Utopia
Plato’s best known work is “The Republic” It concerns the constitution of the idealised state – Utopia. It basically follows the myth of Sparta and contains little original thought, although it does use the advocacy skills of the Sophists (as taught to Plato by Socrates) to justify the proposals by an abstract concept of “justice” and “duty”, not recognising the concepts of “Truth”, “equality” and “democracy” as desirable. Predictably he concluded that rulers must be philosophers.
Briefly, there should be 3 classes of citizen – commoners, soldiers, and guardians.
Only the guardians would have political power. They were a class apart, few in number, and including both men and women as equals. Initially they would be chosen, but thereafter hereditary subject to adjustment – ie promoting or demoting children as considered appropriate by the guardians as a whole.
The education of guardians was to be in music and gymnastics – ie all culture and physical activity. This became the English tradition in the 19th century. The objective was gravity, decorum and courage. There would be rigid censorship, with no Homer allowed, and no drama, or jolly or sad music.
The guardians would have small houses, and eat simple food, with no confectionery or sauces allowed. They would not be allowed to own gold or silver.
Commoners would have their needs provided for, with no poverty. Marriage would be by lot, but this would be manipulated to provide eugenic selection. The primary objective was to provide children and there would be sharing of common wives.
Children would be removed at birth and raised communally – without knowing who their natural parents were, and calling everyone of right age “mother” and “father”.
Lying was to be the prerogative of the government, just as giving medicines was the prerogative of physicians. The “Royal Lie” was that god had decreed there should be 3 types of men – guardians, soldiers and workers. Your place was preordained and you had a duty to perform your prescribed role. This followed the Greek concept of “justice” ruling all – ie do your duty and mind your own business, with no concept of equality. Plato believed that if properly managed this myth could be established within 2 generations. He was proved right in 19th century Japan with the Mikado.
This all sounds much like Sparta, and the objectives were the same – a stable society with no poverty, good at war, but with no art or science to distract attention.
This was supposed to represent an impersonal ideal, but it was only Plato wishing that everyone else wanted what he did. In reality, good or bad are defined by the strongest, using force or propaganda. Plato was too naïve to realise this, believing that an objective good did exist.
Utopia was good if you liked it, and bad if you did not. The matter could not be decided by reason – only by force.
The proposed constitution envisaged a city or small state. Before Plato, Sparta was successful over several centuries with a similar system, but after Plato the Macedonian empire ended the age of city states, and so the idea could not be tested in practice.
Theory of universals and other ideas
Plato’s philosophy was based on the distinction between reality and appearance –see Parmenides and Pythagoras for their influences based on a powerful synthesis of intellect and religious emotion, which were to pervade the “dark ages”. Plato’s dogma – god only created what is good.
Plato was influenced by Parmenides’ theory of permanence. However any particular object, say a cat, was subject to change and eventual death or destruction. Plato devised the concept of the one and only “universal” cat, which existed as an eternal object which could not change or die. Other people may be interested in everyday cats, but philosophers were only concerned with the “universal” cat.
Much depends on semantics. Plato was confused about the distinction between knowledge and opinion. Knowledge is certain, but opinion is fallible. Eg I think it will snow, cf it is snowing. Both relate to the same subject. A connoisseur loves beautiful things – but that is only his “opinion”. A philosopher loves beauty itself – which represents wisdom and knowledge. Some would regard this as meaningless drivel. The philosopher would say that it was only because they did not understand. Beware, although philosophy is the love of wisdom, the intoxication of profound vision is subjective, and the supposed insight could be nonsense, as illustrated by the insights gained under the influence of LSD etc.
Plato devised the parable of the cave in order to explain this phenomenon:
Non-philosophers are confined in a cave with a fire between them and the entrance of the cave. They can see things by looking at the inner wall of the cave, but the only things they can see are shadows, which they regard as real. They have no notions of the objects casting the shadows. A man escapes from the cave into the world outside, and for the first time sees real things. If he is worthy of being a guardian he will return to the cave and try to enlighten the people there. However, after being in the light his eyes are not adjusted to the dark and he now sees the shadows less clearly, and to the people inside he seems more stupid than before.
Sense perception ( or perception of appearance and sound etc) does not give knowledge but provides only a confused vision compared to intellectual vision. Intellect provides reason and understanding. Reason is pure ideas, understanding is based on hypotheses – what would be if …, not simply what is.
Plato recognised the limitation of universals – language contained abstract words which did not relate to objects. If they had meaning the world must be more than just objects. In the end any attempt to divide the world into portions, one more real than the other, is doomed to failure. Nevertheless, this was remarkable self critism.
Immortality
Inspired by Socrates last moments – wise and good with no fear of death. He could have escaped but instead chose a martyr’s death – used as a model for the story of Christ.
Plato believed that man is soul + body. Death separates the parts. A philosopher is only concerned with the soul.
He favoured moderate ascetism – ie can eat well, but not over indulge, similarly with clothes and women etc. He believed that the best and worst pleasures were mental – eg cruelty, love of power.