WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.679 Welcome back to the Deep Dive, where we take 00:00:01.679 --> 00:00:04.259 a monumental figure, dump their entire body of 00:00:04.259 --> 00:00:07.040 work on the table, and figure out exactly why 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:10.439 they still matter to us right now. Today, we're 00:00:10.439 --> 00:00:13.099 not just diving into a single thinker. We are 00:00:13.099 --> 00:00:16.620 really diving into the foundation of Western 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:19.929 thought itself. We're talking about Plato. It's 00:00:19.929 --> 00:00:21.969 almost impossible to overstate that. I mean, 00:00:21.969 --> 00:00:23.809 when we talk about foundational thinkers, the 00:00:23.809 --> 00:00:25.969 most famous line has to come from the philosopher 00:00:25.969 --> 00:00:28.809 Alfred North Whitehead. He said that the safest 00:00:28.809 --> 00:00:31.250 general characterization of the European philosophical 00:00:31.250 --> 00:00:33.789 tradition is that it consists of a series of 00:00:33.789 --> 00:00:36.689 footnotes to Plato. A series of footnotes. That's 00:00:36.689 --> 00:00:38.210 an extraordinary statement. It suggests that 00:00:38.210 --> 00:00:40.789 what every major philosophical question, every 00:00:40.789 --> 00:00:42.829 school of thought that came after from theology 00:00:42.829 --> 00:00:45.929 to physics is basically just responding to something 00:00:45.929 --> 00:00:49.179 this one guy laid out over 2000 years ago. Precisely. 00:00:49.179 --> 00:00:51.520 And that's our mission today, really, to unpack 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:54.579 that dizzying claim. We've got sources on his 00:00:54.579 --> 00:00:57.079 life, his radical concepts like the theory of 00:00:57.079 --> 00:01:00.799 forms, his vision for the ideal state. And, of 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:03.060 course, the remarkable story of how his complete 00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:06.379 works even survived. We want to get at not just 00:01:06.379 --> 00:01:09.400 what he wrote, but why his ideas became this, 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:11.540 you know, this enduring intellectual blueprint 00:01:11.540 --> 00:01:13.859 for everything that followed. OK, so let's unpack 00:01:13.859 --> 00:01:17.260 this with some context. The man himself, we all 00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:19.159 know him as Plato, but we should start with his 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:23.079 birth name, Aristocles. Best reputation. That 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:25.019 says a lot about his family's ambitions for him, 00:01:25.019 --> 00:01:26.819 doesn't it? It really does. And the name Plato 00:01:26.819 --> 00:01:28.620 itself, as you mentioned, is thought to be a 00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:31.879 nickname. It's often linked to his physical build. 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:34.700 Some sources say it means broad or robust. It's 00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:36.579 pretty amazing that the name of maybe the greatest 00:01:36.579 --> 00:01:38.599 intellectual in history might actually just refer 00:01:38.599 --> 00:01:40.939 to him being, you know, a sturdy guy. I love 00:01:40.939 --> 00:01:42.859 that. So the sources confirm he was born into 00:01:42.859 --> 00:01:46.620 an extremely elite, politically connected Athenian 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:51.120 family somewhere between 428 and 423 BC. And 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:53.640 this wasn't just new money. His lineage was historic. 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:56.219 Through his mother, he was a descendant of Solon, 00:01:56.319 --> 00:01:58.519 the great lawgiver who basically set up a Indian 00:01:58.519 --> 00:02:00.599 democracy. And that background is absolutely 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:02.659 critical to understanding him. He wasn't born 00:02:02.659 --> 00:02:06.569 into this. abstract world of philosophy. He was 00:02:06.569 --> 00:02:09.189 groomed for a life in politics. His family was 00:02:09.189 --> 00:02:11.050 entrenched in the aristocracy. I mean, the sources 00:02:11.050 --> 00:02:14.129 even confirm his brothers, Glaucon and Adimantus, 00:02:14.289 --> 00:02:16.969 were prominent enough that Plato gives them major 00:02:16.969 --> 00:02:19.289 roles in the Republic. So his path was definitely 00:02:19.289 --> 00:02:21.849 not what we'd call academia. Before he was thinking 00:02:21.849 --> 00:02:23.889 about forms and ideal states, he was deep in 00:02:23.889 --> 00:02:26.310 the arts. Ancient biographers all seem to agree 00:02:26.310 --> 00:02:29.270 that poetry was his first love. He wrote dithyrambs, 00:02:29.270 --> 00:02:32.090 lyric poems, even tragedies, a whole tetralogy, 00:02:32.110 --> 00:02:34.530 in fact. But then you get this incredibly dramatic 00:02:34.530 --> 00:02:37.530 turning point. The story goes that when he met 00:02:37.530 --> 00:02:39.990 Socrates, he had this profound realization about, 00:02:40.069 --> 00:02:42.870 well, the inadequacy of art, and he just abandoned 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:45.310 it. He symbolically burned his poems. That break 00:02:45.310 --> 00:02:48.969 is everything. It signals the absolute centrality 00:02:48.969 --> 00:02:51.610 of Socrates' challenge to Plato's entire worldview. 00:02:51.889 --> 00:02:54.629 The pursuit of, you know, fleeting beauty was 00:02:54.629 --> 00:02:57.150 just dropped for the pursuit of eternal truth. 