Plato's Philosophy Quiz

Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, was born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece and founded the Academy, a philosophical school where he taught the philosophical doctrines that would later became known as Platonism. He was an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy and raised problems for what later became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy. His most famous contribution is the Theory of forms, where he presents a solution to the problem of universals. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Plato's works have consistently been read and studied. Plato greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy through Neoplatonism. Plato's name is derived from his nickname given to him by his wrestling coach and his actual name was Aristocles. Plato's most decisive philosophical influences are usually thought to have been, along with Socrates, the pre-Socratics Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Parmenides. Plato may have travelled in Italy, Sicily, Egypt, and Cyrene, but at the age of forty, he founded a school of philosophy in Athens, the Academy. Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife. Plato also discusses several aspects of epistemology. In several dialogues, Socrates inverts the common man's intuition about what is knowable and what is real. Several dialogues discuss ethics including virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, crime and punishment, and justice and medicine.Plato's Philosophy: Politics, Rhetoric, Poetry, Works, Authenticity, Chronology, Legacy, Unwritten Doctrines, Modern Reception, Criticism

Politics:

• Plato's dialogues discuss politics, including the Republic, Laws, and Statesman.
• Socrates asserts that societies have a tripartite class structure corresponding to the appetite/spirit/reason structure of the individual soul.
• According to Socrates, societies decline from aristocracy to timocracy to oligarchy to democracy to tyranny.

Rhetoric and poetry:

• Plato has criticisms of rhetoric in the Gorgias but uses it in the Phaedrus.
• Plato uses mythological narratives in his own work to convey philosophical reasoning.
• Plato's philosophy is sometimes seen as at odds with rhetoric.

Works:

• Plato never presents himself as a participant in any of the dialogues.
• Socrates is the primary speaker in most of the dialogues, using a method of questioning called dialectic.
• The modern standard complete English edition is the 1997 Hackett Plato, Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper.

Authenticity:

• Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, but modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of some.
• Some works, like Alcibiades I and Menexenus, were attributed to Plato even when the author was unknown.

Chronology:

• Plato's works are usually grouped into Early, Middle, and Late periods.
• Some works, like the middle dialogues, provide more clearly stated positive teachings than the early dialogues.

Legacy:

• Plato's unwritten doctrines are the most fundamental metaphysical teaching of Plato, disclosed only orally to his most trusted fellows.
• Plato's thought is often compared with that of Aristotle, with whom he shares many differences.
• Plato's influence has been especially strong in mathematics and the sciences.

Criticism:

• Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Popper all criticized Plato's philosophy.
• Edmund Gettier famously demonstrated the problems of the justified true belief account of knowledge.