The main provisions of the philosophy of Plato. A

LIFE AND WORK OF PLATO

Plato was a famous wrestler and the name he is known by today was his name in the ring. "Plato" means "wide" or "flat": in this case, the first meaning probably refers to his shoulders (or, as some sources say, to his forehead). At birth in 428 BC. NS. he received the name Aristocles. He was born in Athens or on the island of Aegina, which is only twelve miles from the Athenian coast in the Saronic Gulf. Plato was born into the family of one of the most famous politicians in Athens. His father Ariston was a descendant of Codrus, the last king of Athens, and his mother was descended from the great Athenian legislator Solon.

Like any prominent member of the family of politicians, Plato's earliest interests lay in other areas. He twice won wrestling matches at the Isthmian Games, but apparently never reached such heights at the Olympics in Olympia. Then he decided to gain fame for himself as the author of tragedies, but could not impress the judges at any famous competition. Desperate to win Olympic gold or win the ancient Greek equivalent of the Nobel Prize, Plato almost decided to be just a statesman, but before that he tried to take up philosophy, and therefore came to listen to Socrates.

It was love at first sight. For the next nine years, Plato sat at the feet of his teacher, absorbing all his ideas that he could assimilate. The Socratic competitive teaching method forced the student to use all his intellectual abilities, while at the same time opening his own unrealized possibilities to his eyes.

Socrates taught by the method of conversation, in which the subject of discussion was gradually analyzed and determined. This method was known as dialectics- from the ancient Greek word meaning "conversation, dispute" (the word "dialect" is derived from the same root). Socrates invited his opponent in conversation (or a student) to present an explanation of a particular issue and then he began to ask questions, revealing his strengths and weaknesses, proposing additions, limiting and expanding the scope of the question, and so on.

It is difficult for us to imagine how completely new was the nature of this method, which relied only on the art of reasoning. Philosophy before Socrates had little or no relation to reasoning. A significant part of the pre-Socratics was more interested in such a question as Being - the metaphysical side of what it means to be alive, or the infinite nature of the world itself (thinking, for example, that it can consist of water or atoms). Some of these spontaneous insights have been strangely correct, especially given the way they were received. But it was Socrates who understood that philosophy could not go this way. Philosophers by that time had already been exposed to ridicule, but it had not yet come to the point that someone began to scoff at philosophy itself. If philosophical thought was destined to cease to be just an intellectual joke or reflections on religious topics (from which it arose), then it needed a more rigorous approach. It was given to philosophy by the dialectical method of Socrates. From the height of our more than two thousand years of history, we see that he became the predecessor of logic, which was invented by Plato's student Aristotle a century later.

Thanks to the fact that Plato was able to perceive the new method proposed by Socrates, philosophy entered a new stage in its development. To appreciate the significance of this innovation, one should simply imagine what a serious scientific discussion would look like if it were devoid of semantic content.

And yet, having found his true calling, Plato still fought the temptation to give up philosophy and go into politics. Fortunately, the behavior of Athenian politicians turned him away from pursuing politics. In the period after the Peloponnesian war, "thirty tyrants" came to power, two of their leaders (Critias and Charmides) were close relatives. The ensuing period of terror might have inspired a young Stalin or Machiavelli, but it did not attract Plato. After the Democrats came to power, Plato's beloved teacher was brought to trial on trumped-up charges against him of disrespect and corruption of youth and was sentenced to death. Plato now became firmly convinced that democracy was guilty of the same crimes as tyranny. Close communication between Plato and Socrates put him in a dangerous position, and he had to leave Athens for his own sake. Thus began his wanderings, which were destined to last for the next twelve years. Before he was trained by his teacher, now life has become his teacher. But in those days the world was not so great, and in the first period of his exile Plato was very close - in Megara, only twenty miles from Athens, where he continued to study philosophy with his friend Euclid. (This was not the famous geometer, but a former student of Socrates, famous for the subtlety of his dialectics. Euclid loved Socrates so much that he made his way into enemy Athenian territory, disguised as a woman, to be present at the death of his teacher.)

Plato stayed with Euclid in Megara for three years, and then went to North Africa, to Cyrene, to study with the mathematician Theodore. After that, he, in all likelihood, took a trip to Egypt. According to one surviving story, he wanted to visit some magicians in the Levant, and then move east and reach the banks of the Ganges, although this information is not very reliable.

Perhaps during his stay in Megara or on halts during his travels, Plato created his first works known to us. They were written in the form of dialogues, in which one can feel a very strong influence of Socrates - both personal and intellectual. And yet it cannot be said that Plato remained entirely in his shadow. These dialogues were created by the mature mind of the thinker and are beautiful literary and philosophical works. In many of them, Socrates is present as the main character, expressing his own ideas. Here we are faced with the image of a bright, assertive and at the same time very charming person who combines the features of a jester and a saint.

Three early dialogues of Plato - "Apology of Socrates", "Crito" and "Euthyphron", as well as the late "Phaedo" - are devoted to the trial, the days of imprisonment and death of Socrates. The real events described in them at one time made a strong impression on Plato, and they can be put on a par with such works of Western literature as Shakespeare's Hamlet and Dante's Inferno. The Apology of Socrates describes the trial of Socrates and his defense speech addressed to the inhabitants of Athens. Socrates treated the accusations with deserved contempt, and in his speech he turned to more interesting questions, such as why he is considered wise. He argued that he simply lived according to the lot, which was proclaimed to him by the Delphic oracle, who recognized him as the wisest man on earth. At first, he was suspicious of this prediction, because he did not know anything (a typical statement for Socrates). And he began to ask others, who were called wise, and found that in fact they, too, did not know anything. This is a classic example of the dialectical method: philosophy is used to disrupt ordinary thinking. It is remarkably similar to Wittgenstein's linguistic analysis in modern philosophy. In fact, Socrates taught not so much philosophy as a philosophical method: clear thinking. In this he saw not only the path to the attainment of truth, but also the path to correct behavior. He would probably agree with the statement made in the twentieth century by Wittgenstein: "Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity." This approach leaves a void at the very center of philosophical thinking. After Socrates, it was filled with Plato.

For ten years, Plato wandered, and then went to Sicily, where he visited the crater of Mount Etna. It was a favorite place where tourists flocked in those days, and not only in order to explore it as a tourist attraction. The fact is that, according to the ideas of people of that era, this is how the underworld looked like, and, therefore, a visit to Etna allowed one to get an idea of ​​the conditions of the afterlife. But for Plato, the crater was even more attractive, since it was associated with the name of the philosopher and poet of the 5th century BC. NS. Empedocles. Empedocles was endowed with such a wonderful power of intellect that during his lifetime people recognized him as a god, and to prove that this was so, he threw himself into the boiling lava of Etna.

But it is much more important for us that there Plato established contact with the followers of Pythagoras, who spread to the Greek colonies of Sicily and southern Italy. The Pythagoreans' discovery of the relationship between number and musical harmony led them to believe that numbers hold the key to understanding the universe. Everything could be explained with the help of numbers that existed in an abstract area on the other side of the physical world. This theory had a strong influence on Plato, as a result of which he came to the conviction that true reality is abstract. That which in the philosophy of Pythagoras was number, in Plato became forms or pure ideas.

The main pivot of Plato's philosophy is his theory of ideas (or forms), which he continued to develop throughout his life. This means that Plato's theory has come down to us in several different versions, thus giving philosophers enough material to debate for centuries. (No philosophical theory can claim to be complete as long as there is room for debate about how it should be interpreted.)

The best explanation of Plato's theory of ideas is his own (which is not always the case in philosophy and in other sciences). Unfortunately, Plato gives his explanation in the form of a metaphor, which makes it more literary than philosophical. According to Plato, most people live as if they were in a dark cave. They are tied up and, he says, are looking at a white wall illuminated by a lantern behind them. They see only shadows swaying on the wall, mistaking them for reality. Only if they guess to turn away from the wall and the shadows and escape the cave can they hope to see the light of true reality.

Using the language of philosophy, we can say the following: Plato believes that everything we perceive - ships and shoes, kings and cabbages, all things of everyday experience - are just appearances. Only the world of ideas or forms that gives rise to this appearance has true reality. Thus, it can be said that a particular black horse derives its appearance from the universal horse shape and from the idea of ​​blackness. The physical world perceived by us with the help of senses is in constant change. The universal world of ideas, perceived by the mind, on the contrary, is unchanging and eternal. Each shape - for example, round, person, color, beauty, and so on - is a model for numerous objects in the world. But individual objects are only imperfect, ever-changing copies of these universal ideas. By using our minds rationally, we can recall our knowledge of these universal ideas and begin to feel them better. In this way, we can comprehend the true reality of daylight, which is outside the dark cave of our everyday world.

This area of ​​ideas is organized hierarchically, ranging from smaller forms to more general abstract ideas, the highest of which is the idea of ​​the good. When we learn to distance ourselves from the world of constantly changing things and concentrate on the timeless reality of ideas, our understanding begins to climb this hierarchical ladder to the final mystical comprehension of the ideas of the Beautiful, the Truth and, finally, the Divine.

This is how we arrive at Plato's ethics. Everything that can be perceived while in this changeable world is only seeming goodness. Only with the help of reason can one comprehend the nature of the great general idea of ​​the Good. Truly moral is, according to Plato, spiritual enlightenment, and not various rules of behavior. His theory of ideas has often been criticized for lack of practicality. In Plato's words, many assumed that everything he describes was the idea of ​​the world, and not the world itself. Others argued that the world of Plato's ideas exists only in the mind and has little to do with the world from which these ideas originated. On the other hand, the basically transcendental nature of Plato's philosophy means that most of his thoughts could later be adopted by Christianity.

For example, Plato's theory of creation easily fits into the Judeo-Christian version. According to Plato: "The Father and Creator created a living and mobile being in the form of an eternal god. When he saw him, he was filled with joy and decided to make it even more like the original. Since the pattern was eternal, he strove to create the Universe as eternal as it could be. done. So he created a movable image of eternity. When he completed the creation of heaven, he made this image eternal, but changeable, in accordance with the numbers. This image of eternity is different from another, which is one and at rest. The movable image of eternity we call time " ...

This text sounds like an abstract echo of the Book of Creation (written about eight hundred years before the Pythagorean concept that underlies this passage). Yet Plato's explanation of the nature of time - the "moving image of eternity" presented here - is more than a profound religious explanation (and much more than a profound and beautiful explanation). In fact, it is deeply philosophical. Plato's description of time seems to unite the numerical world of phenomena in which man lives with the timeless unity of the world of ideas.

Time has always been one of the most mysterious concepts that philosophy has had to deal with. But also one of the least productive: we all know about time, and it flows unchanged, regardless of what they say or think about it. We all think we know what it is, but describe it in words that would not be tautology (for example, "Time is a sequence") or simply a poetic way ("Time is only a stream in which I am going to fish" - Thuro ) is extremely difficult.

