YOU WILL NEVER SEE HIM THE SAME WAY AGAIN!
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/stefan-molyneux/the-truth-about-plato
The Truth About Aristotle: https://youtu.be/RF6044hZ0i8
The Trial and Death of Socrates: https://youtu.be/6x4ovVx4YQk
Plato (429?–347 BC) – was preceded by Socrates, and succeeded by Aristotle.
Both a philosophical and a literary genius – we only have lecture notes from Aristotle, though he was also thought a great writer.
The literary beauty of Plato’s “Dialogues” has had great influence – most of what we know about Socrates (who wrote nothing) we get from Plato – The Trial and Death of Socrates.
Plato was an Athenian citizen of high status, consumed with the politics of his time – but he extrapolated from his time to all time.
Plato ranks at the highest level, along with Aristotle, Kant and Aquinas.
It has been said that, deep down, every person is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian…
“Platonism” is fundamentally about the challenge of concept formation – what is the source of our universal abstractions?
For Aristotle, they come from repeated exposure to matter and energy – for Plato, abstractions come from the realm of “Forms.”
Platonism: the empiricism of what Aristotle would call “unreality.”
Plato is likely the first philosopher whose complete works are still available to the world.
Unlike his student Aristotle, Plato did not write systematic treatises, but instead penned a number of dialogues (about 35, although the authenticity of at least some of these is doubtful).
These conversations allowed Plato to most vividly show the Socratic method of question and answer.
Plato’s characters discussed almost every aspect of philosophy:
Ethics (the nature of virtue)
Metaphysics (reality, immortality, man, mind, and nature)
Political Philosophy (censorship, power and the ideal state)
Religiosity/Theology (Atheism, Dualism and Pantheism),
Epistemology (the study of knowledge, a priori knowledge and Rationalism)
Mathematics, aesthetic..
