Plato's thought is very rich, which is not recognized by some scholars now. He is an early representative of objective idealists, and his thoughts need to be further studied and discussed. This paper attempts to do some work in this respect.
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 the two major Greek religions, such as the Olympic God and orpheus, cannot be ignored. 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 the change of everything, parmenides's theory of eternal abstraction 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 and 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 human beings, we cannot 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. But in this material world, the chaotic material element world is the real world first, and the phenomenon world created by craftsmen, although moving in an orderly way, is a constantly changing world, so these constantly changing phenomena are non-existent and unreal. The other "knowable worlds" are real, but they are not matter, but gods, souls and ideas. So compared with the material world, these things are invisible and unrealistic. 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 has objective idealism, and his thoughts are dominant, but not unique. 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. What concept, essence and general things will 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. Give an example of its own concept of bed. Although this bed is not a concrete bed, it is a general concrete bed or model we see. 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 and Philip. 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 obtained by the knowledge and rationality inherent in the concept and then by 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.
Second, the supremacy of goodness and teleology.
The concepts of goodness and goodness are most clearly expounded in two articles, The State and Timio. Kindness is the supreme embodiment. First, God is the embodiment or representative of good. Second, goodness is the source of knowledge and truth, higher than all knowledge and truth, and "more dignified and powerful" than all objects of knowledge. Therefore, the concept of goodness is the highest concept in the concept. It can be said that in this universe, goodness and God are two eternal beings that go hand in hand.
Plato's idea of goodness is "division" or "imitation", which fills the universe with the idea of goodness. This is a purpose of God's goodwill hope and creation of the universe, and it is a concrete embodiment of God's purpose. God's kindness is to hope that the universe is not chaotic, but harmonious, orderly and perfect. So God's mercy is a good purpose. The purpose of this kind of goodwill, embodied in the whole universe, is harmonious and orderly nature, that is, the generation of nature is formed under the guidance of ideas, without chaotic evil; Reflected in the society, it is a harmonious and orderly ideal country, with kings who can govern the country, warriors who are good at defending the country and subjects who are good at production and management. Everyone should perform their duties, do their best and live in harmony; Reflected in everyone, it is the unity of good cultivation of wisdom, courage, temperance, justice and * * *, which dominates people's thoughts and behaviors.
The antonym of good is evil. The source of its evil is in nature, which is the chaos of nature itself. For example, in Epinome, he said that "irregularity, disorder, clumsiness, lack of rhythm and disharmony" is the root of evil. As far as society is concerned, he believes in Timio that it is because the body and soul are "influenced by all kinds of terrible and irresistible emotions". He added: "these feelings, first of all, happiness is the biggest tempter of sin;" Secondly, there is pain, which is an obstacle to good; Thirdly, impatience and fear often give people stupid ideas; There is also anger that is not easy to convince, and I hope people will go astray easily. "
Perfection is the will and purpose of God, and it is also the desire and purpose of social people. He said in the article "The Country": "Every soul pursues goodness and takes it as the goal of all its actions." In a country, only those who are full of wisdom, courage, moderation and justice are the kindest and most moral people in this country. Although Plato's ideal country is utopian, it fully shows Plato's pursuit of good purpose and his belief that the universe is full of good.
Teleology is a research category of western philosophy. From Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Wolff to Kant, almost everyone thinks that the universe has a purpose, and there is an external force to push the universe to develop and move in a perfect direction, which is the main basis of teleological philosophy. These philosophers believe that there is a perfect trend in the development of the universe. Plato's teleology, like his teacher Socrates, thinks that the purpose of goodness is the purpose of God. Goodness is the perfection, completeness and perfection of things, which means goodness. In Aristotle's "four causes" (matter, form, motivation and purpose), purpose is one of the reasons. Wolf thinks that mice are for cats, and Kant's teleology of objective things, etc. Although their teleology is not completely consistent, from the deep content analysis, their teleology is related to the harmonious, orderly and regular development of things. The purpose is to pursue the harmony and order of things and conform to the law; To achieve the goal is to act according to law. So in their humanized society, purpose and regularity are completely unified.
