Intro to Plato - Peter Kreeft (Lecture 1)

the American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead famously said the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato Ralph Waldo Emerson said even more simply Plato is philosophy and philosophy is Plato and a third great thinker the old professor in CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia said it's all in Plato all in Plato dear me what do they teach them in the schools nowadays anyway that's a pretty good summary of the main point of these lectures the Platonic tradition in Western philosophy is not just one of many equally central traditions it is so much the central one but the very existence and survival of Western civilization depends on it it is like the Confucian tradition in Chinese culture or the monotheistic tradition in religion or the human rights tradition in politics in this first lecture I shall define Platonism and its big idea the idea of a transcendent reality that the history of philosophy has labeled platonic ideas or platonic forms in the second lecture we'll briefly explore Plato's two basic predecessors or sources Greek myth and Socrates and then we'll look at the applications of the forms in Plato's own dialogues the third lecture will cover the three most important footnotes to Plato himself in the Platonic tradition Aristotle Plotinus and Agustin each of whom gave the forms a new metaphysical address the fourth lecture will explore six Christian platanus --tz-- 3 in the New Testament and three philosophers the next three lectures will explore the consequences of the modern abandoning of Platonism beginning with William of Ockham zhn amin ilysm as the source of nearly all modern philosophical errors and in the sixth lecture we'll look at 13 influential kinds of positivism or reductionism in modern thought and lecture 7 we'll look at the results of abandoning the Platonic tradition in ethics the values vacuum or kneel ism and in the last lecture we'll look at some experiential evidence for platonism some doors out of Plato's cave that are still open some signals of transcendence all this in eight short lectures well yes it's a tiny sample of an enormous and commodious storehouse something like a wine-tasting party it's meant to begin your thinking and reading not to end it any philosophy is a work of art every great work of art must have a central unity that's why almost every great philosopher has one big idea one great central idea a kind of hub from which all the other ideas radiate like spokes for Plato this is the so-called theory of ideas or theory of forms though both terms are misleading for they're not ideas in anybody's mind they're not concepts and they're not geometrical forms shapes or appearances there are objective truths objective realities that are not visible to the eye of the body but only the mind but the mental eye that sees them is not mere the eye of reasoning or intelligence and a narrow modern sense but the eye of contemplation or intellectual intuition there's a third reason it's misleading to call it Plato's theory of forms because it's not a theory first of all it's an insight it's a sudden almost mystical experience mystical in the sense that it's an insight into something absolute but it's not mystical in the sense of being irrational in fact it's supremely rational this single big idea that defines platonism could be called the theory of big ideas because the Platonic ideas are bigger than any ideas inside of minds and also they're bigger than concrete material things outside of minds they're bigger than both of us bigger or realer than either concepts or things they are the standards or patterns for all concepts and all things and they account for the unity between concepts and things for instance our ideas of justice or squareness or humaneness can correspond to just things or square or human things only because both our ideas and those things participate in the same play tonic form justice or squareness or humaneness this big idea of Plato's is most famously expressed in the Republic the single most famous book in the history of philosophy books become famous and remembered because they're loved and the Republic is loved I think not for its politics which are absurd but for its psychology which is the world's first by the way and above all for one short passage the most famous in the whole history of philosophy the parable of the cave in which Plato invites us to come with him out of our small comfortable conventional little shadow land into a startlingly larger world outside this cave and see those realities of which the shadows are shadows when we do that we will at first certainly be confused and blink when we first see this sunlight the reaction of my students to Plato's theory of ideas is typically that of Horatio - Hamlet when he first sees the ghost whom he did not previously believe in while Horatio is in this amazed state of mind Hamlet says to him there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamed of in your philosophy that's the essential point of Platonism mourneth transcendence another kind of reality outside our cave the tendency of typically modern thought is just the opposite reductionism debunking demythologizing that there are fewer things in heaven and earth that is in objective reality than in our philosophies the modern tendency is to contract to reduce and I think the reason for this is clear only when we reduce the complex to the simple and the mysterious to the clear can we comprehend it scientifically and conquer it technologically that's our essential modern project our main claim to fame our great success story plato's project is the opposite not to conquer things by making them smaller but to let ourselves be conquered by something greater modern scientific truths are like poker chips with which we can calculate and win our mind encloses such truths and uses them they work and they work very well but Plato's truth is like a cathedral which we humbly bow to enter it encloses us we do not enclose it but when we bow we become taller and we feel we are in a larger world when we are in a Cathedral or in Plato's philosophy the Platonic ideas are not in our mind we are in them they are not our servants they're our masters that's why we experience all and wonder at them most philosophies don't have that power over our souls when we speak of awe and wonder we don't usually think of modern philosophers but I've described