Being and non-being, according to Plato, is brief. Dialectics of being and non-being. Critical remarks on the dialogue

I.A. Batrakova

Plato's philosophy is a plastic overcoming of one-sided principles of previous philosophical teachings, their inclusion as abstract moments in a more concrete and developed philosophical principle. That is why it is dialectical.

Plato proceeded from the opposition of the indefinite being of Parmenides, the abstract, single, dead rest of pure thought, and that which in the dialogue “Sophist” is characterized as non-being, a stream of sensually diverse, changeable, subject of opinion. The antithesis of the conceivable being of the Eleatics and the sensible being of the sophists, the one and the many, rest and movement, the limit and the infinite, irrespective of (“in oneself and for oneself”, “in itself”) and relative, being and non-being is the basis for comprehending the true.

Genuine Plato is the general content of being, expressed by thinking. He defines this genuine being, which is both a thought and an objective essence, as an idea. In understanding being in truth as a thinkable, universal, kind, Plato follows Parmenides. But in the very abstract Parmenidean being, a single, self-identical, it includes a certainty, a difference that correlates with itself - the triadicity of the Pythagoreans, as a concrete unity of opposites of identity and difference, odd and even, limit and limitless, as well as the dialectical principle of the unity of being and non-being in becoming, developed by Heraclitus.

The being of Parmenides, pure thought, acted as an abstraction from the sensual, the world of movement and multitude. Zeno's dialectic showed that the latter are contradictory. Insisting on the impossibility of thinking contradiction, she excluded contradiction from being and declared sensual, contradictory non-being, and non-being itself non-existent. After being, one, truth, turned out to be an abstraction from non-being as its other, the sophists made a just conclusion that there is no lie. The abstraction of being-thinking, truth, the Eleatics has turned into its own opposite - the kingdom of opinion, the stream of sensual diversity among the sophists. The striving for the purity of thinking of the representatives of the Eleatic and Megarian schools, who defended the idea of ​​the self-identity of ideas and their existence isolated from sensible being, led to an understanding of true being, universal, as abstract, irrelative.

In the essay “On the nonexistent, or about nature”, mentioned by Aristotle and Sextus Empiricus, attributed to the sophist Gorgias, the dialectic of being is considered [Sext. Adv. Matem. V 65]. The fact that being does not exist is proved similarly to the dialectics of Zeno himself: if being exists, then it is contradictory to ascribe to it any definiteness, since any definition ascribes negation to being, that is, it affects it as non-being [Aristotel., De Xenophane, Zenon et Gorgia, c. 5 ]. But such being, devoid of definitions, one, firstly, does not exist anywhere (does not take place), since it does not correlate with anything, neither with another, nor with oneself. Secondly, unknowable, thirdly, inexpressible in speech.

Here we are faced with the dialectic of the border, of certainty, which was expressed by Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans. Everything that exists is determined only through its correlation with its opposite: being with non-being, one with many, odd with even, etc. Everything that is self-identical, “in itself,” is through distinction with its other, the basis of this distinction is the basis of their unity, identity, similarly to “how something that diverges from itself comes into agreement, a self-restoring harmony of the bow and the lyre” in Heraclitus (in the concept of Logos) [Hippolytus. Refut. IX 9]. The same is the unity of the opposites of odd and even as elements of number, limit and limitless, one and many in the concept of a single among the Pythagoreans [Aristotle. Metaf.15].

So, if Zeno and Melisse examined the dialectics of many things and movement, non-being, then Protagoras in their Antilogies and Gorgias revealed the inner contradictions of being in oneself, one in isolation from the many. Both one-sidedness, abstractions, turned out to be unsatisfactory. In this regard, Plato and Aristotle's criticism of the separation of the essence, the essence of being, from existence: the thinkable (idea) from the sensible, the one from the many, irrelevant, absolute, from the becoming, is understandable.

Relying on the Socratic understanding of the universal definitions of thinking as the essence of being single, as well as on his teleology, Plato objectifies the definitions of thinking, characterizing the idea both as a universal form of thinking and as a universal form of being (being in truth, essence). The idea is understood by Plato as a kind, but not abstractly opposing the sensuously diverse individual, but as a goal that internally organizes it, as a “paradigm”, a form of organizing things, what they should be, that is, definitely.

Thus, relying on the negative results of the dialectic of the Eleatics and the Sophists, as well as on the dialectics of Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans, Plato overcame one-sidedness in understanding the essence of being, the One, the thinkable, the idea, and understood the latter as defined in itself, as a concrete universal, as a unity one and many, identity and difference, limit and limitless, being and non-being, equal to oneself and the other, rest and movement, which can be seen in such dialogues as: "Parmenides", "Sophist", "Filebus".
Therefore, in these dialogues, first of all, we meet with the dialectics of pure essences of being, eidos of true being, ideas, which is the dialectic of essences of thinking, categories, since true knowledge is contained in true being, according to Plato (Phaedrus, 247e). Dialectics here represents the movement of pure forms of being, essences, genera, in themselves, expressed in thinking, the disclosure of the definiteness of true being (idea) in true knowledge. The idea of ​​the correspondence between the forms of cognition of the forms of being and about expression in the dialectic of reason (logoV) as the highest form of thinking - thinking in concepts (nohsiV) - the highest form of being, the origin (arch), was developed most fully at the end of the sixth book of the dialogue "State" (509 - 511).

The entire dialogue "Parmenides" is aimed at showing the idea as meaningful, and not as an abstraction from sensory being (things), as concretely universal, that is, universal, determined in itself, single and self-identical, which reveals its own meaningfulness through the process of self-determination, self-differentiation of oneself and one's other, but in this distinction it is simultaneously preserved as a single, self-identical, but already as enriched by the opposite, taking it into itself, as identity in difference, one in many respects, i.e. as a concrete, definite unity of the opposites of oneself and one's other - one-sided, abstract moments of the whole. Thus, the entire dialogue is devoted to criticism of the dualism of the idea and the sensible, essence and existence, kind and separate thing, universal and individual; it defends the position of monism, understood not as an external combination of abstract moments, but as a dialectical process of self-determination of the universal, the idea, the one, through self-limitation and the removal of the border in a concrete individual, self-distinguishing identity, at the basis of identity and difference, in the idea itself as a unity of opposite abstract moments. This is the process of self-development of the universal into a special and singular, individual, self-development of the intellectual universe, as the neo-Platonists later tried to comprehend, in particular Proclus.

We can say that the entire dialogue in both its parts is permeated with a dialectical understanding of things. The entire first part immediately following the introduction (126a-127d) is devoted to criticism of the idea as an abstraction of the universal from sensible being, on the one hand, and criticism of empiricism, as an abstraction of the sensible from the idea, on the other (135c). In this dialogue, the emphasis is placed on criticism of the dualism of essence and existence, idea and sensual, it is directed primarily against the abstract understanding of the thinkable, being in truth: the same idea among the Eleatics and the idea among representatives of the Megarian school. Criticism of empiricism is given in detail by Plato in other dialogues, in particular in Teetete, therefore it is only mentioned here. But Plato could not fail to say about it at all, since empiricism was an alternative to the doctrine of ideas.

Revealing the inconsistency of both abstractions: the empty truth of universal unity and diverse opinions, the idea and its other, sensible, - Plato in the second part gives a positive, dialectical resolution of this contradiction, proceeding from consideration of the content, its own definiteness of the idea itself: using the example of the dialectic of ideas: one, many, identity, difference, etc. In the process of the development of the definiteness of an idea, its mutual transition with its opposite, with its other, and their distinct, concrete unity, are revealed.

The first, critical part Dialogue "Parmenides" begins with the fact that Socrates, after listening to Zeno's work, highlights its main provisions: the contradictory nature of many and the prohibition of contradiction (127e). Then he points to the tautology of the provisions of the Eleatic school: the affirmation of the one and the denial of the many (128a-b), with which Zeno generally agrees. It can be said that here it is indirectly indicated the empty content, the indefiniteness of the teaching of the Eleatics about a conceivable being, a single one. Further, Plato, in Socrates' speech, just goes on to the question of the definiteness of the idea in itself (thinkable being, being in truth, one), and therefore to the question of its inconsistency. “Let someone prove that one taken by itself is many and, on the other hand, that many [in itself] are one, then I will express my amazement. And in relation to everything else, the situation is the same: if it were shown that genera and species experience these opposite states in themselves, it would be worthy of surprise ”(129c).

At the same time, Plato here clearly separates positive dialectics, the mutual transition of ideas in themselves (essences of being - genera and species) from showing on sensory examples, but not proving in a logical way, that everything sensual, finite, “communicating” contains a contradiction. The path of examples is unacceptable for philosophy as a path of external reflection and tautology, since plurality and unity are considered here in different respects. The task of philosophy is to consider the internally contradictory nature of essences, and not only phenomena, the finite, internally contradictory nature of ideas themselves, how they, in their isolation and disunity, are interdependent, correlated, similar and dissimilar in the same respect.

Zeno showed the inconsistency of many, non-being. Plato's Socrates proposes to do the same for ideas, being in truth, single, thinkable, in order to show their content, mutual determination through the opposite (unfortunate expression "mixing"). “If someone does what I just said, that is, first he will establish the separateness and separateness of ideas in themselves, such as similarity and dissimilarity, plurality and singularity, rest and movement, and the like, and then he will prove that they can mix with each other and dissociate, then, Zeno, I will be pleasantly amazed ... [...] If anyone could show that it is the same, difficulty pervades ideas in every possible way, and as you have traced it in visible things, you will just as accurately find it in things comprehended by reasoning ”(129e - 130a). Here, in essence, the idea of ​​the second part of the dialogue is sketched, in fact, positively dialectical. It is no coincidence that this speech of the young Socrates evokes the admiration of Parmenides and Zeno (130a-b).

This is followed by a clarifying question of Parmenides about the possibility of the separate existence of ideas in themselves, on the one hand, and those involved in them, on the other (130b), since earlier Socrates divided the dialectic of the many, “participatory” (non-being) considered by Zeno, and the dialectic of the idea itself in itself (being), proposed for consideration by him. So there is a logical transition to the criticism of the dualism of an indefinite idea and the associated (sensory), universal and special, one and many, being and non-being, as two abstract one-sided moments of true being, defined in itself by the idea itself.

It is characteristic that all criticism of dualism in Plato's dialogue is conducted on behalf of Parmenides, as well as the dialectic of the one and the many in the second part, as if deepening his thought about an undefined thinkable being and moving on to its definitions. This is a criticism of the abstract understanding of the idea, kind, essence, universal.

First argument criticism concerns the fact that it is necessary to recognize separately existing ideas for the most insignificant things (hair, dirt, litter, etc.) (130c). This, apparently, is about the incommensurability of the sensually concrete and the abstract universal (kind, understood as an abstraction from the individual). If the idea, the genus, is separated from the sensuously singular, then the latter cannot be understood. Either it is necessary to define the sensuous-individual from itself, to assume that "things are only as we see them", that is, abandon their understanding altogether, since there is no idea for them, and stop at the “assimilation” of the sensible (things), on opinion (eikasia) as an untrue form of cognition (see “The State” 511e), or to accept the idea of ​​the sensible in itself, from which the thought of Socrates “takes flight” (130d). The wise Parmenides here points out to Socrates: when philosophy completely takes over you, “none of these things will seem insignificant to you, but now, in your youth, you still take too much into account the opinion of people” (130e). In the mouth of Parmenides, in fact, the idea is embedded that everything that is singular should receive its explanation in philosophy through its kind, universal, idea, which therefore should not exist in isolation.

Second argument criticism of the abstraction of an idea from sensory diversity concerns the concept of "familiarization", and breaks down into two points: the attachment of things to the whole idea and to its part. The multi-sensuous, things, cannot join the whole idea “after all, while remaining one and identical, it, at the same time, will be entirely contained in a multitude of separate things and, thus, will be separated from itself” (131b), i.e. e. will be divisible and distinguishable. An idea, understood as an abstract universal along with special things (sensible), itself turns out to be something special, a thing along with other things, like a canvas covering them so that in each thing there will be only a part of the idea. It is not by chance that Parmenides gives such a shocking example of an abstract understanding of an idea. Socrates tries to give a comparison that is more appropriate to the dialectical nature of the idea: "the same day occurs simultaneously in many places and at the same time is not at all separated from itself, so each idea, remaining one and identical, can at the same time be in everything" (131b). Thus, the idea cannot be regarded as an abstraction of unity and self-identity, as an abstract universal, similar to “that the one is all entirely above many ”(ibid.), but as an identity that distinguishes itself in itself, that is, as concretely universal, kind, inner goal, v these many themselves, as their own certainty (italics mine - I.B.).

Similarly, the impossibility of the involvement of the sensory (things) part of the idea is proved. So a part of the idea of ​​greatness should be less than the very idea of ​​greatness, then the things that join this part will not be great.

