43251 Lecture2 1 Plato(1)

LECTURE 2: PLATO

I.    Plato’s biography:

-    (428 - 347 BC); son of wealthy and influential Athenian parents; student of Socrates; travelled to Egypt and Italy,

-    retumed to Athens; established his own school of philosophy at the Academy; heritage of the Socratic style of thinking.

II.    Plato’s works (Socratic dialogues):

-    Apology: Plato’s version of the speech in which Socrates defends himself in court against his accusers,

-    Crito: discussion on justice, injustice and the appropriate response to injustice,

-    Phaedo: the naturę of the afterlife,

-    Republic: Plato’s most famous work; discussion of the generał principles of the good society and the means by which it can be achieved; the polis (a just city); the naturę of justice; discussion of virtues; the allegory of the cave; description of the ideał State.

III.    The allegory (myth) of the cave:

-    an explanation of Plato’s theory of forms,

-    prisoners chained in a cave: imable to see the real objects that pass behind them - they only see the shadows of the objects upon the wali of the cave.

IV.    Plato’s theory of forms:

-    forms (<eidos)-- archetypal ideas, ideał unchanging structures, perfect blueprints for all things and concepts - unavailable to our perception,