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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Plato and Platonism</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Greek philosopher (b. c. 428 B.C.)"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="12159a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/p.htm">P</a> > Plato and Platonism</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Plato and Platonism</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <h2 id="section1">Life of Plato</h2> <p>Plato (<em>Platon</em>, "the broad shouldered") was born at <a href="../cathen/02046a.htm">Athens</a> in 428 or 427 B.C. He came of an aristocratic and wealthy <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a>, although some writers represented him as having felt the stress of poverty. Doubtless he profited by the <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">educational</a> facilities afforded young men of his class at <a href="../cathen/02046a.htm">Athens</a>. When about twenty years old he met <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a>, and the intercourse, which lasted eight or ten years, between master and pupil was the decisive influence in Plato's <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> career. Before meeting <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a> he had, very likely, developed an interest in the earlier <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophers</a>, and in schemes for the betterment of political conditions at <a href="../cathen/02046a.htm">Athens</a>. At an early age he devoted himself to poetry. All these interests, however, were absorbed in the pursuit of wisdom to which, under the guidance of <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a>, he ardently devoted himself. After the death of <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a> he joined a group of the <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socratic</a> disciples gathered at <a href="../cathen/10146a.htm">Megara</a> under the leadership of Euclid. Later he travelled in <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a>, Magna Graecia, and <a href="../cathen/13772a.htm">Sicily</a>. His profit from these journeys has been exaggerated by some biographers. There can, however, be no <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> that in <a href="../cathen/08208a.htm">Italy</a> he studied the doctrines of the Pythagoreans. His three journeys to <a href="../cathen/13772a.htm">Sicily</a> were, apparently, to influence the older and younger Dionysius in favor of his ideal system of government. But in this he failed, incurring the enmity of the two rulers, was cast into <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prison</a>, and sold as a slave. Ransomed by a friend, he returned to his <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a> at <a href="../cathen/02046a.htm">Athens</a>. This differed from the <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socratic</a> School in many respects. It had a definite location in the groves near the gymnasium of Academus, its tone was more refined, more attention was given to literary form, and there was less indulgence in the odd, and even vulgar method of illustration which characterized the <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socratic</a> manner of exposition. After his return from his third journey to <a href="../cathen/13772a.htm">Sicily</a>, he devoted himself unremittingly to writing and teaching until his eightieth year, when, as Cicero tells us, he died in the midst of his <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> labors ("scribens est mortuus") ("De Senect.", v, 13).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h2 id="section2">Works</h2> <p>It is practically certain that all Plato's genuine works have come down to us. The lost works ascribed to him, such as the "Divisions" and the "Unwritten Doctrines", are certainly not genuine. Of the thirty-six dialogues, some  the "Phaedrus", "Protagoras", "Phaedo", "The Republic", "The Banquet", etc.  are undoubtedly genuine; others  e.g. the "Minos",  may with equal <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> be considered spurious; while still a third group  the "Ion", "Greater Hippias", and "First Alcibiades"  is of <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubtful</a> authenticity. In all his writings, Plato uses the dialogue with a skill never since equalled. That form permitted him to develop the <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socratic</a> method of question and answer. For, while Plato elaborated to a high degree the faculty by which the abstract is understood and presented, he was Greek enough to follow the artistic <a href="../cathen/08050b.htm">instinct</a> in teaching by means of a clear-cut concrete type of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> excellence. The use of the myth in the dialogues has occasioned considerable difficulty to the commentators and critics. When we try to put a value on the content of a Platonic myth, we are often baffled by the suspicion that it is all meant to be subtly ironical, or that it is introduced to cover up the inherent contradictions of Plato's thought. In any case, the myth should never be taken too seriously or invoked as an evidence of what Plato really believed.