PLATO (427 to 3347 BC)

Plato´s real name was Aritocle, but he came to be called Plato, meaning huge or broad because of his tallness and broad shoulders. He was one of the youngest disciples of Socrates, the great. He belonged to higher aristocratic class and one of the old ruling families of Athens, the queen city-state of he ancient Greece and the center of Greek Philosophy, arts and science. He had an intense respect and an emotional love for Socrates, who, according to Plato, was the wisest and the noblest man he ever met and ever saw.
Although in his philosophy Plato was impressed not only by Socrates, but the greatest philosophical influence on Plato was, beyond all doubt, that of Socrates who according to G.H. Sabine was an immense personality. As a result of his family background and his early association with Socrates, Plato intended to enter practical politics as his life-career. But Socrates devotion to philosophy, love and search for the truth and then the assassination of Socrates veered him away from the practical politics and turned him to philosophy. So, he decided to devote all his life to philosophy.
He opened his famous Academy at Athens and taught there as its head or Principal for nearly a quarter of century; and wrote a large number of dialogues, in every one of which he spoke not as plato , but Socrates. All the critics, however, agree that Plato´s dialogues show Plato´s own philosophy more than that of Socrates. So, without doubting Plato´s sincerity, we must not think that the philosophy of Socrates was really what we find in Plato´s dialogues. Plato´s dialogues , however, prove him one of the few most fascinating writers ever born.


Que: what are the main or salient features of Plato´s Political Philosophy as depicted in his “ Republic”?
Or
What are the main features of Plato´s ideal State as found in his “Republic”?

Ans: Platos´s main political works are three. “ The Republic”, “ The Statesman” and “ The Laws”. In his “ Statesman” and “ Laws” Plato gives his ripe views about the possible state. But in his “ Republic” ( the first political work) in which he depicts his ideal State regardless of the fact whether it can be created in the actual world, and by the actual human beings or not! In “ The Republic” he also defends his great Master, Socrates, and condemns his assassination. His name and fame rest mainly on “The Republic”, which is the first serious and systematic work on Politics, though, a utopian one.
The following are its main and ever-glowing features:
1. The dialogue form
2. Justice
3. Relation of Justice with Good or Virtue
4. Three Parts or Faculties of Soul
5. Class Division or Professional Specialization
6. Communism of Property and Family
7. Rule by the philosophers
8. Feminism
9. No Rights of People and No Individual Liberty
10. Education
11. Censorship


· THE DIALOGUE FORM:---
Like all other works of Plato, “ The Republic”, too, is in the form of dialogues, and a long systematic discussion among the great intellectuals of the time, in which Plato participates not as Plato, but as Socrates, who drank hemlock for the sake of Truth, and who was the wisest and the most virtuous man, i.e, the greatest Philosopher in Plato´s opinion.

· JUSTICE :-----
Justice is the subject matter of “The Republic”. First, some fascistic theories about justice are proved to be wrong. Then taking the state as a human being writ-large, it is decided to find justice in the state before man to make it easy to find it in man. It is the definition of justice which links politics to ethics and ethics to “good” or “virtue” on the one hand, and leads to three fold division of the soul, stratification of the ideal state into three classes, the professional specialization , rule by the philosophers, equality of men and women, and communism of property and wives in the two upper classes on the other hand. The whole work is a masterpiece of deductive reasoning, and all the features are logically inter-connected.
To be continued........................