Plato was born into a slave owner and a prominent aristocratic family, and received a good education from an early age. As an adult, I like art and philosophy, and I am also influenced and attracted by slavery politics. When he grew up, it was the time when the democratic politics of ancient Greek slave owners was founded, and it was also the time when slave owners fought for power and profit, advocated more democracy or autocracy, and fought bloody battles with each other. The long Peloponnesian War is the embodiment of the reality of this struggle. The cruel reality of struggle deeply influenced Plato's thought. In addition, the religious consciousness of two major Greek religions, such as the Olympic God and orpheus, also had a great influence on him. Because I love poetry and drama as an adult, ancient Greek epic and drama with myth as the theme also planted aesthetic seeds in Plato's young mind. Generally speaking, the early philosophy of ancient Greece had the most profound influence on Plato's thought, such as the natural philosophy of Miletus, Pythagoras, empedocles and Elias, and the social philosophy and ethics of the wise. Among them, Pythagoras' theory of sum of numbers, empedocles's theory of primitive matter, Heraclitus' theory of eternal change, parmenides's theory of abstract eternity of the universe, Socrates' philosophy and ethics based on goodness have the deepest influence on Plato's thought. Among them, Socrates' fearless spirit has the greatest influence on the maturity of Plato's thought and the establishment of his future ambition. Because Socrates is Plato's teacher and friend, it can be said that Socrates' theory and morality have basically become the most important theoretical basis of Plato's theory. These are the direct realistic basis and reasons for the formation of Plato's thought. Plato's absorption of such rich ancient Greek culture is related to his diligent study and research, many trips, extensive collection of talents and the establishment of academic parks.
According to relevant data, Plato's life works have been handed down in the name of Plato, including Fido, Fidero, parmenides, Country, Drinking, Hippocrates, Wise Man, Philipps, Timio, Law and more than 30 dialogues and1. After years of research, scholars generally distinguish between authenticity and determine the stages of works. At present, it is recognized that 25 dialogues and 1 apologies to Socrates were written by Plato. Among the 13 letters, the seventh letter is generally regarded as reliable and Plato's autobiography, but some people are skeptical.
Let's discuss the truth, goodness and beauty in Plato's thought from some recognized works and some related research materials.
First, real existence and idealism.
Plato's cosmology is not a general cosmology of pure natural philosophy, but a natural cosmology combining religion and ethics, which was originally created for his later thinking. Although Plato's worldview was denied by Russell, there were many people who affirmed it. I don't think we can deny it as easily as Russell, but we should study it deeply and distinguish right from wrong.
The first is his objective reality ontology. In his masterpiece Timio, he believes that there are four aspects of reality in the whole universe, including God, concept, space and chaotic material elements.
Plato is a theist. God is the first real existence of the universe, the supreme ruler and creator of the universe, and he is an eternal reality. But Plato's cosmic god is different from the general religious god Christ, who is the creator of all things. Plato's God could not create the basic elements of thought, space and matter. Unlike the gods in Greek mythology, there are so many fairy tales. Plato's cosmic god can only be the natural god in philosophy, the master, commander-in-chief, manager and creator in natural creation. When he talks about the palm of God ruling the universe and creating the universe, he sometimes calls it "craftsman", "father of the universe" and "strange mud", so God is an external entity to the universe and is called external force by politicians.
The second is the idea, which is the second real existence in the universe and an eternal reality. In parmenides, it is said that they are all independent entities, arranged in the whole universe and nature, and used by God's creation. What's the idea? From a large number of dialogues, ideas are the models and standards used by God when he created everything. For example, Plato said in "Timio" that "God shapes them with types and numbers", and this type is the meaning of ideas. Because type is related to number, ideas can be understood from the perspective of the essential law of things we understand now, which is the internal reason for the formation of things. For example, if a material is processed according to a certain processing procedure and basic structure, something will be formed. In Plato's view, at the beginning of the formation of the universe, the entity of ideas and the entity of matter were separated and existed in two different worlds. It is because God wants to create a beautiful world that these two entities are combined in the hands of God. Concept is model, and material is material. Just like kneading flour into a mold to make all kinds of cakes, God created everything in this way. In fact, ideas are the essential laws of things.
Thirdly, it is space. In Plato's thought, space is an empty existence, just like the empty house and empty place that we ordinary people perceive, and it is a place to store things. In Timio, he thinks this way: "The third existence is a permanent and indestructible space, which provides a place for all created things." According to our current understanding, space-time is the form of material movement, and they are two inseparable aspects of things. But Plato's thought separated them. I can't believe that time was made by him later. For example, "Timio" said: "The day, night, month and year did not exist before the day was made, but were made when the day was made." This view holds that the space of existence is not only empty, but also static.