Third argument (132a-133a) in his critique of the dualism of the idea and the sensuous is essentially the same as Aristotle's "third man" argument. The idea, one and the same, is considered here as the basis of similarity, similarity, the result of abstraction, the result of generalization external to sensory activity. It is pointed out that between the idea of ​​greatness, already abstracted from great things, and the great things themselves, one can indicate another basis of similarity, identity, that is, another idea of ​​greatness, and so on ad infinitum. Instead of a single idea, an “infinite set” of ideas is obtained, each subsequent one of which will be an abstraction from abstraction, a generalization of generalization, (like Locke’s pyramid of distraction): “So, another idea of ​​greatness will open up, arising nearby with the great itself and that which is involved in it; a necessary all this is different again ... ”(132b). Therefore, the universal cannot be above special.

But the very unified and universal basis of the similarity of the sensible manifold (idea) can be either subjective or objective, therefore the third argument falls into two parts. In connection with the contradictory idea revealed by Parmenides as an abstraction from those involved in it, Socrates first tries to interpret the idea in a purely subjective way: “Isn't each of these ideas a thought, and should it not arise somewhere else, but only in the shower? In that case, each of them would be one ... ”(132b). To which Parmenides rightly notes that thought is objective, meaningful, it thinks the idea as that unity (kind) of things similar to each other, and this idea remains self-identical for all these things. Therefore, if thought is objective and there is a thought about the objective essence of things (their universal, idea), but at the same time it remains only a subjective thought (only in the form of self-awareness), then it turns out that “either each thing consists of thoughts and thinks everything, or, although it is a thought, it is devoid of thinking, "which is" devoid of meaning, "according to Socrates' remark. Indeed, the sensually concrete is not directly thought, universal, a form of self-consciousness, for itself being. The thought of the universal, the idea, the genus, does not exist directly in the form of the sensible (thing), but in the form of self-awareness. But this does not mean that the universal, the genus, is not the essence of sensible being. So, the tacit conclusion of the first part of the third argument is that the idea (universal) cannot exist only in the soul (subjectively).

Therefore, Socrates switches to the opposite assumption - the objective existence of the idea as a model that exists separately in relation to the sensible (things) that are similar to it (132d). In this regard, Parmenides again puts forward an argument about the endless emergence of new ideas of the same name - the objective grounds for the similarity of the idea and the sensual (131d - 133a). The general conclusion from the third argument is that, “things do not attach to ideas by means of similarity: we must look for some other way of attaching them" (133a).

Pointing out this difficulty in admitting the existence of ideas by themselves, and predicting further difficulties in admitting the separate existence of a single idea for each thing (133a-b), Parmenides formulates his following objection.

Fourth argument concerns the impossibility of passing in knowledge, on the one hand, from similarities to the idea (from the particular to the universal), and, on the other hand, from the idea to the similarities (from the universal to the particular) with their separate existence.

First, “independently existing essences” are unknowable for us as finite beings, relating only to the area of ​​their similarities. There is not a single such entity in us ”(133c). If in a particular there is no universal, in a phenomenon there is no essence, in such a thing there is no idea, then there is no knowledge of this universal. “For all ideas are what they are, only in relation to one another, and only in this respect do they possess the essence, and not in relation to the similarities that are in us [their] (or no matter how anyone defines them), only due to the involvement of which we are called by certain names. [...] All these similarities form their own special area and are not included in the number of ideas of the same name ”(133c-d). Similarity cannot cognize its idea, phenomenon - essence, soul - truth. “And that which in us has nothing to do with ideas, just as they do to us” (134).

Therefore, “knowledge in itself, as such” must be knowledge of “truth in itself” (134a), or otherwise: “... Each genus existing in itself is cognized, presumably, by the very idea of ​​knowledge” (134b). Universal being (truth, idea, genus) is cognized by the general form of thinking (the idea of ​​knowledge, knowledge in itself). And if in us there is no form of the universal (the idea of ​​knowledge), then we are not able to cognize this universal (the idea, the essence in itself) in being. But “our knowledge”, since we (the soul) is only a semblance of ideas, there is only “knowledge of our truth” and “refers to one of our things,” that is, there is knowledge of similitudes, finite, sensible. Consequently, an idea, an essence for a person is not cognizable, since he is only its likeness, a phenomenon and “is not involved in it” due to its separate existence.

But not only the essence is unknowable for the phenomenon, the universal for the particular, the idea for the similar with their isolation, but, conversely, from the standpoint of the abstract universal, the idea of ​​knowledge, knowledge in itself, perfect knowledge of God, one cannot know anything about the field of similarities, sensible ... “… The power of those ideas does not extend to what we have, and, on the other hand, the power of what we have does not extend to ideas, but both are self-sufficient” (134d).
Plato points out the inevitability of the dualism of God and the world, essence and existence, as well as the inevitability of agnosticism with an abstract, non-dialectical understanding of the idea.

Further, it draws a conclusion from all the previous arguments against “if we define each idea as something independent” (135). “… These ideas either do not exist at all, or if they do exist, then they must be absolutely unknowable for human nature” (ibid.). Plato, in fact, repeats here the conclusion of Gorgias, made from the consideration of indefinite being, being-abstraction of Parmenides, putting it into the mouth of Parmenides himself.

Calling such objections "sound", Plato, nevertheless, does not refuse to recognize that "there is a kind of every thing and an essence in itself" (135b), putting forward at the same time an argument against sensationalism, the one that "constantly the identical idea of ​​each of existing things ”, there will be nowhere“ to direct your thought ”(135b-c) in the indistinguishable stream of sensations described by Cratyllus and the sophists, which“ will destroy all possibility of reasoning ”.

So, philosophy is impossible, if you do not overcome two one-sidedness in understanding the idea, essence: abstract universality, abstraction, and sensationalism. “What are you going to do with philosophy? Where will you turn without knowing such things? ”(135c). It should be concluded that there is a need for a dialectical understanding of the idea. “Prematurely, without having practiced properly” should not be taken to define the idea. “Practice a little more what most people consider and call idle talk; otherwise the truth will elude you ”(135d). Thus, to determine the idea, essence, kind, universal, a dialectical culture of the mind is needed. The dialectic of many Zeno is mentioned as a method of exercise. But it too is rejected as a negative dialectic of the finite, the visible. “However, even to him, to my admiration, you found yourself saying that you reject the wandering of thought around and around visible things, and propose to consider what can be comprehended exclusively by reason and recognized as ideas” (135e). It is not enough to show the inconsistency of the sensual, finite, appearing, non-being; it is necessary to reveal the inconsistency, and hence the certainty, of the ideas, essences, and being themselves. It was necessary to move from the negative dialectic of the finite, self-decaying into contradictions and perishing in its other, developed by the Eleatics and sophists, to the positive dialectic of the idea (of the universal), which disintegrates into opposite moments of its definiteness, but also self-restores their concrete, distinct, unity. This transition was the undoubted merit of Plato.

These exercises in the dialectic of ideas must, first, deduce consequences from the assumption of an idea, i.e. to consider its own certainty, and not external reflections; secondly, to consider the idea through the form of correlation with itself and with its other in the situation and in the denial of both. “... Assume that there is a lot, and see what should follow from this, both for the many in itself and in relation to itself and to the one, and for the one in relation to itself and to the many” (136).

These dialectical exercises are not an end in themselves, but a means to “see the truth” (136c), the truth itself. Dialectics here even acquires esoteric features: "... It is not a trace of talking about this in front of many, and even a person in old age: after all, the majority does not understand that without a comprehensive and thorough investigation it is impossible to comprehend the truth" (136e), "swim across this depth and breadth of reasoning ”(137b). It is no coincidence that Plato in "The State" advises not to admit to the study of dialectics before thirty years, and also that the lectures "On the Good" were not recorded.

The dialectic of the idea is truth itself, as indicated in the dialogues "State", "Phaedrus", "Phaedo", "Theetetus", "Sophist", "Fileb". “... Dialectics will be like a cornice crowning all knowledge, and it would be wrong to put any other knowledge above it: after all, it is the pinnacle of them all” (State, 534e). The one who follows the dialectical path, “bypassing sensations, by means of reason alone, rushes to the essence of any object and does not retreat until, with the help of thinking itself, he comprehends the essence of good” (ibid., 532a-b) - an unprecedented, universal principle as the unity of the conceivable and thinking, the universal foundation of the unity of being and thinking. All other sciences only “dream” of the beginning, using assumptions based on images and opinions, this section of the intelligible Plato calls reason, which occupies an intermediate position between opinion and reason (511d). Reason, with the help of dialectics, relying on assumptions, goes back to the beginning, the unintended. “Having reached it and adhering to everything that is connected with it, he then comes to a conclusion, not using anything sensual at all, but only the ideas themselves in their mutual relation, and his conclusions apply only to them” (511b). Moreover, “being and everything intelligible with the help of dialectics can be contemplated more clearly” than with the help of other sciences based on assumptions (511c).

Thus, Plato points to two points of the dialectical movement: "the path to the beginning" - the ascent by species and genus, on the basis of preconditions, to a universal foundation, or the ascent from disparate phenomena to the idea, and "the path to completion" - the descent with the help of ideas by themselves (State, 510b) - “the ability to distinguish by gender, how much each can enter into communication and how much not” (Sophist, 253d). These two ways of dialectics are indicated in other dialogues: “Phaedrus” (265d-e), “Phaedo” (101d), “Feast” (the path of ascent). The first moment of the dialectical movement is a negative dialectic, according to Hegel's definition, the dialectic of the decomposition of the finite, the transition into its opposite, and due to this bringing it to a universal basis: scattered phenomena - to essence, opinion - to knowledge, sensual - to the idea, “existing ”- to true being. This dialectic, aimed at the decomposition of opinions, non-being, we see in the Eleatics, Sophists, Socrates and Plato himself. However, the historical merit of the latter is that he did not stop at this negative result of the mutual transition of opposites in the sphere of phenomena, special, finite, many, sensual, non-being, but revealed the positive dialectics of essence, idea, universal, i.e. outlined the path of science from the universal to the particular, pointing to the definiteness, meaningfulness of the idea, essence, in itself. He did not stop at the moment of aporia, undecidability of contradiction, mutual destruction of opposites, but developed the idea of ​​the positive unity of opposites on a universal basis, in the idea expressed in an abstract form by Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans. In Parmenides, it is true, this conclusion is not made clearly, but the whole movement of thought leads to the need to recognize the concrete, distinct, unity of opposites of the one and the might, identity and difference, and therefore to the need to recognize the definiteness, meaningfulness of the idea in itself. The dialectic of an idea (pure essence) here acts as the self-development of its content, certainty, through the identification of one-sided opposing moments of this certainty, and the disclosure of their unity in mutual correlation.

So, between the first and second parts of the dialogue "Parmenides" there is a direct logical connection. If the first part is devoted to the criticism of the understanding of the idea, essence, one, being, as indefinite, abstract, which was the source of ideas about the dualism of the idea and the sensible, essence and being, one and many, being and non-being; then second part on the basis of the idea of ​​meaningfulness, certainty, and, consequently, the internal contradiction of the idea in itself (using the example of the idea of ​​one, the idea of ​​many, etc.), is intended to show how this dualism is resolved in the process of dialectical development of the content, the certainty of the idea itself. The task is to give the immanent content of the idea, the essence in itself, to unfold - this is the process of self-development of the universal into the special, the one into much, the essence into existence, the idea of ​​good into the sensible world, as the Neoplatonists later understood it.

First guess on the way of exploring the certainty of ideas outlined by Plato's Parmenides in the first part of the dialogue - the assumption of the one in itself in its abstraction from the many, the assumption of the abstraction of the single, indefinite single, expressed by the historical Parmenides with the conclusions drawn from it by Gorgius, as already noted. The short formulation of this position is: “one is one” (142c), since this abstraction of unity cannot have any definitions, which is what Plato points out here, revealing the objective dialectics of the border as the basis of definition. Such an indefinite unity can only have negative definitions (we can say that Plato provides a logical foundation for all subsequent apophatic theology): not much, not a whole, unlimited (because it has no border), is nowhere: not in itself, in no other (i.e., it does not correlate with itself or with another), therefore, it does not move and does not rest, it is not identical to itself or to another, it is not different from oneself or from another. Plato reveals here the objective dialectic of the negativity of everything posited (determinatio est negatio), since it posits the moment of distinction in itself. Everything positive, self-identical, negative in relation to itself and its other: “... If the one had any properties other than being one, then it would have the properties of being more than one, which is impossible. [... ] Consequently, the one does not admit identity at all - neither to the other, nor to itself ”(140a), as well as the difference from itself and from the other. It is important to emphasize the objective nature of this dialectic of the one, which is carried out not through the external activity of comparison (by the philosopher), but through the internal reflection of the one itself.

Being neither identical nor different, the one does not participate in time either. The general conclusion: the one does not exist at all, “it does not exist, therefore, as a single one, for in that case it would already exist and participate in being” (141e), i.e. would be defined, distinguished in itself and from its other, plural and participatory in all other definitions. “Consequently, there is no name, no word, for him, no knowledge about him, no sensory perception, no opinion” (142a), which is not possible for a real, existing one. We met with this conclusion already in Gorgias, after which Plato reveals the objective dialectics of the abstraction of unity from the real unity, in itself there is a lot.

