Plato (427-347 BC) was a great philosopher of ancient Greece, a student of Socrates (469-339 BC) and a teacher of Aristotle (384-32 BC). He lived in Athens, the cultural center of ancient Greece, for most of his life. He loves his country and loves philosophy.His highest ideal is that philosophers should be statesmen and statesmen should be philosophers.A philosopher is not a nerd hiding in an ivory tower. He should apply what he has learned and seek practice.A person with a philosophical mind must have political power, and a person with political power must have a philosophical mind. Plato was born in a period when the city-state of Athens was in decline. At that time, the epidemic was prevalent. After the great politician Pericles died of illness, the dragons had no leader, and the Peloponnesian War broke out, which was full of crises.Plato came from a famous family, and his social relations and class feelings were obviously on the side of the slave-owner aristocracy.Plato Book Book 7② has a confession: "When I was young, I always thought that once I could work independently, I would join the political circle. Then the political situation suddenly changed, which affected my plan. At that time, the democratic government was hated by ordinary people, and the revolution took place. .There are fifty-one people who lead this revolution, eleven of them are in the urban area and ten are in the port of Piraeus. These two committees manage the market and administration of the two districts. There is also a top committee of thirty people Some of the members of the committee, the Supreme Council, were my relatives and old friends; they invited me, thinking that they would have my sponsorship. I was naive in my youth, and always thought that the new government would replace the injustice with justice. I paid great attention to what they said first. , How did they do it later? Every move of these gentlemen suddenly turned the democratic regime they destroyed into a golden age! They actually ordered my teacher and friend

According to Webster's New World American English Dictionary.University Edition, 2nd edition, birth and death dates of Plato and birth dates of Socrates are inaccurate. The seventh and eighth of Plato's Letters are generally reliable, and the rest are not entirely reliable. "When I saw these and other things, I was disgusted with my heart and determined to completely disassociate myself from this shameful regime. The Committee of Thirty was disaffected and was thrown out of power. Quietly, I want to participate in political activities again. At that time, the situation in Athens was chaotic, and private individuals retaliated against each other, fighting with weapons everywhere.Generally speaking, the resurgent democratic regime is relatively moderate; however, some powerful villains falsely accused Socrates of blasphemy, and the jury sentenced him to death...Later, as I grew older, I knew very well that in politics To make a difference, you must first have friends and an organization. This kind of person is very difficult to find among politicians, because they do things without principles, without traditional systems and discipline.Finding new talent is simply impossible.Moreover, many of the old codes of laws and regulations have been lost in Athens.At the beginning, I was ambitious about politics, but after thinking about it again and again, seeing the political chaos, I hesitated and looked around, at a loss.I have thought over and over again that only by shouting out and advocating true philosophy, philosophers gain power and become politicians, or politicians miraculously become philosophers, otherwise human disasters are always inevitable. "

From the above quotation, it can be seen that what Plato lamented was the degeneration of the Athenian aristocracy into an oligarchy, which made him wake up and reconsider his political position.Plato was born in a noble family. He believed that farmers, workers, and merchants were the producers and sellers of material wealth. It was impossible and unnecessary for them to undertake many administrative affairs.Political activities are the full-time job of the leadership and a moral responsibility that the leadership cannot shrug off.The political structure and political system of the division of labor between the leaders and the masses should look like this: the leaders do their best to govern and defend the country.They are supported by the workers, farmers and merchants, and they come back to provide education, public security and national defense for the workers, farmers and merchants.In fact, the aristocratic politics that has lost its reputation is difficult to succeed in Athens, but this does not prove that aristocratic politics is irrational and unworkable.In Plato's view, the country should cultivate the next generation of young people. He himself decided to delve into mathematics, astronomy and pure philosophy, and argued back and forth with Socrates, who was both a teacher and a friend.

In 339 BC, the Athens democrats came to power. Socrates was accused of spreading heresies and poisoning young people. The court sentenced him to death, but Socrates calmly defended himself and died.Plato was heartbroken when he witnessed it, and he dreamed of it all his life, and he could never forget it. Plato took the responsibility of inheriting the great cause of Socrates, and wrote a total of twenty-five dialogues before and after. It was completed in the prime of life, and it was in full swing, with far-reaching influence.Except for the latest "Laws", the other 24 chapters all use Socrates as the main interlocutor.Another six dialogues have been verified by later generations as fake works.