Plato's explanation was an excellent philosophical-poetic image, which not only fits perfectly into the theory of ideas, but is also a thread that connects it into a coherent whole. (You might call it "a perfectly fitting screw that makes every part move as a whole" - but this beautiful mechanistic metaphor is imprecise because the world of ideas is motionless and not set in motion by time.)

Since Plato, few have been able to provide an equally compelling explanation of time. Another seven hundred years passed before Augustine proposed an equally satisfactory theory. For him, time was simply our subjective way of seeing the world. In fact, here we see the same theory of Plato, considered from a different point of view. One and a half thousand years later, Kant's theory of time appeared. Here, time is also presented as a subjective entity (while at first glance it seems obvious that time is not like that). Kant believed that time is part of our perception apparatus (like glasses that cannot be removed) and it is with its help that we see the world. Nevertheless, Plato's theory is most consistent with the latest scientific theories about the nature of time. "When he completed the creation of heaven, he made this image eternal, but changeable, in accordance with the numbers." In other words, time and the universe began their existence at the same moment. This statement coincides with the Big Bang theory, according to which we cannot say what happened "before" the Big Bang, because then time did not exist yet.

Science and philosophy are basically two different ways of looking at the world: there are fundamental differences between them. As Bernard de Mandeville states: "One deals with what is, the other wonders why it is." Even so, it is gratifying that science and philosophy sometimes come to an agreement.

When Plato was in Sicily, he struck up a close friendship with Dion, son-in-law of Dionysius, ruler of Syracuse. Dion introduced his new friend to Dionysius, possibly with the aim of obtaining Plato the position of court philosopher. But, despite Plato's travels around the world, he remained largely an Athenian aristocrat, and was not impressed by the provincial manners of the Syracuse court. Dionysius was a general and a tyrant, who, in addition, had literary claims. He was convinced that he himself was twice as good as any living person. One day he married two women - Dora and Aristomache - and spent their wedding night with both of them.

When Plato appeared on the scene, everything seemed pretty calm. A rather pleasant picture is formed from his description, despite the fact that he "does not find anything pleasant in the tastes of the society of his sister Italy, where happiness consists in filling your stomach twice a day and never spending the night alone." Obviously, to the forty-year-old Plato, whose Athenian fastidiousness soon began to annoy Dionysius, this seemed an overkill.

Dionysius began his career as a clerk in the city administration, but was noted from the beginning for his outstanding poetic gift. Then he held several ranks in the army, in parallel with this, he composed several tragedies in verse, which were rated as unsurpassed (which all his subordinate officers readily confirmed). After seizing power, he turned Syracuse into the most powerful city west of Greece at the cost of several brutal wars. To soften diplomatic relations, the Athenians made sure that his drama "The Ransom of Hector" won a prize at the Lenai Festival.

Dionysius was not the kind of person who could afford to be intimidated by some aristocratic philosopher claiming a place at his court. When he began to discuss philosophy with Plato, the atmosphere soon began to heat up. At one point, Plato was forced to point out an error in the course of Dionysius's reasoning.

You sound like an old fool, ”he exclaimed in anger.

And you speak like a tyrant, - Plato answered him.

At this, Dionysius decided to end the philosophical dialogue and ordered to put Plato in shackles. He was taken to a Spartan ship sailing to Aegina, whose captain was ordered to sell Plato as a slave. "Do not worry, he is so immersed in philosophy that he will not even notice it," Dionysius threw him.

Some sources report that at that moment Plato's life was in danger. But the fact that he was sent to Aegina suggests otherwise, since this city was a more likely place of his birth than Athens. By sending Plato home in chains, Dionysius simply found a way to humiliate the philosopher. Perhaps he was absolutely sure that Plato would be recognized and ransomed by influential friends. This would allow him to avoid serious diplomatic conflicts with Athens.

Dionysius' plan came true exactly. Plato experienced a great fear (the need to work for a piece of bread can scare any true philosopher). Pretty soon he was noticed in the market of slaves of Aegina by an old good friend of Plato, Annisser Cyrenaic, who bought him out in twenty minutes. Annisser was so pleased with the philosopher acquired at half price that he soon sent him to Athens, providing him with enough money to open a school.

In 386 BC. NS. Plato bought a piece of land in the garden of Akadem, which was about a mile northwest of Athens, outside the gate of Erius in the ancient city wall. It was a parkland with spreading trees, in the shade of which stood statues and temples. Here, among the cool paths and babbling streams, Plato opened the Academy, gathering a group of followers around him, which included (which is very unusual) and several women. Among them was Axiothea, disguised as a man. This garden is recognized as the first university.

The Grove of the Academy, in which Plato founded his Academy and from which the school got its name, was dedicated to its former resident Hecademus, an incomprehensible semi-divine hero of Greek mythology. The main feat of Hecadem was, apparently, the planting in that place of about twenty olive trees, the shoots of the sacred olive tree of Athena on the Acropolis. But since Plato chose this particular place, Hecadem is still remembered throughout the civilized world. Much is associated with his name, from secretarial colleges to movie theaters. The Scottish football team bears his name, as well as an annual award for the same semi-divine people with incomprehensible achievements.

Today, Akadema Grove is a large, unkempt wasteland in northwestern Athens, where the city's outskirts rise in disarray. Under the trees near the bus stop are scattered ancient stones - accidentally preserved remains of houses, in some places covered with graffiti. The place where Plato's Academy was located and the house in which he lived will almost certainly never be found. It is all the more surprising that the house of Hecadem is still there. Under a thin protective roof, erected by archaeologists, one can see a foundation of baked clay and the remains of brick walls, which were already about two thousand years old when Plato settled there. Hecadem seems to have very cleverly achieved immortality.

By the way, right behind the wasteland there is a modern settlement, in which now, four thousand years later, you can observe living conditions comparable to those in the prehistoric house of Hecadem. Among puddles of stagnant water and sheds of cardboard boxes, shaven-headed children of immigrants play in the hot sun. Flies hover around them, and their veiled-headed mothers sit side by side, cross-legged, and feed their tanned daughter babies.

"What is justice?" - asked Plato in his most famous work "The State". In this dialogue, he describes a dinner at the house of a retired merchant department, at which Socrates and a number of other characters are present. From time to time Socrates engages in a conversation, and the company agrees that there is no point in discussing the concept of justice without communication with society. Then Socrates begins to describe his idea of ​​a just society.

The early dialogues of Plato, in which Socrates is present, usually contain ideas inspired by Socrates. In the middle and later dialogues, some transformation takes place, and in them the ideas pronounced by Socrates already clearly belong to Plato. "The state" is the most beautiful of the dialogues of the middle period, and in describing a just society, Plato expresses his ideas on a variety of issues, such as freedom of speech, feminism, birth control, private and public morality, parent-child relations, psychology, education , public and private property and many others. These are exactly the topics that you want to avoid at any pleasant dinner. But the dialogue "State", as we shall soon see, was not a conversation over a pleasant dinner. And the type of society it offered was also not very pleasant. Plato's point of view on the above issues is so different from that shared by modern society that in our time it could only be held by devoted fanatics or partially crazy people.

In Plato's ideal state, there would be no property and marriages (they were allowed only among the lowest estates). Children would be taken away from their mothers shortly after birth to raise them all together. After that, they would consider the state as their only family, and all their fellow citizens as brothers and sisters. Until the age of twenty, they would be taught gymnastics and music supporting morale (Ionian and Lydian music was prohibited, only military marches were allowed to strengthen courage and love for the motherland).

All this allows us to think about the childhood of Plato himself. In Diogenes Laertius, one can read (and this almost certainly corresponds to the actual state of affairs) that Plato's father "madly loved" his mother, but "could not win her heart." Although Plato was born in wedlock, his mother soon married a second husband, and Plato was almost certainly raised by relatives. Therefore, it is not surprising that he devoted little time and attention to family life.

In utopia, the philosopher develops the idea that twenty-year-old boys and girls who have not shown themselves sufficiently skillful in music and gymnastics should be separated from others. He considers them incapable of mental work, so that they will have to maintain the life of society, becoming farmers and merchants. The best students continue to study geometry, arithmetic and astronomy for another ten years. Those who are tired of mathematics - the next batch of rejected ones - are sent to the army. Now only the elite remains. For another five years, until they are thirty-five years old, they are honored with the great honor of studying philosophy, then for fifteen years they will have to study the practical structure of government, plunging into worldly life. By the time they reach the age of fifty, they can be considered scientists enough to run a state.

These philosopher-rulers were supposed to live together in a common house and not have property. They could sleep with whoever they wanted. The full equality of men and women was proclaimed (although in another dialogue Plato writes that "if a person's soul has lived a bad life in a man's body, in the next incarnation it will fall into a woman's body"). Living together and having no personal interests, the representatives of the elite would be above bribery; their only concern should have been the implementation of justice and justice in the state. Of these, the head of state, the philosopher ruler, was elected.

Even for the small ideal city-state ("nine miles from the seashore"), where Plato intended to realize his utopia, it looked like a cure for the disease. At best, it would have been unbearably boring for all poets and playwrights, since those who performed the wrong music were expelled, as were the legislators. At its worst, it would be a totalitarian nightmare that would quickly acquire all the usual unpleasant methods needed to maintain such a regime.

From the outside, all these shortcomings seem obvious. Even for Plato, his project of the state was contradictory in some places. He writes that poets should have been banished, while he himself uses many excellent poetic imagery in the course of the narrative. In addition, the worship of gods, mythology and religion were prohibited, although Plato himself included several myths in his work, and the elite of "philosopher-rulers" quite obviously resembles a caste of priests in his descriptions. He also invented his own ideal god, who is irreconcilable and must be worshiped (although his existence cannot be proved).

In fact, the image of Plato's ideal state is a product of his era. Athens was recently conquered by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Neither democracy nor tyranny brought peace, and Athens desperately needed a government to establish order (some commentators actually think that when Plato speaks of justice, he often means something more like order). The seemingly correct decision was the creation of a strictly controlled state, similar to what existed at that time in Sparta. But unlike Athens, Sparta was a harsh, economically undeveloped society, which in order to survive, it was necessary to educate a caste of blindly obedient warriors who could only obey orders and fight to the death. Their task was to terrorize the city's ever-rebellious poor and plunder the more skillful and economically advanced neighbors. Plato either ignored it or didn't want to take it into account.

Continuing the idea of ​​Socrates that "only good people are happy", Plato came to the idea that "only the unjust are unhappy." Create a just society and everyone will be fine. But what did he suggest? Just a project that could be born in the head of an honest, highly educated intellectual who closed in the garden of the Academy. The implementation of such a project was impossible.

But, surprisingly, he nevertheless came true. In any case, something similar has come true. Medieval society, with its lower class, warrior caste and powerful priesthood, existed for almost a millennium, creating a system similar to the state of Plato. More recently, communism and fascism in their basic features strongly resemble the Platonic republic.