only the psychological effect of the idea that I've labeled the heart of Platonism can we be a little more specific about what it means we can define it in three different ways either very broadly or very narrowly or somewhere between those two extremes very broadly it means what the Greeks called logos and what we might translate as order that reality has an internal order an intelligibility a system that it makes sense that order is not just our invention our minds imposing structure and meaning but that it's really there in everything it's discovered rather than invented things are ordered because they have intelligible nature's or essences that primary question what is it has real answers reality is intelligible to mind being is open to reason and reason is open to being that's the broad way of defining it the narrow way of defining it is the way that most history of philosophy textbooks do it it means that there are always universals over particulars that redness and holiness and chair Nosara just as real as red things and holy things and chairs that adjectives are real just as nouns are that when two or more things have the same quality that quality is as real as the things and in fact is real independent of the things so that if all holy men perished holiness would still be holiness and if all the red things in the universe perished redness would still be though it would not be anywhere in the universe a third definition of Plato's theory of forms is that visible concrete particular things are images or reflections of their pure forms or platonic ideas or essences they are like them or analogous to them that the whole world that we see here in our cave is a series of shadows of more real things we live in the shadow lands that was the title of the CS Lewis movie a perfect title because that platonic insight was Louis's own essential philosophy the whole world we see is an image of a world we do not see as a painting is an image of something in the painters mind when we see a painting our mind forms an image of it but the painting itself is an image of an idea in the painters mind the easiest way to understand this is to think of the painter as God and the painting as the universe so the whole material universe is a great work of art and our understanding of the ideas that it reflects is a kind of mental telepathy with the mind of the artist I've used the language of religion because that makes Platonism clearer even though Platonism is not a religion Plato like Socrates was a monotheistic Gnostic about the divine mind and he nowhere says that it is the single divine person that identification was a step made later by Christian Platonists that goes beyond Plato but not necessarily against him this higher world or realm or dimension this world of forms is eternal while the world of concrete things is temporal and changing living things like trees or round things like bubbles or just things like societies coming to being and pass away but life does not and round us does not and justice does not the second difference is that living things or round things or just things or many while life is won and round this is one and justice is one the third difference is that life and roundness and justice are perfect perfectly round or perfectly just while round bubbles are always a little bumpy instead of perfect spheres and just societies are always mixed with some injustice CS Lewis explains Platonism in the allegory of love by calling its worldview symbolism and contrasting it to allegory he writes it is the very nature of thought and language to represent what is immaterial in picture bolter --m what is good or happy has always been high like the heavens and bright like the Sun evil and misery were deep and dark from the first to ask how these married pairs of sensible and insensible z-- first came together would be great folly the real question is how they ever came apart this fundamental equivalence between the immaterial and the material may be used by the mind in two ways on the one hand you can start with an immaterial fact such as the passions which you actually experience and can then invent visibily to express them this is allegory but there is another way of using the equivalence which is almost the opposite of allegory and which I would call symbolism if our passions being immaterial can be copied by material inventions then it is possible that our material world in turn is the copy of an invisible world of something else the attempt to read that something else through its sensible imitations to see the archetype in the copy it is what I mean by symbolism the allegorist leaves the given his own passions to talk of what is confessedly less real a fiction the symbolist leaves the given the material world to find that which is more real symbolism comes to us from Greece it makes its first appearance with the dialogues of Plato the Sun is the copy of the good time is the moving image of eternity all visible things exist just insofar as they succeed in imitating the forms I gave you that rather long quotation from CS Lewis because it's a perfect juxtaposition of Platonism versus the more modern tendency Plato's theory of forms is the central doctrine of the Republic the Republic is usually classified as a book about politics but Plato clearly says in the Republic that he's going to deal with politics only as an analogy a parallel or illustration for ethics for morality he wants to see the morally good man and good life more clearly by looking at the good society because society is bigger and easier to see so politics is only the republic's means ethics is its end in the most fundamental differences between any two philosophical positions in ethics and also in politics are always rooted in fundamental differences in metaphysics which is the division of philosophy that deals with the nature of reality ethics and politics deal with the good private and public metaphysics deals with the real but goodness and reality cannot be separated the ought depends on the is values depend on facts on truth especially the truth of human nature let me try to make that same point in another way you can answer the ethical question what should we be and do individually and socially what is the good life and the good society only if you answer the prior anthropological question what is a human being is humanity merely a lucky cosmic accident a fortunate arrangement of molecules a chemical equation an evolved slime