The Theme & Major Components of the Thought World of Plato

The Theme & Major Components of the
Thought World of Plato: Does Plato’s
‘Ideal State’ a Utopia?
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The Theme & Major Components of the Thought World of Plato: Does Plato’s ‘Ideal State’ a Utopia?
2015
M d . R a i h a n U b a i d u l l a h , B a n g l a d e s h T a r i f f C o m m i s s i o n Page 2
TABLE OF CONTENT
Content Page
1. Preamble 4
1.1 Plato and Socrates 4
1.2 Plato and Pythagoras 4-5
2. The Thought World of Plato 5
2.1 Recurrent Themes 5-6
2.2 Platonic Realism/Metaphysics 6
2.2.1 Universals 6
2.2.1.1 Theories of Universals 6
2.2.2 Forms 7
2.2.3 Particulars 7
2.2.4 Criticism 7
2.2.4.1 Criticism of Inherence 7-8
2.2.4.2 Criticism of Concepts Without Sense-Perception 8
2.3 Theory of Forms 9
2.3.1 Forms 9-10
2.3.2 Terminology 10
2.3.3 Intelligible Realm and Separation of the Forms 10-11
2.3.4 Evidence of Forms 11
2.3.4.1 Human Perception 11
2.3.4.2 Perfection 11
2.3.5 Criticisms of Platonic Forms 12
2.3.5.1 Self-Criticism 12-13
2.3.5.2 Aristotelian Criticism 13
2.3.6 Dialogues that Discuss Forms 13-14
2.4 Epistemology 14
2.4.1 Platonic Doctrine of Recollection 15
2.4.2 Metaphor of the Sun 15
2.4.3 The Divided Line 15
2.4.4 Allegory of the Cave 15
2.4.5 Charioteer Myth 15-16
2.4.6 An Example: Love and Wisdom 16
2.5 The State 16-18
2.6 Unwritten Doctrines 18-19
2.7 Dialectic 20
3. Plato’s Theory of an Ideal State 20-21
3.1 Selection of the Ruling Class 22-23
3.2 Justice in The State 23
4. Plato’s Ideal State, Whether it is a Utopia or Not 23
4.1 Plato’s Definition of Justice 23-25
4.2 Plato’s Ideal State 26-27
4.3 Sedition & Subversion 27-28
4.4 Other Ideal States 28-29
5. Bibliography 30-32

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1. PREAMBLE
Plato (428/427 or 424/423–348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as
mathematician, in Classical Greece. He is considered an essential figure in the development
of philosophy, especially the Western tradition, and he founded the Academy in Athens, the
first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his teacher Socrates and
his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy and
science (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2002). Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "the safest
general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of
footnotes to Plato" (Whitehead, 1978).
Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy,
logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His lasting themes include Platonic love, the
theory of forms, the five regimes, and innate knowledge, among others. His theory of forms
launched a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called
Platonism. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several
conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts (Irwin, 2011).
1.1 PLATO AND SOCRATES
The precise relationship between Plato and Socrates remains an area of contention
among scholars. Plato makes it clear in his Apology of Socrates, that he was a devoted young
follower of Socrates. In that dialogue, Socrates is presented as mentioning Plato by name as
one of those youths close enough to him to have been corrupted, if he were in fact guilty of
corrupting the youth, and questioning why their fathers and brothers did not step forward to
testify against him if he was indeed guilty of such a crime (33d-34a). Later, Plato is
mentioned along with Crito, Critobolus, and Apollodorus as offering to pay a fine of 30 minas
on Socrates' behalf, in lieu of the death penalty proposed by Meletus (38b). In the Phaedo, the
title character lists those who were in attendance at the prison on Socrates' last day, explaining
Plato's absence by saying, "Plato was ill" (Phaedo, 59b).
Plato never speaks in his own voice in his dialogues. In the Second Letter, it says, "no
writing of Plato exists or ever will exist, but those now said to be his are those of a Socrates
become beautiful and new" (341c); if the Letter is Plato's, the final qualification seems to call
into question the dialogues' historical fidelity. In any case, Xenophon and Aristophanes seem
to present a somewhat different portrait of Socrates from the one Plato paints. Some have
called attention to the problem of taking Plato's Socrates to be his mouthpiece, given Socrates'
reputation for irony and the dramatic nature of the dialogue form (Strauss, 1964).
Aristotle attributes a different doctrine with respect to the Ideas to Plato and Socrates
(Metaphysics 987b1–11). Putting it in a nutshell, Aristotle merely suggests that Socrates' idea
of forms can be discovered through investigation of the natural world, unlike Plato's Forms
that exist beyond and outside the ordinary range of human understanding
(www.en.wikipedia.org).
1.2 PLATO AND PYTHAGORAS
Although Socrates influenced Plato directly as related in the dialogues, the influence
of Pythagoras upon Plato also appears to have significant discussion in the philosophical
literature. Pythagoras, or in a broader sense, the Pythagoreans, allegedly exercised an
important influence on the work of Plato. According to R. M. Hare, this influence consists of
three points: (1) The platonic Republic might be related to the idea of "a tightly organized

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community of like-minded thinkers", like the one established by Pythagoras in Croton. (2)
There is evidence that Plato possibly took from Pythagoras the idea that mathematics and,
generally speaking, abstract thinking is a secure basis for philosophical thinking as well as
"for substantial theses in science and morals". (3) Plato and Pythagoras shared a "mystical
approach to the soul and its place in the material world". It is probable that both were
influenced by Orphism (Hare, R.M., 1982).
Aristotle claimed that the philosophy of Plato closely followed the teachings of the
Pythagoreans, and Cicero repeats this claim: Platonem ferunt didicisse Pythagorea omnia
("They say Plato learned all things Pythagorean"). Bertrand Russell, in his A History of
Western Philosophy, contended that the influence of Pythagoras on Plato and others was so
great that he should be considered the most influential of all Western philosophers (Russell,
B., 1991).
2. THE THOUGHT WORLD OF PLATO
2.1 RECURRENT THEMES
Plato often discusses the father-son relationship and the question of whether a father's
interest in his sons has much to do with how well his sons turn out. In ancient Athens, a boy
was socially located by his family identity, and Plato often refers to his characters in terms of
their paternal and fraternal relationships. Socrates was not a family man, and saw himself as
the son of his mother, who was apparently a midwife. A divine fatalist, Socrates mocks men
who spent exorbitant fees on tutors and trainers for their sons, and repeatedly ventures the
idea that good character is a gift from the gods. Crito reminds Socrates that orphans are at the
mercy of chance, but Socrates is unconcerned. In the Theaetetus, he is found recruiting as a
disciple a young man whose inheritance has been squandered. Socrates twice compares the
relationship of the older man and his boy lover to the father-son relationship (Lysis 213a,
Republic 3.403b), and in the Phaedo, Socrates' disciples, towards whom he displays more
concern than his biological sons, say they will feel "fatherless" when he is gone
In several of Plato's dialogues, Socrates promulgates the idea that knowledge is a
matter of recollection, and not of learning, observation, or study (Baird & Kaufmann 2008).
He maintains this view somewhat at his own expense, because in many dialogues, Socrates
complains of his forgetfulness. Socrates is often found arguing that knowledge is not
empirical, and that it comes from divine insight. In many middle period dialogues, such as the
Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and
several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife. More than one dialogue
contrasts knowledge and opinion, perception and reality, nature and custom, and body and
soul (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Several dialogues tackle questions about art: Socrates says that poetry is inspired by
the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine
madness (drunkenness, eroticism, and dreaming) in the Phaedrus (265a–c), and yet in the
Republic wants to outlaw Homer's great poetry, and laughter as well. In Ion, Socrates gives no
hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. The dialogue Ion suggests
that Homer's Iliad functioned in the ancient Greek world as the Bible does today in the
modern Christian world: as divinely inspired literature that can provide moral guidance, if
only it can be properly interpreted (www.en.wikipedia.org).

