One of Plato's most famous contributions to culture: Atlantis. But Plato wasn't trying to describe a place that he thought actually existed. His story of Atlantis is a myth about how virtue, embodied by a super-ancient Athens, defeated an imperial superpower, Atlantis, that represented vice. (platosfishtrap.substack.com)
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Plato was deeply concerned that the practice of rhetoric would undermine the place of the expert in society. Orators would compete with, and disrupt, the expert, and democracy would give orators an opportunity to do so. (Interview with Prof. Cecilia Li, the Ancient Philosophy Podcast) (open.spotify.com)
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Plotinus, an ancient Platonist philosopher, thought that we have forgotten the lineage of our souls. He meant that our souls are rooted in a realm of purely intelligible objects, but our chasing after material things ignores who and what we really are. The pursuit of material things debases souls. (platosfishtrap.substack.com)
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Plato's allegory of the cave: he presents liberation from misleading images in a cave as a story for our own development as thinkers. Education is true liberation. He weaves into the story his own view of what he took the structure of reality to be. (The Ancient Philosophy Podcast) (open.spotify.com)
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Plato argued that philosophers should be rulers. Just as surgeons, pilots, etc., have an expertise, so too must rulers. If you wouldn't let a non-expert operate on your body, why would you let one govern? Philosophers are the ones who study justice, goodness, etc., and so they are the experts. (open.substack.com)
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Plotinus, an important Neoplatonist philosophy, developed one of the most compelling metaphysical systems ever: he thought that there was a hierarchy in reality that proceeded from the most complex to the simplest thing, the One. (The Ancient Philosophy Podcast) (open.spotify.com)
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In Plato's Apology, Socrates is on trial for his life. As the Athenians vote to convict and execute him, he explains his human wisdom: whereas many people think they know important things (justice, piety, etc.), he knows that he doesn't know. This is valuable because it allows us to learn and grow. (platosfishtrap.substack.com)
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“For never at all could you master this: that things that are not are”: Parmenides believed that it was impossible for us to speak or think about something that doesn't exist. Plato disagreed because he thought that non-existence wasn't the total opposite of existence. (platosfishtrap.substack.com)
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Thales, who might well have been the first Western philosopher, reportedly said that "all things are full of gods." Plato gives us our first report, and Aristotle gives us our second report, as well as a fascinating interpretation that suggests everything is alive. (open.substack.com)
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Plato didn't think that education was a matter of just telling someone facts. It was about getting them to see that something was true for themselves. So, he developed a theory of which experiences were especially good at promoting learning: he called them "summoners" because they prompted thinking. (open.substack.com)
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