For seven years Plato continued to teach at the Academy, making it the best school in Athens. Then in 367 BC. NS. he received word from his friend Dion that the Syracuse tyrant Dionysius had died and his son, Dionysius the Younger, had ascended the throne.

For many children, Dionysius the Younger was under lock and key, as his father sought to stop any desire of his son to seize power prematurely. Having reigned in the palace, Dionysius the Younger spent time with a saw in his hands, making wooden tables and chairs.

For Dion, this was a great opportunity for Plato. Fate provided him with an ideal ruler who could be brought up in the image of a philosopher-ruler. His mind was free from other ideas, and Plato could put into practice his idea of ​​the structure of the state.

For unknown reasons, the proposal seemed unattractive to Plato. Perhaps he feared that, as a philosopher of sixty-one, it would not be so easy for him to get a seat in an ideal republic. What if he too will have to take an extended course of gymnastics and military music in order to join the elite? But in the end, "the fear of losing self-respect and becoming in his own eyes a man who never brings words to deeds" forced Plato to yield to the request of a friend, and he set off on a long journey to Sicily.

Arriving there, he found that the court of Dionysius the Younger was mired in intrigue. Some influential courtiers still remembered him from his first visit and saw in him nothing more than a renowned intellectual thinker, and some believed that Dion was not far from him. A few months later, these enemies of philosophy managed to accuse Dion and Plato of treason (a common obstacle for those who are about to implement a utopia). At first, the carpenter king did not know what to do. Then, fearing the power of Dion, he sent his uncle out of the city, but forbade Plato to leave. He told the old philosopher that he did not want him to tell nasty things about him in Athens.

Fortunately, friends soon managed to organize an escape for Plato, and he was able to return to Athens, where his loyal students, including Dion, were waiting for him at the Academy.

As for Dionysius the Younger, he was very upset by Plato's act, because he received great pleasure from philosophical conversations with him, although he did not at all intend to put his advice into practice (Syracuse was hardly suitable for such an experiment. At that time they were the only strong a state capable of resisting the invasion of southern Italy by the rapidly developing Roman Republic).

It seems that Dionysius the Younger soon began to see a father figure in Plato. He was probably jealous of the philosopher for his uncle Dion, for whom Plato had a strong affection. The young tyrant continued to pester Plato with requests to return to Syracuse. Completely distraught, he announced to all his courtiers that his life was not dear to him without the company of his mentor in philosophy. In the end, he sent his fastest trireme to Athens and threatened Dion to confiscate all of his property in Syracuse (which was quite large) if Plato did not come to see him.

Contrary to common sense, Plato sailed to Syracuse at the age of seventy-one. Dion, it seems, managed to convince him of the need to do this, although at this age he himself was already occupied by other concerns that have nothing to do with the implementation of Plato's utopia and "proving to the tyrant the superiority of the soul over the body."

Very little time passed, and Plato once again found himself a real prisoner in Syracuse. Undoubtedly, he refused to stuff his stomach with Italian food twice a day, and every night he angrily kicked unwanted girlfriends out of his bed. But fortunately, he was rescued once more, this time he was helped by a sympathetic Pythagoreus from Taranto, who once, under cover of night, brought him to his trireme. Together with the galley slaves, bravely rowing under the blows of the whip, the aged philosopher once again crossed the sea to once again feel safe in Athens. (A few years later, Dion succeeded in achieving what he most likely longed for: he captured Syracuse, expelled Dionysius the Younger, and began to rule himself. Did he try to create the state of Plato now that he finally had a chance? that no. But tragic justice triumphed where Plato's was not realized. Soon Dion was cruelly betrayed and killed by another former student of Plato :)

On this, Plato's activity in the political sphere ended - the Roman Empire was saved. And yet, as a result of his unrealized plans, the medieval world, which grew up on the ruins of the Roman Empire, received a model of social structure. And later, politicians such as Stalin and Hitler already had before them the classic model of the embodiment of their plans.

Can we assume that all of Plato's doctrine of the state was pure error? He argued that true knowledge and understanding can only be obtained through the intellect, not the senses. Reason must distance itself from the world of experience if it wants to reach the truth. If Plato seriously believed in this, then it is difficult to understand why he first of all tried to create his utopian state? After all, such philosophical ideas are completely incompatible with political practice. And yet, according to Plato: "If a philosopher does not become a ruler or a ruler does not study philosophy, there will be no end to the suffering of people." (In practice, this is not the case. Philosophically-inspired rulers cause people far more trouble than those who are ignorant of philosophy.)

Another part of Plato's philosophy, which was not related to politics, also undoubtedly had a huge influence on culture for several centuries. This was mainly due to the fact that it correlated well with the Christian worldview and, in fact, gave what began as a mere faith a solid philosophical foundation. As a result, it was no longer possible to simply declare one's disbelief in Christian values; now they also needed to be refuted.

Plato believed that the soul is made up of three different parts. The rational principle of the soul seeks wisdom, the active spirit seeks to conquer and define, desires crave satisfaction. These elements reflect the three constituent parts of society described by Plato in the "State": philosophers, people of action, or warriors, and the scum who can only do the housework and enjoy. The righteous person is ruled by the mind, but each of the three elements plays an important role. We cannot continue to live without satisfying our own needs, just like the entire state will stop if workers stop working and enjoy, and instead try to become philosophers. The fact is that righteousness can be achieved only when each part of the soul performs its own function, just as justice in the state is achieved only when each of the three elements fulfills its role in society.

A much more pleasant dialogue of Plato is "The Feast", dedicated to the conversation about love in its various manifestations. The ancient Greeks did not hesitate to talk about erotic love, and the part of the text in which Alcibiades describes his homosexual love for Socrates makes it possible to say with confidence that in later times this book was severely persecuted, becoming a real classic of forbidden literature in medieval monasteries (new edition " Pira "was placed by the Catholic Church in the" List of Forbidden Books "until 1966).

Eros in Plato is seen as the soul's striving for good. In its simplest form, it is expressed in a passion for a beautiful person and a desire for immortality, achieved by giving birth to children with this person. However, such a desire is difficult to suspect in Alcibiades, because Socrates was not at all handsome, and it was impossible to have a common offspring with him.

A higher form of love presupposes a spiritual union and a desire for sublimity, the creation of a public good. The highest form of platonic love is love for wisdom, or philosophy, and its peak is the comprehension of the mystical image of the idea of ​​good.

Plato's ideas about love could not but have a strong influence on society. It manifests itself in the concept of sublime love, so popular with the troubadours of the early Middle Ages. Some are even inclined to see Plato's understanding of eros as an early outline of Freud's shocking sexual fantasies. Today, platonic love has been reduced to a very narrow meaning, meaning an almost disappeared form of attraction between opposite sexes. Even the theory of Plato's ideas, aimed at the mystical comprehension of Beauty, Truth and Good, has now lost most of its etheric greatness. She argues that the world is arranged in the same way as language with its abstractions and concepts, which are based on even higher abstractions. This position may turn out to be controversial, but at the same time it is difficult to refute it. Plato assumed that the real world is not what we perceive and describe through language and experience. And why, in fact, should it be different? Indeed, it does not seem at all that he was different. But will we ever be able to find out?

At the age of eighty-one, Plato died and was buried at the Academy. Despite the originality of his philosophy, many of its provisions are still present in our attitude to the world. And the adjective formed on his behalf continues to define a completely different form of love, reflecting his theory of ideas. Plato's Academy existed in Athens until 529 A.D. e., and then was closed by order of the Emperor Justinian, who tried to suppress the pagan Hellenistic culture for the sake of the prosperity of Christianity. Many historians now believe that this date marks the end of Greco-Roman culture and the beginning of the Dark Ages of the Middle Ages.

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Plato's works belong to the classical period of ancient philosophy. Their peculiarity is in the combination of problems and solutions that were previously developed by their predecessors. For this Plato, Democritus and Aristotle are called taxonomists. Plato the philosopher was also the ideological opponent of Democritus and the founder of the objective.

Biography

The boy, known to us as Plato, was born in 427 BC and was named Aristocles. The city of Athens became the birthplace, but scientists are still arguing about the year and city of the philosopher's birth. His father was Ariston, whose roots go back to the king Codra. Mother was a very wise woman and bore the name of Periktion, she was a relative of the philosopher Solon. His relatives were prominent ancient Greek politicians, and the young man could have followed their path, but such activity "for the good of society" hated him. All that he took advantage of by birth was the opportunity to get a good education - the best available at that time in Athens.

The youthful period of Plato's life is poorly understood. There is not enough information to understand how its formation went. The life of a philosopher has been studied more since his acquaintance with Socrates. At that time, Plato was nineteen years old. Being a famous teacher and philosopher, he would hardly have taken up teaching an unremarkable young man, similar to his peers, but Plato was already a prominent figure at that time: he took part in the national Pythian and Isthmian sports games, was engaged in gymnastics and power sports, was fond of music and poetry. Plato owns the authorship of epigrams, works related to the heroic epic and the dramatic genre.

The biography of the philosopher also contains episodes of his participation in hostilities. He lived during the Peloponnesian War and fought at Corinth and Tanagra, practicing philosophy in between battles.

Plato became the most famous and beloved of Socrates' disciples. Respect for the teacher is imbued with the work "Apology", in which Plato vividly painted the portrait of the teacher. After the death of the latter from the voluntary acceptance of poison, Plato left the city and went to the island of Megara, and then to Cyrene. There he began to take lessons from Theodore, studying the basics of geometry.

After graduating from there, the philosopher moved to Egypt to study with the priests of mathematical science and astronomy. In those days, adopting the experience of the Egyptians was popular among philosophers - Herodotus, Solon, Democritus and Pythagoras resorted to this. In this country, Plato's idea of ​​the division of people into estates was formed. Plato was convinced that a person should fall into one or another caste in accordance with his abilities, and not origin.

Returning to Athens, at the age of forty, he opened his own school, which was named the Academy. She belonged to the most influential philosophical educational institutions not only in Greece, but throughout antiquity, where the students were Greeks and Romans.

The peculiarity of Plato's works is that, unlike the teacher, he told thoughts in the form of dialogues. When teaching, he used the method of questions and answers more often than monologues.

Death overtook the philosopher at the age of eighty. He was buried next to his brainchild - the Academy. Later, the tomb was dismantled and today no one knows where his remains are buried.

Plato's ontology

As a taxonomist, Plato synthesized the achievements made by philosophers before him into a large, holistic system. He became the founder of idealism, and his philosophy touches upon many issues: knowledge, language, education, political system, art. The basic concept is an idea.

According to Plato, the idea should be understood as the true essence of any object, its ideal state. To comprehend an idea, it is necessary to use not the senses, but the intellect. The idea, being the form of a thing, is inaccessible for sensory knowledge, it is incorporeal.