Therefore the following, second guess proceeds from the existing, definite one: "Now we are proceeding not from the assumption" the one is one ", but from the assumption" the one exists "(142c). The One and Being, according to Plato, “are different from each other in virtue of the other and the different” (143b). “... It is necessary that the very existing one was whole, and the one and being - its parts”, which in turn are also divided into parts of the one and being so that the existing one is an infinite set (142d-143a). It is about “the combination of two members” (143d), about the correlation of opposites in setting the certainty of one, in setting the border. Since the one exists, it is defined through its difference from being, as its other. Everything positive is defined through negativity, through the distinction between oneself and one's other, i.e. differentiated in itself.

Not only the existing one, but also the one in itself is determined in itself through the positing of the difference between oneself and one's other, i.e. it is infinitely plural, since everything that is put is determined through inner differentiation, the setting of a boundary. The existing one is simultaneously and infinitely multiple, and sets a limit for itself, being limited as a whole (145a), i.e. it is a formalized, organized multitude. This dialectical unity of the limit and the limitless is perceived by Plato from the Pythagoreans. Further, he develops the dialectic of the border: the existing one is both in itself (as a set of parts) and in another (as a whole), and rests, and moves, identical to itself and different from itself, identical to the other and different from the other.

In this consideration of the nature of the existing, definite one, Plato most clearly reveals the positive dialectic of essence, showing not only the disintegration of the one into opposites, but also their reverse resolution in a concrete unity, at the basis of their difference, which is at the same time the basis of their identity. One and another (not one, many) are identical and different in the same respect, on the same the basis, in the same least... The identical must be in the other and the other in the identical (146d). The idea of ​​identity in difference, or different in itself identity - a single basis of opposites of identity and difference, one and another (many), the idea of ​​measure - is expressed. “So, to the extent that the one is different from the other, the other is equally different from the one, and as for their inherent property of 'being different', the one will not have any other difference, but the same as the other. And what is at least somehow identical is similar. [...] And since the one has a difference from the other, for the same reason each of them is similar to each, for each is different from each ”(148a).

Being involved in being, the one is differentiated in itself and its other, plural, therefore, also participates in time and becoming. Just as the existing, definite unity is the unity of the one and the many, identity and difference as one-sided moments, this unity in time is understood by Plato as the unity of “before” and “then” in “now”, in becoming (152b), and becoming is as the unity of being and non-being, rest and movement, so that the one is always, and becomes, and on the other hand, is not and does not become (155c), is outside of time (156c). Since the unity is self-preserving in time, in becoming, in the unity of the opposites that define them, “therefore something is possible for him and his and this something was, is and will be. [...] Perhaps this means his knowledge, and his opinion about him, and his sensory perception ... And for him there is a name and a word, and it is named and expressed about him; and everything that refers to the other refers to the one ”(155d-e). Thus, with regard to the existing one, the opposite conclusion is drawn rather than with respect to the one-sided, abstract one, abstracted from its opposite (many).

Third assumption considers “what the other is experiencing as one” (157b). Since the other of the existing, definite one is “another in relation to the one”, i.e. another in a certain relation, then it is determined by this relation (its border) both negatively and positively: on the one hand, it is not one, but there is a lot and has parts, on the other, it participates in unity, since only whole. Here Plato develops the dialectic of the part and the whole, according to which much that has parts must be “one complete whole” (157e). The same applies to each separate part, which in order to be “separate, separate from the other and existing by itself” (158a), must be whole, one, “some one idea”. Parts have a limit in relation to each other and in relation to the whole. On the other hand, the other, non-unified, much, is quantitatively unlimited, since it represents “a different nature of the idea in itself,” that is, the other of itself is infinite divisibility, "since the nature of the other itself is infinity." A part of a set is itself a set, but a complete, definite, unified whole, just as the set itself is a formalized, organized unity. “Thus, the other is not-unified - both as a whole and as parts, on the one hand, is infinite, but with the other participates in the limit ”(158d).

Here, in essence, we see the dialectic of “a different nature of the idea in itself,” that is, dialectics of matter. This is formalized, organized matter, united in many ways, this is how Aristotle will regard it. A similar argumentation can be found in Kant's consideration of the mathematical antinomies of pure reason associated with the contradiction between quantitative and qualitative finiteness and infinity, limit and infinity. So the proof of the thesis of the first antinomy is based on the following: in order to think of the world as a “given whole” in space and time, one must set the boundaries to “an infinite aggregate of real things”, its parts, “since the boundaries already determine completeness,” the completeness of the synthesis of parts into the whole, the formation of the whole. Antithesis reveals the relativity of setting a quantitative boundary, a limit. The second antinomy examines the contradiction of the qualitative boundary, the limit of division and infinite divisibility, the contradiction of discreteness and continuity of matter. Plato, however, does not go over here to more concrete categories, but remains within the dialectic of pure categories of the one and the many, the whole and the part, the limit and the infinite. Hegel in his Science of Logic also examines the contradiction of the pure category of quantity.

The parts of the other are also similar and dissimilar to themselves and to each other, “identical to themselves and different from each other, move and rest and have all opposite properties ...” (159a-b). Thus, the other acts as another of itself, which is both identical to itself and different from itself in general and in parts.

Since we are talking about another existing, definite one, then this other, not-one, much, acts as an existing, definite much, not abstracted from the one, but being with it in a concrete unity. In fact, the second and third hypotheses express the dialectical nature of the real one and the real many - the concrete unity of the opposites of the one and the many.

Fourth guess , analyzed by Plato, considers conclusions for the other, existing separately from the one, i.e. abstract, abstracted from the one. A formal-logical understanding of the one and the other is taken as abstractly self-identical and abstractly distinguished from each other with the exclusion of the third as the basis of their definite difference and identity (border). The ratio is excluded. This is the position: “one is one”, the other is abstractly the other, A is not-A. “Therefore, there is nothing different from them, in which the one and the other could be together [...] Therefore, they are separate [from each other]” (159c-d). "... One is separate from the other and has no parts." “Therefore, the other is in no way one and has nothing of the one in itself. [...] Consequently, the other is also not much, because if it were many, then each of the many would be one part of the whole. In reality, the other - not-one - is neither one, nor many, nor whole, nor parts, since it does not in any way participate in the one ”(159d). As there is no one without much, so there is no much without unity. Outside a certain attitude, outside the concrete, i.e. differentiated identity, unity in plurality, one and many do not exist.

The other of the “one single”, the other of the abstract one, is also neither similar nor dissimilar to oneself, nor to the one, “neither identical nor different, it does not move and does not rest ...”, does not have any properties, ”because it is perfect and completely devoid of one ”(160b). In that in which there is no unity, there is no self-identity, equality to oneself, similarity to oneself, there is also no difference with oneself and with the other, since “it turned out that it was impossible for two to participate that did not even participate in one” (159e), one idea single.

We see here an example of Plato's negative dialectics, aimed at decomposing the abstraction of the one from the many and the abstraction of the many from the single, indefinite being of Parmenides and the indefinite variety of the sophists.

Plato draws a conclusion referring, apparently, to all four assumptions based on the assumption of one: "Thus, if there is one, then at the same time it is not one either in relation to itself, or in relation to another" ( 160b). That is, the one is not in itself, but passes into its opposite, the one relatively.

Then Plato proceeds to consider hypotheses based on the denial of the one. V fifth guess when considering the dialectical nature of the idea of ​​the one, the question is posed: “what should the one be if it does not exist?” (160d). First, Plato proceeds from the fact that the one does not exist in a certain way, "in a certain way." “... When we call something non-existent, we believe that it does not exist in some way, but exists in some way” (163e). The One is denied here not abstractly, but in relation to its other, i.e. it is a relative, definite negation, determined by a negative relationship with one's other. But the denial of one's other is the position of oneself, the affirmation. Thus, the non-existent one believes itself to be existing in relation to its other. Here we meet the same dialectic of the border as when considering the hypothesis “the one exists”. Everything that exists and does not exist is only in relation to its other, and in this respect it is both denied and assumed. We meet the same dialectic in the dialogue “Sophist”, where non-being is considered as another being, that is, as relatively non-existent, as existing in a certain way.

“So, saying“ one ”and adding to this either being or non-being, he expresses, firstly, something knowable, and secondly, something different from the other” (160c-d). A relatively non-existent unity will participate in many, “as long as this one does not exist, and not any other” (161a), i.e. because it is related to the other of itself, to the many. It will also be dissimilar in relation to the other and similar in relation to itself (161b), since it is dissimilar to its dissimilar (other), not equal to the other and, therefore, participates in greatness, smallness and equality. “And the unequal is not, by virtue of inequality, unequal?” (161c), i.e. is it not by virtue of the basis of inequality, which is at the same time the basis of equality.

Since the relatively non-existent unity is equal to the other - existing, correlated with it, then it exists. Being and non-being are only in a relationship to each other, in mutual determination... “… Existing, in order to be fully existing, participates in being [contained in]“ to be existing ”, and non-being [contained in]“ to be non-existent ”, and since non-existent participates in non-being [contained in]“ not to be non-existent ”, and being [contained in] “to be non-existent” [...] So, since the existing participates in non-being and the non-existent in being, then the one, since it does not exist, must be involved in being in order not to exist ”(162a-b) ... Thus, the nonexistent unity is determined to existence through the relation of difference from the other - the existing one, since there is no difference without identity. As a negation of the other, it is an affirmation. Definition is the basis of difference and identity with one's other.

Since the relatively non-existent unity does not exist in a certain way, and does exist in a certain way, it changes, moves, becomes; since it passes from being to non-being (162c), and does not change, does not move, does not become either as existing or as non-existent, since it is one and not another (many). Thus, the conclusion is drawn about this relatively non-existent single, “that it does not exist in some way, but exists in some way,” it is both one and a lot, has all opposite definitions, and therefore is cognizable through the relation of difference from its other, as was said Plato at the beginning of his consideration of this assumption.

Sixth guess is based on an abstract denial of the one and is similar to Parmenides' tautology: “nonexistent” does not exist in any way, if applied in relation to the one. “Or this expression“ does not exist ”simply means that the non-existent does not exist this way or that way, and as non-existent it does not in any way participate in being” (163c). As an abstraction from being, the other, the non-existent does not exist without regard, i.e. in an abstract way, therefore it is like an abstraction, an abstraction, not correlated with anything, and is not cognizable.

Not being correlated with being, i.e. not being involved in being, the nonexistent unity does not become: it does not arise and does not perish, does not change, does not move, does not stand still. Nothing that exists is inherent in him: neither greatness, nor smallness, nor equality, “neither similarity, nor difference, either in relation to himself or in relation to another,” since “nothing should relate to him” (164a). Thus, being indefinite due to the absence of a relationship with its other, the nonexistent unity undergoes nothing, is not cognized. In fact, it is nothing. “Well, will the following be related to the non-existent:“ that ”,“ that ”,“ something ”,“ this ”,“ this ”,“ other ”,“ other ”,“ before ”,“ later ”,“ now "," knowledge "," opinion "," sensation "," word "," name "or something else that exists? “They won't” (164a-b). This conclusion is similar to the conclusion from the assumption “one is one”, or “existing exists”, since in both cases we are dealing with a non-relative, abstraction from its opposite, and therefore with an indefinite, abstraction, with the fact that does not exist in truth and does not is known.

Seventh guess considers "what should be otherwise, if one does not exist." Moreover, the one here is denied in a relative, definite way, therefore, the other is relatively definite, and not empty, abstract. “… Other, in order to really be different, must have something in relation to which it is different” (164c), i.e. the opposite member of the relationship, definition. Everything is relative, i.e. correlated with its opposite, or it is nothing, indefinite, abstraction, this case is analyzed in the next eighth hypothesis.

Since one does not exist, then about something else we can say: “therefore, it is different in relation to itself”, different from itself. ”Therefore, any [members of another] are mutually different, like sets; they cannot be mutually different, as units, for there is no one. Any accumulation of them is infinitely quantitative. [...] So, there will be many clusters, each of which will seem alone without being in fact one ... ”,“ if there is something else at all, when there is no one ”(164c-d) (italics mine - IB). The other of oneself is an infinite division, an unorganized, unformed plurality - “clusters”, chaos, in fact, since there is no one as the limit of division, the principle of one, whole, form. In this sense, without a single, there is not much, with all its definitions, but it is only seems many, having a number, even and odd, limitless having a limit, similar and dissimilar, identical and different, moving and resting. But that which seems to the feeling, “to weak eyesight,” is “contrary to the truth” comprehended by thinking. “… Everything that exists, which someone is caught by thought, should, I suppose, disintegrate and disintegrate, for it can be perceived only in the form of a cluster, devoid of unity” (165b). It seems that this purely logical consideration of the nature of many, devoid of unity, can serve as a basis for a critical understanding of a more specific concept of matter, if they limit themselves to considering it as abstracted from the form, the principle of organization, the principle of unity, and the limit. Plato himself, following the Pythagoreans, understood true being as the unity of the limit and the infinite, the one and the many, form and matter, as an internal purposefulness. The latter idea is also borrowed from Socrates. We find the development of these dialectical views in Aristotle in the concept of entelechy.

