PLATO
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PLATO
essentially Christian contention that spiritual in-
terests are supreme. To render the world of Ideas
more acceptable to Christians, the Patristic Plato-
nists from Justin Martyr to St. Augustine maintained
that that world exists in the mind of God, and that
this was what Plato meant. On the other hand,
Aristotle understood Plato to refer to a world of Ideas
self-subsisting and separate. Instead, therefore, of
picturing to ourselves the world of Ideas as existing
in God, we should represent God as existing in the
world of Ideas. For, among the Ideas, the hierarchical
supremacy is attributed to the Idea of God, or Abso-
lute Goodness, which is said to be for the supercelestial
universe what the sun in the heavens is for this
terrestrial world of ours.
(b) Physics. — The Idea incorporated, so to speak, in the phenomenon is less real than the Idea in its own world, or than the Idea embodied in human con- duct and human society. Physics, i. e., the knowledge of the Idea in phenomena, is, therefore, inferior in dig- nity and importance to Dialectic and Ethics. In fact, the world of phenomena has no scientific interest for Plato. The knowledge of it is not true knowledge, nor the source, but only the occasion of true knowledge. The phenomena stimulate our minds to a recollection of the intuition of Ideas, and with that intuition scien- tific knowledge begins. Moreover, Plato's interest in nature is dominated by a teleological view of the world as animated with a World-Soul, which, con- scious of its processes, does all things for a useful purpose, or, rather, for "the best", morally, intellec- tually, and a'sthetically. This conviction is apparent especially in the Platonic account of the origin of the universe, contained in the "Timseus", although the details regarding the activity of the demiurgos and the created gods should not, perhaps, be taken seriously. Similarly, the account of the origin of the soul, in the same dialogue, is a combination of philosophy and myth, in which it is not easy to distinguish the one from the other. It is clear, however, that Plato holds the spiritual nature of the soul as against the material- istic Atomists, and that he believes the soul to have existed before its union with the body. The whole theory of Ideas, in so far, at least, as it is applied to human knowledge, presupposes the doctrine of pre- existence. "All knowledge is recollection" has no meaning except in the hypothesis of the soul's pre- natal intuition of Ideas. It is equally incontrovertible that Plato held the soul to be immortal. His convic- tion on this point was as unshaken as Socrates's. His attempt to ground that conviction on unassailable premises is, indeed, open to criticism, because his arguments rest either on the hypothesis of previous existence or on his general theory of Ideas. Never- theless, the considerations which he offers in favour of immortality, in the "Phsedo", have helped to strengthen all subsequent generations in the belief in a future life. His description of the future state of the soul is dominated by the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration. Here, again, the details are not to be taken as seriously as the main fact, and we can well imagine that the account of the soul condemned to return in the body of a fox or a wolf is introduced chiefly because it accentuates the doctrine of rewards and punishments, which is part of Plato's ethical sys- tem. Before passing to his ethical doctrines it is necessary to indicate one other point of his psychol- ogy. The soul, Plato teaches, consists of three parts: the rational soul, which resides in the head; the iras- cible soul, the seat of courage, which resides in the heart; and the appetitive soul, the seat of desire, which resides in the abdomen. These are not three faculties of one soul, but three parts really distinct.
(c) Ethics and Theory of the State. — Like all the Greeks, Plato took for granted that the highest good of man, subjectively considered, is happiness XeiSai/Miila) . Objectively, the highest good of man
ICII.— 11
is the absolutely highest good in general. Goodness
itself, or God. The means by which this highest good
is to be attained is the practice of virtue and the
acquisition of wisdom. So far as the body hinders
these pursuits it should be brought into subjection.
Here, however, asceticism should be moderated in the
interests of harmony and symmetry — Plato never
went the length of condemning matter and the human
body in particular, as the source of all evil — for wealth,
health, art, and innocent pleasures are means of
attaining happiness, though not indispensable, as
virtue is. Virtue is order, harmony, the health of the
soul; vice is disorder, discord, disease. The State is,
for Plato, the highest embodiment of the Idea. It
should have for its aim the establishment and cultiva-
tion of virtue. The reason of this is that man, even
in the savage condition, could, indeed, attain virtue.
In order, however, that virtue may be established
systematically" and cease to be a matter of chance or
haphazard, education is necessary, and without a
social organization education is impossible. In his
"Republic" he sketches an ideal state, a polity which
should exist if rulers and subjects would devote them-
selves, as they ought, to the cultivation of wisdom.
The ideal state is modelled on the individual soul. It
consists of three orders: rulers (corresponding to the
reasonable soul), producers (corresponding to desire),
and warriors (corresponding to courage). The char-
acteristic virtue of the producers is tlirift, that of the
soldiers bravery, and that of the rulers wisdom. Since
philosophy is the love of wisdom, it is to be the
dominant power in the state: "Unless philosophers
become rulers or rulers become true and thorough
students of philosophy, there shall be no end to the
troubles of .states and of humanity" (Rep., V, 473),
which is only another way of saying that those who
govern should be distinguished by quahties which are
distinctly intellectual. Plato is an advocate of State
absolutism, such as existed in his time in Sparta.
The State, he maintains, exercises unlimited power.
Neither private property nor family institutions have
any place in the Platonic state. The children belong
to the State as soon as they are born, and should be
taken in charge by the State from the beginning, for
the purpose of education. They should be educated
by officials appointed by the State, and, according to
the measure of ability which they exhibit, they are to
be assigned by the State to the order of producers,
to that of warriors, or to the governing class. These
impractical schemes reflect at once Plato's discontent
with the demagogy then prevalent at Athens and his
personal predilection for the aristocratic form of
government. Indeed, his scheme is essentially aris-
tocratic in the original meaning of the word; it
advocates government by the (intellectually) best.
The unreality of it all, and the remoteness of its
chance to be tested by practice, must have been evi-
dent to Plato himself. For in his "Laws" he sketches
a modified scheme which, though inferior, he thinks,
to the plan outlined in the "Republic", is nearer to
the level of what the average state can attain.
IV. The Platonic School. — Plato's School, like Aristotle's, was organized by Plato himself and handed over at the time of his death to his nephew Speu- sippus, the first scholarch, or ruler of the school. It was then known as the Academy, because it met in the groves of Academus. The Academy continued, with varying fortunes, to maintain its identity as a Platonic school, first at Athens, and later at Alex- andria until the first century of the Christian era. It modified the Platonic system in the direction of mysticLsm and demonology, and underwent at least one period of scepticism. It ended in a loosely con- structed eclecticism. With the advent of neo- Platonism (q. v.), founded by Ammonius and devel- oped by Plotinus, Platonism definitively entered the cause of Paganism against Cliristianity. Neverthe-
