors established an oligarchy over the city
known as the Thirty Tyrants. Two of these ‘Tyrants’ were close relatives of
Plato. This reign, however, lasted for only a year or so before democracy and
independence were restored, but Athens was now in decline, as was the whole
of Greece. Its northern neighbour, Macedonia, began its expansion, which
would eventually lead to Macedonian supremacy under Alexander the Great
in 336 BC.
Women in Athens

In Athens in the 5th century BC, women were considered as objects of disgust and fear. Aristotle argued
that during menstruation a mere glance from a female could infect the air around her. The lawmaker Solon
declared that any woman found walking the streets should be considered a prostitute.

Plato: a life ‘Plato’ is, quite possibly, a

nickname from the word platon, meaning
something like ‘broad’ or ‘breadth’.
Sources say that Plato was something of a
gymnast, especially in wrestling, and he
was nicknamed ‘Plato’ because of his
broad shoulders, although it has also been
suggested that he was so named due to the
breadth of his knowledge. Regardless, he
adopted the name as his own, although his
actual name was possibly Aristocles,
named after his grandfather (although even
this name is disputed). Plato was a wealthy
and well-connected man who, though
absent for Socrates’ actual death, did
witness the trial. It was the trial and
subsequent execution of Socrates that led
Plato to write his philosophy, quite
possibly having written nothing
philosophical until after the death of
Socrates, with the possible exception of the
dialogue Lysis which discusses friendship.
Plato would have been in his late twenties
when Socrates was executed and would
have been close friends with him for
probably the whole of his adult life.
Plato, befitting a member of the aristocracy, would have had the finest education
Athens could offer in terms of philosophy, grammar, music and gymnastics. His
father was Ariston (died c. 424 BC), who legend states was descended from
Codrus, the ancient and semi-mythical king of Athens of the 11th century BC.
Plato’s mother was Perictione (c. 5th century BC). Ariston died when Plato was a
young boy and his mother then married her uncle Pyrilampes, who was a
statesman and friend of Pericles (see above). Plato had two older brothers,
Glaucon and Adeimantus – both of whom feature in Republic and other
dialogues – and an older sister, Potone. Plato’s half-brother Antiphon makes an
appearance in the dialogue Parmenides in which Antiphon states he has given up
philosophy so he can spend more time on his horses! Incidentally, Plato also had
an aunt called Charmides, which is the title of another dialogue written by him;
he obviously had no reticence in including his family in his works and perhaps,
together with the setting of the dialogues during the life of Socrates, the works
represent for Plato a much happier time.
Plato’s ancestry can be traced to the great Athenian statesman and poet Solon (c.
638–c. 558 BC). Like so many of these early Greeks we know very little of
Solon, although legend credits him with laying the foundations for democracy in
Athens. One account states that he was selected to be ruler of Athens due to his
considered wisdom, which resulted in constitutional, economic and moral
reform. As the Greek historian Plutarch (c. AD 46–120) wrote:

‘In philosophy, like most of the wise men of that age, he was concerned above all
with applying morals to politics.’
Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of Athens.

Solon is considered one of the Seven Sages, all of whom are from the 6th
century BC.
 The Seven Sages

Also referred to as the Seven Wise Men, this is a title given to various philosophers, law-givers and
statesmen from the 6th century BC. Each of the seven is associated with an aphorism, for example Solon
with ‘nothing in excess’. Other figures include the presocratic philosopher Thales (see Chapter 1) with his
aphorism ‘know thyself’, the Spartan politician Chilon (‘you should not desire the impossible’) and the
legislator Bias (‘most men are bad’).

What qualifies them as a ‘Sage’ is their intent to incorporate the poetic and
philosophical outlook into practical politics. This was a mission that Plato was
wholly sympathetic with in his concept of the Philosopher-Kings (see Chapter
7). Indeed, one of our sources for Solon is Plato himself, who crops up in many
of his dialogues. Plato’s uncle (possibly!) was Critias (c. 460–403 BC) who was a
writer of tragedies, friend and pupil of Socrates and also one of the leading
members of Thirty Tyrants (see above) that were installed by the Spartans to rule
Athens after they defeated it in the Peloponnesian War. Although the Thirty
Tyrants ruled for just 13 months, it was a violent and oppressive time resulting
in the killing, by some estimates, of up to 5 per cent of the Athenian population.
As stated, Socrates’ death had a profound impact upon Plato. Undoubtedly the
fact that his friend and teacher was condemned by democrats was one reason
why Plato distrusted democracy and, as he saw it, the rule of the mob. He was
determined to keep the spirit of Socrates alive by engaging in philosophy in the
Socratic tradition. In addition, Plato had witnessed first-hand the humbling of the
once-mighty Athens as a result of the Peloponnesian War, and saw this defeat as
a result of poor decision-making and lack of political wisdom on the part of the
Athenian state, and so he regarded it as his mission, through the mouthpiece of
Socrates, to question the Athenian political system and to suggest alternatives.
This resulted in his greatest work, Republic.
However, because of Plato’s close friendship with Socrates his own safety was
compromised. Perhaps for this reason Plato decided to leave Athens and
undertake a 12-year exploration of the known world. His travels seem to have
included Egypt, where he was impressed by the theocratic system – the rule by
an educated priestly class. It has even been speculated that Plato reached as far
as the banks of the River Ganges – but despite certain similarities between his
own philosophy and eastern religions it remains an unlikely hypothesis. What is
more credible, however, is his encounter in Italy with the Pythagoreans, a
community founded upon the principles of Pythagoras (c. 582–c. 500 BC). In
around 530 BC, Pythagoras settled in a Greek colony in southern Italy called
Crotona where he established and led a tightknit community of like-minded
people. Pythagoras’ teachings survived and spread over southern Italy and
Greece. These communities were well-ordered and strict in terms of diet, dress
and moral codes.
The Pythagoreans believed in the immortality of the soul and in reincarnation as
well as the notion that nature was subject to a mathematical order. The name of
Pythagoras is, of course, associated with the mathematical theorem that equates
the square of the sides of a right-angled triangle to the square of its hypotenuse
(the nightmare of many a schoolchild!). However, the theorem was most likely
developed later on by his followers. Nonetheless, the importance of mathematics
and the belief that ‘all is number’ had a profound effect on Plato. For
Pythagoras, numbers held the key to understanding the universe. Everything
could be explained in terms of numbers, which existed in an abstract and
harmonious realm beyond the flux of the everyday world. It was the
Pythagoreans who discovered the link between number and musical harmony
and envisioned the movement of the planets as the ‘music of the spheres’.
Plato, too, believed there is a timeless unchanging order to the universe and that
there is an underlying ‘form’ to the world that can, through reason and
mathematics, be perceived. It is said that above the door to his Academy was
written: ‘Let no one unacquainted with geometry enter here.’ What developed
was Plato’s famous Theory of the Forms: the very ‘stuff’ of the universe that
provides the key to understanding.
Plato also travelled to Syracuse in Sicily, the most powerful city-state west of the
Greek mainland. The ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius, seemed keen to discuss
philosophy with Plato but it turned out that Dionysius was an impatient and
intractable individual and expelled Plato from his land after a series of
arguments. During his time in Syracuse, however, Plato had a long and turbulent
relationship with the ruler’s brother-in-law, Dion, for whom he wrote poetry and
described him as his lover who drove him mad with desire.
At the wiser age of 40 Plato returned to Athens and bought a plot of land in the
Grove of Academe, named after a mythical hero called Academus. Here Plato
established a school of intellectuals modelled on the Pythagorean model. When
Plato was about 60, Dionysius died and was succeeded by his son, and Dion’s
nephew, Dionysius II. Dion persuaded the reluctant Plato to return to Syracuse to
teach the new ruler to be a ‘philosopher-king’ in the mould of Plato’s own
political views. However, like his father before him, the new ruler proved a
reluctant and impatient philosopher and, once again, Plato fled back to Athens,
preferring to stay out of politics from then on.
At the age of 80, Plato – who never married – died and was buried in the
Academy. The Academy itself continued to thrive, producing such notable
alumni as the philosopher Aristotle (a student of Plato) and developing important
schools in, for example, mathematical science and astronomy. The Academy
was closed down by the Roman Emperor Justinian in AD 529.

Plato’s works

‘Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of
time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify
nothing?’
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

A very rare thing indeed is that we are fortunate to possess copies of the entire
corpus of Plato’s writings. That is to say, whenever a writer from history refers
to a work by Plato, a copy still exists. The same thing cannot be said for most of
the Ancient Greek writers. As we have seen, virtually nothing exists for the
Presocratics, and even for Aristotle (who came after Plato) works have been lost.
Perhaps this indicates just how important Plato was for the Greeks themselves
for them to ensure that none of his works suffered the same fate.
Having said that, we cannot be sure that all the works that are attributed to Plato
are actually his, for some may well be spurious; either notes of Plato’s that have
been compiled (and altered) by his students, or possibly works written by
someone else entirely. Therefore, although 35 dialogues are attributed to Plato,
some of the shorter works may not have originated from Plato’s own hand. For
example, one work, usually translated as Rival Lovers (Greek Erastai), is
included in the traditional corpus despite doubt as to its authenticity as a work by
Plato, largely because the character of Socrates (who engages in a dialogue with
an unnamed man who, it has been suggested, could have been Democritus who
did visit Athens) comes across more like the less philosophical character
portrayed by Xenophon than by Plato.
Plato’s works are frequently divided into three periods: early, middle and late.
This, it should be pointed out, is useful to give us some idea of the ‘phases’ in
Plato’s thought, but it is by no means certain what the chronology of Plato’s
works actually is. To some extent, then, this is an artificial division: • The early
period was mostly concerned with moral issues and heavily influenced by
Socrates. These are referred to as the aporetic dialogues (derived from the
Greek aporia, ‘impasse’) because some of them (but not all) conclude in a state
of aporia. This is a rhetorical device adopted by Socrates who begins by
expressing doubt (possibly feigned) concerning his position on a particular
subject (for example, love, courage or virtue) and asks his interlocutors to
explain or define a concept. The dialogue concludes with Socrates expressing
aporia, or uncertainty, as to whether a concept has yet been fully defined. From
the perspective of the reader it is then left to them, quite deliberately, to
speculate further, rather than for Socrates to provide the answer. One good
example of aporia is the dialogue Lysis, which will be looked at in Chapter 8.

• As already noted, it is quite possible that much of this work really features the
philosophy of Socrates rather than much originality from Plato himself.
Perhaps it is more accurate, and more fruitful, to see these works as Plato
being as yet unprepared and, perhaps, too philosophically immature, to assert
himself and go on an all-out attack on certain accepted (especially sophistic)
positions. Usually included in the early dialogues are Apology, Charmides,
Crito, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches and Lysis.

• The break from this early period to the middle period comes first with the
works of Protagoras and Gorgias, where the character of Socrates expresses a
greater concern with such issues as politics and metaphysics, and shows how
Plato now begins to assert his voice more. The characters of Protagoras and
Gorgias were both well-known Sophists, and so Plato is setting out here to
attack them directly, often through ironic humour, which expresses a
confidence of writing style and philosophical maturity. The middle period,
then, was Plato at his peak, producing other important works such as Meno,
Phaedo, Symposium and, best known of all, Republic. The Republic is a rich
book in which all aspects of philosophy are connected in a grand scheme for
the kind of state Plato wished for – a state ruled by the wisest and best: the
 Philosopher-Kings. These rulers would be the wisest because, through
training in the sciences especially, they would have learned how to gain
access to truth itself: the Forms. It is not just a book on political philosophy
but provides views on education and a theory of human nature based upon his
belief in the eternal soul. What is particularly characteristic of this period of
dialogue is that Socrates’ arguments tend to be more extended and developed,
containing such key Platonic ideas as his Theory of the Forms (see Chapter 4).

• Plato’s later works, written in the last 12 years or so of his life, are perhaps
less dramatic in terms of his poetry and humour, and more engaged in logical
analysis. Many of these works, such as Theaetetus (an aporetic dialogue) and
Parmenides, are a further development of Plato’s earlier philosophy, with the
character of Socrates playing a smaller part in conversations. For example, in
Laws the main character is simply called the Athenian Stranger which, one
suspects, is Plato himself. In fact, this dialogue, which was most likely Plato’s
last, is the only work that does not feature Socrates at all. The works Sophist
and Statesmen also have Socrates taking a backstage role, with the main
character called the Eleatic Stranger (which may have been Parmenides, who
came from Elea). Timaeus, which may belong to the later period (although
some argue it is part of the middle period), contains an interesting creation
myth of a divine craftsman who imposes order on a chaotic world (see
Chapter 11). This echoes Plato’s own concern for order and the belief that
such logical and systematic structures do exist. These later dialogues tend to
be more technical and, therefore, more philosophically demanding for the
reader.
 Key terms

Aporetic dialogue: From the Greek aporia (‘impasse’), a style of dialogue that occurs in some of Plato’s
works in which Socrates concludes by expressing aporia as to whether a concept has been defined or not.
Helot: The subjugated population of Sparta. Essentially slave labour that, largely, worked in agriculture.
Sparta: An ancient Greek military city-state. During Plato’s life, Athens was frequently at war with Sparta.
 Dig deeper

Annas, J. (2003), Plato: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks.

Hare, R. M. (1982), Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Melling, D. J. (1987), Understanding Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scott-Kilvert, I. (trans.) (1973), Plutarch: The Rise and Fall of Athens. London: Penguin.
Waterfield, R. (1993), Republic. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks.
Fact check

1 The name ‘Plato’ may have been a nickname. Why was he called this?
a Because he liked to eat from big plates b Because he had broad shoulders c Because he was
born on a plateau d Because he was very playful 2 Who said that European philosophy is but ‘a
series of footnotes to Plato’?
a Ludwig Wittgenstein b Aristotle c Bertrand Russell d A. N. Whitehead 3 What was the name
given to the ‘university’ that Plato founded in Athens?
a The Academy b The Lyceum c The Parthenon d The Acropolis 4 What was the name of the
war between Sparta and Athens?
a The Polynesian War b The Peloponnesian War c The Persian War d The Peninsular War
5 What were the names of Plato’s two older brothers?
a Glaucon and Adeimantus b Adeimantus and Charmides c Glaucon and Potone d Potone and
Charmides 6 What is the name of Plato’s ancestor who was one of the Seven Sages?
a Colon b Zolon c Holon d Solon 7 What was the name of the group of philosophers who
influenced Plato and who believed in the immortality of the soul and in reincarnation as well as a
belief that nature was subject to a mathematical order.
a The Pythagoreans b The Spartans c The Hindus d The Presocratics 8 Which of the following
is a translation of the Greek word aporia?
a Knowledge b Illusion c Impasse d Enlightenment 9 Which one of the following is a work by
Plato?
a The Sage
b Ethics
c Lysis
d Metaphysics
10 Which one of the following was a pupil of Plato?
a Pythagoras b Democritus c Socrates d Aristotle
 4
The Forms
In the last chapter we examined Plato’s life and put him into historical context.
In considering his dialogues, his great work Republic stands out. When students
learn about Plato, Republic tends to be the focus. To some extent this is a great
shame since Plato wrote many other excellent dialogues that examine important
and still relevant issues and it is hoped that this book will encourage the reader
to look beyond Republic. Nonetheless, there are many valid reasons why
Republic is placed on such a pedestal, and so it is only fitting that a good
proportion of this book is devoted to the arguments within it. This chapter, and
the next three, will, therefore, focus largely on Republic and, no doubt, this
dialogue will crop up on a number of occasions elsewhere. Indeed Chapter 12
will also be entirely devoted to Republic.
The death of Socrates had a profound influence upon Plato. Any political
ambitions he had held were now of no concern to him. He was disillusioned with
politics and saw his mission to carry on the legacy of his mentor, to be a
philosopher. After a number of years travelling and soul-searching, Plato
returned to his native Athens and began to teach and write. His early dialogues
(as much as we can be certain that they are his early dialogues) were records of
conversations that Socrates might have had with various individuals: for
example, with Euthyphro on what it means to be pious, or with Crito on the
subject of civil disobedience.
Plato also wrote an Apology, which was a defence of Socrates against his critics.
However, it was one thing to defend the life of Socrates, it was another to
demonstrate that the ‘examined life’ was the best life to live. To achieve this
Plato set out to prove that the philosopher, more than any other profession, was
after Truth. In this sense Plato was going much further than Socrates, for his
mentor never claimed to know anything – to have absolute knowledge of truth. It
was this belief that we can have true knowledge that developed into Plato’s
famous Theory of the Forms.

The Analogy of the Cave

One reason why Plato’s works have remained so popular after all these years is
that he was aware of his audience. His dialogues were designed for popular
consumption, and there is evidence that Plato did not write down his more
advanced philosophy, as it was not meant for the general public. He appreciated
the importance of explaining often-difficult concepts in a way that could be more
readily understood. To achieve this, Plato often made use of analogy. An
analogy is when you make a relationship between two or more entities to bring
out their similarity; for example, to make an analogy (though not a very good
one) between the structure of an atom and the solar system. To explain his
Theory of the Forms, Plato used the well-known Analogy of the Cave.
This analogy is from Plato’s Republic. As usual in his dialogues, the main
character is Socrates. It is Socrates who describes the cave to his fellow
interlocutors: • Deep down at the very bottom of the cave is a group of
prisoners. The prisoners are firmly shackled so that they cannot move, or even
turn their heads. They all face only one direction, the wall of the cave. These
prisoners have been in this condition since they were young children.

• Behind the prisoners a fire burns away, and between this fire and the prisoners
there are many people who are walking by, talking and carrying artificial
objects such as figures of men and animals made of wood and stone. The
people walking by are hidden by a screen, so that only the artificial objects
appear above the top of the screen • The fire casts a shadow of these artificial
objects upon the wall of the cave. It is this wall that the prisoners can see. The
prisoners are not aware of what is happening behind them and so, for them,
the whole of their reality consists of shadows on the wall. They can only see
the shadows of the artificial objects, which, of course, are also, in a way,
‘shadows’ of their makers. When they hear talking or other sounds they
believe it comes from the shadows.

• One day, one of these prisoners is let loose from his chains and is forced to
turn around, look and walk towards the fire. The released prisoner finds all of
these actions painful and is dazzled by the light, having spent his life in
almost complete darkness and not being able to move. He is told that the
objects he now sees are the real objects and that what he had experienced all
his life were mere shadows.

• Confused and frightened, the prisoner wants to return to the bottom of the
cave, but he is dragged further away and up towards the entrance. Faced by
the daylight he is unable to see a single object. Only over time can he
gradually grow used to it, first by perceiving the lights of the night sky, then
the shadows of objects cast by the sun and finally the objects themselves in
broad daylight.
• Finally, after a period of getting used to the light of day, the released prisoner
 is even able to gaze at the sun itself.

‘“A strange picture,” he said, “– and strange prisoners!”

“Ones that resemble us”, I said.’
Plato, Republic, 515a

A more modern analogy today would be the cinema, where the audience would
watch the play of shadows thrown by the film coming from a light behind them.
The audience would believe that the events in the film are ‘real’ to them as
opposed to the events outside the cinema.

Plato and The Croods

The Croods (2013) is a 3D animated film from DreamWorks. This storyline might sound familiar once you
have read about the cave analogy: a family of cavemen, who believe they are the only cavemen in
existence, live in a dark cave which they rarely leave. Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage), the head of this
family, tells his children every night that it is important that they obey the rules that are marked on the cave
walls if they are to survive. It is only as a result of an earthquake that they are forced to venture further out
and come across a nomad called Guy who shows them fire and how it can bring light to the darkness of a
cave.

The path to enlightenment

As Socrates tells his tale he asks his colleagues to imagine what the prisoner
must have thought and felt during this whole experience. The released prisoner’s
initial reaction is fear and confusion; a desire to return to the comfort and
security of what he had lived with all his life, even though he has been told that
it is an illusion. Forced to experience the world outside, he experiences a gradual
awakening; an awareness that there is a more beautiful and real world so very
different from the dark world of shadows where he has spent his life. In time, the
prisoner also realizes that all things he had cherished and felt were so important
to him previously, now no longer mattered. The chained prisoners would, among
themselves, gain status and honour by attempting to determine the sequence of
events that would occur among the shadows and so on. The released prisoner,
however, realizes that this quest for glory was illusory.
By perceiving the sun itself, the prisoner realizes that it is the source of all
things; it produces the changing of the seasons and controls everything in the
visible world, including the fire and, from that, the shadows that he used to think
were the only reality. Aware of all this, the prisoner would rather be ‘a serf to a
man with nothing’ (516d) than to be the person he was before he was released.
Socrates then speculates on what would happen if the prisoner were to return to
the bottom of the cave; not to return to the life he led but to tell the other
prisoners what wonderful things lay beyond the darkness of their experience. He
asks us to imagine how the others would respond to this. Would they welcome
him with open arms and want to see this world for themselves? Quite the
opposite, Socrates thought. For the released prisoner, having grown accustomed
to the outside world, would fumble in the darkness and could no longer engage
in the complexities of divining the motion of the shadows. The prisoners would
see him as a fool, a bumbling idiot. In fact, if he made any attempt to free them
from their shackles, they would gang together and kill him.
And yet, even if the prisoner knew that his companions at the bottom of the cave
would not understand him and that his own life would be in danger, Socrates
thought that the prisoner should return. To keep his knowledge to himself and
allow his companions to remain in ignorance is a crime.
This curious tale works on many different levels. What is it meant to teach us?
First of all, his audience will have known who the prisoner represents: it is
Socrates himself. The man who had no concern for the conventions of everyday
society, of the quest for glory or honour; the man who talked of higher things,
who saw it as his mission in life to tell people that their dearly held beliefs are a
sham; the man who was often mocked because of his appearance and lack of
practical sense. Ultimately, the man who many feared and whose life was not
only in danger but, in the end, was ended by those who refused to understand. In
a much broader sense, the prisoner is every philosopher: the searcher for truth
and whose purpose in life is to teach this truth to others.

The Matrix
Another film, more philosophically sophisticated than The Croods, is The Matrix. This is often considered
an example of Descartes’ sceptical doubt (see Case Study in Chapter 5), but it can also be seen as inspired
by Plato’s cave analogy. Just like the prisoners in the cave, Neo is a prisoner in the matrix and does not
realize he is a prisoner, believing that the world as perceived is the real one. Morpheus represents the freed
prisoner, the ‘Socrates’, who gives Neo the choice to remain chained or to be freed both physically and
mentally.

The Realm of the Forms

The Analogy of the Cave is not only about the quest of the philosopher. It is also
a way of explaining Plato’s Theory of the Forms. What are the Forms? In the
story The Little Prince, by the French poet and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(1900–44), the author recounts how, as a young boy, he lived in a house where
there was supposed to be some buried treasure. The treasure was never found,
but the possibility that it might exist gave the house a special quality and beauty.
As Saint-Exupéry says, ‘what is essential is invisible to the eye’. In a similar
vein the sculptor Michelangelo (1475–1564), when receiving praise for his work,
would retort that all he had done was to remove the excess marble from the
block and so reveal what was already there. In a sense the Forms are what is
‘already there’, but we usually cannot see them and are instead concerned with
the ‘excess marble’.
In Republic, the character of Socrates points out that his analogy is a picture of
the human condition. People are trapped by the illusory world of the senses; they
are like the prisoners at the bottom of the cave. However, Plato believed that the
ability to perceive the truth behind this illusion is contained within our very
souls. The Forms are the world beyond the shadows. We take the shadows to be
reality, but they are really only appearance… It is no coincidence that this realm
of the Forms bears some resemblance to the Christian concept of heaven, since
Plato’s philosophy had considerable influence on the development of Christian
thought.
For Plato, this world is not the real world. The real world is invisible. It lies
beyond our senses of sight, taste, touch, smell and hearing. But what led Plato to
believe that there is such a world beyond this one? This question will be
considered more in the next chapter. Students often ask me what evidence Plato
has for such a theory, but really the point Plato is making is that no evidence is
sufficient to definitively prove something to be the case: empirical method has its
limits. Further, Plato does not really present a ‘theory’ of the Forms, but more
modestly presents it as a possibility. Hence the use of analogy. Language has its
limitations and it’s possible to misrepresent what one means, whereas the use of
analogy may in such cases prove to be better suited. Remember, also, that Plato
did not work in a vacuum; he was a product of his time and the inheritor of a
school of thought that goes back to the Presocratics. For example there was the
influence of the Pythagoreans who saw the cosmos as mathematical patterns, or
Parmenides who stressed the importance of reason to go beyond what our
imperfect senses tell us.

THE FORM OF BEAUTY

‘I imagine’, I said, ‘that while those who love to listen or to see sights, embrace
beautiful sounds, colours, figures, and everything that is crafted out of these,
their minds are incapable of seeing, let alone embracing, the nature of the
beautiful by itself.’
Plato, Republic, 476b

We can see many beautiful things – a beautiful flower, a beautiful painting, a

beautiful woman and so on. But what is beauty itself? In other words, how do we
know that so many different objects all share the attribute of beauty? One
response to this might well be that we learn through experience. However, Plato
believed that our knowledge of beauty is innate. That is, we are not born an
‘empty slate’ with no knowledge at all, but possess within our soul all
knowledge already. The trick is to be guided towards that knowledge.

OTHER FORMS

‘These couches of ours, then – there turn out to be three of them, don’t there, in
a way? First, there’s the one that’s there in nature, which I imagine we’ll say
 was fashioned by god – who else?’
Plato, Republic, 597b

In fact, it is not just beauty, but everything appears to have a Form. For example,
an object such as a table has a Form of a table. Although tables differ from each
other in size, colour, texture and so on, they all share the attribute ‘table’.
Likewise, if we talk of a telephone box being red, a car being red, an apple being
red, then they all partake of the Form ‘red’.
Try to draw a circle. How does it look? Depending upon how steady your hand
is your circle will most likely be imperfect in some way or other; it might be a
little pear-shaped. But how do we know what a perfect circle is? How do we
know that every time we attempt to draw a circle it isn’t ‘quite right’? For Plato,
it is because there is a Form of a circle, and this tells us something about what
the Forms are. They are perfection. When you see a beautiful flower it is not
perfectly beautiful, but partakes of perfection. Similarly, a table might be
perfectly functional but you might well be able to conceive of a better table; one
that is sturdier, longer-lasting and so on.
When we say that design in furniture is getting better, Plato raises the question
how do we know it is getting better? What is this ‘better’ that we are aware of?
We can see how this affects many aspects of life. When we say that society,
quality of life, morality, etc. is progressing then we are making the assumption
that there is something to progress towards. Plato, as well as Socrates, believed
that there is such a thing as moral truth; that morality is not a relative matter,
dependent upon the society or time you live in. When one society claims to be
more morally advanced than another it is the same as saying there is such a thing
as independent moral standards.
If we return to the Analogy of the Cave, our prisoner’s journey towards daylight
is an educational one. Through proper training – that is, in becoming a true
philosopher – he will attain knowledge of the Forms, and, as a philosopher, it is
his duty to return to the cave and enlighten his fellow man. At the same time, the
Forms cannot be taught. We know them already, but refuse to acknowledge them
for to do so is a painful and confusing process; it takes us away from the security
of our illusions. The prisoners in the cave are, for Plato, the people of Athens.
They are in a state of ignorance. Even the ‘highest’ among them – the politicians
and educators of Plato’s Athens – have no greater knowledge than the ‘lowest’.

THE FORM OF THE GOOD

 ‘For goodness’ sake, Socrates,’ said Glaucon, ‘don’t stand aside just when
you’re at the finish, as it were. Even if you only discuss the good in the same way
you discussed justice, moderation and the rest, it’ll be enough for us.’
‘Yes, my friend,’ I said, ‘and more than enough for me too. I’m afraid I won’t be
able to manage it; I’d cut a sorry figure, eager though I’d be able to do it, and
you’d laugh at me…What I am willing to talk about is something that is clearly
the offspring of the good, and bears a close resemblance to it – if you’re happy
for me to do that; if not, let’s pass on it.’
Plato, Republic, 506d–506e

From the above quote, Socrates expresses his own unwillingness to explain what
the good actually is for fear of being ridiculed and misunderstood, but prefers to
present its ‘offspring’. By that he means making use of analogy in the way that a
son is like his father, but is not really his father.
In the Analogy of the Cave, the Form of the Good is represented by the sun. The
sun is the source of all things: it gives light so you can perceive other objects,
and it gives life to all other things. The sun is responsible for the changing of the
seasons, for the weather, and for the food we need to live.
Plato believed that there is a hierarchy of Forms. Whereas there are particular
Forms for beauty, for justice, for a chair, and a bed, and so on, there is one Form
over and above all of these: the Form of the Good. All existence and perfection
ultimately flows from the Form of the Good. Like the sun, it gives light and life
to all other things, including the other Forms. Therefore, when you have
awareness of the Form of the Good you have achieved true enlightenment,
‘nirvana’ if you like. When the early Church Fathers developed Christian
theology, they borrowed heavily from the works of Plato. In Christianity, the
Form of the Good becomes God: the source of all things, immutable, eternal,
perfect and invisible.
The following provides an outline of what these Forms are: • The Forms
represent Truth or Reality. This cannot be attained by the senses (touch, taste,
smell, sight, hearing) rather by the exercise of the mind, that is, through the use
of the intellect. Throughout this book, the conventional translation of ‘Forms’
has been used, although in Greek the term eidos or idea would translate better as
‘idea’. However, translators have often been wary of using the word ‘idea’ as it
perhaps suggests that it is something that humans have ‘come up with’
themselves rather than being to some extent independent of human thought.

• The world of sense-experience (the objects we see, touch, etc., around us)
‘partakes’ in the Forms in that they contain likenesses of, for example, perfect
beauty, good, red and so on. When we recognize that an object partakes in, for
example, the Form of Beauty, it is because we recollect our knowledge of the
Form of Beauty that was acquired before birth. In other words, our knowledge
of the Forms is innate; we are born with it and through a process of education
we are able to recollect this knowledge.

• The Forms are eternal and unchanging, whereas the world of the senses is
temporal and changing. In that sense we cannot know things that are in a
constant state of flux, for what is there to know?

Criticisms of the Forms

The Theory of the Forms has perhaps caused more controversy and confusion
than any other aspect of Plato’s philosophy. Here is a brief outline of just a few
of the concerns raised by the Theory: • Is there a Form for literally everything?
For example, if it is the case that you can reduce the world to the most basic
particles, is there a Form for atoms, or even a Form for the nucleus of an atom?
In which case, is anything really universal and static?

• Connected with the above concern, to what extent can you reduce the Forms to
objects? Is there a Form for the planet Earth? In which case, can there then be
separate Forms for all the objects of the Earth?
• In what sense do these Forms exist? Plato talks about the Forms as distinct and
separate ‘things’ that are immutable, eternal and invisible, but what does this
really reveal about their actual nature?
• In terms of there being Forms for morality, how is it possible to separate
morals from everyday actions? The philosopher Aristotle, Plato’s one-time
pupil, believed morality couldn’t be eternal and unchanging. Can there really
be ultimate moral standards? In Chapter Six of Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics he launches into a critique of Plato’s concept of universal Good or the
 Form of the Good. It is certainly understandable that Aristotle needs to
address this issue, despite the fact that Plato was a friend of his, because it
was a popular conception of the Good at that time. Whereas Plato argued that
there must be one universal Form of the Good that applies to all things,
Aristotle states that there surely cannot be one universal idea of the Good, or
an ‘essence’ of Good, as the term is used relative to particular individuals,
places, circumstances and times. How, then, can one single ideal encompass
both the absolute and the relative given that it does not have one particular
meaning? For example, what an individual understands as a good diet in one
culture or time could differ greatly to that of another culture or time.
Likewise, a slice of chocolate cake would be ‘good’ if it were your first slice,
but perhaps not so if it were your tenth in succession! Good, in this sense, is
context-related.

• Further, Aristotle argues, the idea of good is used in numerous categories.

There are different standards of good in different fields and walks of life. For
example, ‘good’ could be a reference to moral goodness, but also to a good
(as in ‘useful’ or effective) work tool or a good (as in relaxing, peaceful, or
whatever your preference) place to go on a holiday. In addition, Aristotle uses
an example of ‘whiteness’ to show that Good itself can be no different from
particular good things in the same way a whiteness itself can be no different
from particular white things. Even if such a Good were attainable, which
Aristotle doubts, he fails to see what possible use it could be, given that we
live in a world of particulars.

• Plato also argued that if a person knows what is right and wrong, he will do
what is right and avoid what is wrong. For example, if you have knowledge of
the Form of Justice and from this you know it is wrong to steal, then you will
not steal. Is this a realistic view of human nature?