Eighth guess considers the other, the non-one, with an abstract, non-relative denial of the one. Such a single turns out to be irrelevant, therefore the other of the denied abstraction is itself an abstraction - nothing. Just as if the one is relative, definitely denied, then the other is relative, definitely posited and is something. “If nothing else is one, then all of it is nothing, so there cannot be many” (165e). Such other is neither one nor many “and does not even seem to be one, nor to many [...] because the other nowhere in any way has any communication with anything that does not exist and nothing that does not exist has anything to do with what of the other; moreover, the nonexistent has no parts ”(166a). Therefore, no other can cognize the nonexistent one, nor can it itself be cognized. If the one does not exist, then the other does not exist, and it cannot be thought of either as a single one, or as a lot, “not in general as having other signs,” “nothing else can be or appear to be” (166b).

Further, a general conclusion is drawn from consideration of assumptions based on the denial of the one: “Would it not be correct to say in general: if the one does not exist, then nothing exists? “Quite right” (166c).

Let us recall the conclusion drawn from considering the assumptions based on the statement of the one: “Thus, if there is one, then it in the same time is not one neither in relation to oneself, nor in relation to another ”(160b) (smoking mine - IB). That is, in a positive form: there is one and it is itself and its other both in relation to itself and in relation to the other. Otherwise, the one is both the one and the many in and of themselves and in relation to the many. Or, the one is and is not both in relation to oneself and in relation to another.

Now let's look at the general conclusion from the dialogue, referring to all assumptions based both on the assertion of the one with conclusions for himself and for the other, and on the denial of the one with conclusions for himself and for the other. “Let us express this statement, as well as the fact that there is one or does not exist, and it and the other, as it turns out, in relation to ourselves and to each other, are unconditionally essence and not an essence, they seem and do not seem to be” (166c) ... The One is and does not, exists and does not exist, it seems and does not seem in relation to itself and in relation to the other, whether it is posited or denied. The same can be said about many things. The one and the other (many) are only in relation to themselves and to each other. One and many are relative. The non-relative does not exist in truth and is not cognized. A more general conclusion can be drawn: the idea is only in relation to itself and "in the same time" to his other, to his opposite, and this is one and the same relation, which is the basis of the unity of opposing aspects of the definiteness of this idea. This very resolution of opposites into positive unity is not expressed by Plato so clearly in this dialogue, in contrast to the Fileb dialogue, but the entire movement of content, consideration of the dialectical nature of the idea, indicates this.

1. Sextus Empiricus. Against logicians. // Works. in 2 volumes - M., 1975 - 1976.Vol. 1. - 1975.
2. Mikhailova E.N., Chanyshev A.N. Ionian philosophy. Applications. - M., 1966.
3. Aristotle. Op. In 4 volumes - M., 1976. Vol. 1.
4. Plato cited from the edition: Sobr. op. in 4 volumes - M., 1990 -1994.
5. Hegel G.V.F. "Lectures on the history of philosophy." - SPb., 1993-
1994. Book of the second. - 1994. - S. 156.
6. Kant I. Soch. In 6 volumes - M., 1964-1966, T. 3, S. 406.
7. Ibid. P. 404.

Dialectics of being and non-being

1.Justification of the need for dialectics... (236d-239b)

Sophistry does not distinguish being from non-being and, therefore, can consider all being as true from beginning to end, and completely false. Therefore, for the final refutation of sophistry, being must be accurately distinguished from non-being, however, so that non-being and falsehood nevertheless, in a certain sense, exist side by side with being and truth, i.e. a dialectic of being and non-being is necessary. This dialectic is hindered by Parmenides' teaching that non-being does not exist, and this necessarily leads to the denial of any lie. But lies do exist, and therefore Parmenides must first be refuted.

2.Refutation of Parmenides and other philosophers on the question of being and non-being.(242b-250e)

Parmenides taught that being is one. But other philosophers unite one and many (for example, the pluralists Empedocles and Anaxagoras). A difficulty arises: 1) If each of the individual principles is one, then there are many united, and this is absurd. 2) If the beginning is not one, then it is not a beginning at all. 3) If in Parmenides being and the one are one and the same, then two terms are not needed, but if they are different, then the one in his teaching is not one. 4) Parmenides' unity has a whole, depicted in the form of a ball, but the whole and the ball are completely divisible, and therefore Parmenides himself deviates from the principle of absolute unity.

Against other philosophers... Those who recognize only the corporeal are wrong from the point of view of Plato, for wisdom, justice, other abilities of the soul and, finally, the soul itself are deprived of corporeality. They are intelligible, not perceived by sensations. Moreover, everything bodily acts and suffers. But action and suffering are not that which acts and suffers; therefore, the one who acts and suffers cannot claim to an exclusive and unique being.

But those who only recognize ideal being with its inherent immobility and lack of any impact on being becoming... Here Plato criticizes both the Megarian teaching and, possibly, his "naive" theory of ideas. After all, then ideas become a dead being, and becoming - being meaningless... But every real being both thinks and lives and acts. Consequently, the preachers of only the bodily or only the ideal preach a dead being, which does not act in any way and does not suffer in any way. Thus, both movement and peace should be involved in being, although being in oneself is higher than motion and rest... Hence the need for a dialectic of being and non-being, movement and rest.

3.Positive dialectics of five main categories... (251a-259d)

a) The complete absence of communication between ideas is impossible, otherwise traffic and rest would not be involved being and the universe would be neither at rest nor in motion

b) Communication is impossible for all ideas among themselves, otherwise there would be a universal mutual participation, and peace would move, and movement would be at rest.

Dialectics is the ability to divide genera into types and clearly distinguish between these types (in other words, the division of a discrete set, including its corresponding discrete elements, and then the establishment of integrity, including its moments that bear the meaning of the whole). The whole is not a mechanical sum of discrete parts ("all") that do not reflect wholes, but a wholeness that is higher than the totality of its parts, carries a new quality, the parts of which, remaining themselves, already reflect the indivisible wholeness (253d)

What genera and species communicate with each other, how do they communicate, and under what conditions do they not communicate? Rest exists and traffic exists, and therefore rest and movement are involved being, although they are incompatible with each other, do not communicate. But in order for rest and movement to mix with being, categories are necessary identities and differences... Peace, mixing with being, identified with him, although he remains himself, excellent from being. The same is true of movement... But peace in itself is not an identity; movement in itself is not a difference, therefore, all five categories are both identical and different from each other. Any category do not eat another, and therefore it does not exist; but since it remains ( there is) itself, then it exists... Output: the non-existent necessarily exists, since it separates one category from another; and the existing does not necessarily exist, since it is not any other of the indicated categories(254d-257b).

Plato illustrates this dialectic with examples beautiful, big and fair(257b-259b)

Foreigner. When we talk about non-being, we mean, as you can see, not something opposite to being, but only something else ... After all, if we, for example, call something small, do you think that by this expression we are more likely to denote small than equal. .. Therefore, if it were asserted that negation means the opposite, we would disagree with this or would agree only so much that "not" and "no" mean something different with in relation to adjacent words, or, even better, things , to which the words expressed after the denial refer ... The nature of the other seems to me fragmented into parts like knowledge ... And knowledge is one, but every part of it, relating to something, is isolated and has some name inherent in it. That is why it is said about many arts and knowledge ... and parts of the other's nature, which are one, experience the same ... Isn't some part of the other beautiful opposite? .. Will we consider it nameless or having some name?

Theetetus. Having a name; after all, what we each time call ugly is not something else for something else, but only for the nature of the beautiful.

Foreigner. Doesn't it turn out that the ugly is something separated from some kind of existing and again opposed to something from the existing? .. It turns out that the ugly is the opposition of being to being ... Doesn't, according to this reasoning, belong to us, to a greater extent, beautiful to the existing , ugly in the lesser? ..

Theetetus. No way.

Foreigner. Therefore, it must be admitted that both the smallest and the largest exist alike.

Theetetus. The same.

Foreigner. Shouldn't the unjust be assumed to be identical with the just in the sense that one of them exists no less than the other ... In the same way we will talk about other things, as soon as the nature of the other turned out to belong to the existing one. If something else exists, then no less should it be assumed that its parts exist as well ... Therefore ... the opposition of the nature of a part of another to being is, if it is allowed to say so, not at all less being than being itself, and it does not mean the opposite of being, but only indicates to something different in relation to him ... How can we call him?

Theetetus. Obviously, this is the same non-being that we investigated because of the sophist.

Foreigner. Maybe, as you said, from the point of view of being, it is not inferior to anything else and should now boldly say that nothingness, undoubtedly, has its own nature, and just as big was big, beautiful - beautiful, small - small and ugly - ugly, and non-being, being one among many existing species, was and is non-being in exactly the same way?

This is never and nowhere, so that the non-existent was;

You restrain your thought from such a path of testing.

And we not only proved that there is nonexistent, but also found out what kind of non-existence belongs to. After all, pointing out the existence of the other nature and the fact that it is distributed over everything that exists, which is in interconnection, we ventured to say that each part of the nature of the other, opposed to being, is really the very same - non-being. The waters mix with each other and ... while being and the other permeate everything and each other, the other itself, as a part of being, exists due to this participation, although it is not something that is involved, but something else; due to the fact that it is different in relation to being, it ... must necessarily be non-being. On the other hand, being, as participating in another, will be different for the rest of the genera and, being different for all of them, it will not be either each of them separately, nor all of them taken together, apart from itself, so that again in thousands of thousands incidents of being, undoubtedly, do not exist; and everything else, individually and collectively, exists in many ways, but not in many. (257b-259 b)

conclusions

All five categories are a single whole(structure). That's why being Plato has structure which is self-identical difference in moving rest... This structure is eidos, an idea. In it, everything is identical and everything is different; in it there is a continual transition from one different to another, so that this movement also turns out to be peace.

Non-being permeates being, gives rise to being as a one-piece whole, in which one element exists both for itself and for the whole. The moment of non-being was introduced into being in order to dismember it and thereby make possible both the correct reproduction of this ideal structure and its distortion in some way. Thus, the idea becomes the criterion of real human lies. The result of the dialogue is the definition of a sophist given by an Alien: “This name designates a hypocritical imitation of art based on opinion, entangling another in contradictions, an imitation belonging to the part of fine art that creates ghosts and, with the help of speeches, distinguishes in creativity not the divine, but the human part of trickery: whoever considers a true sophist to come from this flesh and blood, it seems, it seems, will express himself quite rightly "(268d)

In the dialogue The Sophist, Plato asserts contradiction as the main driving force in the field of ideas.

1. Connection of Platonic epistemology with its ontology
2. Eros as a drive for contemplation of ideas (dialogue "Phaedrus")
3. Platonic dialectics
4. Plato's dialectical method
5. The problem of cognition
6. Fight against sensationalism (dialogue "Theetetus")
7. Thinking and word
8. Epistemological problems

In fact, at this time no separate “doctrine of knowledge” is still conceived, there is no “epistemology” at all. Knowledge is fundamentally related to the essence of a thing. The theoretical ability is actually ontological in nature, the minds themselves are regarded as the highest in the hierarchy of created beings, the mind itself is still being.

The connection of Plato's epistemology with its ontology

1. Knowledge and opinion

This order of being (and non-being) also corresponds to the structure of Plato's theory of knowledge, in which the categories “knowledge” and “opinion” find their place. According to Plato, true knowledge, or truth, can be obtained only as a result of knowledge of true being, the world of ideas. Since non-being cannot be thought (as Parmenides argued), ignorance corresponds to it. As for the inauthentic being, its reflection in consciousness gives an opinion. The material world, which we cognize with our senses, is, according to Plato, only a semblance, a “shadow” of the world of ideas, therefore sensory cognition gives an idea only of apparent being, and not of being genuine. True cognition is rational cognition, penetrating into the world of ideas.

“With the indicated 4 segments, relate to me those 4 states that arise in the soul: at the highest level - reason (noesis), on the second - reason (dianoia), give the third place to faith (pistis), and the last to likeness (eikasia)”.

"Noesis" and "dianoia" as cognition proper are types of cognition that are maximally independent of empiricism and sensory experience.

Plato divides knowledge into opinion and true knowledge. In turn, opinion (“doxa”), that is, knowledge about transient, changeable things, is divided by him into imagination and belief. True knowledge, "episteme", includes "dianoia" - knowledge of the rational, mediated, discursive and "noesis" - intuitive, unprepared knowledge, pure contemplation, the perception of the world of ideas by the mind in a direct way. According to Plato, noesis is the highest level of knowledge of the truth, it is accessible only to sages who have passed the stages of initiation. The myths that abound in Plato's dialogues serve as a means of “guiding” initiates into the birth of this knowledge in themselves.

In accordance with this division of the soul, several types of knowledge about the external world are possible. With the help of the senses, a person has sensory knowledge, and with the help of reason, he has intellectual knowledge. These 2 types of knowledge, respectively, are also divided into two more types: intellectual knowledge - into rational and reasonable, and sensual - into faith and likeness. Reason discovers truth through logical reasoning, and reason (mind) - intuitively, grasping the truth immediately. Of course, reason is the highest kind of knowledge, the most true, for it comes to truth directly, and reason, comprehending the truth indirectly, is a less reliable kind of knowledge.

