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Plato (Philosopher)
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or The great Athenian philosopher, was born in 427 B. c., and lived to the age of eighty. His literary activity may be roughly said to have extended over the first half of the 4th century B.C. His father's name was Ariston, said to have been a descendant of Codrus; and his mother's family, which claimed descent from Solon, included Critias, one of the thirty tyrants, and other well-known Athenians of the early 4th century B.C. That throughout his early manhood he was the devoted friend of Socrates, that in middle life he taught those who resorted to him in the grove named Academus, near the Cephisus, and there founded the first great philosophical school, that (with alleged interruptions) he continued to preside over the Academy until his death, are matters of established fact. It is said by Aristotle that he was at one time intimate with Cratylus the Heraclitean. Beyond this we have no authentic record of his outward life. That his name was at first Aristocles, and was changed to Plato because of the breadth of his shoulders or of his style or of his forehead, that he wrestled well,' that he wrote poetry 2 which he burnt on hearing Socrates, fought in three great battles, 3 that he had a thin voice, that (as is told of other Greek philosophers) he travelled to Cyrene and conversed with priests in Egypt, are statements of Diogenes Laertius, which rest on more or less uncertain tradition. The express assertion - which this author attributes to Hermodorus - that after the death of Socrates Plato and other Socratics took refuge with Euclides in Megara, has a somewhat stronger claim to authenticity. But the fact cannot be regarded as certain, still less the elaborate inferences which have been drawn from it. The romantic legend of Plato's journeys to Sicily, and of his relations there with the younger Dionysius and the princely but unfortunate Dion, had obtained some degree ' See Laws, vii. 814 c.
Some epigrams in the Anthology are attributed to him.
3 This is told on the authority of Aristoxenus. But Plato cannot have been at Delium.
of consistency before the age of Cicero, and at an unknown but probably early time was worked up into the so-called Epistles of Plato, now all but universally discredited. Nor is there sufficient ground for supposing, as some have done, that an authentic tradition is perceptible behind the myth.
The later years of the Peloponnesian War witnessed much mental disturbance and restlessness at Athens. More than at any time since the age of Cleisthenes, the city was divided and a man's foes were often men Anteced ent ' 'Conditi ons. of his own tribe or deme. Contention in the law courts and rivalries in the assembly had for many men a more absorbing interest than questions of peace and war. Hereditary traditions had relaxed their hold, and political principles were not yet formulated. Yet there was not less scope on this account for personal ambition, while the progress of democracy, the necessity of conciliating the people, and the apportionment of public offices by lot had a distracting and, to reflecting person s, often a discouraging effect. For those amongst whom Plato was brought up this effect was aggravated by the sequel of the oligarchical revolution, while, on the other hand, for some years after the restoration of the democracy, a new stimulus had been imparted, which, though of short duration, was universally felt.
These events appear in two ways to have encouraged the diffusion of ideas. The ambitious seem to have welcomed them as a means of influence, while those who turned from public life were the more stimulated to 'speculative disputation. However this may have been, it is manifest that before the beginning of the 4th century B.C. the intellectual atmosphere was already charged with a new force, which although essentially one may be differently described, according to the mode of its development, as (1) rhetorical and (2) theoretical and " sophistical." This last word indicates the channel through which the current influences were mostly derived. A new want, in the shape both of interested and of disinterested curiosity, had insensibly created a new profession. Men of various fatherlands, some native Athenians, but more from other parts of Hellas, 4 had set themselves to supplement the deficiencies of ordinary education, and to train men for the requirements of civic life. More or less consciously they based their teachings on the philosophical dogmas of an earlier time, when the speculations of Xenophanes, Heraclitus or Parmenides had interested only a few " wise men." Those great thoughts were now to be expounded, so that " even cobblers might understand." 5 The self-appointed teachers found a rich field and abundant harvest among the wealthier youth, to the chagrin of the old-fashioned Athenian, who sighed with Aristophanes for the good old days when men knew less and listened to their elders and obeyed the customs of their fathers. And such distrust was not wholly unfounded. For, amidst much that was graceful and improving, these novel questionings had an influence that, besides being unsettling, was aimless and unreal. A later criticism may discern in them the two great tendencies of naturalism and humanism. But it may be doubted if the sophist was himself aware of the direction of his own thoughts. For, although Prodicus or Hippias could debate a thesis and moralize with effect, they do not appear to have been capable of speculative reasoning. What passed for such was often either verbal quibbling or the pushing to an extreme of some isolated abstract notion. That prudens quaestio which is dimidium scientiae had not yet been put. And yet the hour for putting it concerning human life was fully come. For the sea on which men were drifting was profoundly troubled, and would not sink back into its former calm. Conservative reaction was not less hopeless than the dreams of theorists were mischievously wild. In random talk, with gay, irresponsible energy, the youth were debating problems which have exercised great minds in Europe through all after time.
Men's thoughts had begun to be thus disturbed and eager when Socrates (q.v.) arose. To understand him is the most necessary preliminary to the study of Plato. There is no reason to doubt 4 I had been the policy of Pericles to invite distinguished foreigners to Athens.
Theaet. 180 D.