</p> <h2 id="section3">Philosophy</h2> <h3 id="A">The starting point</h3> <p>The immediate starting-point of Plato's <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> speculation was the <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socratic</a> teaching. In his attempt to define the conditions of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> so as to refute sophistic scepticism, <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a> had taught that the only <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is a <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> by means of concepts. The concept, he said, represents all the reality of a thing. As used by <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a>, this was merely a principle of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. It was taken up by Plato as a principle of Being. If the concept represents all the reality of things, the reality must be something in the ideal order, not necessarily in the things themselves, but rather above them, in a world by itself. For the concept, therefore, Plato substitutes the Idea. He completes the work of <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates</a> by teaching that the objectively real Ideas are the foundation and justification of scientific <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. At the same time he has in mind a problem which claimed much attention from pre-Socratic thinkers, the problem of change. The Eleatics, following Parmenides, held that there is no real change or multiplicity in the world, that reality is one. Heraclitus, on the contrary, regarding motion and multiplicity as real, maintained that permanence is only apparent. The Platonic theory of Ideas is an attempt to solve this crucial question by a metaphysical compromise. The Eleatics, Plato said, are right in maintaining that reality does not change; for the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> are immutable. Still, there is, as Heraclitus contended, change in the world of our experience, or, as Plato terms it, the world of phenomena. Plato, then, supposes a world of Ideas apart from the world of our experience, and immeasurably superior to it. He imagines that all human <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> dwelt at one time in that higher world. When, therefore, we behold in the shadow-world around us a phenomenon or appearance of anything, the mind is moved to a remembrance of the Idea (of that same phenomenal thing) which it formerly contemplated. In its delight it wonders at the contrast, and by wonder is led to recall as perfectly as possible the <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuition</a> it enjoyed in a previous existence. This is the task of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>. Philosophy, therefore, consists in the effort to rise from the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of phenomena, or appearances, to the <em>noumena</em>, or realities. Of all the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a>, however, the Idea of the beautiful shines out through the phenomenal veil more clearly than any other; hence the beginning of all <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> activity is the <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> and admiration of the Beautiful.</p> <h3 id="B">Division of philosophy</h3> <p>The different parts of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a> are not distinguished by Plato with the same formal precision found in <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelean</a>, and post-Aristotelean systems. We may, however, for convenience, distinguish:</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>Dialectic, the <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of the Idea in itself;</li><li>Physics, the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the Idea as incorporated or incarnated in the world of phenomena, and</li><li>Ethics and Theory of the State, or the <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of the Idea embodied in human conduct and human <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a>.</li></ul></div> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p><em>(a) Dialectic</em></p> <p>This is to be understood as synonymous not with <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logic</a> but with <a href="../cathen/10226a.htm">metaphysics</a>. It signifies the <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of the Idea, the <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of reality, <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> in the only <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> sense of the word. For the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> are the only realities in the world. We observe, for instance, just actions, and we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that some men are just. But both in the actions and in the <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> designated as just there exist many imperfections; they are only partly just. In the world above us there exits <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a>, absolute, perfect, unmixed with <a href="../cathen/08010c.htm">injustice</a>, eternal, unchangeable, <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortal</a>. This is the Idea of <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a>. Similarly, in that world above us there exist the Ideas of greatness, <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">goodness</a>, beauty, wisdom, etc. and not only these, but also the Ideas of concrete material objects such as the Idea of man, the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of horse, the Idea of trees, etc. In a word, the world of Ideas is a counterpart of the world of our experience, or rather, the latter is a feeble imitation of the former. The <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> are the prototypes, the phenomena are ectypes. In the allegory of the cave (Republic, VII, 514 d) a race of men are described as chained in a fixed position in a cavern, able to look only at the wall in front of them. When an animal, e.g. a horse, passes in front of the cave, they, beholding the shadow on the wall, imagine it to be a reality, and while in <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prison</a> they <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> of no other reality. When they are released and go into the light they are dazzled, but when they succeed in distinguishing a horse among the objects around them, their first impulse is to take that for a shadow of the being which they saw on the wall. The <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prisoners</a> are "like ourselves", says Plato. The world of our experience, which we take to be real, is only a shadow world. The real world is the world of Ideas, which we reach, not by sense-knowledge, but by <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuitive</a> contemplation. The Ideas are participated by the phenomena; but how this participation takes place, and in what sense the phenomena are imitations of the