Question 13 - While many of Plato’s ideas were utopian and have no practical value today, others represent the abiding truth. (Gettel)
Answer:
Plato has been regarded as the
founder of classical idealism by virtue of his attempts to conceptualize that disorders and crisis of the actual world and presented it to his readers a vision of desirable political and social order. Thus, Plato has been credited with laying the foundation of the philosophical perspectives and issues on which the Western political tradition rests. In this context
Whitehead has commented that ‘the entire European philosophical tradition is nothing but a set of footnotes of Plato’.
In his work ‘Republic’, Plato’s greatest work, he has attempted to established the philosophical tradition of Justice. And in doing so, he set forth his conceptions of an ideal state. His book explored the notion of justice and its realisation within the individual and the state. It sketched a detailed picture of the polity and social institutions with a view of attaining human excellence and perfection. It had an elaborate scheme of education which led
Rousseau to comment that it was hardly a political work but a
finenest treatise on education ever written. It contained a detailed examination of the meaning of good life and outline the means to achieve it. Accepting the Socratic Dicta ‘virtue is knowledge’ and ‘a life unexamined is not worth living’, Plato argued that wrong deeds have their origin in ignorance, where as knowledge leads to right action, happiness and conversion of the soul.
However, Plato’s ideas and theories have been criticized of being utopian because the ideal state was considered to be unrealistic and unrealizable. Critics argue that the philosopher ruler is not natural ruler and governing was pressed upon him in the larger interest of the community.
Leo Strauss considered Republic as the greatest critic of political idealism ever written as it appears to be a satire written with the purpose of demonstrating the limits of what was politically feasible.
While most of Plato’s conception and ideas are considered to be utopian and unrealistic, his other schemes and ideas were based on practical experiences of his space and time. In an attempt to explode the essence of governance, Plato has shown why it is more important for the ruling class to understand the idea of governance. It is because of the ignorance of the ruling class that the problems of corruption arise, which he himself experienced in the Athens of his time. In addition, his work, ‘Republic’, was written in the form of a dialogue, a method of great importance in clarifying questions and establishing truth.
Plato insisted that temperate attitude towards property was necessary for security and wellbeing of the state. Too much acquisitiveness and love for one’s possessiveness ruined unity and moral goodness of the state. Thus, Plato clearly perceived the disastrous consequences of combining the economic and political power. In this way, Plato was the first to understand the implication of the role that economic factor can play in politics
Therefore, despite being the master of political philosophy and idealism, Plato’s formulation are also based on truth and knowledge. A/Q to
Nettleship, the book Republic may be regarded not only as a philosophical work but as a treatise on social and political reforms.
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