the general truth of the assertion, which Plato attributes to him in the Apologia, that he felt a divine vocation to examine himself by questioning other men. He was really Socrates. doing for Athenians, whether they would or no, what the sophist professed to do for his adherents, and what such men as Protagoras and Prodicus had actually done in part. One obvious difference was that he would take no fee. But there was another and more deep-lying difference, which distinguished him not only from the contemporary sophists but from the thinkers of the previous age. This was the Socratic attitude of inquiry. The sceptical movement had confused men's notions as to the value of ethical ideas.' If " right is one thing in Athens and another in Sparta, why strive to follow right rather than expediency? The laws put restraint on nature, which is prior to them. Then why submit to law? " And the ingenuities of rhetoric had stirred much unmeaning disputation. Every case seemed capable of being argued in opposite ways. Even on the great question of the ultimate constitution of things, the conflicting theories of absolute immutability and eternal change appeared to be equally irrefragable and equally untenable. Men's minds had been confused by contradictory voices - one crying " All is motion," another " All is rest"; one " The absolute is unattainable," another " The relative alone is real "; some upholding a vague sentiment of traditional right, while some declared for arbitrary convention and some for the law " of nature." Some held that virtue was spontaneous, some that it was due to training, and some paradoxically denied that either vice or falsehood had any meaning. The faith of Socrates, whether instinctive or inspired, remained untroubled by these jarring tones. He did not ask " Is virtue a reality? " or " Is goodness a delusion? " But, with perfect confidence that there was an answer, he asked himself and others " What is it?" ( rL EorL); or, more particularly, as Xenophon testifies, " What is a state ? What is a statesman ? What is just ? What is unjust ? What is government ? What is it to be a ruler of men ? " In this form of question, however simple, the originality of Socrates is typified; and by means of it he laid the first stone, not only of the fabric of ethical philosophy, but of scientific method, at least in ethics, logic and psychology. Socrates never doubted that if men once knew what was best, they would also do it. They erred, he thought, from not seeing the good, and not because they would not follow it if seen. This is expressed in the Socratic dicta: " Vice is ignorance," " Virtue is knowledge." This lifelong work of Socrates, in which the germs of ethics, psychology and logic were contained, was idealized, developed, dramatized - first embodied and then extended beyond its original scope - in the writings of Plato, which may be described as the literary outcome of the profound impression made by Socrates upon his greatest follower. These writings (in pursuance of the importance given by Socrates to conversation) are all cast in the form of imaginary dialogue. But in those which are presumably the latest in order of composition this imaginative form interferes but little with the direct expression of the philosopher's own thoughts. The manycoloured veil at first inseparable from the features is gradually worn thinner, and at last becomes almost imperceptible.
Plato's philosophy, as embodied in his dialogues, has at once an intellectual and a mystical aspect; and both are dominated Plato's by a pervading ethical motive. In obeying the Dialogues. Socratic impulse, his speculative genius absorbed and harmonized the various conceptions which were present in contemporary thought, bringing them out of their dogmatic isolation into living correlation with one another, and with the life and experience of mankind. His poetical feeling and imagination, taking advantage of Pythagorean and Orphic suggestions, surrounded his abstract reasonings with a halo of mythology which made them more fascinating, but also more difficult for the prosaic intellect to comprehend. Convinced through the conversations of Socrates that truth and good exist and that they are inseparable, persuaded of the unity of virtue and of its dependence upon knowledge, he set forth upon a course of inquiry, 1 See Caird, Hegel, p. 168.
in which he could not rest until the discrepancies of ordinary thinking were not only exposed but accounted for, and resolved in relation to a comprehensive theory. In this " pathway towards reality," from the consideration of particular virtues he passed to the contemplation of virtue in general, and thence to the nature of universals, and to the unity of knowledge and being. Rising still higher on the road of generalization, he discussed the problem of unity and diversity, the one and the many. But in these lofty speculations the facts of human experience were not lost to view. The one, the good, the true, is otherwise regarded by him as the moral ideal, and this is examined as realized both in the individual and in the state. Thus ethical and political speculations are combined. And as the method of inquiry is developed, the leading principles both of logic and of psychology become progressively more distinct and clear. Notwithstanding his high estimate of mathematical principles, to him the type of exactness and certitude, Plato contributed little directly to physical science. Though he speaks with sympathy and respect of Hippocrates, he had no vocation for the patient inductive observation of natural processes, through which the Coan physicians, though they obtained few lasting results, yet founded a branch of science that was destined to be beneficently fruitful. And he turned scornfully aside from the Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, whose first principle, the basis of so much in modern physics, appeared to him to be tainted with materialism. Yet his discursive thought, as in later years he held high intercourse with Archytas and other contemporary minds, could not fail, unlike his master's, to include a theory of the Cosmos in its purview. In this regard, however, the poet-philosopher brought imagination to the aid of reason, thus creating a new mythology, of which the Timaeus is the most conspicuous example.
Amidst great diversity, both of subject and of treatment, Plato's dialogues are pervaded by two dominant motives, a passion for human improvement and a persistent faith in the power and supremacy of mind. What is commonly known as his doctrine of Ideas is only one phase in a continuous progress towards the realization of a system of philosophy in which the supreme factor is reason guiding will. But the objectivity, which from the first was characteristic of all Greek thinking, and his own power of poetic presentation, obscured for a time, even for Plato himself, the essential spirituality of his conceptions, and at one time even threatened to arrest them at a stage in which the universal was divorced from the particular, the permanent from the transient, being from becoming, and in which the first principles of reality were isolated from one another as well as from the actual world. Gradually the veil was lifted, and the relation between the senses and the intellect, phenomena and general laws, the active and the contemplative powers, came to be more clearly conceived. The true nature of abstraction and generalization, and of predication and inference, began to be discerned, and speculation was verified through experience. The ideas were seen as categories, or forms of thought, under which the infinite variety of natural processes might be comprised. And thus the dialogues present, as in a series of dissolving views, a sort of model or compendium of the history of philosophy. Plato's system is nowhere distinctly formulated, nor are the views put forward in his dialogues always consistent with each other, but much especially of his later thought is systematized, and as it were crystallized in the treatises of Aristotle; by whom the point of view which Plato had approached, but not finally attained, was made the starting-point for more precise metaphysical determinations and carried into concrete theories having the stamp of a more rigid logical method. The departments of ethics and politics, of dialectic and of psychology, of physics and metaphysics, thus came to be more clearly distinguished, but something was lost of the unity and intensity of spiritual insight which had vitalized these various elements, and fused them in a dynamic harmony.
