Plato: biography of this Ancient Greek philosopher.

Let us look at the life and intellectual trajectory of Aristocles of Athens, better known as Plato.

There are many reasons to think that Plato is the true founder of philosophy as an institutionalized discipline. This philosopher made philosophy an academic knowledge, never better said, since he taught it in his novel Academy of Athens.

Plato's life takes place in many places and, despite coming from a wealthy family, his story is that of someone who had a very hard time being exiled from his hometown and becoming a slave because of the misfortunes of war.

Concerned with power, he is credited with the idea that a just world would be one whose rulers were philosophers. Let's discover more about the life and thought of this philosopher through a biography of Plato, one of the most outstanding thinkers of our time.Plato, one of the most outstanding thinkers of the Western world.

Brief biography of Plato

Aristocles of Athens, known by his nickname Plato (Greek Πλάτων, Plátōn "the broad-backed") was born around 428 BC in Athens, although there are sources that suggest he may have been born in Aegina. In any case, this philosopher traveled throughout much of the Mediterranean and was nourished by ideas from many schools of thought. The result was Platonic philosophy, one of the fundamental influences on Western culture..

Early years and family background

Plato was born into a wealthy and powerful family; in fact, his father Ariston believed that his ample wealth was due to his descent from Codro, the last king of Athens.

As for his mother, Perictione, she and her relatives seemed to be descended from the ancient Greek lawgiver Solon.Besides being related to two very important characters of her time: Critias and Carmides, tyrants who had participated in a coup d'état of oligarchic character together with 28 other tyrants perpetrated in 404 BC.

From the marriage between Ariston and Perictione were born two sons and a daughter besides Plato: Glaucon, Adimanto and Potone. When Ariston died, his mother Perictione married again, this time to his uncle Pirilampes, who was a friend of Pericles, a very important politician in the history of Greece.a very important politician in the history of Greece. From the union of Perictione and Pirilampes was born Antiphon, Plato's half-brother.

Philosophical formation

Thanks to coming from a family of extensive wealth Plato's education was broad and deep, having the opportunity to be instructed by various illustrious figures of his time. It is probable that when he was initiated in philosophy he was a disciple of Cratylus.Plato, considered a follower of the teachings of the philosopher Heraclitus.

However, the most important moment in Plato's formation came in 407 BC. When he was only 20 years old, he had the opportunity to meet Socrates, who would become his teacher when he was 20 years old. who would become his teacher when he was 63 years old. For 8 years Socrates transmitted everything he knew to the young Plato, only stopped by his imprisonment and death.

Interest in politics

Due to the characteristics of his family, in which many members were or had been political men, the young man also considered becoming one of them. However, upon learning firsthand how his relatives, the tyrants Critias and Carmides, governed and not noticing many differences with how the democrats who replaced them did it, Plato became disillusioned with politics.

For Plato, the political way to find justice was precisely philosophy.. In fact, one of his maxims that has transcended the passage of time is that justice will only be real if the rulers are philosophers, or the rulers were to philosophize.

Exile from Athens

When his teacher Socrates was unjustly accused of a crime and condemned to death, Plato decided to flee to the city of Megara, in Attica. Although he had not committed any crime, he fled for fear of being judged given his close and deep ties with his teacher Socrates. It is believed that he must have remained in Megara for about three years where he had the opportunity to meet with Euphrasius. he had the opportunity to interact with Euclid of Megara and the school of philosophy in that city..

After Megara he traveled to Egypt and later moved to the region of Cyrenaica, present-day Libya. There he was able to meet the mathematician Theodore and the philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene. After his stay in Cyrenaica, Plato traveled to Italy, where he intended to meet Architas of Tarentum, a multifaceted man of learning who boasted of being a mathematician, statesman, astronomer and philosopher. However, it must be said that there are sources that consider that, after being in Cyrenaica, he traveled directly to Athens..

Visit to King Dionysius I

Around 388 B.C. Plato traveled to the island of Sicily, in whose capital, Syracuse, he met Dion, brother-in-law of Dionysius Iking of the city. Dion was an admirer of the philosophers who followed the teachings of Socrates and informed the king of Plato's presence. The king, intrigued by such an interesting visit, sent for the philosopher to his palace. Despite the initial interest, the relationship between the two must not have been very good because, although the reasons are not known, Dionysius I ended up expelling Plato.

In his second exile, the philosopher was forced to leave Syracuse aboard a Spartan ship, stopping at Aegina. At the time, Aegina and Athens were at war, and Plato ended up being enslaved as a slave. ended up being made a slave in that first city. in that first city. Fortunately, he was later rescued by Anniceris, a philosopher of the Cyrenaic school whom he had met while in Cyrene.

Foundation of the Academy

Plato would return to Athens around 387 B.C., where he would take the opportunity to found his best-known institution: the Academy.. He built it on the outskirts of Athens, next to a garden dedicated to the hero Academo, which is why it received such a name.

This institution was a kind of sect of sages organized with their own rules and regulations, which also had a student residence, library, classrooms and specialized seminars. This academy would be a model for the later universities of the Middle Ages..

