Plato & the Development of Christian Theology

-12 Ancient Greek Influences on Christian Theology 1. Plato & the Development of Christian Theology 1

-12 Introduction Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) stand as rather impregnable twin towers providing a foundation for much built later in the tradition of Christian Theology. On the title page of this study-guide you will see a detail from a famous painting of 1514, The School of Athens by Raphael. The painting is reproduced below. Look at the painting and at the detail on the title page. We view the painting head-on, and in the centre we have the figures of Plato on the left, older and grey-haired, and Aristotle, on the right, the younger man. Plato appears to be in motion, walking forwards; he is carrying a copy of his work Timaeus, and we note that it is held so that it is vertical, pointing upwards and matching Plato s gesture which is taken to represent his famous view that this world is fleeting and secondary, and dependent upon an dternal domain of conceptual generalities, to so-called world of forms. Aristotle looks as if he is stationary; his feet are firmly planted! He gestures down as if to indicate a commitment to this world; he is carrying a copy of his Nichomachean Ethics a major bit of artistic licence since this is not a work that was compiled after Aristotle s death from the notes taken by his son, Nichomachus! Note the way he carries the book This plus Aristotle s gesture, signals his commitment to the world of experience. Artistic license 2

-12 aside, Raphael provides us with a snapshot of the contrasting and complimentary philosophical styles of Plato and his most famous pupil Aristotle. That fifth century BC thinkers from what we now call Greece should have had such an influence is a surprise to those who tend to think of Christian Theology as arising from the tradition of Biblical writing and interpretation in and in relation to the ongoing life of faith. However, the reality is subtler, and more complex. Culturally, the early Christians lived in what we term the Hellenistic world a world where Greek language and culture had great influence, even though it was a world dominated by Roman political and military power. The books the letters and gospels of the New Testament are written in Greek, the principal communicative language of the age. And each year we have at Christmas one very clear example of the influence of Greek philosophical influence on New Testament thought when we hear the opening of John s Gospel: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. (Jn 1v1) The word here is, in Geek, the logos the expression or communication of the divine that enables all that is to be. And the term Theology is a compound of two Greek terms: Theos = God and Logos = word or reason, so Theology might be translated as Godtalk (c.f John Macquarrie God Talk SCM 1967). 3

-12 So, to wind back the video of time to the fifth century BC to view Plato and later Aristotle, we go to a time when much of what we now call Greece and the eastern Mediterranean was loosely organised into a large number of city-states. Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Sparta are four that were particularly prominent at the time of Plato. Plato, as it happens, was an Athenian, and Athens had been a very successful political state. It was a slave-owning society, and at all levels, women had a subordinate role. In contrast, men, whether as artisans, aristocrats or warriors, engaged in social discourse to an elaborate degree. There was, throughout the Greek world, a strong developed trading economy based on agriculture, fishing and the production of various artefacts. How this was possible is evident today if you visit Greece or Mediterranean Turkey. The sea itself is calm and for the most part easily navigated. Local fishermen put out daily and sell their catch on the quayside on their return. Inland the rural economy is largely unchanged from classical times olives, grapes and other crops grown in the valleys and hillsides, goats and sheep reared on the higher land, and artisans and artists at work in and around the villages. The global economies are not much in evidence unless you stay in a tourist resort! In the classical period there was on top of this a strong culture of the Arts especially music and drama and an intellectual tradition in law and in areas such as mathematics, literature, historical writing and philosophy. 4

-12 Plato was an intelligent and well-educated individual who grew up in a noble family in Athens, but at a time when Athens had lost out to Sparta as top dog in the area. In 404 BC Athens finally lost the Peloponnesian war with Sparta that had lasted for some 27 years. This led to some fairly savage times in Athens. The democracy was replaced and the Spartans set up a group to rule who became known as the Thirty Tyrants so severe, draconian and murderous were they. In 401 BC the democracy was re-established, but all-round the atmosphere was a bit edgy. Confidence in the democracy was, in some quarters, low. Democracy had lost the war and Athens was now a weaker state. On the other hand, it was a context of ferment and uncertainty set against a background of stability and culture all you need to get an intelligent person like Plato to ask philosophical questions like What s it all about then? Plato s Intellectual and Personal Influences (& Socrates!) Plato s philosophical launch pad had a number of components not least his own clear ability and learning. His experience of life in the Athens of his day did not dispose him to respect liberal or what we might term open societies; his regard for a hierarchical and authoritarian approach was greater he had relatives amongst the thirty tyrants. And he took from the already rich philosophical and intellectual tradition a number of key influences: Pythagoras (c. 550-500 BC) had an interest in and respect for mathematics and for rational thought. For Pythagoras and his followers reasoning and deduction, particularly logical and mathematical reasoning as opposed to thinking about or from experience (which we now call induction ) was supreme. Thus the idea emerges of the supremacy of the idea or ideal over the immediate or actual. Religious and mystical aspects come through from Pythagoras to Plato, with regard to the notion of the immortal soul as distinct from the transitory body. Parmenides (fl. c480 BC) the view that all change is provisional and so illusory, that reality or what is real or really real is eternal Heraclitus (fl. c.500 BC) argues that all is change in process Plato agrees that this is so in the world of appearance but following Pythagorean and Parmenidian lines of thought, he concludes that if we operate with reason not the senses we will attain knowledge of and insight into the real and eternal But there was a very personal dimension that came through his acquaintance with Socrates (c470-399 BC). Socrates Socrates is very much the patron saint for philosophers. So influential is he that the philosophy produced before Socrates is termed pre-socratic by the historians of philosophy. Yet he left no writings and based his work on his powers of conversation and through the cultivation of a method of argument often called dialectical to stand for a process of questioning and reviewing a problem to the end of getting a clearer sense of the truth. Socrates operates with a focus on practical questions of 5