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Socrates and his company of disputants had something to say on many subjects,
including politics and art, religion and science, justice and medicine, virtue and vice, crime
and punishment, pleasure and pain, rhetoric and rhapsody, human nature and sexuality, as
well as love and wisdom (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.2 PLATONIC REALISM/METAPHYSICS
Platonic realism is a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism
regarding the existence of universals or abstract objects after the Greek philosopher Plato (c.
427–c. 347 BC), a student of Socrates. As universals were considered by Plato to be ideal
forms, this stance is ambiguously also called Platonic idealism. This should not be confused
with idealism as presented by philosophers such as George Berkeley: as Platonic abstractions
are not spatial, temporal, or mental, they are not compatible with the later idealism's emphasis
on mental existence. Plato's Forms include numbers and geometrical figures, making them a
theory of mathematical realism; they also include the Form of the Good, making them in
addition a theory of ethical realism. Plato expounded his own articulation of realism regarding
the existence of universals in his dialogue The Republic and elsewhere, notably in the Phaedo,
the Phaedrus, the Meno and the Parmenides (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.2.1 UNIVERSALS
In Platonic realism, universals do not exist in the way that ordinary physical objects
exist, even though Plato metaphorically referred to such objects in order to explain his
concepts. More modern versions of the theory seek to avoid applying potentially misleading
descriptions to universals. Instead, such versions maintain that it is meaningless (or a category
mistake) to apply the categories of space and time to universals (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Regardless of their description, Platonic realism holds that universals do exist in a
broad, abstract sense, although not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies.
Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order
to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms
2.2.1.1 THEORIES OF UNIVERSALS
Theories of universals, including Platonic realism, are challenged to satisfy certain
constraints on theories of universals. Platonic realism satisfies one of those constraints, in that
it is a theory of what general terms refer to. Forms are ideal in supplying meaning to referents
for general terms. That is, to understand terms such as wikt:Applehood and redness, Platonic
realism says that they refer to forms. Indeed, Platonism gets much of its plausibility because
mentioning redness, for example, could be assumed to be referring to something that is apart
from space and time, but which has lots of specific instances (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Some contemporary linguistic philosophers construe "Platonism" to mean the
proposition that universals exist independently of particulars (a universal is anything that can
be predicated of a particular). Similarly, a form of modern Platonism is found in the
predominant philosophy of mathematics, especially regarding the foundations of
mathematics. The Platonic interpretation of this philosophy includes the thesis that
mathematics is not created but discovered (www.en.wikipedia.org).

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2.2.2 FORMS
Plato's interpretation of universals is linked to his Theory of Forms in which he uses
both the terms εἶδος (eidos: "form") and ἰδέα (idea: "characteristic") to describe his theory.
Forms are mind independent abstract objects or paradigms (παραδείγµατα: patterns in nature)
of which particular objects and the properties and relations present in them are copies. Form is
inherent in the particulars and these are said to participate in the form. Classically idea has
been translated (or transliterated) as "idea," but secondary literature now typically employs
the term "form" (or occasionally "kind," usually in discussion of Plato's Sophist and
Statesman) to avoid confusion with the English word connoting
"thought"(www.en.wikipedia.org).
Platonic form can be illustrated by contrasting a material triangle with an ideal
triangle. The Platonic form is the ideal triangle — a figure with perfectly drawn lines whose
angles add to 180 degrees. Any form of triangle that we experience will be an imperfect
representation of the ideal triangle. Regardless of how precise your measuring and drawing
tools you will never be able to recreate this perfect shape. Even drawn to the point where our
senses cannot perceive a defect, in its essence the shape will still be imperfect; forever unable
to match the ideal triangle (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Some versions of Platonic realism, like that of Proclus, regard Plato's forms as
thoughts in the mind of God. Most consider forms not to be mental entities at all
2.2.3 PARTICULARS
In Platonic realism, forms are related to particulars (instances of objects and
properties) in that a particular is regarded as a copy of its form. For example, a particular
apple is said to be a copy of the form of applehood and the apple's redness is an instance of
the form of Redness. Participation is another relationship between forms and particulars.
Particulars are said to participate in the forms, and the forms are said to inhere in the
particulars (www.en.wikipedia.org).
According to Plato, there are some forms that are not instantiated at all, but, he
contends, that does not imply that the forms could not be instantiated. Forms are capable of
being instantiated by many different particulars, which would result in the forms' having
many copies, or inhering many particulars (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.2.4 CRITICISM
Two main criticisms with Platonic realism relate to inherence and difficulty of
creating concepts without sense perception. Despite these criticisms, realism has strong
defenders. Its popularity through the centuries has been variable (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.2.4.1 CRITICISM OF INHERENCE
Critics claim that the terms "instantiation" and "copy" are not further defined and that
participation and inherence are similarly mysterious and unenlightening. They question what
it means to say that the form of applehood inheres a particular apple or that the apple is a copy
of the form of applehood. To the critic, it seems that the forms, not being spatial, cannot have

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a shape, so it cannot be that the apple is the same shape as the form. Likewise, the critic
claims it is unclear what it means to say that an apple participates in applehood
Arguments refuting the inherence criticism, however, claim that a form of something
spatial can lack a concrete (spatial) location and yet have in abstracto spatial qualities. An
apple, then, can have the same shape as its form. Such arguments typically claim that the
relationship between a particular and its form is very intelligible and easily grasped; that
people unproblematically apply Platonic theory in everyday life; and that the inherence
criticism is only created by the artificial demand to explain the normal understanding of
inherence as if it were highly problematic. That is, the supporting argument claims that the
criticism is with the mere illusion of a problem and thus could render suspect any
philosophical concept (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.2.4.2 CRITICISM OF CONCEPTS WITHOUT SENSE-PERCEPTION
A criticism of forms relates to the origin of concepts without the benefit of sense-
perception. For example, to think of redness in general, according to Plato, is to think of the
form of redness. Critics, however, question how one can have the concept of a form existing
in a special realm of the universe, apart from space and time, since such a concept cannot
come from sense-perception. Although one can see an apple and its redness, the critic argues,
those things merely participate in, or are copies of, the forms. Thus, they claim, to conceive of
a particular apple and its redness is not to conceive of applehood or redness-in-general, so
they question the source of the concept (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Plato's doctrine of recollection, however, addresses such criticism by saying that souls
are born with the concepts of the forms, and just have to be reminded of those concepts from
back before birth, when the souls were in close contact with the forms in the Platonic heaven.
Plato is thus known as one of the very first rationalists, believing as he did that humans are
born with a fund of a priori knowledge, to which they have access through a process of reason
or intellection — a process that critics find to be rather mysterious (www.en.wikipedia.org).
A more modern response to this criticism of concepts without sense-perception is the
claim that the universality of its qualities is an unavoidable given because one only
experiences an object by means of general concepts. So, since the critic already grasps the
relation between the abstract and the concrete, he is invited to stop thinking that it implies a
contradiction. The response reconciles Platonism with empiricism by contending that an
abstract (i.e., not concrete) object is real and knowable by its instantiation. Since the critic
has, after all, naturally understood the abstract, the response suggests merely to abandon
prejudice and accept it (www.en.wikipedia.org).

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2.3 THEORY OF FORMS
Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas (W. D. Ross, 1951) asserts that non-
material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change
known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality (W.
D. Ross, 1951). When used in this sense, the word form or idea is often capitalized
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952). Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters
(primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only
true objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge; thus even apart from the
very controversial status of the theory, Plato's own views are much in doubt (Watt, Stephen,
1997). Plato spoke of Forms in formulating a possible solution to the problem of universals
2.3.1 FORMS
The Greek concept of form precedes the attested language and is represented by a
number of words mainly having to do with vision: the sight or appearance of a thing. The
main words, ‘eidos’ and ‘idea’ come from the Indo-European root *weid-,"see"
(www.en.wikipedia.org). Eidos (though not idea) is already attested in texts of the Homeric
era, the earliest Greek literature. Equally ancient is µορφή (morphē), "shape", from an obscure
root (Bráhman, S., 1952). The φαινόµενα (phainomena), "appearances", from φαίνω (phainō),
"shine", Indo-European *bhā-, (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000) was a synonym
These meanings remained the same over the centuries until the beginning of
philosophy, when they became equivocal, acquiring additional specialized philosophic
meanings. The pre-Socratic philosophers, starting with Thales, noted that appearances change
quite a bit and began to ask what the thing changing "really" is. The answer was substance,
which stands under the changes and is the actually existing thing being seen. The status of
appearances now came into question. What is the form really and how is that related to
substance (www.en.wikipedia.org)?
Thus, the theory of matter and form (today's hylomorphism) was born. Starting with
at least Plato and possibly germinal in some of the presocratics the forms were considered as
being "in" something else, which Plato called nature (physis). The latter seemed as "wood"
(Liddell, H.G.; Scott, R.; Whiton, J.M., 1891), ‘hyle’ in Greek, corresponding to materia in
Latin, from which the English word "matter" is derived (American Heritage Dictionary,
2000), shaped by receiving (or exchanging) forms (www.en.wikipedia.org).
The Forms are expounded upon in Plato's dialogues and general speech, in that every
object or quality in reality has a form: dogs, human beings, mountains, colors, courage, love,
and goodness. Form answers the question, "What is that?" Plato was going a step further and
asking what Form itself is. He supposed that the object was essentially or "really" the Form
and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form; that is, momentary
portrayals of the Form under different circumstances. The problem of universals – how can
one thing in general be many things in particular – was solved by presuming that Form was a
distinct singular thing but caused plural representations of itself in particular objects. For
example, Parmenides states, "Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking
of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing. But
if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be
truly amazed." Matter is considered particular in itself (www.en.wikipedia.org).