Faith and likeness provide even less reliable knowledge. Faith is knowledge about the sensible world, and since in the sensible world, in addition to being, there is also matter, non-being, then faith is not knowledge in the proper sense of the word, but opinion, that is, probable knowledge. Plato speaks of the likeness in passing. But it should be borne in mind that Plato further says that art as operating with sensible objects is unworthy of man, since sensible objects themselves contain non-being.

2. What about opinion?

According to Plato, everything that we can learn about the sensible world has the status of not genuine knowledge, but only an opinion, and therefore the study of the sensible world without an appropriate attitude not only does not contribute to the knowledge of true being, but, on the contrary, can prevent it.

Plato says that we should first move away from nature, more precisely, move away from it in the form in which it is given to sensory contemplation, and develop new means of knowledge that will subsequently allow us to approach it much closer than this was done by natural philosophers. Plato is not satisfied with natural-philosophical constructions that they use metaphors to explain nature, that is, analogies, and not logical concepts. Any metaphor fixes only one side of the phenomenon, and therefore any phenomenon can be described using an infinite number of metaphors - because it has an infinite number of “sides” (more precisely, it can be seen from different points of view), and therefore there can be an infinite many metaphorical (natural-philosophical) descriptions of it.

The second feature of natural philosophy, closely related to the first, is the lack of evidence: a natural philosopher can only show and then, by analogy, extend the particular pattern he noticed to the whole world in general. Thanks to the critical work carried out by the Eleatics, Plato understands that every phenomenon can have as many metaphorical definitions as it has connections and mediations, and there are infinitely many of them, as there are infinitely many perceived analogies.

Plato asserts that before defining anything, one must understand what a definition is; before you understand anything, you need to find out what understanding is, before thinking, you need to give yourself an account of what thinking is. Plato sets this task in almost all of his dialogues, but he most clearly and consistently analyzes what thinking is in the dialogue "Parmenides".

3. Rationalism of Plato

Having created the doctrine of ideas, Plato and in the theory of knowledge advanced further than his predecessors. If the Eleatics still had to defend their self-sufficient universe from empirical contradictions, then Plato was able to completely abandon the sensually perceived world as a source of knowledge.

The theoretical and cognitive core of the line symbol is reduced to rationalism. The higher the ontological status of a given object, the more valuable its knowledge, the more reliable it is, the more confidently you can see its source in the mind, and not in visual contemplation. PLATO distributes the lines of the sphere of being indicated in the symbol according to the following levels of knowledge:

If Socrates still relied on the inductive deduction of the general from the particular, then in Plato the highest form of knowledge is not deducible from anywhere. Ideas cannot be deduced from their concrete “incarnations” - they are perceived without preconditions: “Reason (noesis) strives to the beginning of everything, which is no longer presumed. Having achieved it and adhering to everything with which it is connected, he then comes to a conclusion, not using anything sensible at all, but only the ideas themselves in their mutual relation, and his conclusions refer only to them. "

4. Genuine knowledge is the result of spiritual contemplation

The subject of true knowledge can only be something general, universal, that is, the world of ideas. The sensually concrete world, although it is perceived by a person, can only be an object of opinion or representation, since individual things have only a relative existence.

Knowledge is not the result of sensory perception; rather, it is a condition that precedes them. There are general relations between things that are not felt, but understood by us. These are the concepts of identity, difference, similarity, size, unity, plurality. The human soul has the ability to directly perceive these general principles. Thus, knowledge is the result of spiritual contemplation or “remembering”.

5. Knowledge is not in impressions, but in judgments

Plato (long before Kant) formulates the criterion that allows one to correctly orientate oneself in the world of sensible data as follows: “... knowledge is not in impressions, but in inferences about them, because, apparently, it is here that you can grasp the essence and truth, and there - no "(" Theetetus "). Neither sensations, nor correct opinions, nor their explanations still give knowledge as such, although they are necessary for an approach to it. Above them stands the rational (discursive) ability, and it is surpassed by the mind contemplating true being. This hierarchy of cognitive abilities corresponds to: a name, a verbal definition, an image of a thing (that is, an idea of ​​it that arises in us), or its idea, the existence of which we initially assume is independent of us. (“K&M”).

Being already in the midst of sensually concrete things, the soul begins to recall what it has seen before. Following Socrates, Plato believed that true knowledge has a foundation in itself and therefore cannot be assimilated in an external, dogmatic way.

Eros as an attraction to the contemplation of ideas (dialogue "Phaedrus")

1. The transition to concrete idealism

Abstract idealism could not give the philosopher grounds either for a scientific explanation of nature, or for a practical impact on society. But the very idea of ​​the good contained the beginning for the transition to concrete and practical idealism: the world and man do not constitute the unconditional boundary of the absolute Good. It is reflected, realized in the world, it is cognized by man and through his cognition is realizable in man. society. All things, in one way or another, "participate" in ideas, and therefore, participate in the idea of ​​the good and strive for it; all rational beings are involved in knowledge, and therefore, the highest spiritually intelligent connection with the source of being is possible in them.

In all nature, Plato sees a general attraction to him - unconscious in lower creatures, instinctive in animals and enlightened in man: the name of this striving for bliss, for good or for the fullness of being is Eros - the name of the ancient god of love attraction. In the world of animal beings, it determines the act of reproduction, through which the genus is carried out in the change of individuals, emerging and annihilated; it is in it that the transient, mortal nature is introduced - the eternal and unchanging generic idea. In man, Eros manifests itself as a loving pathos that attracts us to beauty, forcing us to see the ideal in the image of a beloved being. Plato shows how this insight of the ideal can gradually be nurtured by philosophy and gradually, from the contemplation of sensual beauty, lead a person to the contemplation of the sea of ​​beauty - intelligent, disembodied beauty. So, on the one hand - the Good "alien to envy", communicating, filling everything with its rays, "clever sun"; on the other, the Universe attracted by this sun, filled with an ever-increasing attraction to it, reflecting and absorbing its rays.

But if the world of ideas is thought of as a cause affecting the real world, then, obviously, it ceases to be something absolutely opposite to it, detached from it and motionless. Once ideas are understood as acting forces, then the idea of ​​them must change ...

2. Striving for the beauty of knowledge

The force that draws people into the realm of true being, Plato calls eros. Eros awakens in a person the desire to surrender to the contemplation of ideas. In "The Feast" he is described as a philosophical striving for the beauty of knowledge, that is, eros mediates between the world of the sensuous and the intelligible world. In relations with those around him, his pedagogical function (epimeleia, care) is manifested in helping them to familiarize themselves with knowledge.

The method leading to this knowledge Plato calls dialectics. For him, she is the quintessence of all knowledge about true being, as opposed to natural philosophy, which deals with the processes of the empirical world. The road to remembering an idea, according to Plato, opens in dialogue. Here they always work with concepts that represent ideas. In a dialogue, ideas should reveal their meaning, and their interconnections should come to greater clarity dialectically, without resorting to the help of visual representations. This is due to the application of the concepts of analysis and synthesis, as well as through the construction of hypotheses that are tested, accepted or rejected. Thus, participants in Plato's dialogues deliberately take opposite positions in order to test theses and antitheses.

Platonic dialectics

1. The relationship between ideal and sensual

Plato fully agrees with the Eleatics that no knowledge is possible without the presence of something self-identical. But then an antithesis arises, formulated by the sophists: the self-identical is that which is attributed only to itself, and, therefore, it cannot be knowable, for knowledge is attribution to the knowing subject. This means that what can be known is always something else.

Plato resolves this antinomy in the following way: identical to itself, and therefore, unchanging, eternal, indivisible being of an object cannot be given among the phenomena of the sensible world, and therefore must be carried out of its limits. This being Plato also calls the idea.

In the last period of his activity, Plato brings his ideas closer to the numbers of the Pythagoreans, reducing them to the main categories of unity and plurality, limit and limitless. Apparently, under the influence of natural philosophical and mathematical interest, as well as thanks to communication with the Pythagoreans, mathematicians and astronomers (Archytas, Eudoxus, Heraclitus), Plato tried to bring his ideology closer to the Pythagorean doctrine of the limit and the infinite (see Philip, one of the later works of Plato) and with the doctrine of numbers as the main metaphysical, intelligible categories and norms of the existing.

2. Can one be many?

But the question arises about the possibility of knowing this idea, about the possibility of it coming into contact with something other than itself, including with the cognizing subject, since the idea is something single, and the corresponding things, that is, sensible incarnations of this there can be many ideas, then the relationship between the ideal and the sensual is the relationship between the one and the many. That. the polemic between the Eleatics and the Pythagoreans, on the question of the one and the many, is revived again in Plato, enriched with an aspect that was not there before - an epistemological aspect.

In the dialogue "Parmenides" Plato considers the question: how can one - and can - be many? Plato builds his reasoning according to the same principle on which the indirect proof in the "Elements" of Euclid is built, namely: he accepts a certain assumption and shows what conclusions follow from this assumption. This method was later called hypothetical-deductive; its further logical development was continued by Aristotle. This method to this day remains the only method of explicating the consequences arising from some accepted thesis.

Plato shows that the condition for cognition (and, what is important, not only cognition, but also being itself) of the one is its correlation with others, and the other is the same many. And vice versa: the condition for the cognizability (and existence) of a lot is its correlation with the one, without which this much turns into the infinite (apeiron) and becomes not only unknowable, but also non-existent (“nothing”, infinite non-existence). That. Plato simultaneously solves (mentally-visually!) 2 questions: ontological - how can the one become many, that is, how can an idea be embodied in the sensible world, and epistemological - how can the one be the subject of cognition, for cognition presupposes the assignment of the one and the same to itself. to another - the subject of knowledge. According to Plato, the one is many, if it is thought to be correlated with the other, and if it is not thought like that, then it is impossible to think of it at all. This correlation is a characteristic of the very ideas themselves; the correlation of the logoi determines the involvement of things in them and the correlation that follows from this connection of the things themselves.

3. The unity of opposites is already in the intelligible world

Among the Eleatics, the One appears as a beginning that is not correlated with anything, and therefore is opposite to much, that is, to the sensible world. The sensual world is contradictory for them, because in it things “unite and separate” at the same time.

Plato, however, shows that this "union and separation", that is, the unity of opposites, is also characteristic of the intelligible world (that is, what the Eleatics call "one") and that only because of this the one can be both called and knowable. ... If it is considered as required by Parmenides and Zeno, then it will be generally unknowable and nameless, and, therefore, non-existent. That is, the unity of the many, that is, the system that constitutes the essence of the intelligible world, determines the existence, cognizability and integrity of the sensible world.

Dialectical method of Plato

1. Dialectical method

Together with the philosophy of Socrates, Plato assimilated his dialectical method, and he more precisely formulated his methods. As for Socrates, dialectics is to him the art of forming concepts (through logical induction) and connecting them. The dialectician knows how to bring all that multitude and diversity, which in reality belongs to this or that kind of being, under the general concept of this kind: he knows how to clearly define, compose a concept. And at the same time, he can correctly know and indicate which concepts are connected with each other, which are not, which are connected with each other and which are not. Just as a musician selects tones, knowing which of them form a harmonious consonance, so the dialectician knows which of the concepts or "kinds" are consistent with each other and which exclude each other. So, for example, the concepts of rest and movement are not compatible with each other, but each of them is compatible with the concept of existence, and so on.

A true dialectician is able to ascend from a multitude of phenomena to a single general concept, from the particular to the general. This is the so-called "mixing"

The dialectician also possesses the art of distinguishing concepts from each other (distinctions), and at the same time he knows how to descend from the one to the many, from the general to the particular - to divide, organically divide the genus into subordinate species and subspecies, descending to the particular and the singular, so that not to hover in the field of abstractions, but to cognize the true properties, individual characteristics of things. This division of concepts constitutes the second part of the dialectical method: by means of a complete and sequential enumeration of all types and subspecies, measure logically the entire area of ​​a given genus and trace all the ramifications of concepts to the extreme limit of division, to the point where their logical division ends.

It is necessary to divide the general genus, for example, the genus of animals, into those separate genera that it embraces, i.e., in this case, into vertebrates, invertebrates, etc. In a word, here Plato carries out the principle of logical classification, which had a metaphysical meaning for him.

2. Concepts as a subject of dialectics

T. arr., The subject of dialectics - concepts. In it, pure, universal concepts are understood and developed independently of any sensory form. It is possessed only by the philosopher, for he alone understands what is, what is, and not what it seems, the essence, and not the appearance of a thing. The definition of a concept is not a simple enumeration of what is meant by it; it understands what is found in all single homogeneous objects, the general, without which nothing particular can be understood.

The concept determines the essence of a thing, since it establishes a set of distinctive features of its kind and kind. The method of definition of concepts - Socratic induction - Plato complements a new way of testing, which consists in testing the accepted assumptions by considering their consequences.