The student of philosophy, whatever may be the modern system to which he is most inclined, sensational, intuitional, conceptional, transcendental, will find his account in returning xxi. 26 a to this well-spring of European thought, in which all previous movements are absorbed, and from which all subsequent lines of reflection may be said to diverge. As was observed by Jowett (St Paul, 1855), " the germs of all ideas, even of most Christian ones, are to be found in Plato." Two great forces are persistent in Plato: the love of truth and zeal for human improvement. In the period culminating with Historical the Republic, these two motives, the speculative and Influence the practical, are combined in one harmonious of Plato. working. In the succeeding period, without excluding one another, they operate with alternate intensity. In the varied outcome of his long literary career, the metaphysical " doctrine of ideas " which has been associated with Plato's name underwent many important changes. But pervading all these there is the same constant belief in the supremacy of reason and the identity of truth and good. From that abiding root spring forth a multitude of thoughts concerning the mind and human things - turning chiefly on the principles of psychology, education and political reform - thoughts which, although unverified, and often needing correction from experience, still constitute Plato the most fruitful of philosophical writers. While general ideas are powerful for good or ill, while abstractions are necessary to science, while mankind are apt to crave after perfection, and ideals, either in art or life, have an acknowledged value, so long the renown of Plato will continue. " All philosophic truth is Plato rightly divined; all philosophic error is Plato misunderstood " - is the verdict of one of the keenest of modern metaphysicians.' Plato's followers, however, have seldom kept the proportions of his teaching. The diverse elements of his doctrine have survived the spirit that informed them. The pythagorizing mysticism of the Timaeus has been more prized than the subtle and clear thinking of the Theaetetus. Logical inquiries have been hardened into a barren ontology. Semi-mythical statements have been construed literally and mystic fancies perpetuated without the genuine thought which underlay them. A part (and not the essential part) of his philosophy has been treated as the whole. But the influence of Plato has extended far beyond the limits of the Platonic schools. The debt of Aristotle to his master has never yet been fully estimated. Zeno, Chrysippus, Epicurus borrowed from Plato more than they knew. The moral ideal of Plutarch and that of the Roman Stoics, which have both so deeply affected the modern world, could not have existed without him. Neopythagoreanism was really a crude Neoplatonism. And the Sceptics availed themselves of weapons either forged by Plato or borrowed by him from the Sophists. A wholly distinct line of infiltration is suggested by the mention of Philo and the Alexandrian school (cf. section in Arabian Philosophy, ii. 26bc, 9th edition), and of Clement and Origen, while Gnostic heresies and even Talmudic mysticism betray perversions of the same influence. The effect of Hellenic thought on Christian theology and on the life of Christendom is a subject for a volume, and has been pointed out in part by E. Zeller and others (cf. NEO Platonism). Yet when Plotinus in the 3rd century (after hearing Ammonius), amidst the revival of religious paganism, founded a new spiritualistic philosophy upon the study of Plato and Aristotle combined, this return to the fountain head had all the effect of novelty. And for more than two centuries, from Plotinus to Proclus, the great effort to base life anew on the Platonic wisdom was continued. But it was rather the ghost than the spirit of Plato that was so " unsphered." Instead of striving to reform the world, the Neoplatonist sought after a retired and cloistered virtue. Instead of vitalizing science with fresh thought, he lost hold of all reality in the contemplation of infinite unity. He had skill in dealing with abstractions, but laid a feeble hold upon the actual world.
" Hermes Trismegistus and "Dionysius Areopagita " are names that mark the continuation of this influence into the middle ages. The pseudo-Dionysius was translated by Erigena in the 9th century.
Two more " Platonic" revivals have to be recorded - at .Ferrier, Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 169 (§ i. prop. vi. § 12).
Florence in the i 5th and at Cambridge in the 17th century. Both were enthusiastic and both uncritical. The translation of the dialogues into Latin by Marsilio Ficino was the most lasting effect of the former movement, which was tinged with the unscientific ardour of the Renaissance. The preference still accorded to the Timaeus is a fair indication of the tendency to bring fumum ex fulgore which probably marred the discussions of the Florentine Academy concerning the " chief good." The new humanism had also a sentimental cast, which was alien from Plato. Yet the effect of this spirit on art and literature was very great, and may be clearly traced not only in Italian but in English poetry.
The " Cambridge Platonists " have been described by Principal Tulloch in his important work on Rational Theology in England in the r7th century, and again by Professor J. A. Stewart in the concluding chapter of his volume on the Myths of Plato. Their views were mainly due to a reaction from the philosophy of Hobbes, and were at first suggested as much by Plotinus as by Plato. It is curious to find that, just as Socrates and Ammonius (the teacher of Plotinus) left no writings, so Whichcote, the founder of this school, worked chiefly through conversation and preaching. His pupils exercised a considerable influence for good, especially on English theology; and in aspiration if not in thought they derived something from Plato, but they seem to have been incapable of separating his meaning from that of his interpreters, and Cudworth, their most consistent writer, was at once more systematic and less scientific than the Athenian philosopher. The translations of Sydenham and Taylor in the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th are proofs of the continued influence of Platonism in England.
The critical study of Plato begins from Schleiermacher, who did good work as an interpreter, and tried to arrange the dialogues in the order of composition. His attempt, which, Critical like many efforts of constructive criticism, went far History. beyond possibility, was vitiated by the ground-fallacy of supposing that Plato had from the first a complete system in his mind which he partially and gradually revealed in writing. At a considerably later time Karl Friedrich Hermann, to whom all students of Plato are indebted, renewed the same endeavour on the far more plausible assumption that the dialogues faithfully reflect the growth of Plato's mind. But he also was too sanguine, and exaggerated the possibility of tracing a connexion between the outward events of Plato's life and the progress of his thoughts. This great question of the order of the dialogues, which has been debated by numberless writers, is one which only admits of an approximate solution. Much confusion, however, has been obviated by the hypothesis (first hinted at by Ueberweg, and since supported by Lewis Campbell and others) that the Sophistes and Politicus, whose genuineness had been called in question by Joseph Socher, are really intermediate between the Republic and the Laws. The allocation of these dialogues, not only on grounds of metaphysical criticism, but also on philological and other evidence of a more tangible kind, supplies a point of view from which it becomes possible to trace with confidence the general outlines of Plato's literary and philosophical development. Reflecting at first in various aspects the impressions received from Socrates, he is gradually touched with an inspiration which becomes his own, and which seeks utterance in half-poetical forms. Then first the ethical and by and by the metaphysical interest becomes predominant. And for a while this last is all absorbing, as he confronts the central problems which his own thoughts have raised. But, again, the hard-won acquisitions of this dialectical movement must be fused anew with imagination and applied to life. And in a final effort to use his intellectual wealth for the subvention of human need the great spirit passed away.