The concept of an idea is put at the foundation of anthropology and Plato. The soul has three parts:

1. reasonable ("golden");
2. volitional principle ("silver");
3. the lustful part ("copper").

The proportions in which people are endowed with the listed parts can be different. Plato suggested that they should form the basis of the social structure of society. And the society itself, ideally, should have three estates:

1. rulers;
2. guards;
3. breadwinners.

The latter class was supposed to include merchants, artisans and peasants. In accordance with this structure, each person, a member of society, would do only what he has a predisposition to. The first two estates do not need to create a family or private property.

Plato's ideas of two types stand apart. According to them, the first kind is the world, which is eternal in its immutability, represented by authentic entities. This world exists regardless of the circumstances of the external, or material world. The second kind of being is the middle between two levels: ideas and matter. In this world, an idea exists by itself, and real things become shadows of such ideas.

The described worlds contain masculine and feminine principles. The first is active and the second is passive. A thing materialized in the world has matter and idea. It owes the latter its unchanging, eternal part. Sensual things are distorted reflections of their ideas.

The doctrine of the soul

Discussing the human soul in his teaching, Plato gives four proofs in favor of the fact that it is immortal:

1. Cyclicity in which opposites exist. They cannot exist without each other. Since more implies less, the existence of death speaks of the reality of immortality.
2. Knowledge is actually memories from past lives. Those concepts that people are not taught - about beauty, faith, justice - are eternal, immortal and absolute, known to the soul already at the moment of birth. And since the soul has an idea of ​​such concepts, it is immortal.
3. The duality of things leads to the opposition of the immortality of souls and mortality of bodies. The body is part of the natural shell, and the soul is part of the divine in man. The soul develops and learns, the body wants to satisfy base feelings and instincts. Since the body cannot live without the soul, the soul can be separate from the body.
4. Every thing has an unchanging nature, that is, white will never turn black, and even odd. Therefore, death is always a process of decay, which is not inherent in life. Since the body smolders, its essence is death. As the opposite of death, life is immortal.

These ideas are described in detail in such works of the ancient thinker as "Phaedrus" and "State".

The doctrine of knowledge

The philosopher was convinced that only individual things can be comprehended by the method of feelings, while essences are cognized by reason. Knowledge is neither sensations, nor correct opinions, nor definite meanings. True knowledge is understood as knowledge that has penetrated into the ideological world.

Opinion is part of the things perceived by the senses. Sensory cognition is impermanent, since the things subject to it are variable.

Part of the teaching on cognition is the concept of remembrance. In accordance with her, human souls remember the ideas known to her before the moment of reunification with this physical body. The truth is revealed to those who know how to close their ears and eyes, remember the divine past.

A person who knows something has no need for knowledge. But one who does not know anything will not find what he must look for.

Plato's theory of knowledge is reduced to anamnesis - the theory of memory.

Dialectic of Plato

Dialectics in the works of the philosopher has a second name - "the science of existence." Active thought, which is devoid of sensory perception, has two paths:

1. ascending;
2. downward.

The first path involves the transition from one idea to another until the moment the higher idea is discovered. Having touched it, the human mind begins to descend in the opposite direction, moving from general ideas to particular ones.

Dialectics touches upon being and non-being, the one and the many, rest and movement, the identical and the other. The study of the latter sphere led Plato to the derivation of the formula of matter and idea.

Political and legal doctrine of Plato

Understanding the structure of society and the state led to the fact that Plato paid them a lot of attention in his teachings and systematized them. The real problems of people, and not natural-philosophical ideas about the nature of the state, were placed at the center of political and legal doctrine.

Plato calls the ideal type of state that existed in antiquity. Then people did not feel the need for shelter and devoted themselves to philosophical research. After that, they faced a struggle and began to need funds for self-preservation. At the moment when joint settlements were formed, the state arose as a way to introduce a division of labor to meet the diverse needs of people.

Negative Plato calls such a state, which has one of four forms:

1. timocracy;
2. oligarchy;
3. tyranny;
4. democracy.

In the first case, power is held in the hands of people who have a passion for luxury and personal enrichment. In the second case, democracy develops, but the difference between the rich and poor classes is colossal. In a democracy, the poor revolt against the rule of the rich, and tyranny is a step towards the degeneration of the democratic form of statehood.

Plato's philosophy of politics and law also identified two main problems of all states:

• incompetence of top officials;
• corruption.

Negative states are based on material interests. For the state to become ideal, the moral principles by which citizens live should be at the forefront. Art should be censored, godlessness should be punished with death. State control should be exercised over all spheres of human life in such a utopian society.

Ethical views

The ethical concept of this philosopher is divided into two parts:

1. social ethics;
2. individual or personal ethics.

Individual ethics is inseparable from the improvement of morality and intellect through the harmonization of the soul. The body is opposed to it, as related to the world of feelings. Only the soul allows people to touch the world of immortal ideas.

The human soul has several sides, each of which is characterized by a specific virtue, briefly it can be represented as follows:

• to the reasonable side - wisdom;
• strong-willed - courage;
• affective - moderation.

The listed virtues are innate and are steps on the path to harmony. Plato sees the meaning of human life in the ascent to the ideal world,

Plato's students developed his ideas and passed them on to subsequent philosophers. Touching upon the spheres of public and individual life, Plato formulated many laws of the development of the soul and substantiated the idea of ​​its immortality.

The name of Plato, a philosopher who lived in ancient Greece, is known not only to students of history and philosophy. His teachings and works are famous all over the world thanks to the efforts made by the supporters and students of the Platonic school immediately during his lifetime. As a result, Plato's ideas spread and began to spread rapidly throughout Greece, and then throughout Ancient Rome, and from there to its numerous colonies.

The life and work of the philosopher was varied, which is associated with the peculiarities of the Greek society of the 5-4 centuries. BC.

Formation of Plato's worldview

The philosopher's teachings were greatly influenced by the origin, family, education, and the political system of Hellas. Plato's biographers believe that he was born either in 428 or 427 BC, and died in 348 or 347 BC.

At the time of the birth of Plato in Greece, there was a war between Athens and Sparta, which was called the Peloponnesian. The reason for the internecine struggle was the establishment of influence over the whole of Hellas and the colonies.

The name Plato was invented either by the teacher of wrestling, or by the students of the philosopher in his youth, but at birth he was named Aristocles. Translated from the ancient Greek language "Plato" means broad or broad-shouldered. According to one version, Aristocles was engaged in wrestling, had a large and strong physique, for which the teacher called him Plato. Another version says that the nickname arose because of the ideas and views of the philosopher. There is a third option, according to which Plato had a fairly wide forehead.

Aristocles was born in Athens. His family was considered quite noble and aristocratic, related to the king of Kodra. Almost nothing is known about the boy's father, most likely his name was Ariston. Mother - Periktion - took an active part in the life of Athens. Among the relatives of the future philosopher were the outstanding political figure Solon, the ancient Greek playwright Critias, the orator Andokides.

Plato had one sister and three brothers - two relatives and one half-brother, and none of them was fond of politics. Yes, and Aristocles himself preferred to read books, write poetry, talk with philosophers. His brothers did this too.

The boy received a very good education at that time, which consisted of attending music, gymnastics, literacy, drawing, and literature lessons. In his youth, he began to compose his own tragedies, epigrams, which were dedicated to the gods. Passion for literature did not prevent Plato from taking part in various games, competitions, wrestling tournaments.

Plato's philosophy was greatly influenced by:

• Socrates, who turned the life and worldview of the young man. It was Socrates who gave Plato the confidence that there is truth and high values ​​in life that can give benefits and beauty. These privileges can only be obtained through hard work, self-knowledge and improvement.
• The teachings of the sophists, who argued that there is social inequality, and morality is an invention of the weak, and an aristocratic form of government is best suited for Greece.
• Euclid, around whom Socrates' disciples gathered. For some time they remembered the teacher, experienced his death. It was after moving to Megara that Plato had the idea of ​​traveling around the world, who believed, like his teacher, that wisdom is passed on from other people. And for this you need to travel and communicate.

Travel

Historians have not fully established where Plato first went. It is possible that it was Babylon or Assyria. The sages from these countries gave him knowledge of magic and astronomy. Where the wandering Greek followed, biographers can only speculate. Among the versions - Phenicia, Judea, Egypt, several cities in North Africa, where he met the greatest mathematicians of that time - Theodore and Aristippus. The philosopher took lessons in mathematics from the first, and gradually began to draw closer to the Pythagoreans. Their influence on Plato's philosophy is evidenced by the fact that Plato studied various symbols of the Cosmos and human existence. The Pythagoreans helped make the philosopher's teachings clearer, more rigorous, harmonious, consistent and comprehensive. He then used these principles to examine each subject and create his own theories.

Plato's company on the journey was Eudoxus, who glorified Hellas in the field of astronomy and geography. Together they visited the above countries, and then stopped for a long time in Sicily. From here he followed to Syracuse, where he met the tyrant Dionysius. The trip lasted until 387 BC.

From Syracuse, Plato was forced to flee, fearing the tyrant's persecution. But the Greek did not get home. He was sold into slavery on the island of Aegina, where he was bought by one of the local residents. Plato was immediately released.

After long wanderings, the philosopher again ended up in Athens, where he bought a house with a garden. Previously, there was a pagan sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Athena. According to legend, the area was donated by Theseus to the hero Academ for special merits. He ordered to plant olives here and equip the sanctuary.

Platonic Academy

The inhabitants of Athens quickly began to call the place where Plato lived, the Academy. This name covered gardens, gymnasiums, and groves. In 385 BC, a philosophical school was formed, which existed until the 5th century. AD, i.e. until the end of antiquity.

The academy was shaped like an association of sages who served Apollo and various muses.

The academy was also called the museion, and its founder was called the scholarch. Interestingly, during his lifetime, a successor to Plato was appointed, whom he made his own nephew.

Above the entrance to the Academy there was an inscription "Let the negeometer not enter", which meant that the entrance to the school was closed to everyone who did not respect mathematics and geometry.

The main subjects at the school were astronomy and mathematics, classes took place according to a general and individual system. The first type of classes was suitable for the general public, and the second was only for a rather narrow circle of people who wanted to study philosophy.

The students of the Academy lived in the gymnasium, so they had to follow a strict daily routine established by Plato himself. In the mornings, the students were woken up by the ringing of an alarm clock, which the philosopher made himself. The students lived quite austerely, as the Pythagoreans preached, they all ate together, spent a lot of time in silence, thought, purified their own thoughts.

Classes at the Academy were conducted by Plato, and his students, and graduates of the philosophical school, who successfully completed the course of study. The conversations took place in a garden or a grove, a house where a special exedra was equipped.

Pupils of the Platonic Academy paid special attention to the study of the following sciences:

• Philosophy;
• Mathematics;
• Astronomy;
• Literature;
• Botany;
• Law (including legislation, structure of states);
• Natural science.