Any assumption must be developed in all its positive and negative consequences, so that we can know how necessary or permissible: all possible consequences must be deduced, first from itself, then from the opposite assumption, so that one can clearly see which of them are more acceptable, more likely and in accordance with reality.

But what is thought, what is cognized in such concepts? Each definite concept, obviously, has in mind not the variety of different objects that it embraces, but what they have in common - their kind or genus (ειδη χαι γενη). The genera and species do not change depending on the change of things, they always remain: only sensible things and, accordingly, human sensations and opinions, undergo an eternal process of change. Species do not change, as does the concept, which remains constantly identical: they remain, while sensible things are transitory and accidental. The true essence of things is contained in "types", since they determine what each thing is, its essence. In individual things, on the contrary, we find only a fractional accidental reflection, a general case; they exist only "by familiarization" with the "kind" by which they are determined.

Dialectics, striving for the definition and knowledge of "types", is not limited to the study of individual concepts or kinds of this or that thing; but she must direct her mental gaze to the totality of kinds and kinds of things, investigating their mutual relations. Therefore, it is a true science of existence. All other sciences revolve in the field of changeable and diverse, as, for example, physics, or proceed from some hypotheses that they accept, but do not investigate what mathematics is. One dialectic deals with the eternally existing, the eternally identical. So Plato's dialectics passes into metaphysics, into a new doctrine of existence, of its intelligible "types", "forms" or "ideas."

These intelligible species possess genuine being, and all individual sensible things do not possess it by themselves and exist only insofar as they are “involved” in a given general “kind” or “idea”. Hence - a conclusion similar to that which Parmenides drew: true being is thinkable, and that which is inconceivable, we cannot ascribe being to that - non-being (μη ον) is inconceivable. The difference with Parmenides is that Plato nevertheless admitted the relative reality of phenomenal existence, that is, the world of phenomena: individual things have a relative existence in it, since they are involved in "ideas. But since the sensible world cannot be identified with the absolute intelligible existence, nor with the pure "non-being" of Parmenides, although he is perceived by us, he cannot be the object of pure knowledge: he lies between knowledge and ignorance, subject to "opinion" (δοξα), which is characteristic of sensory perception.

This result is clearly different from the one achieved by Socrates. Plato's dialectics leads him to a new speculative philosophy, and, consequently, to a new solution to the question of the essence and the possibility of cognition. True, Socrates already recognized only the log as true. knowledge realized through the medium of universal concepts, but he considered such knowledge possible only in the moral sphere. But Plato, being a mathematician, could not help but notice that knowledge, possessing the character of unconditionality and universality, or "catholicity", also exists in geometry; he shows this already in Meno. Doesn't this prove that our reason in its concepts can cognize universal and necessary truths outside the inner, moral sphere of man? He can also cognize mathematical laws to which the outside world also obeys.

3. Genera and species

In terms of cognition of being and the essence of being, Plato calls concepts, or ideas, related to many things, kinds and kinds. "Kinds" are obtained from "kinds" as a result of the division of the "kind", that is, the division of its full volume. In the matter of cognition, the task arises - to comprehend a single prototype of many things of a given category, that is, to comprehend their "kind" and "types" of this kind. Another constantly emerging challenge is the study of the question of which "genera" are consistent with each other and which are not. For the solution of these questions, according to Plato, a special and, moreover, higher art is necessary, which, as we will see below, he calls "dialectics." The meaning of the Platonic term by no means coincides with our modern meaning of the same word. Strictly speaking, Plato's "dialectics" is the art of dividing objects (and concepts of objects) into genera, and within the genus to distinguish between its types.

Since, according to Plato, as a result of the correct definition of the genus and the correct division of the genus into types, the discretion of essences is achieved, Plato calls "dialectics" the science of existence. Dialectics ("State") is the contemplation of the essences themselves, and not just the shadows of essences.

Understood in this sense, Plato's "dialectics" is a double method.

1) This is, firstly, a method of ascent through hypotheses to ideas or to beginnings. That is, it is a method of finding in many respects the same, or in common; once achieved, the search for the common and common leads the soul to the fact that in the concept, or by means of the concept, the soul contemplates the very "idea" in the ontological sense of the word "idea".

2) Secondly, Plato's "dialectics" is a method of descent from the beginnings, that is, a method of dividing genera into types.

The characteristic of the double method of "dialectics" is developed in "Phaedra". Here the first method (the method of ascending to the "idea") is called connection, since many disconnected things do not bring under one idea. The 2nd method (descent from genus to species) is here called division.

Socrates pointed out that true knowledge is realized through universal concepts, universal definitions, that is, logical. Hence, Plato concluded that the subject of true knowledge - true being - is also something general, universal. Actual "kinds" of beings, their generic forms or "ideas" correspond to logical genera or general concepts. But, since these species or ideas abide unchanged, since true being belongs to them, they are defined as essences.

4. Idea as the essence of a thing

The idea is, first of all, the essence of a thing, corresponding to the true concept of it. This essence, corresponding to a general concept, is itself something in common - a genus or a species. Genus is that common thing that is inherent in an infinite set of private things at once and can affect many things, being one. "We accept one idea where we call many things by the same name."

These ideas are not our thoughts, our subjective ideas; they have an eternal reality and are not subject to any change or confusion. Each idea in itself is opposed in its purity, unity and immutability to the multitude of sensible things involved in it as their eternal prototype. For all ideas, we can say what Plato says about the idea of ​​beauty. "Beauty itself is something eternal: it has not occurred and does not pass, does not grow and does not disappear; it cannot be said about it that it is beautiful in one respect, bad in another, so that it appears one way or another. It also cannot to be sensuously perceived by us, as, for example, a beautiful face or a beautiful hand ... and it does not exist in anything else like, for example, in any animal on earth or in the sky, but it is in itself eternally homogeneous , identical to itself. Everything else that we call beautiful, participates in it; but while all this other arises and is destroyed, beauty itself does not come and does not decrease and does not experience any change. "

Thus, ideas are the true essence of things and together their causes, which give them all their forms, appearance and properties. They are inherent in the things that are involved in them. But at the same time, Plato separated ideas from the natural world and opposed them to it. Immaterial and eternal, they hover over the world outside space and time, "in the valley of truth", in a "smart place", accessible only to the contemplation of ethereal blissful spirits.

Thus, in their origin, Plato's ideas are concepts that turn into essences. This is the result of his dialectic.

5. Illustrations

Considering the visible phenomena, we are convinced of the existence of genera and species, general forms and properties. For example, in all trees, we notice common signs - and at the same time, all the trees we see are diverse. Trees change, grow and dry up, but the generic properties common to all trees remain in the same way as their individual species. Therefore, there are some general properties; and there are genera and species that remain eternally and unchanged, while everything particular, individual passes and perishes. We see and perceive individual beings with our senses, and we think of the genus; but the genus is not only an intelligible concept: it is something real that makes things what they are: a person - a person, a tree - a tree. Not that which changes and passes as sensible things, but that which remains unchanged, general properties and relationships, generic forms have a genuine reality. Only that which abides is the true essence of things. - However, all private things represent their kind only partially. This is the basis of the difference between a simple imitation of nature, copying it and its artistic reproduction: the artist seeks to express the idea of ​​a thing, and not to repeat its casual expression, because he is aware of the idea, distinguishes it with a spiritual eye in its most obscure and incomplete, sensual reflections.

The problem of cognition

1. How do we know?

According to Plato, souls exist forever (in both directions), souls existed before birth and will live after death. Souls before birth lived in the world of ideas, saw these ideas and cognized them immediately, directly, entirely. At the birth of a person, souls, falling into bodies, forget all the knowledge that they had before birth, but they still keep ideas in themselves and, meeting with objects, souls begin to recall the knowledge that they had before birth, that is, before incarnation. into the body. “That is why knowledge about the world arises in us.

When a person sees an object unfamiliar to him, he immediately recalls the idea of ​​this object and immediately concludes what kind of object it is - that it is a chair and not a table, that it is a tree and not a stone, that it is a person and not an animal. There is a well-known dispute between Plato and Diogenes of Sinop. Plato once said that, besides the cup, there is also the idea of ​​the cup, a certain cup, to which Diogenes objected: "I see the cup, but I do not see the cup." To which Plato replied: "You have eyes to see the cup, but you have no mind to see the cup."

The idea exists in some ideal world, in the world of ideas. This is where our use of the word "ideal" comes from as perfect. An idea is the complete perfection of all properties of an object, it is its essence. Besides, the idea is the reason for its existence. An object exists because it participates in its idea.

Plato started from DOS. the provisions of Socrates: The source of true knowledge is reason, and the elements of true knowledge are strictly defined concepts. But where is the guarantee that these concepts are an adequate expression of reality? Plato found a way out: our concepts are a copy of certain realities that have an exclusively speculative character. "EidoV" - "view, image" - Plato called these speculative realities. Before connecting with the body, our soul hovers in the world of these ideas and remembers them, and then, after connecting with the body, these concepts-ideas are forgotten, but gradually they are recalled when we see objects of the sensory world, which are also copies of ideas. That is, there are 2 types of concepts: 1) in our brain and 2) in the real world. Acquisition of knowledge is a process of recognition (or remembering). This is the purest rationalistic realism. And Plato became famous for this for centuries, since this theory, although outwardly unusual, but it explains everything in a purely rationalistic way. The concept of ideas is metaphysical or ontological (which is the same thing). And Plato added this piece of ontology to epistemology and played a colossal role in the history of philosophy. There are still Platonists. Socrates disputed Plato: I see a horse with my eyes, but I don't see the idea of ​​a horse! Plato replied: we are not talking about a sensualistic vision, but a rationalistic one - the idea of ​​a horse must be seen with the mind.

Bergson: Plato compares a good dialectician to a dexterous cook who cuts the carcass of an animal without cutting bones, following the articulations outlined by nature. An intellect always employing such devices would indeed be an intellect turned in the direction of speculation. But action, and fabrication in particular, requires an opposite spiritual tendency. It wants us to look at every existing form of things, even those created by nature, as an artificial and temporary form, so that our thought smooths out on the noticed object, even if it is an organized and living object, those lines that mark its internal structure from the outside; in a word, so that we believe that the matter of an object is indifferent to its form. Matter as a whole must therefore seem to our thought as an immense fabric, from which we can cut out what we want, so that we can then sew it again, as we please. We confirm this ability of ours when we say that there is space, that is, a homogeneous, empty environment, infinite and infinitely divisible, amenable to any way of decomposition. This kind of environment is never perceived; it is only comprehended by the intellect. Perceived the same length - colored with paints, offering resistance, dividing according to the lines outlined by the contours of real bodies or their elementary real parts. But when we imagine our power over this matter, that is, the ability to decompose and reunite it according to our taste, we project beyond real extension the totality of all possible decompositions and reunification in the form of a homogeneous, empty and indifferent space that supports this extension. This space is, therefore, first of all, the scheme of our possible action on things, although things themselves have a natural tendency, as we will explain later, to enter into a scheme of this kind: space is the point of view of reason. The animal probably has no idea about it, even when it perceives, as we are, extended things. This is a performance that symbolizes the tendency of the human intellect to fabricate.

2. Plato's belief in objective truth

Plato shares the Socratic belief in the existence of absolute truth, that the criterion of everything is not man, but objective truth. Socrates said that we must first of all know ourselves, but knowing ourselves, we cognize the objective truth that exists independently of us.

But since truth cannot be cognized by the senses, therefore, if truth exists objectively, independently of a person, it is cognizable not by the senses and does not belong to the mother. the world, then it belongs to a world that is different from the material world - an intelligible world that exists simultaneously in man and outside of man. For example, if a person, for the first time in his life, coming to some room or some locality, has never seen specific objects that are there, then this person, nevertheless, will name each object with confidence. Consequently, he, seeing this object, performs the mental process of knowing the truth, that is, the essence of the given object, although he did not see it in the given material concrete garment. - And if we all do this operation, and, moreover, unmistakably, and determine the essence of the object, expressed in its identification or definition, then it means that it is not the sense organs that are involved in this process of cognition, because this particular object is unfamiliar to us, each object is different from another by the variety of its properties and, moreover, is constantly changing. This means that we have direct knowledge of the essence of this object. This knowledge does not follow from the senses, but from our other cognitive ability.

Therefore, Plato comes to the conclusion that, in addition to the material object itself, there is an immaterial essence of a given object, which a person cognizes with his mind, and not with his feelings, because only reason can give us knowledge about the absolute, objective truth, otherwise knowledge would be simply impossible.

An idea or eidos is that intelligible essence of an object, which we cognize directly, without the help of the senses. Each item has its own idea: the idea of ​​a tree, the idea of ​​a stone, a table, etc. And each object is cognizable, because its idea exists simultaneously and separately from us, ensuring the objectivity of truth, and in us, allowing us to cognize the truth.

Plato asserts that the criterion of truth is outside of us, outside of the knower - outside of the reality of an external object dependent on him. In the light of this criterion, Plato develops, first of all, a criticism of sensationalism, based on sensory experience.

Plato insists on having an “intellectual intuition” in man, as Schelling would later say.