pool an animal which has learned to wear clothes is the mind merely the brain or the opposite extreme is man really God in disguise or a god or an angel or maybe is man a double thing half beast and half angel or something between beast and angel but you can answer this anthropological question what is man only if you enter the prior metaphysical question what is what is real what is reality if spirit does not exist we cannot be a spirit or a god or an angel and if mater does not exist that's the only thing we could be material and involved in all these questions the question of metaphysics and anthropology and ethics and politics is also another question the question of epistemology how can we know these things let me put the point in still another way the point about ethics depending on metaphysics when you read the Republic you probably wish you could ask this question of Plato Plato your picture of the good life in the Republic both the good society and the good individual this may be a beautiful and Noble ideal but is it real there never has existed a perfectly good perfectly just state or a perfectly good perfectly just individual so isn't your ideal just that your ideal your personal opinion subjective it's in your mind and maybe it's in mine too but is it real aren't these Platonic ideas merely your ideas how can they be part of the real world the typically modern view is that the real world is merely the world we can see in touch the world we can know best by science the objective world and that there's also a subjective world an inner world of our private personal thoughts and opinions and feelings which we change as often as we change our clothes so there are two worlds the world without and the world within the world of objective material things that we can have opinions and desires about and the world of those subjective spiritual opinions and desires now both of these two worlds change and both of these two worlds are imperfect they get better or worse they're never perfect now if this typically modern metaphysics is true then what follows for ethics ethics then is a matter of subjective ideals values that we posit that we create values are not like rocks we don't discover them they're like art we created both individually and socially or culturally or collectively you see if the typically modern metaphysic is true there are only two places for the good to be in the objective material world of rocks or in the subjective spiritual world of opinions and feelings and since values aren't material things like rocks they must be subjective opinions or feelings but Plato thinks they are things like rocks they're objectively real though they're not material in fact they're harder than rocks realer than rocks more unchangeable more unyielding than rocks but we don't see them with the eyes of the body we see them with the eyes of the mind but they're not in the mind any more than rocks are in the eye this fundamental metaphysical difference between Plato and modernity is the root of a fundamental ethical difference in the typically modern view plato is an unrealistic dreamer and through Simek as the Sophists is right when he defines justice as simply the label pinned on the laws by whoever has the power to make them so might makes right literally justice is ultimately power that's what for Simha cos argues in the Republic and what Machiavelli much later argues in the prince now even if you prefer a less violent and freer and more democratic definition of justice let's say as the consensus of free citizens rather the imposition of raw power still it's metaphysically in the same position it's only subjective it's man-made it may be good but it's not true it's not real Plato wants to expand that in our world that cave of ours in metaphysics by showing us a different kind of reality outside the cave and in epistemology by showing us a different kind of knowing than cave knowing and knowing that he calls wisdom and an anthropology by showing us our new identity are hidden soul power to transcend the cave and in ethics by showing us another kind of good a good and a goal and an end and a destiny that transcend the cave Plato isn't creating this new world like a fantasy writer he's describing it like Columbus describing America Plato isn't expanding the real world he's showing us that we've contracted it by creeping into our cave so Platonism is not comfortable if we follow plato's lead and emerge from the cave it will look to us at first like a contraction of the world because we'll lose something we'll lose control will stand blinking and Confused in the Sun and there's another danger when we eventually stop blinking and learn to see in the sunlight and come to know this greater world we may then denigrate the lower world for we will know that this lower cave world is only a shadow an image of the greater better higher world but it's a real image and it's a precious image because of what it's an image of so that danger can be avoided and of course should be avoided you can take two attitudes to an image once you realize it's only an image you can say oh it's only an image not the real thing so out with it or you can say that's an image of something great and precious so that makes it a precious image like a photo of your beloved there is another typically modern objection to plato's invitation to go with him on his journey out of the cave and many of you are probably thinking this objection right now it comes down to this even if you choose to follow Plato isn't that choice as subjective as your taste in art or music Plato offers us two options two philosophies cave light or sunlight and we must choose but you might argue that the fact that we must choose between these two philosophies means that philosophy is only in our minds we might think that the choice between believing that the world outside the cave is only subjective or believing that it is objective is itself only subjective only what I happen to like or what my society or my religion or my philosophy teacher or my genetics and brain chemistry has caused me to like rather than some as real as a rock but that's true if our choice is purely our subjective preference and not objectively right or wrong true or false if it's not decided by reason but by some other force in nature or nurture heredity or environment if my rational intelligence is merely an effect of irrational matter and irrational desires as Freud says well in that case there's