Author: Guo Binhe/Zhang Zhuming
Selected from: "Utopia"
Plato (427 BC-347 BC) is a great philosophy of ancient Greece He was a student of Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC) and a teacher of Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC).
He lived most of his life in Athens, the national cultural center of ancient Greece.
He loves his motherland and philosophy. His highest ideal is that philosophers should be politicians and politicians should be philosophers. Philosophers are not bookworms hiding in ivory towers. They should apply what they have learned and put it into practice. People with a philosophical mind must have political power, and people with political power must have a philosophical mind.
Plato was born in the period when the city-state of Athens was in decline. At that time, epidemics were prevalent. After the great statesman Pericles died of the disease, he was left without a leader. The Peloponnesian War broke out, and crises were everywhere. . Plato came from a distinguished family, and his social relations and even class feelings were obviously on the slave-owning aristocracy. There is this confession in Plato's Seventh Letter: "When I was young, I always thought that once I could work independently, I would join the political world. Then the political situation suddenly changed, which affected my plan. At that time, the democratic regime was hated by ordinary people, and the revolution occurred. There are fifty-one people leading this revolution, eleven of them in the city and ten in the port of Piraeus. These two committees manage the market and administration of the two districts. There is also a Supreme Committee of thirty. , some members of the Supreme Council were my relatives and old friends; they invited me to participate, thinking that they would definitely get my sponsorship. I was young and naive at the time, and always thought that the new regime would replace injustice with justice. I paid great attention to what they said first. What happened next? Every move of these gentlemen suddenly turned the democratic regime they destroyed into something like the golden age! They actually ordered my mentor and friend Socrates to illegally arrest their political opponents. Socrates sternly refused and would rather die than surrender. "
"When I saw these and other things, I was heartily disgusted and determined to fight against this. The shameful regime was completely out of touch. The Committee of Thirty lost its popularity and was driven out of office. After a period of time, I returned to my old ways and eagerly, albeit quietly, wanted to participate in political activities.
The situation in Athens was chaotic, with private individuals retaliating against each other and fighting everywhere. Generally speaking, the resurgent democratic regime was relatively mild; but some powerful villains falsely accused Socrates of blasphemy, and the jury actually sentenced him to death... Later. As I get older, I know that to make a difference in politics, you must first have friends and an organization. It is very difficult to find such people among politicians, because they have no principles and no traditional systems and disciplines in their work. We need to find new ones. It is simply difficult for talents to reach the sky. Moreover, many old laws and regulations have been lost in Athens. At first, I was very ambitious about politics, but after repeated consideration, I looked around in confusion and was at a loss. , Only by speaking loudly and advocating true philosophy can philosophers gain political power and become politicians, or politicians miraculously become philosophers, otherwise human disasters will always be inevitable. "
From above. From the quotation, we can see that Plato was saddened by the degeneration of the Athenian aristocracy into an oligarchy, which caused him to wake up and reconsider his political stance. Plato was born into an aristocracy. He believed that farmers, workers, and businessmen were the producers and promoters of material wealth. It was impossible and unnecessary for them to take on many administrative matters. Political activities are the exclusive responsibility of the leadership and an unshirkable moral responsibility of the leadership. The political structure and system of division of labor and cooperation between leaders and the masses should be like this: the leadership does its best to govern and defend the country. They are supported by the workers, peasants and merchants, and come back to provide education, public security and national defense for the workers, peasants and merchants. In fact, it is difficult for an aristocracy that has lost its credibility to succeed in Athens, but this does not prove that aristocracy is unreasonable and unworkable. In Plato's view, the country should cultivate the next generation of young people. He himself decided to study mathematics, astronomy and pure philosophy, and argued back and forth with Socrates, his teacher and friend, that in order to establish others, he must first seek to establish himself.
In 339 BC, when the Athenian democrats came to power, Socrates was accused of spreading heresies and poisoning young people. The court sentenced him to death. Socrates calmly answered his plea and died. Plato was heartbroken when he witnessed it, and he could not forget it in his dreams and dreams throughout his life.
Plato took it upon himself to inherit Socrates' great cause and wrote twenty-five dialogues.
"Utopia" was written in the prime of life and had a profound influence. Except for the latest "Laws", the other twenty-four chapters all have Socrates as the main interlocutor. Another six dialogues have been verified by later generations to be forgeries.
The seventh and eighth letters of Plato are generally reliable.
The first and twelfth chapters cannot be fully believed. There are different opinions on the rest of the letters, and there is no conclusion yet. Socrates never spoke a word in his life, while Plato is a philosopher whose numerous works have been handed down in the history of Western philosophy.