Among the disciples of Plato were Lycurgus, Hyperilus, Philip of Opuntus, Demosthenes.

last years of life

When Plato was over 60 years old, he was again invited to Syracuse, where Dionysius the Younger ruled. According to Dion's assurances, the ruler strove to gain new knowledge. Plato managed to convince the tyrant that tyranny was an ineffective form of government. This was recognized by Dionysius the Younger rather quickly.

Because of the gossip and machinations of enemies, Dion was expelled by his ruler from Syracuse, and therefore moved to live in Athens, in the Academy of Plato. An elderly philosopher followed his friend home.

Once again, Plato visited Syracuse, but finally became disillusioned with Dionysius, seeing his treachery towards others. Dion remained in Sicily, who died in 353 BC. The news of the death of a friend severely knocked down the philosopher, he began to constantly get sick and be alone. The year and day of Plato's death have not been precisely determined. It is believed that he died on his birthday. Before his death, he gave freedom to his slave, ordered to draw up a will, according to which a small property of the philosopher was distributed to friends.

The great Greek was buried in the Academy, where the inhabitants of Athens erected a monument to Plato.

Plato's works

Unlike many ancient authors, whose works have reached modern readers in a fragmentary state, Plato's works have been completely preserved. The authenticity of some of them is questioned by biographers, as a result of which the "Platonic question" arose in historiography. The general list of works of the philosopher is:

• 13 letters;
• Apology for Socrates;
• 34 dialogues.

It is because of the dialogues that researchers constantly argue. The best and most famous works in a dialogue form are:

• Phaedo;
• Parmenides;
• Sophist;
• Timaeus;
• State;
• Phaedrus;
• Parmenides.

One of the Pythagoreans, whose name was Thrasillus, who served as an astrologer at the court of the Roman emperor Tiberius, collected and published the works of Plato. The philosopher decided to break all creations into tetralogies, as a result of which Alcibiades the First and Second, Rivals, Protagoras, Gorgias, Lysides, Cratylus, Apology, Crito, Minos, Laws, Post-law, Letters, the State and others appeared.

There are known dialogues that were published under the name of Plato.

The study of the works and works of Plato began as early as the 17th century. The so-called "corpus of Plato's texts" began to be critically studied by scientists who tried to arrange the works according to the chronological principle. Then the suspicion arose that not all works belong to the philosopher.

Most of Plato's works are written in the form of a dialogue, in which court hearings and proceedings were held in Ancient Greece. A similar form, as the Greeks believed, helped to adequately and correctly reflect the emotions, the living speech of a person. Dialogues were best suited to the principles of objective idealism, the concept of which was developed by Plato. Idealism was based on principles such as:

• The primacy of consciousness.
• The predominance of ideas over being.

Plato did not specifically study dialectics, being and cognition, but his reflections on these problems of philosophy are set forth in numerous works. For example, in the "letters of Plato" or in the "State".

Features of the teachings of Plato

• The philosopher studied being based on three basic substances - the soul, the mind and the one. However, he did not give a clear definition of these concepts, so the researchers found that in some places he contradicts himself in the definitions. This is also manifested in the fact that Plato tried to interpret these substances from different points of view. The same was true of the properties that were attributed to concepts - often the properties not only contradicted each other, but were also mutually exclusive, incompatible. Plato interpreted the "One" as the basis of being and reality, considering the substance to be the origin. One has no signs, as well as properties, which prevents, according to Plato, from finding its essence. One is one, without parts, does not relate to being, therefore, it can be attributed to such categories as "nothing", "infinity", "many". As a result, it is difficult to understand what the single is, it cannot be understood, felt, thought about and interpreted.
• The mind was understood by Plato from the point of view of ontology and epistemology. The philosopher believed that this is one of the root causes of everything that happens in the Universe, in heaven or on earth. The mind, according to Plato, should bring order, understanding of the Universe by people who should, from a reasonable point of view, interpret phenomena, stars, the firmament, celestial bodies, living and inanimate. The mind is a rationality that lives its own life, having the ability to live.
• Plato divides the soul into two parts - the world and the individual. The world soul is a real substance, which Plato also did not understand unambiguously. He believed that the substance consists of elements - an eternal and temporary essence. The functions of the soul are the unification of the corporeal and ideas, therefore it arises only when the demiurge wants, i.e. the God.

Thus, Plato's ontology is based on the combination of three ideal substances that exist objectively. They have nothing to do with what a person thinks and does at all.

Cognition occupied a special place in the philosophy of the scientist. Plato believed that you need to know the world through your own knowledge, to love the idea, so he rejected feelings. The source of the present, i.e. true cognition can become cognition, and feelings stimulate the process. You can cognize ideas only through the mind, mind.

The dialectical concept of Plato was constantly changing, which depended on the environment and the views that the Greek professed. The scientist considered dialectics a separate science on which other scientific fields and methods are based. If we consider dialectics as a method, then there will be a division of the one into separate parts, which can then be brought together into a whole. Such an understanding of the single proves once again the inconsistency of Plato's ontological knowledge.

Traveling to different countries had a special influence on the formation of the social philosophy of Plato, who for the first time in all of Greece systematically presented knowledge about human society and the state. Researchers believe that the philosopher identified these concepts.

Among the main ideas that Plato put forward regarding the state, it is worth noting such as:

• People created countries because it was a natural need to unite. The purpose of this form of organization of society was to facilitate the conditions of life, existence, economic activity.
• People sought to fully satisfy their own needs, and therefore began to involve others in solving their own problems.
• The desire to get rid of want is one of the main tools for why people began to create states.
• There is an invisible connection between the human soul, the state and the cosmos, since they have common principles. In the state, you can find three principles that correspond to the principles in the human soul. It is intelligent, lustful, furious, which correlated with deliberative, business and defensive. From the business beginning, three estates arose - philosophers who were rulers, warriors who became defenders, artisans and farmers who played the role of producers.
• If each of the estates correctly performs its functions, then the state can be interpreted as just.

Plato recognized the existence of only three forms of government - democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. The first he discarded, because the democratic regime of Athens killed Socrates, who was the teacher of the philosopher.

Because of this, Plato until the end of his life tried to develop a concept of what the state and political system should be. He built his reflections in the form of dialogues with Socrates, with which the "Laws" were written. These works were never completed by Plato.

At the same time, the philosopher tried to find an image of a just person who, due to democracy, will have perverted ideas and mind. You can get rid of democracy only with the help of philosophers, whom the scientist considered to be true and right-thinking people. Therefore, he believed that philosophers are obliged to occupy only the highest positions in the state, to govern others.

Consideration of issues related to the state, the structure of the country, the development of the political system, Plato devoted his large work "State". Some ideas can be found in The Politician and The Gorgias. It also outlines the concept of how you can educate a real citizen. This can be done only if the society is of a class, which will create the correct system for the distribution of material wealth. The state should be taken care of by its residents, who are not engaged in commerce and do not own private property.

But the cosmological teachings of Plato, who understood the Cosmos and the Universe as a ball, deserve special attention. It was created, therefore it is finite. The cosmos was created by the demiurge, who brought order to the world. The world has its own soul, because is a living being. The disposition of the soul is interesting. It is not inside the world, but envelops it. The world soul is made up of such important elements as air, earth, water and fire. Plato considered these elements to be the main ones in the creation of a world in which there is both harmony and relationships expressed in numbers. Such a soul has its own knowledge. The world created by the creator contributes to the appearance of many circles - stars (they are not fixed) and planets.

Plato thought of the structure of the world as follows:

• At the very top was the mind, i.e. demiurge.
• Under it was the world soul and the world body, which is usually called the Cosmos.

All living things are the creation of God, who creates people with souls. The latter, after the death of their owners, move into new bodies. The soul is immaterial, immortal, and therefore will exist forever. Each soul creates a demiurge only once. As soon as she leaves the body, she enters the so-called world of ideas, where the soul is carried by a chariot with horses. One of them is a symbol of evil, and the second is purity and clarity. Due to the fact that evil pulls the chariot down, it falls, and the soul again falls into the physical body.

Plato's soul, like everything else, has a certain structure. In particular, it consists of lust, judgment and fervor. This allows a person to think, especially in the process of comprehending and knowing the truth. The consequence of this is that a person gradually, through internal dialogues, solves his own problems, contradictions, finds the truth. Objectivity cannot be found without such a logical connection. Plato's philosophy says that human thinking has its own dialectic, which allows you to comprehend the essence of things.

The ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher were able to develop further only the thinkers of the 19th century, who brought dialectics to a new level. But its foundations were laid in ancient Greece.

Ideas and philosophy of Plato developed after his death, penetrating into medieval and Muslim philosophical thought.

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Social psychology, as you saw in the classification of branches of social science, belongs to the group of psychological sciences. Psychology studies the patterns, features of the development and functioning of the psyche. And its branch - social psychology - studies the patterns of behavior and activities of people, due to the fact of their inclusion in social groups, as well as the psychological characteristics of these groups themselves. In its research, social psychology is closely related, on the one hand, with general psychology, and on the other, with sociology. But it is she who studies such issues as the patterns of formation, functioning and development of socio-psychological phenomena, processes and conditions, the subjects of which are individuals and social communities; socialization of the individual; personality activity in groups; interpersonal relationships in groups; the nature of joint activities of people in groups, forms Social psychology helps to solve many practical problems: improving the psychological climate in production, research, educational teams; optimizing the relationship between managers and managers; perception of information and advertising;

family relationships, etc.

SPECIFICITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

"What do philosophers do when they work?" - wondered the English scientist B. Russell. The answer to a simple question allows us to determine both the features of the process of philosophizing and the originality of its result. Russell answers as follows: a philosopher first of all reflects on mysterious or eternal problems: what is the meaning of life and is there any? Does the world have a purpose, does historical development lead somewhere? Are nature really governed by laws, or do we just like to see some kind of order in everything?

Is the world divided into two fundamentally different parts - spirit and matter, and if so, then how the German philosopher I. Kant formulated the main philosophical problems: what can I know? What can I believe in? What dare I hope for? What is man?

Human thought put such questions long ago, they retain their significance today, therefore, with full justification, they can be attributed to the eternal problems of philosophy. In each historical epoch, philosophers formulate these questions and answer differently. They need to know what other thinkers thought about it at other times. The appeal of philosophy to its history is of particular importance. The philosopher is in continuous mental dialogue with his predecessors, critically comprehending their creative heritage from the standpoint of their time, proposing new approaches and solutions.

“Philosophy cognizes being from man and through man, in man sees the clue to the meaning, while science cognizes being, as it were, outside of man, detached from man. Therefore, for philosophy, being is spirit, for science, being is nature. "

The new philosophical systems being created do not cancel the previously advanced concepts and principles, but continue to coexist with them in a single cultural and cognitive space, therefore philosophy is always pluralistic, diverse in its schools and directions. Some even argue that there are as many truths in philosophy as there are philosophers.

