Home  ›  Plato

Plato

Plato ()
Western philosopher
Antiquity
detail of The School of Athens by Raphael
Birth to 427 BC. BC ( Athens )
Deaths to 346 BC. BC ( Athens )
School / tradition Founder of the Academy
Main interests Metaphysics , cosmology , ethics , politics , aesthetics , rhetoric , sophistry , language
Notable ideas Dialectic , Maieutic , Allegory of the Cave , Pattern Theory , Participation , Reminiscence , Imitation , Philosopher King
Major works The Banquet , The Republic , Phaedo , Theaetetus , Sophist The
Influenced by Pythagoras , Parmenides , Heraclitus , Socrates , Egyptian Mysteries
Influenced Much of Western philosophy, a part of Islamic philosophy
Adjectives derived Platonic Platonic Platonic
change Consult the documentation of the model

Plato (in Greek / Athens , 428 - 427 BC. AD , 347 - 346 BC. AD . Each Platonic dialogue interrogates a particular topic, such as beauty or courage. Plato's thought is not monolithic: some of his dialogues lead to paradoxes of philosophy, and his dialogues that bring a solution to problems is not a single definitive answer.

Plato was the inventor of the theory of forms : it describes reality as a set of copies of their models involved immutable. Form Supreme, depending on the context, sometimes the Well , sometimes the Beautiful. The political philosophy of Plato believes that the City just needs to be built along the lines of good in itself.

Summary

Biography

Plato, copy of portrait by Silanion for the Academy to 370 BC. BC , Central Montemartini.

With few certified data, including the timeline is also uncertain, Plato's life is poorly understood . Like many other philosophers of antiquity , it is often difficult to distinguish the history and construction literature.

Youth

Plato was born in Athens in the deme of Collytos in 428 - 427 BC. AD , during the archon of Aminias (Diogenes Laertius does occasionally appear to Aegina ), two years after the death of Pericles (in -429 ), during the Peloponnesian War (431 to 404) . The exact date remains uncertain: a tradition secures the third year of the 88thOlympiad , the 7th of the month tharglion , which corresponds to 21 May in the year -429. But sources on the subject of calculations are essentially based on beliefs and religious considerations mystical about numbers. That is why Plato's birth three or four years after the start of the Peloponnesian War , about the time of the death of Pericles .

It is in any case certain that Plato came from an aristocratic family . His genealogy is uncertain of his father's side: Ariston indeed claimed descent from Codros , the last legendary king of Athens, and safer side of his mother, Priction, who was descended from a Dropids , near Solon . She was also the cousin germaine to Critias and the sister of Charmides , two of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens -404.

Plato had three brothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon , Socrates' interlocutors in the Republic and probably older than him, Antiphon, and a sister, Poton mother of Speusippus who succeeded Plato as head of the Academy . Plato's mother, widowed shortly after her birth, married his maternal uncle, Pyrilampe. She had a son, Antiphon, who is the narrator of Parmenides.

According to customs of the great families of his country, Plato should have received the name of his grandfather, Aristocles, and it is possible that this is his real name, "Plato" () is only a nickname. The reason is unknown, and explanations that we have data are all more or less fanciful. For example, according to Diogenes Laertius , it was Ariston, who, educated in sports, so nicknamed because of his strong constitution, platos () meaning in effect "width" for he was indeed in stature "wide () . Other hypotheses allude to his volubility, or the width of his forehead, or the extent of his character and his mind .

Plato-genealogy-fr.svg

There is no doubt that Plato receives the education corresponding to its traditional status. The details of the curriculum advanced by Diogenes Laertius notes, however, a "narrative illustration of the main theoretical influences that are exerted on Plato" . This means that the biography of the young Plato was an invention designed to agree with his subsequent works. Here are a few elements, derived primarily from books Laertius. His teacher of gymnastics Ariston of Argos , and they say he has won two prizes at the Olympic Games and the Isthmian Games , . He learned to paint, wrote poems, eulogies , the lyrical verses and tragedies. Music, flute and harp , he was taught by Draco, a student of Damon , and Mtellos Agrigento. All his dialogues, particularly the Timaeus , attest that he pushed very far the study of this art, which in ancient times, was closely related to mathematics. It was the grammarian Dionysius mentioned in the Lovers, who initiated this whole liberal knowledge that the ancients called the " grammar " , and long before his trip to Egypt, he had perhaps listened to Athens the famous mathematician Theodore of Cyrene , came to visit before the death of Socrates. The importance of mathematics was probably great for him, and Plato was one of the biggest proponents of this science Cicero . It ignores the identity of its erastes , but belonging to the elite of Greek society, it is almost certain that he enjoyed a relationship of pederasty , a relationship that condemns in The Banquet. Thereafter, he took many of his disciples as an eromene and in the Timaeus . He was the nephew of Critias and the nephew of Charmides , both the Council of Thirty Tyrants , a regime of terror imposed by Sparta for nine months, from -403 at the end of the Peloponnesian War . This was done by relatives and the Socratic way, explain the nature of the political ideas of Plato. Education which in Sparta , neglected soul and dealt only with the body, ambitious and eager to dominate, warlike passion, immorality of women, were severely tried by Plato . Throughout his work, he denounced the excesses of the oligarchy , where the rich dominate the poor, and those of democracy , where the poor are trying to dominate the rich. This is why Plato in The Republic offered an original plan: the timocracy. It was a regime where the population was divided into social classes delineated areas, each with unique powers .

Plato therefore belonged to a wealthy landowning family, and he profited greatly. He traveled, bought the library Philolaus , organized a choregy , very expensive party , .

To -410 , there was a student of Cratylus , a follower of Heraclitus , and Hermogenes , a disciple of Parmenides.

Bust of Plato. Roman copy of a Greek original of the last quarter of the fourth century BC. AD

He abandoned an early political life, career par excellence of a free man in Athens, and he considered the highest honor as the highest duty of a good citizen, and as the crown of life philosophy . If one believes the seventh letter, whose authenticity is generally accepted, it would have tried to politics, and even took some part in the government of the Thirty Tyrants, despotic and bloodthirsty as to carry about 1,500 executions. There would soon gave up, disgusted by the excesses and the rage of parties .

"From my youth, I felt in fact the same thing that many in this situation: I imagined that immediately become master of myself, I would go straight to take care of common affairs of the city. And that is how the chanced that I found things in the city. The plan then was indeed the subject of virulent criticism from the majority, and a revolution broke out. (...) And I saw So that, and men who were involved in politics, the more I examined in depth the laws and customs at the same time I advanced in age, it seemed that it was difficult rightly administer the affairs of the city. It was indeed not possible to do without friends and reliable partners, and it was not easy to find among those who had at hand, because our city was no longer administered by customs and habits of our fathers. "

In -403 , democracy was restored in Athens by Thrasybulus and Anytus (an accuser of Socrates four years later).

