Plato and the formation of the philosophical system of objective idealism. Plato’s teaching “about eidos”, epistemology, doctrine of the soul

The main part of Plato's philosophy, which gave the name to the whole direction of philosophy, is the doctrine of ideas (eidos), the existence of two worlds: the world of ideas (eidos) and the world of things, or forms. Ideas (eidos) are prototypes of things, their sources. Ideas (eidos) underlie the entire set of things formed from formless matter. Ideas are the source of everything, but matter itself cannot give rise to anything.

The world of ideas (eidos) exists outside of time and space. In this world there is a certain hierarchy, at the top of which stands the idea of ​​​​the Good, from which all others flow. Good is identical to absolute Beauty, but at the same time it is the Beginning of all beginnings and the Creator of the Universe. In the myth of the cave, the Good is depicted as the Sun, ideas are symbolized by those creatures and objects that pass in front of the cave, and the cave itself is an image of the material world with its illusions.

The idea (eidos) of any thing or being is the deepest, most intimate and essential thing in it. In man, the role of idea is performed by his immortal soul. Ideas (eidos) have the qualities of constancy, unity and purity, and things have the qualities of variability, multiplicity and distortion.

The human soul is represented by Plato in the form of a chariot with a rider and two horses, white and black. The driver symbolizes the rational principle in man, and the horses: white - noble, top quality souls, black - passions, desires and instinctive principles. When a person is in another world, he (the charioteer) gets the opportunity to contemplate eternal truths together with the gods. When a person is born again into the material world, the knowledge of these truths remains in his soul as a memory. Therefore, according to Plato’s philosophy, the only way for a person to know is to remember, to find “glimmers” of ideas in the things of the sensory world. When a person manages to see traces of ideas - through beauty, love or just deeds - then, according to Plato, the wings of the soul, once lost by it, begin to grow again.

Hence the importance of Plato’s teaching about Beauty, about the need to look for it in nature, people, art or beautifully constructed laws, because when the soul gradually rises from the contemplation of physical beauty to the beauty of the sciences and arts, then to the beauty of morals and customs, it best way for the soul to climb the “golden ladder” to the world of ideas.

The second force, no less transformative of a person and capable of raising him to the world of the gods, is Love. In general, the philosopher himself resembles Eros: he also strives to achieve good, he is neither wise nor ignorant, but is an intermediary between one and the other, he does not possess beauty and good and that is why he strives for them.

Both philosophy and love make it possible to give birth to something beautiful: from the creation of beautiful things to beautiful laws and fair ideas.

Plato teaches that we can all come out of the “cave” into the light of ideas, since the ability to see the light of the spiritual Sun (that is, to contemplate truth and think) is in everyone, but, unfortunately, we are looking in the wrong direction.

In the Republic, Plato also gives us a teaching about the main parts of the human soul, each of which has its own virtues: the rational part of the soul has wisdom as a virtue, the concupiscible principle (the passionate principle of the soul) has moderation and temperance, and the fierce spirit (which can be ally of both the first and the second) - courage and the ability to obey reason. Taken together, these virtues constitute justice.

Plato draws parallels between parts of the soul and types of people in the state and calls justice in the state when each person is in his place and does what he is most capable of.

In the Republic, Plato devotes a special place to guards (warriors) and their education, which should combine two parts: musical and gymnastic. Gymnastic education allows one to subordinate passions to reason and develop the quality of will. And the musical allows you to soften the furious spirit and subordinate it to the laws of rhythm and harmony.

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Essay

Plato's teaching about eidos as the limit of the formation of a thing

Introduction

The essence of Plato's doctrine of “eidos” comes down to the concept of the embodiment of a perfect idea in a form that can only endlessly strive for perfection, but cannot achieve it.

Emydos (ancient Greek e?dpt - appearance, appearance, image), a term of ancient philosophy and literature, originally meaning “visible”, “what is visible”, but gradually received more deep meaning- “concrete manifestation of the abstract”, “material reality in thinking”; in a general sense, a way of organizing and/or being an object.