-12 how we might live well and rightly. And and this makes a huge impact still, he died for his belief in and though his commitment to his determination to operate as a philosopher. We know about Socrates through four classical writers the historian Xenophon (c430-355 BC), the dramatist Aristophanes (448-380 BC), Plato and Aristotle. (All but Aristotle knew Socrates directly). From these writers we learn that in contrast with Plato, Socrates came from relatively humble stock. His father was a stonemason and his mother a midwife. Socrates interest in philosophy came to the fore during his career in the army where he gained a reputation for his powers of conversation and for his love of argument. This was such as to give him status amongst his contemporaries and his superiors. By the time that Socrates meets Plato and other young Athenians he had developed his distinctive style to a high degree. In contrast to the pre- Socratic traditions Socrates was not keen to promote or develop metaphysical thinking on questions about the ultimate nature of reality, on the question of what amongst the flux of appearance might be constant or eternal fire, air, spirit, earth or water were popular options amongst the pre-socratics. Nor was Socrates keen on rhetoric the art of argument for the sake of argument as promoted by the Sophists. What Socrates was keen on and what made him so appealing to the young Plato and to generations of philosophy students since was, as noted above, his focus on the fundamental questions of how we should live to live well. Thus, in contrast to the metaphysicians and sophists, Socrates was interested neither in speculative questions nor in abstract technique; his concern was with practical questions of an everyday sort. In our regular lives, it is easy to see that we rely a lot on ideas such as friendship, love, courage, justice, goodness, truth and beauty. And we assume that we know what these terms mean and, perhaps, that these ideas or states will be commonly understood by those with whom we deal. Socrates took none of this for granted. He thought that whilst it was clear that the virtues were important to us and, crucially, that we thought we knew what we meant by these terms, the reality was demonstrably different. To make the difference clear, Socrates method was to pick up a term used in a conversation and invite the interlocutor to explain what they meant. Someone might refer to so and so being courageous, for example. So, Socrates would ask for a definition or illustration of courage. Courage might be defined as steadfastness in battle against impossible odds. Socrates would ask if steadfastness of this sort was invariably a good and fine thing, and that which courage was. And he might soon conclude that this was not courage it might be brave to be steadfast against impossible odds, but it might be foolhardy to persist in such a battle if the outcome is death and defeat. Courage might be evident in the decision to retreat and/or the decision to sue for peace. Whatever the example chosen, Socrates technique of questioning and illustration invariably exposes the ease with which we habitually use terms in a fashion that is inconsistent and thus limited. The upshot for those who engage in discussion with Socrates is that at the end of the discussion of say courage they do not then know at last and clearly what courage is, but they do have a much clearer sense that whilst courage is important, what it isn t is now rather clearer than what it is! What Socrates was about, it seems, is getting people to think for themselves and to extend their 6