Plato became a disciple of Socrates for nine years, from -408 to -399, to the condemnation of Socrates, who had resisted, inter alia, the Thirty Tyrants, refusing "to obey the people in the vicinity of which Critias ordered him to bring them Leon of Salamis, a wealthy Democrat, that he was put to death " , . Following this meeting, Plato abandoned the idea of competing for the Greek tragedy and burned all his works. He transmitted the teachings of his master while appropriating and transforming it gradually. He began his dialogues during the lifetime of Socrates, Hippias Minor, Ion, etc.. "Socrates, Plato, who had just heard read out the Lysis, exclaimed:" By Hercules, what falsehoods told me about this young man! '" .

Ill, he was not present at the death of Socrates as -399. Worried about the fate of the disciples of Socrates, he took refuge with Euclid of Megara , who was also part. "Subsequently, he went to Egypt with the priests of the high clergy " , it is not certain, since his knowledge of Egypt appears stereotyped and indirect , , it might be -392 , perhaps with Eudoxus of Cnidus. Plato has participated as a rider to the Corinthian War , which saw the victory, -394 , Sparta over Athens. At Cyrene , he met the philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene and Annicris of Cyrene, advocates of a philosophy of pleasure, and the mathematician Theodore , who appears in the Theaetetus (143-144). In Italy , South in Magna Graecia, in Tarentum , he met the great Pythagorean Philolaos of Croton , and its auditors, Timaeus and Archytas of Tarentum , on this occasion, which dates from -388 to -387, he came into contact with Pythagoreanism, and deepens the opposition soul - body, numbers, and the ideal of the philosopher-king oligarchic , .

He made his first political trip to Sicily in -387 , and I. Dionysius the Elder , who was interested in philosophy, received him at the court of Syracuse. He won at the philosophy Dion of Syracuse , brother of Dionysius, but because of his penchant for lecturing, or because of his influence, he was soon to displease the "tyrant" sovereign master. Embedded power on a ship Spartan, he was probably captured and sold into slavery on the island of Aegina , then at war against Athens. It was nevertheless freed by Annicris of Cyrene, Cyrenaica philosopher, who would have recognized, bought "for twenty silver mines, and released .

Maturity

Main article: Academy of Plato.
A mosaic found at Pompeii , representing the Academy of Plato.

After the political failure in Syracuse, Plato founded in -387 , in Athens, near Colone and gymnasium Academos, school, named the " Academy ", as the model of the Pythagoreans. He taught there for forty years. On the pediment of the Academy was burned, according to legend, the motto "Let no one enter here is not a geometer" . It continued scientific research, the teaching of sciences including preparing for the study of philosophy, considered in itself, and its application to politics. Philosophers are distinguished from:

The school has survived for nine centuries, until the reign of the Byzantine emperor in 529 Justinian .

To -380 , Plato would have initiated the mathematician Lodamas of Thasos in the use of the analysis geometry .

To -370 , Plato crossed, according to Leo Robin or Pierre-Maxime Schuhl, a long intellectual crisis, during which he questioned his theory of Ideas (question running through the dialogues of the Parmenides and Sophist) . He realized the difficulty of Association ( / Methexis), not symmetric with sensible ideas, and the association ( / smmixis) of these ideas, as well as communion ( / koinma) between ideas and the good . At the same time, it seemed, under the influence of Eudoxus of Cnidus : accepting an order in the sensitive and moving towards a dualism of oriental type: "This world, sometimes the Deity guide all its work sometimes it abandons itself " .

At the beginning of -367 , he made a second trip to Sicily policy, and the death of Dionysius I the Elder , in -367 , Dion of Syracuse asked to Plato, to educate his brother-II Dionysius the Younger son of Dionysius the Elder, to philosophy. He made his return to Sicily, thinking that would create a city governed by its philosophical principles: he finished in the Republic -372 , if convinced that the philosophers do not become kings or the kings do not become philosophers (...) there will be no truce with the ills of the States " . But the Younger Dionysius II banishes Dion, suspected of plotting, and Plato was detained a year in the citadel of Ortigia .

In -366 , Aristotle entered the Academy at the age of seventeen years to twenty years of studies.

The third and last voyage policy Plato was in Sicily -360. In -361 , the Younger Dionysius II promised to grant clemency to Dion provided that Plato return a third time in Sicily. Plato, aged sixty-eight, gave the Academy to Heraclides of Pontus , and accepted, and Speusippus and Xenocrates . But his relations with Dionysius II deteriorated, and the Pythagorean Archytas of Tarentum had sent a warship to release Plato. It was during a second contact with the depth Pythagoreanism: he bought, say, "to Philolaos of Croton three books on the doctrine of Pythagoras percent silver mines "(at that time, or the death of Philolaus to -380), the Timaeus (35-44, 54-55), which dates back to -358, is very pythagorizing, and found in the Philebus (16c), which dates from -347, opposition Limited - Unlimited characteristic Philolaus. At Olympia , during the Olympic Games of -360 , he found Dion of Syracuse , and advised him to abandon an expedition against Dionysius the Younger . Four years later, Dion threw the Younger Dionysius II, but was murdered by a friend, the original Athenian Platonic rhetorician Callippus Syracuse.

Old

In his dialogues of old age, especially in the Timaeus, his philosophy changed somewhat. It also seems that, perhaps to -350 , Plato has given an oral teaching orientation dualistic and pythagorizing centered on Numbers ideals.

Plato, 80-81 years old, died in Athens, -347 or -346 , "during a wedding feast . Then he wrote The Laws , which has been thought that the book was unfinished XII, but this decision is debatable. Tradition would have us die in 81 years, according to the symbolism of numbers, because 81 is the square of 9 . He had a son, Adam. "He was buried at the Academy. Meanwhile, the war of Philip II of Macedonia to conquer Athens raged.

Aristotle, already author of remarkable dialogues (lost) and his work logically, was disappointed to see Speusippus , nephew of Plato, called scolarque , rector of the Academy, rather than him. He went to Asia in Hermias Atarneus of a "tyrant" and a former classmate at the Academy.

The prplatoniciens

Sources on the philosophers before Plato are too incomplete to make it possible to identify for sure the allusions and appreciate precisely the judgments he could carry on their thinking. We can only note his use of certain names in their binding this or that thesis .

Plato considers Parmenides , in The Sophist , as the father of philosophy , he must "kill" to reflect the speech wrong. For since, according to Parmenides, only the being is, it is impossible to make speeches about what is not. But the false discourse, that of the sophists , is, therefore, must take the path forbidden by Parmenides, the way that non-being is in some way.

