After spending as much time with Plato as we have, it is hard not to lose oneself in the world of ancient Greece. To develop a better understanding of that world, it helps to see a wide view of its entire history. The simplest way to do that is to read a good old-fashioned textbook, but hopefully one with a minimum of ideology — a straightforward factual account that clearly identifies the most important points, rather than a thinly-veiled tract on contemporary political issues retroactively inserted into ancient times.

Finding such a book is not an easy task, because many of the most world-famous treatments are actually just that, thinly-veiled political tracts. For example, Edward Gibbon’s grandly titled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is basically a long, poorly-written pamphlet attacking Christianity from the viewpoint of 18th-century masonic “rationalism.” The actual Roman Empire has very little to do with the book’s real subject and purpose; he may as well have set it in an allegorical fantasy land with elves instead of Romans. And that’s not even the worst example — Theodor Mommsen’s History of Rome, one of the most acclaimed historical treatises of the 19th century, contains just as much virulent German nationalism as it does genuine Roman scholarship. Continue reading →

Site of Plato’s Academy in the present day.

(Conclusion. Continued from part 3.)

In Book IV of the “Laws,” Plato’s Athenian asks, “Tell us, lawgiver…what kind of state, and in what condition, should we give to you, so that, having received it, you might organize it yourself in all respects?” He then answers his own question: “Give me a state with a tyrannical ruler. Let the tyrant be young, of sound memory, capable of learning, courageous and generous by nature; in addition, let the soul of this tyrant have those qualities that…accompany each part of virtue.” This odd aside is actually autobiographical, and Plato did his best to put it into practice. Continue reading →

This time, Plato’s gaze is directed outwardly,
expressing the firm resolve to refashion the world.

(Continued from part 2.)

Plato is a spiritual writer. Perhaps that, more than his philosophy, explains his lasting role in history. He had a profound influence on world religion, and in a certain sense could be called the father of religious thought. At the very least, one could call him the first religious thinker — the priests of Leviticus don’t quite fit that description. Continue reading →

Mosaic believed to depict Plato’s Academy.
Found in the ruins of Pompeii.

(Continued from part 1.)

Plato never wrote out a full statement of his philosophy in any one place, and the literary aspect of his work makes it difficult to identify what that philosophy even was. In that respect, Losev did a great service just by concisely explaining it. I will therefore turn the floor over to him: Continue reading →

Believed to have been sculpted during Plato’s lifetime.
A portrait of cold, distant superiority.

It is easy to form a misleading impression of Plato. An American’s first encounter with Plato usually occurs in a freshman philosophy class; the assigned reading is almost invariably “The Republic,” which is presented as primarily a study of politics, a utopian tract describing the “perfect society” by direct analogy with works by social and ideological thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Plato’s take on it is supposed to be more radical and shocking, since he dares to criticize democracy, but then, clearly the most compelling way to prove the superiority of contemporary 21st-century society is by comparing it to Athens in 400 BC. Continue reading →