PSIR 307 Week 2 Plato Plato B C

PSIR 307 Week 2 Plato

Plato (B. C 427 -347)

Why is Plato important? • His main aim was help people reach ‘eudaimonia’ (fulfilment) • He has at least four major ideas 1) think more: we follow popular opinions (Doxa) (fame is great, money is the supreme good) But, Plato says ‘know yourself’. 2) Let your lover change you: do not love the person is as they are; allow change and fulfilment; love is admiration 3) Decode the message of beauty: gentleness, harmony, balance, peace, strength. Ugliness is damaging. Art is therapeutic 4) Reform society: The first utopian; end democracy; no dictatorship but voting after having reached rationality (philosopher). Academy was established to educate rulers, that is, its aim was to make leaders philosophers and vice-versa.

Republic • Philosopher-kings: conflate political power and authority with philosophical knowledge (math and dialectics • Form of the good • Philosopher kings are just and virtuous: they do not merely possess knowledge of the truth and but they also act virtuously. • Knowing the form of the good is both an ethical and cognitive achievement.

Political system • Education and socialization • The political system and theory developed by Plato is shaped by views on psychology (psyche) • Three different kinds of desire: – Appetitive: food, drink, money, and etc. – Spirited: honour, victory, good reputation – Rational: knowledge and truth

Desires and souls • “people most value what they most desire’ • Education trains desires! • Turn people from wrong path to the true path of happiness (fulfilment) • In the cave allegory people have virtue, but when they are trained by music, dance etc they become in the first instance moneylovers

Socialization and training of desires continue • From money lovers to honour lovers • From honour lovers to Wisdom lovers • Ideal city: kallipolis – Cooperation and quasi-specialization

Forms of the good • Intelligible, unchanging objects, accessible to the mind but not to the senses • Consistent and rational • Apples and appleness • Shoe maker and a good shoe • Bad forms: bad forms destroys and curropts • Good form: preserve and benefit the kind