00:02:57.349 --> 00:03:00.610 Okay, so let's... Turn to that part one, the 00:03:00.610 --> 00:03:03.849 crisis and formation of his thought. And that 00:03:03.849 --> 00:03:06.210 has to start with the single most pivotal relationship 00:03:06.210 --> 00:03:09.710 in his life, his devotion to Socrates. Plato 00:03:09.710 --> 00:03:11.430 was one of these devoted young men who would 00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:13.270 just follow Socrates around the marketplace, 00:03:13.490 --> 00:03:15.800 absorbing this unique way of thinking. Well, 00:03:15.819 --> 00:03:17.740 Socrates represents a complete shift in Greek 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:19.560 thought. I mean, before him, you had natural 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:20.979 philosophy. People were trying to figure out 00:03:20.979 --> 00:03:22.740 what the universe was made of. Socrates has changed 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:24.580 the entire agenda. He moved the investigation 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:28.139 from the stars and the elements to ethics and 00:03:28.139 --> 00:03:30.580 politics to the question of how you ought to 00:03:30.580 --> 00:03:33.039 live. And he did that with the Socratic method, 00:03:33.219 --> 00:03:35.159 right? That relentless questioning, that cross 00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:38.560 -examination to expose contradictions and ignorance 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.180 in what people thought they knew. Exactly. And 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:43.939 that method underpins all of Plato's early work. 00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.360 It's why Socrates... Socrates appears in, I mean, 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:48.159 almost every single one of Plato's dialogues, 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:51.680 except for the laws. But this creates one of 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:54.080 the biggest challenges in all of classical scholarship, 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:57.240 the Socratic problem. Right. Because Plato never 00:03:57.240 --> 00:04:00.219 speaks in his own voice. He's always using Socrates 00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:03.939 as his mouthpiece. So the big question is, how 00:04:03.939 --> 00:04:06.719 much of this is the historical Socrates? And 00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:09.500 how much is just Plato using his revered teacher 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:13.400 as, you know, a megaphone for his own? much more 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:15.479 developed ideas. It's a crucial distinction. 00:04:15.659 --> 00:04:17.740 We actually have some help here from Plato's 00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:19.860 own student, Aristotle. He helps us sort of separate 00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:22.439 the two. Aristotle suggests that for Socrates, 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:25.060 these forms or universals were imminent. You 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:26.860 could discover them by looking at the world. 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:29.100 So by looking at a bunch of horses, you could 00:04:29.100 --> 00:04:31.699 figure out the definition of horse. Precisely. 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:35.639 But Plato's forms are transcendent. They exist 00:04:35.639 --> 00:04:37.879 totally independent of the physical world. They're 00:04:37.879 --> 00:04:40.399 not concepts you derive from observation. They 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:43.699 are a separate, unseen reality. That leap from 00:04:43.699 --> 00:04:45.800 universals in the world to universals beyond 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:48.480 the world, that's the mark of Plato. And the 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:50.939 need for that transcendent refuge that escaped 00:04:50.939 --> 00:04:53.620 into eternal truth, it seems like it was forged 00:04:53.620 --> 00:04:56.699 in the fire of Athenian political failure. Plato 00:04:56.699 --> 00:04:58.779 was set up for a life in public service, but 00:04:58.779 --> 00:05:01.589 a series of... Well, traumatic events just completely 00:05:01.589 --> 00:05:03.930 soured him on the whole thing. The first hammer 00:05:03.930 --> 00:05:06.069 blow was Athens losing the Peloponnesian War 00:05:06.069 --> 00:05:10.370 in 404 B .C. That defeat led to this short -lived, 00:05:10.410 --> 00:05:13.550 incredibly brutal oligarchy, the Thirty Tyrants. 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:16.069 And Plato had connections. His own relatives, 00:05:16.250 --> 00:05:18.410 Credius and Charmedes, were leading figures in 00:05:18.410 --> 00:05:20.540 it. He was even invited to join them. And at 00:05:20.540 --> 00:05:23.079 first he was maybe a little hopeful, but he recoiled 00:05:23.079 --> 00:05:25.120 almost immediately. The sources highlight their 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:26.980 atrocities, especially the moment they tried 00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:29.560 to implicate Socrates in the seizure of a man 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:31.680 named Leon of Salamis for summary execution. 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:34.040 They ordered Socrates to help with the arrest, 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:36.879 basically trying to make him complicit. But Socrates 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:39.819 just refused. He went home, risking his own life. 00:05:40.180 --> 00:05:42.639 That act of brutality and the regime's general 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:45.500 lawlessness made Plato see power corrupting his 00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:49.060 own family. He wanted no part of it. So oligarchy 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:51.759 was a failure. But then the restored democracy 00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:54.459 didn't fare much better in his eyes. Only a few 00:05:54.459 --> 00:05:56.899 years later, they brought charges against Socrates 00:05:56.899 --> 00:06:00.800 and they executed him in 399 BC. And that was 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:03.920 the final straw. That execution cemented his 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:06.240 disillusionment. He watched his teacher, who 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:08.939 he called the most just man of his age, be condemned 00:06:08.939 --> 00:06:11.839 by a jury of his fellow citizens. It proved to 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:14.259 Plato that neither the rule of the few nor the 00:06:14.259 --> 00:06:16.220 rule of the many could provide a just foundation 00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:19.149 for life. So he concluded the whole system was 00:06:19.149 --> 00:06:20.629 sick. It wasn't just about who was in charge. 00:06:20.689 --> 00:06:23.189 It was a deeper failure to understand what justice 00:06:23.189 --> 00:06:25.949 and goodness even are. After Socrates' death, 00:06:26.129 --> 00:06:28.689 Plato left Athens. And his travels were crucial 00:06:28.689 --> 00:06:30.889 because he becomes this great intellectual synthesizer. 00:06:30.990 --> 00:06:33.350 He's absorbing these wildly conflicting ideas 00:06:33.350 --> 00:06:36.170 from the pre -Socratics. And he's facing two, 00:06:36.250 --> 00:06:38.769 you know, completely contradictory worldviews. 