Means of Social Organization by Plato - Essay Example

It is through Plato that we gain the knowledge of Socrates, perhaps one of the ancient world’s most famous philosophers but what were the ideas of Socrates and which were the ideas of Plato remains a mystery today.  Plato, who was a student of Socrates, pulled together the ideas of his mentor and Pythagoras to combine them with his own response to what he’d seen of the world to develop his Theory of Forms.  In this theory, the ultimate goal was to progress through the levels of reality to the highest level, also known as the greatest good.  According to Plato, reality is not the world of substance and things that we can see in everyday life but is something more abstract that can only be obtained through intellectual thought (Strathern, 1996, p. 25).  To help explain his Theory of Forms, Plato developed what is today referred to as the Allegory of the Cave.

In the dialogue Plato presents, Socrates explains how people have been chained since childhood with their vision restricted to a giant screen in front of them.  They can see the shadows of marionettes and other things dancing, but the actual colors and nature of these things cannot be perceived from such a perspective.  These are the Forms of Plato’s theory.  Not having known anything else, Socrates argues that the humans don’t know there’s something to miss:  “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 388).  Because of the pain of the bright light of truth, Socrates also explains that individuals will attempt to reject the truth, the colors, and textures of the real Forms, for the more comforting and familiar shadows.  Eventually, they come to accept the truth, though and are sometimes able to help others still trapped in the cave to come out and see the truth.

Plato also outlined an elaborate description of utopia in The Republic.  Here, he sets forth an example of a just society in which there are no possessions, children removed from their parents soon after birth are given equal upbringing and education, and all of them, boys and girls alike, are given equal opportunity to achieve the philosopher-king status based on their own unique talents, abilities, and aptitude for higher thought.  By imposing such a just society, Plato points out these rulers would “be above bribery; and their only ambition would be to ensure justice in the state” (Strathern, 1996, p. 38) because they would have no possessions to protect or accumulate and would have no individual living spaces in which to inspire awe among their peers or subordinates.  Out of this imaginary society, Plato also demonstrates his idea of a three-part soul that is ruled by intellect, action, and appetites, all three of which must perform their proper function for the individual to reach his highest state of the greatest good (Strathern, 1996, pp. 46-47).

While Plato was grappling with some of the major questions of his time and had little opportunity to study the results of social experiments such as what he proposes in The Republic, I think he did an excellent job of attempting to discover a fair and equitable means of social organization that enables every citizen to explore the limits of his or her possibilities.  His Allegory of the Cave and Theory of Forms introduces interesting ideas of exploration regarding what is right and good.  However, he seems to contradict himself when he begins to discuss the necessity of limiting access to literature and poetry.  How can people explore the limits of their potential if they are not permitted to question, engage in dialogue and investigate alternative approaches?  By keeping the lower classes essentially ignorant, Plato prevents these individuals from contributing their practical knowledge to the greater social good while also introducing a tremendous potential for these individuals to be taken advantage of by an unethical king.