Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander

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15. New Directions in Philosophy and Education

One of the reasons that the sophists, who had flocked to Athens in the fifth century B.C., had stirred up controversy was that their teachings seemed to many to undermine time-honored moral traditions. Their relativistic doctrines implied that justice actually meant, to paraphrase the fifth-century historian Thucydides describing Athenian war-time behavior, the strong seizing all they have the power to obtain and the weak enduring what they had to accept. Attacking this doctrine was one of the many different subjects undertaken by the philosopher Plato in the fourth century B.C. Plato's famous pupil, Aristotle, combined his teacher's passion for theoretical philosophy with a scientific curiosity about all the phenomena of the natural world. Their thought helped create a new foundation for ethical and scientific inquiry. Their philosophical interests seemed too distant from the concrete concerns of a public career to men like the orator Isocrates, however, who insisted that a proper education centered on rhetoric and practical wisdom.

15.1. The Life of Plato

Socrates's fate had a profound effect on his most brilliant follower, Plato (ca. 428 -348 B.C.), who even though an aristocrat nevertheless withdrew from political life after 399 B.C. The condemnation of Socrates had apparently convinced Plato that citizens in a democracy were incapable of rising above narrow self-interest to knowledge of any universal truth. In his works dealing with the organization of society, Plato bitterly rejected democracy as a justifiable system of government. Instead, he sketched what he saw as the philosophical basis for ideal political and social structures among human beings. His utopian vision had virtually no effect on the actual politics of his time, and his attempts to advise Dionysius II (ruled 367-344 B.C.), tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, on how to rule as a true philosopher ended in utter failure. Otherwise we have almost no evidence for the events of Plato's life.

Political philosophy formed only one portion of Plato's interests, which ranged widely in astronomy, mathematics, and metaphysics (theoretical explanations for phenomena that cannot be understood through direct experience or scientific experiment). After Plato's death, his ideas attracted relatively little attention among philosophers for the next two centuries, until they were revived as important points for debate in the Roman era. Nevertheless, the sheer intellectual power of Plato's thought and the controversy it has engendered ever since his lifetime have won him fame as one of the world's greatest philosophers.

• Plato: Biography and references [Encyclopedia]; Plato's Letters [Text]
• condemnation of Socrates: More on Socrates' condemnation [TRMartin History]
• his attempts to advise Dionysius II: Plat. L. 7.327d [Text]

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OCLC: 33900145
ISBN: 0300069561

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