It may not be amiss to recapitulate the steps through which the above position respecting the order of the dialogues has become established. Lovers of Hegel had observed that theoint reached in the Sophistes in defining O u P p g Dia rder log eues.; " not being " was dialectically in advance of the Republic. But Kantian interpreters might obviously have said the same of the Parmenides: and Grote as a consistent utilitarian looked upon the Protagoras as the most mature production of Plato's genius. It seemed desirable to find some criterion that was not bound up with philosophical points of view. Dr Thompson, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, had vindicated the genuineness of the Sophistes against the objections of Socher, but had not accounted for the peculiarities of language, which that acute critic had perceived. By comparing those peculiarities with the style of the Laws, Plato's latest work, and with that of the Timaeus and Critias, which presupposed the Republic, Lewis Campbell argued in 1867 that the Sophistes and Politicus, with the Philebus, were in chronological sequence intermediate between the Republic and the Laws. Thus a further defence of their authenticity was at the same time a long step towards the solution of the problem which Schleiermacher had proposed. Many years afterwards the more detailed stylistic investigations of W. Dittenberger, Constantin Ritter and others arrived independently at the same conclusion. It was vehemently supported by W. Lutoslawski in his work on Plato's Logic, and has been frankly accepted with ample acknowledgments by the high authority of Dr Theodor Gomperz (see especially the Notes to his Greek Thinkers, iii. 310, 315 of English translation).
THE Works Of Plato The Platonic dialogues are not merely the embodiment of the mind of Socrates and of the reflections of Plato. They are the portraiture of the highest intellectual life of Hellas in the time of Plato - a life but distantly related to military and political events, and scarcely interrupted by them. Athens appears as the centre of the excitable Hellenic mind, profoundly stirred by the arrival of great sophists, and keenly alive to the questions of Socrates, although in the pages of Plato, even more than in reality, he only " whispers with a few striplings in a corner." For, in the Platonic grouping, the agora, which was the chief scene of action for the real Socrates, retires into the background, and he is principally seen consorting with his chosen companions, who are also friends of Plato, and with the acquaintances whom he makes through them. The scene is narrowed (for the Academy was remote from the bustle of resort, and Plato judged the Hellenic world securely from the vantage-ground of partial retirement) - but the figures are distinct and full of life. In reading the dialogues we not only breathe the most refined intellectual atmosphere, but are also present witnesses of the urbanity, the freedom, the playfulness, the generous warmth of the " best society " in Athens. For Plato has a numerous repertory of dramatis personae, who stand in various relations to his chief character - the impetuous Chaerephon, Apollodorus the inseparable weak brother, old Crito the true-hearted, Phaedo the beloved disciple, Simmias and Cebes, who have been with Philolaus, the graceful and ingenuous Phaedrus, the petulant Philebus, Theaetetus of the philosophic nature, who is cut off in his prime, and the incorrigible Alcibiades; then Plato's own kinsmen - Glaucon the irrepressible in politics, in quarrel and in love; Adeimantus, solid and grave; Critias in his phase of amateur philosopher, and not as what he afterwards became; Charmides, not in fiery manhood, but in his first bloom of diffident youth; and many others who appear as mere acquaintances, but have an interest of their own - the accomplished Agathon, the gay Aristophanes, Eryximachus the all-worthy physician; Meno, light of spirit; Callias, entertainer of sophists; Callicles the wilful man of the world; Cephalus the aged father of Lysias; and Nicias the honoured soldier. All these appear, not as some of them do on the page of history, in sanguinary contention or fierce rivalry, but as peaceful Athenians, in momentary contact with Socrates, whose electric touch now benumbs and now exhilarates, and sometimes goads to frenzy of love or anger. Still more distantly related to him, as it were standing in an outer circle, are the imposing forms of Gorgias and Protagoras, surrounded with the lesser lights of Hippias, Prodicus and Polus. Thrasymachus, Euthydemus, Dionysodorus hang round like comic masks, adding piquancy to the design. The adversaries Anytus and Meletus are allowed to appear for a moment, but soon vanish. The older philosophers, though Socrates turned away from them, also make their entrance on the Platonic stage. Parmenides with his magnificent depth is made to converse with the imaginary Socrates, who is still quite young. A stranger from Elea plays an important part in some later dialogues, and Timaeus the Pythagorean is introduced discoursing of the creation of the world. In these dialogues Socrates is mostly silent; in the Philebus he has lost himself in Plato; and in the twelve books of the Laws, where an unnamed Athenian is the chief speaker, even the Platonic Socrates finally disappears.
Now, in evolving his philosophy from the Socratic basis, Plato works along three main lines - the ethical and political, the metaphysical or scientific, and the mystical. All three are often intimately blended, as in the close of Rep., bk. vi., and even where one element is uppermost the others are not wholly suppressed. But this distinction, like that sometimes made in modern philosophy between the good, the true and the beautiful, is one which, if not unduly pressed, may be usefully, borne in mind.
Having noted this once for all, we pass to the more detailed. consideration of the several dialogues.
I. Laches, Charmides, Lysis
In this first group Socrates is dealing tentatively with single ethical notions. The result in each case is a confession of ignorance, but the subject has been so handled as to point the way to more fruitful discussions in the future. And suggestions are casually thrown out which anticipate some of the most far-reaching of Plato's subsequent contemplations.
The Laches is a vigorous sketch, in which the characters of the soldier, the aged citizen, and the prudent general are well preserved; and Socrates is seen conversing with his elders, although with reference to the treatment of the young. The question raised is the definition of courage; and the humour of the piece consists in showing that three men, all of whom are unquestionably brave, are unable to give an account of bravery, or to decide whether courage is an animal instinct or a mental accomplishment.
Similarly, in the dialogue which bears his name, the temperate Charmides, of whom all testify that (as Aristophanes has it),' he " fills up the gracious mould of modesty," is hopelessly Charmides. embarrassed when challenged by the Socratic method to put in words his conception of the modesty or temperance which he possesses, and which, as Socrates assures him, is a priceless gift. The Charmides contains some hints of Platonic notions, such as that of knowledge as self-consciousness, and of virtue as " doing one's own business." The graceful little dialogue which bears the name of Lysis ends, like the two former, with a confession of failure. Socrates, Lysis and Menexenus are all friends, and think Lysis. highly of friendship, yet after many efforts they are unable to tell " what friendship is." Yet some' of the suggestions which are here laid aside are afterwards allowed to reappear. The notion that " what is neither good nor evil loves the good because of the presence of evil " is expanded and emphasized in the Symposium. And the conception of an ideal object of friendship, an airro cf aov (though rejected as in the criticism of Aristotle by the characteristic reductio ad infinitum), is destined to have a wider scope in the history of Platonism.
