About the great philosopher Plato

2400 years ago, in Athens, the great philosopher - Plato was born. His goal being helping people reach Eudaimonia (fullfilment), Plato has written 36 books to help people understand the great values of life. Some of them are: The Republic, The Symposium, The laws, The Meno, and The Apology.

Plato had 4 big ideas for making life more fulfilled: they were 1) Think more, 2) Let your lover change you, 3) Decode the message of beauty, 4) Reform society.

IDEA 1:Think more - Often people go around not investigating our lives logically and carefully, whilst thinking deeply about our surroundings. Sometimes we go along with “doxa” - which means popular opinions. With this idea Plato wants us to believe that doxa is full of prejudice, errors and superstitions, encouraging people to make judgements for themselves. Plato believes that popular opinions may lead us to having our priorities wrong and living a life with wrong values.

Know yourself - is what Plato always stated. Plato believed it is better to examine your ideas rather than acting and doing everything impulsively.

The more knowledge you have - the less you are pushed around with mixed feelings about things. Plato compared the role of our feelings in our life to being dragged along by a group of wild horses. Plato’s ideas were heavily influenced by people such as Pythagoras, Socrates and Heraclitus. Plato also called explaining the meaning behind a new thought in the form of discussion - Socratic discussion. You can have a Socratic discussion with yourself, or preferably with another person explaining your ideas and how you were able to generate them

IDEA 2) Let your lover change you - In the book “The Symposium” by Plato, at a dinner party of a group of friends that talked about love, relationships too much, Plato mentions “ True love is admiration”. People should date people with good qualities that they lack. By getting close with their lover, they are becoming more like them. If the person we are with is right for us, they help us grow to the maximum potential. Plato believed each person should seduce their lover to become a better version of themselves.

IDEA 3) Decode the message of beauty - Everyone has always liked beautiful things without questioning them. However Plato was the first person to ask why we like them (beautiful things)? Soon, he found an amazing response - Beautiful objects are whispering important truths to us about the good life. We find things beautiful when we unconsciously sense in them qualities we need, but are missing from our lives. These things were gentleness, harmony, balance, peace and strength.

He believed beautiful things educated our souls. Ugliness is a substantial topic as well. Ugliness channels dangerous and damaged characteristics in front of our eyes. Plato thinks art is therapeutic. It is a duty for the people in the art industry to lead us toward living a better life.

IDEA 4) Reform society- It isn't a secret that Plato spent a lot of time thinking. He spent time thinking about how government officials and government mindsets should ideally be like. He was the world’s first utopian thinker. In this case, he was inspired by Athen’s biggest rival - Sparta. Sparta did everything in an organized manner, and they were very strong militarily. Moreover, that wasn’t Plato’s concern. His concern was with how to produce not stronger military people, but more fulfilled people. In his book, “The Republic” he has mentioned numerous ways of doing so. He wanted to replace at the time’s sport celebrities people looked up to with wise people he called guardians. Guardians were models for everyone’s good development. They were the most honored people in society. He thought it was best to get rid of democracy since most people voted without thinking which caused the Athen’s to be maintained with unsatisfactory rules. He didn’t want dictatorship either, he wanted people to think rationally before they made decisions.

To help people start thinking rationally, he started an Academy. In the Academy people didn’t only learn writing and math, but also were taught how to be kind. His main goal was to make everyone, including politicians, think like philosophers. “The world will not be right until kings become philosophers or philosopher kings” - he stated.

Utopian thinking allows us to see the larger picture, including the things that irritate or even repel us, in a more hopeful perspective, in terms of what could be.

Citation: "PHILOSOPHY - Plato" youtube video.