Aristotle’s criticisms

Although Aristotle was a pupil of Plato and respected him greatly, he did not agree with Plato’s Theory of
the Forms and he presents a series of criticisms against them in his work the Metaphysics, which can be
paraphrased here: First of all, Plato’s argument that our sense-experience gives us only illusion presents a
serious threat to the validity of science. While Aristotle will admit to the limitations of science, of empirical
method, for us to have any foundation for knowledge at all and for anything to be meaningful requires us to
assert the actual existence of at least certain objects presented to our senses, otherwise we can believe in
nothing other than some mythical intuitive experience and, even then, how can we be sure that it is
genuine?
A more famous criticism by Aristotle – although to be fair to Plato he also used the same criticism in his
own dialogue Parmenides – is the Third Man Argument (TMA for short). There are general terms we use to
apply to a number of different things, for example, ‘dog’, ‘house’ and so on. Aristotle uses the example of
the general term ‘man’ (Plato, in Parmenides, uses the example of ‘largeness’). There are many instances of
‘man’: Socrates is a man, Plato is a man, Aristotle is a man and so on, but whereas these are a number of
instances of ‘man’ none of them are identical with the general term. Indeed, if you provide every single
individual ‘man’ alive today you will not, as a collective, be identical with the general ‘man’. It seems, then,
that ‘man’ in a general sense is ‘one over many’ as Aristotle refers to it, for it transcends its many instances.
So what’s wrong with that, for surely isn’t that what Plato means by his forms?
Aristotle argues that by saying there are many instances of ‘man’ then we are confronted with the following
problem: 1 Say there is man A, man B and man C. According to the ‘one over many’ there is Form of Man
(call this Man1).
2 But, keeping with the ‘one over many’ principle, Man1 can be added to man A, B and C, creating a new
plurality of things: Man1, man A, man B, man C.
3 But then there has to be a Man 2 to encompass all these instances.
4 Again, following the ‘one over many principle’, we will need a Man 3 over Man1, Man2, man A, man B,
man C.
The result, of course, is an infinite hierarchy of Man, not just a third, but a fourth, fifth, ad infinitum!
Plato at no point devotes a great deal of analysis of the Forms and in his later works, most notably the
Parmenides, he seems more open to the difficulties and criticism of his theory. Nonetheless, Plato’s belief
that there exists a Realm of the Forms is prevalent throughout the philosophy of his middle period
especially, and so we will encounter it, and some of the concerns expressed above about it, throughout this
book as we consider his views on not only epistemology but also human psychology, education, politics,
ethics and religion. Despite the obvious problems with the theory, the main point is an important one: if
there are such things as absolute standards then where do they come from?
Key terms

Analogy: Using an analogy is a way of explaining an often-difficult concept by showing its similarity to
more familiar things.
Theory of the Forms: Not so much a ‘theory’, but a philosophical possibility that what is real is something
that is beyond our sense-experience.
Dig deeper

Annas, J. (1981), An Introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pappas, N. (1995), Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Republic (2nd ed.). London:
Routledge.
Purshouse, L. (2006), Plato’s Republic: A Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum.
Rowe, C. (trans.) (2012), Plato, Republic. London: Penguin.
Fact check

1 What is a definition of an analogy?

a A comparison between one thing and another, usually for the purpose of clarification b A figure
of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally
applicable c The expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the
opposite d A rhyming couplet
2 What is the Theory of the Forms?
a The view that the world of our senses is all that there is b The view that reality is non-physical
and beyond our senses c The view that there is no reality d The view that God is the creator of
all things 3 In which Plato dialogue will you find the cave analogy?
a Gorgias
b Euthyphro
c Crito
d Republic
4 In The Analogy of the Cave, what is the Form of the Good represented by?
a Shadows
b Fire
c The freed prisoner
d The sun
5 Which Ancient Greek philosopher criticized the Forms?
a Aristotle
b Socrates
c Pythagoras
d Democritus
6 In which dialogue did Plato himself examine some of the problems with the Forms?
a Euthyphro
b Apology
c Parmenides
d Gorgias
7 What is the name of the argument against the Forms that concludes with the following: ‘The result is an
infinite hierarchy of Man, not just a third, but a fourth, fifth, ad infinitum!’
a The Thin Man Argument
b The Third Man Argument
c The Thirsty Man Argument d The Thrifty Man Argument 8 What does Socrates think would
happen to the freed prisoner if he returns to the cave?
a The other prisoners would think he was mad and may even try to kill him b The other prisoners
would greet him with open arms c The other prisoners would want him to free them as well
 d The other prisoners would treat him like a god 9 Which one of the following films portrays the
cave analogy?
a The Croods
b Minions
c The Flintstones
d The Cave
10 From which book is the quote, ‘what is essential is invisible to the eye’ taken?
a The Little Prince
b The Happy Prince
c The Prince of Thieves
d Prince Caspian
 5
Knowledge, opinion and ignorance
In the previous chapter we looked at what Plato meant by his Theory of the
Forms. The concept of the Forms, that the world we see with our senses is not
the ‘real’ world, has obvious implications in terms of what we know, what we
think we know, and what we are capable of knowing.
To better understand what Plato meant by the Forms it helps to consider his
views on knowledge. For Plato we can only have knowledge of something. This
might sound obvious enough, but you can see how this would be affected by his
Theory of the Forms for, if what we see around us are not real, then it follows
that what we think we know is not really true knowledge. If that is the case, then
how can we have knowledge of anything at all, and where does this knowledge
come from? For Plato, the obvious answer is the Forms, but we need to examine
how he came to this conclusion.

Protagoras and relativism

In one of Plato’s dialogues, Theaetetus, the question of what is knowledge is
discussed. This is Plato’s epistemology. Theaetetus is a young mathematician
who, when engaging in conversation with Socrates, is asked what knowledge is.
This is how Theaetetus replies:

‘In my opinion anyone who knows something perceives that which he knows, and
so, as it seems at the moment, knowledge is nothing other than perception.’
Plato, Theaetetus

Here, Theaetetus is presenting the common view most famously presented by the
Sophist Protagoras: ‘Man is the measure of all things.’ You know something
when you perceive it; that is, taste, touch, hear, smell or see it. However,
Socrates is quick to point out that our sense-perceptions can be a very subjective
matter: • For example, someone who comes in from the cold will put his hand in
a bucket of cold water and it will feel warm to him. Or when you drink some
sweet wine when you are ill it tastes bitter. How can the same object have a
different quality? Which understanding of the object is the right one?

• Why should it only be man who is the measure of all things? If the human
 being’s perceptions were real for him, it would logically follow that a pig, a
baboon or even a tadpole’s perceptions are also real for it! This is actually a
very perceptive point and is a concern that has been raised by more recent
philosophers. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) thought
it somewhat arrogant of Man for him to think that what he perceived is
actually there. Rather, we can only see things through ‘human spectacles’. We
see things in three dimensions (four dimensions if you want to include time as
the fourth), but who is to say that there are not higher dimensions?

• Perhaps most importantly it can lead to relativism (see Chapter 2), for if we
are to say that each human being is to be the judge of what is and what is not,
then it is not possible to make judgements of the views of others. If one
person were to say that an apple is green and another that it is red then there
can be no definitive judgement one way or the other. On a more personal
level, Socrates was having a go at Protagoras, who was a teacher. Surely, if
there are no absolute standards, a teacher cannot teach right and wrong?
Theaetetus’ response to Socrates’ latter criticism is by talking of perceptions as
being useful, rather than true or not. For example, we might not be able to say
for certain whether the traffic light shows red or green, but it is worthwhile for
the teacher to correct someone who claims the light is green when the teacher
and pretty much everyone else sees it as red.
This may seem an unsatisfactory response, however, for in this case knowledge
seems to be based on nothing more than what the majority may perceive.
However, it comes down to what the purpose of the teacher is: to promote
harmony, order and social standards in the same way the doctor’s role is to
promote good health, not that good health is an objective thing that we must
therefore pursue. The fact is that if we disagreed on whether a traffic light
showed red or green and then acted upon our own individual and somewhat rare
perception, then it would not be long before we are involved in a traffic accident.
However, Plato rightly points out that what is ‘useful’ or ‘worthwhile’ can
hardly be synonymous with what is morally right. If a state decides it is ‘useful’
to condemn innocent people to death this does not make it right. Ultimately,
Plato’s concern is that we should not confuse knowledge with perception, or that
all knowledge simply comes down to a person’s opinion, even if this is the
majority opinion.
Heraclitus and change

‘In his [Heraclitus’s] proximity I feel altogether warmer and better than
anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away and destroying, which is the
decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; saying Yes to opposition and war;
becoming, along with a radical repudiation of the very concept of being – all
this is clearly more closely related to me than anything else thought to date.’
Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Why I Write Such Good Books’, On the Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo, tr.
Walter Kaufmann, p. 273

Plato, as well as Socrates, was familiar with the writings of the philosopher
Heraclitus (see Chapter 1). For Heraclitus, the world is in a constant state of
change and flux. All objects are in the process of becoming something else. For
example, the chair you may be sitting on is ageing and wearing down, even
rocks are being eroded by the wind and rain. Human beings, too, are changing
all the time. Cells, such as skin cells and blood cells, are dying all the time
(although the notion that all your cells are replaced every seven years is a myth;
some brain cells, for example, live for as long as you do), which is why your
skin flakes off, your hair falls out and your nails grow. When you look at a
picture of yourself as a baby you may struggle to see much resemblance.
Heraclitus viewed the world as a vast battlefield of conflicting, opposing forces,
all governed by a natural law that controls this strife between the elements. This
natural law he called Logos, which can be variously translated as ‘word’, ‘truth’,
‘reality’, ‘reason’ or ‘God’. However, for Heraclitus, this was not some
metaphysical substance, but is contained within nature itself and is more akin to
DNA than a god.

‘The sea – he [Heraclitus] says – water most pure and most impure; for fishes
 drinkable and healthy; for humans undrinkable and deadly.’
Hippolytus of Rome in Refutation Of All Heresies, 9.10.2–5

This view of the world, however, was anathema to Plato. Plato adopted a view
not dissimilar to an earlier Greek philosopher, Parmenides (see Chapter 1), who
believed that the Logos is One, and is therefore immutable. If the world is in a
state of constant change, then there can be nothing that is eternal and immutable
and, of course, there can be no ultimate truths. Plato believed that, although the
world might appear in a state of change and multiplicity, it is possible to
perceive an underlying form and singularity.
Plato’s main criticism of Heraclitus is that if it is the case that things are
constantly in motion, then it is impossible to define a thing. For example, ‘white’
cannot be called ‘white’ if it is actually becoming something else (not-white).
How then are we able to call something ‘white’? In fact, if you wish to call
something ‘black’ then it is just as correct as calling it ‘white’; neither one of
you can be wrong or right. Every answer, on whatever subject, is correct. This
would also be a criticism of Protagoras for, if all of our knowledge comes from
perception, then all of our knowledge must be correct, no matter what it is.
Heraclitus the intolerant

Heraclitus was not one to tolerate other people. One quote attributed to him is: ‘Men are unable to
understand [my teaching] when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all…and know
not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep.’

For Plato, therefore, it was unacceptable that our understanding of the world, of
our views on good or bad and so on, is merely relative (according to Theaetetus)
or continually changing (according to Heraclitus).

The philosopher defined

‘I imagine,’ I said, ‘that while those who love to listen, or to see sights, embrace
beautiful sounds, colours, figures, and everything that is crafted out of these,
their minds are incapable of seeing, let alone embracing, the nature of the
beautiful itself.’
Plato, Republic, 476b

In Republic, Plato provides a definition of the philosopher. The philosopher is

someone who loves wisdom. In fact, this is the very translation of the phrase
philo-sophos: ‘wisdom-lovers’. The character of Socrates makes it clear that
these must be distinguished from philo-theamones: ‘sight-lovers’. Sight-lovers
are those who go from one play, book, exhibition, etc. to another, taking it all in
and calling this knowledge. You might consider the modern analogy of the snap-
happy tourist, taking pictures of great monuments without really appreciating
what she sees. The philosopher, therefore, is not superficially acquiring facts and
figures, but is reflecting on the very nature of things.
Importantly, Plato wishes to make a distinction between when you say you know
something, and you believe something. If I say that I know that the Earth is
round, this is different from saying I believe that the Earth is round. Following
on from Parmenides, Plato believed that you can only have knowledge of what
is. If I know that the Earth is round, then it really is round. However, opinion (or
belief) can be of what is and what is not. If I say that I believe the Earth is round
(what is), it could really be flat (what is not).
Plato was concerned that people can have completely opposite views on the
same thing. For example, someone might judge a painting as beautiful, whereas
someone else would judge it as ugly. Another example was with morality;
someone might consider a certain act as just, whereas someone else would
consider it unjust. In this sense, it is belief. We, the ‘sight-lovers’, are part of the
‘multiplicity’ of things, of things that are and are not (the painting both is
beautiful and isn’t beautiful). The philosopher, however, is only concerned with
what is eternal and immutable.
It also follows that if you perceive what is not, then you are in a state of
ignorance. You may have a belief that something is not beautiful when in actual
fact it is.

Objects of knowledge = the forms = what is

Objects of opinion = the ‘many things’ = what is and is not
that partake in the
forms
Objects of ignorance = nothing = what is not

The roots of knowledge

Things that can be qualified do not count as knowledge. For example, Helen of
Troy is beautiful, but not unqualifiedly beautiful (she may be ugly when old or
perhaps it is possible that not everyone considers her beautiful; therefore she ‘is
and is not’ beautiful), or giving back what you owe is not unqualifiedly just (for
example, giving back a weapon to someone who is mentally ill). What is
knowledge is what cannot be qualified. It is not subject to time, place or the
perspective of the individual. This is why Plato, through Socrates, would also get
his interlopers to qualify their statements in the hope that, eventually, a
definition could be reached in which it could no longer be qualified. Only then
have you achieved what is true.
The French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) believed that if we are to
discover what we can know for sure we must begin by sceptically doubting our
supposed knowledge of all things. We must reject our belief in a wholesale
manner and start all over again. Plato, however, asserts that our beliefs can help
our understanding, not hinder them. We must look to our beliefs first, rather than
be sceptical about them.
 Cartesian Doubt

In the history of philosophy, perhaps the most important thinker on the topic of knowledge is René
Descartes. Like Plato, he was a rationalist, and argued that our senses provide us with a limited
understanding of what is really true. In his work Meditations, Descartes engaged in methodical doubt;
subsequently named Cartesian Doubt after him. In the first chapter of this work – the First Meditation –
Descartes shows that the senses cannot be trusted through his ‘three waves of doubt’: first, he notes that his
senses are sometimes mistaken, for example objects from a distance turn out to be something other than
what one thought they were when you get up close; second, Descartes – like all of us – can have very lucid
dreams and so questions how can he be sure that he is not sleeping now; and, third, he presents the
possibility that some ‘evil demon’ is making him believe that he has a physical body and that there is a
material world around him, but it could all be the creation of this demon and not really exist at all.
Such radical doubt could lead one to solipsism: the belief that we cannot know whether other minds or an
external world really exist. Descartes then, in his further chapters, builds up the foundations of knowledge,
beginning with the first thing he can be certain of: ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist.’ Starting from this
foundation and through the power of reason alone, Descartes argues that we can know about the world.
Descartes was a mathematician and, like Plato, he also stresses the importance of the mathematical model in
building up our knowledge.
Also, like Plato, Descartes was a dualist. He believed there are only two existent things: a thinking
substance (the soul) and extended substance (matter).

What does it mean to know?

What the Ancient Greeks understood by knowledge differs somewhat from our
modern-day understanding. Today, when we say that someone knows something
it is unlikely that you will equate this with someone intuitively grasping the
Forms, rather it is much more of a proactive intellectual engagement. Plato often
refers to medical doctors knowing how to heal, but a doctor has to train for many
years, to study many books and engage practically in medicine before you would
say that a doctor ‘knows’ how to heal someone.
In modern epistemology, knowledge is commonly classified into three types: 1)
knowing that; 2) knowing of; 3) knowing how.
1 Knowing that. Also referred to as ‘propositional knowledge’. For example:
• I know that 2 plus 2 equals 4
• I know that the Earth revolves around the Sun • I know that Washington,
D.C. is the capital city of the United States What these statements have in
 common is that they are all facts about the world. You can look them up in
Wikipedia, and they would be the right answers in a quiz show. They are
called ‘propositional knowledge’ because a proposition asserts something
about the world, as opposed to, say, a greeting such as ‘hello’ or a command
such as ‘be quiet’.
2 Knowing of. For example:
• I know Charles well • I know that shop • I know Amsterdam This is often
also referred to as ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ because you know
something by being acquainted with it or with a person. You do not acquire
this knowledge by studying for it or by training, but rather through
familiarity.
3 Knowing how. For example:

• I know how to make lasagne • I know how to tie a reef knot • I know how
to ride a bike 4 In quiz shows such as University Challenge you would not
expect the contestants to be asked to ride a bike because it is propositional
knowledge they are tested on. Rather, this kind of knowledge implies the
acquisition of a skill or an ability.
It should be stated that these distinctions can overlap, and there is much debate
in epistemology as to whether all three kinds of knowledge can be subsumed
under one, but the point is that we nonetheless can know things in different ways
and also what is understood by knowledge has not remained static over time.
This three-fold distinction did not exist in Plato’s time, and in his dialogues he
portrays Socrates as a philosopher who was fascinated by how, for example, a
person ‘knows’ how to make a chair or, more specifically, how to make a good
chair. It was knowledge as a ‘craft’ that appealed to Socrates and, in a way,
seems to encompass all three distinction above: a carpenter no doubt has to
know certain facts about carpentry, he needs to be acquainted with objects
(different kinds of wood, tools, etc.), and he certainly needs to know how to
make a chair through trial and error.
The Greek word for craft or skill is techne, as opposed to episteme (knowledge)
which may suggest a distinction, but they do tend to overlap in Plato’s dialogues.
In considering crafts such as carpentry, farming, sculpture, pottery, weaving,
etc., what Socrates notes is what they all have in common: ergon. This can be
translated roughly as ‘function’; it is what something does or what it is intended
for, and it is this idea of knowledge as having a function, as having a set
purpose, that Plato also regards as intrinsic to the craft of political statesmanship.
We will examine Plato’s political philosophy in Chapter 7 but, for now, it is
worth keeping in mind that Plato saw ruling a state as a craft like any other, and
has, or should have, a goal in mind.
All crafts, including politics, are linked with knowledge in this sense. Coming
back to our carpenter, if he is highly skilled (that is, he has excellent knowledge)
then he will produce an excellent chair. What is interesting for Socrates is how
we know a chair is good or not and the fact that we can consider ways to
improve upon a chair that is not so good. In addition, this skill is something that
can be passed from one generation to the next while seemingly independent of
the practitioner. In a sense, good carpentry is ‘out there’ to be discovered and is
something by which we measure our own skills. There is, then, a ‘Form’ for a
chair.

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 soul 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.

THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW OF JUSTICE

In Republic, Plato, through the character of Socrates, begins by asking what
justice is of an old and wealthy man by the name of Cephalus; a man shaped by
the traditions and conventions of his time and who, indeed, presents a very
conventional view of justice: telling the truth and giving back what one has
borrowed. But Socrates quickly points out a problem here:

‘Now let’s talk about this very thing, justice: shall we say, as you’ve suggested,
that it’s simply a matter of telling the truth, and of giving back when one’s
received something from someone; or is it in fact possible to do those very things
justly, now unjustly? Here’s an example for you. I imagine everyone would
agree that if one borrowed weapons from a friend when he was in a state of
mind, and he went mad and then asked them back, they shouldn’t be given back
to him in such circumstances, and the person who did give them back – or for
that matter wanted to tell the whole truth to someone in that condition – would
scarcely be just.’
Plato, Republic, 331c

The above is typical Socratic method: ‘is it in fact possible to do those very
things justly, now unjustly’. In other words, when defining justice it is a problem
when it turns out to be both one thing, yet also the opposite. In order to give a
true definition of justice it cannot be qualified in any way.
Cephalus is very limited mentally; his notion of doing right consists of following
a few simple rules such as ‘don’t lie’ or ‘give back what isn’t yours’. He
achieves tranquillity, not because of his temperament, but because he is well off
and can pay his debts so he is not afraid of what will happen to him in the next
world. What matters to him are external actions, in making sacrifices to the gods.
He really has no need for philosophy and seems to only want Socrates’ company
in the belief that it will encourage his family to visit more if they know Socrates
is present.
Cephalus, too old to change his ways or have his comfortable life and views
disrupted, quickly chooses to leave the discussion and hand over to his son,
Polemarchus.
Both Cephalus and his son Polemarchus are portrayed as morally complacent.
Polemarchus looks for an answer by reference to the traditional texts and the
revered poets of his day, and quotes the poet Simonides, who says that you
should give every man what is due. This is essentially the ‘eye for an eye’ view
of justice: if someone does good to you, then you should return this; if someone
does you bad, then you should do bad to him. This is how Socrates responds to
this view: • Socrates wonders whether it is ever right to harm others. Long
before the leader of the Indian independence movement Mohandas Gandhi
(1869–1948) stated that an eye for an eye only makes the world go blind, Plato
questioned whether a morality could really be based upon harming others. Of
course, it may be expedient to do so, but this does not make it morally right.

• Socrates talks of each person possessing what is called arete, which can be
translated as ‘excellence’ or ‘quality’. He points out that if you harm a horse
you make it less excellent than it was before and this could be applied to
people. Harming them does not make them better people, but worse.

• Socrates then presents an important analogy. He compares the ruler to that of a

physician. It is an analogy Plato makes throughout Republic. The physician
takes the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm. What if this oath were applied to
rulers? A political ruler is like a physician; his role is to look after the
wellbeing of his citizens.

• For a state to be a moral state it is important to elicit the moral qualities in

each individual. Here, Plato is also presenting his educational agenda: you
cannot force people to be good, to be excellent (arete); you must teach in a
way that brings out the individual’s distinctive qualities. Teaching is a
process, not something that is inflicted upon the individual. It is essentially
through the Socratic method that this is achieved.

• Therefore, can it be right conduct (dikaiosune) to detract from the individual’s

special excellence (arete)? The state, in its role of educator, would have
nothing to gain and much to lose if it were to force or intimidate its people
into being good.
 Cephalus

Cephalus is not an Athenian citizen but a ‘resident alien’ from Syracuse who has grown rich from trade and
manufacture. In fact, primarily from arms dealing! There is irony here in the text because when Plato wrote
Republic his audience knew that Cephalus’ family was ruined after Athens had been defeated by the
Spartans. Polemarchus had been executed and the family fortune lost. This shows that, despite Cephalus’
belief that his wealth can protect him morally, the possession of money can be temporary and the security it
seemingly gives illusory. Money can’t buy you love, but it can’t buy you a good soul either.

THRASYMACHUS AND THE UNCONVENTIONAL VIEW OF

JUSTICE

‘Listen to this, then,’ he [Thrasymachus] said. ‘What is just, I say, is nothing

more than what is in the interests of the stronger. Why aren’t you applauding?
You simply won’t, will you?’
Plato, Republic, 338c

Having silenced Polemarchus, the important character of Thrasymachus presents

his radical and unconventional view of justice. Thrasymachus was a real
historical character, a Sophist and a skilled teacher. He believed that there are no
eternal truths and that our beliefs and values are relative to the time and place we
live in. As a relativist, he denies tradition. In this way, Thrasymachus can be
seen as the antithesis of Polemarchus.
Thrasymachus’ new premise is this: might is right. There is no eternal standard
of justice, only a standard of power. It is the rulers who define justice, for they
have the most power. In fact, Thrasymachus goes even further than this by
presenting another, related premise: the person who is unjust is the happier
person. Thrasymachus presents an image of the ‘superman’, a powerful figure
who is self-assertive, establishes his own values and defies conventional
morality. Consequently, the unjust are not only happier, they are more
successful.
This cynical view of justice is a powerful one, but it is important for Plato to
refute it for the implications would be a society that has no absolute standards of
morality and is concerned only with the pursuit of power and happiness. How
does Plato’s character Socrates respond?

• Socrates re-introduces his analogy of the ruler and the physician. The
physician’s primary concern is with the interests of the patient, not only his
own. Granted, the physician exercises his power over the patient’s body, the
power of knowledge, but he does not use this selfishly for personal gain.
Remember, he must follow the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm.

• Why, Socrates argues, shouldn’t politics be just as professional as medicine?

Medicine has knowledge, it is a science. Physicians practise their science for
the common interest. Why cannot there be a political science?

• Plato suggests that you can achieve the same kind of professionalism in
politics that you have in medicine. Politics would not just be a matter of
opinion, but of knowledge. It is possible to turn politics into a noble
profession.
Plato is arguing here that politicians should be like physicians, not that they are.
The whole of Plato’s response hinges upon the belief that there are eternal
standards (the Forms). That political rule and, it follows, the practice of right
conduct, of justice, can be based on knowledge, not just opinion, and that rulers,
if they should possess this knowledge, would use it wisely and for the common
good. When Plato makes reference to the science, or skill, of the doctor the word
techne is used (see Chapter 5). In the same way that the doctor has the techne to
heal, the carpenter to make wood, the horse-trainer to train horses, and so on, the
politician can have the techne to rule.

Glaucon and the Myth of Gyges

The next character to take part in the discussion is Glaucon, who in history was
one of Plato’s brothers. Glaucon presents a refashioned version of the Sophist
view, but of a lighter temperament than Thrasymachus. He has sympathy with
the view presented by the character of Socrates, but is not entirely satisfied with
it. Rather than attacking Socrates in the rather dogmatic and insulting manner of
Thrasymachus, Glaucon prefers to play devil’s advocate, to attempt to refine the
arguments presented so far and put forward a series of propositions. Glaucon
believes that what we need to do is to understand the origins of justice, before
we can then determine its nature.
First, Glaucon rejects the view of Polemarchus that our ideas of justice come
from the Gods, or from some eternal realm. He presents a social contract
theory: mankind formed into a society and all agreed to conform to certain laws
as a form of mutual protection. People followed justice not because it is an
eternal truth, but because it is convenient to do so; it provides security and
protection. People behave because they are afraid. If they go outside the law then
they know they may get caught and punished. Justice, then, is a compromise
between what is most desired (being unjust and avoiding punishment) and what
is undesired (suffering injustice without any redress).
And so, Glaucon is presenting a view of human nature not unlike that of
Thrasymachus: it is human nature to be selfish, but right conduct is a product of
a selfish act in the sense that there is an awareness that it is a convenient way of
maintaining order in society.
Although this might appear a selfless act, the individual would, if he could get
away with it, be unjust! Being good, Glaucon suggests, goes against the grain of
human nature. To demonstrate this, Glaucon recounts the Myth of Gyges. One
day an earthquake caused a huge chasm to appear in the ground where Gyges, a
shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia, was tendering his flock. The
shepherd descends into the chasm where he finds, among many other things, a
corpse. From the finger of the corpse he takes a ring and makes his way out. At a
meeting of fellow shepherds, he was fiddling with the ring when his companions
started to talk about him as if he wasn’t there. Eventually, he realized that
twisting the ring in a certain way caused him to be invisible. Appreciating the
power this gave him, Gyges used it to seduce the queen, murder the king and
seize the throne for himself.
Glaucon then asks Socrates to imagine that two such rings existed; one for the
man who had spent his life being unjust, and one for the man who had spent his
life being just. In this experiment, Glaucon wonders, would the just man really
be able to resist the temptations that the ring gave him? The fact that he could
steal things from the market, murder people without being discovered and
generally act like a god? Would not the just man behave the same way as the
unjust man so that the two could not be distinguished from each other? The just
man would soon learn that injustice is the happier option.
The soul of the state
Plato now has to prove that justice is preferable, not because it leads to success
and material benefits, but because it is a good in itself. In other words, the true
nature of Man, his very soul, is to be just. It is at this point that Plato launches
into his description of the ideal state, of his ‘republic’. For, he argues, to
understand the soul of the individual you have to understand the soul of the state
that is the individual writ large. Since justice can be a characteristic of the
individual and society, it will help, Socrates argues, to look first to the state –
like placing a magnifying glass over justice to make it easier to identify – and
then to find something similar in the individual.

‘I think we should approach the subject as if we were in the sort of situation

where someone had told a collection of not very sharp-sighted individuals to
read something in small letters from a distance, and then one of them noticed
that the same letters were to be found somewhere else, only bigger and on
something bigger – in such a situation, I imagine, it would be a godsend to read
these first and so be in a position to examine the smaller letters and see if they
really are the same.’
Plato, Republic, 368d

Socrates does agree with Glaucon that there is a ‘Gyges gene’ in all of us, but
there is also a tremendous capacity to be rational and good. The fact that
individuals may behave like Gyges is not because individuals are naturally
inclined to behave that way, but because society has made them that way.
What Plato aims to show is that for man to be true to himself, to be able to
exercise his true arete, he must be allowed to do so through the encouragement
of the state, his educator. What is at fault is Athenian society for producing
people who selfishly pursue their own interests, whereas the ‘natural state’
would be one that would allow the individual to act according to his nature; self-
discipline through the dominance of reason. Athens is a corrupt city and it must
be ‘purged’ through three waves of change that sweep away the old system.
The ideal state
Although many Athenians saw their city-state, their polis, as the perfect ideal,
emphasizing the city’s cultural and military achievements, Socrates had taught
Plato to be wary of a community that gives no place to those who have expertise
in politics. Plato, also, was only too aware of the darker side of Athens: its
contempt and cruelty towards other states, its own arrogance, its serious political
and military mistakes, and injustices towards its own citizens, especially towards
Socrates. For Plato, Athens could hardly be considered the Greek ideal. Yet, the
fact that there might well be an ideal – Plato’s ‘City of the Forms’ – encouraged
Plato to study and teach political science. In Republic especially, Plato
constructs a detailed account of a new society; the ideal polis. To create this new
society, three major changes have to take place. These are the three ‘waves’ that
will wash away the old, corrupt society and replace it with the new: 1 A new
ruling class of Guardians must be established who will be Philosopher-Kings.
2 These Guardians will consist of men and women.
3 The Guardian class will have no private property and will live communally.
These three measures were not only radical for their time, they can also be seen
to be so in more recent times. Plato has still yet to define what he means by
justice. He believes, however, that if we look at the principles that make up a just
state we can then transfer these to the individual. Plato, through the character of
Socrates, begins by considering the basic requirements to create a social
structure.

The ‘City of Pigs’

Socrates rejects Glaucon’s social contract theory. Rather, men are not born self-
sufficient and they cannot satisfy their needs alone. Socrates describes the
formation of the state in the following stages: • A state is when a group of
people gather and settle in one place who have different various requirements.
• This gathering engages in mutual exchange, depending upon the needs of each
individual.

• The most important of these needs is food, followed by shelter and clothing.
• In order to satisfy these demands, the individuals will take on various tasks:
one will be a farmer, another a builder, a third a weaver, a fourth a shoemaker,
and so on.

• In this state it is more logical and sensible that each person should do his
specific task according to his abilities. The farmer should develop his farming
abilities, providing food not only for himself but also for the others in the
community. Likewise, the shoemaker should concentrate on shoemaking for
the whole community. This is better than the farmer only producing food for
himself, then having to spend the rest of his time also making shoes for
himself, building a house, etc.

• Socrates then goes on to explain this community in more detail – needs for
craftsman, shepherds, tradesmen, a marketplace and a currency, and
shopkeepers.

• Finally, Socrates presents a community that satisfies all the basic needs,
consisting of a relatively small number where each has his allotted trade in
life.
Plato here presents a very idyllic, romantic vision of society. But Plato’s brother,
Glaucon, describes it as a ‘city of pigs’ (372d) because it does not satisfy the
needs of the civilized man. Where are the comforts and luxuries? What Plato
pictured was a state that satisfied the basic economic needs, without any mention
of a political structure. In fact, Plato saw this basic polis as the ideal because
people would live long due to a healthy diet, and, most likely, there would be no
need for a government – it is effectively self-governing. Conflicts can be settled
through rational arbitration, although it would be such a moral community
anyway that there would not be much need for forceful policing.
Also, as a philosopher, Plato would have felt that there would be no need for
luxuries. Indeed, Socrates himself lived a very frugal life. What is envisioned is
a community of philosophic-minded people who have no interest in acquiring
wealth and possessions, or in satisfying one pleasure after another. They would
only require the essentials of life and live a love of Truth. The material world,
for Plato, was a transient one, and so why would you want to load yourself up
with material things that distract from the pursuit of the awareness of the Realm
of the Forms?
However, in order to determine how injustice occurs in society, Plato is prepared
to paint a picture of society with the luxuries of life, obviously believing that it is
these elements that disrupt the healthy and ideal polis.

