mail: Bill Thayer	Italiano	Help	Up	Home
previous: Chapter 25 This webpage reproduces a section of A History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston, S. J. as reprinted by Image Books — Doubleday New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Auckland 1993 The text, and illustrations except as noted, are in the public domain. next: Chapter 26

Part II: The Socratic Period

 p260  Note on the Influence of Plato

1. The example of Plato is an influence by itself. His life was one of utter devotion to truth, to the attainment of abiding, eternal and absolute truth, in which he firmly and constantly believed, being ready to follow, as Socrates was, wherever reason might lead. This spirit he endeavoured the Academy, creating a body of men who, under the ascendency of a great teacher, would devote themselves to the attainment of Truth and Goodness. But though he was a great speculative philosopher, devoted to the attainment of truth in the intellectual sphere, Plato, as we have seen, was no mere theorist. Possessed of an intense moral earnestness and convinced of the reality of absolute moral values and standards, he urged men to take  p261 thought for their dearest possession, their immortal soul, and to strive after the cultivation of true virtue, which alone would make them happy. The good life, based on an eternal and absolute pattern, must be lived both in private and in public, realised both in the individual and in the State: as relativistic private morality was rejected, so was the opportunist, superficial, self-seeking attitude of the sophistic "politician" or the theory that "Might is Right."

If man's life ought to be lived under the dominion of reason according to an ideal pattern, in the world as a whole we must acknowledge the actual operation of Mind. Atheism is utterly rejected and the order in the world is ascribed to Divine Reason, ordering the cosmos according to the ideal pattern and plan. Thus that which is realised in the macrocosm, e.g. in the movements of heavenly bodies, should also be realised in man, the microcosm. If man does follow reason and strives to realise the ideal in his life and conduct, he becomes akin to the Divine and attains happiness in this life and the hereafter. Plato's "otherworldliness" did not spring from a hatred of this life, but was rather a consequence of his convinced belief in the reality of the Transcendent and Absolute.

2. Plato's personal influence may be seen from the impression he made on his great pupil, Aristotle. Witness the latter's verses to the memory

Aristotle gradually separated himself from some of the Platonic doctrines that he had held at first; but, in spite of his growing interest in empirical science, he never abandoned metaphysics or his belief in the good life culminating in true wisdom — in other words, he never abandoned altogether the legacy of Plato, and his philosophy would be unthinkable apart from the work of his great predecessor.

3. Of the course of Platonism in the Academy and in the Neo‑Platonic School I shall speak later. Through the Neo‑Platonists  p262 Platonism made its influence felt on St. Augustine and on the formative period of mediaeval thought. Indeed, although St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the Schoolmen, adopted Aristotle as "the Philosopher," there is much in his system that can be traced back ultimately to Plato rather than to Aristotle. Moreover, at the time of the Renaissance, the Platonic Academy of Florence endeavoured to renew the Platonic tradition, while the influence of the Platonic Republic may be seen in St. Thomas More's Utopia and Campanella's City of the Sun.

4. In regard to modern times, the influence of Plato may not be at first sight so obvious as it is in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages; but in reality he is the father or grandfather of all spiritualist philosophy and of all objective idealism and his epistemology, metaphysics and politico-ethics have exercised a profound influence on succeeding thinkers, either positively or negatively. In the contemporary world we need only think of the inspiration that Plato has afforded to thinkers like Professor A. N. Whitehead or Professor Nicolai Hartmann of Berlin.

5. Plato, who stands at the head of European philosophy, left us no rounded system. That we do not possess his lectures and a complete record of his teaching in the Academy, we naturally regret, for we would like to know the solution of many problems that have puzzled commentators ever since; but, on the other hand, we may in a real sense be thankful that no cut and dried Platonic system (if ever there was such) has come down to us, a system to be swallowed whole or rejected, for this fact has enabled us to find in him, more easily perhaps than might otherwise be the case, a supreme example of the philosophic spirit. If he has not left us a complete system, Plato has indeed left us the example of a way of philosophising and the example of a life devoted to the pursuit of the true and the good.

---

The Author's Note:

1 Arist., Frag. 623 (Rose, 1870.)

◂ previous						next ▸
Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
UP TO:		A History of Philosophy	LacusCurtius	Home
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information.