As for teleology, in the field of philosophy, people are afraid that it is easily associated with religion or God, so it has no value in China's philosophical research. Actually, I don't think so. It is true that teleology from Plato, Aristotle to Kant is related to their theological thoughts, but we can think about this problem from another angle, that is, from its reasonable aspects.
The so-called purpose is a desire and an action plan generated by the needs of human subjects, which is closely related to the tendency of human desire, motivation and willpower. Man's purpose can be divided into positive and negative parts. The so-called negativity refers to a certain purpose triggered by people's pure desire. This is an irrational or even unreasonable demand that violates objective laws. By it, it will cause the contradiction between man and nature; The contradiction between man and society; Contradictions between people, etc. , thus causing social disaster. Positive purpose is the result that people correctly reflect the objective laws of nature, and it is the purpose that people form under the guidance of rational principle. Under the guidance of this purpose, people can live in harmony with nature, society and people and form a beautiful world. For two different purposes, there are two different objective reflections and two different objective results.
In fact, people's positive purpose is learned from objective natural development, and it is a normative law set by nature. Therefore, man's purpose is also the purpose of nature, and nature and man's purpose are interlinked. The so-called natural purpose is actually the inevitable law of natural development, which is what Marx called "the law of beauty." "Avenue Nature" also means that the development of objective nature is to constantly create and change nature according to a beautiful law. From the BIGBANG of marriage guessing, to the appearance of human beings, and then to the development of human society towards a higher society, it seems that nature is developing purposefully under the action of the law of beauty. This is dialectics of nature.
Third, the essence of beauty and the unity of truth, goodness and beauty.
Plato always talks about truth, goodness, beauty, beauty and beauty in the objective world and the subjective world together. In Plato's ideological system, truth, goodness and beauty are one. The discussion on beauty is mainly highlighted in the chapters such as Hippocrates, Drinking, Country, Fido and Fidero. His main viewpoints can be roughly classified into two categories, one is the essence of beauty, and the other is the relationship between beauty and truth, goodness and beauty.
1, the essence of beauty
First of all, Plato affirmed that beauty is real. But in the real existence of beauty, the beauty of many phenomena is unclear, such as the beauty of miss; A beautiful mare; A beautiful harp; Beautiful soup pot; The most beautiful monkeys, gold and goddesses, etc. In the face of so many beautiful phenomena, by contrast, it is not clear when we infer what beauty is, so it is difficult to discuss beauty in phenomena. Because the beauty in the phenomenon will vary from person to person and from time to time. Sometimes it is because it is "suitable"; Sometimes it is because it is useful or "beneficial" or "good"; Sometimes it's because of its "audio-visual pleasure" and so on. Therefore, it is not absolute, inherent and unchangeable, but relative, non-inherent and changeable.
In Plato's thought, he always thought that why the phenomenon of beauty is beautiful is because there is beauty itself in the beautiful things, and because the phenomenon of beauty "splits" beauty itself, essence or "concept of beauty"
What is the essence or idea of beauty? Plato made it very clear in a long passage in the article "Can Drink". He said: "this kind of beauty is eternal, without beginning or end, without birth or extinction, without increase or decrease." Because this kind of beauty will not vary from person to person, from place to place, from time to time, and it is the same for all admirers of beauty. ..... It doesn't exist in other things ... It exists in itself and is eternal; All other beautiful things are part of it. "
So how does harmony become the essence of beauty? From Plato's cosmology, the opposite of harmony is disunity, disharmony, disorder and ugliness. Before God created the world, it was a real world. Today's harmonious and orderly world is created by God according to the purpose of "perfection". Therefore, harmony is consistent with the real God, the concept of real goodness and the concept of beauty, and because of the unity of beauty and goodness, harmony is both the purpose of goodness and the essence of beauty.