THE CIVILIZED STATE

The civilized state would possess the following elements: • The polis will no
longer be a small community. It will be swollen in size because of the necessity
for people catering for needs that are not basic. For example, artists, sculptors,
embroiderers, painters, musicians, poets, dancers and more servants.
• Inevitably, wealth will lead to greed, envy, jealousy and increased conflict.
Many more doctors will be required because of greater ill health due to
overindulgence in luxurious foods and stressful living.

• To feed these people, more land will be required, which will mean infringing
on the territory of other states. This will lead to war, and so soldiers will also
be needed. Further, to maintain unity for this large and multifarious state,
rulers will be needed. These soldiers and rulers make up what Plato calls the
Guardians.

THE THREE CLASSES

Plato believed that injustice is caused by disharmony in society. If society
functions so that the intellect rules and is not distracted by desire, then you have
a healthy and just community. However, as Glaucon pointed out, this ideal is not
a realistic one, for societies are much more complex than this and basic needs
must include things such as theatre, music, art and good food. Accepting this,
Socrates wonders how justice can possibly be maintained in such a society. Here
he presents the need for government and a strict division of society into three
classes: • The Rulers. The Rulers make up the upper echelon of the Guardians
of the polis. They effectively govern the state.

• The Auxiliaries. These make up the lower echelon of the Guardians. These
are the military. This fits in with Plato’s belief that the best society should
concentrate on specialization; that is, each to his trade. Normally, all citizens
of the polis were considered as potential soldiers should the need arise, but
Plato saw the merits of having a section of society specifically trained in the
art of fighting.
• The Money-makers. This, the economic class, consists of the farmers,
 artisans and traders – basically, anyone who is not involved in governmental
or military affairs.
For the rest of Republic, Plato concentrates mostly on the education and
character of the Guardians. As a single group they possess talents that lend them
to a philosophic nature. However, the Rulers will be the ones that will engage in
more advanced philosophical study and so will be separate from the Auxiliaries
depending on their temperament. The Rulers will have a more intellectual,
rational and contemplative temperament, while the Auxiliaries will have a more
‘spirited’ and fierce quality, but will be obedient to the Rulers.
The third class will continue to exercise their appetites as they see fit, and their
function is to satisfy the economic needs of the state. It should be pointed out
that the third class are not ‘working class’, as they are able to own property and
make money. However, Plato points out that measures need to be taken to avoid
excessive wealth or, for that matter, poverty.
The structure of this polis would, therefore, be made up like this:

Really, there should be a fourth strata, that of the slaves. However, Plato
assumed that any society would require slaves and they were not, in Plato’s time,
considered as possessing any rights. This, of course, strikes us as shocking today
but it must be remembered that Plato was writing at a time when any society of
any degree of sophistication required a slave-class in order to function. The fact
that Plato did not see this as in any way immoral may well be an argument for
moral relativism! It does certainly show that Plato was a product of his time.

THE LIFESTYLE OF THE GUARDIANS

In order for this polis to function, Plato highlights the importance that the
Guardians receive the right education and live a certain lifestyle – otherwise the
state would be just as corrupt as any other. At first impression, this might well be
the conclusion, since it appears that this caste system would allow the Rulers and
Auxiliaries to have immense power. Plato does not deny that they would possess
the power – both political and military. However, remember that Plato believed
that power could be wielded wisely and for the good of the community, provided
those who have the power are brought up correctly.
Socrates says that the Guardians should possess the same qualities as a good
watchdog, that of courage, strength and loyalty. The Guardians are to be gentle
and protective towards their own, and also dangerous and fierce towards their
enemies. Socrates also believed that as a dog loves those it knows, it therefore
has a love of knowledge, and so has that essential quality: a philosophic nature!
Socrates argues that the Guardians must lead a lifestyle that will enable them to
perform their duties while avoiding the temptations that power can offer and, as
a result, doing damage to the community. Therefore, the Guardians must always
act in the interests of the polis as a whole, and not for their own selfish concerns.
How can this be achieved? The picture Plato paints of the Guardians’ lifestyle is
a radical, some might say ‘communistic’ one, with very strict conditions (the
Money-Making class, of course, will not be governed by any of these rules):
• They are to have no personal wealth or own any property. Since they will
share things, there will be no dissension, envy or jealousy. They will not be
concerned with the acquisition of wealth, and will not fight over who possesses
what.

• They are to have no family ties and are to live communally. Plato saw the
family, especially the complex kinship ties that existed in his time, as a
divisive force that encourages selfishness rather than a concern for the
community as a whole.
• Men and women are to be seen as equals provided they share the same
capabilities. This was certainly the most radical and, for many Greeks at the
time, shocking proposal. However, Plato saw this purely from a practical
 perspective in that not using women is a waste of half Athens’ population.
Women and men only differ in a bodily sense, not in qualities of the intellect
or character.

• The children will also be brought up communally, bred and raised in common,
with no specific mother or father. Adult Guardians will regard every child as
their own, and the children will see every Guardian as their parent. This
would result in an ‘extended loyalty’ as you will see all others as your family.
This lifestyle is actually modelled on a real society; that of Athens’ arch enemy,
the polis of Sparta (see Case Study in Chapter 3). To live a ‘Spartan lifestyle’
has now entered everyday language and is synonymous with austerity and
discipline. The Spartans were single-mindedly devoted to the state and they lived
a continuous military existence, living communally in barracks. However,
despite certain qualities that Plato admired, he also found them to be deficient in
a number of respects. For example, the Spartans had a system known as helotry.
The helots were slaves who worked the Spartan land. These helots were treated
far more severely than the slaves of Athens, being perceived as little more than
animals and were even hunted and killed as part of military practice. Not
surprisingly, helots frequently revolted against their overlords, which meant that
the Spartans had to be continually on their guard. Further, the Spartans were not
renowned for their intellect, and their stupidity was mocked by the Greek comic
playwright Aristophanes (c. 446–c. 386 BC) in his play Lysistrata. Certainly, the
Spartans would not have Plato’s requirement of a philosophic nature!

The ‘Noble Lie’

How will Plato maintain this strict division of the classes? Plato argues that his
polis should introduce a ‘magnificent myth’ or ‘fine fiction’. This myth will be
taught to all three classes of the polis and will teach that all members of the city
are brothers, born of Mother Earth, and forged within her womb. And so the
very land they live on is their mother, and its entire people are brothers forged
from the same soil. The Rulers have the metal of gold mixed in their
composition, the Auxiliaries have silver, and the Money-makers iron and bronze.
Knowing this, people will accept their place because it is their constitution, and
it would be a terrible thing if someone of a lower metal, such as iron or bronze,
ruled the state.
This myth has often been translated as the ‘Noble Lie’, although perhaps this
helps feed criticisms that Plato is using propaganda. Indeed, Plato’s most
vehement critic, the philosopher Karl Popper (1902–94), believed the myth is
typical of Plato’s desire to create a totalitarian and propagandist state. It certainly
smacks of inherent inequality and bears a strong resemblance to the Hindu
beliefs that provide support for their caste system. However, Plato is recognizing
the influence of myth upon society (see Chapter 12); certainly in his own day
when the Athenians governed their lives and moral sense on the writing of poets
and myth-makers.
Plato’s class system was not entirely stringent, however. As all three classes are
brothers, it is conceivable that someone from the Money-making class may be
born with gold or silver in their composition, and likewise someone born in the
Guardian class with bronze or iron. In such a case, this would be acknowledged
and that person would shift classes. There is, therefore, a degree of social
mobility and an acknowledgement of merit. Although Plato does not specifically
refer to the education of the third class, it must be the case that they would get at
least a rudimentary level of education to not only function as Money-makers, but
to also identify those who have philosophic natures. Likewise, if someone born
among the Guardians proves not to have the intellect or courage required, they
would enter the third class as a farmer or craftsman.

The just state and the just individual

Plato believes that this vision of the state will be a just one provided each section
of society knows its place. The Money-makers will be able to pursue their
appetites, but will be governed by the reason and spirit of the Guardians.
Likewise, the Auxiliaries will have their spirit tempered by the reason of the
Rulers. Here we have a perfect balance and, consequently, a healthy and
civilized state. It is the social embodiment of justice. But would the Guardians
be happy?
The picture portrayed of the life of the Guardians certainly does not seem a
happy one, lacking luxuries or sensual pleasure. However, Plato believed they
would be happy because the possession of knowledge is in itself a satisfying
thing. Further, the Guardians would obtain satisfaction from the fact that they
were benefiting the whole of society by their actions rather than simply
satisfying their own desires.
The healthy soul
Having pictured the state as a whole, Plato can now compare this to the
individual. The three classes function in the ideal polis in the same way as the
three elements of the soul. The Rulers represent reason (the charioteer), the
Auxiliaries spirit (the white horse) and the Money-makers are the appetites (the
black horse). In the same way that the just and good city is kept in check by the
Rulers, the good and just soul needs to be controlled by the charioteer; not an
easy task with two such diverse horses.
And so Plato’s definition of justice is when the three elements of the soul, the
psyche, know their places. The healthy soul, controlled by reason, is the just
soul. In the same way justice in society is a harmonious relation between the
classes, so justice in the individual is a harmonious relation between the different
elements of the personality. Therefore, Plato is making a link between the just
soul and the healthy soul. To be just is also to be physically and mentally stable
and healthy.
Has Plato satisfactorily responded to the criticisms of Thrasymachus and
Glaucon?

• First, Plato has to show that Man is just by nature rather than by convention.
Glaucon argued that Man would naturally be unjust if he could get away with
it. If it is the case that the soul’s natural state is when the three elements
function properly and are controlled by reason, then Plato could argue that
Man, by nature, is just.

• Second, Plato has to show that it is to the individual’s benefit to be just.

Thrasymachus argued that it is better to be unjust rather than just. If Plato can
argue that justice can indeed be equated with physical and mental health, then
this would obviously be to the individual’s benefit.

• Much depends, therefore, on whether it is reasonable to link the just soul with
the healthy soul. Plato’s theory has similarities with the psychology of
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939, see Case Study below). Freud also divided the
psyche into three elements: the ego, super-ego and the id. The ego and the id
correspond closely to Plato’s reason and desire, while the super-ego – the
conscience – assists the ego (reason) by providing an emotional force to keep
the id (desire) in check. Plato believes that when desire – the appetites – are
allowed to run free then we behave immorally. Therefore, when the three
 elements are not functioning properly we are mentally unstable and liable to
commit immoral acts. There are, however, a number of problems with this:
• When someone acts immorally it seems far-fetched to say that they are
mentally sick. There are many people who act unjustly yet seem to behave
quite normally mentally. Even if it is the case that the mentally stable
condition is where reason controls the appetites, it is debatable whether the
rational part cannot be used to be unjust. For example, you can exercise your
reason and self-discipline to rob a bank!

• What we consider to be mental illness seems conditioned by our environment.

In today’s society we would regard someone who thinks slavery is a good
thing as ‘sick’, but this would not be the case in Plato’s day.

• Freud believed that excessive repression of desire could itself be harmful and
lead to mental illness. Plato’s soul, like its analogy with the ideal state, is
authoritarian and suggests that the appetites will be suppressed, although this
criticism may be somewhat unfair on Plato as the distinction between the
three parts of the soul is not so clear-cut; rather than the suppression of the
appetites, it might be better described as ‘reasoned emotion’.

The Interpretation of Dreams

Freud regarded his 1899 work The Interpretation of Dreams as his most important, yet it sold only 351
copies in the first six years after publication. As a result, the second edition was not published until 1909.
After that it grew in popularity and a further six editions were published before he died in 1939.

In Plato’s ideal state, the Rulers will act like the psychiatrist who determines
what is good for the psyche. This is based upon Plato’s conviction that experts in
political science can rule the state. Whether the day-to-day running of the state
can really be considered a science is certainly a debatable point, although Plato
argues that the Guardians will have the expertise required.
Plato places much emphasis on the need for authority, whether it be the rule by
the Guardians in the state, or the rule by reason and spirit in the soul. For Plato, a
‘democratic soul’, like a democratic state, would result in a liberal attitude
towards the appetites, which would be given too much freedom, which, in turn,
would lead to immorality.
 Id, ego and super-ego

Plato’s concern with mental wellbeing and his idea of the tripartite psyche has a more recent counterpart in
Freud’s psychology. Freud also saw the psyche as structured into three parts: the id, ego and the super-ego.
The id (or ‘it’), analogous to the appetitive aspect of Plato’s soul, is the primitive and instinctive side of our
personality and includes such drives as sex (which Freud calls Eros after the Greek god of love) and
aggression, or death (which Freud calls Thanatos, the god of death). The id resides in our unconscious and it
is instinctual in that it demands immediate satisfaction, irrespective of the reality of the situation or what
our reason might tell us. Freud says that a new-born child is entirely id.
The ego (or ‘I’) acts as a mediator between the id and the external world, so whereas the id acts according
to the pleasure principle, the ego acts according to the reality principle. This is analogous with Plato’s
rational part of the mind, and Freud also uses Plato’s horse analogy in describing the ego as, ‘like a man on
horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse’. (Freud, The Ego and the Id, 1923)
The super-ego (or ‘above-I’) is somewhat analogous to Plato’s spirited element, though that analogy is
perhaps weakest of the three. The super-ego is the moral element. Whereas the ego reigns in the id to
achieve realistic goals without a concern with the moral character of the act, the super-ego strives to
‘persuade’ the ego to pursue moral goals. If the ego fails to reign in the id, the ego can be ‘punished’ by the
super-ego through the feeling of guilt. Alternatively, if the ego succeeds in overcoming the id, then it is
rewarded with feelings such as pride. Like Plato, Freud is acknowledging the importance of society in the
formation of our morals and values.
 Key terms

Arete: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘excellence’ or ‘quality’. Plato believed that all things have
an arete. For example, a pair of scissors’ arete is to cut. Humans, too, have an arete. The difficulty is in
determining what this is.
Dikaiosune: A Greek word that is often translated as ‘justice’. However, it has a much wider meaning. It
concerns the central issue of what is the right way to live your life, and how do you know that you are
leading a good life?
Social contract: Many philosophers have speculated upon the origins of human nature and have suggested
that humans form a ‘social contract’: that is, they agree to form a society and live under certain rules.
Dig deeper

Bobonich, C. (2004), Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Popper, K. (2011), The Open Society and Its Enemies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Fact check

1 Which one of the following describes the Noble Lie?

a The three classes are forged from the same soil but possess either gold, silver or bronze in their
physical constitution b The three classes are forged from the same soil but possess tin, copper or
iron in their physical constitution c The three classes are forged from the same soil but their class
is determined by their karma d The three classes are forged from the same soil but they possess
gold, frankincense and myrrh 2 Which one of the following is a translation for the Greek word
arete?
a justice
b excellence
c soul
d function
3 In Republic, which of the following represents the views of Cephalus on justice?
a Telling the truth and giving back what one has borrowed b What is just is what is in the interests
of the stronger c An ‘eye for an eye’
d Give and ye shall receive
4 In Republic, which of the following represents the views of Polemarchus on justice?
a Telling the truth and giving back what one has borrowed b Might is right
c An ‘eye for an eye’
d The meek shall inherit the Earth
5 In Republic, which of the following represents the views of Thrasymachus on justice?
a Telling the truth and giving back what one has borrowed b What is just is what is in the interests
of the stronger c An ‘eye for an eye’
d Loving thy neighbour
6 In Republic, what is the name of the mythical character who possessed a ring that made him invisible?
a Gollum
b Wotan
c Alberich
d Gyges
7 What is the social contract theory?
a People agree to imprison anyone who is not social b People agree to reject any kind of society
c People agree to form a society and to live under a set of rules d People agree to disagree
8 Which one of the following is one of Plato’s three ‘classes’ in his ideal state?
a Preliminaries
b Secretaries
c Luminaries
d Auxiliaries
 9 Which element describes the Guardians?
a courageous, spirited element
b intellectual, rational element
c emotional, appetitive element
d hysterical, irrational element
10 Which one of the following is a translation for the Greek word dikaiosune?
a craft or skill
b function
c justice
d soul
 7
The Philosopher-King
 ‘[Socrates] Given that philosophers are those capable of getting hold on that
which remains forever exactly as it is, and those who have no such capacity, lost
and wandering as they are in a multiplicity of things that are now this and now
that, are non-philosophers, which of these should lead the city?’
Plato, Republic, 484b

Having previously considered Plato’s theory of knowledge in Republic we then,

in the last chapter, linked this with his political views, for his politics and
epistemology cannot really be separated. The key question in Republic is ‘what
is justice?’ and we considered the differing views of justice, dikaiosune, and how
Plato, through the voice of Socrates, approached this subject ‘writ large’ by
considering the just state, with its three parts of Guardians, Auxiliaries and
Money-makers, before then comparing this to the three parts of the soul of the
individual.
Plato has been accused of being totalitarian in his political views, but
remembering that his political philosophy is closely tied to his views on where
our knowledge of what is true comes from, he argues against the democratic
state because it inevitably detracts from truth. In order for the human being to
flourish, he or she needs the right environment: the right society and the right
education.

The three polis

In Republic, Plato presents a picture of three very different city-states (polis):
• The City of Athens
• The City of the Forms
• The City of the Republic
Plato sees the first, the City of Athens, as corrupt. It is, remember, the city that
killed Socrates. It is the city that does not allow the man of thought to practise
his wares, but bows to the whims of the mob. Plato who had, as a young man,
considered entering public life and becoming a politician, became disillusioned
with the state of Athenian society and the way politicians behaved.
The second, the City of the Forms, is the ideal city that transcends earthly
existence. Plato admits that this is an ideal that we should strive for and may not
ever be a reality. In every way, it is perfect. The great Christian philosopher and
theologian, St Augustine, was heavily influenced by the writings of Plato and it
was this idea of the City of the Forms that prompted him to write The City of
God (see below and Chapter 13).
The third, the City of the Republic, is the ‘in-between’ of the other two. As we
move away from the City of Athens towards the City of the Forms, we can
create a real and better society on Earth. Plato was not just presenting a
theoretical vision of society, for he believed it could, to some extent at least,
actually be achieved, although humans being the imperfect creatures that they
are it might never be as perfect as the City of the Forms, but it can get close to it.
 St Augustine of Hippo

Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, better known simply as St Augustine, was a philosopher and Christian
theologian who was influenced by Plato’s philosophy (see also Chapter 13). Augustine was born in AD 354
in what is now Algeria, but then it was called Thagaste and was part of the Roman Empire. As a full Roman
citizen, he received a good education in Latin literature and the writing of the Greeks, including Plato and
Aristotle of course. In particular, he became skilled in rhetoric, the art of discourse. Whereas Socrates, in
Plato’s dialogues, practises dialectic, Aristotle states in his work The Art of Rhetoric that rhetoric is the
counterpart of dialectic. By ‘counterpart’, however, Aristotle did not mean the opposite of dialectic. Rather
it is better understood as a replacement for rhetoric for specific scenarios, especially in matters of civic
affairs in law. Whereas dialectic is more theoretical and concerned with how we define our terms, rhetoric
might be regarded as more ‘practical’. Regardless of these rather subtle distinctions, what both rhetoric and
dialectic aim to achieve is to persuade, though the systematic methods differ.
Augustine, like Plato, was influential in education, being an advocate of critical thinking skills. He
converted to Christianity in AD 386 at the age of 31 after he heard a voice telling him to ‘take up and read’,
which he understood to be a command from God to open the Bible and read the first thing that he saw – a
passage from Romans (Chapter 13, verses 13&14), which outlines how the Gospel transforms believers.
Augustine died in AD 430 and was canonized in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII. He is the patron saint of
theologians, printers and brewers! In his City of God Augustine, like Plato’s Republic, conceives of an ideal
city for which humans can only aspire to. Our salvation, however, is not by rational thought and acquiring
knowledge of the Forms, but by adhering to Christian principles.

The critique of democracy

 Democracy

Athens is regarded as the birthplace of democracy but, if democracy is interpreted here as power belonging
to free male citizens (as was the case with Athens in the 6th century BC) then there is a case for its origins
in many other parts of the world before Athens, including possibly Mesopotamia and independent Indian
states.

For Plato, the problem with the democracy that existed in Athens was that there
was no sense of individual responsibility. The democratic system inherently
lacks direction, without any real order or restraint upon the desires of the masses.
The ‘democratic man’ has no desire for change in his life because he perceives
himself to be free and happy, while lacking civic duty. Republic is not just a
critique of democracy, but also a critique of liberalism, the kind of liberalism
that allows people to pursue wealth and power but without any thought for the
welfare of the state as a whole or, more importantly, with any concern for
knowledge. What matters most in the Athenian state is whatever the opinion of
the masses happens to be.

THE PHILOSOPHER-KING

[Adeimantus] ‘…if people take up philosophy, not just in order to complete their
education, and something to be abandoned before they’ve grown up, but rather
as something to spend their time on even after that, they mostly become
downright peculiar, not to say totally corrupted, and even the ones that seem the
most responsible, when they’re subjected to this kind of treatment by the pursuit
you praise so much, turn out to be of no use to their cities.’
Plato, Republic, 487d

Having defined the philosopher as the lover of knowledge, and believing that
there is such a thing as knowledge and not just opinion, Plato wanted to show
that those who are experts in knowledge should rule the state. Either kings
should become philosophers, or philosophers should become kings. But Plato is
confronted by a severe criticism from another character in Republic, his other
brother Adeimantus. Adeimantus is not quite as prepared as Glaucon to be so
amenable. Although, Adeimantus argues (see quote above) it may well be the
case that those with knowledge of statesmanship should rule the state, it seems a
ridiculous claim that this should be philosophers! Take a look around you! What
a funny bunch philosophers are! Can they, argues Adeimantus, really make good
rulers? If anything, they appear worthless and useless to society.
To the surprise of Adeimantus, Plato’s character Socrates agrees with him. Yes,
they are worthless and useless individuals in Athenian society. However,
Socrates intends to argue, that this is the fault of society. It is society that needs
to change if philosophers are to be true philosophers.

THE SIMILE OF THE SHIP

To illustrate his critique, Socrates presents the image of the simile of the ship
(Republic, 488b–489c). This simile, the ‘ship of state’, is not uncommon to us
today, but it was first set forth by Plato.

• On this ship, this ‘ship of democracy’, the captain is bigger and stronger than
any of the crew, but somewhat short-sighted and a little deaf. He is also no
expert in seamanship.

• The crew of sailors constantly quarrel over who should be in control of the
helm, although none of them have learned navigation. In fact, the crew
believes navigation is not something that can be taught at all.

• The crew begs and cajoles the captain into allowing them to take control of
steering the ship and, ultimately, those who are most successful at persuading
the captain – whether through the art of oral persuasion or through more
underhand means such as plying the captain with alcohol or opium – take
control and turn the voyage into a ‘drunken carousel’.
• The man at the helm then elects as a navigator whoever helps in his quest to
control the captain, regardless of whether or not that person actually has any
navigation skills.

• Meanwhile, the true navigator, the one who has studied the stars, winds and
seasons of the year is more than capable of steering the ship safely to its
destination. The others see this genuine navigator as a ‘stargazer’ who spends
his time in idle chatter and is useless to them.
How can we ‘unpack’ this parable?

• The ship itself represents the democratic state. That is, Athenian society
during Plato’s time.

• The captain of the ship represents the citizens of the state; large and powerful,
but rather deaf and short-sighted and lacking the skills of statesmanship. The
captain can only understand the rhetoric of the crew, not the science of
navigation.
• The crew are the politicians; each vying for power and attempting to persuade
the citizens that they, the politicians, should represent them. They will use any
means, including the ‘opium’ of rhetoric. They are the Sophists, like
Thrasymachus, who manipulate the mob but are not concerned with truth.
• The genuine navigator, of course, is the Philosopher-King. The Greek poet and
playwright Aristophanes in The Clouds (a play Plato was familiar with)
characterized Socrates as a ‘stargazer’.
This parable is not only an attack on democracy, but also the consequences of
democracy; the emphasis on opinion rather than knowledge. Knowledge is not
something that can be determined by the vote. For example, using the analogy of
the physician once more, if you are sick you do not vote for the person to heal
you who happens to be the most persuasive. Rather, you rely on the physician’s
knowledge and experience, as well as his concern for your best interests.
Winston Churchill on democracy

Even in more recent times, and in democratic societies, many have doubted the benefits of democracy. The
quote ‘The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter’ is often
attributed to the British statesman Winston Churchill (1874–1965), although there isn’t any concrete
evidence he ever said this. He did, however, say: ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for
all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ (House of Commons speech, 11 November
1947). This is actually much more positive towards democracy and, as Churchill admits himself, not an
original quote by himself!

THE BEAST
Plato presents another parable to illustrate how the Sophists manipulate the
masses. He asks us to imagine the keeper of a large and powerful animal (493b).
If the keeper is to control this animal he must learn its moods and needs, how it
should be approached and handled, what makes it gentle or savage, the meaning
of its language, what tones of voice soothe it and so on. Having studied all of
this, the keeper will call this study ‘science’, reduce it to a system, and set up a
school.
However, is this really what we can call knowledge? The keeper is not in the
least bit concerned as to whether the desires and moods of the animal are good
or bad, so long as they are satisfied. It is rather like having a pet monkey that
likes eating bananas all day and never wants to sleep: you know you can control
it by giving it bananas and letting it play all day, but you will end up with a fat
and tired monkey! Therefore, it may be the most expedient thing to do, but it is
not the right thing to do. Another illustration would be if you have young
children. Do you give them sweets every time they cry merely to stop them
crying?
The meaning of the parable is quite clear:

• The beast represents the people of the state. They are strong and powerful, but
liable to be cajoled and persuaded so long as their basic needs are satisfied.
• The keeper represents the politicians, especially the Sophists, who are able to
cater to the people’s needs and call this ‘science’, when in fact they have no
knowledge or concern for justice or right conduct.
The true philosopher

‘With any seed or growing thing,’ I [Socrates] said, ‘no matter whether it’s a
plant or an animal, we know that if it hasn’t had the particular nourishment
that’s appropriate to it, or the right weather, or location, the more vigorous
specimen it is the greater the number of ways it will fail; bad, I think, is more
opposed to good than it is to something that’s merely not good.’
Plato, Republic, 491d

Having presented these parables or similes, Plato has hoped to show why the
philosopher is seen as worthless to society. In the simile of the ship the
philosopher is the stargazing navigator, while in the beast simile he would not be
appreciated by the animal because he does not allow it to do as it wished. In
Athenian society, nobody likes a know-all even if, as a result, the ship of state
ends up sinking in the middle of the ocean, or the beast dies at an early age of an
avoidable heart attack.
In the corrupt city that was Athens, the philosophers are perceived as useless
rogues, and here Socrates is making a strong case for the influence of society
upon a person’s character. Remember that for Plato – and for most Greeks – the
individual was an integral part of society. If the community as a whole is corrupt
then this is bound to affect the individual within that community.
Further, Plato argues, it is true of any growing thing that those of the finest
nature suffer more from evils done to them than those of an average nature. The
‘philosophic nature’ is something inherent in certain individuals; a powerful
force for good that, however, can be manipulated as a force for bad. A Jedi
knight can become Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Vader! For example, a dog can be
brought up to be useful to society, perhaps as a guide dog or a sniffer dog, or as a
companion for the elderly. However, the same dog, if given a bad upbringing,
could be vicious, attacking postmen and biting the hand that feeds it. The
philosopher, ultimately, cannot be educated according to standards different
from the community he is a part of. Should he ever recall his philosophical
nature and wish to pursue philosophy once more, the peer pressure will be so
great he will be compelled to put aside this yearning.
The ‘common people’ would not approve of true philosophy and will pressure
those with the talents of a philosophic nature (courage, intellect, self-control,
etc.) to use their skill for other goals, perhaps in business or entertainment. A
modern-day analogy might be a talented poet who is compelled to write
advertising slogans for a living because society has little patience or
understanding of poetry. Plato argues that the reputation that philosophy has for
intellectual vigour and wisdom will remain, but, in the unscrupulous society, will
attract rogues who, like the simile of the ship, declare themselves navigators but
have little or no knowledge of navigation.
However, there will always be a few true philosophers; but society looks upon
them like the useless stargazers, and they are forced to withdraw from society
and only watch the corruption and decline of their society.
Therefore, if the true philosopher is to be accepted by society as its ruler it is
necessary for the whole of society to change. What Plato next proposes is a
radical change in the structure of society that will sweep away the old
democratic city of Athens and replace it with his republic.

Education
One of the lasting legacies of Plato’s philosophy is the value he placed upon
education. Today, receiving a state education may be taken for granted by many
people, but in Plato’s time this was not seen as a duty of the state, and not
necessarily a valuable thing to have. The polis of Sparta, which many Athenians
envied because of its strict discipline and order, was also renowned for its
stupidity! Although Sparta was more advanced than Athens in that it did have a
state system of education, the content of what was taught and how it was taught
was radically different from Plato’s proposals. Even in Athens, it was only the
aristocracy who received any kind of decent education, and this was left to the
initiative of private individuals and organizations.
Plato was perhaps not so radical as to suggest an equal education for all people.
The education he describes is limited to the Guardian class only. His ideal polis
would still have slavery, while the Money-making class would probably be
limited in their education to what they required to fulfil their tasks well.
However, he did see the importance of a good education if you were to have a
responsibility in running the affairs of the state, and that a good education was in
the best interests for all in that state.
What is also important is how Plato thought education should be taught. His
teaching methods and his attitude towards the learning process says as much
about his views on human psychology as it does about his philosophy. Socrates,
of course, always believed that you cannot really teach anybody anything, only
point them in the right direction, and this view is something that Plato was also a
proponent of. You cannot force people to learn, to drill facts into them. Rather,
you can only guide people in how to think for themselves.

THE FOUR STAGES OF COGNITION

Plato’s thoughts on the educative process are in line with his metaphysical
beliefs; the belief that there is a Truth, a reality, a Realm of the Forms.
Ultimately, therefore, the best education a person can get is an awareness of the
Forms and, especially, the Form of the Good. The Analogy of the Cave is also an
analogy for the educative process. As the released prisoner makes his way up
towards the entrance and out into the daylight he is, painfully, undergoing a
learning process. Another way to imagine it is like steps up a ladder; you have to
take one step at a time until you finally reach the top. These are the steps of
cognition (knowing). There are four major steps: • Eikasia
The first stage is at the bottom of the ladder, and it is the step at which most of
Athens was at, according to Plato. In the cave analogy, it is the prisoners tied up
at the bottom of the cave. It is also the character of Polemarchus in Republic,
who readily accepts the traditional wisdom of his day and is uncritical in his
thinking. In the metaphysical sense, it is an acceptance of the world of
appearances, what Plato called eikasia; the world of images. For example, you
may believe that you are a moral person simply because the gods command it.

• Pistis
The second stage takes great effort to get to. You have to break away from the
comfort and security, the belief that ‘God is in heaven and all is well with the
world’. This is when you begin to develop your critical thinking skills and begin
to question the conventional views. In Republic, the character of Glaucon might
fit into this category. Plato called it pistis or ‘common-sense belief’. That is, you
have yet to be at the stage of knowledge, but your beliefs are correct ones,
although you are not yet able to substantiate them. For example, you have come
to your own conclusion that, say, killing is an immoral act, but you are not yet
able to support and defend this view to any great extent.

• Dianoia
The third stage is a giant leap up the ladder of cognition. Plato called this
dianoia or ‘thinking’. At this level you can engage in discursive thought. You
not only believe something to be the case, you can defend it through discourse
and logic. Although you do not yet have perfect knowledge, you have arrived at
abstract notions of reality. Through the study of science, mathematics and
geometry, you have an awareness of abstract, universal concepts. As a rather
crude example, you know that one dog and one cat equals two animals but,
rather than concentrating on the differences in the nature of the animals (one is a
cat and one is a dog), you are aware of the oneness and universality of the
mathematics of one plus one equalling two. Obviously, you would be aware of a
lot more complex mathematics than this!

• Episteme and noesis

The fourth and final stage Plato called episteme and noesis: ‘knowledge’ and
‘intelligence’ respectively. This is the true philosophic stage, away entirely from
superficial appearance and partaking in the Realm of the Forms. Rather than
having to engage in reasoning from premises to conclusion, you can grasp the
conclusion itself by apprehension and perceive the whole structure of
knowledge. This is the enlightenment stage, when the prisoner in the cave
analogy can perceive the Sun itself. In a more practical sense, it is when, through
the conversational technique of dialectic, you are able to reach the true meaning
of concepts such as justice.