II. Protagoras, Io, Meno. - The previous dialogues have marked the distinction between unconscious and conscious morality, and have also brought out the Socratic tendency to identify virtue with the knowledge of good. Now, the more strongly it is felt that knowledge is inseparable from virtue the more strange and doubtful appears such unconscious excellence as that of Laches, Charmides or Lysis. Hence arises the further paradox of Socrates: " Virtue is not taught, and that which is commonly regarded as virtue springs up spontaneously or is received unconsciously by a kind of inspiration." Protagoras, in the dialogue named after him, is the professor of popular, unscientific, self-complacent excellence; while 1 Nub., 995, Ti ff s aLSous ?ecs r&iyaX,u' avairXjvac.
Ladies. Socrates appears in his life-long search after the ideal knowledge of the best. The two men are naturally at cross purposes.
. Protagoras contends that virtue is taught by himself Protagoras. and others more or less successfully, and is not one but many. Socrates disputes the possibility of teaching virtue (since all men equally profess it, and even statesmen fail to give it to their sons), but affirms that, if it can be taught, virtue is not many, but one. The discussion, as in the former dialogues, ends inconclusively. But in the course of it Plato vividly sets forth the natural opposition between the empiric and scientific points of view, between a conventional and an intellectual standard. He does full justice to the thesis of Protagoras, and it is not to be supposed that he was contented to remain in the attitude which he has here attributed to Socrates. In his ideal state, where the earlier training of the best citizens is a refinement on the actual Hellenic education, he has to some extent reconciled the conceptions which are here dramatically opposed.
The preparations for the encounter and the description of it include many life-like touches - such as the eagerness of the young Athenian gentleman to hear the sophist, though he would be ashamed to be thought a sophist himself; the confusion into which the house of Callias has been thrown by the crowd of strangers and by e the self-importance of rival professors; the graceful dignity of the man who has been forty years a teacher, the graphic description of the whole scene, the characteristic speeches of Prodicus and Hippias (from which some critics have elicited a theory of their doctrines), and the continued irony with which Socrates bears them all in hand and soothes the great man after disconcerting him.
In the argument there are two points which chiefly deserve notice. (1) Protagoras, in accordance with his relative view of things (which Plato afterwards criticized in the Theaetetus ), claims not to teach men principles but to improve them in those virtues which Providence has given in some measure to all civilized men. (2) Socrates in postulating a scientific principle, which he expressly reserves for future consideration, would have it tested by the power of calculatirig the amount of pleasure. Grote dwells with some complacency on the " utilitarianism " of Socrates in the Protagoras. And it is true that a principle of utility is herel opposed to conventional sentiment. But this opposition is intended to prepare the way for the wider and deeper contrast between an arbitrary and a scientific standard, or between impressions and conceptions or ideas. And when Plato (in the Gorgias and Philebus ) endeavours to define the art of measurement, which is here anticipated, it is not wonderful that differences here unthought of should come into view, or that the pleasant should be again contradistinguished from the good. In all three dialogues he is equally asserting the supremacy of reason.
On the first vision of that transcendental knowledge r which is to be the key at once to truth and good, philosophy is apt to lose her balance, and to look with scorn upon " the trivial round, the common task," and the respectable commonplaces of " ordinary thinking." Yet, as Socrates is reminded by Protagoras, this unconscious wisdom also has a value. And Plato, who, when most ideal, ever strives to keep touch with experience, is fully convinced of the reality of this lower truth, of this unphilosophic virtue. But he is long puzzled how to conceive of it. For, if knowledge is all in all, what are we to make of wisdom and goodness in those who do not know? Protagoras had boldly spoken of honour and right as a direct gift from Zeus, and Socrates, in the Io and Meno, is represented as adopting an hypothesis of inspiration in order to account for these unaccredited graces of the soul.
Socrates has observed that rhapsodists and even poets have no definite knowledge of the things which they so powerfully repre-. sent (cf. Apol. 22; Phaed., 245 A.; Rep. iii. 398 A).
He brings the rhapsode Io to admit this, and to conclude that he is the inspired medium of a magnetic influence. The Muse is the chief magnet, and the poet is the first of a series of magnetic rings. Then follow the rhapsode and the actor, who are rings of inferior power, and the last ring is the hearer or spectator.
The Meno raises again the more serious question, Can virtue be taught? Socrates here states explicitly the paradox with which. the Protagoras ended. " Virtue is knowledge; therefore virtue can be taught. But virtue is not taught. Therefore (in the highest sense) there can be no virtue." And he repeats several of his former reasons - that Athenian r Phaed. 82 B; Rep. x. 619 C.
statesmen failed to teach their sons, and that the education given by sophists is unsatisfying. (The sophists are here denounced by Anytus, who is angered by Socrates's ironical praise of them.) But the paradox is softened in two ways: (r) the absence of knowledge does not preclude inquiry, and (2) though virtue cannot be taught, yet there is a sense in which virtue exists.
1. Meno begins in gaiety of heart to define virtue, but is soon " benumbed " by the " torpedo " shock of Socrates, and asks " How can one inquire about that which he does not know?" Socrates meets this " eristic " difficulty with the doctrine of reminiscence (av6 ivncnc). All knowledge is latent in the mind from birth and through kindred (or association of) ideas much may be recovered, if only a beginning is made. Pindar and other poets have said that the soul is immortal and that she has passed through many 'previous states. 2 And Socrates now gives a practical illustration of the truth that knowledge is evolved from ignorance. He elicits, from a Greek slave of Meno's, the demonstration of a geometrical theorem. 3 About the middle of the process he turns to Meno and observes that the slave (who has made a false start) is now becoming conscious of ignorance. He then gradually draws from the man, by leading questions, the positive proof.
2. Though virtue is not yet defined, it may be affirmed " hypothetically " that, if virtue is knowledge, virtue can be taught. And experience leads us to admit two phases of virtue - the one a mode of life based on scientific principle, which hitherto is an ideal only; the other sporadic, springing of itself, yet of divine origin, relying upon true opinion, which it is, however, unable to make fast through demonstration of the cause or reason. But if there were a virtuous man who could teach virtue he would stand amongst his fellows like Teiresias amongst the shades.' This mystical account of ordinary morality is in keeping with the semi-mythical defence of the process of inquiry - that all knowledge is implicit in the mind from birth.
III. Euthyphro, Apologia, Crito, Phaedo. - There is no ground for supposing that these four dialogues were written consecutively, or that they belong strictly to the same period of Plato's industry. But they are linked together for the reader by their common reference to the trial and death of Socrates; no one of them has been proved to be in the author's earliest or latest manner; and they may therefore fitly end the series of dialogues in which the personal traits of the historic Socrates are most apparent, and Plato's own peculiar doctrines are as yet but partially disclosed.