Every thought, every knowledge, every idea exists in some self-existent space and is comprehended by the mind, consciousness by the same analogy by which the world comprehended by the senses. Plato put forward the assumption of the existence of an eternal, original idea (idea of ​​ideas), which is good in its most idealistic understanding. All possible ideas and all knowledge exist initially. The soul only “remembers” what was originally stored in it. All the knowledge that the soul carried within itself in the perfect world of ideas, when incarnated on earth, is lost or, more precisely, forgotten.

1. Plato's teaching on the “idea”

Spirkin A.G. describes Plato as a great thinker who permeates the entire world philosophical culture with his finest spiritual threads.

Plato says: “The world is not just a physical cosmos, and individual objects and phenomena: in it the general is combined with the individual, and the cosmic with the human.” Space is a kind of piece of art. He is beautiful, he is the integrity of individuals. The cosmos lives, breathes, pulsates, filled with various potentialities, and it is controlled by forces that form general patterns. The cosmos is full of divine meaning, representing the unity of ideas, eternal, incorruptible and abiding in their radiant beauty. According to Plato, the world is dual in nature: it differs visible world changeable objects and the invisible world of ideas. The world of ideas represents true existence, and concrete, sensory things are something between being and non-being: they are only shadows of things, their weak copies.

Idea is a central category in Plato's philosophy. The idea of ​​a thing is something ideal. So, for example, we drink water, but we cannot drink the idea of ​​water or eat the idea of ​​sky, paying in stores with the ideas of money: an idea is the meaning, the essence of a thing.

Plato's ideas summarize all cosmic life: they have regulatory energy and govern the Universe. They are characterized by regulatory and formative power; they are eternal patterns, paradigms (from the Greek jaradigma - sample), according to which the whole multitude of real things is organized from formless and fluid matter. Plato interpreted ideas as certain divine essences. They were thought of as target causes, charged with the energy of aspiration, and there were relations of coordination and subordination between them. Supreme idea- this is the idea of ​​absolute good - it is a kind of “Sun in the kingdom of ideas”, the world’s Reason, it deserves the name of Reason and Divinity. Plato proves the existence of God by the feeling of our affinity with his nature, which, as it were, “vibrates” in our souls. An essential component of Plato's worldview is belief in gods. Plato considered her the most important condition sustainability of the social world order. According to Plato, the spread of “ungodly views” has a detrimental effect on citizens, especially young people, is a source of unrest and arbitrariness, and leads to the violation of legal and moral norms.

Interpreting the idea of ​​the soul, Plato says: the soul of a person before his birth resides in the realm of pure thought and beauty. Then she ends up on the sinful earth, where she temporarily resides in a human body, like a prisoner in a dungeon. Having been born, she already knows everything. what you need to know. She chooses her lot; she already seems destined for her own fate, destiny. Thus. The soul, according to Plato, is an immortal essence; there are three parts in it: rational, turned to ideas; ardent, affective-volitional; sensual, driven by passions, or lustful. The rational part of the soul is the basis of virtue and wisdom, the ardent part of courage; overcoming sensuality is the virtue of prudence. As for the Cosmos as a whole, the source of harmony is the world mind, a force capable of adequately thinking about itself, being at the same time an active principle, the helmsman of the soul, governing the body, which in itself is deprived of the ability to move. In the process of thinking, the soul is active, internally contradictory, dialogical and reflexive.

According to Plato, the highest good (the idea of ​​good, and it is above all) resides outside the world. Consequently, the highest goal of morality is located in the supersensible world. After all, the soul received its beginning not in the earthly, but in high world. And clothed in earthly flesh, she acquires a multitude of all kinds of evils and suffering. According to Plato, the sensory world is imperfect - it is full of disorder. Man’s task is to rise above him and with all the strength of his soul strive to become like God, who does not come into contact with anything evil; is to free the soul from everything corporeal, concentrate it on itself, on the inner world of speculation and deal only with the true and eternal.

2 . Dialogue with HippiasAndAndthe idea of ​​"beautiful"»

An extremely clear discussion of the issue of ideas is contained in the dialogue “Hippias the Greater” - the example may be quite hackneyed, but I have not found a better one. Socrates asks the sophist Hippias a question: is it not true that everything that is just is due to justice, everything that is good is due to the good, and everything that is beautiful is so due to the beautiful? .

The conversation between Socrates and Hippias begins with the question of the essence of beauty as “eidos”:

S: What is beautiful in your being?

G: This is a beautiful girl.

