ipl-logo

How Is Plato's Philosophy Important To Medieval Philosophy

1010 Words5 Pages

Write an essay on the importance of Plato’s thinking on early medieval philosophy.
Philosophy (Philosophia) is simply the love of wisdom. Logic/Ethics/physics= Philosophy. Plato (428BCE-347) was born in Athens and was a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. Plato lived in what is widely known as the classical Greek period. Little is known about Plato’s background but he comes from a wealthy family and had a great education. He even served in the military from 409BC-404BC. Plato’s father died at a young age and his mother then married her uncle. When he was a young boy he studied music and poetry and greatly considered a life and career among politics but on meeting Socrates he drifted him away from this idea …show more content…

When the prisoners were released and finally able to turn their heads they quickly realised their mistakes. Plato’s point is that we put names and words to what we think is the physical object or item but in reality we are placing names on things we can’t see. Plato greatly influenced many great philosophical thinkers and philosophy after his death in 347. Platonism is any sort of philosophy that gains its inspiration by Plato and Plato greatly influenced early medieval philosophy and changed many ways of thinking. Medieval philosophy is the philosophy deriving from the medieval period or ‘middle ages’. ‘No period in the history of philosophy is so neglected as the early Middle ages’ Plato’s influence on religion( especially Christianity) and science is greater than perhaps any other person. Plato had many ideas relevant to the philosophy of religion and many theological arguments. The Euthyphro discusses the relationship between mortality and God. Plato played a huge influence on early medieval philosophical thinkers but it wasn’t from reading

Show More
Related
1209 Words | 5 Pages

Since Plato was a student of Socrates and became more interested in looking for wisdom because of his influence on him. He tried to explained to people who thought Socrates was corrupting the youth, his reason why he was doing those things Plato's depiction of Socrates is as a person who is wise, a person who thought outside the box, but it wasn’t ridiculous like Aristophane tried to make it. He is depicted as a skilled orator, meanwhile in The Clouds he is viewed as someone who tries to be an

Read More
508 Words | 3 Pages

Philosophy One contribution is philosophy, which opened doors to a particular way of thinking that provided the roots for the western intellectual tradition. One philosopher, Aristotle who lived in Greece from 384 to 322 B.C. His writings cover many subjects such as physics, biology, zoology, logic, and many more. He believed in human nature and the live of reason (Doc:2).

Read More
2272 Words | 10 Pages

The phenomenon "Socrates" surrounds every aspect of politics, culture, economic and social landscape in the current world. Indeed, there are several books on Socrates on every bookshelf in the world. Most of these books written about Socrates are dialogues of which one of them is named Gorgias. As it is already acknowledged, several books written by Plato are about Socrates. Gorgias happens to be one of his collections of dialogues involving Socrates and other characters.

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

In the beginning of book VI, Socrates makes a point by saying that philosophers have always been able to see things as they are versus people who see things as they vary and so he asks, who should rule? (484b) Socrates then launches into how philosophers are the ones who love the truth and want nothing and will not stand for anything, but the truth. (485c) It is because of that they should rule and so Socrates is asking for a philosopher-king who will seek nothing but the truth through knowledge and wisdom. This is the most important and boldest claim Plato makes in the defense of philosophy.

Read More
946 Words | 4 Pages

Through many of Plato’s works, such as the Republic, the Gorgias, and the Apology, the person that Socrates was and his personality shine through in his dialogue. Socrates was a man who asked many questions and always pushed not only his students but the whole city of Athens to look for more than just physical things. Many people claim, that Socrates went about teaching in the wrong way and that he is an arrogant fool and not an extremely wise person. However, I disagree with this claim. I believe that Socrates was a man who looked beyond the physical world and strived to gain as much knowledge as he could through asking questions and continuing to learn from others and in turn teach others, thus making him wise and striving to live the best life.

Read More
912 Words | 4 Pages

Socrates started his life as an average Athen citizen. His parents worked, making an honest living. But as Socrates grew up, he began to realize that his mind questioned things and wondered how come no one else questioned the same things or at least think about the answers to the questions that were not answered. So, as his mind kept wandering, he began to acknowledge the questions that were not answered and sought for those answers. He ended up believing and teaching things to other people, whether it went against the way the Athen government or not, he still continued his work.