THE SIMILE OF THE DIVIDED LINE

In Republic, Plato illustrates these epistemic states through yet another simile,
that known as the Divided Line (509d–511e). This works rather like our ladder
analogy above, as Socrates asks his interlocutor, in this case Glaucon, to imagine
a line divided into four sections in all. Each of these sections ‘represents
difference in relative clarity and obscurity’, so at the very bottom section would
be eikasia, while the very top section would be noesis.
This simile is not quite as colourful as his others; there are no beasts, ships or
caves here! However, the simile of a line can help in other ways, for it suggests
that the move from eikasua (illusion) to that of the intelligible realm is
connected whereas the cave analogy seems to regard the realm of the good as far
removed from the prisoner of the cave, so as to be different worlds altogether. In
the cave analogy the world of illusion is nothing more than a distraction from the
Realm of the Forms, whereas the line analogy suggests that even at the bottom
of the line this provides some kind of support for further up the line, giving us a
closer relationship between the empirical world and the world of ideas. Here we
have a simile that is more closely aligned with Plato’s epistemological views in
later dialogues, notably Timaeus (see Chapter 11).

THE CURRICULUM
In order to progress up the ladder of cognition, the children of the Guardians in
Plato’s ideal polis follow a strict educational curriculum that consists of three
elements: • Mousike (the liberal arts)

• Gymnastike (physical education) • Mathematics.

For the children to be good Guardians, it is necessary for there to be a careful
balance between these three elements.

• Mousike
Although this might be translated as ‘music’, it had a much broader meaning in
Plato’s time than it does today. In effect, it covers all the liberal arts. Plato
acknowledges the huge influence literature, theatre and music have in the
formation of character and is well aware of its importance as an educational tool.
In our modern society it is now acknowledged that young children in nurseries
learn ideas and values through role play, music, stories and songs.
Equally, however, Plato believed the arts could have a powerful negative
influence on character. In Athens, every child was brought up on a heavy diet of
the great myth-makers such as Homer and Hesiod. However, Plato believed
these were destructive rather than constructive; the only kind of character they
form are those like Polemarchus: too accepting of the beliefs presented in these
works. As a result, Plato presents a radical overhaul of the teaching of the liberal
arts: • Virtually the whole corpus of such works by Hesiod and Homer would be
banned as these portray traditional heroes and gods as liars, deceivers, thieves,
adulterers and so on.

• Only stories that present gods and heroes as perfect, honest and truthful should
be promoted. They must have a strong moral content that encourages virtuous
conduct rather than praising immorality.
• In Plato’s time, children learned the myths by acting out the roles, what is
called mimesis (‘imitation’). Plato thought such acting would be bad for
character as it could leave an indelible mark on young children embodying
immoral characters. Therefore, acting, too, would be restricted to only
portraying morally upright characters. Guardians must be single-minded and
not have fragmented characters.

• For song and music, this too must be limited. Any form of music that
encourages idleness, softness, indulgence or a lack of self-control would not
be allowed. Music should only be used to express order, harmony and beauty.
(See Chapter 12 for more on Plato’s views on the arts.) • Gymnastike
A balanced character also requires a physical education.

• Physical training will aim to produce good physical health as well as prepare
for war.

• Diet will also be simple, with the avoidance of rich foods, so that health will
be seen as preventative.

• The young Guardians will be taken to battlefields to watch warfare in practice

to prepare them for adulthood.

• Mathematics
When Plato talks of the ideal polis being ruled by Philosopher-Kings, it is often
misinterpreted as portraying philosophers as the ‘head-in-the-clouds’ type.
However, Plato saw his philosopher as not only very practically minded, but also
an expert in the sciences. Mathematics provides training in reasoning abilities
and is to be encouraged from an early age.

• The very young children will not be compelled to study mathematics, but will
learn the techniques through play.

• At a more mature age, the young Guardians will study arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy and harmonics.
It is interesting that Plato’s concern for the morality of our heroes has a modern
ring to it, especially our concern with the influence of popular culture. However,
his degree of censorship is extreme, and it is questionable whether the
educational benefit of not having any awareness of immorality would be a good
thing. Plato, however, was the first systematic thinker to see education as
important in the development of character, rather than specific education or
skills. He makes no mention of attaining grades or passing exams, or being
expert in specific subjects over others.
It has been pointed out that the US education system is run on Platonic lines,
with an emphasis on acquiring moral and social values and relationships with
others, while academic achievement is left until secondary education. Plato, too,
is making special reference to young children, whose reasoning abilities are still
limited. However, Plato can be criticized for enforcing too rigid a teaching of
social values at an early age, not allowing the individual to be able to
discriminate between good and bad. There is a large amount of conformity, no
alternative schooling, and much censorship, although Plato did believe that later
in life they would be autonomous agents and intellectually adventurous.
 The Education Reform Act

In the UK, the Education Reform Act, 1988, states that the aims of education are to ‘promote the spiritual,
moral, cultural, mental and physical development of the pupils; and to prepare such pupils for the
opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.’ This is not that far removed from Plato at all!

The four imperfect societies

In presenting his ideal polis, Plato was concerned with creating a society that, by
promoting physical and moral health, would result in a finely balanced and
harmonic society. Remember that Plato linked the state and the individual
closely; if you have a just and healthy state then this is mirrored in the just and
healthy individual, and vice versa. Plato was only too aware of the inadequacies
of, not only Athens, but also other societies, and he highlights these to
demonstrate the importance of a good moral and physical education.
These four imperfect states are:
• The timocracy
• The oligarchy
• The democracy
• The tyranny.

TIMOCRACY
A timocracy is a state where rulers are established upon the degree of honour
(the ‘spirited’ part) they possess. This state is really that of Sparta, and Plato
presents it as an example of a defect in education of the ruling class. In Sparta
there was much greater emphasis on the physical than the mental, and this
resulted in a warlike and aggressive manner that is divisive. As the timocrats
grow old, they place more emphasis on wealth and property and the state turns
into an oligarchy.
OLIGARCHY
An oligarchy is ruled by the wealthy. The love of money stems from the desires
for things that money can buy, and so this state represents the appetitive element.
In effect, Plato sees this as not a unified state at all, but two states: the state for
the rich and the state for the poor. The result is excessive greed, and inevitable
civil strife among the classes. In time, the poor overthrow the rich and
democracy is formed.

DEMOCRACY
This, of course, is Athens, and much has already been said about Plato’s critique
of democracy. In a democracy the whole mob of appetites are satisfied. In terms
of education, there is no credence given to those of intellect, rather for those who
can persuade the masses. In time, a man will arise who can persuade the masses
to follow him and a tyranny will result.

TYRANNY
A tyrant, by Greek standards, was not necessarily a cruel ruler. Rather, one who
gains power illegitimately. As the democratic state sinks into anarchy, with
varying forces vying for power, a leader will be chosen who will need to seize
power by force in the name of restoring order. Having no legitimacy, the tyrant
can only rule through the continuous use of force and the imposition of fear. In
the elements of the soul, it is the dominance of the appetite for power.

The root of all evil

At the root of all evil in society are the defects in education of the Rulers. This is
why it is not enough to provide an all-round education that the Auxiliaries, the
soldiers, might receive, since this will result in an imbalance in the state
resembling a timocracy. Rather, the best of the Guardians must pursue their
studies further into the realm of abstract reasoning. This may take many years of
both study and practical work before they can truly become Philosopher-Kings.
 Key terms

Cognition: A philosophical term that refers to the action or faculty of knowing, to distinguish this from
feeling and desire.
Democracy: A state ruled by the majority. However, in the case of Athens, only adult Greek males had the
franchise.
Dianoia: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘thinking’.
Eikasia: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘appearance’.
Episteme: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘knowledge’.
Gymnastike: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘gymnastics’ and includes all physical exercise.
Mousike: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘music’, although it has a much broader meaning in that it
includes all the arts.
Noesis: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘intelligence’.
Oligarchy: The rule by the few, also known as a plutocracy. Rule is established depending upon how much
wealth you possess.
Pistis: A Greek word that can be translated as ‘common sense’.
Rhetoric: Broadly, the art of discourse, but it can have more complex and deeper meanings when applied to
Plato or Socrates, for example.
Timocracy: A state ruled by people because they possess a certain amount of honour that is considered
more important than intellect.
Tyranny: Also known as despotism. The state ruled by force by one ruler.
Dig deeper

Barrow, R. (2014), Plato and Education. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Nagel, J. (2014), Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Brien, D. (2006), An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fact check

1 Which one of the following does Plato consider to be corrupt?

a The City of Atlantis
b The City of the Forms
c The City of the Republic
d The City of Athens
2 In the simile of the ship, what does the ship represent?
a Sparta
b The democratic state
c Plato’s ideal city of the Forms
d The philosopher
3 In the simile of the ship, what does the navigator represent?
a The Sophists
b The philosopher
c The citizens of the state
d Sparta
4 What does the beast represent?
a The people of the state
b The philosopher
c Plato’s ideal city of the Forms
d The Sophists
5 Which one of the following is the highest stage of cognition (i.e. the highest in ladder or ‘line’)?
a Eikasia
b Pistis
c Dianoia
d Episteme
6 Which one of the following is the lowest stage of cognition (i.e. lowest in ladder or ‘line’)?
a Eikasia
b Episteme
c Pistis
d Dianoia
7 Which one of the following is Ancient Greek for the liberal arts?
a Mousike
b Gymnastike
c Mimesis
d Koultoura
 8 Which one of the following is a name for a state ruled by someone who gains power illegitimately?
a Oligarchy
b Timocracy
c Tyranny
d Democracy
9 Which one of the following is a name for a state ruled by the wealthy?
a Democracy
b Timocracy
c Tyranny
d Oligarchy
10 Which one of the following is not a simile by Plato?
a The simile of the ship
b The simile of the beast
c The simile of the circle
d The simile of the line
 8
Love and friendship
In the previous four chapters we have concentrated primarily on the philosophy
presented in Plato’s dialogue Republic. Deservedly so, for it is a great work, but
it must not be forgotten that Plato wrote many other dialogues that elaborate on
important and interesting topics that are as relevant to us today as they were to
the people of Athens. One such important issue that no doubt affects us all, and
always will do, is love and friendship, and so this will be examined in this and
the next chapter. Having said that, sexual relationships in Athenian society had a
uniqueness that the modern reader may find curious and complex.

Pederasty
Plato, alongside many other Ancient Greek writers, including Herodotus and
Xenophon, liked to explore the issue of same-sex love, especially the prevalent
practice of pederasty; that is, the erotic relationship between an adult man and
an adolescent boy. The importance of this for Ancient Greece is indicated by the
use of words used in the previous sentence that have Greek origins: ‘pederasty’
and ‘erotic’. ‘Pederasty’ derives from the Greek paiderastia, meaning ‘love of
boys’, and is a compound of pais (‘child’ or ‘boy’) and erastes (‘lover’). The
boy – considered such until able to grow a beard – is the eromenos (the
‘beloved’) of the relationship and, therefore, the passive and subordinate
recipient of the dominant erastes.
Now, the word ‘paedophile’ also comes from the Greek, as you can probably
now recognize, but its modern concept needs to be separated from the Ancient
Athenian practice which, in terms of the law of the state, recognized mutual
consent between the partners (keeping in mind we are only talking about the free
Greek citizens here, not slaves).
In establishing the pederastic relationship, there was no such thing as a ‘legal
age’ as such, although the boys were usually between the ages of 15 to 17, and,
in fact, the adult could be as young as 20, and so it might well be the case that
there was not such a huge age difference between lover and loved, while it was
nonetheless considered important that one is older than the other, or at least this
was considered the ideal model for this kind of relationship.
As was so often the case for the Ancient Greeks, they would look to the gods for
guidance as to how to live their lives, and what was regarded as perhaps the best
model of pederasty was that between the god Zeus and the mortal Ganymede.
Zeus was so taken by Ganymede, who was considered the most beautiful of
mortals, that he made his eromenos immortal. In this relationship there is
certainly a considerable age difference, given Zeus’ immortality and the fact that
he is regarded as the father of gods and men. Another ideal relationship because
of the age difference can be found in Plato’s work Symposium (see Chapter 9).
The symposium in this case was hosted by the handsome young poet Agathon,
who was eromenos for Pausanias. The difference in age was about ten years,
starting when Agathon was 18. Neither married or had children and it seems that
their relationship lasted longer than the usual, perhaps lifelong. Symposium also
makes reference to another pederastic relationship that was considered less than
ideal, that between the Greek heroes Achilles and Patroclus. This is a more
contentious relationship because they were of a similar age, so that it is difficult
to determine who was the erastes and who the eromenos.

‘Aeschylus talks nonsense when he says that Achilles was Patroclus’ lover: he
was more beautiful than Patroclus (indeed, he was the most beautiful of all the
heroes), and was still beardless, as well as much younger than Patroclus, as
Homer tells us.’
Plato, Symposium, 180a
The Myth of Ganymede

In Greek mythology, Ganymede is born in the city-state of Troy, the son of the ruler of this state, Tros
(from where the name ‘Troy’ derives) and his wife Callirrhoe, who was the daughter of the river-god
Scamander. One story (there are a number of versions) tells us that Ganymede was tending his sheep –
despite such noble parentage – when Zeus, in the guise of an eagle, abducted the young boy and took him to
Mount Olympus. According to the tale told by Homer in Iliad, Ganymede’s father was compensated for his
loss by the gift of fine horses, but the tale is indicative of the importance of pederasty by the fact that
Ganymede’s father was consoled that his son was so honoured to be loved by the greatest god of them all,
although Socrates, in Symposium, argues that Zeus loved Ganymede non-sexually; for his mind rather than
his body. Zeus gave Ganymede eternal youth and he held the official and honoured office of cupbearer to
the gods. Ganymede’s beauty proved a big hit among the gods, with the exception of the jealous Hera,
Zeus’ wife.
The Latin form of the name Ganymede is Catamitus, and this is from where we get the English word
‘catamite’, which in modern usage refers to a boy who is the passive (that is, receiving) partner in anal
intercourse with another male. Images of Ganymede, especially on vases, understandably portray him as
young and athletic. A popular portrayal in painting is of his abduction by the eagle, with a variety of
interesting viewpoints presented. For example, Rembrandt’s (1606–69) rather strange painting Rape of
Ganymede (1635) shows the boy as a crying, cherubic baby clearly distressed and wetting himself as he is
carried off.

Sexual relationships in Athenian society were a complex matter, with the

practice of pederasty seen as an important educative process, with the erastes
acting as mentor for the eromenos, and which required the approval of the father
of the boy who would appoint one of his slaves, called a pedagogue (the Greek
paidagogeo, or ‘to lead the boy’), to ensure the subject of the lover is not taken
advantage of and that the intricate etiquette is followed.
Pederasty

Pederasty is not exclusive to Ancient Greece, but has in fact existed among many cultures in various forms.
Perhaps not surprisingly in Ancient Rome, due to the influence of Greek culture, but it has also existed in
the Middle East, China, Japan, North and South America, and Europe. Some have argued that a form of
pederasty existed in English public schools until late into the 20th century.

Lysis
It is within this helpful context that the reader can understand one of Plato’s
earlier dialogues – Lysis. In any quiz that asks someone with some familiarity
with Plato to list his works, it’s quite likely this one will not be on the list, as it
perhaps does not present the reader with the finest of examples of Socratic
dialogue, of elenchus, in comparison to, say, Republic or Euthyphro, and it
presents something of a confusing argument at times. Nonetheless, in terms of
the topic of love and friendship, and the deeper philosophical issue of how we
define ourselves in relation to others, this short work presents us with some
thought-provoking ideas and is worth some perseverance. Remember it is a very
early work by Plato, so far as we can determine, and it had even been suggested
that it was written while Socrates was still alive.
The dialogue begins with Socrates, who was on one of his walks having just
come from a gymnasium (which in Ancient Greece was not just for physical
exercise but for the intellect too, as well as often places of religious observance)
just outside Athens called the Academy (which was later to become Plato’s
Academy) and was heading to another gymnasium to the north-east of Athens
called the Lyceum (which was to become the home of Aristotle’s famous school
– the Lyceum). Socrates is met on the way by some young men, two of whom –
Hippothales and Ctesippus – invite Socrates to come with them to a palaestra (a
wrestling-school). Having been told that an old and respected friend of Socrates
will be there, he agrees to go with them, provided they answer two questions:
First, what are they expecting of him? Second, who will be the most beautiful
boy there? Ctesippus ignores his first question and answers the second by stating
that it is a matter of opinion; when Socrates asks Hippothales he can tell
immediately from the latter’s blushes that he is in love with someone. It is
Ctesippus, who then tells Socrates that Hippothales is in love with a young man
by the name of Lysis.
At this point Socrates is determined to find out what love is, although this
dialogue differs to some extent in that Socrates seems less concerned with the
usual method of considering an ‘ideal’ (such as love, goodness, beauty, etc.) and
seeks a definition for it via his interlocutors and, instead, is less ‘philosophical’
in Socrates’ greater, almost banal, concern with how a person can win one’s
beloved and, even more specifically, how Hippothales can win the love of Lysis.
Such a conversation as this would not seem out of place in any general
conversation in a bar or dinner party throughout the ages.
Socrates is, at first, critical of Hippothales because he likes to bore his friends by
composing poems that praise his beloved. Socrates is critical because he makes
the psychological observation that these poems have not really been composed
to praise Lysis at all, but is motivated by Hippothales’ need to praise himself. If
Hippothales succeeds in acquiring the love of Lysis, then it is Hippothales who
achieves praise for winning such a great prize (although this also runs the risk of
looking the fool if he fails). In addition, Socrates states that Hippothales is
making it even harder to capture his love by singing his praises, as it only gives
Lysis a much higher opinion of himself.
Having told Hippothales how not to woo the boy, Socrates then sets out to show
how it should be done. Interestingly, Socrates is not in this case claiming his
usual ignorance in such things, but is instead putting himself forward as an old
hand in matters of the heart. Once inside the palaestra, Socrates engages in a
more rigorous elenchus with Lysis himself, although the latter’s responses are
short and acquiescent, and he seems more amused by Socrates than particularly
intimidated. During this dialogue, Hippothales listens in, but remains hidden,
and this allows Socrates to fulfil his role of educating both Hippothales in how
he should woo Lysis, and also in teaching Lysis the importance of being the
eromenos to an older man.
While Lysis has friends of roughly his own age, friendship (philia) is not the
same as sexual love (eros). For example, a close friend of Lysis is Menexenus,
and Socrates also converses with him with the intention of determining what the
differences are between love and friendship, although the reader of this dialogue
may find such semantics rather confusing and, indeed, sophistic in nature. Take,
as an example, this quote:
‘Is that thing for the sake of which the friend is friend to the friend a friend, or is
it neither a friend nor an enemy?’
‘I’m not quite with you there,’ he [Menexenus] said.
‘That’s not surprising,’ I [Socrates] said.
Plato, Lysis, 218d

No wonder Menexenus is confused! This is not helped by the problem of

translating a word such as ‘friend’; not just in terms of its literal translation, but
also within the context of Ancient Greek society. As Robin Waterfield notes in
his translation of Republic, for example:

‘Whereas nowadays we think of friends primarily as those we like or feel

affection for, the less sentimental Greeks thought of them as those who do you
good. Friendship involved ties of loyalty as much as those of warmth.’
Plato, Republic, p.382

The Socratic elenchus with Lysis and Menexenus goes something like this: • i)
Lovers may not also be friends
Socrates sets out to show that a relationship that involves friendship, such as that
between Lysis and Menexenus, is not the same thing as a loving relationship for
in the latter someone could love someone but not be loved in return and, indeed,
may even be hated by the person who loves them.

• ii) Likeness as a condition of friendship If lovers are not necessarily

friends then, Socrates wants to know, who are friends? As Socrates often
does, he appeals to the poets and to the earlier philosophers for guidance:
for example, the poet Homer who said that ‘God always brings like with
like’ (Homer, Odyssey XVIII, 218) and the philosopher Democritus who,
when talking of his atoms, explains their attraction as like with like (see
Chapter 11). So, then, is friendship a matter of like loves like? Is likeness a
condition of friendship? Now, here Socrates says this cannot be applied in
all cases, for what of bad people? Consider this quote from Republic:

‘Now do something else for me, and answer me this: do you think a city or an
army, or pirates, or thieves, or any other group that jointly undertakes some
enterprise in injustice, would be able to achieve anything if they treated one
another unjustly?’
Plato, Republic, 351c

What Socrates is asking Thrasymachus here is relevant to Socrates’ belief that

the bad cannot be friends with other bad people for, being bad, they will
inevitably do their ‘friends’ an injustice which, of course, means they are not
friends at all. If only good people can do good to other people, then only good
people can be friends and so, it seems, the good are friends!
However, Socrates is not at all happy with this definition of friendship either.
Keep in mind the Waterfield quote above; the importance of friendship as a form
of utility, of being of service to others. Socrates is being very strict in his
understanding of like being friends with like in that this alikeness is identical.
But if someone is identical to me then that person has nothing to offer me,
nothing that I cannot do for myself. This logic will certainly seem misconstrued
by the modern reader, for Socrates seems blind to the possibility that two people
can be alike in some ways, not all, and, therefore, can be of use to one another
and form a friendship because of this.
A relationship can be built because I may be deficient in one thing, for example,
I’m poor at maths, but my friend can help me with that. Likewise, my friend may
be awful at cooking, whereas I can rustle up a fine casserole; he or she does not
have to be alike in every respect in order to be useful to me, and vice versa
(given Socrates equates friendship with mutual utility).

• iii) Dissimilarity as a condition of friendship Instead of this, however,

Socrates then suggests that friendship must therefore be based on
dissimilarity. The greatest friendship is of opposites! But Socrates is also
quick to dismiss this possibility because surely the good man is not the
friend of the bad and so we are left with ‘neither like is friend to like nor
opposite to opposite’ (216b).
• iv) The good is the friend of the neutral If we follow the logic of the above,
we are left with only one option. Let’s just go through these again: • The
good cannot be the friend of either the good nor the bad • The bad cannot
be the friend of anyone • Like cannot be friend with like

• Therefore, the good is the friend of the neutral (i.e. what is neither good nor
bad).
The conclusion above is based on Socrates’ view that there are three categories
of things: good things, bad things and things that are neither good nor bad. If this
is the case then it follows deductively that the only conclusion that can be
reached is that the good can only be friends with this final category, as the other
two have already been ruled out. The example Socrates gives, and keeping in
mind the importance of friendship as ‘utility’, is one he is very fond of using in
his dialogues; the doctor and medicine. In this case, here are the three categories
of things: The good thing = medicine
The bad thing = disease
The neutral thing = the human body
The human body (the neutral thing), in this case, is only ‘friends’ with medicine
(the good thing) when it is diseased (the bad thing). Now, remember Socrates
has already said that bad things cannot be friends with anything, so how can he
now say that the bad thing (the disease) is friends with a good thing (the
medicine)?
Socrates presents a rather convoluted, but poetic, argument here that involves
Menexenus’ hair dye! Socrates asks Menexenus to imagine that his hair is dyed
white and asks him if it really is white or only seems to be white. Menexenus
answers, obviously, with the latter, but then Socrates says that when Menexenus
is an old man his hair will actually be white: that is, it will permanently become
what is temporarily present within it (‘whiteness’). By analogy, a body which is
diseased is only seemingly possessing ‘bad’, but it is not a permanent state.
Hence, the body is still ‘neutral’ to all intents and purposes. Hence, Socrates
exclaims:

‘So now, Lysis and Menexenus,’ I said, ‘we’ve done it! We’ve discovered what a
 friend is and what it is not. We say that in the soul, in the body and anywhere
else, it is what is neither bad nor good that is the friend of the good because of
the presence of the bad.’ The two of them agreed wholeheartedly, admitting it
was so.
Plato, Lysis, 218c

Frustratingly, but also very typical of Socrates, this is not to be his final word on
the matter and he is not himself satisfied with this definition of friendship. The
reason for this is a common one with the arguments that Socrates presents in so
many of his dialogues, and it is the use of analogy, for analogy as arguments are
only as good as the analogy is, and Socrates himself feels that the doctor–
medicine example is not really that good an analogy with that of true friendship.
This is because the analogy requires moving from a particular example
(medicine) to something much more universal in nature (friendship) and, as a
consequence, something gets left out. Socrates’ main concern here is that
medicine is desired by the body for the sake of something else – health – but
surely, he argues, true friendship with another is not for the sake of something
else (that is, it’s contingent) but is rather self-contained, otherwise it is not
genuine friendship but a means to an end.
While this does concern Socrates, it is not entirely clear – at one level anyway –
why this should be such a worry, given the understanding of friendship as in
some way ‘useful’, which does imply a means-end relationship. However, this
comes back to the Socratic concerns with ‘universals’; Friendship with a capital
‘F’, like Good, Beauty, etc. Socrates is also concerned that friendship is, if only
‘temporarily’, reliant on the presence of evil (as in ‘diseased body’ analogy): can
I not form a friendship with someone with the presence of evil? And doesn’t
‘evil’ in some way taint true friendship which seems to imply a goodness and a
purity?
This dialogue is finally laid to rest with Socrates’ dismissal of evil as a possible
element of friendship and, instead, focusing on desire as the cause of friendship.
But a desire for what (if not bad desiring good as in disease desiring medicine)?
Socrates asserts that you can only desire what you do not already have
(remember a truly good person would not desire another truly good person
because he already has goodness) and, therefore, he concludes that, ‘the object
of passionate love, friendship and desire is, in fact, it seems, what is akin.’
(221e).
Now, in the hope that the reader has been following this argument, you may
seem a little puzzled here, for isn’t ‘akin’ the same as ‘alike’, and hasn’t Socrates
ruled that out as a possibility? Socrates is fully aware of this and is about to enter
into further dialogue in an attempt to determine how ‘akin’ differs from ‘alike’,
when Lysis and Menexenus are dragged away by their tutors and Socrates is left
alone lamenting that he had found new young friends, yet was unable to
determine what friendship actually was. For the reader, too, we are left alone,
not knowing what friendship is either, although with the possibility that ‘kinship’
is a kind of natural attraction between two people, but what this actually entails
is left afloat. What we are left with is that friendship is based upon desire, but we
do not know why we desire it. It remains a mystery!
Despite the complexity of the arguments on this dialogue, and the unsatisfactory
nature of the elenchus here, Lysis still has much to offer a careful and
considerate reader, and for different reasons. At one level, perhaps the more
‘literary’ one, it does feel that you are unveiling a slice of life here, peering
through the keyhole of a moment frozen in time with characters who display
such human characteristics of youthfulness, uncertainty, bashfulness, love,
friendship, desire, identity problems and old age. At the ‘philosophical’ level,
questions concerning the extent we can truly know such abstract notions as
‘friendship’, ‘love’ and so on, divorced from the particular time and place, is a
key problem that preoccupies so much of the Socratic corpus. Also, of course,
the question of what is friendship and the reason why and how we form
friendships and fall in love are both psychological and philosophical concerns.
What is perhaps most intriguing about this dialogue is the ending which, in some
ways, has a sadness to it, for Socrates seems himself to desire friendship, yet
surely a good and wise man such as he would not, by his own definition, be in
need of the friendship of others, for what can they offer him? Perhaps this is one
reason why Socrates always denied he was wise at all, and that it is only through
companionship with others that one can gain wisdom; that is, others can give
you what you do not have yourself. Remember, also, that this is a clear example
of an aporetic dialogue (see Chapter 3): Socrates concludes in a state of
uncertainty and it is deliberately left to the reader to take the dialogue further.
Like a good teacher, the question is left open for the student to explore, rather
than simply give the ‘answer’.

Phaedrus
Brief reference was made to Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus in Chapter 5 when
talking about the soul. Phaedrus does not cover such a variety of topics as
Republic does, and so is often ignored in terms of school and university
curriculums, but this is a great shame as it stands out for other reasons. This
dialogue is stylistically one of Plato’s finest works and can be appreciated
exclusively as a work of great literary worth. Its main themes are on love and the
nature and limitations of rhetoric. It is interesting that these two themes have
been combined in the one work, and it provides a link with Gorgias (see Chapter
10), which is concerned with rhetoric, and with Symposium (see Chapter 9),
which is concerned with love.
This dialogue contains three philosophical speeches on love, which still makes
the work very topical, for human nature’s attitude towards love does not differ
today from the time of the Ancient Greeks, and so this work speaks to us across
these ages perhaps more effectively than, say, politics or epistemology.
There are only two characters in this dialogue, Socrates and Phaedrus. The
dialogue is set at around 418–416 BC, which would put Socrates in his fifties,
and Phaedrus in his twenties. Phaedrus is an enthusiast for rhetoric and so is
concerned here with words or, more particularly, what is said in a particular
speech. While they take a private stroll along the side of the river Ilisus (which,
at the time of Plato, ran outside the defensive walls of Athens) the young and
handsome Phaedrus was impressed by a speech of seduction by someone of
similar age called Lysias (not to be confused with Lysis!). Phaedrus recounts the
speech to Socrates. The latter notes that Phaedrus, who has spent the morning in
the company of Lysias, has that very speech hidden in embarrassment under his
cloak and he asks him to read it out loud to him.

THE FIRST SPEECH

This first of the three speeches of the dialogue, then, is arguing for a somewhat
cynical view of pederasty that is divorced entirely from love, for love – or Eros –
is a disruptive force that causes the older man in the relationship to behave in an
irrational manner, whereas a relationship based on sex that is divorced from love
is much more productive and beneficial to both parties in that it provides sexual
pleasure for the older man and a better education for the younger. By saying that
love is a form of madness, Lysias is arguing that relationships between non-
lovers (involving sex entirely divorced from love) is better because it is
independent of emotions.
The speech that Lysias utters is also an entreaty for Phaedrus to have sex with
him for the very reason that he does not love him (or, perhaps, claims not to love
him). What Lysias is essentially arguing for is that love is a desire that corrupts
both the lover and the beloved because it is purely selfish. By equating love with
desire it is perceived as wanting to possess the other and in which the appetites
take over so much that one’s moral sense and self-control are subsumed by this
passion. This argument might strike the reader as somewhat confused, for surely
love, in the pure sense, is more spiritual than sexual desire, but it is for this
reason that the young Phaedrus, naively impressed by this speech, is also
confused and wants to know what love is. Also, Phaedrus’ confusion is not
helped by the fact that it is not a particularly good speech, either in a literary
sense or in a philosophical sense, for his terms have not been clearly defined and
nor is it well-structured or logically progressive. Socrates, of course, is quick to
point this out to Phaedrus:

‘…I didn’t think even Lysias himself thought the speech adequate; and in fact he
seemed to me, Phaedrus, unless you say otherwise, to have said the same things
two or three times over, as if he wasn’t altogether well off when it came to
saying so many things about the same subject, or else perhaps because he didn’t
care at all about this sort of thing; indeed he seemed to me to be behaving with a
youthful swagger, showing off his ability to say the same things now in this way
and now in that…’
Plato, Phaedrus, 235a

The above quote demonstrates not only Socrates’ criticism of the content, but
also of the actual structure of the speech, hence the concern with logos (in this
sense, ‘speech’, ‘discourse’, etc.). Now Socrates tells Phaedrus that he could
provide him with a much better speech than the one given by Lysias.

THE SECOND SPEECH

In terms of form, Socrates’ second (and, indeed, his third) speech is set out as an
example of expert logos-making by starting off with a definition of the subject of
love; something that Lysias’ speech failed to do.
 ‘So let us, you and I, avoid having happen to us what we find fault with in
others: since the discussion before you and me is whether one should rather
enter into friendship with lover or with non-lover, let us establish an agreed
definition of love, about what sort of thing it is and what power it possesses, and
look to this as our point of reference while we make our enquiry as to whether it
brings help or harm’.
Plato, Phaedrus, 237d

This speech certainly improves upon Lysias’ from the perspective of defining
love, but also in terms of its overall logical structure. Despite this, Socrates does
not seem to differ in his view of what love is from that of Lysias. He begins his
speech by telling a story about a man who is in love with a boy, but he seems to
largely agree with Lysias that love does indeed lead to such negative emotions as
jealousy. However, in his third speech, Socrates wants to argue that this should
not be a reason to have a relationship that is purely sexual, i.e. a relationship
between non-lovers. On the contrary; love is important in this kind of
relationship. Socrates says that if love is (or should be) nothing more than desire,
according to Lysias’ view, then you should never fall in love.

