PLAT

O
QUICK
FACTS
 NAME:
Plato
ASSYRIAN
DATE OF
• Based BIRTH:
in Ashur, biggest
empire under King
c. 428 BCE
Ashurbanipal – conquered
Mesopotamia, Syria,
Palestine and Egypt
DATE OF DEATH:
c. 348 BCE
 PLACE OF BIRTH & DEATH

ATHENS, GREECE
 BIOGRAPHY
o Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died at the
age of eighty or eighty-one at 348-7 B.C.E.
o Plato's parents were Ariston and Perictione. Plato also had two older
brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the same
parents.
o Plato's actual given name was apparently Aristocles, after his
grandfather. "Plato" seems to have started as a nickname (for platos, or
"broad"), perhaps first given to him by his wrestling teacher for his
physique, or for the breadth of his style, or even the breadth of his
forehead. Although the name Aristocles was still given as Plato's name
on one of the two epitaphs on his tomb, history knows him as Plato.
 o So
crates’
student m o s t fa m
ou s
o Ag
ood exa
metaph mple of
ysician
draws t w ho
h e sh ar
possibl pest
e contra
betwee st
n realit
appe ar a y an d
n c e.
INFLUENCES on PLATO
 SOCRATES
PYTHAGOREANS
 HERACLITUS

PARMENIDES
& ZENO
• Each city-state worshipped
PLATO’S
their own god for
protection
• People aimed to make
PHILOSOPHIES
peace with their wrathful
god
Socrates’ death, the revolt of the
Thirty, the abuse of the sophists,
and other factors convinced
Plato that a corrupt state
produces corrupt citizens.
He attempted to develop a
theory of knowledge that could
refute sophistic skepticism and
moral relativism.
One of the first problems of
the early Greek thinkers
during Plato’s time was on
the unity and multiplicity of
things
Plato’s great influence stems
from the manner in which he
brought all the diverse
philosophic concerns into a
unified system of thought
including the reconciliation of
the views of Heraclitus and
Parmenides
THE
HUMAN
PERSON
 Plato
believed
that the
human
person is
composed
of a body
and soul.
o The body of the human person is subject to
change and impermanence.
o Since the human person is capable of
knowing the permanent and the essences of
ASSYRIA
things, then part of him/her should also be
permanent. This part of the human person that
• Polytheistic
helps him/her to know the permanent in
• Perform rituals and ceremonies
his/her soul.
• Built temples for their gods
o For Plato, the soul is the whole of the human
• They put negative view on death
person. The real man is the soul.
o This idea of the pre-existence of the human
soul is not original of Plato for it was
propounded early by Pythagoras and
Empedocles.
 Plato considered the soul to be composed
of three distinct faculties, the three levels
of knowledge and desire, there three levels
are:

SENSATION OPINION /
MIND INTELLECT
o Plato considers the life of man in this material world as a spiritual journey
that is really a return to the soul’s roots and beginnings.
o The nous has to overrule the soul so that man will always have the
yearning for the world of forms.
o Plato believed that morality is achievable when reason overcomes the
appetites and the stimuli of the body.
o Only knowledge can produce virtue because it is ignorance or false
knowledge that has produced evil.
o In order to obtain true knowledge, each individual should have to be aware
that he/she is in the state of ignorance and hence, has to search his/her way
back towards the state of knowledge.
o Plato believes that knowledge is innate.
o Learning is just a form of reminisce.
o Plato placed great importance to contemplation as it is the means by
which the mind will be in communion with the world of forms and the
way by which the human person will be freed from the world of matter.
o Good life therefore is the life of inner harmony with the real world.
o Harmony could only be achieved if the parts of the soul were fulfilling
its function.
o Virtue could only be attained when each part of the soul is fulfilling its
own function, i.e, when the lower parts of the soul would be subject to
the sovereignty of the rational element.
 REPUBLI
Republic
other Dial
– his Dial
ogues in f
a m
C
ogues her
e has over
shadowed
the many e , f o r i t undoubted all his
sidedness l
can aspire o f his geniu y brought o
to do s no other ut
-Masterpi Dialogue
ece in wo of his
-Its name r ld l
implies, is iterature
found diff a book of
icult to de politics; h
studying t fine justic owever, it
he broade e in an indi w as
its origin, r perspect vidual wit
ethical. ive of the hout
-Nominal S t a te. So, it i
purpose: t s in
-He said c o define “
itizens are justice”
1. The com t o be divid
mon peop ed into thr
2. The sol l e (artisan ee classes
diers (war class)
3. The gu riors)
ardian(rul
fewer of t ers) – hav
hem than e political
of the oth power. M
er two cla uch
sses.
PHILOSOPHICAL
QUOTES
You can discover more
about a person in an
hour of play than in a
year of conversation.
Wise men speak because
they have something to
say; Fools because they
have to say something.
We are twice armed if we fight
with faith.