PLATO - OVERVIEW

<BODY> <TABLE width=400 BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=2 CELLPADDING=1> <TR> <TD><IMG SRC="0401a.jpg" WIDTH="108" HEIGHT="150" ALT="PLATO"></TD> <TD><CENTER><FONT SIZE=5><B><FONT SIZE=6>PLATO</FONT><BR> THE IDEALIST<P> (427-347 BC)</B></FONT><BR><BR> "When philosophers are kings..."</CENTER></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <FONT SIZE=4><B>Overview</B></FONT><P> A one-time pupil of <A HREF="../03/03f01.html" TARGET="_top">Socrates</A>, Plato was an idealist philosopher who founded the first school of philosophy in Athens. His work forms the foundation of western philosophy. His presentation of philosophical works in the form of "Dialogues" gave the world of philosophy the <A HREF="../t03/g009.html" TARGET="_top">dialectic</A>, a method of exploring issues from different sides by considering contradictory propositions.<P> Plato took Socrates' maxim "virtue is knowledge" and extrapolated it into an elaborate theory of knowledge which envisaged a level of reality, beyond that immediately available to the senses, but accessible to reason and intellect. The students of Plato's Academy, the first school of philosophy in Athens, were to go beyond the concrete world of perception and come to understand the universal "ideas" or "forms" which represented a higher level of reality than the objects that embody them. True knowledge was not to be gained through observation of the material world but through dialectic and intellectual exploration of the world of "ideas".<P> Plato's <A HREF="../t03/g024.html" TARGET="_top">idealism</A> extended to the concept of an ideal state, as outlined in his "Republic". This was a state ruled by an intellectual elite of philosopher kings. An attempt to put his political theory into practice in Sicily proved a bitter failure. <BR clear=left><BR> <HR width=100%> <A HREF="http://www.creatorix.com.au"><IMG SRC="../creatorix.gif" WIDTH="85" HEIGHT="40" BORDER="0" ALT="Creatorix" align=right></A> </BODY>