Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Plato
PLATO, the most celebrated philosopher of antiquity, was born at Athens, or, by some accounts, in the neighbouring island of Ægina, in 429 b.c., the year in which the great Athenian statesman Pericles died. His lineage was ancient and illustrious, ascending on his father's side to Codrus, and on his mother's to Solon. His original name, Aristocles, was changed into Plato (πλατύς, broad) either on account of the breadth of his chest or the comprehensiveness of his genius. Fable threw her marvels around his infancy. While his father and mother were sacrificing to the nymphs and graces on Mount Hymettus, and their child was sleeping in a bower of myrtles, a swarm of bees are said to have alighted harmlessly on his lips—an ingenious fancy suggested, we may suppose, by the murmuring sweetness of his style. His youth and early manhood were coincident with his country's decline. The unfortunate expedition of the Athenians against Sicily took place in 415 b.c., and Athens never recovered her position as the head of the Greek states after this misdirected enterprise. Its disastrous effects, combined with the unprosperous issue of the Peloponnesian war, seems to have given Plato a strong distaste for public life, to the highest offices of which his rank and talents might have entitled him to aspire. He saw his country now reaping the fruits sown by the rule of an unbridled democracy, and the self-seeking morality of the sophists; and turning away from political strife he devoted himself to philosophy, and to the construction of that ideal city which is not made by the private passions of men, but "is founded in reason, although it exists nowhere on the earth" (Republic, p. 592). This, however, was the work of his later years.
At the age of twenty Plato made the acquaintance of Socrates, an event too remarkable not to be embellished by marvellous accompaniments. Socrates dreamt that a young swan came flying towards him from an altar in the groves of Academus, and after resting on his bosom soared up into the clouds, pouring forth strains which ravished the souls both of gods and men. The next day Plato was introduced to him, when he immediately recognized in him the young swan of his dream. Thus did fiction, with a fine feeling of the truth, seek to give expression to the wonderful affinity which drew together these two gifted natures: for never were two minds connected by closer intellectual and moral sympathies. Each gave completion and symmetry to the other: without the magical influence of Socrates, Plato might have lived in vain; and without the penetrating insight of Plato, Socrates would have come down to us the excellent and sensible, but rather common-place moral preceptor depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. His profounder lessons would not have found their way to posterity.
Plato passed about ten years in close companionship with Socrates. In 399 b.c. his great master had to drink the fatal cup, a catastrophe caused, not, as is usually said, by the machinations of the sophists, but rather by the intolerance of the conservative and orthodox party at Athens, which clung with unquestioning servility to the traditional beliefs, and were offended by the freedom of inquiry which the Socratic method of discussion had done so much to promote and extend. By the death of Socrates his disciples were dispersed. Plato sought refuge at Megara, a town situated about twenty-five miles from Athens. Here he was hospitably entertained by his friend Euclides, who had also been a disciple of Socrates, and who had founded a philosophical school at this place. It is probable that Plato composed several of his "Dialogues" at Megara.
How long Plato remained at Megara is uncertain. It is also doubtful whether he revisited Athens, and taught there for some time before setting out on his travels. All that is known with certainty is, that during the ten years subsequent to the death of Socrates, he visited Egypt and Cyrene, where he studied geometry under the celebrated mathematician Theodorus; that he travelled into Southern Italy, attracted thither by the fame of the Pythagorean philosophy; and that he spent some time at the court of the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius. His moral and political counsels are said to have so much offended this despot's pride, that he shipped him off to be sold as a slave in the market at Ægina. He was bought by a Cyrenaic philosopher, Anniceris, who gave him his liberty, and generously restored him to Athens. Plato was about forty years of age when he returned to his native city. He established a philosophical school in the groves of Academus, an ancient hero to whom the ground formerly belonged, and who had presented it to the public for a gymnasium. Here he lived, and wrote, and lectured during a period of more than forty years, interrupted only by two short visits to Sicily. What again drew him thither after the bad treatment he had received, was probably the hope of being permitted by the younger Dionysius to attempt the realization of his ideal republic in the city of Syracuse. If so, his hopes were disappointed. Plato died at Athens in the eighty-second year of his age, 347 b.c.
