Plato's Dialogues
Plato's Dialogues
Plato's Dialogues
STUDENT
PHILOSOPHY
CARLOS
TEACHER
Introduction
The following essay is part of the Plato's dialogues who chooses dialogue as a
form of expression of his thoughts; perhaps as a tribute to his teacher Socrates,
whom, moreover, he makes the interlocutor of practically all of them; or perhaps
due to the influence of his time. His work can be divided into several periods,
according to different criteria, one of the most accepted classifications being
chronological.
Youth Dialogues
The dialogues of his youth are dominated by themes of a Socratic nature, and in
them Plato remains faithful to what Socrates taught. The trips to Megara, Cyrene,
Egypt and Italy date back to this time.
- Apology of Socrates (The well-known Socratic portrait of the young Plato) is not
strictly a dialogue but a speech in his defense before the court that would
condemn him to death
The oracle of Delphi reveals to Socrates and discovers that no difference is made
between the wise and believing themselves wise, that the ignorant believe they
know and the wise know that they do not know.
- Laches (Value)
- Lysis (Friendship)
- Charmides (Temperance)
They raise a problem, they comment on it, but they don't come up with an answer.
Transition dialogues
- Gorgias (On Rhetoric and Politics) It deals with rhetoric and justice and contains
an implicit criticism of Athenian democracy and includes a myth about immortality.
- Hippias major and Minor (On beauty the first, and on truth the second)
- Menón (Is virtue teachable?) Research on virtue as knowledge and its possibility
of being taught, ontologically founded through a test and exposition of the theory of
reminiscence.
Maturity dialogues
In these works we already find Plato's thought in all its dimension. The influence of
Socrates is minimal, and the thought he expresses in the dialogues responds
strictly to Plato's thought. Its activity is mainly focused on the Academy in Athens.
- Phaedo (On the immortality of the soul, Socrates' last day in prison) It is about
proving that the soul does not disappear when it is freed or separated from the
body. Socrates shows it through four arguments.
- Banquet (About love) Explain and qualify all the species of human love. The
conclusions drawn from this double point of view are deeply marked by the
character of Greek customs in Plato's time.
Plato exposes his thoughts regarding the problem, his theory of political ideas and
principles. Example: Republic VII, Phaedo and Symposium.
(369-362, from 56 to 63 years): Critical review of the theory of Ideas and some of
its consequences, although this does not mean that they are abandoned. Second
(369) and third (361) trip to Italy to the court of Dionysius II, who soon rejected his
education.
- Parmenides (Critique of the Theory of Ideas) Socrates refuses to admit that there
are "ideas" of these things. Since they have no function, they are absurd and
incomprehensible, they are not part of the order of the Universe nor do they fit into
the world of models.
- Sophist (Language, rhetoric and knowledge) It seems that Plato begins to doubt
the identification between the politician and the philosopher and intends to unlink
the concepts. In these two dialogues the main interlocutor is a "stranger from Elea"
and uses the method of diairesis (dichotomous divisions) in the search for
definition.
Plato offers us a society, both hierarchical and unified. And ultimately this explains
the Platonic construction. It is about forming a City that forms a political and moral
unity.
- Letter VII (in this letter Plato presents his well-known and brief autobiography)
Let other protagonists participate, while he analyzes his ideas to make a self-
criticism. Example: Laws.
Regarding the relationship of Ideas with things and the kinds of Ideas, as well as
the relationships that may exist between them.
Plato was born in Athens, (or in Aegina, according to others, following Favorinus),
probably in the year 428 or 427 BC. c. from a family belonging to the Athenian
aristocracy, who claimed direct descent from Solon. His real name was Aristocles,
although apparently he was called Plato because of the width of his shoulders,
according to Diogenes Laertius in his "Lives of the Illustrious Philosophers" , an
anecdote that has been questioned.
Plato's parents were Ariston and Perictione, who had two other sons, Adeimantus
and Glaucon, who both appear as Socrates' interlocutors in the Republic, and a
daughter, Potone.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these philosophical dialogues are written more to educate than to
inform. They clarify the basic questions through questions and answers, using the
method of dialectic and always starting from the doctrine of ideas.
From there these dialogues teach us to think dialogically, to argue and question. In
the end everyone agreed that courage is only a part of virtue, like temperance and
justice, and that science, whatever it may be, is always the same for present, past
and future.
Courage is the science of things that are feared and not feared, because it knows
all the goods and evils of the future as well as those of the present and past.