-12 understanding by reviewing and examining the ideas they encounter, the better to understand the importance of the virtues and, crucially, the problems of understanding them clearly. Thus empowered, people will take greater responsibility for their thinking and for their action and Socrates was sure that these things are intrinsically linked. One of his key ideas is that the good man can never knowingly do wrong: to know virtue is to act virtuously. This sits a bit uneasily with many other traditions of thought and morality where it is one thing to know the right thing to do and another to do it. If we chose not to do the right thing, we have chosen not to do it. But for Socrates if we know the right thing to do we will do it if we act badly it is because we do not know the right thing in question bad action is a consequence of ignorance virtue is knowledge. Socrates enjoyment of engaging in discussion with the young intellectuals in Athens seriously upset the authorities and the upshot was that Socrates was charged with corrupting the young and with impiety towards the gods. For Plato the charges, the subsequent trial and the fact that Socrates is on trial for his life become a massively significant existential period that changed the shape of his life radically. Socrates was tried by the Athenian democracy and despite or perhaps because of the way he defended himself, he was found guilty. The punishment was death, and Socrates had an opportunity to argue against this. However, as he argued that he would continue to philosophise and thus be an irritant to Athens, he does not convince the Athenians in the democracy that they should waive the punishment. Thus Socrates receives the death sentence, to be administered via a draught of the poison hemlock. Plato is among the group of friends who accompany Socrates to prison and who witness his end, and Plato finds in Socrates manner and resolve in accepting a fate that is, so far as Plato is concerned, unjust, a potent inspiration. Plato and the Dialogues Plato was about twenty-seven when Socrates died. In the wake of the trauma of his death Plato left Athens and travelled throughout the Mediterranean area including parts of Italy and Sicily. He returned to Athens, perhaps when the dust had settled after Socrates death and at some point he began to write philosophically and, in respect of Socrates, biographically. Plato shaped his writing, not into the form of an academic treatise, but into dialogue form texts which read rather like a play in which characters meet on a walk or at someone house, and fall into conversation. The conversation has a Socratic character ideas are brought up and questioned, found wanting, revised, refined and tested out against the area of life that they relate to, and Socrates appears as a central figure in the dialogue. Some of early dialogues Plato composed deal in a quasi-biographical manner with the events at the end of Socrates life. In these dialogues Plato is undoubtedly paying tribute to his friend and teacher, portraying his final meetings with friends prior to his arrest, then the build-up to the trail, the trail and then the time thereafter leading up to Socrates death. In these writings Plato is testifying to the example and inspiration Socrates provides as the critical critic, the person who fearlessly challenges conventions and everydayness, and he (Plato) is blowing a sophisticated raspberry to the Athenians: they might have executed Socrates, but he is not silent he is still active and still asking awkward questions! 7

-12 Plato clearly found that the dialogue form struck a chord. He enjoyed constructing such works to present the ideas he wanted to review, and it appears that others much appreciated the work being presented in this way. Plato in Socratic fashion continued to discuss ideas with friends and students who came to him because of their own philosophic and intellectual interests, and putting together a dialogue to reflect the state or stage of thinking he had reached became a regular activity. The interest shown by his reading public, so to speak, had the effect of creating perhaps the first instance of a writer who could operate with an assumed readership which was familiar with his earlier works. For as time went on Plato was able to write in such a fashion as to make passing references to earlier dialogues on the assumption that his readers were familiar with the ideas that had been considered therein. Through this passage of time, there is a significant shift in the role that Plato gives to Socrates in the dialogues. On the one hand, Socrates is always present (except in the late dialogue Laws), usually as the key figure in each dialogue. In the early Socratic dialogues such as the Laches, Meno, Protagoras, and Gorgias, the spirit of the historical Socrates informs the characterisation Plato provides, and the focus is principally on ethical topics, on how the virtues are to be defined and applied. But as Plato matures and develops his own interests and philosophical agenda, Socrates the character becomes the means by which the platonic concerns and theories are set out. This is evident as Plato reaches his so-called middle period. Around 387 BC Plato founded the Academy effectively a college or university-style institution to provide a focus for the pattern and programme of intellectual discussion that he favoured. The Academy operated continuously until it was closed by Justinian in 529 AD. Through this period works such as Phaedo, Symposuim, Republic and Phaedrus appear and herein a wider range of philosophical and political problems are reviewed and positive Platonic doctrines are expounded. The late period includes works such as Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Timeaus (although some scholars think of this as a middle-period work) and Laws, and these writings involve, amongst other things, a re-assessment, criticism and refinement of many of the ideas set out in the middle period works. As a whole, Plato s philosophical interests are extensive. He retains an interest in ethical matters and the virtues, he reviews the problem of knowledge and he develops theories of art, justice and society. It is something of a problem that Plato is often characterised as thinking whatever it is that emerges in a given dialogue as the predominant view. This is tricky because, as we noted earlier, in the earlier dialogues often there is not a dominant view that emerges from the discussion. What happens is that a variety of views or definitions of, say, beauty, are tried out and found wanting. We are left with a better understanding of the problem, but not necessary given a solution. A method of questioning and the cultivation of a more critical or more sceptical outlook is more the order of the day than the provision of a solution to the problems that have been reviewed. The Platonic technique here seems to be Well, here are the options what do you want to buy and how will you justify it?` In the middle period works Plato often shapes the discussion in a given work to provide a more authoritative solution that we may think of as the one that he is effectively commending. But in other works in this or in the later period, those ideas may be severely criticised. A classic and relevant example is that in the Phaedo and the 8

