What is the origin and meaning of Bora?

Also translated into Pareto.

Pinyin: Bó lā tú

Translation: Plato

Greek: ∏ λ? των

(about 427 BC-347 BC)

Ancient Greek philosophers are also one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers in the whole western philosophy and even the whole western culture. He, his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle are called the three great philosophers of ancient Greece.

brief introduction

The origin of the name: Plato's original name was Aristo Russ, but why did he change it to Plato? Tracing back to the source, Aristole grew up with a strong body, big chest and wide shoulders. So the PE teacher named him Plato, which means "broad" in Greek. Later, Plato's name was extended and has been popular ever since.

Plato was born in Athens and studied under Socrates when he was young. After Sue's death, she traveled around the world and engaged in political activities in Egypt, Asia Minor and southern Italy in an attempt to realize her noble political ideal. After the failure of the activity in 387 BC, he fled back to [1] Athens, established an academy near a gymnasium named Agal, and taught there for 40 years until his death. He wrote a lot in his life, and his teaching thoughts were mainly concentrated in the Republic and the Law.

Plato is the founder of western objective idealism, and his philosophical system is extensive and profound, which has a great influence on his teaching thought. Plato believes that the world consists of "the world of ideas" and "the world of phenomena". The conceptual world is real and eternal, and the real world that human senses come into contact with is only a faint shadow of the conceptual world, which is composed of phenomena, and each phenomenon presents temporary changes due to factors such as time and space. Based on this, Plato put forward the epistemology of idealism and memory as the philosophical basis of his teaching theory.

Plato believes that all human knowledge comes from talent, and it exists in human soul in a potential way. Therefore, understanding is not the feeling of the world material, but the memory of the conceptual world. The purpose of teaching is to restore people's inherent knowledge. The teaching process is the process of "recalling" ideas. In teaching, Plato attached great importance to the understanding of universality and generality, especially to the cultivation of students' thinking ability, and believed that concepts and truth were the products of pure thinking. At the same time, he believes that students can recall the conceptual world through the shadow of the conceptual world in the phenomenal world, and acknowledge the stimulating effect of feeling in cognition. He particularly emphasized the role of early education and environment in children. It is believed that the things that children come into contact with in childhood have a permanent influence on him, and the teaching process should arouse students' memory through the perceptual inspiration of specific things and reproduce the inherent conceptual knowledge in the soul through reflection and thinking. In this respect, Plato's teaching knowledge is a kind of transcendentalism.

Plato's teaching system is pyramidal. In order to develop rationality, he set up a comprehensive and rich curriculum system. He divided students into several age stages according to their psychological characteristics and gave them different teaching subjects. Children aged 0-3 are taken care of in the nursery. Children aged 3-6 engage in stories, games, singing and other activities on the playground. After the age of 6, children enter primary schools to receive primary courses. In terms of teaching content, Plato accepted Athens' educational thought of exercising with gymnastics and cultivating harmonious development of mind with music, arranged simple reading, writing, calculation and singing for children, and also attached great importance to gymnastics and other sports training projects. 17 A 20-year-old young man went to China Everbright to receive military education, and studied cultural subjects in combination with military needs, mainly arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. 20-30 years old, after strict selection, 10 years of science education, focusing on developing young people's thinking ability, continuing to learn "four subjects" and understanding the relationship between natural sciences. After I was 30 years old, I studied philosophy for five years after further choice. At this point, Plato's relatively complete pyramid teaching system has been formed.

According to its teaching purpose, Bertrand absorbed and developed the "three arts" of the wise and the military physical education curriculum of Sparta, and also summarized the teaching practice experience of Athens. He first put forward "four subjects" (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) in the history of education, and then it became the backbone and guiding source of the ancient Greek curriculum system, dominating European secondary and higher education 1500 years.