The Pythagorean School

According to Aristotle , the doctrine of Plato agreed on several points with that of Pythagoras. Although this ruling has had a large posterity, it is really difficult if not impossible, to say, because the Pythagorean teaching was reserved for insiders and there are only two explicit references in the Platonic dialogues, references do not learn much about what Plato might have borrowed from Pythagoreanism . If one supports the idea that Plato gave an oral instruction (see Sections dialogue in Plato and Plato's oral teachings ), distinct from that found in his dialogues, then the nature of this teaching , encompassing the notions of dyad and ideal numbers may appear as a strong indication of the Pythagorean influence. However, it is possible that there is a mix with some of Plato's successors at the Academy, such as Speusippus and Xenocrates , who were regarded as the ancient Pythagoreans as .

Herodotus and Thucydides

Plato shares with the two historians Herodotus and Thucydides Greek quality of prose that they were awarded Polybius , and there, between these three authors, points of similarity and differences that may shed some light on the originality of the philosophical project Plato in the culture of Greece. Like Herodotus and Thucydides, Plato is primarily concerned with human affairs and policy , both from a philosophical point of view as a perspective that can go today to sociological This is illustrated by example with its description of the genesis of the companies in The Republic . It does however not really a historian, as evidenced by the chronological and historical liberties of his dialogues.

But the main difference is philosophical: unlike these two historians, Plato seeks in effect which is always, as Thucydides and Herodotus wrote about the realities of which they know they are not fixed and they are doomed destruction. Thus, while Plato shares with them the desire to enlighten the becoming , this concern does not lead to the same investigative methods of the sensible world, or the same explanatory causes. Although the historical and philosophical investigations are distinguished in retrospect, it is in both cases the same love of knowledge that drives these three prose writers in their investigation into the future. But the thought of Plato can not afford to award the title to both historians and philosophers, because we do not have a stable knowledge by focusing on what is inherently unstable, which disqualifies them also to respect the jurisdiction policy, which is in the eyes of Plato, the ultimate philosophical competence .

The relationship between Socrates and Plato

Socrates was the teacher who marked the deeper Plato, the latter featuring in almost all his dialogues.
Main article: Socrates.

What Plato thought Socrates

The exact nature of the relationship between Socrates and Plato is entirely unknown. There is no evidence thus answer questions such as at what age Plato met Socrates, and how long he attended. Nor do we know what Plato held up among the disciples of Socrates. These uncertainties are even more remarkable that all the dialogues of Plato, but Laws , depict Socrates, though still not giving him the lead. When, in the Phaedo , Plato made the list of relatives of Socrates who witnessed his death, he stressed his own absence by this remark: "Plato, I believe, was ill. "This is quite puzzling because the wording is hypothetical in the mouth of the best informed .

Despite the pervasiveness of Socrates in his work, we are not informed about the sentiments of Plato against his master. The dialogues have certainly more praise for Socrates, but spoken by characters we do not know for sure if we should consider them as spokesmen of Plato, although this is unlikely. The only passage in which Plato speaks of Socrates in his name clean, is the seventh letter , whose authenticity is generally accepted :

"Among other things, Socrates, my friend, who was older than me, which I think I am not ashamed to say it was just the man most of the time they which this maneuver is ironic that is to feign ignorance , and recognize the claim to know of his interlocutor.

The influence of Socrates on Plato

According to Diogenes Laertius , Plato would have taken his ideas to Socrates policy , according to Aristotle , he would have borrowed his theory of the concept. It might seem natural to think that Plato has Socrates found in the seeds of many of his theories, whether in ethics , in political philosophy or, as regards the theory of Ideas. But to what extent the encounter and the relationship between Socrates and Plato they were essential for the evolution of his thinking is what can not be determined exactly, and this difficulty is as to the poverty of biographical data, that the choice of Plato to Socrates' character in almost all his works.

This choice may at first lead to believe that there is a tangible and reliable index of the relationship between Socrates and Plato, and therefore the influence of the former over the latter. But the dialogues do not in reality as little information. We can explain the choice of the character of Socrates in the kind of Socratic dialogue : he is indeed defending the memory of Socrates, as illustrated in the Phaedo , the Symposium or the Apology of Socrates. But since Socrates is a character in Plato, the problem arises from the distinction between a historical Socrates and Socrates 'Platonic'. On this point, readers of Plato have supported various interpretations, which are intrinsically linked to the question of Socrates' influence on Plato. These interpretations are, the thesis that all the dialogues of Plato, without exception, put in scene the real Socrates, to the proposition that, from the Socratic dialogues, the character of Socrates is not a copy of Socrates history, but a spokesman for Plato. Or an avenue often considered is that of a Socrates increasingly spokesman, and therefore, less historical, in the later works of Plato.

Dialogues of Plato

Main article: Dialogues of Plato.

Plato would have written 35 dialogues. Specialists stylistic lexical statistics and the history of ideas have classified the 35 dialogues attributed to Plato in large "groups", without always agreeing on the strict succession of each or by groups on periodization . This classification into groups by means of stylomtrie , basically boils down to three groups :

  1. Youth Dialogues: all dialogs that are not in the two following;
  2. Dialogues of maturity: Phaedra, Parmenides, Republic, Theaetetus;
  3. dialogues of old age: Laws, Philebus, Sophist, Politics, Timaeus and Critias.

Such a group may be considered in absolute terms, however: there are indeed some variants of succession proposed by L. Brisson.

The philosophy of Plato

Influences

Plato was a "disciple" of Socrates. His thinking is based on that of the latter but also that of Heraclitus and that of Pythagoras (founder of Pythagoreanism ). It is generally considered one of the earliest and greatest Western philosophers, if not as the inventor of philosophy , so that Whitehead could say: "Western philosophy is a series of notes Footnotes to Plato's dialogues " .

The Platonism

It must first be noted that because of a history over two millennia, Plato's work has gone through the process of rebuttal , recovery, and developments in very different directions, which greatly influenced his reception through the ages. This is called the philosophy of Plato appears less as a system , as a set of themes that appear scattered in dialogue with literary qualities sometimes forget that they also possess qualities philosophical . This applies, for example, until the last decades of the twentieth century, so-called Socratic dialogues , which, at least in France , have long been studied within the framework of classical literature , the other dialogues are however considered as part of philosophy .