The seventh and eighth letters of the Platonic books are generally reliable. The first and the twelfth cannot be fully believed, and the rest of the Zhas have different opinions and have not yet reached a conclusion.Socrates did not write a single word all his life, while Plato is a philosopher with a large number of works handed down in the history of Western philosophy. Not long after Socrates died, Plato left Athens and traveled around the Mediterranean region, including Ionia along the coast of Asia Minor, and some Greek colonial city-states in southern Italy, visiting the school of Pythagoras' disciples.Possibly North Africa, Egypt, Sicily, and other places.He had a bad impression of Dionysus, the overlord of the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily, and felt that he was immoral, a licentious and playful person, unable to have wisdom, and unable to govern the country and the people.

But Plato met the overlord's son-in-law Dean here, and he was very happy at first sight. In Plato's view, Dean was fond of philosophy and was also a practitioner; after Socrates, Dean was the one who had the greatest influence on Plato. Plato returned to Athens at the age of forty. In that year (387 B.C.), Athens signed the Antel Cedar Peace Treaty, which humiliated the country and ceded all Asia Minor to Persia.Athens and Sparta continued to fight against each other and could not be unified. The entire Greek world was dying and dying.Plato made up his mind and founded an academy outside Athens.At that time, famous scholars came to visit and asked difficult questions. It not only became the highest institution of learning in Athens, but also became the academic center of the whole of Greece.Many students are descendants of aristocratic families from Greek city-states, descendants of aristocratic families!

Plato gave up politics, lectured and wrote books, and worked tirelessly for twenty years.In 367 BC, Plato was nearly sixty years old, and the overlord Dionysus died. His son Dionysus II succeeded to the throne, and Dean was regent. He invited Plato to revisit the ancient city of Sylla as the second teacher.The first phase of Plato's political career was a period of disillusionment of ambition.In the second stage, we are troubled and deliberated, and become stronger over time, believing that philosophers can indeed be politicians and can indeed govern the world.Its representative works are not only the manifesto of philosophers, but also the outline of the plan for governing the country written by philosophers and statesmen.

The third stage Plato is getting old. Things backfired, and I had no choice but to give up justice and think about punishment and rewards, and abandon morality to talk about the rule of law, so I wrote "Law Chapter".As he grows older, he seeks reality more and more, and his painstaking efforts and solitary attainments can be seen for thousands of years! Plato's dialogues are must-read books for Western intellectuals.Different people have different opinions, and it depends on the person.Destroy the reputation, everyone seeks peace.The key is to read it carefully, and after careful thinking and discernment, if you really have some experience, it is possible for a hundred schools of thought to contend.Otherwise, it will be meaningless if it is taken out of context and groundless.

A book that reverberates past and present, discussing issues of eugenics, birth control, family disintegration, freedom of marriage, celibacy, dictatorship, dictatorship, communism, democracy, religion, morality, literature and art , Educational issues (including nursery schools, kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools, university research institutes, and vocational education in industry, agriculture, navigation, medicine, etc.) plus equal rights for men and women, political participation for men and women, and military service for men and women, etc.Plato's knowledge can be called comprehensive; Aristotle's knowledge can be called divisional.Aristotle's works are roughly divided into nine categories: ①Logic, ②Physics, ③Psychology, ④Biology, ⑤Metaphysics, ⑥Ethics, ⑦Politics, ⑧Rhetoric, ⑨Poetics.The fundamental purpose of ancient Greek academic culture is to pursue knowledge. The Greek word philosophy (φισφ′α) originally means Aichi, and the ABC word for science ('πισ′μη) originally means knowledge. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, philosophy and science And two, DEF two in one, no difference at first.The word science used in modern times comes from Latin; the word knowledge comes from Old English; the original meanings are knowledge.Knowledge represents truth, and Aristotle had a famous saying, "I love my teacher, but I especially love truth."

(Amicus Plato, Sedmagis veritas).The so-called knowledge of the ancient Greeks represents the whole of the truth, not a part of it.Inheriting the past and the future, Plato studied heaven and man, with deep roots and luxuriant leaves, and mountains and rivers are long.We need to do research. This book was originally translated by Wu Xianshu, which has been on the market for a long time and has always been praised by scholars. However, the language is close to ancient Austrian and is not liked by young readers.The translation is based on the original Greek text of Leob’s classic series and the original Greek text of the Oxford edition of Jowett & Campbell, with reference to seven new and old English translations such as Jowet, Davies and Vaughan, Lindsay, Shorey, Cornford, Le, Rouse, etc., hoping to not only translate the original book content, and translate the verve of the original book.Mistakes or errors are unavoidable, and fortunately they will be corrected.