Ideas, Plato does not fully explain; at most he invokes a negative principle, sometimes called "Platonic Matter", to account for the falling-off of the phenomena from the perfection of the Idea. The limitating principle is the cause of all defects, decay, and change in the world around us. The just man, for instance, falls short of absolute <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a> (the Idea of Justice), because in men the Idea of <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a> is fragmented, debased, and reduced by the principle of limitation. Towards the end of his life, Plato leaned more and more towards the Pythagorean number-theory, and, in the "Timaeus" especially, he is inclined to interpret the Ideas in terms of mathematics. His followers emphasized this element unduly, and, in the course of <a href="../cathen/10742b.htm">neo-Platonic</a> speculation, the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> were identified with numbers. There was much in the theory of Ideas that appealed to the first <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophers</a>. The emphatic affirmation of a supermundane, spiritual order of reality and the equally emphatic assertion of the caducity of things material fitted in with the essentially <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> contention that spiritual interests are supreme. To render the world of Ideas more acceptable to <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, the Patristic Platonists from <a href="../cathen/08580c.htm">Justin Martyr</a> to <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> maintained that the world exists in the mind of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and that this was what Plato meant. On the other hand, <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a> understood Plato to refer to a world of Ideas self-subsisting and separate. Instead, therefore, of picturing to ourselves the world of Ideas as existing in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, we should represent <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> as existing in the world of Ideas. For, among the Ideas, the hierarchical supremacy is attributed to the Idea of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, or absolute Goodness, which is said to be for the supercelestial <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> what the sun in the heavens is for this terrestrial world of ours.</p> <p><em>(b) Physics</em></p> <p>The Idea, incorporated, so to speak, in the phenomenon is less real than the Idea in its own world, or than the Idea embodied in human conduct and human <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a>. Physics, i.e., the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the Idea in phenomena, is, therefore, inferior in dignity and importance to Dialectic and Ethics. In fact, the world of phenomena has no scientific interest for Plato. The <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of it is not <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, nor the source, but only the occasion of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. The phenomena stimulate our minds to a recollection of the <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuition</a> of Ideas, and with that <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuition</a> scientific <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> begins. Moreover, Plato's interest in nature is dominated by a teleological view of the world as animated with a World-Soul, which, conscious of its process, does all things for a useful purpose, or, rather, for "the best", morally, intellectually, and aesthetically. This conviction is apparent especially in the Platonic account of the origin of the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a>, contained in the "Timaeus", although the details regarding the activity of the <a href="../cathen/04707b.htm">demiurgos</a> and the created gods should not, perhaps, be taken seriously. Similarly, the account of the origin of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, in the same dialogue, is a combination of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a> and myth, in which it is not easy to distinguish the one from the other. It is clear, however, that Plato holds the spiritual nature of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> as against the materialistic <a href="../cathen/02053a.htm">Atomists</a>, and that he believes the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> to have existed before its union with the body. The whole theory of Ideas, in so far, at least, as it is applied to <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, presupposes the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of pre-existence. "All <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is recollection" has no meaning except in the hypothesis of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul's</a> pre-natal <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuition</a> of Ideas. It is equally incontrovertible that Plato held the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> to be <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortal</a>. His conviction on this point was as unshaken as <a href="../cathen/14119a.htm">Socrates's</a>. His attempt to ground that conviction on unassailable premises is, indeed, open to criticism, because his arguments rest either on the hypothesis of previous existence or on his general theory of Ideas. Nevertheless, the considerations which he offers in favour of <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a>, in the "Phaedo", have helped to strengthen all subsequent generations in the <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> in a future life. His description of the future state of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is dominated by the Pythagorean <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of transmigration. Here, again, the details are not to be taken as seriously as the main fact, and we can well imagine that the account of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> condemned to return in the body of a fox or a wolf is introduced chiefly because it accentuates