3. The universal nature of thinking

Any thought, even the most simple and empty, cannot, however, be so simple and empty that it would be impossible to distinguish two independent, albeit essentially interconnected, sides in it; every thought can and inevitably be taken,

1) firstly, as a single state of subjective consciousness, or as given to the current mental presence,

2) and, secondly, as something conceivable that in this single state is designated not as a single, but in a universal way, as something objective, if not in content, then in any case in form.

In this single, subjective thought of mine, not only it is conceived, but also its other and universal. Since the thinkable is, by necessity, not only my state, but also something else - thinking has an objective nature; because the thinkable is, of necessity, not only in this case, but in every case - thinking has a universal or universal nature.

4. Idea as a concept

Plato's "idea" approaches the meaning that this word - under the direct influence of Plato - received in the common language of civilized peoples. In this meaning, Plato's “idea” is no longer being itself, but the concept of it corresponding to being, the thought of it, that is, it means precisely the concept, design, guiding principle, thought, etc.

Example: from the fact that, despite the different appearance of an insect, fish and horse, we recognize all these separate creatures as animals, we can conclude that there is one common archetype - "animal", common to all animals and determining their essential form. This is the idea of ​​the animal, thanks to which the most diverse organisms are only animals.

For Plato, the ontological and teleological meaning of the word "idea" came to the fore. But since, according to Plato, the difference in the types of being strictly corresponds to the difference in the types of cognition aimed at being, then in terms of cognition, the “idea”, that is, truly existing being, corresponds to the concept of this being. In this epistemological and logical sense, Plato's "idea" is a general, generic, concept of the essence of a conceivable object.

5. Preaching the ideal

But let us not forget that Plato's idealism has an ethical root: if, according to Socrates, true knowledge is, first of all, knowledge of universal and objective dispositions. norms, then for Plato the kingdom of ideas is, first of all, the kingdom of norms of all things. Such norms exist not only in ethics, but also in mathematics; we find them in any conceivable generic idea, which is the defining principle for individuals of a given genus. The idea is understood not only as being, but also as what should be, i.e. as an ideal. But this is the ideal, the cat. infinitely more real than the reality we see, truer, more beautiful than it. And everything that is true, good and beautiful in her is only a reflection and reflection of this ideal.

The essence of Plato's philosophy and all its historical significance lay in this preaching of the ideal, in this deep consciousness that true reality and complete truth belong to the ideal. For the depiction of the real world, Plato found the only prophetic images. And since he looked everywhere for its reflection, since everything reminded him of the ideal, he found everywhere and in everything many proofs and manifestations of it - in nature and in the human soul. Plato's theory of ideas rests not on one foundation, but on many; it is not a separate theorem, but his entire philosophy.

In the history of thought, Plato was the first philosopher in the West to speak of the invisible basis of visible being: this life is only the surface of being, and in its depths that innermost bubble that is its highest basis.

6. Eidos as prototypes: cognition - penetration into being

Plato was the first to develop an argument that proves the true reality of the spiritual. There are other eyes - speculative eyes that see another dimension, generalization eyes. Generalization is not a fantasy, it is a breakthrough of the human intellect with its power into another, so to speak, the second dimension of being, which Plato calls the kingdom of eidos, the kingdom of prototypes (in Russian, the word "eidos" is usually translated here as "idea", but because it is not entirely successful ...). Eidos are the prototypes of everything that exists in the world. And they all revolve around the eternal cosmic Thought, which creates this visible world.

If for Indian thought the discovery of the spiritual world meant the erasure of the corporeal world, then for Plato, whose philosophy became the pinnacle, the quintessence of Greek thinking, the problem of the relationship between the visible and the invisible was solved in his own way. He has two worlds each have their own laws and are interconnected. The spiritual world and the world of eidos itself are projected into our world. After all, there are ideas of everything in the world, these are, as it were, the thoughts of the Divine, which creates everything, the thoughts of the Eternal Architect.

Fight against sensualism (dialogue "Theetetus")

What is knowledge and how is it possible? The question of the nature of human knowledge is discussed at length in the dialogue "Theetetus", although it comes, in a visible way, only to negatives. results. In Theetetus, Plato destructively criticizes the sensationalist theory of knowledge as developed by the sophisticated philosophers.

Socrates talks with Teetet about what knowledge is. Theetetus takes the thesis of Protagoras and asserts that the criterion of truth is man, he is the measure of all things. Then Socrates asks why it is a person who is taken as a measure, and not a pig, especially since a person himself does not take any person as a criterion, but only a specialist in his field.

1. Isn't knowledge reduced to sensations?

Theetetus proposes to define knowledge as sensation. We know that Aristippus, in the footsteps of Protagoras, came to the same conclusion. So, says Socrates, let sensation be only our subjective state; outside of it we cannot know anything. But the animal feels in its own way. If everything comes down to sensation, then everything is relative, and we can say nothing about things - neither true nor false. There are no false sensations, they are all true, since they are perceived by us: to a sick person, honey seems bitter, warm - cold, he feels what he feels. Remaining in the realm of sensations, we will never find any general logical measure. No one can know more than another, for they feel it all the same. As individuals, all sensations are relative. Outside of them, we know nothing and quite arbitrarily assign them to reasons different from them. Therefore, any generalization or inference that goes beyond the limits of sensations is not knowledge, it is a lie.

Meanwhile, we actually see that there is a true generalization, there is knowledge of the future, knowledge that is not limited to the present and is so inexplicable from one human sensibility. Further, sensation is a change in our consciousness; so, everything must come down to constant change; you cannot talk about being, about something unchanging, abiding; there is only one fluid wave, in which there is nothing abiding, on which one could stop. We come to the position of Heraclitus: there is nothing, everything just becomes. And this position in its consistent development leads to extreme skepticism: nothing can be asserted about anything, because everything flows and nothing remains the same.

Socrates goes over to the psychological side of knowledge and here he finds that sensation is not the ultimate source of our knowledge. Understanding and feeling are 2 completely different acts. You can feel and not understand. We hear speech that is spoken in a language we do not know and do not understand it. There are many sensory organs and one consciousness, which connects their heterogeneous indications. How, then, do we cognize the objective, real relationships of perceived phenomena?

We say that fire burns. This is a judgment by means of which I connect two perceptions - light and heat; but their very connection is something other than sensation; moreover, the sensation is purely subjective, and in this statement we find something objective. In general, by experiencing different things, we establish some general relationship between different sensations, but this comparison cannot be attributed to sensation.

2. Understanding sensations

What should be apart from sensation? To know an object, we must understand it; the very concepts of identity, difference, similarity, dissimilarity, size, unity, plurality cannot be considered sensations; and meanwhile, through such concepts we judge, compare, connect different sensations in the perception of one object, we understand it as something objective, independent of our personal sensations. The soul does not have any special bodily organ for the perception of these general concepts and relationships; but since no knowledge, no true perception of real things is unthinkable without such concepts, Plato recognizes in the human soul the ability to directly perceive general relations (Theaet. 185 Ε).

So Plato refutes Aristippus' sensationalism and argues that there is a general relationship between things that are not felt, but understood by us. For already from the consideration of sensationalism, it turns out that knowledge given by sensations itself presupposes knowledge - the direct perception of general non-sensible principles.

Further, if knowledge is a sensation, then such a phenomenon as memory is incomprehensible, because if we remember something, then at the moment we do not feel and, therefore, do not have knowledge about this subject. But the fact of memory says that we have knowledge even in the absence of sensory perception.

3. Knowledge as "true opinion"

Seeing the incorrectness of his first definition, Theetetus tries to define true knowledge as "true opinion." To this Socrates says that for this it is necessary to have a criterion for distinguishing truth from falsehood. And this is possible only when we already have some knowledge in us. True opinion is not yet knowledge, and the very difference between a true opinion and a false one presupposes knowledge. The opinion can be true or false; knowledge can only be knowledge, that is, real, true knowledge. If knowledge is true opinion, then what is false opinion?

According to the teachings of Plato, "opinion" occupies an intermediate place between knowledge and ignorance; if there is nothing mediating between knowledge and ignorance, then no delusion, no "imaginary" knowledge is possible at all, as some sophists argued: one cannot not know what we truly know and take it for something else (known or unknown) ... Conversely, one cannot know what we do not know. Every our judgment presupposes the establishment of relations between the subject and the predicate-property (relations of similarity, dissimilarity, equality, causality, etc.). But for this one must have an understanding of such a relation (similarity, causality), and equally about its terms. Expressing, for example, the judgment: "Caesar is a man," I must know what Caesar is and what a man is. The same can be said about the definition through the enumeration of the constituent parts: if we define the constituent elements, then we know these elements.

4. Knowledge as “true opinion with proof”

Then Theetetus says that knowledge is true opinion with proof. But even to this, Socrates notes that often we know things without being able to prove them, but on the contrary, proofs are not even important at all. If, while reading a word, we look only at its constituent letters, then we will not understand the word. We understand the word when we see it in its entirety, therefore this opinion of Theetetus is not true either.

So, knowledge presupposes knowledge - this is the result to which Teetet seems to arrive. The result is paradoxical, and the interlocutors disperse without deciding anything.

5. Autonomy of knowledge

But for Plato, such a result has a positive meaning: it indicates that knowledge is not based on sensation or opinion; knowledge has a foundation in itself; it follows from the direct knowledge of the truth, is achieved through the perception of general principles and relationships. It is impossible to obtain such knowledge from the outside, through teaching: it can only be the result of direct spiritual contemplation, or the result of remembering, through a cat. we are aware of what is already in us.

So, external impressions, experience, teaching only awaken in him knowledge, which is reduced to remembering - this is already mentioned in "Meno". Here, Plato's philosophy includes a cycle of Orphic-Pythagorean ideas about the soul and the afterlife, although these ideas receive a new speculative and ethical content. In the dialogue "Phaedrus" we have a number of Pythagorean images: it is said about the fall of the soul from the heavenly world, about its wanderings, about 11 gods making their heavenly wanderings - Hestia alone remains motionless in the house of the gods, like Philolaus. But in these wanderings the gods contemplate the super-worldly, heavenly Beauty. “No poet,” says Plato, “has never sung and would not have been able to adequately praise the beauty of this superstar space (υπερουρανιοζ τοποζ). This is an area of ​​real being without color, without an image, being intangible, visible only to the mind. This is the area where true knowledge rests around true being. The thought of the gods, which feeds on this speculation and pure, unalloyed knowledge, just like every other soul that has received what belongs to it, loves to devote itself from time to time to the contemplation of this true being, finding in this its food and bliss ... Here the soul contemplates justice itself, wisdom itself, knowledge itself; not that knowledge, different in different subjects, cat. we call existing, but knowledge that cognizes true being in itself, that which is true, real being ”(Phaedrus, 247 C - E). This is the realm of pure norms - it speaks of the norm of justice, the norm of wisdom, the norm, the ideal of knowledge.

But this kingdom of the ideal contains not only moral norms of human activity. It constitutes the subject of pure spiritual contemplation, disembodied knowledge, in which the boundaries of the human and the divine are removed. It embraces the norms of everything that exists.

Thinking and Word

1. Thinking = language

It is characteristic that at the same time Plato nowhere separates the aspect of understanding, cognition, from the act of naming, naming. That which cannot be embodied in speech, in a word, is illogical (ajlovgon), i.e. unknowable. Therefore, the analysis of cognitive structures in Plato turns out to be inseparable from the analysis of speech, the structures of language are the main logical, logistic structures of thought. (see "Theetetus", 201 s - 210 d). It is the analysis of language that gives Plato an impetus to understand the nature of thinking as a co-referencing of the one and the many.

This love of Plato for the word and the revelation of the human logos, taking place in this love, later gave rise to Christian apologists to classify him as “Christians before Christ,” believing that he was touched by the grace of the Logos.

“Everything that has ever been said and revealed by philosophers and legislators, all this has been done by them in accordance with the measure of their finding and contemplation of the Word, and since they did not know all the properties of the Word, which is Christ, they often said even the opposite to themselves,” says St. Irenaeus of Lyons. - And each of them spoke beautifully precisely because he knew partly akin to the sown Word of God. And those who contradicted themselves in the most important subjects, obviously, did not have firm knowledge and irrefutable knowledge. So, everything that is said by anyone good belongs to us Christians. For we, after God, honor and love the Word of the unborn and ineffable God, because It also became human for us in order to participate in our sufferings and bring us healing. All those writers, through the innate seed of the word, could see the truth, but it's dark. For another matter is the seed and some semblance of something, given to the extent of acceptability; and the other is the same which the sacrament and the likeness were given by His grace. "

So, thanks to the switching of attention from nature to man, his consciousness and language - the switching carried out by the sophists and Socrates - Plato was able to make the transition to the analysis of logical connections, "connections of meanings" in order to then return from them to the analysis of "connections of things".

