Plato's philosophy and influence on Western thought

Plato -- Meno/Allegory of the Cave

Plato's Meno is a dialogue between Meno and Socrates. Meno and Socrates are discussing the nature of virtue and Meno questions Socrates, asking him whether or not virtue can be taught, acquired by practice, or whether virtue is acquired in some other way. Socrates believes that virtue is not possible to define and this throws Meno for a loop. He now too begins to doubt virtue. Socrates later states that knowledge can be taught, so he believes that anything that can be known can be taught and thus knowledge can be acquired through teaching. Knowledge can be a virtue as can wisdom and he Socrates that if virtue is good, and if knowledge is comprised of good things, then virtue is knowledge -- or at least a part of knowledge. If virtue is something that is a quality of our soul's and if virtue is something that works to our advantage, then wisdom has got to be included because if it were used in a less than appropriate way it would be bad for our well-being. However, there is still some discrepancy because Socrates is not able to state definitively that virtue is knowledge or that knowledge is virtue. If virtue is knowledge and it can be taught, then there have to be teachers who can teach it. So this would mean that virtue can indeed be taught. Yet, it wisdom is something that cannot be taught, then it is neither wisdom nor knowledge. Socrates therefore finds that virtue is not something that we are born with, nor is it something that we can acquire. He claims that it is something that is given to us by God.

The biggest part of the dialogue between Meno and Socrates is about whether or not virtue can really be defined and whether or not virtue can be learned or taught. They repeatedly wonder if knowledge and virtue are the same thing. Does a person have to understand what good is in order to be a virtuous person? And if virtue is knowledge, then why do people who claim to have knowledge not always behave in the most virtuous ways?

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from the Republic, possesses some of the most controversial themes regarding human existence. Plato's cave is home to prisoners who are chained inside and forced to look at the front wall of the cave where shadows dance on the wall. The allegory encompasses the metaphor of the prisoners and the philosophical doctrine that the story represents. Plato, in a sense, sees human beings as prisoners and their existences confined to prisons that they create (the cave). The prisoners watch shadows dance on the walls and they don't seem to have any interest in what is causing those shadows and they don't try to escape from the chains that bind them so that they can see for themselves what is going on. If the prisoners were to dare to escape, they would see the sun and they would then realize the truth about what they were seeing.

The point of Plato's allegory is to represent a sort of comprehensive metaphor that contrasts how human beings perceive and what they believe reality to be. Plato's idea of the "divided line" -- where there is a division between what is illusion and what is reason -- changed Western philosophy. The allegory shows that to accept an example of something in place of a real definition is to accept a shadow as a real object. Breaking free of what society tells us is "good" and finding "the good" for ourselves (the "absolute" good) is essential for leading a truthful life. This means that the desires of some people interfere with the desires of others and this, ultimately, leads to a chaotic society. However, Plato's idea of the Guardians who can attain a higher level of knowledge, becoming philosophers, and then going on to become kings (leaders) is something that we can still use today to better our society.

Plato attempts to inform the reader about the distinctions between Goodness itself and the many forms in which people can see it (e.g. its appearances). In the quest for the absolute good that is shared by many good things, people become concerned with the general problem of how to find the one trait (absolute) shared by particular examples (the many). Butler agrees that a person has to find his or her own state of goodness (32). To go along with what society agrees with or counts as good doesn't mean anything to Plato; majority has opinion but not knowledge. To begin, Goodness itself is related to the Form of the Good. The Form, in a Socratic sense, is what we rely on to categorize the variety of examples of Goodness. This can be understood in terms of judging a recipe contest. If someone were to win a prize for a green bean casserole, another wins a prize for a chocolate cake, and another wins a prize for their barbecue chicken, what do these things have in common? They all won prizes at the same recipe contest, and they were all categorized as good. but, what is good? How do we judge good? The fact that they are all categorized as good is really their only connection. Plato would argue that since there isn't anything in the visual appearance of all these items that connect each other, it is the mind that recognizes these things as all Good. Plato argues that is it impossible to see Goodness. We cannot see it at all. We may see things that are Good, but we cannot see Goodness.

Although Plato's concept is hard to grasp, what he is really saying is that, in fact, the way we see things is more real than the actual objects. This means that, considering the recipe contest again, the green bean casserole, cake, and chicken are less real than the way in which we categorize them (Forms). Plato claims that the forms are actual things -- objects; the form of Goodness (or "cakeness" or "green bean casseroleness") is more real than the actual object.

When thinking about the Republic, Plato definitely gives the real objects in our lives less importance or value in relation to the Forms. Forms exist but they cannot be seen or smelled or touched. Plato argues that Forms are perfect, unchanging models; while actual objects that we can see have many different characteristics to them, Forms are simple: they cannot be misunderstood by the people who grasp them. A Form can never change. A person can change; they can grow old and lose their youth and beauty, but the Form will never change. In this sense, Form is the real object.

If we are to think about Form in our society today, we could think about desires. Many individuals have the desire to be wealthy. What makes a person wealthy would depend on the Form which the person believed in. For one person, a Porsche and a mansion would make them wealthy; for another, it would be a boat and a swimming pool. These are just objects, but what is real is the Form -- wealth. Eyres (2009) claims that democracy has evolved from oligarchy and the oligarchs at the top that already have wealth keep desiring more wealth. Eyres purports that people can become addicted to these Forms -- the desires and the appetite for more wealth. This desire isn't usually specific to the object, it is about the idea of more of the Form and whatever that Form means to that person.