S: This special case. But there is something unconditionally beautiful, which gives individual things the property of being beautiful.

G goes through several more definitions (beautiful is useful, suitable, etc.).

S: No, but all these phenomena are determined by their true essence - “idea”.

Thus, beauty is considered here from the point of view of essence (oysia) or idea (eidos). Beauty is the meaning (logos) of essence. All of Plato's main terms appear here for the first time.

From what has been said it follows: The beautiful is not a separate object, but it is the inclusion of the ideal “eidos” that makes it such.

In Plato’s aesthetics, beauty is understood as the absolute interpenetration of body, soul and mind, the fusion of idea and matter, rationality and pleasure, and the principle of this fusion is measure. In Plato, knowledge is not separated from love, and love is not separated from beauty (“Symposium”, “Phaedrus”). Everything beautiful, that is, visible and audible, externally or bodily, it is enlivened by its inner life and contains one meaning or another. Such beauty turned out to be the ruler and, in general, the source of life for all living things in Plato.

The beauty of life and real existence for Plato is higher than the beauty of art. Being and life is an imitation of eternal ideas, and art is an imitation of being and life, i.e. imitation imitation. Therefore, Plato expelled Homer (although he placed him above all the poets of Greece) from his ideal state, since it is the creativity of life, and not of fiction, even beautiful ones. Plato expelled sad, softening or table music from his state, leaving only military or generally courageous and peacefully active music. Good manners and decency are a necessary condition beauty

If we limit ourselves to general characteristic, then it should be said that Plato has beauty infinity symbol. However, based on the summary given above, it must be said that Plato conceives of infinity in at least three aspects. The symbol, we say, is found in Plato eidos(visual semantic structure) either as the limit of the formation of a sensory-material thing, as the limit of the relationship with all other eidos that it reflects, or as the limit of the relationship with the unpreconditioned beginning, one of the endless radiations of which it is.

Finally, in order to distinguish Platonic idealism from other types of idealism and Platonic symbolism from other types of symbolism, it is necessary to introduce another term into Plato’s final formula of beauty, which we have already encountered, but which is absolutely impossible to do without here. Namely, the symbol that Plato conceives is in no case allegory, that is, an allegory in which signified And meaning in their being they are completely separate spheres and point to each other only in meaning, and even then under the condition of not complete, but only partial understanding of the meaning. When an eidos reflects other eidos in Plato, then this reflection is not just semantic, but existential, that is, by its very existence it contains all the eidos it reflects. In the same way, when eidos is the limit of the becoming of a thing, this means that in this case it is the limit not just mathematically, but by its very existence it generates from itself the entire becoming of a thing. The same must be said about unpremised being, from which all eidos existing in thought emanate not only in a semantic sense, but by which they are generated in the present and completely bexistential respect. And in general, when Plato thinks of the symbol of infinity, then this symbol, being a reflection of infinity, is not figuratively words, not allegorically, but by its very being, There is all infinity entirely, although expressed each time in an original and specific way. So as not to confuse it with an allegory, we called such a symbol absolute symbol. Without such a characteristic, Plato’s symbolism, and therefore all of his idealism, will lose all the real historical significance that it had in its time.

Thus, the shortest formula of Platonic aesthetics is: beauty is a mental-light, hierarchical and absolute symbol of the infinity of material-becoming, ideal-semantic and super-ideal, consisting in the contraction of all being and reality, everything ideal and material in one indivisible point, in one absolute and all-generating zero. This gives us the opportunity to clarify something too general idea about the image and prototypes in Plato, which appeared in our book at the very beginning. And this formula allows us to imagine in more general form(namely with the help of the concept of infinity) then reasoning about the imitation of an ideal state by an eternal model.