00:06:38.769 --> 00:06:41.629 On one side, he studies with a follower of Heraclitus. 00:06:41.709 --> 00:06:43.910 And Heraclitus' whole thing was radical change. 00:06:44.189 --> 00:06:47.149 Pantoré, everything flows. The world we see is 00:06:47.149 --> 00:06:49.810 in constant, chaotic flux. You can't step into 00:06:49.810 --> 00:06:52.290 the same river twice. Nothing holds still. And 00:06:52.290 --> 00:06:54.600 then, on the complete opposite side... You have 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:56.759 the tradition of Parmenides who argued that true 00:06:56.759 --> 00:06:59.519 reality is eternal and absolutely unchanging. 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:01.980 Change, motion, all of it. That's just an illusion 00:07:01.980 --> 00:07:05.279 of our flawed senses. True being is one. So how 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:07.360 do you possibly build a philosophy out of that? 00:07:07.459 --> 00:07:10.459 Two mutually exclusive starting points. Plato's 00:07:10.459 --> 00:07:12.899 genius was to say they were both right. but about 00:07:12.899 --> 00:07:16.120 different realms. He proposes two worlds. The 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:18.899 material world we sense, that's the Heraclidean 00:07:18.899 --> 00:07:21.540 realm of constant change, but the unseen world 00:07:21.540 --> 00:07:24.339 we grasp with our reason, that's the Parmenidean 00:07:24.339 --> 00:07:27.500 realm of eternal, unchanging forms. And that's 00:07:27.500 --> 00:07:29.860 how he gets the stability he needs for true knowledge. 00:07:30.100 --> 00:07:32.379 And to give that structure some, well, some teeth, 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:35.420 he was deeply influenced by the Pythagoreans 00:07:35.420 --> 00:07:37.579 during his travels to Italy. He studied with 00:07:37.579 --> 00:07:40.139 mathematicians like Archytas. The Pythagoreans 00:07:40.139 --> 00:07:43.060 gave him the toolkit. The sources point to three 00:07:43.060 --> 00:07:46.279 key impacts. First, the idea that mathematics 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:49.439 and abstract thinking are the only secure basis 00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:52.220 for philosophy. Abstract thought is reliable. 00:07:52.459 --> 00:07:55.740 Our senses are not. And second, this kind of 00:07:55.740 --> 00:07:58.560 mystical idea that the physical world is just 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:00.839 an imitation of an eternal mathematical reality, 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:04.290 the belief that all things are number. Right. 00:08:04.350 --> 00:08:06.209 Think about the number three. You can see three 00:08:06.209 --> 00:08:08.829 chairs, you can see three trees, but the concept 00:08:08.829 --> 00:08:11.730 of threeness itself isn't physical. It's an eternal, 00:08:11.850 --> 00:08:14.769 non -perceptible truth. If you can accept that 00:08:14.769 --> 00:08:17.110 mathematical truths exist independently of the 00:08:17.110 --> 00:08:19.290 things they describe, you're already halfway 00:08:19.290 --> 00:08:21.509 to accepting Plato's forms. That's a great way 00:08:21.509 --> 00:08:24.180 to put it. And the third, major impact. The practical 00:08:24.180 --> 00:08:26.660 model for a philosophical life, the Pythagoreans 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:28.680 had these tightly organized communities of thinkers 00:08:28.680 --> 00:08:31.079 all devoted to intellectual and spiritual improvement. 00:08:31.199 --> 00:08:33.580 That structure directly led to the establishment 00:08:33.580 --> 00:08:35.840 of the institution that would secure his legacy, 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:39.820 the academy. He founded it in Athens around 383 00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:43.139 BC. It wasn't a university in our sense, but 00:08:43.139 --> 00:08:45.340 it was the very first institutionalized philosophical 00:08:45.340 --> 00:08:48.840 school in the Western world. This is where intellectual 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:51.299 heavyweights like Aristotle would show up and 00:08:51.299 --> 00:08:53.779 become his student for 20 years. The intensity 00:08:53.779 --> 00:08:56.840 there was legendary and sometimes it drew a bit 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.480 of ridicule. There's a wonderful fragment from 00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:02.940 a comic writer named Epicrates. He lampooned 00:09:02.940 --> 00:09:05.600 the academy and he has this scene of students 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:08.720 all fiercely debating the proper genus of a pumpkin. 00:09:09.129 --> 00:09:11.809 A pumpkin. That's fantastic. You can just picture 00:09:11.809 --> 00:09:14.230 people laughing at these deadly, serious philosophers 00:09:14.230 --> 00:09:17.429 arguing about the true pumpkin -ness of a gourd. 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.500 It was a perfect piece of satire. It was aimed 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:23.559 at platonic diuresis, or division, this rigorous 00:09:23.559 --> 00:09:25.820 method of dividing a concept into smaller and 00:09:25.820 --> 00:09:27.860 smaller categories to find its perfect form. 00:09:28.539 --> 00:09:30.820 Epicratus was just poking fun at how abstract 00:09:30.820 --> 00:09:32.980 and removed from practical life it all seemed. 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:34.860 Which is funny, because that contrast brings 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:37.299 us right back to politics. Even with the academy 00:09:37.299 --> 00:09:39.779 flourishing, Plato was repeatedly drawn back 00:09:39.779 --> 00:09:42.340 to Sicily, to Syracuse, to try to make his political 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:46.570 ideals a reality. He made three famous and, frankly, 00:09:46.850 --> 00:09:49.950 disastrous trips. The first time, he impressed 00:09:49.950 --> 00:09:51.950 a man named Dion, the brother -in -law of the 00:09:51.950 --> 00:09:55.049 tyrant Dionysius I. But Dionysius himself became 00:09:55.049 --> 00:09:58.309 hostile and basically threw Plato out. But the 00:09:58.309 --> 00:10:01.470 real attempts came later. After Dionysius I died, 00:10:01.809 --> 00:10:04.429 Dion begged Plato to come back and tutor the 00:10:04.429 --> 00:10:07.750 new, young ruler, Dionysius II. The hope was 00:10:07.750 --> 00:10:10.679 to mold him into the ideal ruler. the philosopher 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:13.039 king. This was a real attempt to put the Republic 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.659 into practice. And it was a spectacular failure. 