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These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing
would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but
the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of
substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the
most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the
ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind (www.en.wikipedia.org).
A Form is aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time).
Atemporal means that it does not exist within any time period, rather it provides the formal
basis for time. It therefore formally grounds beginning, persisting and ending. It is neither
eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, of limited duration. It exists transcendent
to time altogether (www.en.wikipedia.org). Forms are aspatial in that they have no spatial
dimensions, and thus no orientation in space, nor do they even (like the point) have a location
(www.en.wikipedia.org). They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are
extra-mental (i.e. real in the strictest sense of the word) (www.en.wikipedia.org).
A Form is an objective "blueprint" of perfection (www.en.wikipedia.org). The Forms
are perfect themselves because they are unchanging. For example, say we have a triangle
drawn on a blackboard. A triangle is a polygon with 3 sides. The triangle as it is on the
blackboard is far from perfect. However, it is only the intelligibility of the Form "triangle"
that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is a triangle, and the Form "triangle" is
perfect and unchanging. It is exactly the same whenever anyone chooses to consider it;
however, the time is that of the observer and not of the triangle (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.3.2 TERMINOLOGY
The English word "form" may be used to translate two distinct concepts that
concerned Plato—the outward "form" or appearance of something, and "Form" in a new,
technical nature, that never...assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into
her; ... But the forms which enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences
modeled after their patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner (www.en.wikipedia.org).
The objects that are seen, according to Plato, are not real, but literally mimic the real
Forms. In the Allegory of the Cave expressed in Republic, the things that are ordinarily
perceived in the world are characterized as shadows of the real things, which are not
perceived directly. That which the observer understands when he views the world mimics the
archetypes of the many types and properties (that is, of universals) of things observed
2.3.3 INTELLIGIBLE REALM AND SEPARATION OF THE FORMS
Plato often invokes, particularly in the Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus, poetic
language to illustrate the mode in which the Forms are said to exist. Near the end of the
Phaedo, for example, Plato describes the world of Forms as a pristine region of the physical
universe located above the surface of the Earth (Phd. 109a-111c). In the Phaedrus the Forms
are in a "place beyond heaven" (huperouranios topos) (Phdr. 247c ff); and in the Republic the
sensible world is contrasted with the intelligible realm (noēton topon) in the famous Allegory
of the Cave (www.en.wikipedia.org).
It would be a mistake to take Plato's imagery as positing the intelligible world as a
literal physical space apart from this one ((Iris M., 1992). Plato emphasizes that the Forms are

M d . R a i h a n U b a i d u l l a h , B a n g l a d e s h T a r i f f C o m m i s s i o n
not beings that extend in space (or time), but subsist apart from any physical space
whatsoever. Thus we read in the
another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but
with itself," (211b). And in the
agree that that which keeps its own form unchangingly, which has not been brought into
being and is not destroyed, which neither receives into itse
else, nor itself enters into anything anywhere
(www.en.wikipedia.org)
2.3.4 EVIDENCE OF FORMS
Plato's main evidence for the existence of Forms is
Figure 01: In the Allegory of the C
2.3.4.1 HUMAN PERCEPTION
We call both the sky and blue jeans by the same color, blue. However, clearly a pair
of jeans and the sky are not the same color; moreover, the wavelengths of light reflected by
the sky at every location and all the millions of blue jeans in every state of fading constantly
change, and yet we somehow have a consensus of the basic form Blueness as it applies to
them. Says Plato (www.en.wikipedia.org)
time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there
will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows
known exist ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do
not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing
(www.en.wikipedia.org)
2.3.4.2 PERFECTION
No one has ever s
knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato utilizes the tool
evidence that Forms are real
instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not
others which he fancies, in the material
are not exactly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by
definition they are sets of infinitely small points. But if the perfect ones were not real, how
could they direct the manufacturer?
Components of the Thought World of Plato: Does Plato’s ‘Ideal State’ a Utopia?
M d . R a i h a n U b a i d u l l a h , B a n g l a d e s h T a r i f f C o m m i s s i o n
whatsoever. Thus we read in the Symposium of the Form of Beauty: "It is not anywhere in
another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but
with itself," (211b). And in the Timaeus Plato writes: "Since these things are so, we must
being and is not destroyed, which neither receives into itself anything else from anywhere
nor itself enters into anything anywhere, is one thing," (52a, emphasis added)
EVIDENCE OF FORMS
Plato's main evidence for the existence of Forms is intuitive only and is as follows:
Allegory of the Cave, the objects that are seen are not real, according to Plato, but literally mimic
the real Forms (www.en.wikipedia.org)
2.3.4.1 HUMAN PERCEPTION
are not the same color; moreover, the wavelengths of light reflected by
(www.en.wikipedia.org): But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the
will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows
No one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone
knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato utilizes the tool-maker's blueprint as
evidence that Forms are real (www.en.wikipedia.org): “when a man has discovered the
others which he fancies, in the material (www.en.wikipedia.org)”. Perceived circles or lines
tly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by
could they direct the manufacturer? (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Components of the Thought World of Plato: Does Plato’s ‘Ideal State’ a Utopia?
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of the Form of Beauty: "It is not anywhere in
another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but itself by itself
Plato writes: "Since these things are so, we must
lf anything else from anywhere
, is one thing," (52a, emphasis added)
only and is as follows:
, the objects that are seen are not real, according to Plato, but literally mimic
are not the same color; moreover, the wavelengths of light reflected by
of knowledge changes, at the
will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is
circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone
maker's blueprint as
when a man has discovered the
Perceived circles or lines
tly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by

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2.3.5 CRITICISMS OF PLATONIC FORMS
2.3.5.1 SELF-CRITICISM
Plato was well aware of the limitations of the theory, as he offered his own criticisms
of it in his dialogue Parmenides. There Socrates is portrayed as a young philosopher acting as
junior counterfoil to aged Parmenides. To a certain extent it is tongue-in-cheek as the older
Socrates will have solutions to some of the problems that are made to puzzle the younger
The dialogue does present a very real difficulty with the Theory of Forms, which
Plato most likely only viewed as problems for later thought. These criticisms were later
emphasized by Aristotle in rejecting an independently existing world of Forms. It is worth
noting that Aristotle was a pupil and then a junior colleague of Plato; it is entirely possible
that the presentation of Parmenides "sets up" for Aristotle; that is, they agreed to disagree
One difficulty lies in the conceptualization of the "participation" of an object in a
form (or Form). The young Socrates conceives of his solution to the problem of the universals
in another metaphor, which though wonderfully apt, remains to be elucidated:
“Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in many places at
once, and yet continuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one and the same in
all at the same time” (www.en.wikipedia.org).
But exactly how is a Form like the day in being everywhere at once? The solution
calls for a distinct form, in which the particular instances, which are not identical to the form,
participate; i.e., the form is shared out somehow like the day to many places. The concept of
"participate", represented in Greek by more than one word, is as obscure in Greek as it is in
English. Plato hypothesized that distinctness meant existence as an independent being, thus
opening himself to the famous third man argument of Parmenides, which proves that forms
cannot independently exist and be participated (www.en.wikipedia.org).
If universal and particulars – say man or greatness – all exist and are the same then
the Form is not one but is multiple. If they are only like each other then they contain a form
that is the same and others that are different. Thus if we presume that the Form and a
particular are alike then there must be another, or third Form, man or greatness by possession
of which they are alike. An infinite regression would then result; that is, an endless series of
third men. The ultimate participant, greatness, rendering the entire series great, is missing.
Moreover, any Form is not unitary but is composed of infinite parts, none of which is the
proper Form (www.en.wikipedia.org).
The young Socrates (some may say the young Plato) did not give up the Theory of
Forms over the Third Man but took another tack, that the particulars do not exist as such.
Whatever they are, they "mime" the Forms, appearing to be particulars. This is a clear dip into
representationalism, that we cannot observe the objects as they are in themselves but only
their representations. That view has the weakness that if only the mimes can be observed then
the real Forms cannot be known at all and the observer can have no idea of what the
representations are supposed to represent or that they are representations