-12 Republic Plato sets out the so-called Theory of Forms which many like to take as definitive positive doctrines that are what Platonism is. Yet in the Parminides the Theory of Forms is subjected to a severe intellectual. The theory is not abandoned, but it is given a distinct overhaul and lines of criticism that others notably Aristotle were to consider devastating, are presented. From Plato s point of view it perhaps the case that once again the philosophic technique of ongoing critical debate is predominating over the safety of buying wholesale into a theory. However, for the sake of the theological matters that we have to review in due course and the problems in philosophy of religion, we have to embrace the common view that tends to take the Republic in particular as expounding some theories of definitive importance. These theories include Plato s philosophical realism, the analogy of the cave, his Theory of Forms especially the Form of the good, and his doctrine of the body-soul distinction. **** 9

-12 Platonic Philosophical Realism & the Analogy of the Cave Platonic philosophy in the middle period exemplified in the Republic is often defined as philosophical realism. What is meant by this term? In the Republic Plato argues that a just society requires governance by the wisest ruler. The wisest ruler cannot be a part of the mass of society or be one of the common run of citizens who make up the Athenian democracy. The wisest ruler will be one who has had a philosophical training of an advanced kind and who will thus be enabled to rule justly. The philosopher-king can rule justly because he understands the Form of justice, justice-itself. Here we come up against a version (if not a form!) of a classical philosophical tension, between the particular and the general. In the realm of everyday life we have experience of particular cases of justice justice in respect of particular acts and deeds, justice in various cases of judgement over cases of law, justice or injustice in the outcome of various sorts of action. Justice may be manifest in a range of cases but all are cases of justice although each case is particular. This is, on this line of platonic reasoning, because the Form of justice, justice-itself that in virtue of which any particular act is just informs all such cases. Plato is, in this mode of thought, a philosophical realist insofar as he has the argument that there is a really real objective and absolute general domain of regulative ideas overarching the experiential particularity of this world. So, in the example of cases of justice, over and above and prior to these is the pure conceptual form of justice. The essence of justice is independent of and prior to any case of justice. The ideas at stake here are well illustrated by the analogy of the cave. The analogy of the cave is set out in the Republic VII. We are to imagine a group of prisoners who have, since birth, been chained in a cave. They have been chained in such a way that they face the wall at the rear of the cave. They cannot move to look in another direction. There is a fire burning near to the mouth of the cave but the prisoners have never seen it directly. What, and all that they can see, are the shadows cast onto the rear wall of the cave by the things that pass by the cave entrance. The prisoners analogous to those who are philosophically uneducated take the shadows as reality, and they spend their waking hours considering what will next appear in the domain of the real as they take it to be. Then, one day, a prisoner is unchained. Once released he turns and is dazzled by the direct view he now has of the fire. Gradually his sight is able to adjust and he sees how the others are constrained and that there is an entrance to the cave. Making his way out, all the time having to re-think the order of things and to adjust accordingly, the ex-prisoner confronts the outside real world and can see that there is a reality distinct from and prior to the domain of shadows. Sight is possible through a light far more powerful than that of the fire and looking up, the liberated man is dazzled by the power of the sun. In time, Plato suggests, the man is able to see and to think rightly about the things in the world and their shadows. If he makes his way back into the cave he is, at first, unable to see because his eyes do not adjust to the gloom. As and when he is able to make his way, he finds that when he tells his friends that all that they have taken to be the case is but a part of the real truth, he will, it is suggested, be ridiculed and with reference to the fate of Socrates, perhaps be put to death. It is not at all clear how the chained prisoners will be able to dispatch their liberated colleague, but still! 10

-12 The points in the story and many and varied, but include the following: The world outside the cave, the real objects that move and interact, represents the Forms which the prisoners, once they are released from their bondage which is analogous to thinking in a commonsensical rather than philosophical manner are able to appreciate. Unpacking the analogy a bit, Plato means us to see the distinction between particulars and the general ideas that are the realities that determine the particulars. We do not see the distinction if we imprison ourselves in a world of stark immediacy and mere opinion this would be to take the shadows as reality. We need through reflection and reasoning to develop our knowledge, our philosophic insight and wisdom. Below: a handy diagram of the Analogy of the Cave. Plato and the Theory of Forms The analogy of the cave gives the general idea of the Theory of Forms. We could examine something else to give another example to drive home the point. You sit on a chair in the classroom and maybe your teacher sits on another chair and a chair of a different type. In your kitchen at home, as well as in your lounge and dining room there are other chairs of different types and styles. One could collate a hefty list of the range of types of chair that inhabit our various homes and places of work. All of these particular chairs are chairs and yet there are many types or examples of different chairs high-chairs, arm-chairs, swivelling chairs, rocking chairs, dining room chairs and so on. Plato s idea is that we know a chair to be a chair whatever its particular type because it participates in the essence or Form of chairhood or chairness that general or universal in virtue of which a particular chair is. Plato, following a lead from Socrates, takes the view that in order to say anything about something whether it is a chair, justice or whatever, we must first answer the definitive question What is justice/a chair/yellow? If we take the colour yellow, we might well agree that we acquire and refine our understanding of the term through the instances and examples of yellow things that we encounter. We encounter clear examples of 11

-12 yellow. What about justice, beauty, courage, love and the other virtues? We have, on the one hand, an understanding of these terms but do we have clear and unambiguous examples to hand to ground our understanding? Plato s view is that we have cases of, say, justice, but we do not have to hand justice pure and unalloyed, justice-itself. But this Form of justice must be for us to know justice and so a) it must be real and objective somewhere and b) we must have once known it to know it now. Plato thus thinks that we learn through recollection, albeit imperfectly, hence our problem in answering the Socratic questions of the what is justice/beauty/courage sort. Plato gives a neat insight into the theory in the middle-period dialogue Phaedo (97c- 98b). Here Socrates (aka Plato, of course) is thinking of how he might refine his understanding of the natural world and is considering the idea of the causes for all that comes into being and for the flow of events by means of which things pass out of being. Socrates says that he has read Anaxagoras on the problem and found therein the suggestion that it is the mind that produces order and is the cause of everything. But Anaxagoras proves disappointing, to Socrates because instead of elaborating how the rational mind might be the logically necessary explanatory cause of all events and for causation, Anaxagoras reverts to the typically pre-socratic view that something like water, air or spirit might be the actual causal force. This foray into what might be the overarching cause of and reason for the phenomena of the natural order proves to be a stepping stone towards the so-called Theory of Forms. Socrates suggests that he has, in the absence of a decent solution from Anaxagoras, been working on a makeshift solution to the problem. This is a typical move by Plato to have his character Socrates suggest somewhat tentatively a possible solution to a problem, then as the dialogue unfolds the solution may be shaped up into something rather more solid. Socrates takes the case of our saying that a given object is beautiful. In virtue of what is that object beautiful? The reason Socrates gives is that what makes a given object beautiful is the presence in it, or association with it, in whatever way the relation comes about, of absolute beauty. (Phaedo100d). Absolute beauty here is, by another name the Form of Beauty. In the Phaedo Plato considers absolute beauty, absolute equality and the like are presented as universals, as definitive and determinative exemplars of what may be imperfectly grasped in the finite world. The Form of x is thus that which is common to all cases of x, that which participates in all cases of x. However, Plato does not making especially clear the way in which the particular acts or states i.e. of beauty or equality relate to the absolute form in question. This matter is, however, taken up in the Republic. In the Republic, Plato considers a matter much beloved by philosophers past and present, the way in which in our everyday lives we make distinctions about opposites. For example we contrast thick and thin, light and heavy, tall and short, ugly and beauty, just and unjust, one and many, equal and unequal, and so on. Plato argues that the contrasts are complex because they may in fact be compounded. Equality and inequality are, for example, compounded in man. Men may be equal to each other and animals may be unequal to mankind. But mankind is unequal to the gods so man is both equal and unequal. Plato (Republic V523b) takes the contrast between seeing that something is a finger and judging how big it is. Our visual faculties are sufficient for the business of seeing that it is a finger but we need more than bare perception to judge the size of the finger, for assessing its size in relation to those 12

-12 either side of it, for example. Plato thinks that is via our intelligence that we make the judgement about the size of the finger. Sensation pure and simple confronts us with the phenomenon and this gives us awareness thus we see a finger but is reason, our intelligent capacity for thought, which enables the judgement about the finger s size. This judgement is rational and intelligent in contrast to pure sensations through vision. (Republic V524c). Plato is then able to suggest that our rational capacity to make a judgement over size is enabled though our prior rational understanding of the general concepts largeness, size and the like. One rather obvious question for Plato at this point is how is that we actually know the absolutes or Forms of beauty, largeness etc? And in relation to this, what do we mean by saying that such concepts are intelligible? Plato s view is that our ability to apprehend an absolute such as that of absolute equality is based upon a non-bodily existence prior to our physical birth. In this preexistence the soul is free from the constraints of the senses and as it is expressed in Phaedo, is able to apply pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated object. (Phaedo 66a) It is via the senses that we experience cases of equality, beauty and size. But amidst the flux of experience we don t find the absolute equality (or beauty or size) that intelligence requires employs to make the judgements about the relative degrees of equality (and so on) that we encounter. Again, all of this suggests to Socrates/Plato that the pre-existent soul inhabits the same intelligent conceptual domain as the Forms. This insight informs the view Plato takes (in Phaedo and Phaedrus) that rightly viewed, our capacity to learn, to acquire knowledge and understanding, is based on a process of recollection anamnesis as our soul, embodied, identifies on the basis of recollections of the general and objective Forms the particulars within the world of experience. The implications of this for Plato and the body-soul distinction will be examined later but the shape of his view might not be hard to deduce! By saying that these matters are intelligible Plato s point is that we can define and understand them. Here he is not following the relativism of the Sophists (or of many modern and post-modern writers) who favoured the view that what we define something as meaning is what it means, relative to the age, period, society or culture. In sharp contrast the platonic question over, say, beauty, would be What is the essential form of beauty which makes all beautiful things beautiful? Beauty-itself, the Form of Beauty, will be objective, clear, eternal and unchanging. What should now be evident about this doctrine of Plato s is that it is a two-worlds doctrine: we have an eternal, conceptual domain of Forms. The Forms have BEING! They eternally ARE; and we have the visible, finite world of experience, this world, changing, inconstant, a world of becoming. How these worlds relate to each other is a key matter to examine! Earlier we noted how Socrates set out to find a makeshift solution to the problem of causation and we can see how such an enquiry can lead into a range of other matters! But tracing out such lines of thought or pursuing them in the first place, is trademark platonic activity. As a thinker, Plato is remarkable for his capacity to see how questions and problems interrelate. The problems are not always sorted out 13