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:18.659 Dionysius II was suspicious of his uncle, Dion, 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:21.000 and eventually expelled him. The whole experiment 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.409 just collapsed. And yet he tried again. a third 00:10:23.409 --> 00:10:25.629 time. He went back to try and mediate and get 00:10:25.629 --> 00:10:28.870 Dion reinstated. This time, Dionysius II basically 00:10:28.870 --> 00:10:31.769 held Plato against his will. It took the intervention 00:10:31.769 --> 00:10:33.929 of his friend Archytas to get him safely back 00:10:33.929 --> 00:10:35.850 to Athens. So you have the greatest political 00:10:35.850 --> 00:10:38.029 philosopher of the age, the man who designed 00:10:38.029 --> 00:10:40.230 the perfect state, trying three separate times 00:10:40.230 --> 00:10:42.529 to implement his vision, and failing dramatically 00:10:42.529 --> 00:10:45.149 every single time. It nearly cost him his life. 00:10:45.269 --> 00:10:47.250 His greatest success, it seems, was always in 00:10:47.250 --> 00:10:49.590 the abstract realm of the academy. Okay, so let's 00:10:49.590 --> 00:10:52.409 pivot from that turbulent life to the ideas that 00:10:52.429 --> 00:10:55.110 define him starting with the big one the theory 00:10:55.110 --> 00:10:58.830 of forms this is his answer to the chaos of the 00:10:58.830 --> 00:11:02.309 material world the forms are plato's way of establishing 00:11:02.309 --> 00:11:05.470 certainty if socrates problem was that everyone 00:11:05.470 --> 00:11:07.590 could give you an example of justice but nobody 00:11:07.590 --> 00:11:10.210 could define justice itself plato's solution 00:11:10.210 --> 00:11:14.289 was to say that universal justice exists just 00:11:14.289 --> 00:11:18.399 not here not in a world of our senses So the 00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:20.700 world we see, the world of chairs and trees and 00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:22.759 people, that's all temporary and unstable. They're 00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:25.460 just imperfect copies. The true reality is the 00:11:25.460 --> 00:11:28.039 forms, the perfect eternal blueprints of tableness, 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:32.480 tree -ness, humanity that exist in some separate... 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:34.659 non -material dimension. And that separation 00:11:34.659 --> 00:11:37.100 is absolutely vital. The forms are unchanging 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:39.200 objects of our reason. They represent types, 00:11:39.419 --> 00:11:42.000 properties like beauty or truth, patterns, relations. 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:43.820 When you talk about beauty, you're not talking 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:45.340 about a beautiful person. You're talking about 00:11:45.340 --> 00:11:47.919 the singular perfect form of beauty that causes 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:50.419 that person to appear beautiful. It sounds almost 00:11:50.419 --> 00:11:53.299 mystical, but it's grounded in logic, isn't it? 00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:55.519 The idea that if two things share a property, 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:58.100 there has to be a single independent thing that 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:00.500 explains that property. Otherwise, you just get 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:03.139 an infinite regress. Exactly. And to make this 00:12:03.139 --> 00:12:06.320 concept truly foundational, Plato puts one form 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:08.740 at the very, very top of the hierarchy, especially 00:12:08.740 --> 00:12:11.340 in the Republic. And that's the form of the good. 00:12:11.539 --> 00:12:15.779 The form of the good is, well, it's baffling. 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:19.500 It exists beyond being. What does that even mean 00:12:19.500 --> 00:12:22.039 in practical terms? He uses the famous analogy 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:25.009 of the sun to explain it. Just as the sun provides 00:12:25.009 --> 00:12:27.269 the light that lets our eyes see objects in the 00:12:27.269 --> 00:12:29.690 physical world, the form of the good provides 00:12:29.690 --> 00:12:32.149 the intellectual illumination that allows our 00:12:32.149 --> 00:12:34.629 reason to apprehend the other forms. The sun 00:12:34.629 --> 00:12:36.909 isn't the things that lights up, but it's the 00:12:36.909 --> 00:12:39.269 cause of their visibility and even their existence. 00:12:39.669 --> 00:12:41.750 So the good is the source of all knowability 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.610 and all reality, but it's not itself a thing 00:12:44.610 --> 00:12:46.929 you can know in the same way, because it's the 00:12:46.929 --> 00:12:49.559 prerequisite for knowing anything at all. That's 00:12:49.559 --> 00:12:52.000 the subtlety. It's the ultimate source of intelligence, 00:12:52.340 --> 00:12:55.259 truth and order. And the goal of the philosopher, 00:12:55.500 --> 00:12:58.240 the goal he failed to achieve in Syracuse, is 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:00.779 to climb this ladder of understanding, moving 00:13:00.779 --> 00:13:03.419 past mere opinion until you finally apprehend 00:13:03.419 --> 00:13:06.220 the good. It's a beautiful system, but it didn't 00:13:06.220 --> 00:13:08.639 go unchallenged. I mean, the obvious question 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:11.419 is how does a physical chair participate in the 00:13:11.419 --> 00:13:14.200 abstract form of tableness? And if forms are 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:17.240 eternal, is there a form for everything? Is there 00:13:17.240 --> 00:13:20.700 a form of mud? a form of hair. That is a problem 00:13:20.700 --> 00:13:23.259 that his own student, Aristotle, famously pressed. 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:25.799 It leads to what's called the third man argument. 