the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of rewards and punishments, which is part of Plato's <a href="../cathen/05556a.htm">ethical</a> system. Before passing to his <a href="../cathen/05556a.htm">ethical</a> doctrines it is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to indicate one other point of his <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychology</a>. The <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, Plato teaches, consists of three parts: the rational <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, which resides in the head; the irascible <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, the seat of <a href="../cathen/06147a.htm">courage</a>, which resides in the heart; and the appetitive <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, the seat of desire, which resides in the abdomen. These are not three faculties of one <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, but three parts really distinct.</p> <p><em>(c) Ethics and Theory of the State</em></p> <p>Like all the Greeks, Plato took for granted that the <a href="../cathen/06640a.htm">highest good</a> of man, subjectively considered, is <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">happiness</a> (<em>eudaimonia</em>). Objectively, the <a href="../cathen/06640a.htm">highest good</a> of man is the absolutely <a href="../cathen/06640a.htm">highest good</a> in general, Goodness itself, or <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. The means by which this <a href="../cathen/06640a.htm">highest good</a> is to be attained is the practice of virtue and the acquistion of wisdom. So far as the body hinders these pursuits it should be brought into subjection. Here, however, asceticism should be moderated in the interests of harmony and symmetry  Plato never went the length of condemning matter and the human body in particular, as the source of all <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a>  for wealth, health, art, and innocent pleasures are means of attaining <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">happiness</a>, though not indispensable, as virtue is. Virtue is order, harmony, the health of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>; vice is disorder, discord, disease. The State is, for Plato, the highest embodiment of the Idea. It should have for its aim the establishment and cultivation of <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a>. The reason of this is that man, even in the savage condition, could, indeed, attain <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a>. In order, however, that virtue may be established systematically and cease to be a matter of chance or haphazard, <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a>, and without a social organization <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> is impossible. In his "Republic" he sketches an ideal state, a polity which should exist if rulers and subjects would devote themselves, as they ought, to the cultivation of wisdom. The ideal state is modelled on the individual <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>. It consists of three orders: rulers (corresponding to the reasonable <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>), producers (corresponding to desire), and warriors (corresponding to <a href="../cathen/06147a.htm">courage</a>). The characteristic virtue of the producers is thrift, that of the soldiers <a href="../cathen/06147a.htm">bravery</a>, and that of the rulers wisdom. Since philosophy is the <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of wisdom, it is to be the dominant power in the state: "Unless <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophers</a> become rulers or rulers become <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> and thorough students of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>, there shall be no end to the troubles of states and of humanity" (Rep., V, 473), which is only another way of saying that those who govern should be distinguished by qualities which are distinctly <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a>. Plato is an advocate of State absolutism, such as existed in his time in <a href="../cathen/14209b.htm">Sparta</a>. The State, he maintains, exercises unlimited power. Neither private <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> nor <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> institutions have any place in the Platonic state. The children belong to the state as soon as they are born, and should be taken in charge by the State from the beginning, for the purpose of <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a>. They should be <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">educated</a> by officials appointed by the State, and, according to the measure of ability, which they exhibit, they are to be assigned by the State to the order of producers, to that of warriors, or to the governing class. These impractical schemes reflect at once Plato's discontent with the demagogy then prevalent in Athens and in his personal predilection for the aristocratic form of government. Indeed, his scheme is essentially aristocratic in the original meaning of the word; it advocates government by the (intellectually) best. The unreality of it all, and the remoteness of its chance to be tested by practice, must have been evident to Plato himself. For in his "Laws" he sketches a modified scheme which, though inferior, he thinks, to the plan outlined in the "Republic", is nearer to the level of what the average state can attain.