THE THIRD SPEECH

Why the need for a third speech? Socrates is simply not satisfied with what he
has said so far:

‘… the madness of love we said was best, and by expressing the experience of
love through some kind of simile, which allowed us perhaps to grasp some truth,
though maybe also it took us in a wrong direction, and mixing together a not
wholly implausible speech, we sang a playful hymn in the form of a story…’
Plato, Phaedrus, 265b5-c1

In other words, Socrates believes there is more to be said, although he does not
specify in what way his second speech ‘took us in a wrong direction’. However,
there may well be another point being made here, and this is about rhetoric and
its limitations. Socrates, remember, values the cut and thrust of conversation,
and he is often critical of the written form which he says is too limited and
‘definite’. Whereas conversation is by its nature in a state of flux, progression
and so on, a speech is formalized and a monologue does not allow for
questioning. Socrates is a hesitant speech-maker and, in his second speech,
insists on speaking with a hood over his head to hide his shame for engaging in
such a form. Essentially, then, the philosopher should always be dissatisfied with
speeches, no matter how ‘good’ they may seem. It is ‘good’ because it is
structured and even poetic, but it is also very limited in terms of being able to
‘grasp’ the truth because it lacks the dialectical process.

‘… I think writing has this strange feature, which makes it truly like painting.
The offspring of painting stand there as if alive, but if you ask them something,
they preserve a quite solemn silence. Similarly with written words: you might
think that they spoke as if they had some thought in their heads, but if you ever
ask them about any of the things they say out of a desire to learn, they point to
just one thing, the same each time.’
Plato, Phaedrus, 275d

After his second speech, Socrates is eager to finish there and return to the centre
of Athens (where he can more comfortably engage in philosophical dialogue)
but he is persuaded to stay and explain himself more fully. So Socrates gives
another speech in which he sets out to avoid poetic distraction, simile and so on,
and to do what a really good speech should do: tell the truth.

Could Socrates read?

In Ancient Athens very few could read and write and it has raised the possibility that Socrates himself was
illiterate.

While the second speech is somewhat negative, Socrates now argues that such
‘madness’ of love is a good thing nonetheless. Not all madness is evil, but it is
what takes place when the gods inspire humans. For example, prophecy or lyric
poetry is often regarded as a kind of madness (how many prophets have been
considered mad?), yet this comes from the gods. Remember, also, the cave
analogy and how the prisoner returning to the bottom of the cave is regarded as
mad by the other prisoners, even though he utters what is true! In this respect,
given that the cave analogy is really a reference to Socrates, then Socrates is
‘mad’, for he is a poet in a sense, and a lover, not only of wisdom, but of his
fellow Athenians; yet our ‘mad Socrates’ is nonetheless wiser for this madness
and a paradigm for a kind of human being. Love is one kind of madness, but this
is a good thing for it makes you a better person; it is good for your soul – as well
as those who you love – for it also brings you closer to the gods and makes you
god-like.
At this point Socrates provides us with his wonderful chariot analogy (see
Chapter 5) to argue that it is through love that we can enter the soul-world and
perceive a memory of perfect beauty that we saw in an earlier life, before the
soul became trapped in the physical world. This is a very different view of love
from that presented by Lysias; no longer purely physical pleasure, but a
spiritually uplifting experience for both the lover and the beloved that allows
both to partake in the divine and to perfect the soul. If anything, physical
pleasure gets in the way of the perfection of the soul if it is regarded as merely
physical, independent of love. Pure love, which combines the physical and the
spiritual, provides a bridge between heaven and earth.

‘… the madness of the man who, on seeing beauty here on earth, and being
reminded of true beauty, becomes winged and, fluttering with eagerness to fly
upwards like a bird, and taking no heed of the things below, causes him to be
regarded as mad: the outcome is that this in fact reveals itself as the best of all
kinds of divine possession and from the best sources for the man who is subject
to it and shares in it, and that is when he partakes in this madness that the man
who loves the beautiful is called a lover.’
Plato, Phaedrus, 249d4-e1

Socrates then comes back to what makes a good speech. Socrates states that his
speech tells the truth, which is best for the individual and, for that matter, for
society as a whole. The best kind of speech, therefore, should behave like a
conversation by containing dialectic with opposites that juxtapose and mesh
together in synthesis. The speech essentially becomes lyrical poetry, becomes a
work of art in itself like a Bach concerto.
 Key terms

Erastes: Greek for ‘lover’. The more proactive, dominant and older partner in the relationship.
Eromenos: Greek for ‘beloved’. The younger, subordinate and passive partner in the relationship.
Pederasty: A term to describe a relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male,
from the Greek paiderastia (‘love of boys’).
Dig deeper

Davidson, J. (2008), The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient
Greece. London: Phoenix.
Dover, K. J. (1989), Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Lear, A. & Cantarella, E. (2009), Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods. Oxford:
Routledge.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2005), Plato: Meno and Other Dialogues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2002), Plato: Phaedrus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fact check

1 Which one of the following is Greek for ‘lover’?

a Pais
b Eromenos
c Paiderastia
d Erastes
2 Which one of the following is Greek for ‘beloved’?
a Erastes
b Eromenos
c Paiderastia
d Pais
3 In the dialogue Lysis, who is in love with the character of the title?
a Ctesippus
b Hippothales
c Socrates
d Menexenus
4 Where does Socrates meet Lysis?
a The gymnasium
b The palaestra
c The agora
d The symposium
5 In the dialogue Lysis, Socrates states there are three categories of things: good things, bad things and
things that are neither good nor bad. What analogy does Socrates use to demonstrate this?
a Medicine
b Carpentry
c Politics
d Baking
6 In the dialogue Phaedrus, what is the name of the person who writes a speech declaring his love for the
character of the title?
a Lysis
b Ctesippus
c Socrates
d Lysias
7 How many speeches are presented in Phaedrus?
a Three
b Four
 c Five
d Six
8 What, according to Socrates, should a really good speech do?
a Deceive
b Confuse
c Tell the truth
d Raise the spirits
9 What is pederasty?
a Same-sex love
b Love between humans and gods
c Love between free men and slaves
d Love between husband and wife
10 What is the Myth of Ganymede?
a When Ganymede is lost in a labyrinth
b When Ganymede has an invisible ring
c When Ganymede is abducted by Zeus
d When Ganymede is given a riddle to solve
 9
In praise of love: Symposium
In the last chapter we looked at the topic of love and friendship through two of
Plato’s dialogues: Lysis and Phaedrus. The main theme of Symposium, which is
usually considered one of Plato’s middle-period dialogues, is also love, and it
takes place at a banquet in honour of Agathon, who is a young and extremely
handsome tragedian poet and has just won first prize at a religious festival for
one of his compositions. The date of this event was early 416 BC. Socrates, who
seems to have made more of an effort than usual to make himself presentable, is,
of course, present for this drinking party.

The setting
The Symposium

A symposium should not be compared to, say, going for a drink down the pub, or even a dinner party at
home or in a restaurant. The Greeks liked to converse with the good-looking and the great-minded, but,
behind the closed doors of the symposia, this was not done in a very informal or relaxed manner. The male,
and only male, guests reclined on benches (although the younger, yet to prove their full worth, had to sit up
straight). They would dress up, wearing wreaths. There was food and wine, as well as entertainment which
could include music and dancing. Slaves would prepare food such as pastries, fried fish, and lentil soup.
There was considerable social etiquette involved, which were all part of a test to demonstrate your skills in
citizenship; even drinking wine from the broad and shallow cup called a kylix was quite a difficult process
when reclining, and would result in most of the drink dripping over your tunic if you are a novice or have
drunk too much. Symposia frequently ended up being drunken, rowdy affairs despite the presence of
(perhaps because of) the symposiarch; the one chosen among those present to be in charge of the evening,
including deciding how many units of watered-down wine would be drunk that evening (in Plato’s
Symposium a more democratic process seems to be involved in which all agree not to drink too much on
this occasion). Aside from the drink, the entertainment and the opportunity for older men to be in close
proximity with younger men (and vice versa), it was really meant to be a place for intellectual stimulation
and networking. They were the gatherings of the ‘great and the good’ that could meet privately, behind
closed doors, like an ancient form of masonic lodge, and could last well into the night and, indeed, there are
accounts of them lasting up to 36 hours!

At this particular symposium we encounter a number of historical individuals.

Aside from Socrates himself, none of those present would be described as
philosophers: some are Sophists, others are artists (poets, tragedians, etc.) and so
when each talks of love, and praises the god of love, Eros, they inevitably fail to
get to grips with what Love truly is, as one might expect from a true philosopher,
but, rather, they perhaps reveal more about themselves, for when we talk about
love, we often end up talking about ourselves.
Of those present we have Agathon, of course, being the guest of honour,
although all of his works have unfortunately been lost. Socrates sits next
Agathon, and it is perhaps no coincidence that the Greek word agathon means
‘good’, and so Socrates is sitting himself next to ‘the good’ here. In addition,
much of this dialogue is about what constitutes the ‘good’: the good speech, the
good lover and so on. Aside from Agathon’s appearance in Symposium with his
lifelong lover Pausanias (see Chapter 8) they also both appear together in Plato’s
Protagoras. Aristotle also mentions Agathon in his work Poetics, commenting
on Agathon’s play Anthos as being particularly innovative for its time by
introducing original characters, against the orthodoxy of using mythological
subjects.
Another important character who makes a drunken appearance is Alcibiades, of
which more will be said later. Another figure present is the comic playwright
Aristophanes. A large number of his plays have survived complete and one in
particular, The Clouds, presents a caricature of Socrates (and, hence, this makes
the play our oldest source for reference to the philosopher) that caused Plato (in
his Apology) to cite this work as contributing to Socrates’ execution because it
helped to fuel a public mistrust of Socrates. However, in Symposium,
Aristophanes seems to get on well with Socrates, even though this would have
been after The Clouds had been performed.
In terms of how this dialogue is constructed it is extremely complex, starting, as
it does, as an account of the symposium by the narrator Apollodorus to an
unnamed friend. However, Apollodorus himself was not at the symposium (he
was, he says, only a child at the time) and so he is narrating a report given to him
by Aristodemus which, in turn, Apollodorus has recounted to Glaucon!
Aristodemus was apparently at the party and ‘one of the people most in love
with Socrates at the time’. (Plato, Symposium, 173b). This approach of hearing a
report from a ‘friend of a friend’ is perhaps a deliberate strategy on Plato’s part,
for what it demonstrates, given that the topic is love, is just how difficult it is to
get to the truth on such matters; one is always ‘removed’ and distant in some
way.
What makes Symposium unusual in the Platonic corpus is that we are not
confronted here with the usual cut and thrust of Socratic dialectic. Instead we
have a series of speeches on love by three different characters that are all capable
of existing independently of each other, although Socrates’ speech, as the final
of the four, does perform as a response to what has been said previously.

The first three speeches

The first three speeches are, in some way or other, inferior to what is to then
follow, but they are important because they possess a common thread in being
concerned primarily about physical love, about the body, and, consequently, fail
to grasp a great, more metaphysical, understanding of love.

PHAEDRUS’ SPEECH
Having decided that the guests would only ‘drink as much as was pleasant’
(Plato, Symposium 176e) and to send away the flute player, the topic chosen was
due to Phaedrus having, on previous occasions, lamented the lack of eulogies to
love. Phaedrus, therefore, is selected to provide the first (and, in this case, the
shortest) speech on this subject. A eulogy, or encomium, is a standard rhetorical
form that contains a set pattern that should include the genealogy of the subject,
its benefits and how it compares to other subjects.

‘It’s only lovers who are willing to die for someone else.’
Plato, Symposium, 179b

The above quote, said by Phaedrus, is perhaps his key point, hence the emphasis
on why it is of particular benefit, i.e. it encourages us to be virtuous by at least
being prepared to courageously sacrifice ourselves for another, while some
might argue that love is selfish.

PAUSANIAS’ SPEECH
The second speech that is reported (there were others, but Aristodemus could not
remember them) is given by Pausanias, which contains more argument than
Phaedrus’. Pausanias states that Phaedrus has presented a somewhat simplistic
view of love and therefore it is easy to praise its virtues. Rather, it is not a single
thing and, consequently, not all kinds of love can be seen as equally
praiseworthy.

‘Every activity in itself is neither right nor wrong. Take our present activity: we
could be drinking or singing or discussing. None of these is right in itself; the
character of the activity depends on the way it is done. If it is done rightly and
properly, it is right; if it is not done properly, it is wrong. So not every type of
loving and Love is right and deserves to be praised, but only the type that
motivates us to love rightly.’
Plato, Symposium, 181a

As readers of this book will by now be aware, homosexual relations in Athens

were a common enough practice, but here Pausanias (and, indirectly, Plato) is
expressing the concern that was raised in the dialogue Phaedrus by Lysias (see
Chapter 8): that sexual love that is purely of a physical nature – whether it is
homosexual or heterosexual – is not ‘true love’ but what he calls ‘Common
Love’, contrasting this with ‘Heavenly Love’ which, though possessing a
physical element too, also involves rational, educational and ethical
development. This is the kind of love that Socrates praises in Phaedrus.

ERYXIMACHUS’ SPEECH
It was then Aristophanes’ turn to speak but, ‘as it happened, he was having an
attack of hiccups, from overeating or some other cause, and couldn’t speak’
(Plato, Symposium, 185c), so Eryximachus took his place in the queue. He
extends the view of Pausanias to talk about love between not just human beings:

‘Love is not only expressed in the emotional responses of human beings to

beautiful people, but in many other types of response as well: in the bodily
responses of every kind of animal, in plants growing in the Earth, in virtually
everything that exists. I feel sure it’s from medicine, my own area of expertise,
that I’ve realized how great and powerful a god Love is, and how his power
extends to all aspects of human and divine life.’
 Plato, Symposium, 186a-b

As the quote above points out, Eryximachus is a medical doctor (who, before his
speech, gives advice to Aristophanes on how to stop his hiccups; advice that one
still receives today such as holding your breath for a long time or gargling with
some water) and presents here an almost ‘new age’ (which, in fact, in many
respects is ‘old age’) vision of cosmic love.

The speech of Aristophanes

Aristophanes who, remember, was not liked by Plato, is presented as a character
who is very much in touch with the sensual world. He likes to gorge himself on
food and drink (hence his hiccups), to play around, to joke and so on. In many
respects, he possesses all of those characteristics in a human being that Plato saw
as morally sick and even dangerous: Aristophanes’ desire to entertain, after all,
resulted in his work The Clouds, with no regard for the consequences for
Socrates.
Having overcome his hiccupping fit, it is now the turn of the comic playwright
Aristophanes, who presents a bizarre and comic genealogy of human nature in
which, long ago, there were three human genders, the third being a combination
of the male and female (androgynous). Also, each human being was spherical
(see Chapter 11 on the importance of the sphere as a kind of perfect animal),
with four hands, four legs, and, although only one head, two identical faces on a
circular neck with four ears. These early humans were so strong they tried to
climb up to heaven and attack the gods. The gods did not want to kill off the
humans because then they would no longer have a species to honour and make
sacrifices to them, so Zeus decided to cut them in half:

‘I shall now cut each of them into two; they will be weaker and also more useful
to us because there will be more of them. They will walk upright on two legs. If
we think they’re still acting outrageously, and they won’t settle down, I’ll cut
them in half again so that they move around hopping on one leg.’
Plato, Symposium, 190d

Remember, Aristophanes is a comic playwright, and one might wonder what this
deliberate fiction has to do with love. Aristophanes tells us that this physical
rupture also resulted in great emotional stress, for the two halves longed to be
reunited to the extent that this desire and resulting depression resulted in an
inability to engage in anything else. Zeus, therefore, moved their genitals round
to the front (they were previously at the back of their bodies), which allowed
them to have sex which, to some extent at least, relieved them of their desire to
become permanently whole with another. Those who are cut from the original
androgynous gender result in the male seeking a female; those cut from male
genders result in male seeking male; and those cut from the female gender now
seek fellow females for sex.
This is a fascinating and appealing story (for many readers, it stands out more
than Socrates’ speech later on) on many levels. Aristophanes wants to stress that
this is not ‘just a comedy’ (193b); there is a moral message here too. The human
race can only achieve happiness when we are able to fulfil our true nature, which
is to find our ‘other half’. In a metaphorical sense, then, happiness is equated
with true love for another human being, which is only possible if that other
human being is suitable to one’s own character; whether this a heterosexual or
homosexual relationship is irrelevant. While it is highly unlikely to find our
actual other half, we should aim for as close as possible to this. What
Aristophanes is also stressing here is the importance of physical proximity in
order to know the ‘other’ which, in turn, helps us to understand ourselves, as
opposed to a life of ascetic, celibate existence. It has implications in terms of
knowledge and the importance of other people to determine what we can know,
how we are to be ethical, and how we are to be happy and self-fulfilled.
What this myth also tells us is the kind of person Aristophanes was, or at least
how Plato wanted to portray him: as someone who is ‘half a man’, as someone
who does not feel complete, and does not truly understand himself unless he is
engaged in sexual activity. Interestingly, remembering that Aristophanes was a
comic writer, this psychological portrayal has frequently been repeated among
comedians through history, as the saying ‘tears of a clown’ denotes. The comic
seeks for humour as a refuge from one’s self.

Agathon’s praise of love

Moving from the comic of Aristophanes, we come to the tragic poet Agathon,
and one might expect his speech on love to be tragic in nature. Agathon states
that all the previous speeches have focused on what benefits humans have
received from love, but none of them have considered the nature of the god of
Love, of Eros, himself. Therefore, Agathon gives us a praise of Love, as being
the most beautiful, the youngest, the most sensitive, moderate, brave, and so on.
After Aristophanes’ comic and entertaining speech, this comes across as
somewhat disappointing and not really tragic at all, though full of rhetorical
devices and formula. However, remember that Plato always does things with
some intention in mind, and the reader is encouraged to consider why this is
such an unsatisfactory speech from someone who has, after all, just been
awarded first prize for his poetic skills. Plato himself is sceptical as to the value
of tragedy (see Chapter 12), which he sees as employing various rhetorical tricks
to produce an emotional response, but without really getting at the truth of
things; hence Agathon’s speech comes across as mere trickery, which is
certainly full of praise, showy, and may well raise an emotional response, but –
when looked at more closely – lacks any moral or educational content, rather
like some ‘bubble-gum’ music. It is worth mentioning that Agathon is a student
of Gorgias (see Chapter 10), and, like his teacher, Agathon reveals the sophistic
tendency to say a lot without really saying anything!
While Agathon’s speech may well follow the correct formula for good rhetoric
it, nonetheless, is poorly argued in terms of logic. For instance, he fails to make
a distinction between love and desire, although he is not the first to do this.
Agathon argues that love is the motivating force behind poetry, as well as the
other creative arts, but is this really love? Take this quote by Agathon:

‘It was by following where his desire and love led him that Apollo discovered the
arts of archery, medicine and prophecy, and this makes Apollo a pupil of Love.
In the same way, it makes the Muses pupils of his music, Hephaestus in
metalwork, Athena in weaving and Zeus in steering gods and humans.’
Plato, Symposium, 197a-b

But what has love got to do with the desire to discover archery or to engage in
metalwork? As the previous speeches, this tells more about the speaker on love,
than about love itself, and here we have someone who is narcissistic, who is very
much in love with himself. His praise of love is really a praise of Agathon.
Socrates’ speech

‘I’m not giving another eulogy of that kind – I couldn’t do it. However I am
prepared to tell the truth, if you’d like that, though in my own way, not
competing with your speeches, which would make me look ridiculous. So let me
know, Phaedrus, whether there’s any need for a speech like that, one which tells
the truth about Love, but which uses whatever words and phrases happen to
occur to me as I go along.’
Plato, Symposium, 199a-b

No one in the symposium is going to refuse Socrates the opportunity to talk, of

course, but what Socrates is doing here is stating that his speech will not be
covered up in flowery and poetic language (unlike Agathon’s), but will get to the
bare-bones of the subject of what love actually is.
Socrates, in fact, starts by not giving a speech at all but, in typically Socratic
fashion, begins by interrogating Agathon. Agathon’s confusion between love
and desire is quite understandable, given that the Greek word eros can mean
either. Socrates is fully aware of this, and, indeed, starts by connecting these two
understandings of the term himself. He gets Agathon to abandon his view that
love is beautiful by stating that love is always of something, rather than
something in itself. For example (giving Socrates’ own example), a brother is
not just a brother, he is a brother of someone. Therefore, a lover isn’t just a lover,
he or she is a lover of someone. There is also a motivation involved here, for
why do you seek love of another? This is a very important question, which
Aristophanes’ myth only examines to a limited extent. Here, Socrates argues that
love is a state of deficiency; that is to say, it is lacking in something that it needs.
Again, using Socrates’ example, a tall person does not look for tallness, but a
small person might. So what does love lack? As love is not itself beautiful, then
it lacks beauty, and this is what is needed: love is of beauty.
It was mentioned earlier that Plato seems to deliberately construct this dialogue
with a chain of reporters so as to demonstrate how difficult it is to get to the truth
for such a slippery subject as love. Now the chain goes one further back, for the
report on Socrates’ speech is now no longer from Socrates at all, at least not
directly. As Socrates says himself:

‘I’ll try to restate for you the account of Love that I once heard from a woman
from Mantinea called Diotima. She was wise about this and many other things…
She is also the one who taught me the ways of Love. I’ll report what she said…’
Plato, Symposium, 201d

While symposia may not allow women to be physically present for the
conversations (only as entertainers, servants or prostitutes), here we have a
woman present in the sense of these are her words, as reported by Socrates. So
this is not really a speech at all, but a report on a Socratic dialogue that took
place between Diotima and Socrates.
Diotima is a prophetess and so receives divine inspiration, and Socrates sought
her out as a guide and a teacher. She says that love is not a god, because gods are
perfect, they do not lack anything whereas, as Socrates has already stated, love is
a deficiency. Rather, love is something in-between the human and the divine and
acts as a bridge between the two. Love is described as full of longing, a longing
for truth, knowledge, wisdom, perfection. When we fall in love, we see an image
of Perfection, of perfect wisdom, beauty and so on. This is very different from
Aristophanes’ notion of love, which is more directed at the lover (in
Aristophanes’ case, at himself) seeking to be whole, whereas Diotima sees love
as the desire for what is good. This, as the reader will no doubt be aware, relates
to the Theory of the Forms; the quest for the Form of the Good, for Beauty itself
beyond the realm of the mundane, physical world. Through love we are able to
‘ascend’ to the Realm of the Forms and to move from seeing beauty in a lover,
to Beauty Itself. Coupled with this is the quest for immorality, to not be tied to
this time-bounded world. We desire to possess the good for eternity and, through
sexual reproduction, this provides us with a means for us to ‘carry on’ in some
form.
In the same way that questions arise as to whether the Guardians, once attaining
Knowledge of the Good, would be either willing or able to engage in the
mundane world of politics, the same question arises as to whether the lover
would continue to display any interest in a sexual partner once he or she has
ascended to the realm of Beauty.
Alcibiades barges in
At the end of this speech, all present applaud, with the exception of the stubborn
and arrogant Aristophanes, who wants to rebut Socrates. But before he has the
opportunity to do so, in barges Alcibiades. A historical figure that readers of
Plato’s dialogues at that time would certainly know of, for he was a famous
statesman and military general from one of Athens’ most powerful aristocratic
families, Alcibiades had been trained in the art of rhetoric, but he also had
Socrates as one of his teachers (and lovers) and, indeed, one story tells that it
was Socrates who once saved Alcibiades’ life at the Battle of Potidaea in 432 BC.
 Alcibiades

At the time this dialogue was taking place, Alcibiades, in his mid-thirties, would have been at the height of
his powers as a general in the Athenian army, but the readers of Symposium, coming much later, would
know Alcibiades differently: his enemies in Athens, for which he had many, had successfully called for his
execution on the accusation of sacrilege, which caused Alcibiades to defect to Sparta, where he acted as a
military adviser. However, he was also to fall out with the Spartans, causing him to flee once more, this
time to Persia where he also gave military guidance, to the detriment of Athens. Despite this, following an
Athenian coup in 411 BC, Alcibiades was welcomed back to Athens and played a major part in the
Peloponnesian Wars. He was assassinated in 404 BC, possibly by Spartans.

In Symposium Alcibiades rudely bursts onto the scene, exceedingly drunk to the
extent he needs to be supported by a courtesan. While interrupting the flow of
the argument on love, Alcibiades’ speech is not entirely disconnected from this
theme and, in fact, he brings us back to the kind of physical, sensual love that
began the dialogue and for which Socrates, through Diotima, had removed the
interlocutors and readers from such a carnal, bodily expression of love to one of
true Beauty and the Good. But Alcibiades’ own speech is also connected to
Diotima’s notion of love in that the drunken general provides us with a eulogy of
this kind of love as characteristic of Socrates himself. Here we have interesting
contrasts: on the one hand, Alcibiades who is externally beautiful but internally
an ugly and corrupt soul, while, on the other, Socrates who is externally ugly but
possessing a pure and beautiful soul. Needless to say, for the philosopher, what
matters is what is internal, not the superficial external aspect.
Despite his drunkenness, Alcibiades remains eloquent, and gives a speech that
follows the rules of rhetoric, beginning with a general character portrayal of
Socrates as someone who, while physically ugly, is nonetheless god-like in his
soul. Alcibiades talks up Socrates’ virtues: his moderation and his courage, and
his skill in dialectic.

‘Whenever I listen to him, my frenzy is greater than that of the Corybantes

[ecstatic dancers]. My heart pounds and tears flood out when he speaks, and I
see that many other people are affected in the same way. I’ve heard Pericles and
other good orators, and I thought they spoke well. But they haven’t produced
this kind of effect on me; they haven’t disturbed my whole personality and made
me dissatisfied with the slavish quality of my life.’
Plato, Symposium, 215d-216a

Alcibiades, then, praises Socrates which, given that Socrates was executed partly
for corrupting others (including his pupil Alcibiades), is a deliberate strategy on
Plato’s part to defend Socrates’ legacy. Alcibiades, while praising Socrates, also
reveals his sexual frustration for the philosopher, for it seems that Alcibiades
saw their relationship in the same way as that described by Pausanias earlier, that
is, as one that results in sexual gratification; whereas Socrates was not interested
in that kind of love with Alcibiades, or with anyone else for that matter.
Socrates, effectively, had ascended so far up the ladder of love as to no longer be
concerned with such physical things.
What is interesting, however, is that although Socrates has ascended to the real
or true Beauty, he is certainly not averse to flirting with young men, hence
Alcibiades’ own frustrations and confusion as a result of misunderstanding
Socrates’ intentions. But this is typically Socratic in style: like in his
conversations he lures people in with a false sense of security and self-
confidence, only to shatter their beliefs and cause them to question their very
souls. In the same way, Socrates flirts so as to reel in these young souls and, as a
result, by not meeting their expectations, he gets them to question the value of
such expectations and to question what love truly is.
Alcibiades the troublemaker

Alcibiades’ mixed career means that he is praised by some in history, and condemned by others, and this
division still exists today among modern scholars. Wherever he went he caused trouble, often being accused
of treachery and disloyalty. Importantly here, however, is how Plato portrays him. Alcibiades is
undoubtedly attractive, a good orator and charismatic individual but, for Plato, he is also a corrupted and
divided soul. In many ways Alcibiades represents those who could be Guardians of Plato’s republic if they
are educated in the right way but, in the wrong hands, could end up being incredibly dangerous and morally
corrupting, not only for themselves, but for others.

So this, to some extent, answers our earlier question: would someone who has
attained knowledge of the Good, of Beauty, of true Love be either able or willing
to ‘return’ to the physical world of interpersonal relationship? In the case of
Socrates who, after all, represents the ideal philosopher, the answer is a
resounding ‘yes’. One does not, as a result of enlightenment, retreat in isolation,
but instead ‘goes down’ and instructs others, despite the fact that this may result
in confusion, anger, frustration among others, as well as endangering the life and
reputation of the philosopher himself.
Key term

Symposium (pl. symposia). A drinking party, but also a place for intellectual stimulation and networking.
Dig deeper

Cooksey, T. L. (2010), Plato’s ‘Symposium’: Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum.

Gill, C. (trans.) (1999), Plato: The Symposium. London: Penguin.
Fact check

1 What is a symposium in Ancient Greece?

a An academic conference
b A drinking party
c A religious retreat
d A theatre
2 Who, in Symposium, is the guest of honour?
a Socrates
b Alcibiades
c Aristophanes
d Agathon
3 Who gives the first speech in Symposium?
a Pausanias
b Eryximachus
c Socrates
d Phaedrus
4 Who gives the third speech in Symposium?
a Pausanias
b Eryximachus
c Phaedrus
d Aristophanes
5 Who, in Symposium, said: ‘It’s only lovers who are willing to die for someone else’?
a Socrates
b Eryximachus
c Phaedrus
d Pausanias
6 Who had an attack of hiccups in Symposium?
a Socrates
b Eryximachus
c Aristophanes
d Pausanias
7 What was the name of the comedy written by Aristophanes?
a The Clouds
b The Sun
c The Wind
d The Earth
 8 Who was Diotima?
a A lover of Socrates
b A prostitute
c A prophetess
d A dancer
9 What is the name of the man who barges into the symposium drunk?
a Diotima
b Aristophanes
c Agathon
d Alcibiades
10 What does the Greek word eros mean?
a Love
b Hate
c Anger
d Despair
 10
Gorgias
The previous two chapters considered the topic of love and friendship but, as we
also saw, this is closely tied to the importance of giving a good speech. This
essentially applies to any topic: if we are to understand what something is then
we do this through conversation, through dialogue and, it logically follows, if the
dialogue is poorly constructed then it will be much more of a struggle to get at
the truth, and this, the art of rhetoric, is the primary concern of the dialogue
Gorgias.

Gorgias
Gorgias was written near the end of Plato’s ‘early period’, quite possibly around
the same time as Protagoras, and both deal with similar themes. It is also
significant in that it was written very soon after the death of Socrates, to the
extent that Plato’s anger at the execution of his mentor comes across within this
dialogue. The structure of the work can be divided into three parts or three
linked dialogues within the overall work: Socrates–Gorgias, Socrates–Polus and
Socrates–Callicles. This corresponds with Book I of Republic (which may have
been written earlier than the rest of the dialogue) with Gorgias/Cephalus,
Polus/Polemarchus and Callicles/Thrasymachus in terms of their views, age and
so on. In fact, readers will find it helpful to read Book I of Republic first before
then reading Gorgias, and you will see how the latter elaborates upon the
former.
Socrates as a character is more forthcoming, more quick to criticize the Sophists,
and this was also evident in his attack on the Sophist Protagoras in the dialogue
of the same name. Gorgias is sometimes provided with the subtitle of
‘Concerning Oratory’, for Gorgias himself was a Sicilian teacher of oratory.
Gorgias was the teacher of Agathon, who makes his grand speech in Symposium
(see Chapter 9), which is lacking much in the way of philosophical rigour. One
might suspect that Gorgias is an easy target for Socrates, for the former’s
teaching of oratory results in the production of interlocutors in Plato’s works
who have been educated to produce bombastic rhetoric, rather than true
philosophical and meaningful content. Gorgias is extremely important, then,
because he represents, perhaps more than any of the other Sophists in the
dialogues, the kind of rhetorician that Plato saw as dangerous and irresponsible:
if Socrates is the angel of philosophy, then Gorgias is the fallen angel Satan.
Gorgias’ form of discussion differs in one crucial aspect from that of Socrates:
whereas Socrates, as has been shown, looks for the essence of something, for
example, what beauty truly is; Gorgias uses examples to try to illustrate what
something is. What Socrates shows in this dialogue, and so many others for that
matter, is that giving specific examples is insufficient because there are always
exceptions to the rule. For something to have an essence means that it is
universally the case.
What, then, do we know about Gorgias? He was born in Leontini in Sicily in
around 485 BC, and so he is Italian rather than Greek although, as stated in
Chapter 1, he was nonetheless ‘Hellenic’. As a Sophist, he would travel and
teach for money in various cities. He would also feature in speech competitions,
which helped to solidify his reputation as a great orator. In 427 BC he came to
Athens with other delegates to ask for protection for his city against the
aggressive neighbouring Sicilian city-state of Syracuse. It turns out that Athens
also proved to be profitable for Gorgias, given the demand for great orators, and
so he decided to remain in the city where he acquired considerable wealth from
teaching many of the nobles of Athens (of which many appear in Plato’s
dialogues) as well as a reputation as the greatest of Sophists. He died in Larissa
in the Thessaly region of Greece in, it is said, around 380 BC, which meant he led
a very long life indeed for that time.
A long and pleasureless life

Gorgias lived to be well over 100 and when he was asked how he managed to live for so long he said it was
‘by renouncing pleasure’. In fact he could well have lived longer than he did if he had not decided his own
fate by choosing to stop eating.

