Plato and Rhetoric
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[edit] Plato on Rhetoric
Man is the Measure of All Things
Plato has been the most renowned philosopher of the Western world for over twenty four hundred years. He was believed to be the son of the god Apollo, and was known for his sublime thoughts and vision expressed through his foundational philosophies.
Plato is most famously associated with his teacher and mentor, Socrates. Interestingly, Plato’s’ major works are based on ‘dialogues’ involving Socrates. The father of philosophy, Plato was mainly revered for his revolutionaries ides in philosophic and scientific research that were imparted in his famous school—the Academy. He taught there for twenty before returning to Syracuse. The Academy, however, continued to excel for another nine hundred years and served as a precursor to medieval form of universities.
[edit] Theory of Knowledge
“What is Knowledge?” Plato approached the idea of “Knowledge” through a four-level diagram. He was instrumental in questioning the difference between knowledge and opinion. For Plato, the notion of knowledge was related to human soul. He expostulated his philosophical theory of the “tripartite soul” to counter the cultural and moral relativism of the time. Among other areas of knowledge, Plato was concerned with the understanding of “justice,” which he discussed extensively in Book I of The Republic.
Interestingly, the concept of justice was based on the idea of soul. The ideal running of a government reflected the harmonious working of the constituents of soul. He also extended the metaphor of soul to the principle of mathematics.
The strains of harmony continued with Plato’s definition of “Good Life.” Good Life did not signify the “Christian denial of body and contempt of flesh;” Plato associated Good Life with the “Life of Reason.” This entailed a true blend of bodily energy and mental sharpness.
[edit] Political Philosophy
Book I of the Republic, contain extensive discussion on Plato’s views on the political philosophy of time. Plato concerned himself with thoughts like, What are the elements of a ‘good’ society? What is the extent of power and with whom it exist? What is relation between the individual and the state or the authority? Interestingly, some of the underlying concepts on the Republic have some modern resonances in Foucault’s discussion on ‘power.’
However, Plato stands in sharp contrast with the Christian notion that dismissed the supreme state authority on individual freedom. In this view Plato also contradicts Marxist’s assumption of state as the dictatorial power. Thus, Plato expounded that man as a social creature could nurture himself by the rules of society; for Plato the life could consummate with the ideals of established order manifested through cities ruled by government. Like many other stalwart Greeks of the time, Plato envisioned the propriety human destiny in serving the principles of the state and government. He held city as a ‘man’ “writ large against the sky.”
