Plato’s Ideal State: Ideological Construction or Ancient Case Study?

Ancient Greek Political Thought: Τhe ultimate achievement of Humanity

One of the greatest scientific blunders in history concerning the interpretation of Platonic philosophy– and I mean a huge blunder, timeless and universal – is the theory that the great philosopher, when he referred in his texts to various political/state constructions, such as the famous “Utopia”, described in his dialogue “The Republic", he spoke declaratively and literally, as if he believed in such constructions or regimes or as if they were political ideologies/systems of Plato himself, a kind of political "manifesto", like Marx's. In fact, the blunder produced a whole army of scholars assuming that Plato went to Sicily in order to turn these ideas into reality, as if Plato was a fool dreamer and not a philosopher, which primarily means: a tireless seeker of truth.

In addition, we must not forget that Plato was an inspirational teacher, who had founded the Academy, perhaps the first systematic pedagogical/educational institution in the world, to which he dedicated his entire life.

While I was writing my doctorate, I came to the conclusion that “The Republic” dialogue, like many others, was written not as a statute of Plato's political beliefs, but as an ancient Case Study, within which a particular instance of an ideal state is analyzed, in order to illustrate a thesis or a basis for philosophical dialogue. This basis was apparently the object of study by the students within the Academy, who in turn would reject or accept some or all of the positions and opinions expressed in the dialogue. The purpose was to examine central issues of Plato's political philosophy, such as: what we would define as a perfect state, what form it would have, how it would be governed more effectively, what place the law would have in it, what kind of education it would require, etc.

The greatest blunder of all time in philosophy that I describe above was born for a simple reason: the truly liberal political and social environment of Athens, within which man thinks freely about everything, examines everything and takes nothing for granted, even the Athenian democracy , no other nation has been able to reproduce until today in history of humanity. The above is not an opinion based on some superiority complex or excessive love for my ancestors. It is simply the conclusion of long-term study and a reasoning process. To put it very simply: we may call ancient Greece “the cradle of today's Western civilization” (which it certainly is), but it does not mean that today's civilization is an evolution (in the sense of a change for the better) of the ancient Greek world. Concepts such as freedom, democracy, and values such as “metron” (Golden mean) or “dialogue” (the search for truth through interpersonal communication) are either found distorted and counterfeited, or not found at all in the modern human civilization.

(Image: The famous "School of Athens", artistic representation of the Academy, by the Renaissance painter Raphael. In the center of the image Plato and Aristotle are depicted)