Little of his writings survive, although he is known to have written at least four
major works: The Encomium of Helen, Defense of Palamedes, On Non-Existence
and Epitaphios. Together these works act as a manual for rhetorical structure and
also call for extreme relativism to the extent that Gorgias is often referred to as
‘the Nihilist’. The Encomium of Helen, which exists in its entirety, is a reference
to Helen of Troy in Greek legend and, as this is an encomium, this is a speech in
praise of Helen of Troy in response to accusations that she was an evil woman.
Here, then, Gorgias sets himself up with a major challenge by arguing for
something that is essentially unpopular, paradoxical and even absurd, for, among
the Greek populace, Helen of Troy, though being considered the most beautiful
woman in the world, was also considered evil incarnate: the woman who
‘launched a thousand ships’, the start of the Trojan War, which resulted in the
tragic death of so many Greek heroes and Helen’s own treachery. Yet Gorgias
sets out to defend what seems the indefensible. What Gorgias intends to show
here is just how powerful language can be. However good or bad you may be,
whatever good or evil you have done, Gorgias is saying that that is irrelevant.
What matters most is whether it is possible to persuade others as to whether or
not you are good or bad.
 Gorgias the celebrity

Gorgias was such a celebrity and became so rich from his performances that he had a life-size statue of
himself made of gold, which he presented to the Delphic oracle.

It is said that Gorgias had so much power with words that he could hypnotize an
audience. Importantly, Gorgias never laid claim to be presenting what is true,
because he believed that there was no such thing as truth, only the art of
persuasion. What matters is not so much the content of the speech, what it
actually means, but rather achieving the end result.
 Gorgias the charismatic

When Gorgias arrived in Athens he went to the agora (the main gathering place) with a fellow orator by the
name of Tisias. Gorgias cut a striking figure, robed from head to toe in purple, and the two engaged in a
verbal sparring match that amazed the audience. The Sophist Flavius Philostratus (c. AD 170–247) wrote in
Lives of the Sophists that Gorgias demonstrated ‘oratorical drive, innovatory audacity, inspired gestures,
sublime tone, the ability to pause effectively and resume dramatically, poetic expression and tasteful
decoration’ (I 9, 2). Given that Philostratus wrote this some 600 years later, we can’t trust such an account,
but it nonetheless suggests that Gorgias was certainly a challenge to Socrates.

Another of Gorgias’ great works, On Non-Existence (or On Non-Being) is, alas,

now lost, and so we only have paraphrases of it from other scholars. This is an
attack on Parmenides’ concept of Being (see Chapter 1) and begins with the
premise that nothing exists! Second, even if you wish to proclaim that things do
exist, Gorgias argues that you cannot know for sure that these things actually
exist. Third, and finally, that even if anything does exist and you can know it,
you will not be able to communicate it to others. Essentially, words do not
actually correspond to real things, for nothing is real, and words, therefore, are
simply ways of getting what you want. You can see why this would be so much
an anathema to the likes of Plato, who argues for the Forms, and yet Gorgias
provides a wonderful platform for which Plato can perform his own argument in
response to this nihilism as well as a feather in Plato’s cap if he can demonstrate
just how powerful Socratic dialectic can be against Gorgias’ rhetoric if the latter
can be persuaded by the philosopher.
 Helen of Troy

Helen was the daughter of the great god Zeus and the mortal Leda, Queen of Sparta. She becomes the wife
of the King of Sparta, Menelaus. The accounts of the story of Helen are most famously recounted in
Homer’s works Iliad and Odyssey, although it appears in various other accounts, including Euripides’ play
Helen. Accounts do differ, naturally, but in most of the stories it is told that when Helen was young (some
say as young as seven, others that she was of childbearing age), with a reputation for outstanding beauty,
she was abducted by Theseus, the ageing King of Athens, and Pirithous, King of Larissa. Like Helen, these
were both the offspring of gods and so they believed their noble status entitled them to be married to the
semi-divine. Helen, therefore, was an ideal choice here, and Theseus intended to marry her, while Pirithous
wanted another daughter of Zeus, Persephone. Theseus took Helen to Athens, which resulted in Sparta
invading Athens to get her back, which was successful. Helen then married Menelaus and they ruled Sparta
for some ten years until a Trojan prince called Paris made a diplomatic mission to Sparta with the intention
of seducing Helen. Paris had been promised the most beautiful woman in the world by the goddess
Aphrodite and, upon seeing Helen, he took this as Aphrodite’s promise and took Helen back to Troy with
him. Stories differ as to whether or not Helen went willingly, but it resulted in Menelaus summing his allies
against Troy, resulting in the ten-year Trojan War, hence the expression that Helen was the ‘face that
launched a thousand ships’ (the expression actually comes from a play by Christopher Marlowe, The
Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus). At times Helen seemed to be on the side of the Trojans, at other times
on the side of Menelaus, hence the reputation she has for duplicity.

The setting
It is difficult, from anachronistic references made in Gorgias, to determine when
exactly this dialogue is meant to have taken place, but it must certainly have
been when Gorgias was in Athens (i.e. from 427 BC) and most scholarship leans
towards this being near the end of Socrates’ life as his philosophical bearing is
very mature here.
The dialogue begins with Socrates bringing in one of his students, Chaerephon,
to see Gorgias at the home of Callicles. Aside from these characters, of which
Chaerephon has little to contribute, is another student of Gorgias by the name of
Polus. Socrates wishes to meet Gorgias to find out for himself what these
rhetorical skills are that he has such a reputation for.
It begins with Socrates urging his young student Chaerephon to ask Gorgias who
he is. At first Chaerephon is somewhat confused by what Socrates means by this,
as the reader – also in this sense a student of Socrates – may be too, but it is a
wonderful dramatic moment when Chaerephon seems to recall Socrates’
teaching and almost ‘become Socratic’ in his questioning. It is a fascinating,
though so very brief, example of the student truly learning from the teacher. The
question ‘who are you?’ is by no means trivial, either, certainly not in its
philosophical sense for which it is meant here, for it gets at that very thorny and
key philosophical question concerning identity; your place in the world and your
understanding of who you are. It also immediately makes the reader think about
how it is actually very difficult to properly describe or define what it means to
have an identity, and this, in turn, brings us to the difficulties with language and
communication, which is central to this particular dialogue.
When at first they encounter Gorgias he is exhausted from recently taking part in
one of those public exhibitions of rhetorical skills, and so it is Polus who initially
puts himself forward to converse with Socrates.
Polus, younger than Gorgias, is a historical figure who was also from Sicily.
Little else is known about him, however, other than he authored a work on
oratory. His quickness (and, interestingly, his name in English translates as
‘colt’) to step in for the great Gorgias in the belief that he can be just as expert is
quickly exposed by Socrates, for Polus proves to be no match for the philosopher
and, indeed, Socrates has little respect for the young, uncritical and impetuous
Polus in contrast to the high regard he shows for Gorgias. This is a common
feature in Socratic dialogues; those who are quick to put forward their opinions
and to confront Socrates are usually those who are less able to support their
views. They are quick to talk, but slow to think.

‘… when Chaerephon asks you what art Gorgias is master of, you embark on a
panegyric of his art as if someone were attacking it, without, however, saying
what it is.’
Plato, Gorgias, 448

The above quote by Socrates, which is addressed to Polus, reveals how Polus
differs from Chaerephon. Whereas the latter engages in Socratic questioning, the
former merely responds with a panegyric, a speech in praise of oratory of the
kind that resembles, though is much poorer than, those of his older tutor Gorgias
with his encomiums.
PHASE ONE: SOCRATES–GORGIAS (449–61)
It is at this point that Socrates and Gorgias take over the conversation, with
Socrates asking Gorgias what it is that he actually does, what is his ‘art’, to
which Gorgias replies he is an orator. In typical Socratic fashion, our
philosopher wants Gorgias to define oratory and also gets Gorgias to agree to
engage in dialectic rather than simply produce speeches like Polus did. Gorgias
obliges and provides his definition as the ability to persuade:

‘I mean the ability to convince by means of speech a jury in a court of justice,

members of the Council in their Chamber, voters at a meeting of the Assembly,
and any other gathering of citizens whatever it may be. By the exercise of this
ability you will have the doctor and the trainer as your slaves, and your man of
business will turn out to be making money not for himself but for another; for
you, in fact, who have the ability to speak and convince the masses.’
Plato, Gorgias, 452

This is important for Socrates, and for us, to understand because what Gorgias is
saying is that the sole purpose, the ultimate end, of oratory (or rhetoric) is to
persuade someone that something is or is not the case, regardless of whether in
fact it is or is not actually the case. Socrates wants to push this point further, for
whereas for other ‘arts’ you would go to an expert – that is someone who has
knowledge of a particular subject – it seems unclear to Socrates what it is that
oratory gives. If you want a house built you go to a builder for advice, if you
want to win a battle then you seek out a general for guidance, but what
‘knowledge’ does the orator possess, what does he teach and what is it good for?
By way of example, Gorgias says that he has a brother who is a medical doctor,
and Gorgias has on occasion gone with his brother and other doctors to visit sick
patients who have been extremely unwilling to undergo treatment or surgery,
which should not be surprising to us given the rather unpleasant and primitive
state of medical science at that time. Gorgias, however, through his power of
oratory alone is able to achieve what the doctors cannot in persuading these
patients to undergo the painful treatment (and, no doubt, Gorgias gets a cut of
the fees for his trouble!).
This wonderful, yet simple, illustration clearly brings out the difference between
a skill, or art, such as medicine and that of oratory. The former is clearly
teleological; it has a specific purpose (to heal) and it requires a great deal of
knowledge of the working body if one intends to be a good doctor. It is for these
reasons Plato regularly gives us the example of medicine in his dialogues.
Oratory, on the other hand, has no one specific purpose, other than to persuade,
and does not require knowledge of a specific subject, other than how to
persuade. The rhetorician, therefore, provides a service to others who have
specific knowledge, whether they be doctors, businessmen or politicians.
Importantly, Gorgias stresses that the orator is skilled in persuading for either
side, and this is where the danger lies, for, as oratory is merely persuading,
Gorgias could just as easily persuade the patient to not undergo treatment, even if
it is actually in the best interests of the patient’s health to have treatment.
Therefore, rhetoric has nothing to do with ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and in this respect,
the dialogue Gorgias is not so much concerned with the topic of rhetoric, but
rather with ethics and epistemology. In terms of knowledge, Socrates is
concerned here that rhetoric is nothing more than the ignorant persuading the
ignorant, for the orator – who is ignorant of medicine – would not be able to
persuade a team of doctors that some treatment or other is good or bad, he would
only be able to persuade those who are themselves ignorant of medicine.
Ethically speaking, this is very dangerous because the art that oratory possesses
is to ‘pander’ to the ignorant, to produce gratification and pleasure and,
therefore, can be compared with cookery, which Socrates regards as more than a
‘knack’ than an actual skill and whose purpose is primarily to gratify the
consumer than to provide any ethical instruction.
In actual fact, although the implications of rhetoric are that you can persuade an
ignorant man to do something, regardless of whether it is right or wrong,
Gorgias himself insists that he would persuade someone to do what is righteous,
which perhaps says more about Gorgias – who, despite his sophistry, Socrates
has a high regard for – than it does of his profession. It is rather like a lawyer
stating that, so far as he is concerned, he would only defend someone he believes
to be innocent, which may be a comment on the moral status of that lawyer than
the profession as a whole or the fact that there exist more unscrupulous legal
experts. Gorgias, however, is eager to point out that he cannot be held
responsible for what his students do with the skill or rhetoric they have acquired,
and the example in the Gorgias is given of boxing. You can train someone to be
a skilled boxer and, while you may hope they will be righteous and only use this
skill within the confines of the boxing arena, they may nonetheless choose to go
out into the streets and hit people for the fun of it.
However, the question here is whether rhetoric really is the same thing as, say,
boxing and, as we have seen, it does not seem to be because it lacks that ‘telos’,
that purpose that such skills as boxing, military training, medicine and so on
have. If Gorgias were to say that rhetoric has the purpose of making someone
righteous, then that is a different matter, but Gorgias isn’t saying that at all.
Rather, it would be nice if the orator does encourage someone to be righteous in
their choices, but it is not the actual purpose of rhetoric to do this.
Socrates seems to have sufficient respect for Gorgias to avoid giving the Sophist
a particularly hard time in this dialogue, although it seems that at this point
Gorgias is starting to be contradictory in, on the one hand, insisting that rhetoric
does not set out to teach virtue while, on the other hand, wishing that it would at
least encourage virtue. Having reached something of an impasse, however, the
brash Polus takes over once more, and with this character Socrates is less
inclined to be kind by holding off those dialectic blows.

PHASE TWO: SOCRATES–POLUS (461–80)

Socrates, having provided his definition of rhetoric as ‘pandering’ (or, as
Socrates stresses, a branch of pandering), is now attacked by Polus, although he
does not actually question the power of oratory, but is more concerned with how
orators themselves are perceived. Amusingly, Socrates keeps thinking that Polus
is launching into a speech rather than asking questions in a dialectic way,
because Polus is simply incapable of engaging in dialectic.
Polus is setting out to accuse Socrates of hypocrisy. Rather like the myth of
Gyges’ Ring (see Chapter 6), the orator is no worse than anyone else in what he
does for, Polus argues, surely Socrates himself would swap his position for the
power that a dictator has, for example, if he were able.
Socrates’ response at first seems counterintuitive, for he states that, in actual
fact, tyrants, dictators, etc. (i.e. those in power) have the least power in the state.
He elaborates on this point by considering all human action to be driven not for
the sake of the action itself, but for a further aim. For example, Socrates once
again uses an example from the medical profession whereby someone takes
medicine for the further aim of health, even though the act of taking the
medicine is disagreeable. Likewise, someone who goes to work every day does
not do it simply for the act of work, but for the money it brings. Of course, many
actions are enjoyable in themselves – some of us actually enjoy our jobs – but, in
fact, even in these cases we do the act because of the further aim of ‘enjoyment’,
otherwise we would not do it. Essentially, and logically, you do something
because of what you can gain from it, rather than the act itself.
In the case of the powerful tyrant, then, an action is also done for the sake of
something else, for example someone is executed for the sake of the state. The
tyrant, therefore, has very little power at all because the action is for a ‘greater
good’, not the tyrant’s own good. This has echoes in Socrates’ view that his own
execution was entirely a result of the power within him, not a result of the power
of the rulers.
This brings us back to Polus’ accusation that Socrates is a hypocrite and that he
would rather be a tyrant if he could, because Socrates, in a somewhat intricate
manner, has argued that the tyrant, despite seemingly free to kill, torture or
imprison whomsoever he wishes, is in the unenviable position of having no real
power over his actions! This gets at the very heart of the dialogue, which is
ethical in nature, and results in Socrates declaring one of his most famous of
quotes:

‘… I would rather suffer wrong than do wrong’

Plato, Gorgias, 469

In response, Polus argues that many people who do wrong also happen to be
happy, but Socrates disagrees with him, stating that doing wrong results in
shame for the evildoer, and hence unhappiness, even if the evildoer escapes
actual punishment. Polus finds this argument preposterous, and gives examples
of tyrants who seemed happy enough with their lot, but this approach by Polus
comes back to Socrates’ distaste for oratory; it’s reliance upon particular
examples rather than getting to universal definitions. As Socrates points out:

‘The fact is, my dear sir, that you are trying to prove me wrong by the use of
oratory, like people in the law courts. They think that they have got the better of
the other party when they can produce a number of respectable witnesses to
what they say, while their opponent can produce only one or none at all. But this
kind of proof is useless in establishing the truth; it can easily happen that a man
is overborne by the false evidence of several apparently respectable persons.’
 Plato, Gorgias, 472

This argument is not entirely convincing, but is sufficient to silence Polus, and
perhaps it is also Plato’s bitter insistence, given the timing of this dialogue, that
the state is shamed for the execution of Socrates. In addition, bearing in mind the
views of goodness expressed in Republic especially, Plato here is aligning his
ethics with the Theory of the Forms and the central argument that it is better to
be just than unjust.

PHASE THREE: SOCRATES–CALLICLES (481–527)

We are now at the stage whereby Socrates has argued that someone who has
done wrong would be so miserable that, even if he could get away Scot free, he
would be better off handing himself in to the local police station and embracing
his punishment of a prison cell or worse. The now impatient Callicles, quite
understandably, at this point asks Chaerephon whether Socrates is joking, to
which Chaerephon tells Callicles to ask Socrates himself.
It’s quite possible (though by no means certain) that Callicles is not a historical
figure at all – at least nothing outside of Plato’s writings is known of him – and
so is a creation of Plato. The character portrayed is someone – an ambitious,
young and rich Athenian politician – who is the opposite to Socrates; of
someone who sees morality as lacking any universal values in themselves but
merely as a tool to get what you want in life. His view does not differ from that
of Thrasymachus in Republic and, in fact, his impatient character is likewise
parallel: morality is simply something invented by the weak to defend
themselves against the powerful. Callicles, Thrasymachus and a number of other
Sophists in Plato’s dialogues, together with various noble politicians trained by
Sophists, represent for Socrates a dangerous set of people who are after nothing
but power and have no real sincerity in their beliefs. Their views sway from one
thing to another depending upon various power struggles and, importantly for
Socrates, it means that these people do not know themselves. They have no
fulcrum, no values and, therefore, no knowledge of themselves, and are full of
contradictions. As Socrates says to Callicles, you ‘shift your ground this way and
that’ (Plato, Gorgias, 481).
Socrates does not mean to be joking, or at least no more than Socrates’ humour
is also meant to have a seriousness to it, and so he asks Callicles to explain to
him why he thinks that the view that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong
is nothing more than a joke. What follows is an excellent and lengthy speech by
Callicles (482–86). This speech is a praise for power and immorality that
Machiavelli would be proud of:

‘… by convention an attempt to gain an advantage over the majority is said to be

wrong and base, and men call it criminal; nature, on the other hand, herself
demonstrates that it is right that the better man should prevail over the worse
and the stronger over the weaker. The truth of this can be seen in a variety of
examples, drawn both from the animal world and from the complex communities
and races of human beings; right consists in the superior ruling over the inferior
and having the upper hand.’
Plato, Gorgias, 483

A good man is a happy man, and a happy man is a man who wants and has
power, regardless of its moral status. Not only is this the best life, but Callicles
goes so far as to invite Socrates to surrender his life as a philosopher and pursue
this good life, for, as Callicles says:

‘It is a fine thing to have a tincture of philosophy, just so much as makes an

educated person, and there is no disgrace in a lad philosophizing. But when a
man of maturer years remains devoted to this study the thing becomes absurd,
Socrates, and I have the same feeling about philosophers as I have about those
who stammer and play childish games.’
Plato, Gorgias, 485

Callicles feels sorry for Socrates for spending his time in philosophizing, for it is
not providing him with the necessary skills to survive in this dog-eat-dog world
and as he says, poignantly given what is to occur to Socrates, any man could
bring Socrates to trial even when he is innocent and he would be executed
because of his inability to raise the crowd with oratory.
How does Socrates respond to Callicles? To begin, Socrates asks whether it is
sufficient to have mastery only over others, but no mastery over one’s self. By
self-mastery, Socrates means being in control of one’s desires and, therefore,
acting in moderation. Callicles, however, thinks this is a ridiculous notion; for
him, ‘self-mastery’ is synonymous with repression of desires and, therefore,
would make a man miserable by having to deny his appetites. Callicles is
presenting Socrates with a picture of what nature is really like, as ‘will-to-
power’ as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called it, and that it is
therefore required for Man to fulfil his nature by exerting his powers to the full,
not in restraining them.
Socrates then gives us a delightful story (493) of the image of the soul as a leaky
bucket! No matter how much you attempt to fill it, you will never keep it full.
This, Socrates suggests, is the problem with always having desires; you will
never be satisfied, your bucket will never be full. The temperate man, however,
is satisfied with what he has and nothing more. Callicles, however, still sees
things differently; for him the man who is seemingly satisfied with his lot has
nothing left to crave for, to strive for, and might as well be dead.
Socrates now takes a different tack in this dialectic and considers what Callicles
means by pleasure, for, Socrates wants to know, does Callicles say that pleasure
and good are the same things, for surely there are ‘evil’ pleasures? It is at this
point that Callicles becomes less confident in his assertions, for Callicles is no
supporter of hedonism. He sees the implications of hedonism are that he would
have to admit that, so long as someone is engaging in satisfying all of his
desires, he is the kind of man that Callicles sees as his happy ideal. If this is the
case, then we could all think of people who devote their lives to drinking,
smoking, drugs and so on who we would certainly not consider as either happy
individuals or role models!
Callicles, so appalled with the conclusions of this argument, now retreats and
goes into something of a sulk, giving simple ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘have it your way’
responses that are far removed from the confident oratory delivered earlier.
While Callicles was certainly correct in his prediction that Socrates’ adherence
to the philosophic life will lead to his death, this is not a sufficient reason to give
up that life and engage in whatever happens to please you at that moment. This
does not only apply to professional, full-time philosophers such as Socrates, but
is a prescription for all to aim for at least some degree of the philosophic life,
most especially the rulers: if philosophers cannot be kings, then kings must
become philosophers; to be moderate and moral for the sake of the community
as a whole.
This wonderful dialogue concludes with Socrates having silenced his
interlocutors, and he is left to make lengthy speeches rather than engage in
dialectic. As Socrates says at the very end of Gorgias:

‘It would be shameful for men in our present condition, who are so ignorant that
we never think the same for two moments together, even on subjects of the
greatest importance, to give ourselves to be led by the truth now revealed to us,
which teaches that the best way of life is to practise righteousness and virtue,
whether living or dying; let us follow that way and urge others to follow it,
instead of the way which you in mistaken confidence are urging upon me; it is
quite worthless, Callicles.’
Plato, Gorgias, 527
Key terms

Encomium: Literally means ‘the praise of a person or thing’, from the Greek enkomion.
Hedonism: The view that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important intrinsic good.
Oratory: A type of public speaking. Socrates is critical of oratory and is often synonymous with the term
‘rhetoric’ (see Chapter 7 for a definition).
Panegyric: From the Greek panegyris, meaning ‘a speech fit for a general assembly’, thus a formal public
speech.
Teleological: From the Greek telos, meaning ‘end’ or ‘purpose’. Therefore, a teleological account of the
universe is to argue that it has purpose.
Dig deeper

Wardy, R. (1996), The Birth of Rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato and their Successors. London: Routledge.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2008), Plato: Gorgias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fact check

1 Which period in Plato’s dialogues is Gorgias considered to be written in?

a Early
b Middle
c Late
d Unknown
2 Which one of the following is not a work by Gorgias?
a The Encomium of Helen
b On Non-Existence
c Gorgias
d Epitaphios
3 Which one of the following is a word for ‘the praise of a person or thing’?
a Encomium
b Titanium
c Hedonism
d Humanism
4 What is the name of Socrates’ young student in Gorgias?
a Callicles
b Chaerephon
c Chorus
d Lysis
5 What is a panegyric?
a Socratic dialectic
b A speech designed to attack someone’s character c A formal public speech
d A kind of poem
6 Who is Socrates addressing in the following quote: ‘…when Chaerephon asks you what art Gorgias is
master of, you embark on a panegyric of his art as if someone were attacking it, without, however,
saying what it is.’?
a Callicles
b Polus
c Protagoras
d Pythagoras
7 Which one of the following quotes, from Gorgias, can be attributed to Socrates?
a ‘I would rather be good than bad’
b ‘I would rather be ignorant than a philosopher’
c ‘I would rather suffer wrong than do wrong’
 d ‘I would rather be man than a woman’
8 Who asks if Socrates is joking?
a Chaerephon
b Protagoras
c Polus
d Callicles
9 What is hedonism?
a The view that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important intrinsic good b The view that it is
important to refrain from pleasure c The view that pleasure and pain are irrelevant and what
matters is reason d The view that pleasure and pain are an illusion 10 Who, does Socrates argue,
has the least power in a state?
a The citizens
b The Sophists
c The philosopher
d The dictator
 11
Timaeus
Plato’s dialogue Republic is the best-known of his works and we have devoted
much space in this book to its contents and, indeed, will be coming back to it in
the next chapter. However, we have seen that there are many other fascinating
dialogues that Plato wrote which raise important philosophical questions. Also,
Republic has not always been the most famous of Plato’s works; for many
hundreds of years this accolade was given to his work Timaeus.
The dialogue Timaeus is generally considered to be one of Plato’s later works. I
say ‘dialogue’ but in actual fact it is unique for Plato as it is virtually a
monologue. Socrates only appears briefly at the beginning before taking a back
seat and allowing Timaeus centre-stage with a long speech. Why doesn’t
Socrates engage in his usual dialectic? There has been much speculation
concerning this and one possibility is that he was simply not all that interested!
Timaeus is a 5th-century Pythagorean astronomer (though no evidence that he
actually existed is available), but Socrates was far more interested in the human
being, particularly what it means to be good, so perhaps speculation on the
physical world was something that Socrates could not relate to his own
philosophy. From Plato’s perspective it may well be that such speculation on
natural phenomena did not, in a stylistic way, lend itself well to elenchus.
Indeed, some scholars consider Timaeus to not be a work of philosophy at all,
but more Plato’s desire to provide a cosmological story.

The setting
Timaeus and Christianity

Historically, Timaeus is very important. If you look at the famous painting The School of Athens by the
Italian Renaissance artist Raphael (1483–1520), the central figure of Plato is pointing up at the heavens
while holding in his hand the book Timaeus. This is because it was not Republic that was considered Plato’s
greatest work during the Middle Ages in the Western world for, in fact, it was not so readily available,
rather Timaeus was considered representative of Plato’s main views and so when people talked of Platonic
philosophy it was Timaeus they were referring to. Therefore, it was also Timaeus that had a huge influence
on Christian theology.

Timaeus begins with a meeting of Socrates with three other people, Timaeus,
Hermocrates and Critias. Socrates is asked to remind them all what he had been
discussing with them the day before and what we are then presented with is
essentially a summary of the political philosophy discussed in Republic. In this
sense, Timaeus seems to carry on where Republic left off. Socrates, having
recounted his speech of the day before, now asks the others for speeches from
them in return. Critias then gives an account of an ancient city that reminds him
of Socrates’ constitution, and this now-lost city was called Atlantis. In the short,
unfinished Platonic dialogue called Critias, he provides a more detailed account
of this city. Following this, Timaeus now begins his monologue (Hermocrates
seems to get away without having to make a speech!).

Timaeus and organicism

‘I once heard someone reading from a book by Anaxagoras, and asserting that it
is Mind that produces order and is the cause of everything. This explanation
pleased me. Somehow it seemed right that Mind should be the cause of
everything; and I reflected that if this is so, Mind in producing order sets
everything in order and arranges each individual thing in the way that is best for
it… These reflections made me suppose, to my delight, that in Anaxagoras I had
found an authority on causation after my own heart. I assumed that he would
begin by informing us whether the Earth is flat or round, and would then
proceed to explain in detail the reason and logical necessity for this… It was a
wonderful hope, my friend, but it was quickly dashed. As I read on I discovered
that the fellow made no use of Mind and assigned it no causality for the order of
the world, but adduced causes like air and ether and water and many other
absurdities.’
Plato, Phaedo, 97B, trans. Hugh Tredennick

It is worth keeping the above quote in mind when looking at Plato’s

philosophical views. As has been stressed throughout this book, no thinker
works in a vacuum and Plato was inheriting a rich philosophical tradition from
what are referred to as the Presocratics. These early philosophers were as much
scientists in that they sought natural explanations for why the universe existed
and how it functioned. They did not, of course, possess the empirical tools we
have available to us today, so there was inevitably a high degree of speculation
but, nonetheless, within the boundaries of knowledge available to them at the
time, they sought the most rational explanation that they could.
The Presocratic Anaxagoras (c. 510–428 BC), who travelled to Athens as a young
man, saw, like Democritus, the universe as consisting of atoms, or ‘seeds’ as he
prefer to call them, but Anaxagoras differed from Democritus in that the latter
saw these elements as forming into the objects we see around us almost by
accident, without any guiding principle behind it, whereas Anaxagoras suggests
a ‘Mind’, a superior intellect. However, as the quote from Plato above states, it is
not altogether clear what this Mind does, if anything at all, much to the
frustration of Plato. This may have been somewhat unfair of Plato, for
Anaxagoras did, in fact, reach the conclusion that Mind was necessary as some
kind of controlling force for the elements.
What both Plato and Anaxagoras share is the belief that the universe does not
come about accidentally or without any purpose. What Plato sets out to do in
Timaeus especially is to develop these ideas much further. In this work he
expresses his dissatisfaction with Democritus’ notion (although does not
mention him by name) of ‘like is moved by like’, illustrated by the doxographer
Sextus Empiricus:

‘Democritus bases his argument on both animate and inanimate things. For
animals, he says, congregate with animals of the same kind – doves with doves,
cranes with cranes, and so with the other irrational animals. Similarly in the
case of inanimate things, as we can see from seeds that are being riddled and
from pebbles on the sea-shore. For in the one case the whirling of the sieve
separately arranges lentils with lentils, barley with barley, wheat with wheat;
and in the other case, by the motion of the waves, oval pebbles reformed into the
same place as oval pebbles, and round pebbles as round pebbles, as though the
similarity in things contained some sort of force for collecting things together.
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians, VII 116–18

It’s fascinating to read this as it is a clear example of empirical method in action;

looking at the natural world and then seeking the most likely explanation. Why
was Plato so dissatisfied with this notion of a ‘force’ that collects ‘like with
like’? Plato believed that while this does explain how objects are formed or
sorted, such as the elements of earth, water, air and fire, the cosmos is far more
complex than that, and it is not a sufficient explanation; in other words it tells us
so much, but not enough.
In Plato’s Laws he notes that the universe is a ‘fitting and harmonious’ blend of
opposites (Plato, Laws, 889b) such as hot and cold, soft and hard, dry and moist.
That is to say, if the natural order is to seek like for like, the cosmos would be
quite a boring place, consisting of nothing more than the basic elements. What
Plato is doing here is not looking at things close-up, but rather at the ‘cosmic
level’ and, from that perspective, the universe consisting of diversity and
opposites all of which are being accommodated. As an analogy, it is rather like
trying to understand complex sentences by breaking them down into their basic
components, i.e. letters; it actually ceases to make any sense at all.
It is likely not correct to see the Presocratics in the same way as modern
materialist views of the universe, for although many did reduce matter to
elements such as atoms they nonetheless saw matter as alive, not inanimate.
Greek organicism views the cosmos as a living thing and the use of the Greek
word physis is better translated as ‘life’ rather than ‘matter’, given the modern
connotations of the latter word. Therefore, Plato follows on with this intellectual
tradition in Timaeus by describing the cosmos as a created living thing. Being
materialist is not the same as mechanist and, in fact, for the Ancient Greeks what
mechanical devices that existed would hardly be regarded as reliable, regular or
ordered; better to look to biological life.
While the dialogue seems to follow on from Republic, its philosophical outlook
differs considerably, at least if we are to take the views presented by Timaeus as
representative of Plato’s own views, which is by no means certain. Whereas in
Plato’s Republic the concern is more with the perfect Realm of the Forms than
anything that this imperfect world has to offer, in Timaeus the focus is very
much on this world. However, the differences are perhaps overemphasized by
some scholars.

The Demiurge
In Chapter 5 we discussed how Socrates was fascinated by techne, or
craftsmanship. In the same way as, say, a carpenter has a goal or function
(ergon), so does (or, rather, should) the political ruler. The importance, then, of
the Philosopher-King engaging in his ‘craft’ in creating and maintaining the
state, which, in turn, is following the pattern of the Forms, is not that far
removed from the notion presented in Timaeus of a divine craftsman, a
Demiurge, who follows an ‘eternal pattern’ in the creation of the cosmos. The
word ‘demiurge’ literally translates as ‘craftsman’ and it is certainly radical to
Greek myth to envision a god who seemingly engages in what was considered
the demeaning enterprise of manual labour! But, again, we need to keep in mind
how important ‘craft’ is in this respect; the demiurge is much more than a god
engaged in dull, laborious tasks; rather he is a ‘geometer god’, constructing the
cosmos according to universal, geometric principles.
The demiurge initially is the only god there is, for he is responsible for the
creation of the other gods who assist him in the formation of the universe. So, at
the ‘beginning’ there exists the demiurge, the eternal patterns or Forms, and the
materials (referred to as ‘chaos’) out of which the cosmos is created. Presumably
all of this has existed for eternity and it is only the actual crafting of the universe
– from chaos into material objects – that occurred in time. Plato’s god is not like
the omnipotent Christian God who creates the universe ex nihilo, ‘out of
nothing’, because the demiurge is limited in what he can do by two things: the
materials that already exist, and the necessity to follow the divine patterns, rather
like someone who puts up a flatpack shelf with instructions. What the demiurge
does is impose order upon the cosmos, but that order is a set of mathematical
instructions that already exists.