00:13:26.139 --> 00:13:28.779 If you need a form of man to explain why all 00:13:28.779 --> 00:13:30.779 men are men, then you also need a third form 00:13:30.779 --> 00:13:33.120 to explain the similarity between a man and the 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:35.980 form of man and so on forever. It's a powerful 00:13:35.980 --> 00:13:38.379 early critique. Which brings us to the second 00:13:38.379 --> 00:13:40.980 pillar of Platonism, as you called it, the doctrine 00:13:40.980 --> 00:13:43.559 of the immortal soul. Right. For Plato, the soul 00:13:43.559 --> 00:13:45.600 is much more than just a life giver. It's the 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:47.740 center of our personality and the seed of all 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:50.580 knowledge. He argues fiercely for its immortality 00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:52.879 with dialogues like the Phaedo ending with these 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:55.100 elaborate proofs and descriptions of the afterlife. 00:13:55.340 --> 00:13:57.639 His key contribution here, though, is giving 00:13:57.639 --> 00:14:00.820 the soul a structure, the famous tripartite soul. 00:14:01.019 --> 00:14:03.490 He divides it into three parts. The highest, 00:14:03.629 --> 00:14:06.490 noblest part is reason, the logisticon, located 00:14:06.490 --> 00:14:09.330 in the head. It's what calculates, seeks wisdom, 00:14:09.429 --> 00:14:11.590 and tries to understand the forms. Its virtue 00:14:11.590 --> 00:14:14.389 is wisdom. Then below that, you have spirit, 00:14:14.549 --> 00:14:17.830 the thymoides, in the chest area. This is ambition, 00:14:18.090 --> 00:14:20.950 honor, anger, the drive to protect. Its virtue 00:14:20.950 --> 00:14:23.990 is courage. And finally, the lowest part is appetite, 00:14:24.250 --> 00:14:26.830 the epithymeticon, located in the gut. This is 00:14:26.830 --> 00:14:29.809 all our base desires, food, drink, sex, money. 00:14:29.990 --> 00:14:33.129 Its virtue is temperance or self -control, and 00:14:33.129 --> 00:14:35.029 a just person is one where this hierarchy is 00:14:35.029 --> 00:14:37.450 in order, reason rules spirit, and both of them 00:14:37.450 --> 00:14:39.909 team up to control the unruly appetites. And 00:14:39.909 --> 00:14:42.370 this idea of the soul leads directly to one of 00:14:42.370 --> 00:14:45.330 his most radical ideas about knowledge, an amnesis 00:14:45.330 --> 00:14:48.049 or recollection. He basically uses reincarnation 00:14:48.049 --> 00:14:49.970 to argue that learning is not about discovering 00:14:49.970 --> 00:14:52.470 new things, but about remembering truths the 00:14:52.470 --> 00:14:54.679 soul already knew before it was born. It's a 00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:57.860 profound claim. It means the most important knowledge 00:14:57.860 --> 00:15:01.019 is innate, pre -existing, gained from a direct 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:03.379 encounter with the forms in some pre -bodily 00:15:03.379 --> 00:15:06.600 state. The physical world just serves as a trigger 00:15:06.600 --> 00:15:08.940 for that memory. And the classic example of this 00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:11.919 is in the Mino. Socrates calls over an uneducated 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:15.179 slave boy who knows no geometry, and he asks 00:15:15.179 --> 00:15:17.710 him to double the area of a square. The boy gets 00:15:17.710 --> 00:15:19.929 it wrong at first, as you'd expect, but then 00:15:19.929 --> 00:15:22.490 Socrates, just by asking questions and drawing 00:15:22.490 --> 00:15:25.429 in the dirt, guides the boy to the correct solution. 00:15:25.769 --> 00:15:28.750 The crucial point being that Socrates never tells 00:15:28.750 --> 00:15:32.330 him the answer. He only elicits it. Plato's conclusion 00:15:32.330 --> 00:15:34.490 is that the boy didn't learn this geometric truth. 00:15:34.690 --> 00:15:37.580 He recollected it. And since that truth is an 00:15:37.580 --> 00:15:40.340 eternal, non -perceptible form, it proves the 00:15:40.340 --> 00:15:42.340 soul must have existed before birth and known 00:15:42.340 --> 00:15:44.379 these things. It's a way to completely bypass 00:15:44.379 --> 00:15:46.980 the messiness of sensory experience and ground 00:15:46.980 --> 00:15:49.399 knowledge in something stable, reliable, and 00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:51.500 eternal. Okay, so this takes us directly into 00:15:51.500 --> 00:15:53.759 his epistemology, his theory of knowledge. And 00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:55.620 he asks us to completely reverse our intuition, 00:15:55.700 --> 00:15:58.159 basically saying, he who sees with his eyes is 00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:01.460 blind. Right. The world of the senses is always 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:04.899 in flux. If everything is changing, any statement 00:16:04.899 --> 00:16:08.419 you make about it can only be temporary. So reality 00:16:08.419 --> 00:16:11.059 is unavailable to those who rely only on sight 00:16:11.059 --> 00:16:13.500 or sound. The best you can get from your senses 00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:16.340 are mere opinions. They lack necessity. They 00:16:16.340 --> 00:16:18.639 lack stability. Whereas true knowledge is gained 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:21.820 from the non -sensible, unchanging forms. And 00:16:21.820 --> 00:16:23.620 this is critical because it gives you foundational 00:16:23.620 --> 00:16:25.960 knowledge. It gives you a rock to build on so 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:28.659 you can avoid that infinite regress of justifications 00:16:28.659 --> 00:16:31.220 we talked about. We often credit Plato with the 00:16:31.220 --> 00:16:33.519 first written definition of knowledge in the 00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:37.860 Theaetetus as justified true belief, JTB. It's 00:16:37.860 --> 00:16:39.799 been the starting point for epistemology for 00:16:39.799 --> 00:16:43.090 2 ,000 years. But what's so fascinating and often 00:16:43.090 --> 00:16:45.769 overlooked is that Plato immediately criticizes 00:16:45.769 --> 00:16:47.789 his own definition in that same dialogue. He 00:16:47.789 --> 00:16:50.169 tears it apart, doesn't he? He does. He suggests 00:16:50.169 --> 00:16:52.509 that for a belief to be truly justified, you'd 00:16:52.509 --> 00:16:54.129 need to know the difference between that thing 00:16:54.129 --> 00:16:56.190 and everything else. But knowledge of difference 00:16:56.190 --> 00:16:58.330 would itself require prior knowledge. So the 00:16:58.330 --> 00:17:00.330 definition becomes circular. You need knowledge 00:17:00.330 --> 00:17:02.570 to get justification, which you need to get knowledge. 