A turning point occurred in Greek culture and thought when Plato interpreted the slogan "know yourself" (gnothi seauton) in a completely new way. This interpretation raises a problem that is not only absent in pre-Socrates thinking, but also beyond the reach of Socrates' own method. To fulfill the Delphi oracle request, to fulfill religious obligations in the form of self-study and self-knowledge, Socrates approached humans as individuals. This Socrates approach by Plato is considered to have limitations. For Plato, to solve this problem we have to make a draft wider. In individual experience, we face such diverse, complex and conflicting symptoms that we find it difficult to see clearly. Humans should be learned from the perspective of social and political life.
According to Plato, humans
are like difficult texts, meaning they must be described by philosophy. But in
our experience as a person, the text is written in letters that are too small
to not read. So as the first task, philosophy must "enlarge" the
writings. Philosophy can only propose an adequate theory of humanity when it
comes to theories about the state. In theory about the state, human traits are
written in letters big. In theory about the state, the meaning of
"text" which was originally hidden suddenly appeared, and what was
originally blurred and complicated became clear and readable. But the state is
not everything, and the state does not reflect and does not absorb all human
activities, although human activities in its historical development are closely
related growing country. Plato starts from a harmonious and just human being
and in that case he uses the soul division of 3 functions, namely:
• Epithymia (a part of desire
in the soul).
• Thymos, (an energetic part
of the soul).
• Logos, (a rational part in
the soul and as tops and covers).
According to Plato, the state
is likened to a Big Man, as an organism consisting of 3 parts or groups, each
of which is commensurate with a part of the soul, namely:
• Epithymia, a productive
group consisting of workers, farmers and traders.
• Thymos, a group of guards
consisting of soldiers.
• Logos, a group of officials
who hold the leadership and power.
Plato also taught the theory of pre-existence of the soul. He says before we are born, or before we obtain a physical status, we are already as pure souls and live in a higher area where we see a spiritual world. Since we were born, we are on earth and our soul is huddled in prison body, wasted from that high area. Because of the incarnation in the body, our souls are no longer aware of themselves and suddenly are no longer aware of the knowledge of ideas in the old world. From here Plato then developed a theory about humans. Humans in the beginning are pure spirits who live by contemplation of what is ideal and divine. So, the ultimate possibilities and meanings of human existence are located first in a life that is closely related to good, right, and beautiful. But we fail to achieve life as we should because we deviate from the mecca of these ideas, so that we are immediately punished by imprisoning the soul into the body. We must try to climb up and get great attention and love for the ideal and divine world. But the possibility to realize this meaning is very limited because we are bound in the material. For us, the physical and bodily worlds become the possibility of a bad possibility to go astray further and sink into the material and sensual swamps.
The most evil possibility is
to surrender completely to himself (radical egoism) and to material things
(materialism and sensualism). So, for humans, the world and body are
ambivalent, meaning that the world and the body can seduce him towards evil
possibilities, but can also encourage him to good possibilities. Man has a
strong and resplendent power that can push him up, namely love (eros). Eros is
the creative power in humans, the originator of life, the inspiration of
inventors, artists and geniuses. Eros meets us with the spirit of togetherness,
frees us from our solitude, and invites us to parties, music, dances, and game
Plato called him "the father of all subtlety, all satisfaction and
abundance, all attraction, desire and romance". Eros pushes us higher, so
that we can move from the love seen to invisible, ideal, divine love. According
to Plato, death is only the beginning of a more new reincarnation low or higher
than before. In his work: Phaidros, Plato said that after 10,000 years, the
soul will return to its origin. So according to Plato's view, humans have many
souls and many individual humans.
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