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Socrates' later answer would be that men already know the Forms because they were
in the world of Forms before birth. The mimes only recall these Forms to memory
(www.en.wikipedia.org). Science would certainly reject the unverifiable and in ancient times
investigative men such as Aristotle mistrusted the whole idea. The comedian Aristophanes
wrote a play, The Clouds, poking fun of Socrates with his head in the clouds
2.3.5.2 ARISTOTELIAN CRITICISM
The topic of Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms is a large one and
continues to expand. Rather than quote Plato, Aristotle often summarized. Classical
commentaries thus recommended Aristotle as an introduction to Plato. As a historian of prior
thought, Aristotle was invaluable, however this was secondary to his own dialectic and in
some cases he treats purported implications as if Plato had actually mentioned them, or even
defended them. In examining Aristotle's criticism of The Forms, it is helpful to understand
Aristotle's own hylomorphic forms, by which he intends to salvage much of Plato's theory
In the summary passage quoted above (www.en.wikipedia.org) Plato distinguishes
between real and non-real "existing things", where the latter term is used of substance. The
figures, which the artificer places in the gold, are not substance, but gold is. Aristotle, stated
that for Plato, all things studied by the sciences have Form and asserted that Plato considered
only substance to have Form. Uncharitably, this leads him to something like a contradiction:
Forms existing as the objects of science, but not-existing as non-substance. Ross objects to
this as a mischaracterization of Plato (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Plato did not claim to know where the line between Form and non-Form is to be
drawn. As Cornford points out (www.en.wikipedia.org), those things about which the young
Socrates (and Plato) asserted "I have often been puzzled about these things" (in reference to
Man, Fire and Water), appear as Forms in later works. However, others do not, such as Hair,
Mud, Dirt. Of these, Socrates is made to assert, "it would be too absurd to suppose that they
have a Form" (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Plato had postulated that we know Forms through a remembrance of the soul's past
lives and Aristotle's arguments against this treatment of epistemology are compelling. For
Plato, particulars somehow do not exist, and, on the face of it, "that which is non-existent
cannot be known" (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.3.6 DIALOGUES THAT DISCUSS FORMS
The theory is presented in the following dialogues (www.en.wikipedia.org):
Meno
71–81, 85–86: The discovery (or "recollection") of knowledge as latent in the soul,
pointing forward to the theory of Forms
Cratylus
389–390: The archetype as used by craftsmen
439–440: The problem of knowing the Forms.
Symposium
210–211: The archetype of Beauty.
Phaedo

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73–80: The theory of recollection restated as knowledge of the Forms in soul before
birth in the body.
109–111: The myth of the afterlife.
Republic
• Book III
402–403: Education the pursuit of the Forms.
• Book V
472–483: Philosophy the love of the Forms. The philosopher-king must rule.
• Books VI–VII
500–517: Philosopher-guardians as students of the Beautiful and Just
implement archetypical order.
Metaphor of the Sun: The sun is to sight as Good is to understanding.
Allegory of the Cave: The struggle to understand forms like men in cave
guessing at shadows in firelight.
• Books IX–X
589–599: The ideal state and its citizens. Extensive treatise covering
citizenship, government and society with suggestions for laws imitating the
Good, the True, the Just, etc.
Phaedrus
248–250: Reincarnation according to knowledge of the true
265–266: The unity problem in thought and nature.
Parmenides
129–135: Participatory solution of unity problem. Things partake of archetypal like
and unlike, one and many, etc. The nature of the participation (Third man argument).
Forms not actually in the thing. The problem of their unknowability.
Theaetetus
184–186: Universals understood by mind and not perceived by senses.
Sophist
246–248: True essence a Form. Effective solution to participation problem.
251–259: The problem with being as a Form; if it is participatory then non-being
must exist and be being.
Timaeus
27–52: The design of the universe, including numbers and physics. Some of its
patterns. Definition of matter.
Philebus
14-18: Unity problem: one and many, parts and whole.
Seventh Letter
342–345: The epistemology of Forms. The Seventh Letter is possibly spurious.
2.4 EPISTEMOLOGY
Plato's epistemology holds that knowledge of Platonic Ideas is innate, so that learning
is the development of ideas buried deep in the soul, often under the midwife-like guidance of
an interrogator. In several dialogues by Plato, the character Socrates presents the view that
each soul existed before birth with the Form of the Good and a perfect knowledge of Ideas.
Thus, when an Idea is "learned" it is actually just "recalled" (Ackrill, J.L., 1973). Plato drew a
sharp distinction between knowledge, which is certain, and mere true opinion, which is not
certain. Opinions derive from the shifting world of sensation; knowledge derives from the
world of timeless Forms, or essences. In The Republic, these concepts were illustrated using
the metaphor of the sun, the analogy of the divided line, and the allegory of the cave

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2.4.1 PLATONIC DOCTRINE OF RECOLLECTION
The Platonic doctrine of recollection or anamnesis, is the idea that we are born
possessing all knowledge and our realization of that knowledge is contingent on our discovery
of it. Whether the doctrine should be taken literally or not is a subject of debate. The soul is
trapped in the body. The soul once lived in "Reality", but got trapped in the body. It once
knew everything, but forgot it. The goal of Recollection is to get back to true Knowledge. To
do this, one must overcome the body. This doctrine implies that nothing is ever learned, it is
simply recalled or remembered. In short it says that all that we know already comes pre-
loaded on birth and our senses enable us to identify and recognize the stratified information in
our mind (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.4.2 METAPHOR OF THE SUN
In The Republic (507b-509c) Plato's Socrates uses the sun as a metaphor for the
source of "intellectual illumination," which he held to be The Form of the Good. The
metaphor is about the nature of ultimate reality and how we come to know it. It starts with the
eye, which Socrates says is unusual among the sense organs in that it needs a medium,
namely light, in order to operate. The strongest and best source of light is the sun; with it, we
can discern objects clearly. Analogously for intelligible objects The Form of the Good is
necessary in order to understand any particular thing. Thus, if we attempt to understand why
things are as they are, and what general categories can be used to understand various
particulars around us, without reference to any forms (universals) we will fail completely. By
contrast, "the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent" is none other than Plato's
world of forms—illuminated by the highest of the forms, that of the Good
2.4.3 THE DIVIDED LINE
In Plato's Republic, Book VI, the divided line has two parts that represent the
intelligible world and the smaller visible world. Each of those two parts is divided, the
segments within the intelligible world represent higher and lower forms and the segments
within the visible world represent ordinary visible objects and their shadows, reflections, and
other representations. The line segments are unequal and their lengths represent "their
comparative clearness and obscurity" and their comparative "reality and truth," as well as
whether we have knowledge or instead mere opinion of the objects (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.4.4 ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE
In his best-known dialogue, The Republic, Plato drew an analogy between human
sensation and the shadows that pass along the wall of a cave - an allegory known as Plato's
allegory of the cave (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.4.5 CHARIOTEER MYTH
Along with these other allegories, Plato's charioteer myth (Phaedrus 245c-257b)
certainly also deserves mention. The ascent of the mind to celestial and trans-celestial realms
is likened to a charioteer and a chariot drawn by two winged horses, one dark and one white.
Figuratively represented is the famous Platonic tripartite model of the soul: the charioteer
represents reason, or intellect, the dark horse appetitive passions, and the white horse irascible
nature. Only by taming and controlling the two horses can the charioteer ascend to the

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heavens and enjoy a banquet of divine knowledge. Key epistemological features of the
charioteer myth are (1) an emphasis, as with the cave allegory, upon true knowledge as
ascent, (2) and the need to tame one's passionate nature to obtain true knowledge
2.4.6 AN EXAMPLE: LOVE AND WISDOM
A good example of how Plato presents the acquiring of knowledge is contained in the
Ladder of Love. In Symposium (210a-211b), Plato's Socrates cites the priestess Diotima as
defining a "lover" as someone who loves and love as a desire for something that one does not
have. According to this ladder model of love, a lover progresses from rung to rung from the
basest love to the pure form of love as follows:
1. A beautiful body - The lover begins here at the most obvious form of love.
2. All beautiful bodies - If the lover examines his love and does some investigating,
he/she will find that the beauty contained in this beautiful body is not original, that it
is shared by every beautiful body.
3. Beautiful souls - After most likely attempting to have every beautiful body, the lover
should realize that if a single love does not satisfy, there is not reason to think that
many ones will satisfy. Thus, the "lover of every body" must, in the words of Plato,
"bring his passion for the one into due proportion by deeming it of little or of no
importance." Instead, the passion is transferred to a more appropriate object: the soul.
4. The beauty of laws and institutions - The next logical step is for the lover to love all
beautiful souls and then to transfer that love to that which is responsible for their
existence: a moderate, harmonious and just social order.
5. The beauty of knowledge - Once proceeding down this path, the lover will naturally
long for that which produces and makes intelligible good social institutions:
knowledge.
6. Beauty itself - This is the platonic "form" of beauty itself. It is not a particular thing
that is beautiful, but is instead the essence of beauty. Plato describes this level of love
as a "wondrous vision," an "everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor ages,
which neither flowers nor fades." It is eternal and isn't "anything that is of the flesh"
nor "words" nor "knowledge" but consists "of itself and by itself in an eternal
oneness, while every lovely thing partakes of it."
Knowledge concerning other things is similarly gained by progressing from a base
reality (or shadow) of the thing sought (red, tall, thin, keen, etc.) to the eventual form of the
thing sought, or the thing sought itself. Such steps follow the same pattern as Plato's metaphor
of the sun, his allegory of the cave and his divided line; progress brings one closer and closer
to reality as each step explains the relative reality of the past (www.en.wikipedia.org).
2.5 THE STATE
Plato's philosophical views had many societal implications, especially on the idea of
an ideal state or government. There is some discrepancy between his early and later views.
Some of the most famous doctrines are contained in the Republic during his middle period, as
well as in the Laws and the Statesman. However, because Plato wrote dialogues, it is assumed
that Socrates is often speaking for Plato. This assumption may not be true in all cases.

