What is the significance of Plato today?

[hipipol]

If he thinks the "empiral world" illusory, why then accept the right of the State as arbiter in individual interactions, ie by the imposition of an agreed "justice"?
On the one hand it rejects an absolute and provable "justice" as exisitng in nature but accepts the right of the group, in the form of an imposed State to do so.
Seems a tad inconsistent to me

 

[eoin_k]

Ah sure Plato was only following on from where Pythagoras left off. It is understandable that the the ancient Greeks led us down these epistomolgical blind alleys when you take these ideas in the context of the break throughs they made in Geometry. After all no perfect circle exists in nature, nor any other geometric form...

(All my own original thought )

 

[phildwyer]

Ah sure Plato was only following on from where Pythagoras left off.

And Pythagoras was following 3,000 years of Hindu thought. Mankind has agreed on the basic tenets of Platonism for an awfully long time.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Right click>view source:

Jesus those are some bad meta keywords for the page

 

[eoin_k]

And Pythagoras was following 3,000 years of Hindu thought. Mankind has agreed on the basic tenets of Platonism for an awfully long time.

I was of the impression that Hindu thought had contributed more to arithmetic than geometry, but I would be happy to be proven wrong. Bertrand Russell makes a fairly compelling case in his History of Western Philosophy that Greek developments in Geometry made Platonic idealism more credible.

Algebra doesn't necessarily lead us in the same direction. Algebraic equations can appear descriptive of the world as it actually is. Three apples plus two apples does equal five apples. Geometry is different however. An apple is never a perfect sphere.

Appologies if i am teaching my granny to suck eggs.

 

[Jonti]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense ...

317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way.

G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology

And important aspects of physical reality seem to be built that way too ...

... quantum physics and prime numbers are inextricably linked.

This unexpected connection with physics has given us a glimpse of the mathematics that might, ultimately, reveal the secret of these enigmatic numbers. At first the link seemed rather tenuous. But the important role played by the number 42 has recently persuaded even the deepest skeptics that the subatomic world might hold the key to one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics.


Prime Numbers Get Hitched

 

[bhamgeezer]

I don't believe without Plato and Aristotle I don't think Christianity would have been the same, European history may have differed vastly without them. I always thought the strength of Plato's philosophy was in the questions he asked rather than answers he gave. I think it's easy to point to Plato metaphysical philosophy as at the heart of the naturalistic fallacy that influenced ethics over history, and it is easy to percieve naturalistic fallacy as responsible for the lack of tolerence and hostility toward modern ideologies that was more prevailent in the past. However I think this argument is weak as it potentially was necessary for his Philosophy to exist before modern theories could evolve from it.

As for Aristotle imagine if you were trying to follow his guidance always trying to find the mean in your actions and live in accordance with virtue, I think you can find an element of this mentality in Christian philosophy.

 

[butchersapron]

The main significance today is in various forms of Christianity and Islam.

 

[eoin_k]

You don't think he has left a long shadow over secular western thought as well?

 

[phildwyer]

You don't think he has left a long shadow over secular western thought as well?

In the sense that modern Western thought is largely a reaction against him, yes.

 

[isitme]

I wouldn't agree that plato is restricted to religion at all

I've only studied 'The Republic' but the idea of universal truths and 'the form of....' are used extensively outside of religion

 

[Riklet]

Plato's pretty significant in terms of views on censorship and education I reckon, as well as rule in various forms. Plenty of people since Plato who've been pretty dead cert they're true philosopher kings, huh, even whilst human misery mounts around them...

 

[butchersapron]

You don't think he has left a long shadow over secular western thought as well?

He a left a shadow on philsophy yeah. And? You have this the wrong way round.

 

[bhamgeezer]

If he thinks the "empiral world" illusory, why then accept the right of the State as arbiter in individual interactions, ie by the imposition of an agreed "justice"?
On the one hand it rejects an absolute and provable "justice" as exisitng in nature but accepts the right of the group, in the form of an imposed State to do so.
Seems a tad inconsistent to me

Quite clearly Plato believes the forms exist and are knowable through the comtemplation of the philosopher ruler, this is exactly why the philosopher ruler is accepted as a just "arbiter of individual interactions". Plato believes the forms to be ultimate and absolute to a far greater degree than the empirical world as you can see from the distinction between episte and doxa. It's not inconsistent, its just simply not true.