Some of these themes have become famous even outside the circle of philosophers, not without deformations: the case of platonic love. Other themes are part of a "vulgate," an imaginary philosophical Platonism , which is sometimes far to account for the complexity of the work among these themes, the best known and studied are the separation of reality into two worlds:

This wealth of Plato's work, as well as the variety of interpretations, making it difficult if not impossible, any general exhibition and monographs are actually quite rare However, in an article, Cherniss proposed to see the theory of Ideas a hypothesis economic issues to resolve ontological, ethical , epistemological, which arose from Plato. This theory is therefore to function, in this reading, to unify the problems and solutions formulated by Plato.

Philosophical Background

The thought of Plato's philosophy in a context where we find the Presocratics , the sophists , and learn traditional transmitted by the poets , who constitute the bulk of the education in Greece. Plato built his philosophy as opposed to each of these pretenders to knowledge, seeking to resolve philosophical problems they raise, but he also appropriates parts, by formulating a new framework, defined by the theory of Ideas.

The Presocratic have proposed theories of nature , explaining the origin, establishment, organization and become the world, excluding explanations resorting to divine. But these theories are inadequate for Plato, for making the world a set of sensible things consist of elements, they do not explain the reason to be , nor does manage to overcome some contradictions ontological and epistemological. Plato adopted many attitudes in this regard, depending on the nature of the explanation. Thus, in the Phaedo , Socrates criticizes Does the theory of Anaxagoras of organizing the world, because of the inadequacy of his explanation of the causes of this organization. By contrast, Plato endorses the view Heraclitean becoming, but shows the limitations: firstly, this thesis produces conflicting discourses on things, on the other hand it does not account for the observed regularity within the change. In general, the philosophers of the nature of Greek thought have confronted this problem of how it might be possible to consider the realities, while they have no stability. It is within this context that Plato tries to give an original solution, which aims to explain the intelligibility of the sensible, and guarantee the rights an authentic power of knowing.

But Greek thought is also facing difficulties on the side of human behavior, that is to say, moral and political. Some sophists have indeed said the conventionality of law , which therefore depends on the willingness human being and is therefore variable relative without real basis other than the law of the strongest . Then the court becomes an effect of perspective, and life in common becomes a permanent conflict, no value can stabilize, standardize, while ensuring the peace and happiness of citizens. Again, Plato tries to find an original solution in order to put an end to moral relativism, to base policy and establish the conditions of the city just.

Thus, both in the field of knowledge than in the moral and political , problems and changes affecting the instability of reality. Solving these problems will therefore take the view of Plato as a single ontological assumption, called "Theory of Ideas" (or "intelligible form").

Theory of Knowledge

For some philosophers Greek , the world is a perpetual flux. The case probably the best known is that of Heraclitus , for whom being itself is becoming. Even if it divides the world into being and nonbeing , Parmenides is also true that the sensitive is a continual change, although it does not give him instead of Heraclitus, no being. However, Plato refers back to back these two contradictory theories, believing that they can neither one nor the other establish satisfactory conditions for knowledge.

World sensitive and opinion

Major references: Theaetetus , Timaeus

Knowledge for Plato is an activity of soul in contact with various objects . Among the objects are all sensible things, all of which constitutes the world. The living, as Plato defines as a living body, that is to say with a soul, is affected by these sensitive items, as well as internal processes within the organization. Plato called the Impressions (pathmata) these movements in the body caused by external objects to the perceiver. All prints are not perceived by the soul, are the only sensations (aisthsis) consist of the soul judgments about objects that surround it.

In the Theaetetus, Socrates and Theaetetus are looking for a definition of science and examine first the question of whether knowledge has its source in contact with the sensitive soul. The first two definitions are considered in effect that science is the feeling and that science is the opinion. The first definition faces the following objection: the sensible world is becoming , in other words a set of objects that are born and become corrupt, increasing and decreasing. Sensible world and are becoming synonymous. But if all reality is a becoming, it turns constantly, and it is impossible to find the necessary stability to a knowledge true and certain, in fact, in the sensitive, an object such as sometimes, sometimes another, or both simultaneously, so that we come to find contradictory qualities in the same reality. The design Heraclitean world therefore destroys sensitive knowledge, contending that the nature of reality is to be contradictory. But this design also depend on knowledge about how to Protagoras , the empirical states of the individual , in the famous phrase: "Man is the measure of all things. "This relativism, letting it be the things themselves, not just their knowledge, that each individual is the criterion of knowledge is a simple point of view and eliminates any possibility of truth.

Sense impressions do not the truth, and Socrates can refute the thesis that science is a sensation. It is also impossible, so that the soul reaches true judgments based on impressions: these judgments, which are opinions, can indeed be justified by any criteria, except by a different impression. The refutation of the idea of knowledge from the sensible world as becoming allows Plato to contrast the mobile Heraclitean and relativism sophisticated idea of a science that does not sense impressions or on opinion that the soul can train on them, but a reality that will only be seen by a mental power and will, therefore, the name of intelligible reality . This reality and the power of the soul that knows it must be postulated to maintain the possibility of true knowledge. In doing so, Plato supposes two things: that the foundation of knowledge presupposes the equivalence between being and truth , that the soul must be a real parent intelligible realities, in order to contemplate them. Without this assumption of apprehension by the intellect of the soul, not sensitive to realities, all thought and discourse would be impossible.

Assumption of Ideas (Forms intelligible)

Main article: Theory of Ideas and Phaedo (Plato).

If knowledge is to know something that is only what is absolutely, can be truly knowable . The object of real knowledge can not be the sensible world, and must have properties different fate. This reasoning has two consequences: a perspective epistemological is a real one, real, and we know that we can answer the questions of Socrates, by giving definitions : What Does the Fair? What is Courage?, Etc.. While most of Socrates' interlocutors are turning to sensible things, for, in response, submit a multiplicity of examples, Socrates replies that none of these things has any property by itself, but need to know these properties, collect the multiple in the unity of a reality not sensitive, in which each thing receives its sensitive qualities. From a standpoint ontology , these realities must be, first, an objective existence, separate from the sensible world, and, secondly, be cause qualities in things. When Socrates asks what the fine, his question is also specified in order to ask by what beautiful things are called beautiful, and they are beautiful to the extent that we find in them the presence of a reality not sensitive which alone is definable and knowable.

Plato called Shape, Idea (translation and , also translated as "idea") the assumption of these realities intelligible. These forms are the true objects of reference and knowledge. The failure of the idea of sensitive knowledge and requirements of knowledge, Plato may deduct their properties : Forms are immaterial realities and unchanging, remaining eternally identical to themselves, universal and intelligible, only really being and independent of thought. Thus, contrary to sensible things, the reality is changing, the forms are unique and true reality. This reality is designated by Plato by adding adjectives : true reality, for example, or by comparison : "what is more real" to distinguish it from sensible reality, which is however true that as it has a certain relation to the true reality. Socrates and he said: "For I see nothing clearer than this, is that beauty, goodness and all other things of that nature which you spoke just now exist for an existence as real as possible " . If things have some really sensitive, they must receive these forms, ideas: "But if you just tell me that what makes something beautiful, it's either a brilliant color, or shape, or something like that, then I let all these reasons, which are all that trouble me, and I just want, simply and perhaps naively this, nothing makes it beautiful that the presence or communication of that beauty in itself or any other way or means by which this beauty it adds .