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Plato, through the words of Socrates, asserts that societies have a tripartite class
structure corresponding to the appetite/spirit/reason structure of the individual soul. The
appetite/spirit/reason are analogous to the castes of society (Blössner, 2007).
• Productive (Workers) — the labourers, carpenters, plumbers, masons, merchants,
farmers, ranchers, etc. These correspond to the "appetite" part of the soul.
• Protective (Warriors or Guardians) — those who are adventurous, strong and brave;
in the armed forces. These correspond to the "spirit" part of the soul.
• Governing (Rulers or Philosopher Kings) — those who are intelligent, rational, self-
controlled, in love with wisdom, well suited to make decisions for the community.
These correspond to the "reason" part of the soul and are very few.
In the Timaeus, Plato locates the parts of the soul within the human body: Reason is
located in the head, spirit in the top third of the torso, and the appetite in the middle third of
the torso, down to the navel (Dorter, 2006).
Figure 02: The Ideal State (www.stjohns-chs.org)
According to this model, the principles of Athenian democracy (as it existed in his
day) are rejected as only a few are fit to rule. Instead of rhetoric and persuasion, Plato says
reason and wisdom should govern. As Plato puts it:
"Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men
genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy
entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one
exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,...
nor, I think, will the human race" (Republic 473c-d).
Plato in his academy, drawing after a painting by Swedish painter Carl Johan
Wahlbom Plato describes these "philosopher kings" as "those who love the sight of truth"
(Republic 475c) and supports the idea with the analogy of a captain and his ship or a doctor
and his medicine. According to him, sailing and health are not things that everyone is
qualified to practice by nature. A large part of the Republic then addresses how the
educational system should be set up to produce these philosopher kings
However, it must be taken into account that the ideal city outlined in the Republic is
qualified by Socrates as the ideal luxurious city, examined to determine how it is that injustice
and justice grow in a city (Republic 372e). According to Socrates, the "true" and "healthy"
city is instead the one first outlined in book II of the Republic, 369c–372d, containing
farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and wage-earners, but lacking the guardian class of
philosopher-kings as well as delicacies such as "perfumed oils, incense, prostitutes, and

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pastries", in addition to paintings, gold, ivory, couches, a multitude of occupations such as
poets and hunters, and war (www.en.wikipedia.org).
In addition, the ideal city is used as an image to illuminate the state of one's soul, or
the will, reason, and desires combined in the human body. Socrates is attempting to make an
image of a rightly ordered human, and then later goes on to describe the different kinds of
humans that can be observed, from tyrants to lovers of money in various kinds of cities. The
ideal city is not promoted, but only used to magnify the different kinds of individual humans
and the state of their soul. However, the philosopher king image was used by many after Plato
to justify their personal political beliefs. The philosophic soul according to Socrates has
reason, will, and desires united in virtuous harmony. A philosopher has the moderate love for
wisdom and the courage to act according to wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge about the Good
or the right relations between all that exists (www.en.wikipedia.org).
Wherein it concerns states and rulers, Plato has made interesting arguments. For
instance he asks which is better—a bad democracy or a country reigned by a tyrant. He argues
that it is better to be ruled by a bad tyrant, than be a bad democracy (since here all the people
are now responsible for such actions, rather than one individual committing many bad deeds.)
This is emphasised within the Republic as Plato describes the event of mutiny on board a ship
(Plato, Republic 488). Plato suggests the ships crew to be in line with the democratic rule of
many and the captain, although inhibited through ailments, the tyrant. Plato's description of
this event is parallel to that of democracy within the state and the inherent problems that arise
According to Plato, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline
from an aristocracy (rule by the best) to a timocracy (rule by the honorable), then to an
oligarchy (rule by the few), then to a democracy (rule by the people), and finally to tyranny
(rule by one person, rule by a tyrant) (Blössner, 2007). Aristocracy is the form of government
(politeia) advocated in Plato's Republic. This regime is ruled by a philosopher king, and thus
is grounded on wisdom and reason. The aristocratic state, and the man whose nature
corresponds to it, are the objects of Plato's analyses throughout much of the Republic, as
opposed to the other four types of states/men, who are discussed later in his work. In Book
VIII, Plato states in order the other four imperfect societies with a description of the state's
structure and individual character. In timocracy the ruling class is made up primarily of those
with a warrior-like character (Republic 550b). In his description, Plato has Sparta in mind.
Oligarchy is made up of a society in which wealth is the criterion of merit and the wealthy are
in control (Republic 554a). In democracy, the state bears resemblance to ancient Athens with
traits such as equality of political opportunity and freedom for the individual to do as he likes
(Republic 561a–b). Democracy then degenerates into tyranny from the conflict of rich and
poor. It is characterized by an undisciplined society existing in chaos, where the tyrant rises as
popular champion leading to the formation of his private army and the growth of oppression
(Dorter, 2006).
2.6 UNWRITTEN DOCTRINES
For a long time, Plato's unwritten doctrine (Rodriguez-Grandjean 1998) had been
controversial. Many modern books on Plato seem to diminish its importance; nevertheless,
the first important witness who mentions its existence is Aristotle, who in his Physics (209 b)
writes: "It is true, indeed, that the account he gives there [i.e. in Timaeus] of the participant is
different from what he says in his so-called unwritten teachings (ἄγραφα δόγµατα)." The term
"ἄγραφα δόγµατα" literally means unwritten doctrines and it stands for the most fundamental
metaphysical teaching of Plato, which he disclosed only orally, and some say only to his most

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trusted fellows, and which he may have kept secret from the public. The importance of the
unwritten doctrines does not seem to have been seriously questioned before the 19th century.
A reason for not revealing it to everyone is partially discussed in Phaedrus (276 c)
where Plato criticizes the written transmission of knowledge as faulty, favoring instead the
spoken logos: "he who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when
in earnest, write them in ink, sowing them through a pen with words, which cannot defend
themselves by argument and cannot teach the truth effectually." The same argument is
repeated in Plato's Seventh Letter (344 c): "every serious man in dealing with really serious
subjects carefully avoids writing." In the same letter he writes (341 c): "I can certainly declare
concerning all these writers who claim to know the subjects that I seriously study ... there
does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith." Such secrecy
is necessary in order not "to expose them to unseemly and degrading treatment" (344 d).
It is, however, said that Plato once disclosed this knowledge to the public in his
lecture On the Good (Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ), in which the Good (τὸ ἀγαθόν) is identified with the
One (the Unity, τὸ ἕν), the fundamental ontological principle. The content of this lecture has
been transmitted by several witnesses. Aristoxenus describes the event in the following
words: "Each came expecting to learn something about the things that are generally
considered good for men, such as wealth, good health, physical strength, and altogether a kind
of wonderful happiness. But when the mathematical demonstrations came, including
numbers, geometrical figures and astronomy, and finally the statement Good is One seemed
to them, I imagine, utterly unexpected and strange; hence some belittled the matter, while
others rejected it" (Gaiser, 1980). Simplicius quotes Alexander of Aphrodisias, who states that
"according to Plato, the first principles of everything, including the Forms themselves are One
and Indefinite Duality (ἡ ἀόριστος δυάς), which he called Large and Small (τὸ µέγα καὶ τὸ
µικρόν)", and Simplicius reports as well that "one might also learn this from Speusippus and
Xenocrates and the others who were present at Plato's lecture on the Good" (Tarán, 1981).
Their account is in full agreement with Aristotle's description of Plato's metaphysical
doctrine. In Metaphysics he writes: "Now since the Forms are the causes of everything else,
he [i.e. Plato] supposed that their elements are the elements of all things. Accordingly the
material principle is the Great and Small [i.e. the Dyad], and the essence is the One (τὸ ἕν),
since the numbers are derived from the Great and Small by participation in the One" (987 b).
"From this account it is clear that he only employed two causes: that of the essence, and the
material cause; for the Forms are the cause of the essence in everything else, and the One is
the cause of it in the Forms. He also tells us what the material substrate is of which the Forms
are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in that of the Forms - that it is this
the duality (the Dyad, ἡ δυάς), the Great and Small (τὸ µέγα καὶ τὸ µικρόν). Further, he
assigned to these two elements respectively the causation of good and of evil" (988 a).
The most important aspect of this interpretation of Plato's metaphysics is the
continuity between his teaching and the neoplatonic interpretation of Plotinus or Ficino
(Montoriola 1926)which has been considered erroneous by many but may in fact have been
directly influenced by oral transmission of Plato's doctrine. A modern scholar who recognized
the importance of the unwritten doctrine of Plato was Heinrich Gomperz who described it in
his speech during the 7th International Congress of Philosophy in 1930 (Gomperz, 1931). All
the sources related to the ἄγραφα δόγµατα have been collected by Konrad Gaiser and
published as Testimonia Platonica (Gaiser 1998.) These sources have subsequently been
interpreted by scholars from the German Tübingen School of interpretation such as Hans
Joachim Krämer or Thomas A. Szlezák (Gadamer, 1997).