00:17:03.009 --> 00:17:06.150 His self -critique is just incredible. The very 00:17:06.150 --> 00:17:08.970 problem he raised became the basis for the Gettier 00:17:08.970 --> 00:17:12.190 problem in 1963. Moving from knowledge to ethics, 00:17:12.410 --> 00:17:15.750 he uses that same rigorous logic to challenge 00:17:15.750 --> 00:17:18.519 conventional morality. The best example has to 00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:21.279 be the euthyphro dilemma. Is the pious loved 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.259 by the gods because it is pious? Or is it pious 00:17:24.259 --> 00:17:26.960 because it is loved by the gods? It's such a 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:29.619 devastating question for any divine command theory 00:17:29.619 --> 00:17:31.980 of morality. If something is good just because 00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:33.920 the gods love it, then morality is completely 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:36.180 arbitrary. The gods could love cruelty, and that 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:38.279 would make it good. But if the gods love it because 00:17:38.279 --> 00:17:40.920 it is good, then the good must exist independently 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:43.140 of them. It's a form that even the gods have 00:17:43.140 --> 00:17:45.680 to recognize. And Plato, following Socrates, 00:17:45.980 --> 00:17:49.220 leans heavily toward that second option. In the 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:51.539 Protagoras, he argues that knowledge is virtue, 00:17:51.740 --> 00:17:55.099 that no one does bad on purpose. Evil is just 00:17:55.099 --> 00:17:58.140 a form of ignorance. If you truly know the good, 00:17:58.339 --> 00:18:01.440 you will do the good. And this all culminates 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:03.319 in the blueprint for his political philosophy 00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:06.480 in the Republic. Justice is achieved when both 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:09.740 the individual and the state are internally harmonious. 00:18:09.859 --> 00:18:13.039 This is the city soul analogy. The state is just 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:16.099 the individual writ large. Three parts of the 00:18:16.099 --> 00:18:19.130 soul, reason, spirit, and appetite. are perfectly 00:18:19.130 --> 00:18:21.630 mirrored in the three classes of his ideal city. 00:18:21.750 --> 00:18:24.390 Exactly. At the very top, corresponding to reason, 00:18:24.589 --> 00:18:26.869 you have the governing class, the rulers, the 00:18:26.869 --> 00:18:28.549 philosopher kings. They have to be rational, 00:18:28.890 --> 00:18:31.450 highly trained, and in love with wisdom because 00:18:31.450 --> 00:18:33.329 their decisions must be based on knowledge of 00:18:33.329 --> 00:18:36.269 the good, not on wealth or power. Then next, 00:18:36.349 --> 00:18:38.089 corresponding to spirit, you have the protective 00:18:38.089 --> 00:18:41.200 class, the guardians. the army. They're strong, 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:43.880 brave, and they protect the state. But they have 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:46.019 to be controlled by the ruler's reason. And finally, 00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:48.180 corresponding to appetite, you have the productive 00:18:48.180 --> 00:18:51.960 class. The laborers, farmers, merchants, the 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:54.440 vast majority of people driven by material desire. 00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:57.140 But they have to accept the authority of the 00:18:57.140 --> 00:18:59.960 higher classes for the city to be just. And justice, 00:19:00.140 --> 00:19:02.720 for the state, is when each class does its own 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:04.779 job and doesn't meddle in the business of the 00:19:04.779 --> 00:19:07.779 others. The philosopher kings rule because they've 00:19:07.779 --> 00:19:10.180 achieved self -mastery, and so they're fit to 00:19:10.180 --> 00:19:12.700 govern the state in the same way. And of course, 00:19:12.700 --> 00:19:15.019 we should remember the tragic counterpoint. His 00:19:15.019 --> 00:19:17.720 miserable failures in Syracuse, trying to make 00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:19.759 a real -life philosopher king out of Dionysius 00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:23.019 II, the theory proved, let's just say, practically 00:19:23.019 --> 00:19:25.400 impossible. The sources also show this really 00:19:25.400 --> 00:19:28.359 stark, almost deterministic view he had about 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:31.759 how states fail. Socrates lays out this rigid 00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.240 progression of decline. It starts with the ideal, 00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:37.720 aristocracy, rule by the best. But even that 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:40.279 can't last. It declines into timocracy, rule 00:19:40.279 --> 00:19:43.359 based on honor and ambition. Reason loses control 00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:45.799 to spirit. And that obsession with glory and 00:19:45.799 --> 00:19:48.500 material validation eventually slides into oligarchy, 00:19:48.619 --> 00:19:51.269 rule by the wealthy few. The appetitive part 00:19:51.269 --> 00:19:53.710 of the soul takes over, specifically the desire 00:19:53.710 --> 00:19:56.569 for money. The state is literally split between 00:19:56.569 --> 00:19:59.049 the rich and the poor. Which is so unstable that 00:19:59.049 --> 00:20:02.049 it leads to democracy, rule by the people, which 00:20:02.049 --> 00:20:04.710 Plato sees as being characterized by this excessive 00:20:04.710 --> 00:20:07.230 uncontrolled freedom. But to him it's anarchy. 00:20:07.410 --> 00:20:09.690 The people reject all authority and the state 00:20:09.690 --> 00:20:13.049 becomes chaotic. And that chaos, he argues, creates 00:20:13.049 --> 00:20:16.400 a vacuum that allows for the final... worst regime 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:19.660 to take hold. Tyranny. One man sees his power 00:20:19.660 --> 00:20:22.240 to restore order, but he's driven by the most 00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:25.059 lawless appetites and rules only by force and 00:20:25.059 --> 00:20:27.579 fear. It's a deeply pessimistic view of history, 00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:30.619 a one -way slide from wisdom down to pure force. 