no real reason why I should believe any one idea rather than any other including that idea for if there are only causes and not reasons if the material forces in the cave and the subjective forces inside my own mind are the only things that determine any of my ideas if there are no platonic ideas but only my ideas then you see what follows no idea I have can ever be known to be either true or false any more than the Pistons in your car engine are either true or false or the row of dominoes that cause each other to fall are either true or false they just are it's just the way they work in other words there are only causes not reasons my psyche just happens to work that way but if there's no spiritual designer and programmer behind my computer brain why should I trust that computer Freud is a good example of the anti plate inist on this issue the issue of the authority of Reason which is the vehicle that takes us out of the cave for Plato Freud says on the last page of his most philosophical book civilization and its discontents that the only thing he is certain of is that all our reasoning is only rationalizing of our desires now it seems to me that that's the only sentence in the book that we can be absolutely certain is false because it's self contradictory because if that's true then that piece of reasoning too is only rationalizing so why should I believe it if it's only Freud himself rationalizing Freud's desires why should I let Freud's desire determine my beliefs if reason is only subject if then that piece of reason is only subjective - it's only subjective that it's only subjective so it refutes itself it commits rational suicide so reason must be in touch with objective truth at least sometimes if it wasn't then we could have no standard for judging when it wasn't if there's no real money we have no right to judge that any money is counterfeit if there's no ultimate truth we can't judge any thought as erroneous so some kind of thought some kind of reason must get outside the cave Plato has to be right about that that's just the logical argument an abstract one here's another argument a much more concrete and experiential one for believing that Plato is right and that there is a world of eternal objective Universal absolute truth outside the cave of our sensations and opinions and their material objects the argument is simply that we experience it our mind bumps up against the objective and unchangeable reality of 2 + 2 or 4 or triangles have 180 degrees or justice as a virtue or effects must have causes our body bumps up against real physical walls that we can't walk through and our mind just as really and truly and unarguably bumps up against real walls of thought that it's simply impossible to knock down or change triangles and virtues are no less real than physical walls and rocks if the truths of mathematics and metaphysics were merely mental if we made them up then we could change them as we can change unicorns or mermaids or hobbits but we can't and the same is true of the laws of ethics if justice were simply man-made we could change it just as we can change traffic laws but we can't we can't make genocide right or honesty wrong we discover them and where do we discover them where are they in the world outside the cave so this gives us a radically different anthropology Plato defined man as the national animal reason is what distinguishes man from the beasts but what is reason the typically modern answer is simply calculation cleverness but plato's answer is wisdom understanding insight into the forms in the Republic he summarizes four levels of reason parallel to four levels of reality in a geometrical figure that he calls a divided line a line divided into four unequal parts the first and lowest level of knowledge is mere secondhand opinions based on reflections or images or secondhand reports of real things the next level is direct sense experience which he calls belief because we believe or assume that our senses show us reality but we don't prove that and the level of reality that is the object of sensory belief is actual material objects a third level is logical and mathematical reasoning and it's object is logical and mathematical truths like the truths of geometry these are quantitative not qualitative and they're hypothetical they depend on other truths as in logic all conclusions depend on their premises logic is if-then reasoning the fourth and highest level is knowledge of the forms this knowledge is not mere appearance or belief or hypothetical reasoning but direct insight into an unchangeable form like justice or beauty or human nature or life and it's this knowledge that makes man human that distinguishes man from both beasts and computers beasts have senses that are often better than ours and computers can do reasoning much more accurately and quickly than we can so how are we more than Apes equipped with cameras and computers animals with enhanced sensory powers which is level 2 of Plato's line plus enhanced reasoning powers which is level 3 what can we do that neither animals nor computers can do the answer is that we can understand eternal necessary truths we can know the essential nature's of things that's what it is to be human that's what it is to be rational and that's what it is to get out of the cave Plato thus invites us into the discovery of a whole new world a third world in addition to the world of matter and the world of subjective minds and ideas namely the world of objective ideas forms essences the eternally real and unchangeable natures of things and this third world alone unifies the other two worlds because both reflect the same forms why can I know that balls are round because both the balls roundness and my minds concept of roundness participate in the same form roundness why is my subjective judgment that two plus two equals four true of real rabbits and real rocks because both my judgments and the rabbits and rocks reflect the same forms and the same relationships between the form two in the form for my geometry can measure pyramids because both reflect the same form of triangularity because there is the same red in both rows and my sense perception I can see that the Rose is red but what is redness red this is not a rose nor is it a perception it's what I perceive in the Rose the Rose has redness but it isn't redness it has some redness but not all of it that's why other things can also be red but other colours can't be red colours