-12 within one platonic work, however. Again, as we explained above, Plato rather enjoys reviewing a problem to some degree in one work and then some years later he considers it again in a new dialogue. Thus in the Phaedo, Socrates is keen to find that which is the best for each and the universal good but he fails to find it. Nor is clear in that dialogue how the Forms relate to the things in question that are associated with them. The Form of beauty might be the cause of the beauty in a view or in a work of art, but the Form of beauty did not cause the view or the work of art. So, how are the domains of essence and existence related? However, in the Republic (VI 508cff) Plato aims to plug the first of the gaps evident in his theory through the consideration and status he gives to the Form of the good. The other problem is treated in the Timaeus. Plato, the Form of the Good and the Demiurge In the Republic (VI 508c & VII 532a ff) Plato articulates a view of the Form of the good that that likens it to the sun. Just as we need the light of the sun to see other things, so the Form of the good gives their truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower. The Form of the good is thus the cause of knowledge, and of truth so far as it is known. Plato regards the Form of the good not just as one of the Forms, but also as the pre-eminent Form. Thus the form of the Good unifies and integrates the Forms; the Forms are not singular essences suspended independently in their domain, but, via the Form of the Good, the forms are seen in a pattern or relationship of being, meaning and value. Using the comparison with the sun, (Republic VI) which not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it itself is not generation, Plato argues that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but there very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power. The duty of the philosopher is to understand this transcendent reality. The limit of the intelligible is reached by the philosopher who attempts through discourse of reason and apart from all perceptions of sense to find his way to the very essence of each thing and does not desist until he apprehends by thought itself the nature of the good in itself. As to the nature of the relationship between the domain of essence, the Forms, and the visible world of experience and existence, Plato s view is that the Forms are reflected or copied in the world of experience and in the Timaeus Plato writes a poetic creation myth as a means of expressing the nature of the relationship between the two domains. Plato s suggestion is that if the Forms are copied into the world of experience then there needs to be some receptacle, a being which receives all things and in some mysterious way partakes of the intelligible. (Timaeus 51a). In the poetic myth Plato writes about he Demiurge, a divine craftsman who does the job of making the copies of the Forms as order is imposed on the chaos of matter to bring about the structures of experience within which we operate. The Demiurge cannot engage in this business without possessing soul and intelligence, and this in the language of the creation-myth, means that the world of experience is a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence, for the Demiurge cannot but give this of himself to the world that is shaped thorough his activity. (Timaeus 30b) Plato says in 14

