Plato's Idealism

Idealism, the theory that reality is based on absolute truths (or forms) and not materialism, is one of the oldest systematic philosophies in western culture.

• Its origin dates back to Plato (427-347 B.C.E.), a student of Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.). Under his inspiration for challenging materialist convention, especially of Sophists, Plato developed idealism and greatly influenced the future of public education.
• Moreover, the Greek philosopher Socrates' method of challenging the status quo of Greek citizens was through the dialectic question and answer approach that was done orally and not written down.
• After his (Socrates) execution in Athens for his beliefs, Plato interpreted and most likely added to some of these dialogues. Today, scholars usually refer to the ideas of both philosophers as Platonic philosophy. Since the time of ancient Greece, many philosophers have contributed to the development of idealism. 

Platonic idealism consists of the philosophical, social and educational ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato. Being a disciple of Socrates, he believed in the Socratic dialectic method. This method can be seen in the Republic and the Laws, two of his famous works. After Socrates' death, he opened his own school, the Academy, in which he further developed idealism. The search for truth in all things through Socratic dialogue was the basis for the school.

The first principle and basis for platonic idealism is the concept of absolute truth.

• Plato taught that truth is in all things.
• People should search for truth because it is eternal and perfect.
• He envisioned that since there are universal truths in mathematics (the concept of 2+2=4 was true before being discovered), then there must be the same in other fields such as politics, religion and education.
• Therefore, the search for absolute truth is the quest of the philosopher.

Being against materialism, he wrote about his second principle in the Republic.

• There is a separation between the world of ideas (or forms) and world of matter.
• The idea of the Good was the source of all true knowledge.
• The world of matter was characterized as unstable, constantly changing sensory data that was untrustworthy.
• He taught that people should embrace ideas and reject matter to progress toward the Good. This can be achieved through use of the elenchus
• This is done through open-mindedness and not with a selfish desire to win. It is also requires a firm grasp of subject knowledge and critical focus.

Plato thought the elenchus or dialectic could be used to help people embrace ideas and become less materialistic.

It could help people to use reason to reach universal truths waiting to be discovered in many fields.

He believed it was the "dividing line" between the unpredictable world of the material and the uncharted, abstract world of ideas. 

Concerning his philosophy on education, Plato believed that

• people are born ignorant, living in a cave of shadows and illusions, chained by apathy.
• Those of us who break free and become enlightened have a duty to help the rest.
• The philosophers and educators in Greek society had a duty to raise the self-awareness of its people by helping the ignorant discover knowledge.

The third principle was that Plato believed knowledge wasn't created, but discovered.

• He believed that the human soul is born with true knowledge; however, it is lost when placed in a material body, which corrupts such knowledge (similar to Adam and Eve allegory).
• Consequently, people have a lifetime of work to recall these forgotten truths.
• Socrates illustrated a similar idea concerning undiscovered knowledge in his Doctrine of Reminiscence.

The kind of education Plato wanted was one where his students were encouraged to embrace the concept of the Good and the universal truths that already exist.

He wanted the state to take an active role in education Although he may have been the first to philosophize about art (paintings, sculpture, music, etc.), he felt it should be censored and regulated because it was an imitation of the material world and not reflective of true knowledge.

Plato saw a society where equal opportunity existed on all levels. Girls and boys could develop themselves to the fullest, but those who showed difficulty in abstract thinking should pursue careers that contribute to the practical realities of life, such as industry, business and military affairs. There would be three classes: workers, militia and rulers. Those that demonstrated skill in the dialectic would become philosophers that would lead the state toward attaining the Good.

Forms

For Socrates and for Plato those ideas, forgotten truths are what matter and are what we know. Whenever we call numerous things by one name, it is because the mind confers a specific character on those things. It is that character which we know; it is those characters which people our specifically human world. In Plato's Dialogues such a character is referred to as auto to, eidos, idea, or ousia, indifferently.

Many of the earlier Dialogues share a common pattern. In the course of a casual conversation, mention is made of a virtue, or Socrates may manoeuvre to smuggle in the word: in the Charmides it is temperance or self-control; in the Laches it is courage; in the Euthyphro it is piety. Socrates takes hold of the word and shows himself desirous, by the help of his interlocutor, to understand just what this virtue is in itself.

The question, when it comes, is put simply and directly: "Tell me what you say temperance is. (Charmides, 159a.)" "Let us first try to say what courage is ... Try to tell me, what is courage? (Laches, 190d-e.)" "What do you say the pious is and what the impious? (Euthyphro, 5d.)"

And when the interlocutor fails to understand the true intent of Socrates' question, as they commonly do, and answers by giving instances of the virtue in question, Socrates takes pains to explain that what he is after is not an instance and not an inventory of instances, but the character in itself, the one Form, idea (Euthyphro, 5d).

So he remonstrates with Euthyphro: "Remember then that I did not ask you to show me one or two out of the many instances of piety, but to show me the character itself by which all that is pious is pious. (6d.)"

Thus Socrates makes plain what it is he is after when he raises such a question: he wants to arrive at what gives a thing its character.

"Is it not by justice that the just are just? (Hippias Major 287c.)"

It is that search for an intelligible character distinct from the instances in which it is exemplified and the insistence on the logical and axiological priority of the unique intelligible character over the many existent entities that is the core of Socrates' whole thought and that is his lasting contribution to human thought.

It forms the pivot of Plato's Idealism and is the origin of what was to be known as the theory of Ideas (Forms).

In our speech we use words like good, bad, just, brave, equal, small, large. It is not possible to have language without such counters for general characters. Aristotle tells us we get our general ideas (universals) by abstraction from the things we experience. But what really is abstraction? A thousand trees seen one after the other or one beside the other will remain a thousand disparate impressions or a single conglomerate impression. It is only when the mind creates the character 'tree' and decrees, "I will call that a tree", that trees become trees.

Likewise I see many things small and big. But nothing in itself is small or big. Nothing in my immediate experience is small or big. It is not enough that I see a thousand or a million small things to form the idea small, for nothing of what I see is small until I have named it small; nothing is small or big until I have created the distinctions small and big. This is so for every character, for every name. The mind creates a pattern by virtue of which the given in experience becomes meaningful.

In the Republic Socrates says that we assume a single Form (eidos) whenever there are many particulars to which we apply the same name (596a.). And further on he says that we have on the one hand numerous beautiful things and numerous good things, and on the other hand, a beautiful in itself and a good in itself, each a single Form (idea), a single being, that which is (597b).

Socrates saw clearly that the Forms which make discourse possible are not to be found in the objective world, do not come to us from outside us, but are born in the mind.

The whole of Socrates' life-work makes no sense apart from this, and whether we ascribe the doctrine of anamnesis to Socrates or to Plato, it was a fine mythical expression of the insight that all understanding is a flowering of the soul (mind). The truth at the core of the doctrine of reminiscence is the priority of the intelligible Form for understanding. To say that ideas are creations of the mind is not to say that they are arbitrary fictions: they are significant patterns in which alone the things of the world become meaningful.