what did plato really believe?? if he was just a mouthpiece for socrates?

Question

seems like plato was a socrates wannabe and did not establish his own identity! what is his most famous ideology?

Answer 1

One reason this is a difficult question to answer is that Socrates did not put much stock in the written word. Most of what we know of Socrates comes from Plato himself, which of course may make them hard to distinguish. Socrates was a devotee of the dialectic method, where he believed that the best way to approach truth was through dialog, rather than the isolated purview of the writer. Plato wrote much of his works as dialogs as a result of this influence, and written dialogs can be seen as a sort of compromise between the two styles.

Plato's body of work is so vast and variegated, it is hard to say what his most famous ideas are. Certainly Plato's "Republic" in which he develops his theory of an ideal governmental state (which involved a three-part design modeled after his tripartite soul concept: the "Philosopher Kings" a strong "military" branch, and the workers), is considered a monumental work.

Plato's "Theory of the forms" is also still widely discussed in Philosophy classes. This is his (very convoluted) discussion of the nature of reality. Herein, Plato considers the world of our experience to be a mere shadow of the true reality (Allegory of the Cave etc.) of the "Universal Forms". For example; something that you would call a "chair" is a chair because it resembles the abstract and perfect form "CHAIR" in significant respects.

But Plato's metaphysics has had the greatest effect on the memesphere. Plato's ideas on the soul greatly influences the theosophy of all the great monotheistic religions to this day, having an immeasurable effect on our world.

Though Plato was indeed greatly influenced by Socrates, it is not the case that he was without his own identity. In face the "Socrates" used in so many of his dialogs actually turns out to be a mouthpiece for Plato's ideas!

Answer 2

I think you may have it backwards-- "Socrates" (as found in Plato's dialogues) may have been a mouthpiece for Plato, and many of the ideas attributed to Socrates may just be Plato's philosophy, put into Socrates's mouth (in order to borrow stature.)

Remember that the only direct sources we have for Socrates are (besides Plato) Xenophon and Aristophanes, all three of whom had their own points to make-- so it is by no means easy to imagine what the historical Socrates actually believed.

Answer 3

he probably expanded on a lot of what Socrates said
Socrates came up with a way of thinking and Plato used this to write the Republic and his other works
of course, he probably didn't totally get Socrates' teachings so there might be a skew on it

Answer 4

Philosophy and theology are the only discipline that use texts 2500 years old. As a result, we are stuck in the past by following the thoughts of those who lived in very different worlds than we do now.

If you start thinking like an ancient philosopher, you are prone to the same problems that they faced -- including fading mental health.

Answer 5

In my view both are great philosophers of such olden days.We are to thank them and due to theirs philosophies we are living in such a modern world of technologies.Otherwise we would still rubbing stone to light fire.Slavery would not have ended.We owe them many thanks

Answer 6

Yes.

Answer 7

the republic thats all read it man

Answer 8

i dunno i thought he just learned from socrates and taught others.