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h2 id="section4">The Platonic school</h2> <p>Plato's School, like <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle's</a>, was organized by Plato himself and handed over at the time of his death to his nephew Speusippus, the first scholarch, or ruler of the <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a>. It was then known as the Academy, because it met in the groves of Academus. The Academy continued, with varying fortunes, to maintain its identity as a Platonic <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a>, first at <a href="../cathen/02046a.htm">Athens</a>, and later at Alexandria until the first century of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> era. It modified the Platonic system in the direction of <a href="../cathen/10663b.htm">mysticism</a> and demonology, and underwent at least one period of scepticism. It ended in a loosely constructed eclecticism. With the advent of <a href="../cathen/10742b.htm">neo-Platonism</a> founded by Ammonius and developed by Plotinus, Platonism definitely entered the cause of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">Paganism</a> against <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. Nevertheless, the great majority of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophers</a> down to <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> were Platonists. They appreciated the uplifting influence of Plato's <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychology</a> and <a href="../cathen/10226a.htm">metaphysics</a>, and recognized in that influence a powerful ally of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> in the <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">warfare</a> against materialism and <a href="../cathen/10713a.htm">naturalism</a>. These <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> Platonists underestimated <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a>, whom they generally referred to as an "acute" <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logician</a> whose philosophy favoured the <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretical</a> opponents of <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. The <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> completely reversed this verdict. The first scholastics <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knew</a> only the <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> treatises of <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a>, and, so far as they were <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychologists</a> or <a href="../cathen/10226a.htm">metaphysicians</a> at all, they drew on the Platonism of <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a>. Their successors, however, in the twelfth century came to a <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychology</a>, <a href="../cathen/10226a.htm">metaphysics</a>, and ethics of <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a>, and adopted the <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelean</a> view so completely that before the end of the thirteenth century the <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Stagyrite</a> occupied in the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> the position occupied in the fifth century by the founder of the Academy. There were, however, episodes, so to speak, of Platonism in the history of <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a>  e.g., the School of Chartes in the twelfth century  and throughout the whole scholastic period some principles of Platonism, and especially of <a href="../cathen/10742b.htm">neo-Platonism</a>, were incorporated in the <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelean</a> system adopted by the <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">schoolmen</a>. The <a href="../cathen/12765b.htm">Renaissance</a> brought a revival of Platonism, due to the influence of men like <a href="../cathen/02527b.htm">Bessarion</a>, <a href="../cathen/12166a.htm">Plethon</a>, Ficino, and the two Mirandolas <span class="stiki"><a href="../cathen/10352a.htm">Giovanni Pico</a> and <a href="../cathen/10351b.htm">Giovanni Francesco Pico</a></a>. The Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century, such as Cudworth, Henry More, Cumberland, and Glanville, reacting against <a href="../cathen/07538b.htm">humanistic</a> <a href="../cathen/10713a.htm">naturalism</a>, "spiritualized <a href="../cathen/12581a.htm">Puritanism</a>" by restoring the foundations of conduct to principles <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuitionally</a> known and independent of self-interest. outside the <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a> which are described as Platonic there are many <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophers</a> and groups of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophers</a> in modern times who owe much to the inspiration of Plato, and to the enthusiasm for the higher pursuits of the mind which they derived from the study of his works.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">The standard printed edition of Plato's works is that of STEPHANUS (Paris, 1578). Among more recent editions are BEKKER (Berlin, 1816-23), FIRMIN-DIDOT (Paris 1866-). The best English tr. is JOWETT, <em>The Dialogues of Plato</em> (Oxford, 1871; 3rd ed., New York, 1892). For exposition of Plato's system cf. ZELLER, <em>Plato and the Older Academy</em>, tr. ALLEYNE AND GOODWIN (London, 1888); GROTE, <em>Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates</em> (London, 1885); PATER, <em>Plato and Platonism</em> (London, 1893); TURNER, <em>History of Philosophy</em> (Boston, 1903); 93 s.q.; FOUILLEE, <em>La philosophie de Platon</em> (Paris, 1892); HUIT, <em>La vie et l'oeuvre de Platon</em> (Paris, 1893); WINDEBLAND, <em>Platon</em> (Stuttgart, 1901); LUTOSLAWSKI, <em>Origin and Growth of Plato's Logic</em> (London, 1897). For history of Platonism cf. BUSSELL, <em>The School of Plato</em> (London, 1896); HUIT, <em>Le platonisme à Byzance et en Italie à la fin du moyen-âge</em> (Brussels, 1894); articles in <em>Annales de philosophie chretienne</em>, new series, XX-XXII; TAROZZI, <em>La tradizione platonica nel medio evo</em> (Trani Vecchi, 1892).</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Turner, W.</span> <span id="apayear">(1911).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Plato and Platonism.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Turner, William.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Plato and Platonism."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 12.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1911.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Geoffrey K. Mondello.</span> <span id="dedication"></span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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