Shortly after the death of Socrates, Plato left Athens and traveled around the Mediterranean, including the Ionia area along the coast of Asia Minor and several Greek colonial city-states in southern Italy. He visited the Pythagoras disciples school of thought.
Possibly traveled to North Africa, Egypt, Sicily, and elsewhere. He had a bad impression of Dionysus, the overlord of the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. He felt that he was an immoral, dissolute and fun-loving person who could not be wise and could not govern the country and the people.
But Plato met the overlord’s son-in-law Dean here, and he hit it off and was very happy.
In Plato’s view, Dean was fond of philosophy and a practical person; after Socrates, Dean was the one who had the greatest influence on Plato.
Plato returned to Athens at the age of forty. In that year (387 BC), Athens signed the humiliating Peace of Antersida, ceding all of Asia Minor to Persia. Athens and Sparta continued to be at odds with each other and could not be unified. The entire Greek world was in decline and dying. Plato made up his mind to found a school outside Athens. At that time, famous scholars came to visit and asked questions. It not only became the highest institution of learning in Athens, but also became the academic center of all Greece. Many students are children of aristocratic families in Greek city-states, children of aristocratic families!
Plato gave up politics, lectured and wrote books, and worked tirelessly for twenty years. In 367 BC, when Plato was nearly sixty years old, the overlord Dionysus passed away, and his son Dionysus II succeeded to the throne. Dean was the regent and invited Plato to return to the ancient city of Syracuse and serve as the second division. The first stage of Plato's political career was a period of disillusionment in his ambitions. In the second stage, he was troubled and thoughtful, and over time he became stronger. He believed that philosophers can indeed be politicians and can govern the world. His representative work "Utopia" is not only a manifesto of philosophers, but also an outline of a country's governance plan written by a philosopher-statesman. In the third stage, Plato is getting old. Things backfired, and he had no choice but to abandon justice and think about punishment and reward, abandon morality and talk about the rule of law, so he wrote "Law Chapter". As he gets older, he pursues reality more and more, and his painstaking efforts and achievements can only be seen after thousands of years!
The dialogues in Plato's "The Republic" are must-read books for Western intellectual circles. A different opinion depends on the person. If his reputation is destroyed, everyone will seek peace. The key is to read carefully. After careful thinking and discernment, you will have insights and let a hundred schools of thought contend. Otherwise, it will be taken out of context and the talk will be meaningless.
The book "Utopia" has shocked the past and the present. The book discusses the issues of eugenics, birth control, family disintegration, freedom of marriage, celibacy, dictatorship, dictatorship, and *** Industrial issues, democratic issues, religious issues, moral issues, literary and artistic issues, educational issues (including nurseries, kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, university graduate schools, and vocational education in industry, agriculture, navigation, medicine, etc.) plus equal rights for men and women, and political participation of men and women. , men and women joining the army and other issues. Plato's knowledge can be called comprehensive; Aristotle's knowledge can be called disciplinary. Aristotle's works are roughly divided into nine categories: ① Logic, ② Physics, ③ Psychology, ④ Biology, ⑤ Metaphysics, ⑥ Ethics, ⑦ Politics, ⑧ Rhetoric, and ⑨ Poetics. The fundamental purpose of ancient Greek academic culture was the pursuit of knowledge. The original meaning of the Greek word philosophy (φ?ABσBφC′α) was knowledge, and the original meaning of the word science (D'πισEF′μη) was knowledge. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, philosophy and science were all And two, two become one, there is no difference at first. The word science used in modern times comes from Latin; the word knowledge comes from Old English; the original meaning is knowledge. Knowledge represents truth. Aristotle has a famous saying, "I love my teacher, and I especially love the truth" (Amicus Plato, sedmagisveritas). The so-called knowledge of the ancient Greeks represents the whole truth, not just part of it. Plato inherited the past and opened up the future. He studied heaven and man. His roots are deep and his leaves are luxuriant. Mountains are high and rivers are long. How can he succeed or fail based on his learning? We need to do research.
This book was originally translated by Wu Xianshu, which has been sold for a long time and has always been praised by scholars. However, the language is very ancient and is not popular among young readers. I will not guess that it is not correct, so another translation may be available. Check reference. The translation is based on the original Greek text of the Loeb Classical Series and the original Greek text of the Oxford edition of Jowett & Campbell, and also refers to seven old and new English translations such as Jowett, Davies and Vaughan, Lindsay, Shorey, Cornford, Lee, and Rouse, hoping to translate not only the content of the original book , and translated the charm of the original book. Inaccuracies or mistakes are inevitable and we are fortunate to correct them.