Plato believes that every subject has its unique function, and all learning will contribute to the development of character. /kloc-before the age of 0/7, the extensive and comprehensive subject content is to cultivate the general literacy of citizens, and for future philosophers, the above subjects are essential knowledge preparation for learning dialectics. Grammar and rhetoric are the basis of learning philosophy; Arithmetic is to train people's analytical ability and thinking ability: learning geometry and astronomy is very important for sailing, marching, observing the climate and exploring the universe; Learning music is to cultivate soldiers' courage and noble moral sentiments. At the same time, he also attaches great importance to the selection and purification of various teaching materials, such as language, stories, myths, epics and so on. So as to meet the moral requirements and promote children's mental development.

As far as teaching methods are concerned, Plato followed Socrates' question and answer method, and regarded the process of recalling existing knowledge as a process of teaching and inspiration. He opposed to instilling knowledge by force, and advocated asking questions in the form of questions and answers, exposing contradictions, then analyzing, summarizing, synthesizing and judging, and finally drawing a conclusion.

Rational training is the main feature of Plato's teaching thought. In the teaching process, Plato always takes the development of students' thinking ability as the ultimate goal. In the Republic, he used the words "reflection" and "meditation" many times, and thought that only through reflection and meditation can the knowledge about rationality be truly integrated, thus drawing inferences from one another. The function of feeling is limited to the understanding of phenomena and cannot be a tool to acquire ideas. Therefore, teachers must guide students to unify their thinking, combine learning with thinking, reach from one idea to another, and finally return to the idea. Teachers should be good at enlightening, inspiring and inducing students to enter this realm, so that they can "suddenly be enlightened" and enjoy "rational joy" after "thinking hard". This is similar to Socrates' midwifery.

Plato's teaching thought involves almost all the important methods in the field of teaching. He was the first to define the basic division of psychology and make it closely related to teaching. He inherited and developed Sparta's teaching theory of dividing teaching stages according to age characteristics, summarized and adopted Athens' experience in the specific content, form, methods and means of teaching, and put forward a comprehensive and harmonious curriculum system. He attached great importance to the development of students' thinking ability in teaching and emphasized the discussion of the nature of things, which had great influence and enlightenment on later educators.

However, Plato exaggerated the significance of rational development in teaching. The teaching process that he advocates to know through recollection and meditation reflects his idealistic tendency in knowing knowledge. In particular, his thought of absolutizing and isolating reason and opposing feeling and reason became the theoretical basis of dogmatic teaching method of medieval scholasticism.

[Edit this paragraph] Life

It is generally speculated that Plato was born in May or February in 427 BC or 428 BC (like other early western philosophers, his date of birth is still unknown). Plato was born into a wealthy aristocratic family. His father is Ali Si Tong and his mother is Periken. He is the fourth child in the family. His family claimed to be a descendant of the ancient king of Athens, and he was also the nephew of Chrittia, a famous politician in Athens at that time, but the relationship between them is still controversial. According to Diogenēs Laertius, Plato's original name was Stals, and later he was called Plato because of his strong body (in Greek, the word Platus means "flat and broad"). However, Diogenes also made other suggestions. The name Plato may also come from his fluent eloquence or because he has a broad forehead. Because of Plato's excellent learning ability and other talents, the ancient Greeks also praised him as the son of Apollo, and said that when Plato was a baby, bees stayed on his lips, which made his eloquence so sweet and smooth.

In 399 BC, Socrates was tried and sentenced to death. Plato was completely disappointed with the existing regime, so he began to travel around Italy, Sicily, Egypt, Cyrene and other places for knowledge. At the age of forty (about 387 BC), he returned to Athens after a trip and established his own school Academie in the holy city of Akkademi, a northwest suburb of Athens. Academie became one of the earliest well-organized institutions of higher learning in western civilization, hence its name as the later academic institution, and it was also the predecessor of the developed universities in the Middle Ages. Akkadmi is named after its location, which used to be the residence of the legendary Greek hero demos. The college existed for more than 900 years until it was closed by Justinian the Great in 529 AD. The college is greatly influenced by Pythagoras, and its curriculum is similar to the traditional topics of Pythagoras school, including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and acoustics. It is said that Plato erected a monument at the entrance of the academy: "Those who don't know geometry are not allowed to enter". The college has trained many intellectuals, the most outstanding of which is Aristotle.