The philosophy of Plato is usually and conveniently divided into Dialectic (or metaphysics), Physics, and Ethics. Dialectic is his peculiar contribution to science. In ethics he followed out the principles of Socrates; in physics he borrowed much from the older cosmogonies; but in dialectic he is eminently original, although here too the Socratic influences are discernible. Dialectic is the science of ideas. What then are ideas? These will be best understood if we first state the opinion which the theory of ideas was designed to correct or supplement; for it may be assumed as a general rule in philosophy, that every new doctrine has for its object the correction either of some antecedent scientific error, or of some natural oversight incident to ordinary thinking; from which it follows that to understand a new doctrine we must first understand the old opinion to which it is opposed. In this case the old opinion was the system which is aptly described by the one word "sensationalism." This scheme, which resolves all thought and knowledge into sensation, and represents man as essentially a sensational creature, has, in one form or another, found zealous advocates in every period of philosophy, and its plausibility recommends it to the natural sentiments of mankind. But if true, it levels all the higher pretensions of our nature, by leaving no essential distinction between human beings and animals. It robs man of reason as his peculiar endowment, and removes the foundations of morality. Hence, if this doctrine has been strongly supported, it has been no less strenuously impugned. And pre-eminent among its earliest opponents stands the philosopher whose opinions are the subject of this sketch. The purport of the Platonic theory is that, in the constitution of knowledge, sensation so far from being the whole is, in truth, a very insignificant part. Ideas, not sensations, are the light of our knowledge, as may perhaps be understood from the following plain illustration. I have, let me suppose, a sensation of red and a sensation of blue. I observe further, that the red and the blue resemble each other in being colours, and differ from each other in being different colours. But I have no sensation of this resemblance or of this difference. I have only sensations of the red and the blue; I have not the slightest sensation of their similarity or dissimilarity. These are pure ideas. But deprive me of these ideas, prevent me from noting any resemblance or any difference between the red and the blue, and although my sensations of these colours would remain, my knowledge of them would depart—so essential are ideas to the existence of knowledge, so impotent are sensations, without ideas, to instruct us even in the most elementary truths. This case may further serve to illustrate a subject on which Plato has bestowed a good deal of elaborate treatment—the conversion, namely, of the human soul from ignorance to true knowledge. The ignorant and unconverted soul supposes that its knowledge of colours is due to the impressions which it receives. The converted soul is aware that this knowledge is due, not to these impressions, but to the ideas of resemblance and difference (and some other ideas), by which these impressions are accompanied, but with which they are not by any means identical. Apply this doctrine to the whole sensible phenomena of the universe, and it will be seen that we learn nothing from them, but that our knowledge of outward things is based entirely upon ideas, and is effected solely by their mediation.
Perhaps some light may be thrown on the Platonic and the sensational theories, if we bring out the opposition between them by considering the difference between merely feeling a sensation and thinking a sensation. The person who merely feels a sensation, and from whose mind every trace of thought is supposed to be banished, cannot travel mentally one hairsbreadth beyond the sensation which engrosses him. However keen the sensation may be, he is tied down rigorously to that single experience, and can take nothing else into account; for sensation cannot take into account anything except itself. And suppose that this person experiences another or twenty other sensations, still so long as he is without ideas he is just where he was when he had only one sensation. He is in a state of blank unintelligence, for he cannot, by means of mere sensation, so pass from one sensation to another as to make any comparison amongst them. Lively as his sensations may be, no knowledge of them has as yet taken place, no knowledge as yet is possible. But now let this person think his sensation, instead of merely feeling it, and observe what happens. His mind goes beyond the sensation, and takes in something more. He refers the sensation to a class; he brings into connection with it something different from itself. This he does in simply thinking that it is; for Being is no sensation; it is a thought. To explicate completely the difference between thought and sensation would carry us much too far. But this fact is certain, that in thinking a sensation something is present to the mind, which is not present to it when it merely feels the sensation. That something is a Platonic idea. And thus the doctrine which would build up knowledge out of mere sensations is displaced. The signal importance of ideas is the less readily appreciated from its being impossible for us to realize actually the sensational condition as it is when deprived altogether of their light. This can only be surmised or reached by the way of supposition.
Ideas may be further explained by observing that what is present to the mind when, instead of merely feeling, it thinks and knows, is a class, genus, or species. All general conceptions, such as man, animal, tree, are ideas; they are also called universals, to distinguish them from the particulars which are included under them. The modern logical theory of general conceptions may be here contrasted with the Platonic doctrine. According to the modern doctrine, the mind commences with a knowledge of particulars and then proceeds, by a method of abstraction and generalization (which consists in attending to agreements and leaving out of view differences), to fabricate general conceptions or id as. Here two errors are committed. First, it is impossible for knowledge to commence with particulars, for particulars can only be known or thought of in the act which assigns them to a class; and, secondly, the problem being, What is the origin of our knowledge? this explanation, leaving that problem unresolved, merely explains our ideas as arising out of our knowledge! The Platonic doctrine is very different, and much more to the purpose. According to Plato, the first stage of knowledge is, not the apprehension of particulars, but the apprehension of ideas or universals, and the application of these to particulars. This solution, at any rate, meets the problem, because it makes knowledge to originate in ideas, and not ideas to have their origin in knowledge. The Platonic theory may be summed up by saying, that the mind thinks and knows by means of genera and species. These are the laws under which all intelligence must work. They are the essential conditions of all thought, all knowledge, and all existence. It is impossible for a thing either to exist, or to be known, except as an instance of some genus or species. Genera and species—in other words, ideas—are thus the most objective, the most independent, the most real, and the most enduring of all things, inasmuch as they are the necessary laws or principles on which all being and all knowing are dependent. Such is the realism of Plato—a doctrine much truer and more profound than either the nominalism or conceptualism by which it has been succeeded.
