Many people think Plato was so great. Why?

Question

What in the world did the man stand for?

His writtings (can't call them books) made little sense. He jumps around from point to point and never really reaches any conclution. His 3 tiered utopian society is a total joke. If you think it was great state which tier you are referring to and why as I doubt you have read it or any of his writings. Otherwise you would not think him so great. Sacrates was not much better. now Aristotle was the first of those to start making sence and Cisero was the greatest of them all. If you comment on these people state shich of their works you have read.

As a note, in letters between Jefferson and Adams they commented as both had read the Law and Republic. Both thought his writings were a jumble of nothing. Both read it in English and Greek and Adams added latin and french translations to see if they ever made sense. They didn't. I know you have read them in several languages (not) probably heard some idiol liberal prof spew rhetoric.

Answer 1

because he is great inour eyes.

Answer 2

You are correct. His 3 level Utopian society had the intellectuals at the top, they lived as a mob, no husband or wife, no children had parents. They just philosophized and ruled all the rest. The second was the military, they too lived without working Dan had common women. Both these groups lived in separate but close communes as the soldiers were to keep the people from storming the Philosophers. The last group were the people they lived in houses and in regular families and supported the other 2 tiers. Also it was from their group the women would come. Lovely society right.

Answer 3

The fact that you write that "Sacrates was not much better" illustrates that you either haven't read, or absorbed, enough to take this shot at Plato. Bibliographic details aside (we know these from historians), everything we know about how Socrates (spelled with an O) thought, what his arguments and viewes were, comes to us through Plato's writings, as none of his own (if he ever wrote things down) actually survives.

For starters, Plato was great because he took the time to spell properly and think about what he was saying before he said it. This shouldn't be so special, but obviously not everyone does it anymore.

Incidentally, calling his concept of a 3-tiered utopian society a "total joke" doesn't exactly convince me of its flaws. If you can intelligently argue against Plato, please do so--but I don't think you can. This doesn't mean that Plato is right...it just means you lack the armament to engage him in a battle of wits.

Sincerely,
"some idiol liberal prof spew[ing] rhetoric"

Answer 4

It is worth noting that Plato was not necessarily trying to make an argument for a new socio-political structure in The Republic, but was rather using it as a means of illustrating what he considered to be the primary divisions of ones personality. The original argument came as a result of the "ring of Giges" question, e.g. if you had a ring that could make you invisible, what would be the value in being "good". The basis for the argument is that "evil" acts are the result of ignorance and irrationality. Using the Republic as an illustration, the argument is made that allowing your rational side to rule the others will result in happiness, just as in the republic having the philosopher ruling class as the top tier resulted in a happier society.

In response to the original question, Plato is good for historical context if you have an interest in philosophy and also for a good laugh over Socrates' silly (and in his case, inappropriately named) dialectics.

Answer 5

The interesting thing is that Plato is more like the connection point between Socrates and Arostotle. in most of Plato's writtings is difficult to determine when is Socrates the one speaking (this is, he mainly speaks in behalf of what Socrates thought) and when it's himself speaking in personal title. Of course, He was the teacher of Aristotle who as everybody know didn't agree with him in some, not all respects. Is difficult to expound all of Plato's corpus in this small place and even more difficult to reach a satisfiying conclusion unfortunately but I am certain we all can agree in one thing, although some of Plato's social theories were not very acceptable, his metaphysics was very instrumental in defining Aristotle's and to further our own's today. His most notable contribution was perhaps his contributing to the understanding of right knowledge and opinion, and universals and particulars, whicj Aristoteles later built upon.

I'd say that Plato was great in the sense that he gave us in his dialogues the only and most complete account of Socrates' teachings (actually, his lectures and formal writtings, formal in the sense of being adress to philosophers, his technnical writtings, are sadly lost...we can't really know what he thought fully). I do agree that he was mysoginist and absolutist regarding politics, but this shouldn't put down his other contributions especially to epistemology as I said

But specifically answering your question as to what in the world did he stand for, in a very fw wrods I can tell you that he stood for Idealism in the sense that he thought that the universal, the timeless ideas were the really real and that the objects of the world (the particulars) were fleeting and mere copies of the perfect ideas of them, in this sense: A horse was just a copy of the perfect "horseness" in him. It'a a very short and concise explanation that doesn't make true justice to the extent of his explanations, which as i said his pupil Aristotle built upon by challenging some of its conclusions, specifically: Aristotle said that the opposite was the ture: that The particular horse ws the real and the "horseness" ws just a category.
To understand all this better, you must have a philosophical mindset and weigh all aruments rationally and if possible agree or disagree, but6 always with reason and not with bias, preconceptions, hearsay, etc. but through logic and reason

Greetings

Answer 6

Regardless of what Plato's writings actually said, the fact is he was well ahead of his time. He was a great thinker even in his time. Of course many of his writings don't apply today. We have evolved as a society, and as such, our ideas and ideals have had to evolve with us.

You may not agree with the three-tiered society, but on paper it makes as much sense as Communism. It is just that some forms of government & society can be nice on paper, but they are virtually impossible to implement in real life. That is why Democracy seems to work the best in real life, even though on paper it's really not the best solution.

Instead of just criticizing Plato, try to put his writings, dialogues, and teachings into perspective. If he were alive today, he would likely be contemplating on very different topics.

Answer 7

This is an interesting question. Plato was the student of Socrates, who was very much a feminist of his day. But something happened to Plato, because he didn't pass on the knowledge as Socrates intended. Plato instead manifested a diseased way of looking at the world with his inflated theories about art, motherly love as expendable and the masculinization of girls. Its as if he was deeply hurt early on in life and so wrote to debate what went wrong and how it could be fixed (to advance the male side of society against women and images). I consider it one of western culture's greatest tragedies that Plato is such a well thought of character, when he should be dismissed as crazy and inconsiderate of others.

Answer 8

Well I may be more willing to believe you if you actually presented a strong argument rather than a childish rant. Oh and just so you know next time you want to appear smart by bashing a brilliant thinker spell his name correctly. Socrates would thank you.

Answer 9

because he's a Philoshopher..