3. Plato's dialectical method of knowledge

For Plato, the main science that defines all others is dialectics - the method of dividing the one into the many, reducing the many to the one and structurally representing the whole as a single multiplicity. Dialectics, entering the realm of confused things, dismembers them so that each thing receives its own meaning, its own idea. This meaning, or idea of ​​a thing, is taken as the principle of the thing, as its “hypothesis”, the law (“nomos”), which in Plato leads from scattered sensuality to an ordered idea and back; This is exactly how Plato understands logos. Dialectics is therefore the establishment of mental foundations for things, a kind of objective a priori categories or forms of meaning. These logos - idea - hypothes - foundation are also interpreted as the limit (“goal”) of sensory formation. Such a universal goal is good in the Republic, Philebus, Gorgias, or beauty in the Symposium. This limit of the formation of a thing contains in a compressed form the entire formation of a thing and is, as it were, its plan, its structure. In this regard, dialectics in Plato is a doctrine of indivisible wholes; as such it is at once discursive and intuitive; making all kinds of logical divisions, she knows how to merge everything together. A dialectician, according to Plato, has a “total vision” of the sciences, “sees everything at once.”

Conclusion

From the above, we found out the essence of the most basic, fundamental concepts of Platonism: firstly, we revealed the concept of eidos, secondly, the relationship between the “finite” form on the one hand and the “infinite” idea on the other in the concept of “the limit of the formation of a thing”, thirdly , we examined the concept of beauty, fourthly, the concept of logos as the idea of ​​all ideas and, finally, fifthly, we touched upon the dialectical method of cognition that Plato developed and used.

Based on the material studied, we can conclude that Plato’s philosophy is distinguished by a high level of idealism and a close connection with the mythological and religious knowledge of the world, which is confirmed, in particular, in the idea of ​​​​a “higher mind”, “the soul of all souls”, “ ideas of all ideas." Plato was also the first to use the concept of the demiurge - the creator of the universe.

Demiumrg(ancient Greek dmyphsgt - “master, artisan, creator” from ancient Greek d?mpt - “people” and?sgpn - “business, craft, trade”) - originally the name of the class of artisans in ancient Greek society. Subsequently, this word began to mean God the Creator, the creator of the world.

Striving to embody ideas that are closest in spirit to the above-mentioned essence, a person thereby realizes his improvement. By implementing step by step more and more perfect ideas close to the Demiurge, a person approaches him in his highest forms.

plato philosopher dialectical spiritual

List of referencesry

1) Spirkin A.G. Philosophy, Chapter 1. Ancient philosophy, § 12. Plato

2) Bogomolov A.S. Ancient philosophy. - M, 1985.

3) Losev A.F. History of ancient aesthetics. Sophists. Socrates. Plato. § 6. Absolute reality

4) Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 379

5) Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 5th ed., vol. 18, p. 131

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Existing separately from individual things as their defining principle. For Aristotle - form, inseparable from the material basis, or species, opposed to genus. In Platonism, Plato's E.-ideas become “thoughts of God,” and Aristotle’s E.-forms become the intelligible essences of things.
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Philosophy: encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

EIDOS

(Greek , lat. forma, species, etymologically identical rus."view"), an ancient Greek term. philosophy. In dophilos. word usage (starting with Homer) and mostly among the Pre-Socratics (external)“view”, “image”, however already in 5 V. before n. e. (Herodotus 1.94 and Thucydides 2.50) attested to be close to "species" as a classification unit. In Democritus (B 167 = No. 288 Lu.)- one of the designations for “atom” [actually “ (geometric) form", "figure"]. In Plato (along with pre-philosophical meanings)- a synonym for the term “idea”, a transcendental intelligible form that exists separately from the individual things that are involved in it (??) , object of reliable scientific knowledge. Aristotle's polemic against the “separability” of eidos-ideas leads to a new meaning of “ (immanent) form”, inseparable from the material substrate (cm. Shape and , Hylemorphism); in logic and biology of Aristotle E. - “view” (species) as a classification unit subordinate to the “genus”. In middle platonism, a synthesis is carried out: platonic. eidos-ideas become “thoughts of God”, Aristotelian. eidos-forms - immanent intelligible entities of the 2nd order, reflection of ideas in matter (Albin). Plotinus preserves this by relating it to his hierarchy of hypostases: ideas are located in the mind (come on), immanent forms (which Plotinus, following the Stoics, also calls logoi) - in the soul (psyche).

In Husserl's phenomenology, E. is a pure essence, an object of intellectual intuition.

EIse G. P., The terminology of the ideas, "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology", 1936, v. 47, p. 17-55; Brommer R., et. Etude semantique et chronologique des oeuvres de Platon, Assen, 1940; With lasse n C. J., Sprachliche Deutung als Triebkraft platonischen und sokratischen Philosophierens, Munch., 1959; San do z C L, Les noms srera de la forme, , (about the terms i, ??); cm. Also lit. to Art. Form and matter.

Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ch. editor: L. F. Ilyichev, P. N. Fedoseev, S. M. Kovalev, V. G. Panov. 1983 .

EIDOS

(from Greek eidos - image, appearance)

In Usserl's phenomenology, eidos are a pure essence, an object of intellectual intuition.

Lit.: Losev A.F. Essays on ancient symbolism and mythology, vol. 1. M., 1930; ElaseG. F. The Terminology of the Ideas.- “Harvard Studies m Classical Philology”, 1936, v. 47, p. 17-55; Classen S. J. Sprachliche Deutung als Triebkraft platonischen und sokratischen Philosophierens. Münch., 1959; SandozC. I. Les noms grecs de la forme. Bern, 1972.

A. V. Lebedev

New Philosophical Encyclopedia: In 4 vols. M.: Thought. Edited by V. S. Stepin. 2001 .


Synonyms:

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    eidos- EIDOS (Greek ei5oc, appearance, appearance) is an ancient Greek term. philosophy, meaning the semantic outlines of an object, type, species (in a taxonomic sense). The usual meaning of E. external appearance in the philosophical usage of the Pre-Socratics and Sophists takes on... ... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

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Question No. 14. Thomas Aquinas: proofs of the existence of God.

Medieval philosophy teaches you to think. The proofs of the existence of God have methodological significance: in their semantic structure they are identical, since they all presuppose an answer to the same question (the existence of God).

Method – a way to obtain new knowledge in science.

Methodology – the science of method.

The main question to which F.A. gave the answers: “What in the visible world makes us think about God”? He gave the following answers:

1. everything in the visible world has its own degree of perfection - this suggests the center of all perfections, i.e. about God. Here F.A. based on Plato's theory of eidos.

2. everything in the visible world has its own cause - this leads us to think about the first cause, i.e. about God. This statement is based on the logic of Aristotle's reasoning.

3. The world is structured so intelligently that it leads us to think about its intelligent creator, i.e. about God. It is based on the thoughts of ancient philosophers.

Eidos – ideas.

Plato distinguished 2 types of being:

1. eternal, unchanging existence - the existence of eidos.

2. existence is accidental, perishable, finite - the existence of things.

The existence of ideas is primary, and things are only weak reflections of ideas: pale and weak (Plato is the founder of objective idealism). The existence of ideas is a true reality, and the existence of things is imaginary. In his dialogue “Hippias the Elder,” Plato argues as follows: beautiful girl, beautiful horse, beautiful pot– brenna. They are united by the eidos of beauty. By themselves they can disappear, but the eidos of beauty is eternal. He can be embodied in people, horses, pots, and other objects. Not a single thing can fully embody the eidos of its class, i.e. not maybe an ideal dog, an ideal woman or an ideal state (that is, such a state in which the theory of the state is fully embodied). For the theory of the state, this provision has methodological significance (i.e., it serves as a model for reasoning on the topic of the state).

IN philosophical sense, a thing is something that has boundaries. The state is also a thing.

Plato's reasoning is a model of reasoning about the ideal state. From the point of view Plato. Any finite thing belongs to a class of phenomena for which there is a corresponding eidos, which acts as its ideal in relation to this class.

Plato even identified 2 worlds:

1. the world of eidos (or the world of ideas) – Hyperurania. In it, the eidos are arranged hierarchically, i.e. there are eidos top level(the benefits of beauty, justice) and the lower level (eidos of animals, tools, i.e. specific classes of things).

2. the earthly world of concrete things.

According to Plato, things are only weak and imperfect reflections of the eidos of the corresponding class.

In the 20th century, Plato's theory of eidos is a subject of debate; in particular, the philosopher K. Popper in the book “The Open Society and Its Enemies” very emotionally criticizes Plato for his theory of the state, ranking Plato among the founders of totalitarianism. He bases his criticism on the fact that Plato in his works “Laws” and “On the State” gives priority to the interests of the state. But if we consider the theory of eidos as a methodology (i.e., as a way of reasoning), it turns out that any theory of an ideal state is a utopia.

The ideal is embodied and realized with the change of generations, which means it is never fully realized.

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