Forms are also immutable, eternal and stable for the same reason. They are also universal, because if the material gets its qualities of them, then these qualities introduce the similarity between the sensible things, that is to say that these qualities are present in many things determined by the same form that becomes akin to a class. Finally, the forms are independent of the mind: objects of knowledge , they must indeed exist outside of us, otherwise they would be subjective, in other words about a subject , and changing conditions as sensitive to it, what the make specific and dependent on our views. This theory of Ideas , or form theory intelligible, which is the essence of Platonism can be summarized in two concepts , that of Beauty, which means to be intelligible, and that of participation, which denotes the ratio of the be intelligible to become sensitive, compared with which the latter is determined and knowable. Life of Plato, this theory has met with objections, found made by Aristotle in Metaphysics. Plato himself has formulated a set of objections, in the Parmenides , but without calling into question the existence of these same forms as they are in his eyes the necessary conditions of speech and human behavior. These objections focus on the inability to find a shape in more sensible realities without losing its unity or identity , and the difficulty of providing the forms of a causal power, on the one hand, contradicts their immutability, and on the other hand, brought in contact with the sensitive, making them lose their status as such ontologically superior. Plato attempts to answer these objections in reformulating the report forms to the realities sensitive by the introduction of the activity of a demiurge , who is described in the Timaeus , that is to say by a narrative myth of ordering of the universe as an ordered whole.

Degrees of knowledge

Main article: Analogy of the line.
Together, these divisions can be viewed on line.

The opposition between the sensible and the intelligible is an ontological separation, this strict separation is an epistemological hierarchy, just as strict: the opinion is about the sensible world, and science is the knowledge of intelligible realities. This division of knowledge is expressed by Plato through the analogy of the line :

"So take a line cut in two unequal segments, one representing the visible kind, another kind intelligible, and cut back each segment in the same ratio, you'll then obtained by ranking the divisions according to their relative degree of lightness or darkness in the visible world, a first segment, that images - pictures first call shadows, then reflections as seen in the waters, or on the surface of the body opaque, polished and shiny, and all similar representations; L'amour de la connaissance
ros (bobine attique figures rouges v. 470450 av. J.-C, muse du Louvre). L'uvre de Platon accorde une place fondamentale au dsir ( en grec).
Article dtaill : Le Banquet (Platon).

D'une manire qui est entirement inconnue l' esprit de la philosophie contemporaine , la philosophie de Platon ne peut tre approche sans comprendre le rle fondamental d'un dsir violent et multiforme qui s'empare tant de l' me que du corps : l' amour (en grec , ). L'amour est une forme de possession et de dlire divins / Sup>, which is manifested by a commitment to a person, object or even an idea, accompanied by the thought that the satisfaction of this desire can be a source of change and elevation of life. This love manifests itself in many ways, ranging from the mating or debauchery , love the student for the master, or even the frenetic excitement of the soul pursuing an idea, such as Well

This pursuit of beauty, in which the soul engages in tending to all her desire a " there "raises several questions that Plato addresses throughout the dialogue: the status of the sensible world as a reflection models intelligible, the question of intellectual access to these models, and the question of their nature. But besides these matters epistemological , keep in mind that this is the destiny of the soul is at stake here, which is the first and even the sole concern of the philosopher , so his nature, as its virtues , they must also be searched. But this research as key to the ethical (excellence of the soul), that the policy (education of the soul), and cosmology (up and structure of the soul in the whole ordered) fields who need an explanation and a foundation, that contemporaries might call an ' ontological.

Reminiscence

Main article: Reminiscence.

Plato has shown that knowledge is less sensitive true: the soul can find its way to be by means of sensations. Therefore, in the eyes of Plato, that a certain power of the soul is in contact with the realities true to produce a science authentic, which also implies that the soul participates in some way to the intelligible. The report of the soul to the intelligible is described through the recollection and the myths that Plato connected. Reminiscence (in Greek , anamnesis, also translated by recollection) is the recollection by the soul , during a collecting sensitive, knowledge she gained outside his residence in a body, and that it has lost during its re-incorporation. The acquisition of knowledge must begin with a re-cognition, before continuing the race of the rebuttal. This thesis assumes the immortality of the soul and the existence of intelligible realities, as it is staying in an intelligible world, higher than the empirical world, the soul contemplated divine things. One of the most famous examples of this idea is found in the Meno .

The dialectic

Main article: Dialectics.

Plato used the dialectic several methods of conduct of reasoning :

  • method effects, which is to examine and test all the consequences of a hypothesis ;
  • division method, which involves dividing the object sought to define, by conducting analysis of species differences and it contains .

Using the myth

Plato uses the myth several times. This use, in the case of the description of the world , due to the difficulty: if to know one thing, we must know its causality, how about the note creator of the cause ? The act of knowledge must indeed be a reflection of a creative act that is inconceivable how, in this case, about the origin of the world? The creative act is not it beyond any rational discourse? Yet the creative act creates the possibility of rationality. Thus Plato wondered how to talk about the origin of the material world, since knowledge dialectic , which articulates the intelligible form is inoperative here. We can talk about the world that a speech like it: a myth likely, related to sensitive. The myth describes a plausible situation in transposing into the space and time relations that the mind conceives, without being able to exhibit dialectically, the myth must be interpreted, it should not be confused with reality. We need to translate relevant ideas that the myth has been assembled. The story of the organization of the cosmos by the demiurge gives an example.

The organization of the cosmos by the demiurge

Main reference: Timaeus

The theory of ideas gives rise to difficulties which can be summarized mainly to the question of the relation of participation between the sensible world and the intelligible realities. In the Timaeus , which is considered as one of his later dialogues, Plato strives to offer an elucidation of this issue, presenting the story of mythological organization of the cosmos by a demiurge. All the interpreters do not agree on whether the solution should be considered late, resulting from questioned readable in the Parmenides, or if it is actually an exhibition of explicit arguments already present dialogues in the future, as the Symposium.

