Plato's Thoughts and Ancient Greek Philosophers
Philosophical and Ideological Influences on the Philosophy of Plato
Mar 4, 2009
There have been various influences on the development of Plato's worldview and theory. Plato has borrowed from some of the philosophical currents of his time and by incorporating and disagreeing with some of his contemporary philosophers, he managed to work out a detailed, systematic and consistent philosophy that outlasted most of his predecessors.
Debate about the Nature of Reality between Heraclitus and Parmenides
Plato made a sharp distinction between sense perception and abstract knowledge, exemplified as appearance versus the formal reality of the “world of ideas.” It was a view that had a profound and lasting impact on epistemology, the study of knowledge.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus believed that all nature was in constant change and that reliable truth was only what was perceived by the senses. Heraclitus deduced that the common element of nature was fire. Plato agreed with fire as the main physical element, but when it came to the quest for truth, he did not believe that one could reach the truth through the material senses.
In this case, Plato sided with Parmenides, that truth existed in the realm of Being, which was eternal and always true and such truths could only be perceived through logic and reason. His method for reaching the truth was pure logical thought.
Mathematics of Pythagoras and the Relativity of the Sophists
Like Pythagoras, the key to such knowledge lay in mathematics because it revealed the nature of absolute Truth. By using the geometry of Pythagoras Plato realized that proof can be obtained by logical argument instead of observation and measurement.
The Sophists had also an influence on Plato in terms of how they defined the subjective world of each person. The inner world of each individual was different; however, Plato disagreed with them when it came to applying relativity to truth.
Plato claimed that even though each person may have had their own individual outlook, mostly based on culture, it did not imply that one could exclude the existence of an absolute, general and unchanging truth. This last point was also embodied by Plato’s famous teacher Socrates who believed that there was an absolute and universal moral truth accessible to each individual who uses logic.
As a result, Plato has left a profound legacy in Western philosophy and civilization using some of the influences and currents of his time. Nonetheless, he manages to combine each to create a complete logical system that has had major impacts in epistemology throughout history and has led to the field of cognitive knowledge.
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