Finally, the theory of cosmic matter chaos. In his view, the earliest cosmic matter is a completely disordered and chaotic existence, and it is an objective reality like gods and ideas. This objective substance is water, fire, earth and gas. Therefore, only from this point, Plato can't completely describe him as a representative of objective idealism. In the history of western philosophy, some people do not agree with it, but define it as dualism. I think dualism is more appropriate.
However, this material world is a changeable and chaotic world. Because of God's dissatisfaction, because of God's mercy, under the control of God, the world has become harmonious, orderly and perfect. But the unchangeable essence has not changed, so everything in the world is still changing. It is not as eternal as the world of God and thought. The difference between the two worlds is that the material world is a perceptual world, and the "visible world" is a world that is always changing and generating. Although the world can be seen by humans, we can't understand them. The world of God and ideas is a rational world, a "knowable world" and an eternal world. Although people can know the world, it is an invisible world.
This theory of two worlds is the ideological basis of Plato's dualism. This "visible world" is a material world. However, in this material world, the chaotic world of material elements is the real world first, while the phenomenon world created by craftsmen, although moving in an orderly way, is a constantly changing and generating world, so these constantly changing phenomena are a non-existent unreal world. The other "knowable worlds" are real, but they are not matter, but gods, souls and ideas. Therefore, compared with the material world, these things are invisible and unreal. They can only rely on the understanding of the soul and belong to the category of the soul, so naturally they belong to the category of the spirit. It can be seen that the conclusion of dualism under Plato's thought is completely correct. Plato had objective idealism, and thought was dominant, but it was not the only one. The simple materialism absorbed from the early Greek natural philosophy is also indelible.
In Plato's real world, apart from the unparalleled existence of God, the existence of ideas is the main thing. Because the idea is not only to make things in the universe exist in order, but also the "* * * phase" of human understanding of the objective world. It is equivalent to the concept, essence, commonality and so on that we are familiar with now. Why do concepts, essence and general things become concrete reality? Because in Plato's idea, the concept is not abstract, but a relatively concrete reality, it is somewhat different from our understanding of the concept, essence and so on. Although it is not the concrete reality of an individual, it is the concrete reality of a category. As an example of his own concept of bed, although this bed is not a specific bed, it is what we should look like, or to model a general specific bed. Although we can't see the appearance and model of the bed with naked eyes, it exists in our minds and souls a priori. People's understanding of bed is based on the conceptual knowledge of bed in their minds through memory. Therefore, from the perspective of epistemology, Plato's epistemology is based on the transcendental objective idealism of soul recollection. We can see this from Fido, Fidero, Phileb and other articles. He believes that the human soul is immortal and reincarnated. In the eternal knowable world, the soul has long been familiar with various concepts. When the soul enters a born human body, the soul enters a visible world with the human body. Therefore, this person's knowledge and rationality are inherent in the concept, and then can be obtained through the memory of the soul. People's education and learning are just a form of soul memory.
In addition, from the perspective of teleology, Plato's theory of ideas is also quite weighty. Because God wants to create this world, its purpose is perfection. In the chapter "Timio", the generation of the universe is expounded. This is God's motive and purpose: God always expects everything in the world to be good and perfect. When he found that the whole visible world was not static, but in disorderly movement, he thought of order, goodness and beauty. God uses this order, perfection and beauty to transform the world by "shaping them with types and numbers", that is, shaping them with ideas. In other words, the perfection of things is closely related to the idea of existence, and the idea is connected with beauty and goodness.
Being and nothing are opposites, that is, truth and falsehood are opposites. What do you mean by something that doesn't exist and is false in this universe? In Plato's exposition of real entities, he also talked about things that don't exist, such as everything reflected in the mirror; Things created by artists and so on, because they are all "shadows of shadows", are not real existence. Secondly, beds made by ordinary craftsmen, broadly speaking, including everything produced in reality, are the shadows of ideas, that is, Plato's "sharing" or "imitation" of ideas, so they do not belong to real existence. There is Plato who is influenced by Heraclitus' theory of change. The resulting theory of "generation" is included, that is, the generation of everything in the world is imminent and extinct, never constant, and things are always changing, so what exists now disappears with the change of time. In this connection, regarding the existence of time, Plato also believes that only the present tense is the real existence, and the past tense and the future tense can only be images of time, so they do not exist. Posted in China Paper Download Center.
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