The little dialogue known by the name of Euthyphro might have been classed with the Laches, Charmides and Lysis, as dealing inconclusively with a single notion. But, although slight and tentative in form, it has an under tone of deeper significance, in keeping with the gravity of the occasion. Plato implies that Socrates had thought more deeply on the nature of piety than his accusers had, and also that his piety was of a higher mood than that of ordinary religious men.
Euthyphro is a soothsayer, well-disposed to Socrates, but not one of his particular friends. They meet at the door of the king Archon, whither Socrates has been summoned for the " precognition " (avhKcpcvis ) preliminary to his trial. Both men are interested in cases of alleged impiety. For Euthyphro's business is to impeach his father, who has inadvertently caused the death of a criminal labourer. The prophet feels the duty of purging the stain of blood to be more imperative the nearer home. Socrates is struck by the strong opinion thus evinced respecting the nature of piety and detains Euthyphro at the entrance of the court, that he may learn from so clear an authority " what piety is," and so be fortified against Meletus. He leads his respondent from point to point, until the doubt is raised whether God loves holiness because it is holy, or it is holy because loved by God. Does God will what is righteous, or is that righteous which is willed by God? Here they find themselves wandering round and round. Socrates proves himself an involuntary Daedalus who makes opinions move, while he seeks for one which he can " bind fast with reason." " The holy is a portion of the just." But what portion? " Due service of the gods by prayer and sacrifice." But how does this affect the gods? " It pleases them." Again we are found to be reasoning in a circle.
" Thus far has Socrates proceeded in placing religion on a moral foundation. He is seeking to realize the harmony of religion and The origin of this traditional belief is very obscure. The Greeks themselves were apt to associate it with Pythagoras and with the " Orphic " mysteries.
3 Eucl. i. 47 (the case where the triangle is isosceles).
4 Horn. Odyss. x. 495, ireirvurOai, rat Si criccai atITOVVCV. morality, which the great poets Aeschylus, Sophocles and Pindar had unconsciously anticipated, and which is the universal want of all men. To this the soothsayer adds the ceremonial element, ` attending upon the gods.' When further interrogated by Socrates as to the nature of this ` attention to the gods,' he replies that piety is an affair of business, a science of giving and asking and the like. Socrates points out the anthropomorphism of these notions. But when we expect him to go on and show that the true service of the gods is the service of the spirit and co-operation with them in all things true and good, he stops short; this was a lesson which the soothsayer could not have been made to understand, and which everyone must learn for himself." 1 In Plato's Apology the fate of Socrates is no longer the subject of mere allusions, such as the rage of Anytus at the end of the Meno, and the scene and occasion of the Euthyphro. He is now seen face to face with his accusers, and with his countrymen who are condemning him to death.
What most aggravated his danger (after life-long impunity) is thus stated by James Riddell, in the introduction to his edition of the dialogue: "The E7rGELKEta" (clemency) "of the restored people did not last long, and was naturally succeeded by a sensitive and fanatical zeal for their revived political institutions. Inquiry into the foundations of civil society was obviously rather perilous for the inquirer at such a time. Socrates knew the full extent of his danger. But, according to Xenophon (Mem. iv. c. 8, § 14), he prepared no defence, alleging that his whole life had been a preparation for that hour." The tone of the Platonic Apology is in full accordance with that saying; but it is too elaborate a work of art to be taken literally as a report of what was actually said. Jowett well compares it to " those speeches of Thucydides in which he has embodied his conception of the lofty character and policy of the great Pericles." Yet " it is significant that Plato is said to have been present at the defence, as he is also said to have been absent at the last scene of the Phaedo. Some of the topics may have been actually used by Socrates, and the recollection of his very words may. have rung in the ears of his disciple." The Platonic Apology is in three parts: (t) before conviction, (2) after conviction and before sentence, (3) after the sentence.
t. Socrates cares not for acquittal. But he does care to explain his life. And he selects those aspects of it which there is hope of making his audience understand. That he partly succeeded in this is shown by the large number of those (220 out of 500) who voted for his acquittal.
a. His answer to Meletus, as least important, is reserved for the middle of his speech. He addresses himself first to " other accusers " - comic poets and the rest, who have prejudiced his reputation by falsely identifying him with the physical philosophers and the sophists. But what then is the strange pursuit which has given to Socrates the name of wise? It is the practice of cross-examining, to which he was first impelled by the oracle at Delphi, and which he has followed ever since as a religious mission. The god said " Socrates is wise," when he was conscious of no wisdom great or small. So he went in search of some one wiser than himself, but could find none, though he found many who had conceit of wisdom. And he inferred that the god must mean " He is wisest who, like Socrates, is most aware of his own ignorance." This unceasing quest has left him in great poverty, and has made him enemies, who are represented by Anytus, Meletus and Lycon. And their enmity is further embittered by the pleasure which young men take in seeing pretence unmasked, and in imitating the process of refutation. Hence has arisen the false charge that Socrates is a corrupter of youth.
b. Here he turns to Meletus. " If I corrupt the youth, who does them good?" Mel. " The laws, the judges, the audience, the Athenians generally " (cf. Protagoras and Meno). " Strange, that here only should be one to corrupt and many to improve; or that any one should be so infatuated as to wish to have bad neighbours." Mel. " Socrates is an atheist. He believes the sun to be a stone." " You are accusing Anaxagoras. I have said that I knew nothing of such theories. And you accuse me of introducing novel notions about divine things. How can I believe in divine things (SacµovLa) and not in divine beings ( 6aiµoves) ? and how in divine beings, if not in gods who are their authors?" c. That is a sufficient answer for his present accuser. He returns to the general long-standing defamation, which may well be his death, as slander has often been and again will be the death of many a man.
Yet if spared he will continue the same course of life, in spite of the danger. As at Potidaea and Delium he faced death where the Athenians posted him, so now he will remain at the post where he 1 Jowett.
is stationed by the god. For to fear death is to assume pretended knowledge.
One thing is certain. A worse man cannot harm a better. But if the Athenians kill Socrates they will harm themselves. For they will lose the stimulus of his exhortations - and his poverty is a sufficient witness that he was sincere. Not that he would engage in politics. If he had done that he would have perished long before,' as he nearly did for his independent vote after the battle of Arginusae, and for disobeying the murderous command of the Thirty Tyrants.
