Modified: 2025-01-08 11:29 AM
The "big three" of Greek philosophy are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Socrates left no writings but Plato, in his early dialogues, gives an excellent summary of Socrates's philosophy. Plato was primarily a rationalist who believed that knowledge was already in the mind. However, only philosophers such as he, could introspect successfully. Plato's best student, Aristotle is discussed elsewhere in these pages.
Whitehead (1978) probably overstated Plato’s eventual contribution to philosophy when he wrote (p. 39), “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
IDEA: idealism-the belief that reality exists within an abstract and non-physical realm accessible only through introspective analysis.
- Souls:
- Pythagorean concept
- Plato divided the soul into three parts:
- rational
- truths of philosophy
- most important part
- appetitive
- searching and satisfying motivation (hunger, thirst...)
- sometimes the appetitive could overwhelm the rational
- Langewiesche-Sahara, thirst in three part article worth your read
- in Part III he writes about a family stuck in the Sahara:
- "After the radiator coolant was gone, the Belgians started sipping gasoline. You would too. Call it petroposia: Saharans have recommended it to me as a way of staying off battery acid. The woman wrote that it seemed to help. They drank their urine. She reported [in a posthumous note] that it was difficult at first, but that afterward it wasn't so bad."
- all of this to say that you can become so thirsty that you will drink liquids you know you should not drink. Or, Platonically, your appetitive soul has overcome your rational soul
- passionate
- emotional behaviors-love, rage
- can also override rational part
- crime of passion or murder 2
- working to better the world, not to make money
- Social behavior-philosopher kings (The Republic)
- "Unless either philosophers become kings in their countries or those who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless, that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together, while the many natures who now go their several ways in the one or the other direction are forcibly debarred from doing so, there can be no rest from trouble, for states, nor yet as I believe for all mankind."
- Political Scientist?
- Totalitarian
- Spoiler alert: Aristotle has a different view (see below)
- Religion
- Early Christianity deeply influenced by Plato: Neo-Platonism (see chapter 4)
- Plato transformed philosophy into its modern form