The situation is different with science. In most cases, she solves the pressing problems of her time. Although the history of the development of scientific thought is also important and instructive, it does not have as great importance for a scientist investigating an actual problem as the ideas of predecessors for a philosopher. The provisions established and substantiated by science take on the character of objective truth: mathematical formulas, laws of motion, mechanisms of heredity, etc. They are valid for any society, do not depend "on either man or mankind." What is the norm for philosophy - the coexistence and a certain opposition of various approaches, doctrines, for science - is a special case of the development of science, which belongs to a still insufficiently explored field: there we see and there is also an important difference between philosophy and science - methods of working out problems. As B. Russell noted, one cannot get an answer to philosophical questions through laboratory experience. Philosophizing is a kind of speculative activity. Although in most cases philosophers build their reasoning on a rational basis, strive for the logical validity of conclusions, they also use special methods of argumentation that go beyond formal logic: they reveal the opposite sides of the whole, turn to paradoxes (when, with logical reasoning, they arrive at an absurd result), aporias (unsolvable problems). Such methods and techniques allow many concepts used by philosophy are extremely generalized, abstract in nature. This is due to the fact that they cover a very wide range of phenomena, therefore they have very few common features inherent in each of them. Such extremely broad philosophical concepts covering a huge class of phenomena include the categories of "being", "consciousness", "activity", "society", "cognition", etc.

Thus, there are many differences between philosophy and science. On this basis, many researchers consider philosophy as a very special way of comprehending the world.

However, one should not lose sight of the fact that philosophical knowledge is multi-layered: in addition to the indicated issues, which can be attributed to value, existential (from lat.

existentia - existence) and which can hardly be comprehended scientifically, philosophy also studies a number of other problems, which are no longer oriented towards what should be, but towards existence. Within philosophy, relatively independent areas of knowledge have formed quite a long time ago:

the doctrine of being - ontology; the doctrine of knowledge - epistemology; moral science - ethics;

a science that studies what is beautiful in reality, the laws of the development of art, is aesthetics.

Please note: in a brief description of these areas of knowledge, we used the concept of "science". This is no coincidence. The analysis of issues related to these sections of philosophy, most often goes in the logic of scientific knowledge and can be assessed from the standpoint. Philosophical knowledge includes such important areas for understanding society and man as philosophical anthropology - the doctrine of the essence and nature of man, about a specifically human way of being as well as social philosophy.

HOW PHILOSOPHY HELPS TO UNDERSTAND SOCIETY

The subject of social philosophy is the joint activity of people in society.

An important science for the study of society is sociology. History makes its generalizations and conclusions about the social structure and forms of human social behavior. Let us consider this using the example of socialization - the assimilation of the values ​​and cultural models developed by society by a person. The sociologist will focus on those factors (social institutions, social groups), under the influence of which the process of socialization is carried out in modern society. The sociologist will consider the role of the family, education, the influence of peer groups, the media in the acquisition of values ​​and norms by a person. The historian is interested in the real processes of socialization in a particular society of a particular historical era. He will look for answers to such, for example, questions: what values ​​were instilled in a child in a West European peasant family of the 18th century? What and how were children taught in the Russian pre-revolutionary gymnasium? Etc.

But what about a social philosopher? His focus will be on more general problems:

Why is society necessary and what does the process of socialization give to the individual? What are its components with all the diversity of forms and types are stable, i.e.

reproduced in any society? How does a certain imposition of social attitudes and priorities on the individual correlate with respect for his inner freedom? In what we see that social philosophy is directed to the analysis of the most general, stable characteristics; it puts the phenomenon in a broader social context (personal freedom and its boundaries); gravitates towards value-based approaches.

"The problem of social philosophy is the question of what society actually is, what meaning does it have in human life, what is its true being and what it obliges us to do."

Social philosophy makes its full-fledged contribution to the development of a wide range of problems: society as an integrity (the relationship between society and nature); laws of social development (what they are, how they are manifested in social life, how they differ from the laws of nature); the structure of society as a system (what are the grounds for identifying the main components and subsystems of society, what types of connections and interactions ensure the integrity of society); the meaning, direction and resources of social development (how stability and variability in social development correlate, what are its main sources, what is the direction of social and historical development, what is the expression of social progress and what are its boundaries); the ratio of the spiritual and material sides of the life of society (which serves as the basis for highlighting these sides, how they interact, can one of them be considered decisive); man as a subject of social action (differences between human activity and animal behavior, consciousness as a regulator of activity);

Basic concepts: social sciences, social and humanitarian knowledge, sociology as a science, political science as a science, social psychology as a science, philosophy.

Terms: subject of science, philosophical pluralism, speculative activity.

Test yourself 1) What are the most significant differences between social sciences and natural sciences? 2) Give examples of different classifications of scientific knowledge. What is their basis? 3) What are the main groups of social sciences and humanities, allocated on the subject of research. 4) What is the subject of sociology? Describe the levels of sociological knowledge. 5) What does political science study? 6) How is the connection of social psychology expressed? 8) What problems and why are they referred to the eternal questions of philosophy? 9) How is the pluralism of philosophical thought expressed? 10) What are the main sections of philosophical knowledge?

11) Show the role of social philosophy in comprehending society.

Think, discuss, do “If the sciences in their fields have received convincingly reliable and generally recognized knowledge, then philosophy has not achieved this, despite its efforts over the millennia.

It must be admitted: in philosophy there is no unanimity regarding what is finally cognized ... The fact that any image of philosophy does not enjoy unanimous recognition follows from its nature “The history of philosophy shows ... that seemingly different philosophical doctrines represent only one philosophy at its various stages development "(G. Hegel).

Which one seems more convincing to you? Why? How do you understand Jaspers' words that the lack of unanimity in philosophy "stems from the nature of its deeds"?

2. One well-known position of Plato is conveyed as follows: "The misfortunes of mankind will end no earlier than the rulers philosophize or philosophers rule ..."

Explain your answer. Remember the history of the origin and development of scientific knowledge and think about what Plato could have meant by the word "philosophy."

Work with the source Read an excerpt from V. Ye. Kemerov's book.

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PLATO(Πλάτων) Athenian (427–347 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher. The first philosopher whose writings have come down to us not in short passages quoted by others, but in full.

LIFE. Plato's father Ariston, descended from the family of the last Athenian king Codri and the Athenian legislator Solon, died early. Mother - Periktion, also from the family of Solon, a cousin of one of the 30 Athenian tyrants of Cretius, remarried to Pirilampus, a friend of Pericles, a rich man and a famous politician. The third son of Ariston and Periktion, Aristocles, received the nickname "Plato" ("wide") from his gymnastics teacher for the width of his shoulders. The nobility and influence of the family, as well as his own temperament, disposed Plato to political activity. Information about his youth is unverifiable; he is said to have written tragedies, comedies and praises; studied philosophy with Cratilus, a follower of Heraclitus. It is certain that from 407 BC. he finds himself among the listeners Socrates ; according to legend, when he first heard Socrates, Plato burned everything he had written so far and abandoned his political career, deciding to devote himself entirely to philosophy.

The execution of Socrates in 399 shocked Plato. He left Athens for ten years and traveled to southern Italy, Sicily, probably also to Egypt. During this trip, he got acquainted with the teachings of Pythagoras and the structure of the Pythagorean Union, made friends with Architom of Tarentum and the Syracusan Dion and experienced the first disappointment from communication with the tyrant of Syracuse Dionysius I: in response to Plato's instructions on how to build the best state, Dionysius sold the philosopher into slavery. Redeemed by friends, Plato, upon his return to Athens (c. 388–385), organized his own school, or rather a community of those wishing to lead a philosophical lifestyle, modeled on the Pythagorean ones. Legally, the school of Plato ( Academy ) was a cult union of the guardians of the sacred grove of the hero of the Academy, admirers of Apollo and the muses; almost immediately it became the center of philosophical research and education. In an effort not to limit himself to theory and teaching, but to put the found philosophical truth into practice and build a correct state, Plato twice more (in 366 and 361, after the death of Dionysius I) went to Sicily at the invitation of his friend and admirer Dion. Both trips ended in bitter disappointment for him.

COMPOSITIONS. Almost everything that Plato wrote has survived. Only from his lecture on the good, first published by his disciples, only fragments have come down to us. The classic edition of his works - Corpus Platonicum, including 9 tetralogies and an appendix - is customary to build up to Trasilla , Alexandrian Platonist, astrologer, friend of the Emperor Tiberius. The appendix included "Definitions" and 6 very short dialogues, which in antiquity were already considered not belonging to Plato, as well as a short conclusion to the "Laws" - "Post-Law", written by a student of Plato By Philip of Opuntsky ... The 36 works included in the tetralogy (with the exception of the Apology of Socrates and 13 letters are dialogues) were considered genuinely Platonic until the 19th century, before the beginning of scientific criticism of texts. By now, the dialogues "Alcibiades II", "Gigsharh", "Rivals", "Feag", "Clitophon", "Minos" and letters, with the exception of the 6th and 7th, have been recognized as not genuine. The authenticity of "Hippias the Greater" and "Hippias the Lesser", "Alcibiades I" and "Menexenus" is also disputed, although most critics already recognize them as Platonic.

CHRONOLOGY. The tetralogies of the Platonic corpus were organized strictly systematically; the chronology of Plato's work is the subject of interest in the 19th and 20th centuries, with their focus on genetics, not systematics, and the fruit of the reconstruction of modern scientists. With the help of an analysis of the realities, style, vocabulary and content of the dialogues, their more or less reliable sequence was established (it cannot be completely unambiguous, because Plato could write several dialogues at the same time, leaving one, take on others and return to the ones begun after years).

The earliest of all, under the direct influence of Socrates or the memory of him (probably immediately after 399), were written the Socratic dialogues "Crito", "Ion", "Euthyphron", "Laches" and "Lysias"; adjoins them "Charmid", in which approaches to the construction of the doctrine of ideas are outlined. Apparently, a little later, a series of dialogues directed against sophistry was written: "Euthydemus", "Protagoras" and the most important of them - "Gorgias". "Cratila" and "Meno" should be attributed to the same period, although their content goes beyond the framework of antisophistic polemics. "Cratil" describes and substantiates the coexistence of two areas: the area of ​​visible things, continuously changing and fluid - according to Heraclitus , and the area of ​​eternal self-identical being - according to Parmenides ... "Menon" proves that knowledge is the remembering of the truth contemplated by the soul before birth. The next group of dialogues represents the actual doctrine of ideas: "Phaedo" , "Phaedrus" and "Feast" ... In the same period of the highest flowering of Plato's creativity, it was written "State" (probably the first book considering the idea of ​​justice was written several years earlier than the next nine, where, in addition to political philosophy proper, there is a final review and a diagram of the doctrine of ideas in general). At the same time, or somewhat later, Plato turns to the problem of knowledge and criticism of his own theory of ideas: "Teetetus", "Parmenides" , "Sophist" , "Politician". Two important late dialogues "Timaeus" and Fileb marked by the influence of Pythagorean philosophy. And finally, at the end of his life, Plato devotes himself entirely to working on "Laws" .

