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PLATO

BIOGRAPHY

Platowas born around the year 428 BCE in

Athens.
Plato's birth name was Aristocles.
Plato gained the nickname Platon, meaning
broad, because of his broad build.
He studied at a gymnasium owned by Dionysios,
and at the palaistra of Ariston of Argos.
When he was young he studied music and
poetry.

BIOGRAPHY

His father died while Plato was young, and his mother
remarried to Pyrilampes, in whose house Plato would grow
up. His family had a history in politics, and Plato was
destined to a life in keeping with this history. According to
Aristotle, Plato developed the foundations of his
metaphysics and epistemology by studying the
doctrines of Cratylus, and the work of Pythagoras
and Parmenides. When Plato met Socrates, however, he
had met his definitive teacher. As Socrates' disciple, Plato
adopted his philosophy and style of debate, and directed
his studies toward the question of virtue and the
formation of a noble character.

Life Of PLATO

Plato was in military service from 409 BC to 404

BC. When the Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC he
joined the Athenian oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants,
one of whose leaders was his uncle Charmides. The
violence of this group quickly prompted Plato to
leave it. In 403 BC, when democracy was restored in
Athens, he had hopes of pursuing his original goal of
a political career. Socrates' execution in 399 BC had
a profound effect on Plato, and was perhaps the final
event that would convince him to leave Athenian
politics forever.

Platos Morality

Plato, a student of Socrates and teacher of

Aristotle, did as much as anyone to lay the
foundations of Western philosophy. He wrote
about many things, including the question of
morality.
Platos moralitycan be described as
Atheistic Moral Platonism. It is basically
the idea that moral attributes we would
ascribe to a person just exist on their own.

Atheistic Moral
Platonism

On this view the Good would be a self-existent thing,

independent ofGodwithout a foundation in Gods
nature. Early Christian theologians equated Platos
Good to Gods nature, but Plato thought it existed
on its own, apart from God.. Similarly, justice, love,
mercyand also injustice and hatredmust exist on
their own as separate abstract entities of some sort.
This is difficult to see as a logical explanation
formoralityit seems unintelligible. Kindness, for
example, is more of a description of how a person is
they are kind or unkind.

Platos Belief on
ETHICS

Plato Believe in Virtue Ethics

Contemporary philosophers still disagree on what exactly the
term "ethics" means. Many such philosophers today consider
ethical language to be nothing more than a moral fiction.
Nevertheless, the general consensus in the field diverges among
three major branches: consequentialism, deontologicalism and
virtue ethics. The first two are relatively recent ideas, but virtue
ethics has been around since the time of Plato. Virtue ethics
focuses on the idea that what we call good is not dependent on the
actions we take (deontologicalism) nor the results of those actions
(consequentialism), but instead focuses on the person that we are.

Plato as a Virtue
Ethicist

To a virtue ethicist like Plato, actions are only

good to the extent that virtuous persons take
such actions. When Plato talks about what is
good, he always means for us to think of an ideal
good person. In this way, Plato would agree
wholeheartedly with the basic idea of the What
Would Jesus Do? movement, since the focus is
on what a good person is, rather than what good
actions or good consequences are.

Famous Lines

Famous Lines

Philosophy on Virtue

End