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2.7 DIALECTIC
The role of dialectic in Plato's thought is contested but there are two main
interpretations: a type of reasoning and a method of intuition (Blackburn 1996). Simon
Blackburn adopts the first, saying that Plato's dialectic is "the process of eliciting the truth by
means of questions aimed at opening out what is already implicitly known, or at exposing the
contradictions and muddles of an opponent's position"(Blackburn, 1996). A similar
interpretation has been put forth by Louis Hartz, who suggests that elements of the dialectic
are borrowed from Hegel (Hartz, Louis, 1984). According to this view, opposing arguments
improve upon each other, and prevailing opinion is shaped by the synthesis of many
conflicting ideas over time. Each new idea exposes a flaw in the accepted model, and the
epistemological substance of the debate continually approaches the truth. Hartz's is a
teleological interpretation at the core, in which philosophers will ultimately exhaust the
available body of knowledge and thus reach "the end of history." Karl Popper, on the other
hand, claims that dialectic is the art of intuition for "visualising the divine originals, the Forms
or Ideas, of unveiling the Great Mystery behind the common man's everyday world of
appearances" (Popper, 1962).
3. PLATO’S THEORY OF AN IDEAL STATE
In his most celebrated book the Republic, Plato gives the theory of an ideal state. As
far as a state is concerned, Plato gives ideas about how to build an Ideal commonwealth, who
should be the rulers of the Ideal state and how to achieve justice in the Ideal state. Plato finds
the state as the more suitable place to discuss about the morality than an individual, because
everything is easier to see in the large than in the small. A state, says Plato, is a man ‘writ’
large against the sky. The elements that make up a city correspond to the elements that
constitute the individual human soul (www.literary-articles.com).
The justice of the city is the same as it is for the individual. For Plato, there is not one
morality for the individuals and another for the state. Like the tripartite individual human soul
every state has three parts which are its three classes (www.literary-articles.com).
The elements that constitute the human soul are as follows:
1. Bodily appetite,
2. Spirited elements
3. Reason
Like the tripartite individual human soul, every state has three parts such as-
1. Producer class
2. Military class
3. Ruling class
Plato finds the origin of the state in the various needs of people. Noboby is self-
sufficient. So, to meet the various needs men created the political institution. To Plato, in the
beginning there was only one class namely the producing class. Then emerged the guardian
class. From the guardian class emerged the ruling class (www.literary-articles.com).

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Figure 03: Three Part of Soul by Plato (www.fmmh.ycdsb.ca)
In a state the producer class will consist of those people to whom the bodily appetites
are dominant and who live for money. The producer class is made up of farmer, blacksmiths,
fishermen, carpenters áshoe –makers, weavers, laborers, merchants, retailers and bankers. The
life of the producer class is much easier than the life of the rulers or the guardians. The life of
the produce class follows the old familiar patterns of home and property, family and children,
work, rest, and recreation. By nature the producers have money (www.literary-articles.com).
Each member of the producer class will be educated by being taught a trade or a
profession –farming, banking, carpentry-according to his or her capabilities and to the needs
of the society, both of which will be determined by the guardians (www.literary-articles.com).
The military class will be drawn from that type of men to whom the spirited element
is dominant and who live for success in aggressive and courageous acts. The members of the
ruling class will be drawn from that type of man to whom reason is dominant and who lives
only for truth. A state should be ruled only by the elite group of the most rational. In the ideal
state each of these three classes will perform a vital function on behalf of the organic totality
of the state (www.literary-articles.com).
Figure 04: Three Part of Ruling Class by Plato (www.fmmh.ycdsb.ca)

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3.1 SELECTION OF THE RULING CLASS
Plato gives most emphasis on the selection of the ruling calss.The selection of the
ruling class is from all classes by natural intellectual capacity. women as well as men possess
the natural capacity of intelligence to become members of the ruling class (www.literary-
articles.com).
Plato proposes that an ideal state will be governed by a person who is highly
educated, has passion for truth and has achieved the greatest wisdom of knowledge of the
good. The ruler of this ideal state is called the Philosopher king (www.literary-articles.com).
The Philosopher king has several important functions to perform. The rulers, said
Plato, should be the one who has been fully educated, one who has come to understand the
difference between the visible world and the invisible world, between the realm of opinion
and the realm of knowledge, between appearance and reality. The Philosopher king is one
whose education, in short, has led him up step by step through the ascending degrees of
knowledge of the Divided line until at last he has a knowledge of the good (www.literary-
articles.com).
To reach this point, the Philosopher King will have progressed through many stages
of education. By the time he is eighteen years old, he will have had training in literature,
music and elementary mathametics. His literature would be censored. Music also would be
prescribed so that seduction music would be replaced by a more wholesome, martial meter.
For the next few years there would be extensive physical and mililary training.At the age
twenty a few would be selected to persue an advanced course in mathematics. At age thirty, a
five year course in dialectic and moral philosophy would begin. The next fifteen years would
be spent gathering practical experience through public service. Finally, at age fifty, the ablest
men would reach the highest level of knowledge, the vision of the good and would then be
ready for the task of governing the state (www.literary-articles.com).
Figure 05: Three Part of Ruling Class by Plato (www.slideshare.net)
Both the ruling class and the military class are forbidden to possess any private
property or any money. They must live, men and women like soldiers in barracks, with
common meals and sleeping quaters. Their food, clothing and equipment will be provided by
the producers. This food must be simple and restricted to moderate quantities. They are too
have no family life, in order to aviod any conflict between family loyalties and their loyalty to
the state (www.literary-articles.com).
When they are at the physical prime of life, their sexual gratification is restricted to
officially designated and infrequent occasions on which they are required to breed children to

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maintain the number of the guardian class. These occasions Plato calls sacred Marriage which
are temporary unions for the sake of producing children (www.literary-articles.com).
3.2 JUSTICE IN THE STATE
Like the the human soul, the justice will be achieved in a state when each class fulfils
their respective functions. Justice is a general virtue. It means that all parts are fulfilling their
special functions. As the craftsmen embody the element of appetite, they will also reflect the
virtue of temperance. Temperance is not limited to the craftsmen but applies to all the classes,
for it indicates, when it is achieved, the willingness of the lower to be rulled by the higher.
Still temperance applies in a special way to the craftsmen subordinate to the two higher levels
(www.literary-articles.com).
The guardians, who defend the state, manifest the virtue of courage. To assure the
state that these guardians will always fulfill their funtions. Special training and provision are
made for them. Unlike the craftsmen, who marry and own property, the guardians will have
both property and wives in common. Plato considred these arrangements essential if the
guardians were to attain true courage, for courage means knowing what to fear and what not
to fear. The only real object of fear for the guardian should be fear of moral evil. He must
never fear proverty and privation, and for this reason mode of life should be isolated from
possessions (www.literary-articles.com).
Thus, in his Republic Plato gives the theory of an ideal state. But later the theory of
the ideal state was severely criticized by Aristotle (www.literary-articles.com).
4. PLATO’S IDEAL STATE, WHETHER IT IS A UTOPIA OR NOT
One of the purposes of Plato’s Republic is to put forth a conception of the ‘just state’.
Plato describes how such a state would be organized, who would govern it, what sort of
education the children would have, and so on. He goes into great detail, laying out ideas that
may at times strike the modern reader as wrongheaded, petty, or even immoral. Sir Karl
Popper argued in The Open Society and Its Enemies that Plato’s ideal state is totalitarian,
with little freedom of expression allowed, little diversity, and a perverse commitment to a
Spartan-like regimentation of social life. Others see evidence of democracy in Plato’s
description, for instance in the egalitarianism that characterizes certain aspects of his
educational program. The question is: in what extent Plato’s vision is still relevant – whether
it has anything valuable to say to us. And is the Platonic state just or unjust? Is it entirely
impracticable, or are there elements that can and should be put into practice? How adequate is
the theory of justice on which it is founded? After discussing these questions I will briefly
consider the form a modern version of this utopia might take.
4.1 PLATO’S DEFINITION OF JUSTICE
“To do one’s own business and not to be a busybody is justice.” (Republic 433b.)
Although the modern reader may find it odd, this is the definition of justice Plato offers. The
idea is that justice consists in fulfilling one’s proper role – realizing one’s potential whilst not
overstepping it by doing what is contrary to one’s nature. This applies both to the just state
and to the just individual. In the just state, each class and each individual has a specific set of
duties, a set of obligations to the community which, if everyone fulfils them, will result in a
harmonious whole. When a person does what he is supposed to do, he receives whatever
credit and remuneration he deserves, and if he fails to do his task, he is appropriately punished
(Wright, C.C., 2012).