00:20:30.859 --> 00:20:32.500 Before we move on from the philosophy, we have 00:20:32.500 --> 00:20:34.460 to touch on his complicated relationship with 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:37.900 communication itself. Rhetoric, poetry, myth. 00:20:38.140 --> 00:20:40.680 He seems to both condemn and use them. He really 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:43.359 does. In the Gorgias, he rails against rhetoric. 00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:46.559 He sees it as just a form of flattery aimed at 00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:48.900 what feels good rather than what's true. But 00:20:48.900 --> 00:20:51.039 then in the Phaedrus, he's more ambivalent, suggesting 00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:53.460 a true philosopher could use a kind of higher 00:20:53.460 --> 00:20:56.039 rhetoric based on knowledge of the forms. It's 00:20:56.039 --> 00:20:58.900 so complex. The paradox is even clearer with 00:20:58.900 --> 00:21:02.140 poetry. Socrates says poetry is inspired by the 00:21:02.140 --> 00:21:05.539 muses, that it's a form of divine madness. And 00:21:05.539 --> 00:21:08.480 in the Phaedrus, Plato seems to approve of this 00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:11.230 divine madness. But then in the Republic... The 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:13.690 same guy wants to ban the great poetry of Homer. 00:21:13.930 --> 00:21:16.910 He even wants to ban laughter because he's afraid 00:21:16.910 --> 00:21:19.269 these powerful emotions will corrupt the rational 00:21:19.269 --> 00:21:21.269 souls of his guardians. The key, though, is the 00:21:21.269 --> 00:21:24.430 didactic purpose. He was deeply suspicious of 00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:26.950 anything that bypassed our reason, but he also 00:21:26.950 --> 00:21:29.390 understood the power of storytelling. Which is 00:21:29.390 --> 00:21:31.750 why he used his own myth so much. The story of 00:21:31.750 --> 00:21:34.089 Atlantis, the myth of Ur about the afterlife, 00:21:34.190 --> 00:21:36.569 and, of course, the allegory of the cave. Exactly. 00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:39.940 Those myths were a bridge. He knew only a few 00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:41.680 people could follow the rigorous philosophical 00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:45.259 arguments. For everyone else, stories and tales 00:21:45.259 --> 00:21:47.480 were the way to convey these huge philosophical 00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:51.000 conclusions about reality and our destiny. Okay, 00:21:51.059 --> 00:21:53.380 so that brings us to the final part. Yeah. The 00:21:53.380 --> 00:21:55.839 endurance of his works and his legacy. We've 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:57.720 covered the written texts, but we should acknowledge 00:21:57.720 --> 00:21:59.759 something that was deliberately kept out of them. 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:03.009 The unwritten doctrines. This is a really fascinating 00:22:03.009 --> 00:22:06.289 area. Ancient sources, especially from within 00:22:06.289 --> 00:22:08.829 the academy, strongly suggest that Plato had 00:22:08.829 --> 00:22:11.109 these fundamental metaphysical teachings that 00:22:11.109 --> 00:22:13.990 he only disclosed orally, probably just to his 00:22:13.990 --> 00:22:16.470 most trusted fellows. We know about a famous 00:22:16.470 --> 00:22:19.069 lecture on the good where he is believed to have 00:22:19.069 --> 00:22:22.769 identified the supreme form of the good with 00:22:22.769 --> 00:22:25.569 the one with unity itself as the fundamental 00:22:25.569 --> 00:22:28.190 principle of all reality. And that oral tradition 00:22:28.190 --> 00:22:31.400 is a crucial legacy connection. Centuries later, 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:33.940 it provides the basis for the Neoplatonism of 00:22:33.940 --> 00:22:36.799 Plotinus. Plotinus built his whole system on 00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:39.299 this idea of emanation from the one, showing 00:22:39.299 --> 00:22:42.500 this direct, continuous path from Plato's esoteric 00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:44.640 teachings. Now we have to address the miracle 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:47.400 of his legacy. the survival of his works. Unlike 00:22:47.400 --> 00:22:49.539 almost all of his contemporaries, Plato's complete 00:22:49.539 --> 00:22:51.519 body of work is believed to have survived for 00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:54.180 over 2 ,400 years. It's genuinely extraordinary 00:22:54.180 --> 00:22:56.819 to have the entire philosophical output of a 00:22:56.819 --> 00:22:59.619 major thinker from the fourth century BC is just. 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:02.279 It's a gift. And we read them today in an arrangement 00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:04.740 set up in the first century AD by Thrasyllus 00:23:04.740 --> 00:23:08.099 of Mendes. And the style, as we said, is so unique. 00:23:08.579 --> 00:23:11.799 Plato never speaks in his own voice. Some dialogues 00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:14.579 are purely dramatic. Others have these complex 00:23:14.579 --> 00:23:17.440 nested narrative structures. Scholars group them 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:20.220 chronologically by style, though the exact order 00:23:20.220 --> 00:23:22.559 is always debated. You have the early dialogues, 00:23:22.839 --> 00:23:26.039 which are very Socratic, often ending in aporia 00:23:26.039 --> 00:23:28.920 and doubt or confusion. They ask what justice 00:23:28.920 --> 00:23:31.700 is, but don't give a final answer. Then you get 00:23:31.700 --> 00:23:33.839 the middle dialogues, the philosophical powerhouses 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:36.640 like the Republic and the Symposium. This is 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:39.000 where he lays out the full theory of forms and 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:42.109 the tripartite soul. And finally, the late dialogues, 00:23:42.349 --> 00:23:45.109 like the laws and the Timaeus. They're difficult, 00:23:45.329 --> 00:23:47.690 they're dense, highly technical. They feel like 00:23:47.690 --> 00:23:50.349 his final, complex statement to his most dedicated 00:23:50.349 --> 00:23:52.650 students. And it's worth noting that his longest 00:23:52.650 --> 00:23:54.769 work, The Laws, was unfinished when he died. 00:23:54.930 --> 00:23:57.089 It had to be edited by his student, who also 00:23:57.089 --> 00:23:59.329 wrote an appendix to it. Despite the staggering 00:23:59.329 --> 00:24:01.950 scope of his work, his influence did wane for 00:24:01.950 --> 00:24:03.849 a bit in the West during the Middle Ages. He 00:24:03.849 --> 00:24:06.509 was eclipsed by his student, Aristotle. For the 00:24:06.509 --> 00:24:09.089 scholastics, Aristotle was simply... the philosopher. 