Ex nihilo

Ex nihilo is a Latin term meaning ‘out of nothing’ and in theology there has been considerable debate over
the centuries as to whether God created the universe out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) or, like in Timaeus,
out of pre-existent matter (creatio ex materia). In Christianity, scholars point to biblical references that
could defend either view but, generally, the Platonic approach was rejected by most biblical scholars.

Plato presents a teleological account of the universe. Like other crafts, there is
purpose and necessity and, in this way, there is a clear link with Plato’s earlier
philosophy in terms of the question of how we, as human beings, should live.
For Plato, when we look to the heavens we do not see a blind, purposeless
machine, but a purpose-driven, well-ordered, good and beautiful organism. As
human beings we should strive to live in harmony with this, to be like gods
ourselves, and to align our minds with this harmony.
The demiurge, out of necessity, constructs the universe out of the pre-existing
and universal principles of beauty, simplicity and order, and uses mathematics
and geometry to construct this harmonious universe. This is, of course, far
removed from our modern-day Darwinian picture of life and intelligence as
accidents of evolution, but, for Plato, the universe has meaning and purpose in
the same way a human being has meaning and purpose, and is not simply a
collection of atoms.
This all links with Plato’s epistemology, his theory of knowledge, and in
considering the question of how we can know what is true in the universe. If we
were to subscribe to the nihilistic view that the universe essentially is
meaningless, then it follows that there is nothing we can truly know about it.
Certainly, we can determine how the laws appear to operate, but that does not
explain why things are the way they are. Plato’s cosmology, however, goes
much further than the empirical approach. Given his portrayal of the universe as
constructed through the principles of order, beauty, simplicity, mathematics and
geometry, then it is conceivable for human beings to understand the universe by
adopting these self-same principles in our own lives.

The universe and its natural state In

modern cosmogony – the model of how the
universe came into existence – there is
much speculation as to whether the
universe could have existed in any other
state than it actually is. The anthropic
principle, or Goldilocks enigma, suggests
that the universe’s physical laws are ‘just
right’ for the existence of life on Earth and,
indeed, for the universe to exist at all. Just
the tiniest of changes in certain parameters
and the universe would have collapsed in
on itself long ago or, at best be
unimaginably different from what it is.
This leads to the conclusion that either
these physical laws must exist for a
universe to exist, or that there are many
universes, each with different physical
laws.
For Plato, however, there is only one universe, and the ‘stuff’ of the universe, or
‘chaos’, does not – as the name suggests – have any inherent order at all; the
demiurge imposes order upon it. This differs from Aristotle’s cosmogony, which
pictures a universe that has always existed with an inherent order. In his
Metaphysics, when Aristotle talks of the gods in the plural sense he seems to
mean the more anthropomorphic characters that colour Greek myth. However,
when he refers to God in the singular he means something very different. This
God exists necessarily; he does not depend on anything else for his existence. He
never changes or has any potential to change and he has no beginning or end.
This eternal being is also immaterial, for if He were to be made up of any kind of
matter He could not then be immutable. As God is immutable He cannot engage
in any kind of physical, bodily action for there is no ‘body’ or movement.
What, then, does God do? God is pure intellect; His activity is theoria. What,
then, does God contemplate upon? God could not think about anything which
could cause Him to change or be affected in any way, so this leaves out the
material world. Aristotle states in his Metaphysics that God only contemplates
upon himself, God is ‘thought of thought’. God knows only Himself and is not
affected by the material world in any way and nor does it impose order upon the
world. For Aristotle, purpose – teleology – is within nature already whereas, for
Plato, the demiurge is what has purpose.
The creation of the cosmos by gods from the chaos may seem similar to
Hesiod’s Theogony (see Chapter 1), but Hesiod’s gods seem more capricious,
whereas Plato’s gods follow the principles of reason and order.

The cosmos as animate

‘The appropriate shape, for the living being that was to contain all living beings
within itself, would be the one that includes all shapes within itself. And so he
made it perfect spherical, equidistant in all directions from its centre to its
extremes, because there is no shape more perfect and none more similar to
itself.’
Plato, Timaeus, 33b

Plato conceives of the world as organic, a perfectly spherical animal. It has no

eyes nor ears because it does not need them, nor does it need any organs as it is
entirely self-sufficient. It has no limbs because it does not need hands to defend
itself nor feet to walk upon. This sphere is, in fact, perfectly smooth and a sphere
is the most natural shape for such an animal to be. Therefore, while it certainly
looks very different from any other animal, the world nonetheless possesses a
soul, like all other living creatures. And, like other souls, it contains three parts
(see Chapter 5): the rational, appetitive and spirited. The world-animal,
therefore, is as perfect as any material thing can be, in that the rational part of the
soul controls the other parts of the soul but, nonetheless, the ‘lower’ part of the
soul does exist, hence the world’s imperfections.
The demiurge, by necessity, can only do what is good, and so there is only one
world because the demiurge could only create the best world. To create any
other worlds is to create either better or worse worlds as there can only be one
best world. The soul resides at the centre of the world but, nonetheless, diffuses
throughout the world. This world does, of course, contain many living things, all
of which possess their own soul, but these should not be seen as entirely separate
from the world soul. Rather, they are interrelated. In a sense the world is an
ecosystem of one living thing with component parts.
The origins of man

Many of the Presocratics speculated on how the creatures that we know today came about. Empedocles (c.
490–c. 430 BC), for example, considered it to be entirely by chance when various parts of the body
wandered about and joined up by random. As he describes it: ‘Here many heads sprang up without necks,
mere arms were wandering around without shoulders, and single eyes, lacking foreheads, roamed around.’

Why does Plato present the world as animate given what some of the
Presocratics had previously said? For example, Anaxagoras said that celestial
bodies are just hot stones, and it was not uncommon for other Presocratics to see
planets and stars as purely physical as opposed to animal. Plato’s reasoning for
this comes back to his need to attribute meaning to the universe for he believed
that purely physical things can only be explained in a physical manner, whereas
animate or ‘intelligible’ things can likewise be explained in an intelligible
manner. It’s rather like the difference between explaining what a chair is
compared with a particular person: a chair can be fully explained and understood
using mathematical equations, but the same cannot be said for a particular
human being.
The world soul is also a god, as are all the other celestial bodies in the heavens.
They all have souls, and are intelligent, but they are largely circumscribed in
terms of what they do and think:

‘He [the demiurge] endowed each of the gods with two kinds of motion: even
rotation in the same place, to enable them always to think the same thoughts
about the same things; and forward motion, under the sovereignty of the
revolution of identity and sameness. But with respect to the other five kinds of
motion, they were to be stable and unmoving, so that each of them might be, to
the fullest extent, as perfect as possible. And so all the fixed stars were created
as divine, ever-living beings, spinning evenly and unerringly for ever.’
Plato, Timaeus, 40a

The ‘soul’, therefore, is better understood in the Latin sense of anima: that which
animates the physical. The celestial bodies, their souls being controlled by the
rational part, also do what is good for the sake of the cosmos as a whole. In other
words, the cosmos is not ethically neutral but purposeful and good. While there
are geometrical laws to follow, the universe could choose to not follow them.
However, like the Philosopher-Kings who, when they know what is good will be
compelled to do good, the celestial bodies do likewise. This is why the universe
is ordered and regular; not because of the inherent nature of the physical world
or as a result of a set of mathematical equations, but because the celestial gods
act according to what is best and rational for the universe.

The Great Chain of Being In 1936, the

American philosopher Arthur Lovejoy
(1873–1962) published The Great Chain of
Being in which he explores the notion,
going back to Plato, but existing
throughout Western philosophical history,
of a world in which all living beings are
related to each other in a hierarchical chain.
Plato, in Timaeus, portrays the demiurge creating the world, but it is this world
god that then goes on to create other living beings, beginning with human
beings, then animals, then plants. Each creation is an imitation of its creator, but
at each stage of copying there are more imperfections, so the Earth is less perfect
than the demiurge, humans are less perfect than the Earth god, animals less
perfect than humans, and so on. Hence we have this hierarchy or ‘chain of being’
from the most perfect to the imperfect. Whereas humans are, therefore, to some
extent removed from perfection, they do also partake in it and this idea that we
are in some way connected in this ‘chain’ proved to be a huge influence on
future philosophy, especially Neoplatonism (see Chapter 13).

Alfred North Whitehead and process

philosophy
The British philosopher and mathematician A. N. Whitehead (1861–1947) famously declared that European
philosophy is but ‘a series of footnotes to Plato’ (see Chapter 3). Certainly, Whitehead’s own philosophy
was heavily influenced by Plato’s writings, especially Timaeus. It was, in fact, during the 1927–8 Gifford
lectures that Whitehead, looking to Timaeus, asserted that Plato’s philosophy is a form of organicism. In
Whitehead’s work Process and Reality (1929), he radically argued that reality consists of processes, rather
than simply physical objects. What he means by this is, in a very Platonic way (at least in Timaeus), that
matter is not a static thing but constantly changing or flowing. While we like to label things, to give them an
‘essence’ (partly as a result of the limitations of language), in reality there are not enduring ’things’ as such,
but a ‘society’ of events and ‘occasions of experience’ (Whitehead, Process and Reality, New York: Free
Press, 1979, p. 34). Whitehead moves away from a mechanistic view of the universe, to one of
interconnectedness and creativity. For example, a tree does not merely grow independently of other things
in a fixed and predictable manner, but develops in response to the existence of other entities. This notion of
interconnectedness and processes similarly applies to God, seen by Whitehead as not separate from
existence and unaffected by it, but interacts with the universe to the extent that God not only changes the
universe but is changed by it. Whitehead’s process philosophy has thus been developed into what is called
process theology, most notably by the American philosophers Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) and John B.
Cobb (b. 1925); the latter famous for his works on ecological interdependence in which he states that we
have a duty to preserve our world because of this interdependence. Such views stem directly from
Whitehead, who argued for what he called ‘world-loyalty’ (Whitehead, Religion in the Making, New York:
Fordham University Press, 1996, p. 60).

Being ethical
In Timaeus, Plato to some extent bridges the gap between the material world and
the ‘spiritual’, or the world of the Forms. In Republic, you may recall, it is not
always clear what the relation is between these two seemingly diverse realms.
The world of matter, if anything, is nothing more than an illusion and, in fact,
acts as an obstruction and distraction from the ‘real’ world of the Forms, as
suggested in, especially, the cave analogy. However, as we saw in Chapter 7, the
simile of the Divided Line suggests a closer link between the material and the
non-material.
However, the human being portrayed in Timaeus is a microcosm of the cosmos
and, therefore, can learn by embracing the created world, rather than to subtract
himself from it. This world that we live in contains, if you like, patterns of
ethical conduct, if we are only prepared to perceive them. Whereas in Republic,
the Forms are the objects of knowledge, in Timaeus this is no longer the case, at
least in not such an obvious manner. We can learn how to be good by reading
what is in the heavens and, indeed, in Theaetetus, Socrates says that
philosophers spend their time ‘searching the heavens’. The good life is
effectively being at one with nature. What is also interesting here is that, unlike
Republic, the worldview presented in Timaeus seems less elitist: reason is still
very important if one is to have your soul correspond with the world-soul, but as
we are all the creation of the Earth god and we all therefore contain a ‘spark’ of
perfection within us, then it is quite possible for salvation to be within the reach
of all of us, not just philosophers; although we need to add the caveat that no
doubt rigorous philosophical training can help towards this perfection.
However, whereas the Earth god is unhindered by senses or the need to engage
in motion (other than those already mentioned), it is less distracted than humans.
Our lives are constantly bombarded by sensations and our task is to try to control
these and give them order as best we can if we are to live good and just lives.
The body is important, but – like in Republic – it is the mind that is most
essential for our salvation:

‘When a man is caught up in his appetites or his ambitions and devotes all his
energies to them, the mental processes that go on inside him are bound to be
restricted entirely to mortal beliefs, and he himself is bound to be completely and
utterly mortal as a man can be, since that is the part of himself that he has
reinforced. But anyone who has devoted himself to learning and has genuinely
applied his intelligence – which is to say, anyone who has primarily exercised
his intellect – cannot fail to attain immortal, divine wisdom, if the truth should
come within his grasp.’
Plato, Timaeus, 90b

What Timaeus shows us is that it can be inaccurate to describe Plato as a

rationalist in the modern sense of the term; as a philosopher who has no time for
empiricism or for the value of the senses. What is obvious from Timaeus is that,
as human beings, it is vitally important for our knowledge of the world and,
indeed, consequently for our very salvation, to use our senses and to see the
world around us: to look at the stars above and their motions, to seek patterns,
beauty and order in nature and to imitate these in our own lives.
 Key terms

Anthropic principle: Also known as the Goldilocks Enigma from the Goldilocks and the Three Bears
tale. It is the idea that the universe is ‘just right’ for the existence of life on Earth.
Demiurge: Literally translates as ‘craftsman’ and is a reference to a divine craftsman.
Ex nihilo: Latin for ‘out of nothing’; it is particularly used with reference to creation of the universe.
Organicism: The view that the cosmos is organic: a living thing, and not just inanimate matter.
Dig deeper

Davies, P. (2007), The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life? London: Penguin.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2008), Plato: Timaeus and Critias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Whitehead, A. N. (1978), Process and Reality. New York: The Free Press.
Whitehead, A. N. (2011), Religion in the Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fact check

1 Is Plato’s dialogue Timaeus generally considered to be…?

a … one of his early works b … from his middle period c … one of his later works d …
unknown 2 Which one of these works by Plato was regarded as the most influential during the
Middle Ages in Europe?
a Timaeus
b Republic
c Critias
d Gorgias
3 Which of the following is a definition of organicism?
a Food produced without the use of chemicals b The view that the cosmos is organic c The view
that the cosmos has organs d The view that the cosmos is like a machine 4 Which of the
following is a definition of demiurge?
a A divine craftsman b A minor god c The cosmos d The Earth 5 What is the Latin term used
to state that the universe was created ‘out of nothing’?
a ex materia
b ex deo
c ex nihilo
d via negativa
6 What is the term used to argue for the universe as having purpose?
a Teleological b Ecological c Biological d Ontological 7 Which philosopher came up with the
concept of the ‘great chain of being’?
a James Lovelock b Bertrand Russell c Alfred North Whitehead d Arthur Lovejoy 8 How does
Timaeus describe the Earth?
a As a perfectly spherical animal b As a geometrical circle c As a hot stone d As the demiurge
9 How, as human beings, can we learn how to be good, according to Timaeus?
a By retreating to a cave b By looking to the heavens c By following the laws of the state d By
following Socrates 10 Aside from Timaeus and Socrates, which one of the following characters
also appears in the dialogue Timaeus?
a Lysis
b Gorgias
c Plato
d Critias
 12
The war between philosophy and poetry
and the Myth of Er
Chapters 4 to 7 explored various themes in Plato’s Republic, before we then
went on an excursion to other dialogues and other themes. I now want to bring
us back to Republic, to the final book: Book X. Book IX of Republic seems to
bring us to a natural end of the dialogue. Socrates (591e–592b) states that the
role of the philosopher is to look at the regime within himself. It is the soul of
the philosopher that is the ‘just city’, not an external thing, for ‘it makes no
difference whether it [the just city] actually exists anywhere or will exist’ (Plato,
Republic, 592b). It seems then that the ultimate intention of Plato’s Republic is
not, after all, to create an actual perfect state on Earth, but rather an ‘internal
polis’: what it means to be a fully human being. When seen this way, Plato’s
political philosophy, the accusations of totalitarianism and what have you, can
be seen as more metaphorical than literal. What is most important is what this
tells us about ourselves. Given such a quite satisfying conclusion, it is somewhat
grating to many scholars to then see the addition of Book X of Republic, the
final chapter.
Book X, in fact, seems to have been written at a later date and it does not fit well
with what was written in the rest of Republic in that it contradicts some of the
previous views and, on the whole, is not as philosophically rigorous. Given this,
it is puzzling as to why Plato – who seems so skilled in literary prowess – should
add this extra chapter, other than perhaps he felt the need to tidy up some loose
ends with an ‘appendix’.
 The relevance of Book X

The Plato scholar, Julia Annas, made the following revealing remarks concerning the final chapter of
Republic: ‘… Book 10 itself appears gratuitous and clumsy, and it is full of oddities. We can see why Plato
thought it relevant to the rest of the Republic; but the level of philosophical argument and literary skill is
much below the rest of the book.’ (Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, p. 335)

In Book X of Republic, Plato contentiously argues for tragic poetry to be banned

in his state. In the same way our modern understanding of the word ‘myth’ is not
the same as understood by the Ancient Greeks (see Chapter 1), we need to be
clear what the word ‘poetry’ also means for Plato and the people of his time. In
English it is a reference to a somewhat narrow genre of literature, but the Greek
word poiein means ‘to make’ and refers to virtually all kinds of artistic
production, so that a more appropriate modern translation would be ‘media’.
Especially popular in Ancient Greece were the tragic festivals that represented
the popular culture of the day, the ‘power of the media’, and, though most no
longer survive, there were many thousands of tragedies, and the festivals were
attended by many thousands of people.
While Plato does not go so far as calling for a ban of the tragic poets in any of
his other works, there are nonetheless a number of criticisms levelled against
them that we can find. For example, when in the Gorgias, which we looked at in
the previous chapter, Socrates accuses Callicles and orators of merely
‘pandering’ to their audience without regard for their real interests, he compares
this to such things as flute-playing and dithyrambic poetry (501). In the Apology,
Socrates says the following about the poets:

‘I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled them to write their poetry, but a
kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver
all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean. It
seemed clear to me that the poets were in much the same case; and I also
observed that the very fact that they were poets made them think that they had a
 perfect understanding of all other subjects, of which they were totally ignorant.’
Plato, Apology, 22c

Whereas Socrates sees his ‘inspiration’ as helping in his understanding, he sees

the inspiration of poets as unreliable. These two forms of inspiration, therefore,
are not the same thing. This view is also continued in an early dialogue by Plato,
Ion, where Socrates argues that poetry is produced from a Dionysian ecstasy
and, as a result, casts reason aside, whereas Socrates’ inspiration is informed by
reason.
As we have seen with Socrates’ concern with rhetoric, here the same concern is
expressed with poetry; it is intuitive, but it is not knowledge. Poets, like
politicians trained in the arts of rhetoric, have the power to persuade their
audience, but the danger is that they persuade them in what is evil or mistaken.
Like rhetoric, poetry is a skill without any basis in knowledge and, in fact, it is
not concerned with knowledge, with truth.
This is why the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche blamed Socrates and
Plato for the death of tragedy in their call for it to be replaced with scientific
reasoning.
 Nietzsche on Socrates and tragedy

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) is perhaps most famous for his philosophy of the
Übermensch (the ‘Superman’ or ‘Overman’) and for his declaration that ‘God is dead’, but he was also
professor of Greek at the University of Basel from 1869 until 1879 and his early work was, quite naturally,
concerned with Greek culture. The first book he published was The Birth of Tragedy in 1872, and this work
reflects Nietzsche’s wider concerns over the decline in values in Europe at the time he was writing, coupled
with the decline in religious belief. A key theme throughout all of Nietzsche’s work, as he was very much a
moral philosopher, is his desire for a new set of values given that people no longer believed in God. But
where would these values come from? In The Birth of Tragedy he looks to art, and tragedy in particular, for
salvation.
Nietzsche’s description of Greek tragedy shows it as an interactive, unifying and even mystical experience.
The audience does not simply watch the show, but is so engaged in it that it provides a therapeutic outlet for
a people who are only too aware of the horrors of everyday life in nature. The audience, by partaking in
tragedy, becomes a work of art themselves. For Nietzsche, the greatest tragedians were Sophocles (c. 497–
406 BC) and Aeschylus (c. 525–456 BC), whereas he was especially critical of Euripides (c. 480–406 BC)
who, by getting rid of the chorus in the drama, effectively killed what was central to tragedy; its ‘irrational’
element. Socrates, like Euripides, stressed the importance of the power of reason, so that tragedy should be
‘rational’ and should, as a result, reveal truth. Nietzsche, however, always placed a greater emphasis on the
irrational and the instinctual; that there is actually no such thing as truth, but at least great art (i.e. Greek
tragedy) could put people in touch with nature and what it means to be human. At the time Nietzsche wrote
The Birth of Tragedy he saw his contemporary Richard Wagner (1813–83) as a composer who reflected
best this need for art to return to these Greek roots (although Nietzsche changed his mind about this later
on).

Republic Book III

Whereas in his other works, Plato seeks to undermine the status of the poets, in
Republic he goes much further; he wants them banned. In Book III of Republic,
Plato, through the voice of Socrates, is concerned with how a state is to educate
its philosophers (and, therefore, the state’s future leaders):

‘… The first thing we must do is to supervise our story-tellers, approving any

story they put together that has the required quality and rejecting any that
 doesn’t. We’ll induce nurses and mothers to tell children the ones we’ve
approved, and to use stories to mould their souls far rather than their hands to
mould their bodies. But most of the stories they currently tell will have to be
thrown out.’
Plato, Republic, 377c

Socrates argues that, in the same way a painter paints a portrait that bears no
resemblance to its subject, many of the poets – greats such as Hesiod and Homer
included – misrepresent the nature of gods and heroes. Asked to provide an
example by his interlocutor Adeimantus, Socrates recounts the story told by
Hesiod in his Theogony about what Uranus did to Cronus and what Cronus did
in revenge.
Cronus

Uranus was ruler of the universe and his son, Cronus, envied this power. Egged on by his mother, Gaia,
Cronus attacked Uranus, castrating him with his sickle and throwing the testicles into the sea.

Socrates’ concern is that even if such tales are true, they represent bad role
models for the young and impressionable, for they are incapable of appreciating
the deeper meaning of such stories and are liable to take them literally. The gods,
Socrates argues, are good and, therefore, can only be responsible for good things
and, therefore, only poems that praise the gods are to be allowed. What is
interesting here is that Plato is not claiming to know more about the gods than
the poets did but, in the creation of his new state, he is being pragmatic and fully
aware of the power of religion over the people. Religion can be a tool for good
or bad, and Plato wishes it to be a tool for good by presenting the gods of good
role models. He is, in effect, leaning towards the one, omnibenevolent,
omnipotent and perfect God that is familiar to the monotheistic religions we
have today.

Republic Book X
Remember that in Athens at the time, myth as told by the poets was extremely
powerful; it moulded people’s character and was central to a child’s education.
Realizing the potency of poetry, Plato wants his state to have philosophers as its
educators. Why? Because philosophers deal with truth and, despite the fact that
Socrates admits his own love and respect for Homer, which he has had since he
was a boy, truth will out in the end. In Book X of Republic, Plato presents two
arguments as to why the poets’ works must be banned:

THE PAINTING ARGUMENT (595A–603D)

This argument is sometimes referred to as the metaphysical critique of poetry
because its concern is with the reality that art portrays. It is epistemological in
nature because he argues that poetry misleads us and distracts from what is fact.
By this stage of Republic, the interlocutors and the readers will now be very
familiar with the Theory of the Forms, and here Plato initiates his argument by
talking of the Forms as what is true. It logically follows that, in Plato’s state,
there should be as few hindrances as possible in grasping these Forms.
Through Socrates, Plato gives an example of various objects in the world, but
focuses on a couch. In the world there are many couches that are built by
craftsman, but what makes a couch a couch is the fact that they all partake in the
‘form’ of the couch, which in itself is produced by ‘another kind of craftsman
too’ (596b).

‘This very same craftsman, with his own hands, isn’t just able to make
manufactured items. Everything that grows from the Earth, he makes; every
living creature he fashions, including even himself. And on top of all that he does
– Earth, heaven, gods, the things in the heavens, things in Hades under the Earth
– he fashions it all.’
Plato, Republic, 596c

This quote is very interesting: while the concept of the Forms is certainly not
new, what is startlingly different is this reference to a ‘divine’ craftsman. This
certainly suggests that Book X was written at a later date, for he writes much
more on the divine craftsman, this ‘creator god’ in his later dialogue Timaeus
(see Chapter 11). At this point, however, such an introduction raises far more
questions than it answers, especially given what he says earlier in Republic
regarding the Forms as eternal, so surely this divine craftsman could not have
made the Forms too!
Socrates now states that there are effectively three couches that are in
descending order of reality, so:

• The Form of the couch is made by the divine craftsman in the quote above.
This is the ‘real’ couch.
• The couch that is made by a human craftsman. This partakes in the Form of
the couch, but is removed from the real couch.

• The painter who paints a couch made by a craftsman and, therefore, is further
removed from the Form of the couch.
Seen in this way, the painter is producing an imitation of an imitation and is far
removed from truth or ‘two removes from nature’ (597e) as Socrates describes
it. One may respond that the painter could be producing a work of art using the
Form of the couch as his model, rather than appealing to the product of the
human craftsman, in which case he – like the craftsman – would only be one
remove from nature. However, Socrates anticipates this and argues that this
cannot be the case. A couch that exists in the world is as it is; a three-
dimensional object that takes up space in the world. When someone looks at the
object he or she is seeing it from a certain perspective depending on where he or
she is standing, what the light in the room is like, etc. Therefore, one perspective
will vary from another and this is what the painter does: produces a perspective
of the couch. Of course, this was long before the various art movements in recent
years that have left behind merely representation and in which painters may well
argue that what they produce is ‘beyond’ human perspective. To what extent, for
example, is abstract art independent of any visual reference to things in the
world?
Socrates then extends this argument to all the arts, including that of tragic
poetry. Socrates points to Homer as an example here and he has to show that a
poet is in the same category as a painter, because he is aware of the view that
many consider poets in a different category, remembering what has been said
earlier (see Chapter 1) that they were regarded in many cases as virtually
prophets in themselves. Poets, it could be argued, are only once removed from
the truth because they communicate directly with the gods and are not mere
imitators of the world around them, to which Socrates responds with the
following:

‘If he [Homer] were really and truly knowledgeable about the things he is
imitating, I imagine he would much sooner busy himself with doing rather than
imitating.’
Plato, Republic, 599b

Socrates then proceeds to produce empirical evidence to show that Homer

‘contributed nothing to public life’ (600a). In other words, despite his claim to
knowledge, and therefore, ‘able to recognize the sorts of things people do that
will make them better or worse people’ (599d), Homer has not governed any
great cities to make them better, or invented anything!
Plato’s criticisms of art and artists are certainly extremely harsh, but nonetheless
consistent with his views on reason and truth, together with his portrayal of
Socrates as a plain talker and thus disinclined to engage in poetical and flowery
language. However, his view of art is also incredibly simplistic and denies the
complexity and variety of artistry, which though more varied today than in
Plato’s time, was nonetheless even then capable of many forms of expression.
Criticism of what painters may do does not really carry over that well to what
the poets do. The popularity of Greek theatre in our contemporary world
demonstrates that it often expresses universal values: it tells us something about
ourselves, our humanity, and therefore, it does ‘teach’ us something.

THE STOIC ARGUMENT (603C–606D)

This is sometimes referred to as the psychological critique of poetry as it is more
concerned with the effect the arts have on the spectator. It is also more ethical in
nature because the psychological effects upset the soul which, in turn, affects our
moral character.

‘Reflection,’ I said; ‘reflection about what has happened, so that one can
respond to the fall of the dice, as it were, and dispose one’s affairs in the way
that reason decides would be best, instead of behaving like children who have
fallen over, wasting one’s time howling and clutching, whichever part is hurt.’
Plato, Republic, 604c

Socrates then goes on to talk about what happens when someone meets with a
misfortune, ‘for example when he loses a son, or something else he values
highly’ (603e) and how the resultant grief caused by this makes it more difficult
for the person to cope with life. Why is this the case, Glaucon asks, and in the
above quote Socrates states that it is because it distracts from the ability to
engage in reflection, instead ‘wasting one’s time howling and clutching’.
Presumably, being consumed by grief, as the phrase itself suggests, results in
being incapable of running your life in an effective manner. The more rational
and reflective person will adopt a Stoic approach and that it is:

‘… best to be as calm as possible in misfortune and not to be upset, on the

grounds, first, that it is not yet clear which things are good or bad; second, that
taking them hard makes things no better for the future; third, that nothing in
human affairs is worth serious attention…’
Plato, Republic, 604b, c

One wonders if Plato might at least allow some compassionate leave, but he
regards the most important thing is to demonstrate calmness and reflection in
public life especially.
In terms of the arts, anyone familiar with Greek tragedy knows only too well
how much is devoted to grief and to public demonstrations of ‘howling and
clutching’, and so, Plato believes, these public displays are harmful to one’s
moral character. When, for example, you watch a play like Sophocles’ tragedy
Oedipus Rex you empathize with the characters; you feel pity, you feel fear.
More than this, however, is that the audience enjoys witnessing these displays
and, as a consequence, the spectator ends up wallowing in his or her own
misfortunes. Although Plato does not speculate too much on the reasons why, he
is right to be making this psychological point and it links with what he says
about the importance of katharsis (see Chapter 5).
 Aristotle on catharsis

The concept of catharsis is often associated with Aristotle and his work Poetics although, in fact, he said
little about it, and the result is hundreds of years of scholarship trying to determine what Aristotle meant by
it. One perspective is that Aristotle saw the viewing of tragedy as important as a form of ‘purgation’: a way
of cleansing our suppressed emotions.

If the audience enjoys watching tragedy and it may even help in their emotional
well-being, then why is Plato so critical of it? The criticism seems somewhat
similar to that raised in Book III of Republic: that they represent bad role
models, which results in the audience imitating these actions in real life, but this
is not quite the same for, in Book III, we are dealing with characters, the gods
primarily, who are great heroes, or even superheroes, but in tragedies we are
dealing with characters who display our ‘baser’ elements and experience the
kinds of things in life we would much rather avoid if we had the choice. Rather,
it is the concern of Plato that releasing our suppressed, irrational part is not
therapeutic at all in the ‘catharsis’ sense, but rather undermines reason and its
ability to control the soul. Rather than promote our mental well-being, it upsets
it.
Plato does not restrict himself just to tragedy, however, but also has a few words
to say about comedy. The best kind of comedy can transverse space and time,
and much Ancient Greek comedy is not that different from the kind we watch
today: lots of dirty jokes and innuendoes, references to bodily functions, and so
on. But Plato states that when we go to see a comedy we laugh at things that we
would be ashamed to laugh at if we were at home alone. Like tragedy, comedy
brings out the worse in us.

The Myth of Er
From 614b of Book X, Plato gives a lengthy anecdote called the Myth of Er.
While the first part of Book X is concerned with returning to the topic of poetry,
this latter part returns us to the predominant topic of Republic: justice. Earlier in
Republic, Socrates has argued that it is better to be just than unjust because it
promotes well-being – a well-ordered soul – and, indeed, you will be happier.
Now, however, he wants to also add that you should be just not only for the sake
of this life, but you need to keep in mind the effects of your actions for the
afterlife. However, in order to do this, Socrates needs to argue that there is an
afterlife for you to be concerned about.
What is most curious here is that Book X of Republic up until now has been an
argument for the banning of all the arts, of how damaging, distracting and
useless they are, and yet he now presents his own work of fiction! It does,
however, in some ways, round off the whole book, for at the beginning of Book I
we have Cephalus, who believes that he is a just person and he will be rewarded
in the afterlife, and now we have Socrates presenting a myth which is also about
the rewards for goodness in the afterlife.

THE IMMORTAL SOUL

Previous to presenting the Myth itself, however, Socrates argues for an immortal
soul (608d–611a), and he does it in these stages:
1 For every individual thing there is a bad (or evil) as well as a good. For
example, the human eye has a good to it – being able to see – but also a bad –
a disease such as, in Socrates’ example, ophthalmia (inflammation of the eye).
2 Bad things are those that destroy and corrupt (e.g. disease) whereas good
things preserve and benefit (e.g. our ability to see).
3 However, if we find an object that is not destroyed by its own congenital
badness, then by definition it must be immortal.
4 As previously argued in Republic, the ‘bad’ in the soul is injustice, but
whereas this makes the soul worse, it does not destroy it.
5 Therefore the soul must be immortal.
It an interesting, though perhaps not a convincing argument. Socrates points out
that badness (evil) of the soul does seem different than other bad things. For
example, the badness of the body, illness, will in time completely destroy the
body to the extent it can no longer be referred to as a body. That is to say, the
congenital bad of a thing causes that thing to cease to exist, whereas this is not
the case with the soul. However, it does rest upon various unsubstantiated
assumptions. For example, why we should agree that things are only destroyed
by one single evil and that this is integral to the thing. The destruction of a thing
could have many internal causes: the chair that I’m currently sitting on will
decay with age (as will I!), but the causes of this are numerous: exposure to the
air, to damp, to constant use, and so on. Further, its destruction could be caused
by something external to it, such as a fire, an earthquake, a bomb, destructive
children…
This argument for the soul is, of course, a circular one: you have to buy into the
idea that there is such a ‘thing’ as an immortal soul in the first place to accept
that what is internal to it can’t destroy it because, well, it is an immortal soul.

