Plato's "The Republic"

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So I just finished Plato's "The Republic" this evening, and found it fascinating. I read it for a philosophy course I am taking, and had never read a philosophy text in its entirety. This was not the best-developed argument on human nature I have ever read, but I give the ancient Greeks a lot of respect for thinking of what they did. I am in shock of how sophisticated the metaphor of "Plato's cave" was, despite the limits of ancient technology.

Anyone else read it?

I have read parts and have been impressed with and dismayed at the cave metaphor which has been a burden to philosophy for too many centuries. Plato's assumption that the abstractions that the human mind makes from the impressions of the senses represents a reality that is superior to the raucous influx that we each partake of in trying to make sense of the universe is unfortunate and has been a burden to getting some sort of grasp of reality which is malleable to data input arriving continuously and must be integrated in novel ways to make it useful.

(On re-reading that monstrous sentence I have to apologize. The thought is OK but the sentence construction is frightful.)

Last edited by Sand on 18 Jan 2010, 5:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think Platos ideas of marriage reform were very interesting, and especially so in how they went so much against the current culture.

Just remember that he does not reflect ancient Greek thinking, just his own (the masses were very oposed to philosophy and killed Socrates).

I think Plato was much better than Aristotle who tended to zenophobia but Socrates will always be my favourite

I think its very interesting thinking about the times the things were writien, such as Pythagoras was writing just before Buddha and yet was talking about reincarnation and vegetarianism.

its all very interesting

Bertrand Russell once said that all philosophy since Plata is a footnote to what Plato wrote. A bit of an exaggeration, but Plato is one of the Giants of philosophy. Plato and Aristotle have to be read carefully just to see what their errors are. And even their errors offer insight.

In addition to their philosophical importance, the dialogues of Plato are also literary master pieces. Before Plato decided to be a philosopher he was a poet and a playwright.

ruveyn

Which is why Plato banned poets from the Republic - he didn't want any competition.

Upon reading Plato's description of reality, I took a slightly different interpretation. You see, I thought that Plato seemed to value hyper-reality, his "eternal forms," over perceptions. I found this consistent with his cognitive theories, which hold reason and knowledge of "things as they are" as superior to perception. Of course, this is also why Plato expelled the artists from his polis, so that perceptions won't dominate his objective reality.

I realize why so many would take issue with this view, seeing it's not my own view of reality. While I think an objective reality exists, it's subject to individual interpretation. Language is the easiest example to grasp, where a different catalogue exists for reality. However, it's not the only one.

I remember thinking how ridiculous and unsustainable the whole idea was and that Plato wasn't actually very smart. but maybe back then it was actually an achievement.

Plato was brilliant. His notion of eternal forms is closer to modern theoretical science than is Aristotle's philosophy.

Having said that, I should point out that Plato's -Republic- is the operating manual for every nasty totalitarian government ideology that has occurred in modern times. All the way from the French Revolution to the Nazis and the Commies.

ruveyn

exactly, it seemed to me at the time I read it that the guy had no idea of human nature. but then again, he didn't know what we know. it's hard to judge someone's intellect from this perspective.

I'd like to see how'd you be in Plato's time...

I'd like to have been one of Plato's friend. It would have been fun. I named my son Milo after one of their unknown friends (Pythagoras's best friend).

It would have been so cool to hang out with those guys. Where were the girls? If I ever have a girl, I will name her Sophia... She was the inspiration to all those faggy intellectuals!

I'm sure Aristotle was a genius, but I always remember what Bertrand Russell said about him:

"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths."

Aristotle was an a**hole.

It is possible that dental standards were different for women than for men, and that women had, on average, fewer teeth than men. Or at least his wives may have lost more teeth than he had lost.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink therefore I am"

Perhaps Bertrand Russell was talking out of his arse.

All consistent configurations of a conceived reality are based on integrations of abstractions from our sense input. As we progress intellectually we are able to modify that sense input with new data and sophisticated instrumentation. There are no "eternal forms". They are merely the current useful abstractions and if we petrify those forms as Plato insisted all progress stops. That is why the Enlightenment was so effective in starting the technological engine which has resulted in modern science and technology. It started paying attention to observation instead of the old static philosophy inherited from the ancient Greeks that religion demanded be the basis of all thought.