00:24:09.450 --> 00:24:12.349 Only the Timaeus was widely known in Latin. But 00:24:12.349 --> 00:24:15.289 the flame was kept alive. Study continued in 00:24:15.289 --> 00:24:17.950 the Byzantine Empire and, crucially, during the 00:24:17.950 --> 00:24:21.190 Islamic Golden Age. Neoplatonism became hugely 00:24:21.190 --> 00:24:23.970 important in Islamic philosophy. Thinkers like 00:24:23.970 --> 00:24:26.670 Al -Farabi and Avicenna used it to bridge the 00:24:26.670 --> 00:24:29.670 gap between a transcendent god and the tangible 00:24:29.670 --> 00:24:33.210 world. Al -Farabi even proposed his own ideal 00:24:33.210 --> 00:24:35.940 city based on the Republic. So Plato's political 00:24:35.940 --> 00:24:38.240 theory was being preserved and adapted thousands 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:41.019 of miles from Athens. And then it just explodes 00:24:41.019 --> 00:24:43.019 back into Western Europe during the Renaissance. 00:24:43.319 --> 00:24:46.440 When Byzantine scholars fled to Italy with Plato's 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:49.359 original Greek writings, it sparked an intellectual 00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:51.720 revolution. Suddenly, Renaissance scientists 00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:53.859 and artists had a philosophy based on eternal, 00:24:54.180 --> 00:24:57.160 unchanging mathematical truths. It was a powerful 00:24:57.160 --> 00:24:59.579 alternative to the Aristotelianism that had dominated 00:24:59.579 --> 00:25:01.920 for centuries. And his framework continues to 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.380 define modern debates. Albert Einstein said, 00:25:04.519 --> 00:25:06.940 Scientists have to be Platonists or Pythagoreans, 00:25:06.980 --> 00:25:09.980 valuing logical simplicity over just raw data. 00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:14.339 And in philosophy, he still sets the rules. Gottlob 00:25:14.339 --> 00:25:17.660 Frege's work in logic was inspired by him. And 00:25:17.660 --> 00:25:19.880 as we said, when Edmund Gettier challenged the 00:25:19.880 --> 00:25:22.960 definition of knowledge in 1963, he adapted examples 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:25.319 straight out of Plato's Theaetetus. So whether 00:25:25.319 --> 00:25:28.200 you're building logical systems, designing experiments, 00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.240 or just asking what it means to know something, 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:32.819 you are, in fact, still working in the house 00:25:32.819 --> 00:25:35.740 that Plato built. Whitehead's claim really does 00:25:35.740 --> 00:25:37.839 stand firm. There's a tremendous amount of ground. 00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:42.059 So to briefly summarize, we tracked Plato from 00:25:42.059 --> 00:25:44.680 his political failures, which pushed him to find 00:25:44.680 --> 00:25:47.920 stability in the eternal realm of the forms with 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:49.980 the form of the good at the top. We detailed 00:25:49.980 --> 00:25:52.220 his revolutionary psychology, the tripartite 00:25:52.220 --> 00:25:54.960 soul, and how it mirrored his ideal state. We 00:25:54.960 --> 00:25:57.140 saw the doctrine of an amanus recollection grounds 00:25:57.140 --> 00:25:59.960 truth in the soul's prior existence. And finally, 00:25:59.960 --> 00:26:02.039 we track the improbable survival of his works, 00:26:02.180 --> 00:26:04.859 preserved by Byzantine and Islamic scholars before 00:26:04.859 --> 00:26:06.700 powering the Renaissance and still setting the 00:26:06.700 --> 00:26:09.200 agenda for modern philosophy. But as we close 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:10.980 this out, let's go back to the end of his life 00:26:10.980 --> 00:26:13.460 and leave you with a final thought, a thought 00:26:13.460 --> 00:26:15.559 about the tension between his philosophy and 00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:18.500 his actual practice. Plato's core philosophy 00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:22.259 is crystal clear. The eternal non -material forms 00:26:22.259 --> 00:26:25.079 are all that really matter. The physical world 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:28.359 is just a shadow, a copy, an illusion. And yet 00:26:28.359 --> 00:26:30.960 our sources reveal some fascinating details about 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:33.700 his will. The documents confirm that his will 00:26:33.700 --> 00:26:35.680 details his estate, his material possessions, 00:26:36.059 --> 00:26:38.599 but it doesn't mention the academy. And scholars 00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:40.299 think this means he'd already made separate, 00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:42.839 careful, substantial provisions for its continued 00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:45.539 existence, probably an endowment or a trust. 00:26:45.819 --> 00:26:48.099 So we have the philosopher who dedicated his 00:26:48.099 --> 00:26:50.220 life to teaching the power of the non -material, 00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.160 spending his final years ensuring the meticulous 00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:55.839 long -term survival of a very tangible physical 00:26:55.839 --> 00:26:58.960 institution, a grove, some buildings, a school. 00:26:59.420 --> 00:27:02.259 What does that deep foresight, that careful institutional 00:27:02.259 --> 00:27:04.480 planning for the physical continuation of the 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:07.059 academy, tell us about the practical application 00:27:07.059 --> 00:27:09.759 of his philosophy? Was this just a pragmatic 00:27:09.759 --> 00:27:12.890 compromise? Or does it suggest that even Plato, 00:27:13.009 --> 00:27:15.450 at the end, recognized the indispensable role 00:27:15.450 --> 00:27:17.990 that material institutions play in safeguarding 00:27:17.990 --> 00:27:20.470 transcendent truths? What stands out to you about 00:27:20.470 --> 00:27:22.690 this contrast between the philosopher, the eternal, 00:27:22.930 --> 00:27:24.930 and the founder of the institutional? Something 00:27:24.930 --> 00:27:26.950 to think about is you realize you were still 00:27:26.950 --> 00:27:29.269 walking the path he paved 2 ,400 years ago.