Return to Syracuse

In 367 B.C. Dionysius I of Syracuse died, inheriting the throne to his son Dionysius II. Dion saw fit to bring Plato back to become the tutor of the newly crowned king and again invited him to come to Sicily. Naturally, Plato had his reservations, since he had been expelled from there and, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up being made a slave on his flight. Still he dared to travel to Syracuse and accepted the offer, leaving Eudoxus to run the Academy.

Once Plato had arrived in Syracuse, Dionysius II distrusted both the philosopher and Dion. He considered these two to be competition for him and his throne, so he very soon took action and ended up banishing them, although without entirely denying an eventual return. He first expelled Dion and then Plato, again.

Last years

Plato returned directly to Athens and stayed there until 361 BC when Dionysius II invited him again. Plato did not trust him at all and decided to go in the company of some disciples, leaving this time in charge of the Academy Heraclides Ponticus. In an unexpected turn of events Dionysius II again saw Plato as a threat and, this time, decided to imprison him..

Fortunately, Plato was rescued with the help of Architas of Tarentum. From then on, distrustful of anyone outside the city of Athens and its invitations, the philosopher the philosopher decided to devote himself entirely to the Academy, directing it until his death in 348 or 347 BC.

His philosophy

Plato was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Pythagoras from the very beginning. For Plato it was the soul, and not the body, that really signified the true essence of being. In fact, he believed that the body was nothing more than a packaging that hindered our search for truth and limited the free expression of our being. The soul was an entity burdened by the physical world and the senses..

Plato was of the opinion that the soul came from a higher world, a dimension where it would have had contact with the truth. At some point, the soul indulged in base pleasures and, as a result, was forced to reduce itself to the physical and known world, being imprisoned within the body.

Theory of the three parts

In his theory of the three parts he considers that the soul possesses three faculties: impulsivity, rationality and the passionate element..

The impulsive faculty was linked to the capacity to give orders and also to willpower. It was related to fortitude and impetus, as well as to ambition and rage.

The faculty of rationality was, according to Plato, the superior faculty among all the others. He related it to intelligence and wisdom and, according to him, it was the philosophers who had it most developed.

The passionate faculty, on the other hand, was the lowest of all and was related to the natural impulse to avoid Pain and seek pleasure. Plato indicated that this was the element that promoted the taste for material goods, which hindered the soul in its search for truth and the essence of things.

The two realities

For Plato there were what we could call two types of realities. On the one hand we have the real realm, which was formed by the world of ideas, and on the other we have the semi-real realm, formed by the material and sensible world.

According to Plato, the world of ideas is eternal, not subject to time or space.and can be understood as the true essence of the real. On the other hand, the semi-real world is imperfect, ambiguous, unstable and has limits that depend on space and time.

Thus, Plato gave to the concept of ideas a notion related to those universal elements, which serve as models that constitute truths that are maintained in time. For him, ideas were concepts such as virtue, beauty, equality and truth, that is, abstract and conceptually perfect, well-defined concepts.

The myth of the cave

The myth of the cave is, surely, the best allegory to understand the duality exposed by Plato in his philosophy. In this myth it is explained that there is a realm linked to the ideas, which is unintelligible, and there is another that is totally associated with the sensible worldwhich would be the one experienced by beings of flesh and blood. The interior of the cavern represents the sensible world, while life outside it would be related to the world of ideas.

For Plato, living inside the cavern implies living in a world full of darkness and being completely subjected to worldly pleasures. The act of getting out of the cave is the representation of leaving behind the search for pleasures and going in search of knowledge, of real ideas. That is to say, leaving the cave is synonymous with prioritizing reason over impulsivity and pleasure.. The farther we are from the cavern, the more knowledge we achieve and the closer we are to the truth.

Division of the human soul and relationship with politics

Plato separates the "real" into two opposing worlds. On the one hand we have the positive, which is represented by the soul, the intelligible and heaven, while on the other hand we have the negative, represented by the body, the earth and the sensible. That is to say, the positive was the world of ideas, while the negative was the physical world.. From these reflections he relates these ideas with how the ideal state should be, in which Plato established a division regarding the conformation of the human soul.

The three faculties of the soul are located in three different places in the body. Reason is located in the head, courage or the impulsive faculty is located in the heart, and the passionate faculty or appetite is located in the lower abdomen. These three faculties and the structures in which they are housed are what move man and incline him toward his decisions.

According to Plato, the man who would dedicate himself to govern should be the one who would dominate reason and wisdom above the other two faculties.. That is to say, the good ruler was the one who possessed a soul with a tendency to seek the truth. It is here that he defended the idea that good rulers should be philosophers, that is, men who prioritized reason ahead of the other two faculties, or at least that kings should philosophize by seeking the truth in order to bring prosperity to their land.

Bibliographical references:

• Bury, R. G. (1910). "The Ethics of Plato." April. The International Journal of Ethics XX (3): 271-281.
• Ross, W. D. (1993). Plato's Theory of Ideas. Madrid: Cátedra.