Regarding the harmony of beauty, Plato speaks most clearly about the love of God in Drinking. He once said in the article "The Country" that "the most beautiful state" is "the harmony between spiritual beauty and physical beauty". And Cupid fully meets this condition. First of all, cupid is "young" and "beautiful in appearance" is recognized by the world; Secondly, God's love has various virtues such as justice, courage and temperance. Therefore, the beauty of God's body and mind is harmonious and the embodiment of the highest state of beauty. Love of God is not only beautiful in itself, but also guides human beings and God to love beauty and create a harmonious and beautiful world. So he said, "When the beautiful Cupid appears, there will be no ugliness", because Cupid "sowed all kinds of happiness seeds" on earth. The seeds of this happiness are "all kinds of virtues". They are: "peace on the earth, peace on the ocean, calm of the storm, and sweet fragrance. Let's sleep peacefully." In a word, beauty is a kind of harmony and happiness brought by God's love.
It seems to be a simple question about the harmonious nature of beauty, but in Plato's thought, such a simple question is difficult for an ordinary person to understand and see, and it is a very high realm. Therefore, he said: the truth of the harmonious beauty of "purity and purity" and "the integration of holiness and nature" can not be seen by anyone at any time, but only by wise men and high-level philosophers at some time. As an ordinary person, the beauty seen in real life is experiential, relative and comparative. These are all beautiful phenomena, not the essence of beauty.
Plato's theory that the essence of beauty lies in harmony has extensive knowledge in the field of aesthetic research, which has been recognized by many philosophers and aestheticians. There may be some differences in views, but the essence is the same, that is, the essence of beauty lies in harmony, unity or consistency. However, we should realize that this kind of harmony is not pure harmony, such as absolute uniqueness; Dead, unchanging "harmony" and so on. The harmony of beauty is the harmony under the premise of disharmony, disunity or inconsistency, such as the harmony under the premise of chaos and disorder, the harmony presented by the diversity of things and the harmony after the unity of contradictions. In Plato's thought, although there is no such in-depth exposition, its essential ideological content is just so. So from this point of view, there are other aspects, and I think his aesthetic thought has many merits. Only from the essence of beauty, from the broad sense of aesthetics, it is basically correct, because it tells the essence of the development of objective beauty. Whether it is nature or society, the development of its things belongs to beautiful things, that is, perfect things. They always form a harmonious system or whole according to the unity of opposites and diversity. Look at the development of things around you, don't you? Good things always conform to the law, meet the purpose and are loved by people.
2. The relationship between beauty and truth, goodness and beauty
Because Plato has the foundation of objective idealism, the concepts of beauty and goodness exist objectively in the universe, so in Plato's thought, the content of truth, goodness and beauty is unified, and the real thing is the thing of beauty and goodness; Beautiful things are also good things, and there is no fundamental difference between beauty and goodness.
Let's talk about the relationship between beauty and truth. In Plato's idealism, the idea of beauty and beauty itself are real existence. So on the contrary, many beautiful phenomena in those experiences are not true in Plato's view, because they all belong to the shadow of ideas and are imitated or "divided" from ideas. Because art is a reflection of social life, works of art are only descriptions of social life. In Plato's words, art is just a "shadow in the mirror" or a "portrait" of a character. So the beauty of art can only be the shadow of the beauty of social life. For the concept of beauty, the beauty of art is separated by two layers, which is even more false than the beauty of social life, because it is "the shadow of the shadow." For this reason, Plato did not welcome the existence of art and artists represented by poetry, and proposed to drive the art of poetry out of the home of the ideal country.
Let's talk about the relationship between beauty and goodness. Plato said in the article "The State": "Truth and knowledge are both beautiful, but the idea of goodness is better than both." The article "Timio" says that "all good things are good". These speeches show that beauty and goodness are the same. As mentioned above, in Plato's overall view of the universe, he believes that the concept of goodness is supreme in the conceptual world, so the concept of beauty must be subordinate to and dominated by the concept of goodness. For this reason, in Plato's aesthetic analysis, he always thinks that the beauty of the soul is higher than all forms of beauty. For example, in his article Drinking, he talked about making people realize that the beauty of the soul is more noble than the beauty of the body. In the article "Guo", it is said that ordinary people are "lovers of sound and emotion", so they only pay attention to "sound beauty", "color beauty" and "shape beauty". Only lovers of philosophers and wise men can see and understand the beauty of the same kind. In Philip, it is said that the happiness of the mind is higher than that of all the senses.
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