Blog Day Forty-Two: Plato's Worst Ideas

Today we were asked to answer a few questions about the video we watched today. The video was about Plato's best and worst ideas. It was a nice short video, but filled with tons of information.

1. How did Plato define The Forms?

Plato define The Forms as the ideal versions of the things and concepts we see around us. They serve as an instruction manual to our own world. In my eyes, The Forms are everyone's perspective of the things around us. It is how we see world. One example in the video was the ideal tree. Everyone has a different image of the ideal tree in our minds, but finding the true perfect tree is the whole ideas of Plato's Forms. 

2. Who are the three groups in Plato's ideal Society? 

In Plato's perfect utopia, there are three groups; the producers, the military, and the rulers. Back In Plato's day these groupings may have been acceptable, but today I think there are too many jobs in the world to categorize people in these three groups. I also think the groups are biased. Since Plato believed in philosopher rulers, he set them in a separate group, along with the military, a.k.a. the people who will protect him/ all the rulers. Then Plato categorized all the common people as producers, when potentially all their jobs didn't always produce something. 

3. What were Plato's thoughts on women?

Plato believed that women could rule the perfect society he was imagining. But he also compared woman to children in some of his philosophies. Plato thought that women's womb was a live-animal in their bodies that could move around the body and cause illness. As the video said, sadly this philosophy was used by many European medicine traditions for hundreds of years after. Although I am glad he believed women could rule in his ideal society, it disappoints me that he compared women to children and thought our womb was a live-animal. 

4. What was the Noble Lie that Plato proposed? 

The Noble Lie was that we were all born with gold, silver, and a mixture of brass and iron in our souls. Plato believed that the amount of each element we had in our soul determined our roles in life. I found it interesting that many people credit this idea to propaganda and Plato's thought of philosopher kings to the dictators that use propaganda. I understand why people would believe this because we all would want our souls to be filled with the "good" elements like gold and silver. I wonder if Plato used this philosophy to convince people to do things for him, or to convince them to be a better version of themselves. 

It was really cool to learn about all the different ideas Plato had, good and bad. And I miss our class time discussing these ideas!