themselves are forms we can know all three of these worlds we can know the forms as well as the things in the world and the opinions and sensations in our minds why why can I know objective truths that go beyond the senses beyond red roses and round balls and to rabbits why can I know eternal and unchangeable facts like these that holes are greater parts and that justice is a virtue and that nothing can come into existence without a cause because my mind is somehow in touch with the world of eternal forms by a light from outside the cave ideas like truth and goodness and beauty are produced in my mind but not by my mind they're produced by the impact of something on my mind something that seems like a meteor that comes down from outer space or like an angel coming down Jacob's Ladder from heaven it doesn't come from the earth because it's not made of matter and it doesn't come from my mind it comes to my mind and judges my mind as right or wrong depending on whether my mind reflects it and conforms to it or fails to do that what kind of mind what kind of consciousness is it that knows the forms Platonism gives us an expanded epistemology or theory of knowledge as well as an expanded metaphysics or theory of being to see this let's distinguish five kinds of knowing by what kind of wonder they begin with the first would be ordinary unreflective undisciplined knowing sense perception and common sense and it's wonder is simply factual curiosity basically that's the first two levels of Plato's divided line the next level would be scientific knowing in the modern sense it uses proof by empirical testing and mathematical measurement and its end is technological power over nature the standard for scientific hypotheses is do they work so the wonder that begins this knowledge is I wonder what will work what will work to give me the most power power of theoretical ideas and power of practical technology and this wonder ends when the knowledge comes it simply a means to that end a third level would be philosophical knowledge knowledge of reasons and causes by logical reasoning getting to the kind of thing Aristotle and Plato got to like science philosophy begins in wonder according to Plato and Aristotle and Socrates and the Wonder ends when the knowledge comes then it proceeds to another wonder the difference between science and philosophy is that it's much harder to come to the end in philosophy but unless you're a skeptical it's at least possible a fourth kind of knowing would be an adult version of the attitude a little child has at the world contemplation of the truth for its own sake and the wonder that begins this knowing is contemplative wonder and this kind of knowledge ends in wonder as well as beginning in wonder finally a fifth kind of knowledge is mystical the myths suggest this and Plato ends is most important dialogues with myths because nothing else can suggest it better this is an active actual experience of the ultimate something like knowledge in the biblical sense which meant sexual intercourse it's a kind of ecstatic play ecstatic because you're out of yourself out of self-consciousness out of your ordinary mind out of control it's a kind of intellectual orgasm and it's play because it has no practical end be beyond itself it is our end Plato strongly suggests in many places like his seventh letter and the Phaedrus and the symposium and what he says about the absolute good in the Republic that this mystical knowledge which cannot be put into words is the whole point of philosophy and indeed of human life itself in addition to these expanded levels in metaphysics and epistemology Platonism also gives us an expanded ethics or life view or practice to go with his expanded worldview or theory the ethical consequence of platonic forms can hardly be exaggerated because for the ancients ethics is fundamentally about something much more than laws and rights and duties it's first of all about the single most important question you can possibly ask what is the end of human life what is the meaning of life what is the greatest good the Summum bonum the purpose of our existence what ought I to be and do and the answer to this question of course depends on metaphysics if nature is the final reality if matter and human minds are all that exists then my meaning and end is here in this world the satisfaction of merely temporal needs if on the other hand I know a reality greater than nature then I can aspire to some sort of union with that even in this life and I can hope for a more perfect union with it after death and even in this life if I have some kind of participation in the supreme good that transcends time then I can take that as my standard I can hitch my wagon to a star and navigate the Seas of time with my head in the clouds even as my feet are on the ground or on the deck of the boat if I can know the absolute good I can judge relative goods by that standard including my own soul and also my society that's ultimately the reason why Plato wants philosophers to become Kings because the philosopher is not merely the clever scholar but the wise sage who knows perfect justice and therefore can judge among imperfect justices he can judge the shadows in the cave by the light he has seen outside the cave thus Plato would argue that only a plate inist or a supernatural astoria and endless - whatever label you want to use only he can justify radical rebellion because only he can judge existing society by a higher standard as the Jewish prophets did he can let the good judge us instead of judging it how could it judge us if it's only our fabrication how can I impose my ideas or our ideas on you I can't but perhaps my ideas and yours kind of like be judged by the ideas if not if we can't let God be God then one of us has to play God to the other or else just be indifferent and skeptical and never go beyond laurens theologically put the alternatives to platonism are idolatry or not giving a damn politically put the alternatives to Platonism or tyranny or totalitarianism or terrorism or else anarchy what the hell so you see no philosopher is more relevant to our contemporary world an old Plato where did Platonism come from in our next lecture we'll explore his two major sources Greek myth and Socrates and how this heritage permeates all of his dialogues this ends lecture 1

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Length: 38min 31sec (2311 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2016