Plato — The Philosopher, not the Dish Soap

5 min readSep 26, 2019

No but really, does Plat-o not sound like dish soap???

Design services available upon request 😉

Name puns aside, he really is one of the perfect philosopher dreamboats. Y’know… wrote classic literature, influenced the world’s minds, inspired by THE Socrates…

That being said, I’d never really learned about his philosophies before this week, just learned of them. So here’s a TL;DR version of all the lessons I was missing out on.

You Have those Underdog Stories and then you Have Plato…

Literally, he was the *exact* opposite of an underdog, so we can’t make a movie franchise about him. But here’s a condensed life story for context:

He was born into Greek aristocracy and expected to pursue politics.
Growing up, he studied philosophy with Socrates (one of the first Western philosophers).
He wasn’t interested in typical aristocratic politics after the government executed Socrates (long story).
After his studies, he started writing simple (ish) stories that explored philosophy (so that people beyond philosophy nerds could actually hear his lessons 🤪)

And his writing is what made him so special. By publishing philosophy, he set the stage for later generations to spread his ideas (the start of Western philosophy).

That’s exactly why he’s the perfect philosopher: he basically started the *study* of philosophy (in Europe, at least).

So with that understanding of his life, we can now try to understand his beliefs.

Back in Old Days, Talking about Imaginary Worlds = GENIUS

And that’s the first of Plato’s key beliefs. He thought there were two worlds: the sensible and the imaginary.

The sensible world was all the stuff you could, well… sense. And the imaginary world was everything intellectual (he liked this one better, of course ;-)

He even created things in his intellectual world called forms that went about interacting with each other. Sounds like Disney, but it’s a lot more boring 😟(think “How does *Good* interact with *Reasoning*?”)

For Plato, these forms were perfect and unchanging ideas to study. He based his philosophical discussions around understanding them. Many of his works just explored a single form by answering questions like, “What is justice?”

And speaking of his works, he had a very particular style of writing them.

For one, they weren’t just boring essays, but actual stories with characters (often dialogues where two people discussed philosophy).

This was more entertaining for readers than endless parchments of philosophical scripture, but had one frustrating quirk: Plato presented his debators’ views, but never specified whose side he was on.

Like Teacher, Like Student (In #MysteryAwesomeness that is ;-)

Just like Socrates, Plato would pose questions but not give answers. His writing was more so meant to give the reader something to think about for themselves.

Another striking resemblance to Socrates in Plato’s works is the character……Socrates… 😕?

No really. Many of Plato’s texts had a character called Socrates on one side of discussion as his bold, unabashed, old self.

With all his works in this style, it’s easy to see the connection between Plato and his teacher. Socrates basically *invented* that kind of two-person questioning to explore ideas (and he invented his own character of course ;-)

Socrates also influenced Plato’s political philosophies. Whereas he dabbled in public affairs, Plato explicitly considered political philosophies.

Plato was of the same mindset as Socrates on democracy being like a ‘mob-rule’ and supported fascism with wise leaders instead.

He called them ‘philosopher-kings’ because they had to know how to consider ethical dilemmas for the people. Essentially, the royalty would have to become wise or the wise would become royalty.

As long as both dictators are wise of course :-)

Now with those ideas in mind, the last lesson lies in Plato’s legacy.

If a Philosopher Falls in a Forest and No One’s Around…

Does anyone hear her philosophies?

Fine that’s weird, but the point is if you discover knowledge, you have to spread the message for it to make a BIG difference.

Yes, Plato was a bright one, but his work to spread his discoveries was more important than the discoveries themselves. Without him publishing his lessons, we wouldn’t be talking about him today.

And not only did he publish his lessons, but also Socrates’. One of the few texts we have describing the older philosopher is written by none other than Plato (as a memoir after Socrates’ death).

Then, just as Socrates greatly influenced him, Plato went on to influence historical rockstars like Aristotle. He even started a modern school (Academy) to teach everything from philosophy to math (it was so modern, multiple people named Khan are still naming their academies after Plato’s 2000 years later 😄).

And teaching Aristotle was no small thing. You may have heard of the bathtubs and gold, but Aristotle was a skilled scientist beyond all the myths. He always discussed philosophy by comparing his own views to Plato’s, helping further Plato’s legacy.

Aristotle later established his own school after Plato’s and went on to pass on his philosophies to important leaders as well. (Like to Alexander… The Great one).

If you didn’t see my last article on Socrates, here’s a recap of these philosophers’ legacies

All things considered, Plato was crucial to continuing this legacy. Without his writings, we wouldn’t have spread Western philosophy (or have heard about Socrates).

So even if Plat-o does sound like a #basic dish soap, the real Plato is literally responsible for field of philosophy as we know it (#totallynotbasic). I guess we can say his non-cleaning nature means he’ll always leave a mark on philosophy ;-)

Top Quotes

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Key Takeaways

Plato was born into Aristocracy but rjected typical societal expectations to pursue philosophy.
He explored intellectual forms and how they interact at their most basic level.
His engaging writing spread the lessons he learned from Socrates and continued their legacy.

Before you go:

Hey, test season is starting off strong and I’m trying to fathom the sheer extent of my troubles 😱. To help me with the last-minute scramble, feel free to: