Plato

menopause

dad joke

ancient greek philosophy

Aristotle

Play-Doh

philosophy

light bulb joke

Platonism

Socrates

apology

one-liner

Alexander the Great

slavery

philosophy major

human being

is responsible for the idea that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.

the spirit of plato dies hard. we have been unable to escape the philosophical tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.

is to be credited for managing not just to surpass his predecessors, but also all his successors.

Why do I have an obsessive Plato problem? Most people need to surpass their predecessors; Plato managed to surpass all his successors.

Note: The late antique Jewish philosophers considered Plato and Moses, thus Judaism, in concord. Christians inherited this idea and actively learnt Greek philosophers to develop their theoretical thinkings.

is concerned with the eternal and unaltering Forms whose natures structure our physical world and the world of decent human relations within it.

My suggested approach to the reading of Plato pays full respect to this renunciation. But—with the reservations already noted about Plato's openness and experimental spirit—it also accepts the overwhelming impression, not just of Antiochus, but of every modern reader of at least many of his dialogues, that Platonism nonetheless constitutes a systematic body of 'philosophical doctrine'—about the soul and its immortality; the nature of human happiness and its dependence on the perfection of mind and character that comes through the virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage; the eternal and unaltering Forms whose natures structure our physical world and the world of decent human relations within it; the nature of love and the subservience of love in its genuine form to a vision of that eternal realm. These and many other substantive philosophical ideas to be explored in Plato’s dialogues are his permanent contribution to our Western philosophical culture. But we would fail to heed his own warnings if we did not explore these in a spirit of open-ended inquiry, seeking to expand and deepen our own understandings as we interrogate his texts, and ourselves through them.

is concerned with the nature of human happiness and its dependence on the perfection of mind and character that comes through the virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.

is concerned with the nature of love and the subservience of love in its genuine form to a vision of that eternal realm.

is concerned with the soul and its immortality.

Plato, n.Definitions

Plato