TEACHING. The core of Plato's philosophy is the doctrine of ideas. Its essence is briefly and graphically presented in Book VI of "States" in "comparison with a line": "Take a line divided into two unequal segments. Each such segment, that is, the area of ​​the visible and the area of ​​the intelligible, was divided again in the same way ... ”(509d). The smaller of the two line segments, the area of ​​sensibly perceived things, in turn is divided into two classes "on the basis of greater or lesser clarity": in the larger class "you will place the living creatures around us, all types of plants, as well as everything that is made "; in the smaller one there will be “images - shadows and reflections in water and in dense, smooth and glossy objects”. Just as shadows relate to real beings casting them, so the entire area of ​​the sensuously perceived as a whole relates to intelligible things: an idea is just as real and more alive than a visible thing, as a thing is more authentic than its shadow; and to the same extent the idea is the source of being of an empirical thing. Further, the realm of intelligible being itself is divided into two classes according to the degree of reality: the larger class is truly existing, eternal ideas, comprehensible only by the mind, without preconditions and intuitively; the smaller class is the subject of discursive prerequisite knowledge, primarily of the mathematical sciences - these are numbers and geometric objects. The presence (παρουσία) of a genuine intelligible being makes possible the existence of all the lower classes, existing due to the participation (μέθεξις) of the higher. Finally, the intelligible cosmos (κόσμος νοητός), the only true reality, possesses being due to the highest transcendental principle, which is called God, in the "State" - the idea of ​​good or Good as such, in Parmenides - United ... This beginning is above being, on the other side of all that exists; therefore it is ineffable, inconceivable and unknowable; but without it, no being is possible, for in order to be, every thing must be itself, be something one and one. However, the principle of unity, simply one as such, cannot exist, because with the addition of the predicate of being to it, it will already become two, i.e. a lot. Consequently, the one is the source of all being, but itself on the other side of being, and reasoning about it can only be apophatic, negative. The dialogue "Parmenides" provides an example of such a negative dialectic of the one. The transcendental first principle is called good because for every thing and every being, the highest good consists in being and being oneself in the highest and perfect degree.

The transcendental divine principle, according to Plato, is inconceivable and unknowable; but the empirical world is also unknowable, the area of ​​“becoming” (γένεσις), where everything arises and perishes, forever changing and not for a moment remaining identical with itself. Faithful to the Parmenidean thesis “thinking and being are one and the same”, Plato recognizes as accessible to understanding and science - “intelligible” - only truly existing, unchanging and eternal. “We must distinguish between two things: what is eternal, non-arising being, and what is always arising, but never existing. That which is comprehended with the help of reflection and reasoning is obvious and is an eternally identical being; and that which is subject to opinion and unreasonable sensation arises and perishes, but never really exists "(Timaeus, 27d – 28a). In every thing the idea (εἶδος) is eternal and unchanging, the shadow or reflection of which the thing is. It is the subject of philosophy. In "Fileba" this is said in the language of the Pythagoreans: there are two opposite principles of all things - "limit" and "limitless" (they approximately correspond to the "one" and "other" of "Parmenides"); by themselves, both are unknowable and do not possess being; the subject of study of philosophy and any special science is that which consists of both, i.e. "Definite".

What in the Pythagorean-Platonic language is called “infinite” (ἄπειρον) and what Aristotle later called “potential infinity” constitutes the principle of a continuum in which there are no clear boundaries and one gradually and imperceptibly passes into the other. For Plato, there is not only a spatial and temporal continuum, but, so to speak, an ontological continuum: in the empirical world of becoming, all things are in a state of continuous transition from non-being to being and back. Along with “unlimited”, Plato uses the term “large and small” in the same sense: there are things, such as color, size, warmth (cold), hardness (softness), etc., which allow the gradation “more or less "; and there are things of a different order that do not allow such a gradation, for example, one cannot be more or less equal or unequal, more or less a point, a four or a triangle. These latter are discrete, definite, identical to themselves; these are ideas, or truly being. On the contrary, everything that exists in a "greater and lesser" degree, fluid and indefinite, on the one hand, is dependent and relative, on the other: so, it is impossible to say for sure whether a boy is big or small, because, firstly, he is growing, and secondly, it depends on the point of view and on who he is being compared to. "Big and small" is what Plato calls the principle by virtue of which the empirical material world differs from its prototype - the ideal world; Plato's pupil Aristotle will call this principle matter. Another distinguishing feature of the Platonic idea, in addition to certainty (discreteness), is simplicity. The idea is unchanging, therefore, eternal. Why are empirical things perishable? - Because they are difficult. Destruction and destruction is decomposition into its component parts. Therefore, that which has no parts is incorruptible. The soul is immortal because it is simple and has no parts; of all that is accessible to our imagination, the geometric point, simple and inextensive, is closest to the soul. Even closer is the arithmetic number, although both are just illustrations. The soul is an idea, and an idea is inaccessible to either imagination or discursive reasoning.

Moreover, ideas are values. Most often, especially in early Socratic dialogues, Plato considers such ideas as beauty (or "beautiful in itself"), justice ("just as such"), prudence, piety, courage, virtue. Indeed, if ideas are genuine being, and the source of being is good, then the more real something is, the better it is, the higher it is in the hierarchy of values. Here the influence of Socrates is found in the doctrine of ideas; at this point it differs from the Pythagorean doctrine of principles-opposites. In later dialogues, Plato gives examples of ideas from Pythagorean mathematical metaphysics: three, triangle, even, equal, similar in itself. But even these seemingly non-value concepts for him are value-defined: equal and similar are beautiful and perfect, inequality and inappropriateness are disgusting and nasty (cf. Politician, 273a – e: the world is degenerating, “plunging into an endless quagmire of inappropriateness”). Measure and frontier are beautiful, useful and pious, infinity is bad and disgusting. Although Plato (the first of the Greek philosophers) began to distinguish between theoretical and practical philosophy, his own ontology is at the same time a doctrine of values, and ethics is ontological through and through. Moreover, Plato did not want to regard his entire philosophy as a purely speculative occupation; to know the good (the only thing that deserves knowledge and is knowable) meant for him to put it into practice; the purpose of a true philosopher is to govern the state in accordance with the highest divine law of the universe (this law manifests itself in the movement of the luminaries, so a wise politician should first of all study astronomy - Post-Law 990a).

As a value and good, Plato's idea is an object of love (ἔρως). True love is only for an idea. Since the soul is an idea, then a person loves the soul in another person, and the body only insofar as it is enlightened by a beautiful rational soul. Love only for the body is inauthentic; it brings neither good nor joy; it is delusion, the error of a dark soul blinded by lust, which is the opposite of love. Love - eros - is striving; the aspiration of the soul to the homeland, to the eternal realm of being, beautiful as such; therefore, here the soul strives to everything in which it sees the reflection of that beautiful (Pir, 201d – 212a). Subsequently, Aristotle, a disciple of Plato, God - "perpetual motion machine" - will move the world precisely with love, for everything that exists lovingly strives for the source of its being.

From a logical point of view, an idea is that which answers the question "What is this?" in relation to any thing, its essence, logical form (εἶδος). Here Plato also follows the teachings of Socrates, and it was this aspect of the theory of ideas that was most vulnerable to criticism from the very beginning. In the first part of the dialogue "Parmenides" Plato himself gives the main arguments against the interpretation of ideas as general concepts that exist independently and separately from the things involved in them. If in "Phaedo", "Phaedra", "Feast" ideas are considered as completely transcendental to the empirical world, and in the "State" the highest Good is also called an "idea", then in "Parmenides" as a true transcendence, the One is introduced, which stands above and according to that side of all being, including the true, i.e. ideas. After Parmenides, in the dialogue The Sophist, Plato criticizes both materialistic immanentism and his own theory of the separation of ideas (χωρισμός) and tries to present ideas in the form of a system of categories - five “greatest kinds”: being, identity, difference, rest and movement. Later, in Timaeus and Fileba, Pythagorean principles are already used as examples of ideas - mainly mathematical objects, and not general concepts, as in early dialogues, and the term “idea” itself gives way to such synonyms as “being” , "Truly existing", "sample" and "intelligible cosmos."

In addition to certainty, simplicity, eternity and value, the Platonic idea is distinguished by cognizability. Following Parmenides and the Eleatics, Plato distinguishes between knowledge proper (ἐπιστήμη) and opinion (δόξα). We form an opinion on the basis of sensory perception data, which experience transforms into representations, and our thinking ( dianoia ), abstracting and generalizing ideas, comparing concepts and drawing conclusions, turns them into an opinion. The opinion can be true or false; can refer to things that are empirical or intelligible. Concerning empirical things, only opinion is possible. Knowledge is not based on sensory data, it is not false, it cannot relate to empiricism. Unlike opinion, knowledge is not the result of a cognitive process: we can only know what we have always known. Consequently, knowledge is not the fruit of a discussion, but of a one-moment (more precisely, timeless) contemplation (θεωρία). Before our birth, before incarnation, our winged soul, whose mental gaze was not clouded by the body, saw true being, participating in the round dance of the inhabitants of heaven (Phaedrus). The birth of a person, from the point of view of knowledge, is oblivion of everything that the soul knew. The purpose and meaning of human life is to remember what the soul knew before falling to the ground (therefore, the true meaning of life and the salvation of the soul are found in the pursuit of philosophy). Then, after death, the soul will return not to a new earthly body, but to its own star. Knowledge is precisely recollection ( anamnesis ). The path to it is purification (must cleanse the eyes of the soul from the mud and dirt introduced by the body, primarily by carnal passions and lusts), as well as exercise, asceticism (classes in geometry, arithmetic and dialectics; abstinence in food, drink and love pleasures). The proof that knowledge is recall is given in Meno: a slave boy who never learned anything is able to understand and prove the difficult theorem on doubling the area of ​​a square. To know is to see, and the subject of knowledge is not accidentally called a "species", an idea (εἶδος). Moreover, in order to know something, one must be identical with the object of knowledge: the soul itself is an idea, therefore it can know ideas (if it is freed from the body). In later dialogues (Sophist, Timaeus), what the soul sees and knows ideas is called the mind ( nous ). This Platonic mind is not so much a subject as an object of knowledge: it is an "intelligible world", the totality of all ideas, an integral reality. As a subject, the same mind acts not as a knower, but as a doer; he is the creator of our empirical world, Demiurge (in Timaeus). With regard to knowledge, Plato's subject and object are indistinguishable: knowledge is true only when the knower and the knowable are one.

