Questions to ask Plato

Plato's life, briefly

Plato was born in Athens around 428 or 427 BC into a rich, political family. His older brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus are the main speakers with Socrates in the Republic. Two of his mother's relatives, Critias and Charmides, were leaders of the Thirty, the violent oligarchy that ruled Athens in 404 to 403 BC. He followed Socrates as a young man, was present at his trial in 399 BC (Plato mentions himself in the Apology) but, according to the Phaedo, was ill on the day Socrates died.

Unusually for an ancient author, every work he is known to have written survives, together with 13 letters, some of which are probably by other people.

The difficulty: Plato hides behind his characters

Plato wrote dramas, not essays. Socrates, a visitor from Elea, Timaeus or an Athenian stranger does the talking, and Plato never appears. So when you quote “Plato said”, you usually mean “Plato wrote this for a character”. Say which character, and give the Stephanus number (for example Republic 473c), the standard line reference printed in the margin of every good translation.

The one place he seems to talk about himself is the Seventh Letter, which describes his early hopes in politics and his disgust when the Thirty, and then the restored democracy that executed Socrates, let him down. Scholars disagree about whether he wrote it. Use it, and say that its authenticity is disputed.

For a wax museum, set him around 370 BC: in his late fifties, teaching at the Academy, writing the Republic and the Symposium, with a teenage Aristotle about to arrive.

Questions about Socrates and why Plato wrote dialogues

Where the answer is: the Apology (Plato's version of the defence speech), the Phaedo (the last day, 57a to 118a), and the Seventh Letter (324b to 326b).

1. Why did you write dialogues instead of treatises?
2. How much of what your Socrates says did the real Socrates say?
3. What did his execution in 399 BC do to your view of democracy?
4. Why did you say in the Phaedo that you were ill on the day he died?
5. Your relatives Critias and Charmides were among the Thirty. How did that feel?

Questions about the Republic

Where the answer is: the cave allegory is Republic Book VII, 514a to 520a. The proposal that philosophers should rule is Book V, 473c to d. In Book V (451c to 457c) Socrates argues that women with the right nature should get the same education as men and can be guardians and rulers, while still calling women weaker on average. Books II to III argue for censoring stories about the gods, and Book X for banishing imitative poetry. The “noble lie” about citizens' metals is at 414b to c.

1. What do the prisoners, the shadows and the fire in the cave stand for?
2. Why should philosophers be kings, when most people find philosophers useless?
3. Why did you let women be guardians, which most Athenians would have laughed at?
4. You loved Homer. Why would you ban the poets from your ideal city?
5. Is the noble lie just a lie told by rulers? How is it different from propaganda?
6. Do you think the city of the Republic could ever be built?

Questions about the Academy, love and knowledge

Where the answer is: in the Symposium (201d to 212a) Socrates repeats what he learned from a priestess, Diotima: love climbs a ladder from desire for one beautiful body to love of beauty itself. The Meno (81a to 86c) has Socrates guide an enslaved boy through a geometry problem to argue that learning is remembering. The famous sign over the Academy door, “let no one ignorant of geometry enter”, is reported only in sources written centuries later.

1. What did students do all day at the Academy?
2. Why does geometry matter so much to you?
3. What is a Form? Is there really a perfect circle somewhere?
4. What did Diotima's ladder of love mean to you?
5. What did you think of your student Aristotle?

The last question leads straight into a debate. Yuga stages one between the two at the Academy around 350 BC: Plato and Aristotle at the Academy.

Questions about Atlantis and Sicily

Where the answer is: Atlantis appears in the Timaeus (20d to 25d) and the unfinished Critias, written around 360 BC, framed as a story passed from Egyptian priests to the Athenian lawgiver Solon. Almost all scholars think Plato invented it to make a philosophical point about an ideal Athens. The Sicilian visits are told in the Seventh Letter, with its doubts about authorship.

1. Was Atlantis real, or did you make it up?
2. Why did you go to Syracuse three times to advise tyrants?
3. Did you really believe Dionysius II could become a philosopher king?
4. Was it true that you were sold as a slave on the way home from Sicily? (A story in Diogenes Laertius, written about 500 years later.)
5. Can the deepest truths be written down at all?

Sample answers: lines Plato wrote for his speakers

These come from his figure file and are honest about who is talking. Use them that way in your script.

Question: I am slow at philosophy. Should I give up? Plato gave this answer to the visitor from Elea, speaking to young Theaetetus:

Question: You never let people stay silent in your dialogues. Why? Here is Socrates pressing Cratylus:

Question: Who should rule? A sourced answer, in paraphrase: in Republic 473c to d Socrates says cities will have no rest from trouble until philosophers become rulers or rulers become philosophers.

Question: Why not write a clear book of your teachings? A sourced answer, in paraphrase: the Seventh Letter (341c to e) says the deepest matters cannot be put into words like other subjects and arise in the soul after long study together. The letter's authorship is disputed; compare the Phaedrus (275c to 277a).

Questions to avoid, or to ask knowing he cannot answer

• Alexander the Great's conquests: Alexander was a boy of about nine when Plato died.
• Christianity, Neoplatonism or Augustine, all of which used his ideas centuries later.
• Modern searches for Atlantis.
• Universities, which took the word “academy” from his school's name.
• His ideas on slavery and breeding in the Republic and the Laws should be asked about honestly. He accepted slavery, and the Republic's plans for guardians' marriages are a form of controlled breeding. Let him explain, and add your own note on why later readers, such as Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), attacked these ideas.

Where to read Plato free

Project Gutenberg has Benjamin Jowett's 19th-century translations of the Republic, the Symposium, the Apology, the Phaedo and the Theaetetus, among others. The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University has the Greek with English translations and Stephanus numbers, so you can check a line in the original. Jowett's English is old-fashioned but free; for class, a modern translation from the library reads more easily.

To try your questions aloud, Yuga has an AI recreation of Plato built from the dialogues and ancient sources. It is not Plato and can make mistakes, so cite the dialogues by Stephanus number. Read on with questions to ask Socrates, questions to ask Aristotle and Plato and Aristotle compared.