THE MYTH
To end Republic, Socrates links what he has to say on the soul with the Myth of
Er. Er was a warrior who was killed in battle but came back to life while on his
funeral pyre and he recounts his journey in the afterlife. Given Plato’s dislike for
poetry he nonetheless gives us a very poetic portrayal of what the next life
contains. Er tells his astonished audience that when his soul left his body it
travelled, together with many other souls, to a place of the dead that had four
openings, or doors. Two of these doors led upwards to the sky, and two down
into the ground. You can imagine thousands of souls, like some crowded railway
station, waiting here to be judged as to which opening they will go for, for
between these openings sat their judges.
The judges instructed the good to take the openings on the right and up into the
sky, whereas the bad had to go to the openings in the left and down into the
ground (in Ancient Greece, right was good and left was bad). This journey
would take a thousand years (with the exception of some especially bad people
who remain in this hell forever, with special mention given to political tyrants),
for after that period, they would exit once more from the other opening and
recount their tales. In the case of those in the heavens, they came out ‘pure and
clean… told of pleasures enjoyed and sights of unbelievable beauty’, whereas
those from down below ‘parched with thirst and covered with dust… recalled all
the terrible things they had suffered’ (614e–615a).
All of this Er witnessed as he was instructed by the judges to remain behind and
act as a messenger for mankind as to what occurred. After this thousand-year
period, the souls of both good and bad are taken on a tour of the cosmos in
which they saw the beauty and order that the cosmos possessed, including the
Spindle of Necessity, which causes the planets to rotate. In other words, the
cosmos is pictured like a massive spindle; the planets orbiting the centre, the
shaft of the spindle, in a series of perfect circles like the whorl of the spindle. As
they spun they emitted harmonious music.
Once they have seen the cosmos, each soul is told they will return to Earth to
live the next life – they are to be reincarnated. The souls are each given a lottery
token and, according to the number on their token, each soul has to choose their
next life. Once the choice is made there is no turning back and the souls are
warned not to choose in haste. Presented before the souls is a montage of
possible lives ‘far more than there were people present’ (618a) of every variety
and, this is so crucial to the theme of the whole Republic, the soul is now being
asked the question what life do you choose? It is an existential question: you
have a whole life before you, you have seen what the universe consists of – how
beautiful it is – and, it his hoped, you have learned from your past experiences.
This latter hope can be somewhat forlorn, however, as Socrates demonstrates in
this myth, of the person who gets to choose first in the lottery – a person who has
just spent a thousand years in blissful heaven – immediately, through ‘stupidity
and greed’ (619c), chooses the life of a tyrant. Some people, it seems, never
learn. No doubt the life of a tyrant has its appeal, the power you have, the life of
luxury, and so on, during that one life, but this soul seems to have forgotten the
tales of those who have just spent a thousand years in damnation, especially the
fact that tyrants suffer worse, for they experience eternal damnation. ‘When he
took the time to look more closely, he beat himself and wailed about his choice’
(619c), but it was too late. The message here is that having spent so many years
in bliss and comfort he had gone soft, stupefied and lacked caution, whereas
those who had spent the time in hell were much more cautious in their choices.
In other words, it is important to experience what is bad in order to know what is
good.
The very last in line was Odysseus, the legendary Greek hero of Homer’s epic
poem Odyssey. In Greek literature, Odysseus was always portrayed as the
cunning hero, the intelligent hero as opposed to, say, Achilles who, portrayed in
Homer’s other great epic Iliad, is a bit of a thug. Odysseus, the great hero who
was coveted and honoured, nonetheless now chooses for his next life one of
obscurity, he wants to be a ‘man who minded his own business’ (620d). He
chooses this because, despite all the glory and honour he had in his previous life,
he also recalls the misery and suffering he experienced. Odysseus, therefore,
represents the philosopher in heaven: sufficiently wisened to events and to learn
from experiences so as to know the right life to choose.
When every soul had made its choice they were taken to the plain of
forgetfulness and drank from the River Careless. This caused them all to sleep
and then to awaken newborn but devoid of any memories. The one exception
was Er, who was prevented from drinking the water but, not recalling how,
awakes upon the funeral pyre able to recall what he had experienced.
There is a problem here presented to us of us in this myth, for it may occur to
you that those who choose a good life will then be rewarded in heaven with a
thousand years of bliss, but then will, like the first person in the lottery, be
stupefied to the extent that he or she may choose to be a tyrant and, in
consequence, will suffer eternal damnation. It logically follows that, eventually,
everybody will end up being damned for eternity. It is interesting, however, that
Odysseus chooses a life of obscurity for – despite what Plato says about the
Philosopher-King – in Book IX he says that the perfect state is highly unlikely to
ever exist and, indeed, if the philosopher’s soul is to truly flourish he would be
better off by removing himself from society to avoid the danger of being
corrupted by it. If Odysseus represents the philosopher, then he has escaped this
danger of eternal damnation because he has achieved a purity of soul and an
inherent wisdom that remains with him, which leads Socrates to conclude with
the following:

‘And that, Glaucon, is how the story was saved for us instead of coming to an
untimely end; it will save us too, if we believe in it, and we shall cross the river
of forgetfulness in good shape, with our souls undefiled.’
Plato, Republic, 621b, c
 Key terms

Poiein: Ancient Greek, usually translated as ‘poetry’, but refers to all kinds of artistic creation.
Stoicism: Stoicism is a school of Ancient Greek philosophy which teaches self-control and fortitude against
life’s misfortunes. The word ’stoic’ has entered the English vocabulary to refer to people who adopt such an
attitude.
Dig deeper

Janaway, C. (1995), Images of Excellence: Plato’s Critique of the Arts. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lodge, R. C. (1953), Plato’s Theory of Art. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Fact check

1 How many ‘Books’, or chapters, does Republic consist of?

a Eight
b Nine
c Ten
d Eleven
2 What does the Greek word poiein usually translate as?
a Poetry
b Poignant
c Tragedy
d Poison
3 Who is considered to be producing something that is ‘two removes from nature’?
a The philosopher
b The painter
c The human craftsman
d God
4 Which one of the following describes the Stoic?
a Someone who ‘wastes one’s time howling and clutching’
b Someone who is ‘as calm as possible in misfortune’
c Oedipus
d The poet
5 Why, in Book X of Republic, does Plato believe we have an immortal soul?
a Because the bad within the soul does not destroy it
b Because he has experienced heaven
c Because he is a philosopher
d Because God told him so
6 What is the name of the myth that Socrates recounts?
a The Myth of Her
b The Myth of Hera
c The Myth of Sisyphus
d The Myth of Er
7 What is the name of the Greek hero in this myth that represents the philosopher?
a Achilles
b Sisyphus
c Homer
d Odysseus
 8 What is the name of the Spindle which represents the cosmos?
a The Spindle of Necessity
b The Spindle of Harmony
c The Spindle of Beauty
d The Spindle of Delight
9 How long do souls reside in the heavenly domain?
a One hundred years
b One thousand years
c One million years
d One billion years
10 Which one of the following are given special mention that suffer eternal damnation?
a Democrats
b Bankers
c Shopkeepers
d Tyrants
 13
Plato’s legacy
In the last chapter we returned once more to Republic to consider what Plato had
to say about the arts, and also we looked at his own fascinating story-telling
through the Myth of Er. What we have seen in these previous chapters is a
variety of views presented by Plato, which are sometimes contradictory, but only
to be expected from any philosopher who writes over a period of time. We have
not covered all of his works, of course, for that would require a much longer
book than this; but it is hoped the reader now has sufficient interest to dig
deeper. You could spend a lifetime reading Plato alone, but what you will also
find is just how influential his thought has been on other people and ideas you
may well encounter in your future reading.
Plato died at the ripe old age of 81. He was buried in the grounds of the
university that he founded, the Academy. His philosophy, however, continues to
live and has proven to be a lasting influence on Western thought and thinkers.
When Alfred North Whitehead said that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato he
was not, of course, saying that all the philosophy that comes after Plato has
nothing new to say, but what is meant here is that Plato established the
foundations for philosophical thought: he raised the questions that we continue
to ask today, even if these future philosophers may not reference Plato directly.

Aristotle
Plato’s most famous student was Aristotle (384–322 BC), who himself became a
prominent philosopher. As a pupil of Plato for some 20 years it is hardly
surprising that his teacher made a lasting impression. Like Plato, Aristotle
emphasized the importance of determining the right way to live and, also like
Plato, he looked for guidance by examining human nature in order to show that
living a just life is also a happy life. Aristotle also believed that man is a political
animal; that politics and ethics are related and that the state has an important part
to play in acting as an agent of virtue.
Aristotle studied in Plato’s Academy from 357 to 347 BC. His work Politics was
hugely influential, especially in the Middle Ages, far more so than Plato’s
political views, and in Book II of Politics he specifically criticizes Plato’s
Republic. He argues that Socrates’ ideal city is too unified, that a city cannot be
like a family in the way Plato portrays it in his Noble Lie (Chapter 6). Aristotle
was less an idealist than Plato and frequently looked to the way the world is
rather than how it could be; recall the Raphael painting The School of Athens
where Aristotle’s hand points firmly towards the ground while Plato’s points to
the heavens. For Aristotle, when he looks at the cities that existed – and he
employed a team of researchers to study the cities of the Hellenic world –
nothing even close to Plato’s city exists. Of course, Plato does stress that his
‘republic’ is an ideal, a ‘pattern in the heavens’, but the main point Aristotle
makes is that it simply isn’t within the very nature of cities to behave in a
familial way. In other words, there is neither any empirical evidence to show that
cities can be so unified in the way a family might be (and, of course, a lot of
families are somewhat dysfunctional) but that cities do not even function in that
way. In addition, an extended family would result in the diffusion of duties and
obligations. Fathers would not feel any sense of duty towards their sons.
Another criticism that Aristotle presents is that private property is important
because it is not possible to be generous, to be able to give, unless you have
private possessions. Plato, in Republic, argues that the Guardians will not
possess any private property for the city is their family, but Aristotle believes
that people only care about things if they belong to them. This certainly has a
modern ring to it, and many today argue against social housing and the like
because, they say, those who live in them don’t look after the properties whereas
if you own it and are therefore fully responsible for it, then you are more likely
to take care of it. Essentially, Aristotle’s portrayal of human nature seems here to
be more negative, or perhaps more realistic: if you take away responsibility from
humans and hand it to the state, then people become apathetic. No doubt Plato’s
response to this would be that, yes, when you look at the world around you – in
this case the Hellenic world of the 5th century BC then humans do behave that
way, but, Plato might say, this does not mean that they necessarily will behave
that way given the right environment. I say it has a modern ring, because you
can find similar debate which gets to the root of human nature in, for example,
comparing the views of the socialist with that of the capitalist.
Aristotle believes it is actually dangerous to be too idealistic, especially in the
realm of politics. If you become too pre-occupied with theoretical political ideals
you also become too divorced from the harsh realities of the real world. For this
reason, having criticized Plato’s political philosophy, Aristotle in his work
Politics then goes on to present his own vision of the best city, but with the
stress on what he regards as a feasible city. Aristotle’s city, incidentally,
combines what he considers to be the best of democracy with that of an
oligarchy. Like Plato, Aristotle is concerned that too much democracy results in
a form of mob rule and that most citizens lack the necessary knowledge to be
responsible for the decisions a state makes. Therefore, a degree of oligarchy, of
rule by the few, is needed to act as a check against the ‘mob’. This, again, has a
modern resonance for most democratic states today have a constitution of some
kind that must be abided by, regardless of what the majority may think.
A few other disagreements that Aristotle had with Plato include the following:
• Aristotle derived his knowledge from observation of the world. If something
cannot be observed then there is no reason to believe it. In the case of the Forms,
therefore, these cannot be seen, touched, tasted, etc. Therefore, why believe in
them? What do they tell us about the way people actually behave?

• Ethical knowledge must be that which can guide our actions. How can the
Forms, things that are eternal and unchanging, have bearing on the everyday
world of changing situations and ethical dilemmas?

• Aristotle believed the soul to have two, not three, elements: a ruling element
and a ruled element. The ruling element should be rational, whereas the ruled
element should be the irrational. Aristotle applied his theory of the soul to
argue that these two elements, the ruled and ruling, exist everywhere.
Therefore, he argued, women cannot be rulers because their souls are
dominated by the irrational element rather than the rational. It is natural for
women to be ruled by men. (He also argued that it is natural for there to be
masters and slaves.) The city of Alexandria
The city of Alexandria in Egypt, established in 331 BC, is key to the very
survival of Greek and, indeed, Plato’s philosophy. The city itself was named
after Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), who was at one time a student of
Aristotle. Alexander became the king of Macedon in northern Greece and his
title of ‘the Great’ is due to the empire he created by the age of 30, which spread
from the Ionian Sea to the Himalaya. Undefeated, Alexander established one of
the largest empires of the ancient world. It saw the end of the independent, or
semi-independent, city-states and the unification of Greece. Alexander died
young and his empire soon splintered, but it nonetheless resulted in the spread of
Greek philosophy beyond the Hellenic states.
Although Alexander spent just a few months in the city, Alexandria grew to
become the largest city in the world within a 100 years of its foundation. It
became the home of a large Greek community, becoming the centre of
Hellenistic learning with the largest library in the ancient world. Just how large
the library was we do not know with any certainty, but it contained hundreds of
thousands of scrolls at its peak. One visitor to Alexandria was the Greek
philosopher and historian Strabo (c. 64 BC–c. AD 24), who describes the city as
consisting of one-third royal grounds and gardens, and the ‘Ptolemaic shrine of
the Muses’ (or what today we would refer to simply as the ‘Museum’). This
museum, according to Strabo:

‘… has a walkway, an arcade, and a large house, in which there is the eating
hall for the men of learning who share the Museum. They form a community with
property in common and a priest in charge of the Museum.’
Strabo, Geography, 2002: 51

The museum was seemingly modelled on Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s

Lyceum, with the great library being housed within the museum.
With the decline of Greece as a world power, Alexandria came under Roman
rule in 80 BC. In around AD 47 the library was damaged by a fire, but the greatest
damage was likely caused by Christian attacks on paganism, although scholars
hid what books they could. There were also a number of natural disasters,
including a tsunami in AD 365.
Under Roman rule, the new dominant power in the Mediterranean, Greek
philosophy continued to flourish as the empire adopted much of Greek culture.
Originally, the great philosophical schools such as Plato’s Academy and
Aristotle’s Lyceum were supported by Rome, but this eventually came to an end.
Alexandria came under Byzantine rule until AD 641, when it came under Muslim
rule and was to remain so until Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1798. When the
Muslims entered Alexandria it was the last remaining centre of Western
philosophy. There is a story that when the Academy in Athens closed, seven of
its philosophers fled to, first, the ancient city of Ctesiphon in the Persian empire,
before then setting up in Alexandria. These philosophers were Neoplatonists
(see below) as the Academy by this time was Neoplatonic. Therefore, when the
Arabs conquered Alexandria in the 7th century AD, what they encountered was
the writings of Neoplatonists.
The Arabs did not, then, begin reading the works of Plato and Aristotle as had
been taught originally in the great schools of Athens, but rather translations and
commentaries of Plato and Aristotle, which combined Neoplatonism (itself a
synthesis of philosophy and religion), Christianity, mysticism and Egyptian
thought. The works that were produced by these Neoplatonists were in Greek,
but this was not the only language that the philosophers were translated into
before Arabic. They were also available to the Muslims in Syriac, which is a
dialect of Aramaic (purportedly the language spoken by Jesus). One can imagine
the difficulties that the Arab Muslims had to overcome in interpreting the works
of Plato and Aristotle through this varied cultural lens, not to mention the
struggle to fit this within an Islamic worldview. It was this task that was to
preoccupy so many of the Muslim philosophers in the centuries following (see
below).

Neoplatonism
Very little is known about the supposed founder of Neoplatonism, the
philosopher Plotinus (c. AD 204/5–270). Speculation says he may have been a
native Egyptian, but with family origins in Greece. He studied philosophy at
Alexandria for some 11 years before travelling to Persia to study Persian and
Indian philosophy. At 40 years of age he settled in Rome to become a teacher
and, it is said, he made a failed attempt to persuade the Roman emperor to build
a ‘city of philosophers’ that would live under the constitution set out in Plato’s
dialogue Laws.
Plotinus regarded himself as an interpreter of Plato, but he was much more than
that, for his philosophical and religious views essentially created a ‘new Plato’,
hence a ‘Neoplatonism’. Alexandria was a melting pot of ideas; not just Greek
thought, but it also housed a large Jewish population, and there were many other
religious, philosophical and mystical traditions and cultures within its walls.
Plotinus’ own travels meant he encountered even more traditions and his
interpretation of Plato is a blend of differing cultures, certainly more religious
and mystical than the original, and no doubt this made it more appealing to the
major religions that encountered it.
Plotinus does not appear to have written anything until he reached the age of 50,
and the works we now have are 54 essays that together present his understanding
of Plato. In actual fact, much of what we know of Plotinus comes from his
disciple Porphyry (AD 234–c. 305), who was born in the ancient city of Tyre
(now in Lebanon) and who edited and published Plotinus’ Enneads in about AD
300. Porphyry was himself an influential thinker who was very critical of
Christianity and wrote on the importance of reason and logic.
Neoplatonism is a complex belief-system, not helped by the fact that it is not one
homogenous school of thought. Nonetheless, there are certain characteristic
features of Neoplatonism that can be briefly outlined here: • The universe is the
result of divine emanation from the supreme ‘One’.

• The ‘One’, also known as the Good, is infinite and perfect.

• The ‘One’ also created the Divine Intellect (nous), which contains the Forms
and provides order to the universe.
• From the Intellect comes the World Soul (psuche), which contains and
animates the universe.

• The World Soul is the source for the souls of all living beings.
• There exists, therefore, levels, or gradations, of being: One – Intellect – World
Soul – world of matter.
Man, though existing in the world of matter – the lowest gradation – also has the
potential to access the higher realms. He can rise to the consciousness of the
World Soul, the Intellect and finally to be united with the One when he has
overcome bondage to the physical world. This can be achieved through moral
and spiritual purification and so on. Neoplatonism, in a variety of forms, has had
a huge sway on especially the mystical traditions. It was also a move away from
the more rational element of Greek philosophy to the more appealing and
accessible emphasis on bodily practices for the achievement of enlightenment.

Muslim philosophers
Reference is made above to the problems the Muslim Arabs encountered when
they first came across the Greek philosophers, given the fact that these were
often Neoplatonic interpretations, together with the fact that they were translated
into Syriac from the Greek. This resulted in something of a scatter-gun approach
to what they were confronted with, resulting in confusing Plato’s works with
those of Aristotle and vice versa, as well as attributing writings to these two
philosophers that were not actually the case. The Neoplatonic interpretation of
Plato was certainly more appealing to Muslim thinkers than Plato per se; the
latter being more dualistic and, therefore, much more difficult to fit within the
monotheistic tradition.
The impetus to translate the Greek philosophers grew considerably during the
reign of the Abbasid caliphs in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, especially under
Caliph al-Mamun (AD 786–833). This caliph populated his court with scholars to
translate not only the Greeks, but Persian and Sanskrit texts. In his capital of
Baghdad, these texts were housed in a library called Bayt al-Hikma, the ‘House
of Wisdom’ which, like the library in Alexandria, was actually much more than
just a library – it was a university, a museum, a translation bureau. Notable
translators include Yahya ibn al-Bitriq (d. AD 835), who is responsible for the
Arabic text of Plato’s Timaeus. Also, mention should be made of Hunayn ibn
Ishaq (d. AD 873), who, together with his son and nephew, was responsible for
the translation of so many of Plato’s works.
Perhaps the first systematic Islamic philosopher is Abu Yusuf Ya’qub al-Kindi
(c. AD 801–73) who studied at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. He
commissioned translations of a number of Plato’s works, while he was
particularly taken with Neoplatonism. His best-known work is Treatise on the
First Philosophy, and in his introduction he states the following:

‘The noblest in quality and highest in rank of all human activities is philosophy.
Philosophy is defined as knowledge of things as they are in reality, insofar as
man’s ability determines. The philosopher’s aim in his theoretical studies is to
ascertain the truth, in his practical knowledge to conduct himself in accordance
with their truth.’
Al-Kindi, Al-Kindi’s Metaphysics: A Translation of the Treatise on the First Philosophy, trans. by A.
L. Ivry, 1974: 97

This is interesting and certainly contentious, for to state that philosophy is the
‘highest rank of all human activities’ would inevitably upset the religious
establishment. However, al-Kindi saw no conflict between philosophy and
religion, or both were ways to seek the truth, though he encouraged the
theologians to use philosophical tools and to not rely on faith alone or a literal
interpretation of the Qur’an. Al-Kindi’s understanding of God was certainly
influenced by Greek thought, as he prefers to refer to God with such Arabic
terms as al-bari (‘the creator’) or al-illat al-ula (‘the first cause’) rather than the
more common Allah (‘the God’), and thus presents a more philosophical
understanding of God as a causal agent. This is one of the first philosophical
debates in Islam: what is the nature of God? Did he create the universe ex nihilo
(out of nothing)? The kind of questions you find especially in Plato’s Timaeus
(see Chapter 11).
Another early Muslim philosopher was Abu Bakr al-Razi (c. AD 864–925),
whose works include Metaphysics According to Plato’s View, Metaphysics
According to Socrates’ View and Commentary on the Timaeus. Certainly the
influence of Plato’s Timaeus comes across in al-Razi’s philosophy. Al-Razi’s
view is that there are five eternal beings or principles, which are ‘God’, ‘soul’,
‘time’, ‘space’ and ‘matter’. These five principles coexisted and interacted with
each other to create the world we live in. The only things that are beyond time
and space are God and the soul, and the world began when the soul mixed with
matter, which initially caused chaos and disorder. God’s role, in a way not
dissimilar to the demiurge in Timaeus, was to bring order to this chaos. Again,
this sits uncomfortably with orthodox Muslim views, especially the idea of five
eternal things. In addition, al-Razi also considered the possibility of
reincarnation.
There are far too many Muslim philosophers who were influenced by Plato to
consider here, but one more must be mentioned: Abu Nasr al-Farabi (c. AD 872–
951). In his work Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous
City, al-Farabi parallels Plato’s Republic. The approach is similar in that al-
Farabi compares the virtuous state with the virtuous person, the ‘micro-macro’
approach.

Plato’s musical dialogue

Modern scholarship on Plato continues to be exciting and revealing. For example, Dr Jay Kennedy, an
expert in ancient music and ancient mathematics at the University of Manchester, wrote a book in 2011
entitled The Musical Structure of Plato’s Dialogues in which he argued that Plato’s dialogues contain a
second layer of meaning, a ‘code’, a pattern of secret musical symbols. Why Plato might choose to write
this way is speculative, but it may well be a result of fear of religious persecution, given, Kennedy says, that
the hidden message argues for the importance of science over religion.

Christian philosophers
St Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430; see also Chapter 7) was one of the most
eminent Doctors of the Church. This small group of ‘Doctors’ are given such a
title in recognition of their contribution to Christian doctrine. Augustine was
well aware of Plato’s work and he is important because of his incorporation of
Platonic metaphysics with Judaeo-Christian belief: • The Forms could not exist
separately from God as this would mean that God was not all-powerful. Rather,
God created the universe ex nihilo (‘out of nothing’) according to ordering
patterns established by the Forms existing in the mind of God. The Forms are the
expression of God’s Word, the Logos. The emphasis, therefore, is more on God
than on the Forms.

• Augustine agreed that knowledge is innate, that it is contained within the God-
given soul. However, Augustine believed there is another source of
knowledge: Christian revelation as contained in the Bible.

• A direct relationship with God based upon love and faith was more important
than the intellectual encounter with the Forms because the Forms themselves
were dependent upon God for their existence.
If it were not for the Muslim world preserving, translating and interpreting
Greek philosophy, we would not have access to it today. From the 8th century,
Islam spread to Europe, to Andalusia in Spain and remained there until the 15th
century. Many Muslim philosophers lived in Andalusia, including perhaps the
greatest of them all, Abu Al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Rushd (1126–98), better
known in the West by his Latin name Averroës. As a result, non-Muslims were
able to access the knowledge they possessed, and the first Christian philosophers
learned of Plato through the works of these Muslim thinkers.
One great Christian thinker (and Doctor of the Church) who studied Plato
through this Muslim lens was the Italian philosopher and theologian St Thomas
Aquinas (1225–74). Aquinas blended Christian teachings with both Plato and
Aristotle. Aquinas accepted that there are Forms, but held that these could be
approached through observation of the everyday world. The Forms are
embedded within matter. Therefore, sense-experience is important in attaining
knowledge, not just reason or faith. This is important because of its emphasis on
reason and empirical observation, rather than the reliance on faith alone.
The Cambridge Platonists

In the middle of the 17th century there were groups of theologians and philosophers who called themselves
the Cambridge Platonists. They believed that there was no conflict between faith and reason, and that the
material world interacts with the non-material world of the Forms.

Modern contributors
Plato continues to inspire and cause controversy. His most severe opponent of
recent years was the Austrian-born British philosopher Sir Karl Popper (1902–
94; see also Chapter 6). In his work The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) he
criticized the political views of Plato because of its totalitarian implications. For
Popper, the best kind of society is one that is open to changing circumstances,
criticism, differing proposals and problem-solving. This, Popper argues, is what
democracy entails, and he cites examples of democratic countries to demonstrate
its effectiveness.
Although recognizing Plato’s genius, he believed the mistake is in seeking
definitions for terms such as ‘justice’, which, he believed, was futile and
misguided. Popper argues it is wrong to be seeking a Utopia and definitions for
terms, when in actual fact we should be addressing the problems that exist in our
society through immediate action.
However, others have been more positive towards Plato. For example the
novelist and philosopher Dame Iris Murdoch (1919–99), who incorporates much
of Plato’s philosophy within her novels. Another scholar and writer, the
Christian C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), was often inspired by Plato. In the final
Narnia book, The Last Battle, the land of Narnia comes to an end. The children
of Narnia enter a new and more wonderful land. It is explained to the children
that Narnia was not real, just shadows of the real world they now find
themselves in.
 Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an Italian philosopher, historian and politician
whose most famous and influential work is The Prince. Like Aristotle, Machiavelli was a political realist:
he was highly critical of realism in politics. He was writing in Italy at a time that has some parallels with
Ancient Greece for, in the same way that Greece was not one nation but a number of city-states, Italy was
also similarly composed. Machiavelli’s own city-state was Florence, but other places included Venice and
Pisa. These cities were ruled by a prince, and so Machiavelli’s book The Prince is concerned with a
possible ruler, a ‘new prince’, of the best kind of city-state. In this work, Machiavelli argues that for a
Prince to establish order in society it is sometimes necessary to act immorally. A term that has now entered
the English language is Machiavellianism, which is a reference to politicians who engage in unscrupulous
methods to gain or maintain power. Machiavelli argues that he is being a realist because a ruler who
concerns himself with being morally good, with high-minded ideals, will be unable to anticipate the realities
of the political world. This is the start of what is called realpolitik, a term from the German ‘realistic
politics’, and, as the name suggests, it is the form of politics that bases power on practical concerns rather
than moral or ideological. Essentially the ends justifies the means: if the end is to have power, then how you
achieve this is irrelevant to morality. In many respects it is reminiscent of Thrasymachus’ views in Book I
of Republic, although there is no evidence that Machiavelli read any Plato. Nonetheless, it raises that
question once more as to whether it is better to be good, whether this makes you a happier person, or
whether wealth and power is the key to fulfilment.

There are many more influences, and far too many to recount. You could look at
examples of political states based on Platonic models, such as a number of
medieval states in Europe, or the kibbutzim in Israel. Despite the controversial
nature of much of his philosophy, the fact that Plato, some 2,500 years after his
death, continues to excite interest is merit and applause in itself. While
something of a cliché, certainly, without Plato the world really would be a very
different place.
 Key terms

Caliph: A title given to the political leader of a Muslim community.

Emanation: Something that radiates from a person or thing. In Neoplatonism, the belief that the ‘One’
emanates its divine essence.
Machiavellianism: A political strategy in which politicians engage in unscrupulous methods to gain or
maintain power.
Neoplatonism: ‘New’ Platonism that incorporates aspects of Plato’s teachings into mystical religious
beliefs. Founded by Plotinus in the 3rd century AD.
Realpolitik. A term from the German ‘realistic politics’. It is the form of politics that bases power on
practical concerns rather than moral or ideological.
 Dig deeper

Barker, E. (trans.) (1995), Aristotle: Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kennedy, J. B. (2014), The Musical Structure of Plato’s Dialogues. London: Routledge.
Lyons, J. (2010), The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization. London:
Bloomsbury.
MacLeod, R. (Ed.) (2004), The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World. London: I.
B. Tauris.
Parks, T. (2009), Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince. London: Penguin.
Remes, P. (2008), Neoplatonism, Ancient Philosophies. Durham: Acumen.
Fact check

1 Which one of the following is a work by Aristotle?

a Religion
b Economics
c Philosophy
d Politics
2 Who did Aristotle once teach?
a Plato
b Strabo
c Socrates
d Alexander the Great
3 Which one of the following is the name given to a school of thought that incorporates aspects of Plato’s
teachings into mystical religious beliefs?
a Machiavellianism
b Realpolitik
c Neoplatonism
d Hinduism
4 What is ‘emanation’?
a Something that radiates from a person or thing b The teaching of dialectic
c A form of politics
d A form of therapy
5 What was the name of the great library in Baghdad?
a The House of Fun
b The House of Wisdom
c The House of Books
d The House of Words
6 What is the name of the first Muslim systematic philosopher?
a Al-Razi
b Al-Farabi
c Al-Kindi
d Al-Ghazali
7 Which one of the following is regarded as one of the great ‘Doctors of the Christian Church’?
a Averroës
b Augustine
c Al-Kindi
d Plato
 8 Who is the author of the Narnia books?
a C. S. Lewis
b A. A. Milne
c B. B. King
d George R. R. Martin
9 What is the title of Machiavelli’s famous work?
a The King
b The Duke
c The Prince
d The Baron
10 In which country was the Library of Alexandria?
a Greece
b Egypt
c Persia
d Italy
 Plato’s writings
The following translations of Plato’s works were used for this book: Gill, C.
(trans.) (1999), Plato: The Symposium. London: Penguin.
Rowe, C. (trans.) (2012), Plato, Republic. London: Penguin.
Saunders, T. (trans.) (1970), The Laws. London: Penguin Tredennick, H. (trans.)
(2003), Plato: The Last Days of Socrates. London: Penguin. Containing
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2008), Gorgias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2005), Plato: Meno and Other Dialogues. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. Containing Meno, Charmides, Lyches, Lysis.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2002), Plato: Phaedrus. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Waterfield, R. (trans.) (2004), Plato: Theaetetus. London: Penguin.
Waterfield. R. (trans.) (2008), Plato: Timaeus and Critias. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Answers
CHAPTER 1
1 b
2 a
3 c
4 c
5 b
6 a
7 b
8 c
9 a
10 d
CHAPTER 2
1 a
2 b
3 b
4 c
5 d
6 d
7 a
8 c
9 c
10 d
CHAPTER 3
1 b
2 d
3 a
4 b
5 a
6 d
7 a
8 c
9 c
10 d
CHAPTER 4
1 a
2 b
3 d
4 d
5 a
6 c
7 b
8 a
9 c
10 a
CHAPTER 5
1 d
2 a
3 b
4 d
5 a
6 a
7 c
8 b
9 c
10 d
CHAPTER 6
1 a
2 b
3 a
4 c
5 b
6 d
7 c
8 d
9 b
10 a
CHAPTER 7
1 d
2 b
3 b
4 a
5 d
6 a
7 a
8 c
9 d
10 c
CHAPTER 8
1 d
2 b
3 b
4 b
5 a
6 d
7 a
8 c
9 a
10 c
CHAPTER 9
1 b
2 d
3 d
4 b
5 c
6 c
7 a
8 c
9 d
10 a
CHAPTER 10
1 d
2 c
3 a
4 b
5 c
6 b
7 c
8 d
9 a
10 d
CHAPTER 11
1 c
2 a
3 b
4 a
5 c
6 a
7 d
8 a
9 b
10 d
CHAPTER 12
1 c
2 a
3 b
4 b
5 a
6 d
7 d
8 a
9 b
10 d
CHAPTER 13
1 d
2 d
3 c
4 a
5 b
6 c
7 b
8 a
9 c
10 b