This story, which describes the manufacture of the world , gods, and all living beings, brings together multiple realities (Timaeus 29-50): 1) the demiurge, 2) the ideas, which are models, 3) Soul of the world, first embodiment of the demiurge, and consistent with the ideas, 4) Corps of the world, second embodiment of the demiurge, and consistent with the Soul of the world, 5) Khora, or material that is a reality radically undetermined. The demiurge informs the material, taking the forms for models. This story is a myth , that is to say that the demiurge as Khra are not supposed to represent real entities.

The Demiurge is a god out of the world, which is new to Greek thought, which makes the sensible world, the soul of the world and the gods in the manner of a craftsman : his eyes fixed on the forms, which play the role of final causes, it introduces the regularity in a pre-existing material. It puts the elements of the world in order, by a proportional unit. It organizes the items with the same ratio between them: it is the unity of the visible world and proportional body. Creation is therefore, according to a measure: the time is made according to the number. The sensible world is a living god created: to increase the resemblance, the demiurge produces a moving image of eternity, the result of productive activity, which regulates the movements of the stars, to give them a uniform circular motion: the stars become instruments for measuring time by their apparent revolution. Time imitates eternity in that it moves in a circle, depending on the number, eternity is forever identical to itself. Part of the eternal soul is directly created by the demiurge with the same ingredients of the world soul.

The demiurge does not produce the body directly, but delegates to the lesser gods who make them, such as potters. In contrast, the soul of the world is produced directly from scratch by the demiurge.

The world is a living being, a body and a soul generated as a result of a conscious decision of a god, according to artisanal processes. The sensible world is a cosmos (order, arrangement) which is based on elements that already exist. It is a blend of intelligible forms and chaotic matter. This is not a creation ex nihilo.

The soul of the world is a living thing that has soul, movement, animation, its movement is movement of knowledge, because of the regularity of celestial cycles. The soul is propelled, moves itself and is therefore the principle of the movement of every being. It is therefore also immortal and imperishable. The soul of the world and is the principle cause of the universe as a first principle, it must be inengendre, yet the myth, the Demiurge the factory.

The political organization of excellence

The ontology of the theory of ideas makes it possible to know some, and this ontology Plato will "match" (prosphrein) a theory of knowledge : the soul is able to discover the forms that will allow it to exercise properly his "faculties," including the highest, because it is one that is in contact with the realities of the truest, the intellect. This excellent faculties of the soul determines what constitutes his virtues and good.

It is on this question of good and faculties of the soul will rest the political philosophy of Plato, an issue that affects both individual human behavior as the education : there is not, in fact, for Plato, virtue that could be bought individually, and the philosophy itself is an activity of thought, which always involves education and political conditions that remain to be defined. The political philosophy is, for Plato, is inseparable from moral philosophy (as with any ancient Greek philosophy): the policy , that Plato is the first philosopher to identify as such, aims to take care of the souls of citizens , through education. For these reasons, politics is the science of good in general, and is therefore superior to all other sciences and technology, which is why Plato designates as the royal art.

The politics and ethics are the starting point and purpose for the soul, it is necessary to first explain the psychology platonic, which we will also see what relationship it has with the core cosmology.

Soul

The word " soul "in Greek , is by far the one that occurs most frequently in the dialogues of Plato, especially in Phaedrus , Republic and Phaedo. In the few dialogues where it is not used, there are always one or several speeches there by reference. Despite the ubiquity of the term, Plato has never given definition complete. However, he gives many different descriptions that emphasize each a particular quality or property. Thus, failing to provide a precise definition of the soul in Plato, it is possible to classify these descriptions. However, some properties seem more essential than others: this is the case of the conception of the soul as a principle of movement, and thought , .

For Plato, the soul is a being akin to the ideas, the divine, which has a proper motion. It is immortal and consists of three powers:

  • the epithumiai (), the "appetite" part concupiscible, wishing, the seat of desire (hunger, sexuality), passions.
  • thumos (), the "anger" element irritable, aggressive, and this could be translated as "heart" and it is this part of the soul capable of passion, anger, courage.
  • the logistikon (), the "reasonable", or spirit, rational element, immortal, divine and is a " demon "(daimon).

Plato explains this constitution "tripartite" of the soul in the Phaedrus and The Republic. The nous , or reason, as it has only relative to the intelligible, is the noblest of all three. The second characteristic of the desire for personal enrichment, good reputation, and attempts at feats made thereunder, is useful only if it offers to the reasonable element to control the third, leads inevitably to vice. In other words, life good guess as to establish between these three parts of the soul, a hierarchy: the U.S. Government thumos, which governs the epithumiai. Each of these parties thus has a virtue , its own: the wisdom to the spirit, courage for the aggressive element, and temperance , for the desired item, the harmony of these three parts is under justice. Plato's thought has also changed . This goes back to tripartism Pythagoras by Diogenes Laertius . Plato believed the immortal soul, and sought, without attempting to achieve, to prove it in the Phaedo , which recounts the last days of Socrates. This immortality binds to the theory of the transmigration of souls and their purification after death, he describes in three myths at the end of the Gorgias, The Republic and Phaedo. Plato accepts five types of souls: those of gods, demons, heroes, people of Hell, humans .

The best way to govern the common life

Major references: The Republic , The Statesman , The Laws

Plato explains the nature and scope of his thinking policy in Book I of the Laws , using a myth , the myth tells of the puppet. This myth represents man as a puppet made by the gods, but, unlike the usual puppets, the son used to manipulate, are, in the case of living inside the body because they symbolize the emotions: pleasure , pain, fear, and reasoning, which draw men in opposite directions, that among these emotions, that of reasoning is weakest. This myth takes the various myths representing the soul as something composed of parts, which are not naturally in harmony. This representation of man as a puppet, that is to say as a real living, which is not, by nature, guided by reason, Plato to justify the role of politics: the soul, indeed need to be educated, to be able to perform well, and this education is through laws designed as a rational discourse, that the City address to citizens.

This representation thus explains that anthropological research on the best constitution is the main concern of Plato: The purpose of a city is well constituted to conduct its citizens a life in conformity to good, life is a happy life, and that can be realized that depending on the state of the soul , and as part of a common life. The soul is thus always the purpose of speculation, both policies that metaphysics , Plato.

The common feature of different political reflections found in the dialogues is the question to know how to unify the multiplicity of elements, functions and forces making up a city , ie the question of what should be a common life. The policy is therefore designed as a technique which, in a territory given, and in the face of heterogeneous elements, must take care to achieve the unity of the city, by giving it a political regime (politeia, also resulted in formation). This care unit is the philosophy and the philosopher is one who, by law, must govern the city .

The search for such a scheme is the essence of The Republic and Laws , but the Socratic dialogues already reflect the political orientation of Plato, since it engages in fierce criticism of the rhetoricians. This research immediately excludes all forms of existing cities, both democratic aristocratic: the divisions that mark the Cities indeed real disagreements between parties, between classes, in the eyes of Plato are a symptom of corruption, and we can not therefore be taken for political regimes that are unable to reach all citizens to live.

