Brief Thought On Plato

After reading through Habib's section on Plato, there are a few concepts that I found very interesting. A lot of the ideas flew over my head, but I had my trusty highlighter to pick out some interesting points.

THEORY OF FORMS

Plato has a very interesting theory of forms. In "Phaedo" and "The Republic" Plato brings up the fact that worldly objects may be familiar, but they are not in the perfect form. Somewhere in some other place, there exists an object that correlates to an object in this world. The difference between the two objects is that while one is something we percieve, it is not the perfect form of the object. Habib notes that we will never percieve the perfect form.

This belief can be summarized by setting up a scenario. Plato begins describing a dark cave where people are shackled and seated in front of the wall. Behind them a fire is burning and men stand by it holding objects. These men will hold the object in front of the fire which projects the image onto the wall. The people looking at the wall will see a dark object and be told what it is. For instance, the men in the back will hold up an object and call it a giraff. The people watching the image will accept it as so. In the instance that someone escapes the cave, they will see the world for what it truly is. When they return and tell of their findings, the bound people will scoff and discredit the man that had returned from the outside world.

THE POLITICS OF PLATO'S AESTHETICS

Another point that I found very interesting is that Plato is the original inventor of the Socialist theory. Plato and Socrates begin to have a conversation based on how a society should be run. Socrates suggests that it would be best to examine a city, rather than a small group or even an individual. Socrates sets up a sort of utopian city where the leaders have perfect qualities such as: keen senses, strength, bravery, high-spiritedness, love and wisdom. Plato then adds that a man must exist within the society as a guardian. The guardian utilizes music and gymnastics to create perfect harmony within the society.

Plato notes that this guardian will be in a constant struggle because while he harnesses harmony, he will struggle against poetry to keep hold of his society. To Plato, poetry is "presented as an anthropomorphic projection of human values centered on self interest ... devoid of unifying structure." Plato states that while the concept of the guardian holds a high place within the society, he cannot do everything on his own. Thus, Plato introduces a socialist society where the individuality of the guardian no longer exists. "They are to posess no private property or wealth; they must live together, nourished on a simple diet, and receiving a stripend from other citizens. What is interesting is that this is the Marxist concept created two thousand years before the birth of Karl Marx.