I have to admit, thinking about writing about Plato is like AH!!!!! I can't fit him into one blog ... especially one of moderate length!!!! But try I shall.
Plato was a man who had his hand into a whole of pies in life. Interested in a whole lot of things.
Plato’s enthusiasm for mathematics, astronomy, and musical theory appears everywhere in his writings, and he also displays a far from superficial knowledge of the medicine and physiology of his day. (source)
Plato was a man who had his hand into a whole of pies in life. Interested in a whole lot of things.
Plato’s enthusiasm for mathematics, astronomy, and musical theory appears everywhere in his writings, and he also displays a far from superficial knowledge of the medicine and physiology of his day. (source)
But today we don't speak of all his interests, only of that of his interest in philosophy. Plate thought that the real world was full of ideas...these Ideas contained the ideal forms of everything. When we are born we have these Ideal Forms within ourselves. But the world we live in is a world of senses. These senses have within them imperect copies of the Ideal Forms. Nothing in this world is perfect, all we can do is recognize the imperfect copies that we see. Everything therefore is basically shadows.
Now I have to admit that I read that and I think of scripture where we know that what we have now is a dim shadow of what is to come. Isn't it amazing the Plato as a philosopher grasped this thought. This thought that we aren't perfect. We can't be. We all have the knowledge of God within us, but we aren't God, we aren't perfect, all we can do is strive after that...and then in the life to come... God will grant us new bodies and we shall live perfectly with him. In the meantime we are living in a world not our own, that nothing is perfect in because of the influence of sin in our lives.
Living in a world where we can't count on our senses means we have to count on our logic or reasoning.
Plato was careful how he documented his thoughts, writing in such a way that he left no definitive conclusion. He wanted to force people to think through the ideas on their own. Having a dialogue was crucial to learning and he developed the logical argument.
Plato, unlike Socrates was literate and wrote books : The Republic, the Symposium, the Phaedo, the Theaetetus; the Parmenides,and The Laws.
There is much much more to Plato, but this at least gives you some ideas about how his philosophical approach worked. :)
Now I have to admit that I read that and I think of scripture where we know that what we have now is a dim shadow of what is to come. Isn't it amazing the Plato as a philosopher grasped this thought. This thought that we aren't perfect. We can't be. We all have the knowledge of God within us, but we aren't God, we aren't perfect, all we can do is strive after that...and then in the life to come... God will grant us new bodies and we shall live perfectly with him. In the meantime we are living in a world not our own, that nothing is perfect in because of the influence of sin in our lives.
Living in a world where we can't count on our senses means we have to count on our logic or reasoning.
Plato was careful how he documented his thoughts, writing in such a way that he left no definitive conclusion. He wanted to force people to think through the ideas on their own. Having a dialogue was crucial to learning and he developed the logical argument.
Plato, unlike Socrates was literate and wrote books : The Republic, the Symposium, the Phaedo, the Theaetetus; the Parmenides,and The Laws.
There is much much more to Plato, but this at least gives you some ideas about how his philosophical approach worked. :)
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