Category Archives: History

Plato’s Worldview

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Plato: Biography, Greek Philosopher, Quotes, Platonic Academy
Plato the philosopher.

Inspired by Socrates, Plato was an extremely influential classical Greek philosopher. He lived in Athens from 427-347 BC, and wrote philosophy solely in the form of dialogues, many of which involved Socrates as a character. Interestingly, we get much of the information on Socrates from these dialogues, but it is debated how true this information is because of the fact that Plato based the character off of Socrates personality but didn’t actually tell us about his life. 

One of Plato’s most forward questions was wanting to learn the essence and form of different things. An example of this might be, what makes a dog a dog? Because some are small, some are big, and they are different in many ways. In other words, whatever an individual thing shares in common with something that shares its name, is its form. Like Socrates, Plato was concerned with questions of morals and believed that philosophers were only people who tried to find the forms of things. Continuing, he stated that forms are unchanging and eternal, and what is perfect and true. 

Remarkably, Plato established the first academy in Athens and offered the first detailed formation in Western thought of themes that would persist and be developed further by later philosophers. He believed that the “good life” was the true development of man’s personality as a rational and moral being, the right cultivation of his soul, and the general harmonious well-being of life. However, Plato did oppose atheism, relativism, hedonism, and materialism. 

His most famous work “The Republic” was of course a dialogue involving Socrates, where he raised the question: “What is Justice?” it should be pursued regardless of its consequences, even if it means you are punished for being a good person. Plato asserted that the soul has three parts: rational, courageous, and spirited or appetitive. Rational is the highest element of the soul, and is portrayed as a charioteer, with the spirited and appetitive elements as horses. The spirited element is the natural ally of reason, though shared by animals. Appetitive is a friend of riot and insolence. The spirited horse is good and loves honor and temperance, but the appetitive horse is bad, unruly, and follows passion. After this discussion, Plato asserted that the ideal state should be modeled after the ideal soul. 

The Foundation of Western Civilization

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Painting depicting the angel coming down to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac.

To understand Western Civilization, one must first comprehend its roots, which started with the Hebrews. The time between the lives of Abraham and Moses covers some of the most important events of ancient Hebrew history and is the seedbed of the first book of the Bible.

Abram, a descendant of Noah, and his wife Sarah wished to have a child but could not because of Sarah’s barrenness. Graciously, God granted the couple a child named Isaac. So great was his faith in God, that at one point God tested Abram by commanding him to sacrifice his only son. Without hesitation, Abram prepared his son for sacrifice. However, the moment before the act could be carried out, an angel of God appeared and saved Isaac. God rewarded his faithful servant by changing his name to Abraham, meaning “Father of Nations,” and stated that he would be the patriarch of his chosen people. 

Eventually, Isaac came of age and had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau was the firstborn son and therefore had the birthright. Covetously, Jacob tricked his brother into giving him the birthright and with the help of his mother, Rebecca, deceived his father. Understandably, Esau was upset, even going so far as to try to kill his brother. Eventually, Esau forgave his brother and they were reunited. 

When it came time for Jacob to marry a wife, he wished to have a woman named Rachel. Her father told Jacob that if he worked for him for seven years, he could have her. Therefore, he labored, but when the time of the marriage came, Jacob realized that Rachel’s father had tricked him into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, instead of Rachel herself. Since Leah was not the one he wanted, Jacob worked seven more years to marry Rachel too. Jacob had 10 sons with Leah and just 2 sons with Rachel, his favorite being Joseph, Rachel’s firstborn. The other 11 brothers came to hate Joseph because of the preferential treatment he received. One day, Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt where he lived for many years, until there was a famine in Israel and Joseph’s family was forced to flee to Egypt. There, Joseph forgave his brothers and the family was brought back together. 

Years after the famine, the Israelites remained in Egypt where, since the time of Joseph, they had been enslaved by the Egyptians. Seeing the Israelites’ growing population and fearing a revolt, the Pharaoh made a decree that all the baby Israelite boys should be murdered and thrown into the Nile. This is where a mother, fearing for her son’s life, put him in a basket and sent him down the river. Downstream, Pharaoh’s daughter found the baby and raised him in the palace, giving him the name Moses. Once he grew up and saw how his people were being treated, God gave Moses the task of freeing the Israelites from Egyptian captivity. Acting as God’s messenger, Moses led the people of Israel out of captivity. Finally, outside of Egypt on top of Mount Sinai, God gave to Moses the Ten Commandments. These were laws that the Israelites must follow, if they wished to reach the “Promised Land” where God was leading them. 

This period of the Hebrews chronicles everything from the miraculous birth of Isaac to the Exodus out of Egypt led by Moses. This is the foundation the Old Testament forefathers placed and upon which the Christian West was built, so this history is critical to the study of later events. One must at least have a baseline understanding of ancient Hebrew history if they wish to learn about Western Civilization.

Socrates and Plato

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Socrates Teaching.

Socrates (469-399 BC) is widely considered one of the most influential philosophers of his era. Not much is known about his early life, but Plato’s account of Socrates’ life is probably the most accurate. Born to a stone mason father, Socrates might have been the first mainstream philosopher to use what is now known as the “Socratic Ignorance,” which is when someone is so wise that he is fully aware of all his shortcomings.

Morality was Socrates’ main philosophical pursuit. He thought that truth and standards always exist, and people should use reason to find them. This is why he opposed a group called the Sophists, who in contrast did not believe in truth at all. In Socrates’ opinion, they would rather seem to win an argument than actually convince someone of their view. The Sophists taught that all truth was relative, and the only morals in existence are the ones in which someone believed. To counter this argument, Socrates simply stated that he was right and they were wrong. 

When Socrates was sentenced to death by poison in 399 BC for “corrupting the youth,” Plato was 20 years old, a devoted follower of Socrates, and continued the Socratic way of teaching. All of Plato’s writings that we have today are in the form of a dialogue, with a set of characters talking to each other. A main character in his dialogue is even named after Socrates. One of Plato’s main doctrines was the theory of forms, which states that the world is full of non-physical things like ideas, and that physical things are just imitations of the forms. 

Plato.

Unlike other philosophers of his time, Plato thought that although the highest part of man was his intellect, it was not all of who he is, and sometimes pleasure is a good part of life. Similarly to Socrates, Plato also opposed the ideas of atheism, relativism, materialism, and hedonism. Even though they lived before the time of Jesus Christ, Socrates and Plato influenced later Christian theologians years later.