In addition to Homer, Plato was also influenced by many writers and thinkers before this, including the concept of "harmony" put forward by Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras's teaching that Socrates should take mind or reason as the basis for judging anything; Parmenides's theory of connecting everything may also have influenced Plato's concept of soul.

[Edit this paragraph] Chronology

First, the 28-year growth period:

Plato was born in 427 BC (the first year of the 88th Olympic Games), with a distinguished family background. This year was the fourth year after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War and the second year after Pericles's death. Socrates was 42 years old (gorgias, a Sicilian Leontini, came to Athens for help and told Syracuse to invade his state).

In 423 BC, 4-year-old aristophanes's Cloud was staged, and Socrates was present to watch. He appeared on the spot with a cold attitude.

42 BC1year 6 years old, it is said that it was the time (or time) when the Republic occurred.

At the age of seven in 420 BC, he entered Dionysus School and began to read and listen to Homer's poems.

At the age of 1 1 BC, protagoras was accused by a gathering of 400 people, which made people disbelieve. He escaped from Athens and was killed on his way to Sicily (Anaxagoras, Pythagoras and Heraclitus were all former philosophers who were persecuted or expelled, executed or voluntarily exiled).

In 409-404 BC, it was estimated that cavalry was on duty, and it was said that he had participated in three battles.

In 408 BC, gorgias delivered a speech at the 93rd Olympia Games, calling on Athens and Sparta to unite against Persia.

In 407 BC, at the age of 20, he studied with Socrates and had previously studied Heraclitus philosophy with Kratylos. Learn parmenides's philosophy from Hermes. It is said that I tried to write a play for Socrates, but it was rejected.

In 405 BC, Syracuse Dionysus overthrew democracy and established a tyrant regime.

At the age of 23 in 404 BC, the Peloponnesian War ended, and Athens was 30 tyrants. Plato wanted to go into politics, but he was disappointed.

At the age of 28 in 399 BC, Socrates was tried (Plato was present) and executed. He died of illness (how sad? )。

Second, study tour 12 years

In 398 BC, Plato and other Socrates' disciples left Athens to take refuge in other places and went to Sicily, Italy and Egypt.

He was 35 years old in 392 BC. Before and after this, he wrote early dialogues: Complaint, Clayton, Yusuf Fallon, Rasis, Lucius and Tchami Diss.

Isocratus opened a school in Athens to teach public speaking.

The visit in 390 BC: the political power held by Pythagoras school, etc.

In 388 BC, he visited Dionysus I, the ancient wine god of Syracuse, met Dion, his brother-in-law (son-in-law), who was 20 years old at that time, and became close friends (in the meantime, it is said that he offended the tyrant, was sold as a slave, and was redeemed by Anne Sherris).

Third, teaching for 20 years

In 387 BC, at the age of 40, he returned to Athens and began to teach in person. Or, in this year, he set up an academy and wrote dialogues about protagoras, MINO and eustace.

Mid-term works: The Republic, Drinking, Fidel, Fedo and other most dramatic dialogues.

In 385 BC (see Chen Biao: the case of Socrates was rehabilitated: the accused was sentenced to death and a statue of Socrates was erected, but it was not necessarily true. Tao Xingzhi 1938 visited the Stone Prison in Athens, sat for five minutes to show his admiration, and wrote a poem "Why is this old man in prison?" Happy to tell the truth, dummies are troubled, "Du Ru's series and Ye Xiushan's articles all talked about this).

In 384 BC, 43-year-old Aristotle was born and Demosthenes was born.