-12 the Timaeus that he is using the language of probability in the creation myth. And it was the view of Plato s contemporaries that the story of the Demiurge was not to be taken literally, but to be viewed as an artistic expression of an intellectualised point. This is that there is a rational ordering of things, that reason is prior to actuality, that essence precedes existence, and that there is structure, meaning, truth and value prior to the orders of existence and that his means that the world is intelligible. In this understanding, Plato is influenced by the Pythagorean tradition within which mathematical reasoning is taken to be the key mode of thought for explanation. Platonists regularly employ mathematical examples to illustrate the idea of the relationship between the particular and the general and the domain of Forms the Form of triangularity versus all empirical cases of triangles! And Plato not least in the way he set up the curriculum at the Academy, puts emphatic focus on mathematics as the disciple that has the rational power to explain all relationships and regularities, and the power to explain with economy, elegance, beauty and, ultimately, goodness. Plato and the Body-Soul distinction (Relevant to A2 Philosophy of Religion) One very consistent issue in classical philosophy as well as in many debates since, even to the present, concerns the body-soul distinction. Humans have bodies, or so they think. They can think about the body they appear to inhabit, and think about that body as a complex of matter distinct from that which does the thinking, and thus one s body is a complex of external matter akin to our chair, mobile phone or lunch. So do the bits that do the thinking the mind or brain and which give us our sense of selfhood, personality, character and the like have a status and nature distinct from the body? In modern thought this often termed the mind-matter distinction, but the classical question is, Are we embodied souls? And given that our bodies appear to age and decay and die do our souls persist? Are we destined for immortality? Plato has a big philosophical investment in the notion of the soul - in Greek psukhe or psyche. In Plato s earlier Socratic works, such as the Apology, Socrates is portrayed as being sceptical as to whether humans possess immortal souls. He uses this in a part of his argument against the Athenians, arguing that if he has the death sentence commuted it will mean, to be sure, that he will continue to be an irritant to as well as being irritated by the Athenians. If, however, he is put to death it will either be the peace of oblivion or, perhaps, immortality. Socrates is agnostic, it seems, but he appears to prefer the option of death and in this respect the Athenians presumably did not over-disappoint! Plato s views emerge and develop in later dialogues. The Phaedo involves a full-scale defence of the immortality of the soul and in the Republic and in the Phaedrus there are further treatments. In the Phaedrus (247ff) we have the famous image of the winged charioteer speeding through the heavens: the soul is the charioteer trying to manage the two horses body and mind. If all is well it is because there is a balance between bodily needs and pleasures (not the body itself) on the one side, and intellectual interests, but the soul has a tricky job ahead if the balance is lost! Here, in embryonic fashion, we see a notion of an integrated self but that which is termed soul has special status. In these writings there is a development of a more sophisticated view of the soul. The early reviews involve the conventional body-soul distinction. As sketched above, 15

-12 souls (as a collective term for the rational personal self) are distinguished from that in which they are embodied. In the Republic the soul is said to have three aspects: reason, emotion and desire (RepublicIV). But later in the dialogue there is another refinement. Reasoning is associated with the quest for understanding, insight and knowledge. The emotional or spirited aspect is lined to the desire for honour, power and status. The desiring part is related to the bodily drives and desires. As we have seen earlier, at this stage of his work Plato takes the view that the human capacity to ability to apprehend an absolute such as that of absolute beauty is based upon a nonbodily existence prior to our birth. In this pre-existent state the soul is free from the constraints of this world and is able to apply pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated object. (Phaedo 66a) It is in this world of sense experience that we encounter cases of equality, beauty and size. But amidst the flux of experience we don t find the absolute form of beauty or whatever that intelligence requires employs to make the judgements about the relative degrees of beauty (and so on) that we encounter. All of this suggests to Plato that the pre-existent soul inhabits the same intelligent conceptual domain as the Forms and that the soul is essentially immortal, destined to return to the eternal domain of conceptual generality. When Plato refines the notion of the soul into three aspects reasoning, spirited and desiring, he is, at the very least, displaying mature insight into the dynamics of human psychology. We often consider the tension between wants and needs, between reason and emotion, between heart and head and so on. And we do not readily assume that a person is complete if they operate with nothing but cool impersonal reason, or with nothing but raw feeling, or with nothing but the bravura of spirited adventure. To be a person or in Platonese, to possess soul, there is a collective dynamic at work. Plato also uses this more dynamic model to modify the Socratic doctrine we noted earlier that all virtue is knowledge. In the Republic virtue remains intrinsic to the soul but wisdom is assigned to the reasoning part of the soul, courage to the spirited part, and justice is seen as that which gives harmony to the soul. Interestingly, Plato is inconsistent on the issue of what of the soul is immortal. Phaedrus goes for the whole package of the dynamic soul being immortal, and in the Timaeus the view is that the reasoning part alone is immortal. In Republic Plato takes the view that goodness is its own reward, thus rejecting all types of consequentialist thinking, including the view that the good man is rewarded by eternal life, as justifications for ethical action. Nevertheless, at the end of the Republic, Plato does suggest that the soul of the good man will be immortal. The suggestion that the soul is immortal is supported by the following proof: The soul s longing for wisdom and its capacity for reason offers a distinct contrast with the body, which constrains and limits the soul. Everything in the world is prone to decay and the body is no exception: it is prone to disease. The soul is vulnerable to injustice and ignorance. If, however, the body dies after eating polluted food, Plato suggests that we would not say that the food was the cause of death, rather, that the body died of one of its typical illnesses or weaknesses of which the polluted food was the specific occasion. Destruction of the thing in question can, Plato suggests, only come about via a characteristic illness. But we have no evidence that bodily decline must cause a moral decline in the soul. Thus the soul that is virtuous and wise must be immortal. 16