In The Republic , Socrates is engaged in the search for a definition of justice. Looking at this definition of the city , he studied the distribution of functions among its members, to show that the best scheme depends not so much as mentioned the group that the proper exercise of each function in the city, considered as a whole. The city is just made up of three groups, governors, caretakers and producers. Each group represents a particular virtue , but all groups do not possess only a single virtue: if the rulers have the virtue of wisdom , they are temperate and brave; guards are courageous, but also temperate, and since rulers are chosen in this group, the guards also receive education in wisdom, and finally, the producers, that is to say the greatest number, have the virtue of temperance.

In Laws , Plato discuss several old on the value of the formation of several cities. Looking for better ways to inculcate the virtues, Plato speaks of such educational virtues of drunkenness (Book I).

Classification of political regimes

In The Republic (545c - 576b), Plato describes how one moves from one political system to another. This sequence did not, for Plato, historical value: as in the Timaeus , it is essentially to present a logical sequence. Plato thus distinguishes five:

  1. the aristocracy , the best government is the only perfect diet according to him. It is the ideal "philosopher king", which brings power and wisdom in her hands. This regime is followed by four imperfect regimes:
  2. the timocracy , based on the honor system;
  3. the oligarchy , wealth-based system;
  4. the democracy , a regime based on equality;
  5. the tyranny , the regime based on desire, the latter regime marks the end of the policy, since laws abolished.

The imbalance in the cities through which it passes from one regime to another, is the imbalance that is part of the hierarchy among the parts of the soul. Just as life just assumed that we would govern the thumos, and that it controls the epithumiai, the city just means the government of philosophers, including us, the reason is the essential virtue. Instead, the plan is the Government of timocratic thumos, courage and fighting spirit, the essential virtues of soldiers or guardians of the city, and the tyrannical regime that the epithumiai: tyranny is a regime where only dominate the passions of the tyrant.

The myth of Atlantis

In Plato's two dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, evokes the myth of an island ahead technologically and socially named Atlantis , which would have existed and 9.500 BC. Socrates explains that this myth has been told by Solon, having himself learned in Egypt. Plato used this myth to support his vision of a just and very hierarchical, in fact, the Atlanteans were divided into three castes, like the Platonic Republic.

The philosopher king

Main article: Philosopher King.

The philosopher , represented by the character of Socrates , is one of the central figures of Plato's dialogues , . It is the nature and place of this type of man who is often the object of his thoughts. The philosopher, according to Plato, is to become a legislator and a reformist policy , to achieve the establishment of justice in the City. However, some dialogues like the Republic , we must force him to become one, because it is highly probable that he did not consent to "return to the cave. " But if this is done in turn by all philosophers, and for the good of all, it is highly unlikely to accept. It is also interesting to note that Plato did not write any dialogue with the name of the philosopher, as he left a Sophist and Policy. In fact, if the question of the philosopher is often, his portrait is to be from several dialogues, often hollow, in contrast with a face opposite to the philosopher, principally the sophist.

The oral teaching of Plato

Plato would have provided "an esoteric and oral teaching at the Academy," but his motives remain unknown. Aristotle speaks of the "unwritten teachings" ( ) of Plato, and he mentions a certain lesson, entitled On the Good ( ), pronounced as Plato, who, to the surprise of listeners, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Heraclides of Pontus, was "on the Mathematics, that is to say, the numbers on the geometry, astronomy, and the fact that the Good is the One" . Moreover, Plato himself condemns writing , and he refers to secret knowledge , and a more fundamental . This oral teaching can be contemporary with the founding of the Academy by HJ Kramer, when he is later (to -350 ) for K. Gaiser .

Marie-Dominique Richard summed up the contents of this oral teaching : "The unwritten Platonism is a doctrine Emanate, generating, by the interplay of two principles, the One-Limit and the indefinite Dyad of the Grand and Petit, Numbers ideals first, then the ideas, and from ideas, through a mathematical process for determining the sensitivity itself. In Plato's unwritten teachings raises two principles in duality, that is to say, as opposed to Good and Evil, and not derived from each other: the One and the indefinite Dyad Grand (Excess) and Small (Default). Between these two principles will therefore place metaksu or intermediate beings. Plato here identifies the ideas and ideals Numbers. Mathematical objects are not at the border of the intelligible and the sensible, but they cover the two places. Plato establishes the hierarchy:

  1. the One , the first principle, Monad, identical to good;
  2. Ideas higher ideals or Numbers, Numbers of the Decade: 1, 2, 3 and 4, which correspond to the dimensions of Everything (number, line, area, volume);
  3. Specific ideas, make shape, Monad, and matters, the Dyad;
  4. Soul of the world, mathematical entities, the system of individual souls; at this level acts the demiurge, who composed the four elements with triangles (Timaeus, 55)
  5. the sensible, the world of visible bodies, the All, and orderly living, represented by a dodecahedron;
  6. Finally, below, the second principle, the Dyad, the Grand and Petit-, unformed matter, material cause of all beings.

This is the future pattern of Plotinus , with its three hypostasis or divine principles (One, Intellect, Ideas and higher specific ideas, mind). Numbers are ideal to previous ideas, and it seems the ideas, which then proceed to the Decade of Numbers are numbers. This theory has been studied by Leo Robin (The Platonic theory of Ideas and Numbers from Aristotle, 1908), and the evidence was gathered, edited and translated by Marie-Dominique Richard , . Aristotle argues that the theory of the One and the Dyad prefigures its own regardless of the formal cause and the material cause ; the Neoplatonists pythagorizing as Syrianos , Gerase of Nicomachus , Iamblichus , have assimilated to the One Monad They identify opposition Limit - Unlimited's Philebus (16c) with the Monad - the Pythagoreans Dyad . Some experts, including Harold Cherniss , deny this oral teaching.

The Platonism after Plato

Alleged statue of Plato in Delphi.

Plato scored a sustainable philosophy of antiquity, through the influence he exerted on Plotinus in particular, or because they regarded him as the philosopher against which was to be located. He was also an inspiration as well as the target of much criticism. Aristotle , Epicurus and the Stoics, for example, developed a critique, however, more or less systematic ethics, theory of knowledge, or political philosophy of Plato. As for Plotinus or the Fathers of the Church, they have not failed to see a philosopher Plato, quasi-divine ( Plotinus ), or, in any case, a source of inspiration.