METHOD. Since knowledge for Plato is not the sum of information external to the knower and acquired, insofar as the learning process is, first of all, education and exercise. Platonic Socrates calls his method of influencing interlocutors maieutics , i.e. obstetric art: as his mother was a midwife, so Socrates himself is engaged in the same craft, only he takes birth not from women, but from young men, helping to give birth not to a person, but to thought and wisdom. His calling is to find young men whose souls are pregnant with knowledge, and to help them bear and give birth to a child, and then determine what was born - a false ghost or truth (Teetetus 148-151). Ghosts that are born one after the other - false opinions about the subject of research - should be destroyed one by one, making room for the true fruit. All early Platonic - Socratic - dialogues are maieutic in nature: they refute incorrect interpretations of the subject, and the correct interpretation is not given, because the listener of Socrates and the reader of Plato must give birth to it himself. Thus, most of Plato's dialogues are aporias without an unambiguous conclusion. The very paradox and aporeticism should have a beneficial effect on the reader, awakening in him bewilderment and surprise - "the beginning of philosophy." In addition, as Plato writes already in the late 7th letter, knowledge itself cannot be expressed in words (“what is composed of nouns and verbs is not reliable enough”, 343b). “For each of the existing objects there are three steps, with the help of which it is necessary to form its cognition; the fourth step is knowledge itself, while the fifth should consider that which is cognized by itself and is genuine being ”(342b). Words and imagination are good only in the first three stages; discursive thinking is enough only up to the fourth. That is why Plato did not set himself the task of giving a systematic presentation of philosophy - it could only mislead, creating the illusion of knowledge in the reader. That is why the main form of his writings is a dialogue in which different points of view collide, refuting and clearing each other, but the final judgment on the subject is not pronounced. The exception is Timaeus, which offers a relatively systematic and dogmatic collection of Plato's doctrine of God and the world; however, at the very beginning, a warning is given that this composition should in no case be made the property of the uninitiated, for it will do them nothing but harm - temptation and delusion. In addition, the entire narrative is repeatedly called “believable myth”, “true legend” and “probable word”, because “we are only people”, and cannot express or perceive the ultimate truth from words (29c). In the dialogues "Sophist" and "Politician" Plato tries to develop a new method of research - dichotomous division of concepts; this method did not take root either among Plato himself or among his followers as it was not entirely fruitful.

PLATO AND PLATONISM. From antiquity to the Renaissance, simply the Philosopher, without specifying the name, was not called Plato, but Aristotle (as Homer was simply called the Poet). Plato has always been called "divine" or "the god of philosophers" (Cicero). All subsequent European philosophy borrowed terminology and method from Aristotle. From Plato - most of the problematic, which remained invariably relevant, at least up to Kant. However, after Kant, Schelling and Hegel revived Platonism again. For ancient authors, the word of Plato is divine, because he, like an oracle or a prophet, sees and speaks the truth by inspiration; but just like the oracle, he speaks in a dark and ambiguous way, and his words can be interpreted in different ways.

In the era of Hellenism and late antiquity, the two most influential branches of philosophy were platonism and stoicism. Since the time of Max Weber, ancient philosophy - precisely of the Platonic or Stoic sense - has often been classified as a "religion of salvation", putting it on a par with Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. And this is true: for the Platonist and Stoic, philosophy was not an autonomous science among other specialized sciences, but knowledge as such, and knowledge was considered as the meaning, goal and condition of man's salvation from suffering and death. The cognizing part of the soul - the mind - is the "main thing" for the Stoics, for the Platonists it is the only primordial and immortal in man. Reason is the basis of both virtue and happiness. Philosophy and its crown - wisdom - is a way of life and an arrangement of a person striving for perfection or having achieved it. According to Plato, philosophy also determines the afterlife fate of man: for thousands of years he is destined to reincarnate again and again for the suffering of earthly life, until he masters philosophy; only then, having freed itself from the body, the soul will return to its homeland, to the area of ​​eternal bliss, merging with the soul of the world ("State", book X). It was the religious component of the teachings that led to the constant revival of interest in Plato and in Stoya in European thought up to the present day. The dominant of this religious component can be schematically designated as dualism among the Platonists and pantheism among the Stoics. No matter how much the metaphysics of Plato, Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus, Proclus, medieval realists and neo-Platonists of the Renaissance may differ, the fundamental for them remains the separation of two worlds: the empirical and the ideal, intelligible. All of them recognize the immortality of the soul (in its rational part) and see the meaning of life and salvation in liberation from the bonds of the body and the world. Almost all of them profess a transcendental Creator God and consider the highest type of knowledge to be intellectual intuition. On the basis of a single criterion - the dualistic position of two substances irreducible to each other - Leibniz classified Descartes as a Platonist and criticized him for "Platonism."

The attitude of Christian thinkers to Platonism was rather complicated. On the one hand, of all the pagan philosophers, Plato, as Augustine put it, is the closest to Christianity. Already from the 2nd century. Christian authors repeat the tradition of how Plato, while traveling through Egypt, got acquainted with the Moses Book of Genesis and copied his Timaeus from it, for the doctrine of an all-good, omnipotent and omniscient God, who created the world solely because of his goodness, could not live without revelations from above arise in a pagan head. On the other hand, many key points of Platonism were unacceptable for Christianity: first of all, dualism, as well as the doctrine of the pre-existence of ideas in the mind of the Creator and of the pre-existence and transmigration of the soul. It was against the Platonists that he spoke out already in the 2nd century. Tatian , arguing that "the soul itself is not immortal, Greeks, but mortal ... By itself, it is nothing but darkness, and there is nothing light in it" (Speech against the Hellenes, 13). Condemned for Platonism in the 4th century. teaching Origen ... Augustine, who thought in the spirit of dualism for most of his life under the influence of the Manichaeans and Plato and Plotina, in the end sharply breaks with this tradition, finding it seductive and contrary to Christianity, condemns the fascination with knowledge and philosophy, calling for humility and obedience without arrogance. For the "Platonic heresy" he was convicted in the 12th century. Church John Ital , and later fights against the humanist Platonists of the Renaissance, relying on Aristotle, Gregory Palamas .

The first and most fundamental criticism of Platonism was made by a student of Plato himself, Aristotle. He criticizes Plato precisely for dualism - the doctrine of the separate existence of ideas, as well as for the Pythagorean mathematization of natural science - the doctrine of numbers as the first true and knowable structure of the empirical world. In the exposition of Aristotle, Platonism appears as a radically dualistic doctrine, much closer to the philosophy of the Pythagoreans than can be seen from Plato's own dialogues. Aristotle sets out a complete dogmatic system, which is not in the texts of Plato, but it is precisely such a system that will then be taken as the basis of metaphysics. neoplatonism ... This circumstance led some researchers to assume that, in addition to written dialogues intended for a wide range of readers, Plato disseminated in a narrow esoteric circle the "unwritten teaching" for initiates day). Of the written dialogues, Timaeus has always attracted the greatest interest, being considered the quintessence of Platonic creativity. According to Whitehead ( Whitehead A.N. Process and Realty. N. Y, 1929, p. 142 sqq.), The entire history of European philosophy can be regarded as a lengthy commentary on the Timaeus.

Compositions:

1. Platonis dialogi secundum Thrasylli tetralogies, t. I – VI, rec. C.F. Hermanni. Lipsiae, 1902-1910;

2. Platonis opera, vol. 1-5, ed. J. Burnet. Oxf. 1900-1907;

3.in Russian. per .: Works of Plato, translated and explained by prof. [VN] Karpov, vols. 1–6. M., 1863–79;

4. Complete collection of works of Plato, trans. ed. S.A. Zhebeleva, L.P. Karsavina, E.L. Radlova, vol. 1, 4, 5, 9, 13-14. Pg. / L., 1922–29;

5. Works, ed. A.F.Losev, V.F.Asmus, A.A. Taho-Godi, vol. 1–3 (2). Moscow, 1968–72 (reprinted: Collected works, vols. 1–4. Moscow, 1990–95).

Literature:

1. Asmus V.F. Plato, 2nd ed. M., 1975;

2. Losev A.F. History of ancient aesthetics. Sophists. Socrates. Plato. M., 1969;

3. Losev A.F.,Takho-Godi A.A. Plato. Aristotle. M., 1993;

4. Plato and his era, collection of works. Art. M., 1979;

5. T.V. Vasilieva The Athenian School of Philosophy. The philosophical language of Plato and Aristotle. M., 1985;

6. She's the same. Written and unwritten philosophy of Plato. - In collection: Materials for the historiography of ancient and medieval philosophy. M., 1990;

7. She's the same. The path to Plato. M., 1999;

9. Mochalova I.N. Criticism of the theory of ideas in the Early Academy. - On Sat. ΑΚΑΔΗΜΕΙΑ: Materials and research on the history of Platonism. SPb., 1997, p. 97-116;

10. Natorp R. Platon's Ideenlehre, 1903;

11. Robin L. La théorie platonicienne des idées et de nombres d'après Aristote. P., 1908;

12. Cherniss H. Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy. Baltimore, 1944;

13. Wilamowitz-Moel-lendorff U. v. Plato. Sein Leben und seine Werke. B. - Fr. / M., 1948;

14. Friedländer P. Platon, Bd. 1-3. B.–N. Y. 1958–69;

15. Krämer H.J. Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik, 1964;

16. Allen R.E.(ed.). Studies in Plato's Metaphysics. L., 1965;

17. Gadamer H.G. Piatos dialektische Ethik. Hamb. 1968;

18. Gaiser K. Platon's Ungeschriebene Lehre. Stuttg. 1968;

19. Guthrie W. K.S. A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4-5. Cambr. 1975–78;

20. Vlastos G. Platonic Studies. Princeton, 1981;

21. Thesleff H. Studies in Platonic Chronology. Helsinki, 1982;

22. Wyller E.A. Der späte Platon. Hamb. 1970;

23. Tigerstedt Ε.Ν. Interpreting Plato. Stokholm, 1977;

24. Sayre Κ.Μ. Plato's Later Ontology. Princeton, 1983;

25. Ledger G.R. Recounting Plato. A Computer Analysis of Plato's Style. Oxf. 1989;

26. Thesleff H. Studies in Plato's Chronology. Helsinki, 1982;

27. Brandwood L. The Chronology of Plato's Dialogues. Cambr. 1990;

28. Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues, ed. by J.C. Klagge and N.D. Smith. Oxf. 1992;

29. Kraut R.(ed.). Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambr. 1992;

30. Chappel T. The Plato Reader. Edinburg, 1996.

Bibliography:

1. Platon 1990-1995, "Lustrum" 40, 1998.

Dictionaries:

1. Ast Fr. Lexicon Platonicum, sive Vocum Platonicum Index. Lpz., 1835–38 (repr. Darmstadt, 1956);

2. Brandwood L. A Word Index to Plato. Leeds, 1976.