-12 Platonic Thought and Theology After Plato s death the Academy under his nephew Speusippus (405-355 BC) and then Xenocrates (396-314 BC) carried on working in the style of the later Plato, developing and academic programme in mathematics, logic, metaphysics and epistemology. Later on, however, the Academy became a centre of sceptical thought more in keeping with spirit of the early Socratic dialogues. This continued for some two centuries until Antiochus of Ascalon (c130-68 BC) the Academy espoused a broader synthesis of Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic ideas. This move marks the transition into the period of Middle Platonism or Neoplatonism. Amongst the key thinkers in this period we may note Philo of Alexandria (20 BC c 50 AD), a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who amalgamated Platonic and other philosophical themes to Jewish ethical and theological traditions and thus provided a theoretical structure that had immense influence for early Christian thinkers. Clement (150-217 AD) and Origen (185-254 AD) are others in the Neo-Platonism school working in a similar fashion. This tradition has, it must be said, a bad reputation in modern times for creating something to which we have alluded namely, the view that there is a body of positive doctrine that is Platonic. It was not until the modern period, through the new humanism of the Renaissance in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries, and the intellectual Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, that a systematic re-reading of the platonic dialogues made clear their rather less systematic nature, and re-introduced the notion that if Plato was, as Petrarch (1304-1340) the prince of the philosophers, it was for his method and for the range of problems he reviewed rather than for the specific doctrines he advanced. However, in the amalgamation of Platonism with theological traditions from Judaism and later Christianity key points are: That the logos the word or wisdom of God is expressed in and to the created order though that structures of nature and though human reason and intelligence. The theological notion of a heavenly realm finds conceptual expression in Plato s understanding of an intelligible domain of concepts and Forms. Plato s creation myth similarly relates to the creation myths in Genesis. The Form of the good and the Demiurge/creator God are synthesised into the notion of the divine being as the pure, simple and immutable source of all wisdom, power, meaning, being, value and truth. The Forms are thus ideas in the mind of God. The appearance of people and of things in general is less important than the real character or essence i.e. the soul within. Thus there is much to link in with the Christian ethical view that the world to come is more important than this world, materialism and indeed the worlds of pleasure and sensation are in conflict with true fulfilment 17

-12 Problems for Plato The theory of Forms has been subjected to much criticism. Ever since Aristotle, and thus within Plato s own lifetime, a major line of criticism has arisen against the coherence and necessity of the conceptual domain of Forms. For Plato reasoning and judgement, whether mathematical, ethical, aesthetic presupposes an objectively real realm of Forms. Linguistic terms like triangle, and the geometric shapes with three internal angles that we can draw with varying degrees of precision, are distinct from the pure, objective and eternal Form of Triangularity. Plato thinks it self-evident that objective judgements must have a pure rational and objective base in which they participate and by which they are determined in terms of their possibility. But can we make sense of the mode of participation here implied? And do we need the additional complexity of an allegedly eternal domain to make sense of rational aspects of the mind? What is unclear to Aristotle and to many others since, is why we can t make sense of rational capacities by referencing them as capacities that are generically allied to humanity. Aristotle s view, simply put, is that we add nothing by thinking of an eternal domain of Forms over and above what actually think. We, in the so-called domain of appearance, actually reason and we don t need to extrapolate to a transcendental domain of conceptual generality to explain this. In fact, we have no means by which we can, through reason, extend beyond the domain within which we reason, to see if there is something else in virtue of which all that reasoning is possible! If we reflect on empirical entities like cabbages, receipts, textbooks, bricks and shoes, it is easy to agree through reflection on experience that we have types or sorts of things, and we can develop descriptive and definitive conceptual categories to map out the sorts of things there are. But does it make sense to envisage that this is done by and through the pre-existent and eternal Form of Cabbage, Form of Receipts, Form of Textbooks, Form of Brick and Form of Shoe? And do we have, if we follow Plato, to envisage that there are actually distinct Forms for shoes as distinct as balletshoes and Wellington boots? Are there broad universals to cover footwear in general, or are there universals for each sub-type? The Aristotelian view is always that the form of a thing will be that in virtue of which a particular thing or type of things is distinctly structured and organised. Thus the form of the thing in question is intrinsic to it, not pre-existently eternally distinct from it. In similar fashion, why do we need the Form of Good? Why can t we construct a typology of goods within and for the various modes of personal, social and political action that humans as a matter of fact engage in? Plato s analogy with the sun is especially weak at this point. We can, of course, agree that within the universe of experience that is this life in which we all share, we can affirm the experiential truth that the light by means of which all see derives from the one sun. But it is a conceptual error to take this as analogy for a conceptual eternal reality the Gooditself or the Form of the Good. By default we can t all see this; that we contest what the goods are for a given occasion is not grounds for inventing an overarching Good it is better to establish to order of goods for the occasions that arise. 18