Around 380 BC, an academy was established in the pottery area in the northwest suburb of Athens. "Scholars who don't understand geometry can't enter this door.

Gorgias died in 376 BC.

In 37 1 BC, Thebes army defeated Sparta under the command of Epaminondas.

Democritus died in 370 BC. It is said that Plato tried to buy his books and set them on fire.

Fourth, the last political attempt, speech and writing in his later years: 20 years (or it can be divided into two sections: politics and writing)

In 367 BC, at the age of 60, he handed over the academy to Auddock Suo and came to Syracuse for the second time with his disciples and friends. When Dionysus died and Dion was regent, Plato's fame spread widely in Greece and abroad.

Aristotle came to Athens to study (it is said that Aristotle is the only one who listens to good words)

In 366 BC, Dionysus II succeeded to the throne, Dion fled, and Plato left Syracuse in disappointment.

At the age of 64 in 363 BC, he went to Syracuse for the third time, was detained and deported.

In 357 BC, at the age of 70, he gave up political activities and concentrated on writing. His later works include: The Wise Man, The Politician, Philip and Timio.

Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC.

In 348 BC, his last work was Law and Epinem's sequel, and he died at the beginning.

In the spring of 347 BC (March? ) After his death, the testamentary property will be used as a school building, and it is not allowed to be sold or transferred. Leave four slaves and release one slave, with little property.

In 344-343 BC, Dionysus II was finally overthrown and Aristotle became Alexander's teacher.

Comparison of Confucius (55 1-479):

15-30 years old, junior official, "work-study program" period: 15.

30-50 years old, engaged in the semester, 34 years old to teach: 20 years.

5 1-54 years old, Zaishilu, as a sheep herder, years in politics: 4 years.

55-68 years old, traveling around the world: 14 years.

69-73 years old, sorting out ancient books in his later years: 5 years.

[Edit this paragraph] status

In the west, Plato received more respect and attention than his student Aristotle. Because his works are the basic documents of western culture. Among the schools of western philosophy, it is difficult to find one that has not absorbed his works. In later philosophers and Christian theology, Plato's thought maintained great radiation. Some historians of philosophy believe that it was not until modern times that western philosophy gradually got rid of the control of Plato's thought.

Before the12nd century, Aristotle's theory had been rejected by the Holy See, and even Aristotle's works were no longer circulated in Europe. Plato's theory was dominant at that time, because St. Augustine borrowed and transformed Plato's thought and served theological doctrine. Until13rd century, Thomas Aquinas explained religious teachings with Aristotle's theory and established a complicated and huge scholasticism. Aristotle was re-valued.

Plato's theory was regarded as idealism by Chinese people after 1949. However, his enlightenment to western philosophy is generally recognized and respected because of his outstanding personality.

[Edit this paragraph] Main works

Plato was quick-thinking, widely read and wrote a lot. There are more than 40 works handed down in his name, 13. Plato's main philosophical thoughts are recorded in the form of dialogue. In Plato's dialogues, there are many dialogues in the name of Socrates, so it is difficult to distinguish Socrates' thoughts from Plato's. After painstaking and meticulous research by later scholars, 24 letters and 4 letters were identified as original works, mainly including:

I Epicurus, Socrates' complaint, Cleopatra and Phaedo.

II "Cage", "Taiyada", "Wise Man" and "Politician"

Three. Parmenides, Philippas, Feast and Fidel.

A chapter in archibald, the second part of the chapter in archibald and the chapter in gorgias.

Wise men, politicians, Fiji and Libya, law and Republic.

Apologies from Socrates, the Republic and parmenides.

Plato's forgeries are also of great academic significance. The following works are considered to be works of later generations:

Minos, erich Yas, Theages, Critto and Lover.

Plato's works are mostly written in dialogue genre, with vivid characters, vivid and interesting scenes, beautiful and gorgeous language, rigorous and meticulous argumentation and rich and profound content, which realizes the high unity of philosophy and literature, logic and rhetoric, and has extremely important significance and value in both philosophy and literature.

