Contra Plato I

When people are being introduced to western philosophy, it is the common, if not ubiquitous method, to introduce them first to Plato. One reasons that it is best to begin with the beginning. Since tradition states that western philosophy began with Socrates, we must proceed from that ground which he cultivated. We must hearken back to the origin of western civilization if we are to discover how we have become grounded in the past.

What is a classic but something somehow timeless? There is a small group of undisputed classics in the arts: Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Mozart's Don Giovanni. In philosophy too, there are several works that stand out above the rest: Plato's Republic, Augustine's City of God, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. But is timelessness in the arts the same as timelessness in philosophy?

As long as human beings are human, anything that speaks to the truth of humanity will continue to resonate with the present. When we listen to Hamlet's soliloquy on death, we hear not only his voice, but also the silent outcry of our innermost despair. In just this way, literary and musical classics give voice to the intensely complex truth of the human experience. But do we have any analogous experience in reading the so-called classics of philosophy? If Plato's works are classics, in what way do they speak to the truth of humanity?

Considering Plato's exceptional place in western philosophy, we must ask whether or not it is deserved. Is all of western philosophy really just “a series of footnotes to Plato” (Whitehead)? And if so, how is it that Plato managed to get so much, so right – and so quickly? In the posthumously published book of remarks Culture and Value, Wittgenstein ruminated on this very subject. “I read: 'philosophers are no nearer to the meaning of reality than Plato got...'. What a strange situation. How extraordinary that Plato could have got even as far as he did! Or that we could not get any further! Was it because Plato was so extremely clever?” (p. 15e)

There is a long tradition in western philosophy of universal negation. Progress in philosophy has meant more often than not the denial of one's predecessors' beliefs and the negation of their arguments. If we favor the path the past has taken, we could optimistically call this process “dialectical” in the Hegelian sense. But were we not already predisposed to provide validation for the course of western thought, we might wish to discard the whole lot of it after observing how often it contradicts itself. If we are being objective, we must admit that it might just be prejudice which wishes to preserve and vindicate western philosophy. Indeed, if there is anything timeless in the philosophy of Socrates, it would be his rejection of sophistry and the mindless prattle of rhetoricians concerned more about winning an argument than reaching anything that might be called truth. And while western philosophy began with Socrates, how much more of it follows precisely in the footsteps of the sophists!

So, what disposes us to place Plato especially above the rest? What makes his work so timeless, but that it has been preserved and revered thus far? Are we merely “minding the house”, carrying on with the same tasks that our forebears practiced, trusting that someone along the line had good reason to do as they did? Or is there something in Plato that resonates with us, that presents itself as something quite timeless? If philosophy could speak to the truth of the human condition, does Plato's?