PLATO - INFLUENCES

<BODY> <CENTER><FONT SIZE=5><B><FONT SIZE=6>PLATO</FONT><BR> THE IDEALIST</B></FONT></CENTER><P> <FONT SIZE=4><B>Influences</B></FONT><P> Plato could not help but be influenced by the pre-Socratic philosophers, but it is <A HREF="../03/03f01.html" TARGET="_top">Socrates</A> whom he followed with the devotion of a dedicated disciple. Socrates is important within Platonic writing both as a character and as a source of key ideas.<P> Famous philosophers like <A HREF="../03/03f01.html" TARGET="_top">Socrates</A>, <A HREF="../01/01f01.html" TARGET="_top">Parmenides</A> and <A HREF="../t06/t06f26.html" TARGET="_top">Zeno of Elea</A>. <A HREF="../t03/g049.html" TARGET="_top">Sophists</A> like <A HREF="../t06/t06f22.html" TARGET="_top">Protagoras</A>, Gorgias, Hippias, and Thrasymachus. Important public figures like Alcibiades and Critias. Family members, business men, young men. Plato's "Dialogues" are peopled with a diversity of characters through whom Plato articulates his ideal vision of the world as it could be.<P> Platonic <A HREF="../t03/g024.html" TARGET="_top">idealism</A> (although there are now those who do not classify Plato as an idealist) initiated a debate about the existence of universal truths and how they are best arrived at.<P> <A HREF="../t06/t06f20.html" TARGET="_top">Plotinus</A> created a philosophy that came to be known as <A HREF="../t03/g034.html" TARGET="_top">Neo-Platonism</A> since it modified Plato's ideas to accommodate ideas derived from <A HREF="../05/05f01.html" TARGET="_top">Aristotle</A> and the <A HREF="../t03/g050.html" TARGET="_top">Stoics</A>. Neo-Platonism speaks of "the One", a concept easily adapted by early Christian thought to be God. "The One" is unknowable, although an indescribable mystical union with it is possible, and such a union is the aim of man's existence. Sometimes known as the "Negative Way", Neo-Platonism encouraged Christian thinkers to accept that we can say what God is not, but not what God is. We can know God in the sense of becoming one with him, but we can not know about God.<P> Early Medieval philosophy became divided in its alliance between the Platonic / Neo-Platonic and the Aristotelian systems of thought with <A HREF="../09/09f01.html" TARGET="_top">St Augustine</A> favouring Plato and <A HREF="../t06/t06f02.html" TARGET="_top">St Thomas Aquinas</A> favouring Aristotle.<P> Admiration for Plato is not universal. <A HREF="../t06/t06f21.html" TARGET="_top">Karl Popper</A> condemns him as a "proto-fascist". <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>