An Imperfect Genius
Socrates may have resisted the title of “teacher,” but he nonetheless had students, and the best and brightest of them made such profound contributions to Western philosophy that, arguably, every work written since his day has amounted to a series of critiques and rebuttals of Plato.
Unlike Socrates, Plato (a nickname that meant “broad,” given to him by his wrestling instructor because of his strong, stocky physique; his parents probably named him Aristocles, after his paternal grandfather, but nobody ever called him that) enjoyed a privileged childhood as one of four children (three sons and a daughter) of one of Athens’ wealthiest and most politically influential families. As such, he was exactly the sort of young man to hang out in the agora, and witness Socrates’ use of the elenchus to confront the flaws and shortcomings in Athenian culture, in general, and the opinions and beliefs of individuals, in particular.
Plato also witnessed the social upheaval experienced in Athens, in an up close and personal way. One of his uncles, Charmides, was one of the 30 Tyrants imposed on Athens by Sparta, and Plato’s own father had apparently been a friend and confidant of Pericles, the popular democratic leader. As such, the conflict between oligarchy and democracy that burned through Athenian society at the end of the Peloponnesian War found its reflection in Plato’s own family.
As such, it comes as no surprise that an intelligent young man and his compatriots (in Plato’s dialogues, the characters of Glaucon and Adeimantus were likely based on his two older brothers) struggled to grasp how Athens could have found itself in such a terrible situation. Plato and his colleagues turned to Socrates, and while they didn’t always agree with him, the philosopher provided vital guidance.
In short, Plato and his brothers were, exactly and precisely, some of the “youths” whose morals Socrates’ enemies accused him of corrupting.
Plato had turned 28 years old when Socrates drank the hemlock, and he and his brothers appear in several of the histories and plays that feature the event. It was they who urged the old soldier to take the easy escape and live out the rest of his life in exile. Plato’s entreaties were some of those Socrates gently ignored, and it was to Plato, his brothers, and friends of theirs that Socrates explained the reasons for his choice.
All of this had a profound impact on Plato’s life, and how he thought about the world, and he devoted the rest of his life to inquiries similar to those of Socrates: the nature of justice and virtue, how to live a good and honorable life, and how to build societies that strengthened the best of humanity, while discouraging unethical behavior that brought harm to the self, other individuals and the larger community.
As with his teacher before him, Plato had little use for the subjective, politically expedient, self-centered views of laws and justice held by the sophists. However, in his efforts to discover objective definitions of abstract concepts such as “virtue”, “justice”, “beauty”, “equality” or “goodness,” the real world presented Plato with a quandary nearly impossible to overcome.
Every society with which Plato had familiarity – and by his time, Athenians had traveled far and wide enough to encounter many different cultures – had its own set of laws, community values, ethical standards, religious beliefs and definitions of beauty. Yet, despite all of those differences, those societies functioned reasonably well (at least, no worse than the Athenian Empire, anyway…) and provided for their people lives that were mostly peaceful and stable.
That reality seemed to lend a great deal of credibility to the view held by the sophists that no set of ethical standards had any basis in objective reality and, to some extent, might even violate the basic laws of nature. After all, many sophists (as epitomized by Thrasymachus) argued that survival and prosperity required that life prey on life, and that the powerful had the freedom to do as they willed while the weak had no choice but to endure what they must. According to that view, Athens had every right to rule its empire as it chose and crush its neighbors, while the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta had every right to break Athens’ walls, impose the Tyranny of the 30, and trigger the internecine conflict that cost Socrates his life.
Plato shared with Socrates the firm conviction that concepts such as justice, virtue, honor and community, had objective definitions that humans could discover, understand and immediately recognize as valid and proper. The student spent the rest of his life in an effort to carry on the work of the master, and in so doing wrote profoundly influential works that, in many ways, created Western philosophy.
That said, to people in the modern world, a lot of Plato’s ideas seem quite odd, and even disconcerting. As a product of the modern world, I can appreciate Plato’s arguments, but at the same time I reject a lot of his conclusions.
(To his own credit, Plato seemed to have struggled with these questions, as well. I understand that anyone sufficiently familiar with his books can trace how Plato’s own thoughts about them changed as his work progressed. In that sense, Plato clearly learned the most valuable lesson that Socrates had to teach – awareness of the limitations of his own knowledge, his own understanding.)
Plato’s work had such profound impact that no single blog post can discuss them adequately. In fact, for the past two millennia, thousands of people have written hundreds of thousands of pages about Plato’s ideas, and I have no illusions that this blog will make any meaningful contribution to that body of work.
However, it does offer me the opportunity to take a look at those ideas I didn’t like and those I did; those concepts I found rather nonsensical, as well as those I found useful and relevant even though it has been more than 2,300 years since Plato first put his reed to parchment.
In this next series of posts, I’ll kick Plato’s ideas around, a bit. I’ll start with the notions I found disagreeable (since critical essays are fun to write), move on to those I found had some value, and conclude with those insights that remain relevant and incredibly useful in modern life.
Once I’m done with all that, I’ll move on to the even more useful and relevant works of the best student of Socrates’ best student.