The physics of Plato may be passed over as presenting few points of interest or intelligibility. His ethics have a stronger claim on our attention. Plato's moral philosophy will be best understood by being confronted with that of the sophists, against which it was specially directed, just as his theory of ideas was designed to refute their theory of knowledge. If man be nothing but an aggregate of sensations, he can have no other end than sensational enjoyment, and no other principle of action than selfishness. Such, accordingly, was the general purport of the sophistical morality, although some of its expounders recoiled from the extreme conclusions to which their principles led. Others, however, were less scrupulous. They explained the origin of justice in this curious fashion. The best condition, they said, in which a man can be placed, is that in which he can injure others with impunity; the worst is that in which he can be injured without the power of defence or retaliation. But men cannot always assure themselves of the best condition, or guard against falling into the worst. This consideration leads them to a compromise, in which they consent to abandon the former condition in order to escape the latter, the evils of which outweigh the advantages of the other state. This compromise is itself justice, and such are the circumstances in which that virtue originates. From this it follows that the semblance of justice is better than the reality; because the semblance will prevent others from injuring us, while it will yet enable us to injure them to our heart's content—(Republic, p. 358, 9.) In answer to this sophistical deduction, Plato argues that justice is not (as this doctrine assumes) an unessential attribute, but is itself the essence and organization of the soul. The semblance of justice, he says, without the reality, is no more a good thing for its possessor, than the semblance of order is a good thing in a nation when all its ranks are in a condition of anarchy and rebellion, or than the appearance of health is a good thing in the human body when all its organs are really in a state of disease. It is principally for the purpose of showing that virtue must be a reality, and not a sham, that Plato, in his "Republic," has drawn a parallel between the soul of man and the political constitution of a state. Just as a state cannot exist unless it is sustained by political justice, that is to say, unless the rightful rulers rule, and are aided by the military, and unless the inferior orders obey; so the individual soul does not truly and healthfully exist unless it is the embodiment of private or personal justice, that is to say, unless reason rules the lower appetites, and is aided in its government by the more heroic passions of our nature. In short, just as a state without justice—that is, without the due subjection of the governed to the governing powers—is a state disorganized; so a soul without justice—that is, without the proper subordination of the inferior to the superior principles of our constitution—is a soul undone. A character which wears the mask without having the substance of virtue, is no better, indeed is worse off, than a sick body which presents the mere appearance of health. Such is the scope (in so far as a few sentences can give it) of the moral philosophy of Plato in its more popular aspect, as presented to us in the "Republic." He treats the subject more metaphysically in the "Philebus;" but the result reached is in both cases the same. The maintenance of that organization of the soul in which reason rules and passion obeys—this is the end to be aimed at by man, rather than happiness or pleasure.
But more important than any results, either moral or metaphysical, which have been brought to maturity by Plato, are the inexhaustible germs of latent wealth which his writings contain. Every time his pages are turned, they throw forth new seeds of wisdom, new scintillations of thought—so teeming is the fertility, so irrepressible the fulness, of his genius. All philosophy, speculative and practical, has been foreshadowed by his prophetic intelligence, often dimly, but always so attractively as to whet the curiosity of those who have chosen him for their guide.
The best modern editions of Plato are those by Bekker, Stallbaum, and C. F. Hermann. In this country Mr. Jowett, the accomplished professor of Greek at Oxford, is superintending an edition, of which the highest expectations may be formed. Of this edition, only two dialogues, the "Philebus" and the "Theætetus," have as yet been published—the former being edited by Mr. Poste and the latter by Mr. Lewis Campbell, two thoroughly competent scholars, whose notes, philological and philosophical, are in the highest degree useful and appropriate. Schleiermacher's German, and Cousin's French translation of Plato's works, are much esteemed, and are accompanied by excellent introductions. Of the highest value, too, are Steinhart's introductions which accompany the recent German translation by Müller. Among German writers, Hegel and Zeller, Hermann, Munk and Susemihl may be mentioned as able and learned expositors of Plato. The English translation of Sydenham and Taylor has been superseded by a better one recently published by Mr. Bohn. The "Republic" has been translated with remarkable fidelity and spirit by Messrs. Vaughan and Davies of Cambridge; and Dr. Whewell has done good service to the cause of Platonic literature by abridging (with explanations) the more important "Dialogues," and clothing them in a garb of masculine and idiomatic English, which cannot fail to introduce them to many readers to whom they might otherwise have been uninteresting or inaccessible.—J. F. F.