But have not Socrates's disciples, Alcibiades, Critias, Charmides, proved bad citizens? He has no disciples. Any one, bad or good, may come and hear him, and the talk which is his life-work is not unamusing. But why are no witnesses brought to substantiate this charge ? There are elder friends of his companions, who would be angry if he had used his influence for harm. But these men's confidence in Socrates is unshaken.
He will not appeal ad misericordiam. That would be a disgrace for one who (rightly or not) has been reputed wise, and to admit such an appeal in any case is a violation of the juror's oath. Socrates has told the Athenians the whole truth, so far as a mixed audience of them could receive it. Elaboration and subtlety could have no place in addressing the Heliastic court, nor could that universal truth towards which he was leading men be made intelligible to a new audience while the clepsydra was running. But his tone and attitude must have made a strong appeal to the better nature of his hearers. With Meletus he " played rather than fought," but he has shown clearly that he has no fear of death, that he chooses to obey God rather than man, and that for very love of the Athenian, he will not be swayed by their desires.
2. One convicted on a capital charge had the right of pleading before sentence in mitigation of the penalty proposed by his accuser. Socrates was convicted by fewer votes than he himself anticipated. The indictment of Meletus was ineffectual, and if it had not been for the speeches of Anytus and Lycon the defendant would have been triumphantly acquitted. Could he but have conversed with his judges more than once, he might have removed their prejudices. In no spirit of bravado, therefore, but in simple justice to himself, he meets the claim of Meletus that he shall be punished with death by the counterclaim that he shall be maintained in the prytaneum as a public benefactor. He cannot ask that death, which may be a good, shall be commuted for imprisonment or exile, which are certainly evils. A fine would be no evil: but he has no money - he can offer a mina. Here Plato and others interpose, and with their friendly help he offers thirty minae.
3. He is sentenced to death, and the public business of the court is ended. But while the record is being entered and the magistrates are thus occupied, Socrates is imagined as addressing (a) the majority, and (b ) the minority in the court.
a. To those who have condemned him he speaks in a prophetic tone. " For the sake of depriving an old man of the last dregs of life they have given Athens a bad name. He would not run away, and so death has overtaken him. But his accusers are overtaken by unrighteousness, and must reap the fruits of it.
" Nor will the Athenians find the desired relief. Other reprovers, whom Socrates has hitherto restrained, will now arise, not in a friendly but in a hostile spirit. The only way for the citizens to escape reproof is to reform their lives." b. To the minority, who would have acquitted him, he speaks with gentle solemnity. " Let them know to their comfort that the divine voice has not once checked him throughout that day. This indicates that death is not an evil. And reason shows that death is either a long untroubled sleep, or removal to a better world, where there are no unjust judges.
" No evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death. Wherefore Socrates will not be angry with his condemners, who have done him no harm, although they meant him anything but good. He will only ask of them to do to the sons of Socrates as Socrates has done to them." Is the love of truth consistent with civic duties ? Is the philosopher a good citizen? are questions which are sure to arise where the truth involves practical improvement. Crito. In the Apology Socrates appears as an intrepid reformer; the Crito gives an impressive picture of him as a loyal and law-abiding Athenian.
Execution had been delayed during the annual mission to Delos (during which no one could be put to death). But the returning vessel had just been reported as descried from Sunium. At early dawn Crito, the oldest friend of Socrates, obtained access to his cell, and found him sleeping peacefully. Presently he awoke, and Crito told him of the approach of the fatal ship. Socrates replies by telling his dream. A fair form stood over him and said, " The third day hence to Phthia shalt thou come " And it would seem that the day after to-morrow will really be the day for going home.
2 Cf. Gorg. 521; Rep. vi. 496.
Crito then reveals his plan for an escape. And Socrates argues the question in the old familiar way. " Crito's zeal is excellent, and most men would think his object right. But the few who think soundly say that it is wrong to return evil for evil. The laws of Athens (through the fault of men) are doing Socrates harm. But ought he therefore to infringe the law ? Might not the laws of his country plead with him and say: ` You owe to us your birth and breeding; and when grown up you voluntarily submitted to us. For you might have gone elsewhere. But you preferred us to all other laws, and have been the most constant resident in Athens. Even at the last you accepted death rather than exile. If you now break your covenant you will ruin your friends and will be rejected by all well-ordered cities. You might be received in Thessaly, but could only live there by cringing to foreigners for food. Where in that case will be your talk about virtue? You would not take your sons thither And your friends would be equally kind to them if you were dead. Think not of life and children first and of justice afterwards, but think of justice first, that you may be justified in the world below.' " Crito admits these arguments to be unanswerable.
The Meno referred to the immortality and pre-existence of the soul as a traditional doctrine, and it was there associated with the possibility of inquiry. In the Phaedo Plato undertakes to substantiate this belief and base it anew by narrating the last hours of Socrates, who is represented as calmly discussing the question with his friends when his own death was immediately at hand. The argument turns chiefly on the eternity of knowledge, and is far from satisfying. For, granting that eternity of knowledge involves eternity of mind, does the eternity of mind assure continued being to the individual?' Yet no unprejudiced reader of the Phaedo can doubt that Plato, at the time of writing it, sincerely believed in a conscious personal existence after death. The words of Socrates, when he declares his hope of going to be with other friends, are absolutely unambiguous, and his reply to Crito's question, " How shall we bury you ?" has a convincing force beyond all dialectic: " I cannot persuade Crito that I here am Socrates I who am now reasoning and ordering discourse. He imagines Socrates to be that other, whom he will see by and by, a corpse." This and similar touches not only stamp the Phaedo as a marvel of art, but are indisputable evidence of the writer's profound belief. They may be inventions, but they have nothing " mythical " about them, any more than the charge of Socrates to his friends, that they would best fulfil his wishes by attending to their own lives.
The narrative, to be appreciated, must be read in full. But a short abstract of the argument may be given here.
i. Death is merely the separation of soul and body. And this is the very consummation at which philosophy aims. The body hinders thought. The mind attains to truth by retiring into herself. Through no bodily sense does she perceive justice, beauty, goodness and other ideas. The philosopher has a life-long quarrel with bodily desires, and he should welcome the release of his soul. Thus he alone can have true courage, even as temperance and all the virtues are real in him alone.