The significance of the works of Plato has been the subject of much controversy since the ancient times. Some have a Plato's dogmatic other a skeptic. Plato was now recovered by currents mystical elevation of the soul towards the good beyond being, sometimes by purely rationalist philosophies. The diversity of his dialogues, their various forms, the many paradoxes that are raised, they raise questions, explain the significant differences of interpretation. In antiquity, all the dialogue was organized by a progressive order of reading, while the moderns, who claim to know more critically, have mainly sought to establish the actual order of their composition and their authenticity. These tests depend on the corpus organization is always the idea that one has of Platonism, which has led critics to exclude more or less arbitrarily certain dialogues and the dialogues to be questioned.

Platonic Tradition

Main article: Academy of Plato and Neoplatonism.

Platonic movement multiplies into different currents, schools, or periods: Academy of Plato , Middle Platonism , Neoplatonism , etc.. Called mathematical Platonism and mathematical realism a philosophical theory on mathematics, who believes that mathematical entities, numbers, geometric figures, are not abstracted by the human mind, but beyond him, with an independent existence. Already, for Plato, the "Numbers, Lines, Surfaces and Solids" have an existence in itself, they are eternal substances, separate beings known by the senses. Mathematical Platonism refers to "two types of questions: the first is ontological, and relates to the mode of existence of mathematical objects, and the second is epistemological, on the question of how we identify the mathematical objects," explains Jacques Bouveresse. Modern designs resemble that of Plato: with Charles Hermite , Albert Lautman or Alain Connes .

Commentators of Plato

It seems that Crantor has composed around 350 BC. BC, a commentary on the Timaeus. From the Second or first century BC. BC Plato was reviewed systematically. We know that Crassus had read in Athens in 110 BC. AD, the Gorgias, under the direction of Academician Charmadas philosopher. The philosophical commentary grew in importance since the third century AD. BC courses Plotinus consisted primarily in the explanation of texts of Plato and Aristotle, studied with the help of the texts of earlier commentators: Severus Cronius, Numnios of Apamea , Gaius Atticus for Plato . The Neoplatonists gave many detailed comments and dialogues, including Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus. Among the monuments we must mention, translated into French, Proclus (Commentary on 'Timaeus commentary on the Republic), Damascios (Comments on the' Parmenides' by Plato). LG Westernink published reviews of Greek Phaedo by Olympiodorus the Younger and Damascios .

Medieval Translations of Plato

Timaeus, translated into Latin by Calcidius (IVth century). Manuscript of the tenth century

Only a small part of Plato's texts were translated into Latin and accessible to the Middle Ages. They are available through the publishing of the Corpus Medii Aevi Platonicum (edited by David W. Ross, 1938), divided into two sections, one devoted to Latin translations, the other with translations in Arabic.

The Plato Latinus (edited by R. Klibanski in 1950 in 3 volumes), it includes:

  • Timaeus by Calcidius the IVth century (Up to 53c) in a commentary.
  • Le par Henri Aristippe au milieu du XII e s. (Plato latinus, t. 1)
  • Le par Henri Aristippe (Plato latinus, t. 2)
  • Le avec le commentaire de Guillaume de Moerbeke (aprs 1260) (Plato latinus, t. 3.)

Le (avec al-Farabi), regroupe :

  • une Synopsis du Timaeus attribue Galen,
  • le d'Al-Farabi
  • le trait d'Al-Farabi sur les Lois de Platon.

Dans le cadre de ce projet, quelques autres tudes concernant l'histoire du platonisme ont t labores et publies.

Platon dans la philosophie analytique

Les thses platoniciennes, leur problmatisation et leurs enjeux philosophiques soulevs par Platon lui-mme , ont eu une immense postrit et sont encore discutes et dfendues de nos jours au sein du courant de la philosophie analytique , comme le platonisme mathmatique. Si Karl Popper a critiqu le communisme de Platon , certains aspects du platonisme furent ractualiss par Frege et Russell , et Gilbert Ryle a soulign l'importance de dialogues comme le pour les tudes philosophiques contemporaines .

Works

Article dtaill : Dialogues de Platon.
Catgorie principale :

L'ensemble des uvres de Platon se compose de plus d'une trentaine de dialogues, de lettres, d'un livre de dfinitions et de six dialogues apocryphes. La liste suivante suit l'ordre chronologique propos par Luc Brisson. Les sous-titres, donns entre parenthses, ne sont pas de Platon.

  • (ou , De l'Homme)
  • (ou , Du faux)
  • (De l'Iliade)
  • (Du courage)
  • (De la sagesse morale)
  • (Des sophistes)
  • (De la pit)
  • (De la rhtorique)
  • (De la vertu)
  • (Du devoir du citoyen)
  • (De l'ristique)
  • (De l'amiti)
  • (De l'oraison funbre)
  • (Du langage)
  • (De l'me)
  • (De l'amour)
  • a href = "% C3% La_R A9publique" class = "mw-redirect" title = "The Republic"> The Republic (of Justice)
  • Phaedra (Du Beau)
  • Theaetetus (From Science)
  • Parmenides (Ideas)
  • Sophist (Of Being)
  • The Statesman (royalty)
  • Critias (Atlantis)
  • " Seventh Letter "
  • Philebus (Fun)
  • Timaeus
  • Laws (of legislation)
  • Authenticity doubtful
    • Alcibiades minor (or Second Alcibiades, prayer)
    • Clitophon
    • Definitions
    • Epinomis (The stars)
    • Hipparchus (From the love of gain)
    • Hippias Major (or Premier Hippias, On Beauty)
    • Minos
    • Rivals (From philosophy)
    • Theages (knowledge)
  • Apocryphal works: Pseudo-Plato
    • Axiochos
    • Demodocus
    • Eryxias
    • Justice
    • Virtue
    • Sisyphus
    • Among the letters attributed to Plato, No. II, VI, IX, XII and XIII come from a "middle Pythagorean end of the second-early first century BC. AD "(Luc Brisson).

Editions

  • Consult the list of editions of works by this author List editions .
  • Platonis opera. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit Burnet, 5 vols. Oxford, 1900-1910
  • Plato, Complete Works, Belles Lettres, 14 vol.

Translations

In French, the translation of quality are few. Those of Emile Chambry are considered inaccurate, and those of Leo Robin , however, are considered the most rigorous, according to Luc Brisson , in effect, "when we have the Greek text before us, we see that nothing is missing in these translations, and they have a desire to account for all the words. " Bibliography

Sources on the biography of Plato


Leave a Reply


Frequently Asked Questions

1 vote, average: 4.00 out of 51 vote, average: 4.00 out of 51 vote, average: 4.00 out of 51 vote, average: 4.00 out of 51 vote, average: 4.00 out of 5 (1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5, rated)
Loading ... Loading ...
Help us improve the wiki Send Your Comments