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Thus justice is “the having and doing of one’s own and what belongs to oneself”
(434a). Excess and deficiency of any kind are unjust. In this formulation the Platonic
definition of justice seems plausible. A thief, for example, is unjust because he wants to have
what is not his own. A doctor who does not care about curing his patients of illnesses can be
called unjust because he is disregarding his proper role. A murderer acts unjustly since he
deprives his victim of that which rightly belongs to him, namely his life. In general, unjust
people either do not realize the virtues and duties proper to their situation in life, or treat
someone worse than he deserves. Similarly, an unjust state fails to accomplish the functions
of a state. According to Plato, these functions of the state include making possible the
conditions under which everyone can feed, clothe and shelter themselves, as well as seek the
Good (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Plato’s conception of justice is informed by his conviction that everything in nature is
part of a hierarchy, and that nature is ideally a vast harmony, a cosmic symphony, every
species and every individual serving a purpose. In this vision, anarchy is the supreme vice, the
most unnatural and unjust state of affairs. The just state, then, like nature, is hierarchical:
individuals are ranked according to their aptitudes, and definitively placed in the social
hierarchy (Wright, C.C., 2012).
The individual soul, too, is hierarchical: the appetitive part is inferior to the spirited
part, which is inferior to the rational. Yet each has a necessary role to play. Reason should
govern the individual, but the appetites must also to an extent be heeded if the person’s soul is
to be harmonious and not in conflict with itself. And if every aspect of the soul accomplishes
its task well, or fittingly, the result is necessarily a ‘moderate’ and ordered state of affairs. The
virtuous individual has a well-ordered soul, which is to say that he knows what justice is and
acts according to his knowledge. He knows his place in the state; he knows what his aptitudes
are and he puts them into practice. He also adheres to the dictates of reason, doing everything
in moderation (Wright, C.C., 2012).
The Platonic worldview is quite foreign to the modern liberal democratic world. We
are accustomed to a dynamic, free, at times chaotic society, which knows almost nothing of
rigid hierarchies. People are not ranked according to their intrinsic value or their value to
society, and any philosophy that reeks of a caste system is decisively rejected. We are not
committed to analogies between nature and society; and we do not think of the world as a
harmony, even ideally. We like order, but we do not consider it supreme among values. We
admire ambitious, driven people, rather than those who are at peace with themselves or do
everything in moderation. In general, our culture places little emphasis on a specific ideal,
choosing instead to censure types of behavior which interfere with other people’s pursuit of
happiness. Plato, however, would consider our ideal state unjust, decadent, anarchical.
Plato lived in an Athens that to his chagrin was in danger of losing its cultural and
military preeminence, and was succumbing to disintegrating influences from abroad and from
within. He had lived through the terrible time of the Peloponnesian War with Sparta, and the
Thirty Tyrants, and therefore had intimate experience of the horrors of anarchy. In short, he
saw an older, supposedly better, world crumbling around him, and he wanted to understand
what had gone wrong and how it could be fixed. The result was that he emphasized order and
homogeneity, and upheld the claims of the state over the claims of the individual, while
thinking that in a just state full of just individuals, the laws of the former would harmonize
with the desires of the latter. For Plato, justice was to be sought in the old, in the static – the
assimilation of the individual into the community – not in the new or the dynamic. While
Plato did value freedom, he did so much less than we moderns do, as is evidenced in his not
emphasizing it in his discussions of justice (Wright, C.C., 2012).

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Thus, despite whatever superficial similarities there may be between Plato’s idea of
justice and our own, they are fundamentally different, since his worldview is diametrically
opposed to ours. In a particular case, such as that of a murder, Plato might judge as we do
(largely because we seem to have intuitive ideas of how humans ought to be treated).
However, both his explicit definitions of justice and the deeper intuitions that inspire his
definitions differ from ours. We conceive of justice as oriented around ideas of individual
freedom and the priority of the individual over the community, and we consider it sometimes
not only permissible but even meritorious to disobey the state’s laws if they violate certain
intuitions about individual rights. Plato’s concept of justice is instead inspired by his
conviction that the collective takes ethical precedence over the individual, that there is a
cosmic order into which each person is supposed to fit, and that virtue, and to an extent duty,
is far more important than rights (Wright, C.C., 2012).
The differences become apparent when we look at larger scales than individuals’
transgressions. Many would agree with Plato that theft is unjust or that the professional who
ignores his duties can be called ‘unjust’, and also that tyranny is unjust. But in this last case
our respective judgments are based on different reasons. We would say that the tyrant’s
injustice consists in his suppressing freedom, killing innocent people, and disregarding
democracy and self-determination. Plato, on the other hand, would say that the tyrant is unjust
insofar as his acts promote anarchy and prevent his subjects from seeking the Good and living
in harmony with themselves and the community. The tyrant upsets the natural order of things.
Another illustration of the difference in our outlooks is in our conceptions of the ideal
or just person. According to Plato, the ideal person is a philosopher, since his wisdom means
his soul is in complete harmony with itself. The philosopher’s rational faculty governs his
passions and appetites, never allowing them free rein, but still respecting their claims on him
and indulging them when expedient. He has knowledge of himself and society; he knows
what it is to be virtuous; he has a certain amount of equanimity, and he never loses control
over himself. By contrast, Plato’s unjust person is divided against himself, torn between his
passions and appetites, and has no respect for reason, which alone could unify his soul such
that he would be an individual in the literal sense of the word ‘in-dividual’ (Wright, C.C.,
2012).
Our notion of the ideal person is far less specific than Plato’s. Like Plato’s, it does, to
an extent, incorporate the notion of ‘virtue’; but for us virtue is conceived as treating others
well rather than as functioning healthily within a community. Our ideal can be called more
‘relational’, in that it emphasizes how others should be treated rather than emphasizing the
character of one’s psyche (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Given these differences, one obvious question is which concept of justice (or more
fundamentally, which worldview) is better, Plato’s or ours? I have elaborated on neither,
merely sketching them. Still, let me suggest an answer: neither Plato’s nor our own is totally
satisfactory, but each has its strengths. The most defensible notion of justice, socially or
individually, would be a combination of the two, selecting the strengths from each and
reconciling them. It would emphasize both the importance of community and the importance
of the individual, while succumbing neither to the potential totalitarianism of the Republic,
nor to the excessive individualism of modern culture. In the following I’ll briefly describe
Plato’s utopia, then consider if it would be desirable to put it into practice.

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4.2 PLATO’S IDEAL STATE
Every reader of the Republic is told that Plato’s intention in discussing the just state is
to illuminate the nature of the just soul, for he argues that they are analogous. The state is the
soul writ large, so to speak. For example, the divisions of the state correspond to divisions of
the soul. But since the soul is difficult to analyze, in the dialogue Socrates says that he will
first speculate on the state, and then rely on his speculations to illuminate the nature of justice
in the individual (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Superficially, it appears that the lengthy discussion of the state is therefore primarily
an interpretative device. Clearly, though, it is more than that. Plato may not have believed that
his utopia would work in practice, or even that it would be desirable to institute some of his
more radical suggestions, but he certainly attributed some value to his discussion independent
of its illustrative function. Judging by Socrates’ language, it’s reasonable to suppose that Plato
would have liked to have seen some of his ideas actually implemented in a city-state. He was
dissatisfied with the city-states of his day, and was proposing an alternative. So let’s look at
its details (Wright, C.C., 2012).
In Plato’s ideal state there are three major classes, corresponding to the three parts of
the soul. The guardians, who are philosophers, govern the city; the auxiliaries are soldiers
who defend it; and the lowest class comprises the producers (farmers, artisans, etc). The
guardians and auxiliaries have the same education, which begins with music and literature and
ends with gymnastics. The arts are censored for educational purposes: for example, any poetic
writings which attribute ignoble doings to the gods cannot be taught. Only poetry which
nourishes the budding virtues of the pupils can be part of the curriculum. Similarly, musical
modes which sound sorrowful, soft, or feminine, are banished from the education of the
guardians. This apparently leaves only the Dorian and Phrygian modes, of which Socrates
approves because they incite the listener to courage, temperance, and harmonious living.
Certain instruments, such as the flute, are also forbidden from the ideal city-state, as are
certain poetic meters, since Socrates associates them with vice (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Indeed, then, life in Plato’s ideal state has affinities with life under a totalitarian
government. The laws which Socrates suggests are repressive. People are allowed to have
only one occupation – namely that for which they are best suited by nature. Evidently there is
no division between the public and the private. Only what is conducive to temperate living is
encouraged, and excess and vice of any kind are strongly discouraged. Neither wealth nor
poverty is permitted, as each leads to vice (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Plato’s thoughts on women and children may be even more horrifying to the average
liberal. He argues via Socrates that the traditional form of the family should be done away
with. Men should have women and children in common, such that no man knows who his
children are or has excessive love for one woman in particular. Even mothers are not allowed
to know who their children are. Their children are taken from them after birth, and they are
given other children to suckle as long as they have milk (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Plato’s breeding principles sound ominously like the Nazi idea, and Spartan practice,
of killing weak and deformed infants. He says:
“the best of either sex should be united with the best as often [as possible], and the
inferior with the inferior as seldom as possible; and they should rear the offspring of the one
sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now