Read More
767 Words | 4 Pages

The existence and continual study of Socrates’ philosophy regardless of differing accounts is astonishing in itself since it survived not through the specific philosopher, but through other people. Which is a testament of the impact that a man, such as Socrates, can make. When we think of Plato, who is regarded as a father of western philosophy, we are quick to think of his major work The Republic, his student Aristotle, and his writing on Socrates. (We think of his writings on Socrates as mere footnotes in philosophical thought without examining them.) “Nothing comes from nothing,” Parmenides proudly claimed, and this philosophical doctrine applies to Plato’s thought.

Read More
1595 Words | 7 Pages

Socrates is quoted as stating, “An unexamined life is a life not worth living” (38 a). Socrates was a founding figure of western philosophy, and a stable for many ideas. He lived in Athens, Greece teaching his students, like Plato, questioning politics, ethical choices, and many other things in Greek society. In the Trial and death of Socrates: Four Dialogues by Plato, it explores the abstract questioning Socrates had towards many of the normal social properties, which led to his trial, resulting in his death. The most important aspects discussed in the dialogues is the questioning of what is pious and impious, what it means to be wise, and good life.

Read More
1219 Words | 5 Pages

One can argue that knowledge is too elusive to put into words, but as indicated through the story, the prisoner could identify the forms because he was educated of them through the shadows, but not through living characteristics. Along the lines of intelligible and sensible knowledge, mathematics a heavily emphasized aspect implied by Plato, since he believed that mathematics drew us toward the intelligible realm beyond the realm of sensible specifics. When we move beyond applied mathematics and begin to contemplate numbers in themselves through correlation, then we begin to move from the

Read More
924 Words | 4 Pages

In The Republic, Plato writes about his thoughts on good, justice, and how we can achieve it. He starts off by stating that for human happiness and to live the best life philosopher-kings are needed. Not everyone can become a philosopher; certain people simply are non-philosophers also called lovers of sights and sounds. Plato makes the distinction between lovers of wisdom(philosophers) and lovers of sights and sounds clear using beauty as an example. Non-philosophers see ''fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them''(476b) but are unable to see or to understand absolute beauty.

Read More
836 Words | 4 Pages

During the 399 B.C., Socrates for rejecting the Greek gods and for putting wrong moral ideas in his student 's minds was sentenced to death. But Socrates’ goal wasn 't that, his goal was to encourage his disciples to find any reason by themselves for what is true and real. After Socrates’ death, Plato, who was one of his best students, opened the Academy- school that continued Socrates 's ideas. In this School, Plato wrote The Republic, where he states that each individual’s perspective of reality is changing, and can change more every time. People get more knowledge about the world and their surroundings.

Read More
1057 Words | 5 Pages

Platonism, rendered as a proper noun, is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In narrower usage, Platonism, rendered as a common noun (with a lower case ‘p’, subject to sentence case), refers to the philosophy that affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to “exist” in a “third realm” distinct both from the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness. Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects, where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view . Platonism was originally expressed

Read More
1856 Words | 8 Pages

Heraclitus Heraclitus is a Greek philosopher of which not much is known beyond his works. What we do know is that he lived in Ephesus, a city on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, and that his character has largely been inferred from his writings on philosophical issues. Two philosophical theories come to mind when the name Heraclitus is mentioned: The Doctrine of Flux and the Unity of Opposites. In his espousal of these theories he managed to draw the ire of many -- even Aristotle and Plato, who believed that his hypothesis of the world was one of logical incoherence.

Read More
1212 Words | 5 Pages

When he was young he studied music and poetry. According to Aristotle, Plato developed the foundations of his metaphysics and epistemology by studying the doctrines of Cratylus, and the work of Pythagoras and

Read More
984 Words | 4 Pages

“Plato’s philosophy is an attempt to justify Socrates’ belief in the objectivity of moral virtues.” As one of Socrates’ most loyal disciples, Plato’s own philosophy was heavily influenced by Socrates’ own thoughts and teachings. Much of Plato’s philosophy is a direct extension of some of the questions Socrates posed, i.e., Socrates asked what justice is, and Plato explored this question in his own writings. It is Socrates’ code of ethics, however, that most closely corresponds with Plato’s ethics.

Read More

More about How Is Plato's Philosophy Important To Medieval Philosophy

Related Topics

Open Document