But does the soul exist after death?
a. An old tradition tells of many successive births, the soul departing to Hades and returning again, so that the living are born from the dead. And if the dead had no existence, this could not be, since from nothing nothing can arise. Moreover, experience shows that opposite states come from their opposites, and that such a process is always reciprocal. Death certainly succeeds to life. Then life must succeed to death. And that which undergoes these changes must exist through all. If the dead came from the living, and not the living from the dead, the universe would ultimately be consumed in death.
This presumption is confirmed by the doctrine (here attributed to Socrates, cf. Meno ) that knowledge comes from recollection. What is recollected must be previously known. Now we have never since birth had intuition of the absolute equality of which (through association) we are reminded by the sight of things approximately equal. And we cannot have seen it at the moment of birth, for at what other moment can we have forgotten it? Therefore, if ideals be not vain, our souls must have existed before birth, and, according to the doctrine of opposites above stated, will have continued existence after death.
b. To charm away the fears of the " child within," Socrates adds, as further considerations: 1 In the Timaeus immortality is made to rest on the goodwill of God, because " only an evil being would wish to dissolve that which is harmonious and happy " ( Tim. 41 A).
i. The soul is uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, and therefore indissoluble and immutable.
ii. The soul commands, the body serves; therefore the soul is akin to the divine.
iii. Yet even the body holds together long after death, and the bones are all but indestructible.
The soul, if pure, departs to the invisible world, but, if tainted by communion with the body, she lingers hovering near the earth, and is afterwards born into the likeness of some lower form. That which true philosophy has purified alone rises ultimately to the gods. The lesson is impressively applied.
2. A pause ensues; and Simmias and Cebes are invited to express their doubts. For, as the swan dies singing, Socrates would die discoursing.
a. Simmias desires not to rest short of demonstration, though he is willing to make the highest attainable probability the guide of life.
If the soul is the harmony of the body, what becomes of her " when the lute is broken " ?
b. Cebes compares the body to a garment which the soul keeps weaving at. The garment in which the weaver dies outlasts him. So the soul may have woven and worn many bodies in one lifetime, yet may perish and leave a body behind. Or even supposing her to have many lives, does even this hypothesis exempt her from ultimate decay?
Socrates warns his friends against losing faith in inquiry. Theories, like men, are disappointing; yet we should be neither misanthropists nor misologists. Then he answers his two friends.
a - i. The soul is acknowledged to be prior to the body. But no harmony is prior to the elements which are harmonized.
ii. The soul has virtue and vice, i.e. harmony and discord. Is there harmony of harmony ? Cf. Rep. x. 609.
iii. All soul is equally soul, but all harmony is not equally harmonious.
iv. If the soul were the harmony of the body they would be agreed; but, as has been already shown, they are perpetually quarrelling.
v. The soul is not conditioned by the bodily elements, but has the power of controlling them.
b. Cebes has raised the wide question whether the soul is independent of generation and corruption. Socrates owns that he himself (i.e. Plato ?) had once been fascinated by natural philosophy, and had sought to give a physical account of everything. Then, hearing out of Anaxagoras that mind was the disposer of all, he had hoped to learn not only how things were, but also why. But he found Anaxagoras forsaking his own first principle and jumbling causes with conditions. (" The cause why Socrates sits here is not a certain disposition of joints and sinews, but that he has thought best to undergo his sentence - else the joints and sinews would have been ere this, by Crito's advice, on the way to Thessaly.") Physical science never thinks of a power which orders everything for good, but expects to find another Atlas to sustain the world more strong and lasting than the reason of the best.
Socrates had turned from such philosophers and found for himself a way, not to gaze directly on the universal reason, but to seek an image of it in the world of mind, wherein are reflected the ideas, as, for example, the idea of beauty, through partaking of which beautiful things are beautiful. Assuming the existence of the ideas, he felt his way from hypothesis to hypothesis.
Now the participation of objects in ideas is in some cases essential and inseparable. Snow is essentially cold, fire hot, three odd, two even. And things thus essentially opposite are inclusive of each other's attributes. (When it was said above that opposites come from opposites, not opposite things were meant, but opposite states or conditions of one thing). Snow cannot admit heat, nor fire cold; for they are inseparable vehicles of heat and cold respectively. The soul is the inseparable vehicle of life, and therefore, by parity of reasoning, the soul cannot admit of death, but is immortal and. imperishable.
3. What follows is in the true sense mythological, and is admitted by Socrates to be uncertain: " Howbeit, since the soul is proved to bejimmortal, men ought to charm their spirits with such tales." The earth, a globe self-balanced in the midst of space, has many mansions for the soul,' some higher and brighter, some lower and. darker than our present habitation. We who dwell about the Mediterranean Sea are like frogs at the bottom of a pool. In some higher place, under the true heaven, our souls may dwell hereafter,. and see not only colours and forms in their ideal purity but truth and justice as they are.
In the Phaedo, more than elsewhere, Plato preaches withdrawal from the world. The Delian solemnity is to Socrates 2 Cf. Milton, Il Penseroso, 88-92 " To unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook." and his friends a period of " retreat," in which their eyes are turned from earthly things to dwell on the eternal. The theory of ideas here assumes its most transcendental aspect, and it is from portions of this dialogue and of the Phaedrus and Timaeus that the popular conception of Platonism has been principally derived. But to understand Plato rightly it is not enough to study isolated passages which happen to charm the imagination; nor should single expressions be interpreted without regard to the manner in which he presents the truth elsewhere.
It has already been shown (1) that Socratic inquiry implied a;standard of truth and good, undiscovered but endlessly dis- .coverable, and to be approached inductively; and (2) that in Plato this implicit assumption becomes explicit, in the identifi-. cation of virtue with knowledge (Lack., Charm. ) as an art of measurement (Protag. ), and in the vision (towards the end of the Lysis ) of an absolute object of desire. The Socratic " selfknowledge " has been developed (Charm. ) into a science of mind or consciousness, apart from which no physical studies can be fruitful. (3) Co-ordinate with these theoretical tendencies there has appeared in Plato the determination not to break with experience. In the Phaedo, a long step is made in the direction of pure idealism. The ordinary virtue, which in the Protagoras and Meno was questioned but not condemned, is here rejected as unreal, and the task proposed to the philosopher is less to understand the world than to escape from it. The universal has assumed the form of the ideal, which is supposed, as elsewhere in Plato, to include m
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Plato (Philosopher)'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/p/plato-philosopher.html. 1910.