At present, the complete works of Plato (four volumes) are widely used, published by People's Publishing House and translated by Wang Xiaochao.

[Edit this paragraph] Thought summary

Plato believes that any philosophy must include a theory about nature and the universe if it is universal. Plato tried to grasp the eternal truth about the individual and nature, so he developed a natural philosophy that was suitable for and subject to his political and theological views.

Plato believes that tangible things in nature are fluid, but the "form" or "idea" that constitutes these tangible things is eternal. Plato pointed out that when we say "horse", we don't mean any horse, but any kind of horse. The meaning of "horse" itself is independent of all kinds of horses ("tangible"). It does not exist in time and space, so it is eternal. But a concrete and tangible horse that exists in the sensory world is "moving", will die and rot. This can be used as a preliminary explanation of Plato's theory of ideas.

Plato believes that we can't really understand those changing and flowing things. We only have opinions or opinions about them. The only thing we can really understand is the "form" or "concept" that we can understand with reason. So Plato thinks that knowledge is fixed and certain, and there can be no wrong knowledge. But the view may be wrong.

In Plato's Republic, there is a famous cave metaphor to explain idealism: a group of prisoners are in a cave, their hands and feet tied, and their bodies can't turn, so they can only turn their backs to the hole. There is a white wall in front of them and a fire burning behind them. On that white wall, they saw their own shadow and something between them and the fire. Because they can't see anything else, prisoners will think that shadows are real things. Finally, a man broke free from the shackles and groped his way out of the hole. He saw the real thing for the first time. He went back to the cave, trying to explain to others that those shadows are just illusory things and show them the bright way. But for those prisoners, this man seems to be more stupid than before he escaped, declaring to him that there is nothing in this world except the shadow on the wall.

Plato used this story to tell us that "form" is actually something real in the sun, and all our sensory world can feel is the shadow on the white wall. Compared with the bright world of reason, our nature is dark and monotonous. People who don't understand philosophy can only see those shadows, and philosophers see external things in the sunshine of truth.

Plato's Republic also depicts an ideal utopia for us. Plato believed that countries should be ruled by philosophers. Citizens in Plato's Republic are divided into three categories: patriots, soldiers and ordinary people. The defenders of the country are a few elites who manage the country. It can be inherited, but outstanding children of other classes can also be cultivated into patriots, and the descendants of patriots may also be reduced to the ordinary class. The task of defending the country is to supervise the formulation and implementation of the code. Plato has a complete set of theories to achieve this goal. His utopia requires everyone to have his special function in society to meet the overall needs of society. But in this country, women and men have the same rights and are completely equal. When it is in the public interest, the government can lie. Everyone should do his own thing and should not disturb others. Today, Plato's utopia is a terrible totalitarian country. But "the ideal country is actually the view of scientists who manage the country in the right way", Plato himself did not try to realize the state machine in the ideal country.

Plato pointed out in the Law that a "constitutional state" is the best country after an ideal country. He also pointed out in the book that women and men should receive the same respect and training.

Plato tried to make astronomy a branch of mathematics. He believes: "Astronomy, like geometry, can be studied by asking questions and solving problems, regardless of celestial boundaries." Plato believed that the beginning of the universe was an indistinguishable chaos. This chaotic development is the result of the activities of supernatural gods. Plato believes that the most important feature of the universe from chaos to order is that the creator has made a rational plan for the world; The mechanical process of putting this scheme into practice is a natural event.