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these goings-on must be a secret which only the rulers know, or there will be a further danger
of our herd, as they may be termed, breaking out into rebellion” (Wright, C.C., 2012).
More congenial to modern sentiment is Plato’s suggestion that women in the guardian
class should receive the same education as men, so that the best of them can assist in war and
governance. There is no private property or money except insofar as it is necessary, among
the lower classes; therefore there will be no disputes about what belongs to whom – just as
there will be no disputes about which women belong to whom, and who one’s children are. In
general, the goal Plato is aiming at is that everyone thinks of everyone else as a member of
their family, such that there is little or no strife between people and they all desire the same
thing – which is harmony, temperance, gentleness toward fellow-citizens and harshness
toward people from other states – a unified front on all issues, as it were. The health of the
community is the overriding principle in all spheres of life. All of Plato’s radical prescriptions
follow from that one principle (Wright, C.C., 2012).
4.3 SEDITION & SUBVERSION
What are we to make of these ideas? What should we take from them? Do they
represent a mere historical curiosity – a way of gaining insight into Plato’s mind or into his
culture – or do they have independent philosophical and political merit?
My opinion is that their obvious totalitarianism makes it a very good thing that
Plato’s just state was never constructed. This is where my fidelity to modern ideologies shows
itself. I think that Hegel was right in his assessment of liberalism: it has so to speak
‘discovered’ the importance of subjectivity, and thus serves as a needed corrective to
totalitarian excesses. The individual is not ethically subordinate to the community; her health,
and especially her freedom, are no less important than communal harmony. Indeed, unless a
person feels free, he cannot be psychologically healthy.
Plato underestimates the value of self-determination: its foundational importance to
self-respect and hence to justice, even in his sense of the term. Plato’s guardians perhaps
exhibit the virtues and enjoy the satisfactions of self-determination; but everyone else in
Plato’s utopia is to be forced by the philosopher-king(s) to live their lives in a fundamentally
unfree (non self-determining) way. They will thus lack complete self-respect and
contentment: the mere knowledge that they are in an inferior position relative to others will
breed discontent, which will upset their psychological equilibrium, the harmony of their
faculties and desires with each other, and with their place in the world. In other words it will
set each of them at war with himself and with the state. Accordingly, as Plato himself implies,
this will make for unjust individuals. By denying most of its citizens true freedom – the
opportunity to discover themselves and their talents unhindered by oppressive laws
promulgated by an oppressive regime – Plato’s utopia will make their dissatisfaction with
themselves and the community inevitable, which is bad not only in itself but also because it
means people are unjust, ie self-divided. Thus the Platonic utopia makes impossible the very
virtues it was meant to promote (Wright, C.C., 2012).
The need for recognition is a basic psychological need. People want to recognize
themselves in their activities, in the world, in other people’s reactions to them. But no one
who is conscious of oppressive restrictions on his behavior can think that his deepest sense of
himself is being recognized by the community which censors him. Rather, he may be full of
resentment, tormented by repressed desires, and desperate to break free of the shackles and
spontaneously affirm himself – to actualize his full, rich sense of who he is and wants to be.
No one can feel good about himself unless his activities grow out of his own ideals and self-

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perceptions. They must emerge organically from his spontaneous sense of himself. Genuine
recognition is impossible except on the basis of freedom, so any social order that does not
allow freedom among its participants is inherently unstable, having the potential for rebellion
built into it. Every major culture in history, then, has been erected on somewhat tenuous and
transient foundations; but Plato’s utopia in particular would soon collapse (Wright, C.C.,
2012).
Plato was right that the interests of the individual ultimately coincide with the
interests of the community, for a community is only as healthy as the people who participate
in it, and vice versa. Where he went wrong was in failing to understand the prerequisites of
the self-harmony that he rightly thought constituted individual and communal happiness – the
prerequisites being freedom, and the perception that one’s sense of self is appreciated by
others. Modern liberal ideologies over-compensate for this deficiency in Plato. They have an
impoverished view of what freedom is and why it is good, for they exalt the concept of an
isolated, ahistorical individual who needs nothing but protection from other people rather than
genuine and durable ties with them. Protection is of secondary importance: the essence of
freedom, the reason why it is desired in the first place, is that it is inseparable from
interpersonal union – from mutual recognition of each person’s self-determined activities as
being his, as being him. In a truly free society there would be no atomization, and no artificial
legal barriers to interpersonal understanding and recognition, to communal self-realization.
People live in and through the community. Far from needing protection from it, they feel
deprived without it (Wright, C.C., 2012).
4.4 OTHER IDEAL STATES
Socrates remarks in the Republic that although his (Plato’s) utopia may be
unrealizable, it is useful as an ideal or a standard by which we can criticize existing
institutions. While I disagree with Plato’s version of utopia, I agree that it is a worthy task to
formulate social ideals. In doing so, we at least posit an ideal state we can strive to realize,
even if in its final details this is impossible. With that in mind, I suggest that something like
properly democratic communism is the ideal we should use to critique the present, since it
reconciles Plato’s emphasis on the community with the modern emphasis on individual
freedom. Indeed, Marx’s ideal of a communist utopia is not merely ‘Marxist’; it is heir to both
the Platonic and the liberal utopias. This statement may seem paradoxical, if only because
Platonism and liberalism are diametrically opposed, as we have seen. But consider what is
involved in Marx’s ideal society. First of all, classes would not exist. That is, Marx claims in
the Communist Manifesto (1848) that after a period of state socialism and redistribution of
wealth, separate classes will no longer exist and the state will no longer be needed (Wright,
C.C., 2012).
Marx’s classless utopia is not as blatantly incompatible with Platonism as it might
seem, since, for one thing, the Marxist definition of ‘class’ is very different from the Platonic.
Plato incorporates a fusion of political and economic criteria: the lowest class is involved in
productive economic activities but has no political power, while the highest class has all the
political power, but no economic activity. For Marx, on the other hand, the definition of class
is exclusively economic, based on the group’s role in the process of production. For Marx
there are basically two classes, namely the capitalists and the workers (Wright, C.C., 2012).
My points are, first, that rather than contradicting Plato, Marx adopts a different
starting-point. Second, while Marxist ideology does contradict Platonism in its classless and
popularist ideals, it does so on the basis of a deep sympathy with Plato’s goals. Both are
concerned with the health and wholeness of the community, the durability of its social

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structures, the happiness of its citizens, and the justice of its political and economic
arrangements. To that extent, communism is a descendant of Plato’s republicanism: it too is
an ideology built on the conviction that the community is an organic whole and not merely an
aggregate of individuals, and therefore that social structures – the relational ties between
people – take priority over the behavior of atomized individuals, both in a scientific analysis
of society, and also in the formulation of an ethical ideal. Where Marx’s ideal state differs
from Plato’s is not in its goal or inspiration, then, but in its means of realizing its goal, or
more accurately, in the structures it posits as constitutive of that goal – viz, democracy,
universal economic and political cooperation, the absence of coercive social mechanisms, and
so forth. These political structures have more in common with liberalism than Platonism, as
they place great emphasis on the freedom of the individual.
Marx does reject liberal talk of rights and the rule of law, but he does so precisely
because he understands that such talk is symptomatic of the incomplete realization of the
liberal goal of self-determination. To achieve his purer vision of liberalism, Marx thinks that
capitalism, together with its ideologies exalting private property with its corresponding laws,
rights, and so on, must be transcended, as it suppresses and dehumanizes people.
Despite the differences between Plato’s conception of justice and our own, elements of his
philosophy can be reconciled with elements of our liberal democratic ideology. I also
suggested that Plato’s ‘communitarian’ intuition was largely right, even if his means of
realizing it were dangerously wrong. Also, the ideal individual should indeed be self-unified
and have self-control, and Plato was right that, on the whole, such individuals will not arise
except in socially harmonious conditions (Wright, C.C., 2012).
Marx retained some of Plato’s intuitions while discarding the totalitarian doctrines
which would make the achievement of Plato’s ‘perfect community’ impossible. I think we
should do as Marx did, at least in theory (even if in practice his ‘followers’ deviated far from
his ideals), and adopt the liberal features of Plato’s notion of social justice while casting off
its totalitarian undertones. If we did so, I suspect life would become a little better than it is
now, in our confused and atomized world.

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