Plato's cosmology is basically a mathematical cosmology. He imagined that there were two kinds of right-angled triangles at the beginning of the universe, one was half of a square and the other was half of an equilateral triangle. From these triangles, four kinds of regular polyhedrons are reasonably produced, which constitute particles of four elements. Fire particles are regular tetrahedrons, gas particles are regular octahedrons, water particles are regular icosahedrons, and soil particles are cubes. The fifth regular polyhedron is a dodecahedron formed by a regular pentagon, and it is the fifth element that constitutes the matter in the sky, called ether. The whole universe is a sphere, because the sphere is symmetrical and perfect, and any point on the sphere is the same. The universe is also alive and moving, and a soul fills all the spaces. The motion of the universe is circular, because circular motion is the most perfect and does not need hands or feet to push it. The quantities of the four elements in the universe are as follows: the ratio of fire to gas is equal to the ratio of gas to water, and the ratio of water to soil. Everything can be named by a number, which is the proportion of the elements they contain.

[Edit this paragraph] Political thoughts

In the Republic, Plato designed a picture of a just country: the country is moderate in scale, overlooking the whole country from the height of the city, and the people know each other. Plato believed that the country originated from the division of labor, so he divided the citizens of the ideal country into three levels: rulers, warriors and laborers, representing three qualities: wisdom, courage and desire. Rulers rely on their own philosophical wisdom and moral strength to govern the country; Samurai assisted in governing the country and defended the security of the country with loyalty and courage; Laborers provide material means of subsistence for the whole country. Each of the three levels has its own responsibilities and its own position. In such a country, politicians are highly respected philosophers. Only philosophers can understand thoughts, have perfect virtue and superb wisdom, understand where justice lies, and govern the country fairly under the guidance of reason. Rulers and warriors have no private property and family, because private property and family are the root of all selfish evil thoughts. Employees are never allowed to own luxury goods. The utopia also attaches great importance to education, because the quality and morality of the people determine the quality of the country. Plato even envisaged sending all people above 10 abroad at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, because they have been influenced by the old culture and it is difficult to change. All citizens should receive lifelong education from music, physical education, mathematics to philosophy. The content of education must be YEATION, and it is not allowed to introduce the epics and tragic poets of Homer and hesiod into China, because they will poison the minds of young people. Plato claimed that this is an ideal country of "first-class goodness", and other regimes are perverts of this ideal country. Because of the poor marriage, the ideal regime caused three levels of confusion, leading to the struggle and the rise of the military regime. In the military regime, a few powerful people gather wealth and form oligarchy. The sharp contradiction between the rich and the poor led to the revolution of the people and democracy. Democracy at its extreme will be replaced by authoritarian regimes.

The statesman was written between Plato's two visits to Syracuse (367 BC ~ 36 BC1year), which was a period when his political practice in Syracuse was frustrated and his thoughts changed. The main idea of The Politician is to discuss the definition of real politicians and politics. Plato put forward the concepts of political means and mixing in this dialogue; The role of law was clearly discussed for the first time, and the law was regarded as the standard for dividing political power. He believes that a real politician (the king of philosophy) does not need the rule of law, but in reality, real politicians are extremely rare. Even if there are real politicians, the law still has a certain role. Because politics is not only an art, but also a science. Law is like a training plan and prescription for politicians by coaches and doctors. Although it is absurd in theory, it is necessary in practice.

Plato further developed his thoughts on the role of law in his last work, Law. Ideally, he respected the rule of the king of philosophy, "no law or regulation is more powerful than knowledge"; Starting from reality, he emphasized that human beings must have laws and abide by them, otherwise their lives would be like the most savage beasts. Under the guidance of this thought, he designed his own "second-class city-state" in the legal chapter of 12, including geographical environment, territory size, population size and source, national economic life, class structure, political system, laws and other detailed rules. Due to the change of guiding ideology, the second-class city-state is quite different from the just country in the ideal country in concrete measures. Mainly: the political system has changed from a sage regime ruled by the king of philosophy to a mixed regime to prevent individual monopoly. "Republic" advocates that the rulers implement the system of public property, public wife, public food and public religion, while "law" restores private property and family. In the Republic, citizens are classified according to their innate endowment, while in the legal chapter, they are classified according to their acquired property.