2. The doctrine of names (dialogue "Cratil")

Cratilus says: “Is there something other than a contract and agreement in a name? It seems to me that what name someone will establish for something will be correct. True, if he later establishes a different one, and no longer calls it with the same name, then the new name will be no less correct than the old one; for when we change the names of the servants, the newly given name is never less correct than the one given before. Not a single name is innate to anyone by nature, it depends on the law and custom of those who are used to calling something like that. "

However, Socrates criticizes such a theory of the conditional origin of names. Names need to be given in the way that, in accordance with the nature of things, they should be given and received, and with the help of what nature intended for this, and not as we please, if, of course, we want this to be consistent with our previous reasoning ... Not every person is allowed to establish names, but only to someone whom we would call the creator of names. He, apparently, is the legislator, and this one of the masters is least often announced among people. - The legislator must be able to embody the name in the sounds and syllables, and the one that is assigned in each case by nature. In creating and establishing all sorts of names, he must also pay attention to what the name is as such, as soon as he is going to become the sovereign founder of names. And if not every legislator embodies the name in the same syllables, this should not cause us bewilderment. After all, not every blacksmith embodies the same tool in the same iron: he makes the same tool for the same purpose; and as long as he recreates the same image, albeit in a different gland, this tool will be correct, whether someone here or among the barbarians will make it. - It is not such an insignificant matter - the establishment of a name, and not a matter of people who are unskilful or casual. And Cratilus is right in saying that things have names by nature and that not every master of names, but only one who pays attention to the name inherent in each thing by nature and can embody this image in letters and syllables.

[Question about the correctness of the names] Homer spoke of names in plural. places. And most and best of all is where he distinguishes what names people call the same things and what gods. It was here that he was told something great and amazing about the correctness of the names. After all, it is quite clear that the gods already call things correctly - those names that are determined by nature. - Don't you know that the stream in Troy, which fought with Hephaestus, is called Xanthus by the gods, according to Homer, and people called Scamander? Don't you think that it is very important to know why, in fact, it is more correct to call this stream Xanthus than Scamander? Or, if you like, why does Homer say about the bird: In the host of immortals, the reputed chalcis, among mortals - kiminda. What do you think is empty science about how much more correct it is for the same bird to be called a chalcis than a kiminda? So here it is easier to determine which correctness of these names is indicated by Homer. You surely know the verses that are what I'm talking about? Each name is not arbitrarily established, but in accordance with a certain correctness. Socrates. What? Do you think that the one who established the names of Rhea and Kronos to the forefathers of all the other gods was far from this thought of Heraclitus? Or do you think it is by chance in Heraclitus that the names of both mean flow? And Homer, in turn, points to the origin of all the gods from the Ocean and "mother Tethys". I think that Hesiod too ... Names could not have become something similar, if there were no principles containing some primordial correctness, from which names are made for those things that they imitate.

Epistemological problems

1. Things participate in ideas

The entire sensible world, according to Plato, consists of matter and ideas. Matter without an idea is non-being. Only an idea possesses real, true, genuine being. And the world of ideas, in which there are ideas of all objects, concepts and phenomena, i.e. and that which does not belong to objects (the idea of ​​love, movement, rest, etc.) is much more diverse than the material world. This world of ideas is true being, and objects exist because they are involved in the world of ideas. We know that truth is immutable and eternal. Therefore, the world of ideas is an eternal, unchanging world, i.e. divine. And since a thing consists of matter and an idea, then the being of the most sensible thing is not truth, it is an apparent, imaginary being, and knowledge about it is no longer knowledge, but opinion. - The difference between an idea and the sensible world is, as Plato says in the Phaedo dialogue, that everything corporeal consists of parts, is subject to decay, changes, etc., while the idea is divine, eternal, unchanging, true, really exists. This is the difference between the idea and the sensible world.

There are a lot of ideas. And a thing exists due to participation not in some one idea, but in many different ideas. If we are talking about a person, then we understand that he is involved, firstly, in the idea of ​​a person, secondly, in the idea of ​​an animal, and thirdly, he has arms, legs, etc., therefore, each part of the body has its own idea, etc. The stone participates in the idea of ​​stone, the idea of ​​grayness, the idea of ​​gravity with which it is attracted to the earth, the idea of ​​hardness, the idea of ​​granite or marble. The totality of ideas, combined with matter, gives variety to objects.

On this occasion, Plato himself often had questions to which he could not answer. However, Plato could not and did not want to get away from these questions, and this is such a dispute with himself he brings to us in the dialogue "Parmenides". - At the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates talks with Parmenides and briefly expounds to him the essence of his theory of ideas. To which Parmenides asks: "Is there an idea of ​​fire, water, that is, the idea of ​​primary elements, elements?" Socrates finds it difficult to answer. "Is there an idea of ​​dirt, an idea of ​​litter, or an idea for something as small as hair?" Socrates already more definitely answers that no, there is no idea of ​​dirt or rubbish. Parmenides goes on to further develop his attack on the theory of ideas. And he says that this teaching is contradictory, because it turns out that many things are involved in one idea at once: for example, many trees are involved in one idea of ​​a tree. Therefore, the idea must be divided into parts in order to be simultaneously in many things. To this, Socrates easily objects that the day also exists simultaneously in different parts of the earth and nevertheless does not cease from this to be one day. - Further, says Parmenides, there is an idea of ​​the great, but an object, in order to be great, must be involved not only in the idea of ​​the great, but the very idea of ​​the great must become the idea of ​​the great and therefore must be involved in some idea of ​​greatness. Doesn't this take us to some infinity? Further, Parmenides tells Socrates that if a thing is involved in its idea, then, most likely, there must be some idea of ​​the thing's involvement in its idea? And we can also build this hierarchy ad infinitum. Socrates does not answer all these arguments.

2. The problem of delusions

Another problem is the problem of the existence of delusions. If in every person there is an idea - the bearer of truth, and it exists in every person, is he smart or stupid, where does delusion come from? According to Plato, if truth is some knowledge about what exists, that is, about being, then delusion is knowledge about what does not exist, that is, knowledge about non-being. Therefore, Plato asserts in the Sophist dialogue, a person who is mistaken or deliberately asserts a lie, cognizes non-being. But even here a difficulty arises, because non-being does not exist, but only ideas, that is, being, exist. Therefore, Plato faces the difficult task of showing that non-being does exist in some way. Plato explores the concept of being for this. Being exists, on the one hand, in the form of rest, and on the other, in the form of motion. Movement in itself is not being, just as peace itself is not being. Therefore, everything that exists in the world must be involved in the idea of ​​movement, the idea of ​​rest and the idea of ​​being. But, in addition to these three ideas, there must also be the idea of ​​the identical and the other, i.e. movement is movement due to the fact that it participates in the idea of ​​the identical. And movement is not peace, because it participates in the idea of ​​something different. Therefore, in the world, everything is involved in 5 ideas: being, movement, rest, the identical and the other. Each thing differs from another thing, because it participates not only in the idea of ​​this thing, but also in the idea of ​​another, and this is different, i.e. that which distinguishes one thing from another is in some way non-being. A thing participates simultaneously in both the idea of ​​being and the idea of ​​another, therefore the otherness of a thing in relation to another thing is that non-being that exists in our world. Errors arise when we ascribe to ourselves the knowledge of one thing - another thing, that is, in some way we cognize non-being.

3. Theodicy of Plato

Closely related to this problem is the problem of the existence of evil in the world. The problem of theodicy stands before Plato in its entirety. The problem was first encountered in Heraclitus, but for Plato it becomes a very urgent problem. Plato asserts that everything in the world exists because it participates in its origins in ideas and, in the end, in the Idea of ​​Good. Therefore, it turns out that evil must also have its own - good! - an idea.

But, of course, Plato rejects such a solution, and in Parmenides we see that he rejects the idea of ​​dirt and the idea of ​​litter. Therefore, evil does not arise because the idea of ​​evil exists. The world of ideas is ideal not only from the ontological, but also from the disposition. point of view, therefore, evil among people exists because a person does not know the idea of ​​good, because a person directs his cognitive and other abilities not to the true world, but to the imaginary world, the world of things. Knowing the imaginary world and paying attention to it
That is, a person leaves the truth and, therefore, leaves the good. Therefore, evil exists in the world because a person turns away from good, directing his cognitive ability and ability to act in a different direction. The answer is extremely close to the Christian one, according to which evil also does not exist as some ontological entity, evil arises as a result of falling away, turning a person away from God.

But in the end, Plato concludes that evil exists, because man directs his abilities to the sensible world, then it is in this sensible world that Plato sees the cause of evil. Not in man, not in his free choice, in the refusal to cognize ideas, but in the sensible world itself and, ultimately, in matter - in non-being. Just as the source of delusion is ultimately the material component of our world (after all, participation in the idea of ​​another is necessary only for sensible, individual things), then the source of evil is matter, for a person - his body. This conclusion of Plato will often penetrate in the form of various heresies and into Christianity. So, both the Gnostics and Manicheans, and to some extent Origen will see it in matter, and in particular in the body, the cause of evil in the world.

1.S. N. Trubetskoy "Course of the history of ancient philosophy"
2.V.S. Soloviev - Theoretical philosophy
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The return to the questions of the structure of nature and the entire Universe after the destructive skepticism of Socrates and the sophists was predetermined by history itself. However, first it was necessary to solve the question of the reality of all that exists and the single basis of such a diverse world.

Having assimilated the views of Socrates, his follower and disciple Plato (427-347 BC) recognized that general definitions have as their subject something other than sensible things. It seemed indisputable to him that the latter are constantly changing, appearing and disappearing and, therefore, cannot serve as a basis for general definitions. Such a real basis could be what Plato called "ideas." As for the whole multitude of individual things, they exist only by virtue of familiarization with the entities of the same name, expressed in general definitions.

The contradictions of the world, its diversity cannot be explained by the "origin" of the Milesians and the atomists, they are not "removed" by the single, immovable "being" of the Eleatics, they are not regulated by the Heraclitus "Logos" either. The contradictions of the world, reflected in sensory perceptions, are removed, i.e. at the same time they are destroyed and appear in new forms - in concepts or ideas that represent the essence of things of the same name. This turn of thought allowed Plato, on the one hand, to destroy the naive notion of the pre-Socratics about the unity of the Cosmos, which they guessed in the origins. On the other hand, to present the dialectics of the Cosmos in its "pure", universal form, that is, to relate the one as the idea of ​​the world, as "Logos" with the world itself as such.

In search of the unchanging, stable, universal as an object of true knowledge, Plato correlates it with special, separately existing objects. Existing in their "special" world, they are contemplated by souls in their "otherworldly" being. Then they are "remembered" by a person when his mind, placed in a bodily shell, begins to cognize reality. Considering being and non-being in his dialogue "Sophist", Plato argues that being requires non-being. Then being and non-being, like truth and falsehood, must exist simultaneously. In this case, being as unchanging and immovable would be unknowable.

So Plato has three main categories: being (and non-being), motion and rest. Further, identity and difference are added to them. Movement and rest are not only incompatible, but also subordinate to a more general concept of being, since they exist. In the same way, identity and difference are incompatible, but they must be compatible with being, movement and rest, since they are subordinate to them. As a result, Plato is forced to abandon the unchanging and unambiguous concepts to which the naive theory of ideas logically led.

In Parmenides, one of his dialogues in which he, like Socrates, expounded his thoughts, Plato clearly formulates the essence of the problems he faced, following this naive theory: in the words of Parmenides, addressed to the young Socrates, he says: "Assume that there are many, and see what should follow from this assumption, both for the most of the many in relation to oneself and the one, and for the one in relation to itself and to the many. On the other hand, if there is not much, then again we must consider what will follow from this for the one and for the many in relation to themselves and to each other ... and non-being; in a word, whatever you assume is existing or non-existent or experiencing some other state, each time you must consider the effect in relation to itself and in relation to other assumptions taken separately chke, in greater number and also in aggregate. " Such inconsistency of concepts requires a more thorough dialectic, recognizing that opposites are identical. The study of any definition, taken by itself and in relation to other definitions, leads to the fact that each of them passes into its opposite.

Dialectics for Plato, as well as for Socrates, is the art of dialogue. This is what the art of thinking means. What is needed for this? First, the ability to grasp everything with a common view, to bring to a single idea what looks like divided everywhere, in order to make the subject of cognition clear by giving a definition. Secondly, the ability to divide everything into species, natural constituents, while trying not to break up any of them. Two principles of Plato: connection and separation.

The development process of a concept has nothing to do with an arbitrary transition from one definition to another. A careful analysis is required of which concepts and how are compatible and which are not. Such an analysis, made in the Dialogues, leads Plato to the conclusion that each of the mutually exclusive opposites necessarily implies "its other"; being presupposes the presence of non-being, the one - the many, the movement - the rest, the difference - the identity, etc. In all dialogues, one way or another, there is an idea of ​​one thing. One is the highest good, beauty, truth, etc. Mind and soul follow from it. This triadic nature of ideas is repeated in all cosmic and social "hierarchies".

Plato brilliantly guessed that the singular and the particular require the presence of the universal. The universal is their inner meaning, structure, integrity, the law of their interconnection and internal dismemberment. However, it ignores the fact that the universal itself is nothing without the singular and special, the sense and meaning of which it is. The logical primacy of the universal becomes for him universal and all-round. This is how his concept appears - the Primordial One. It is above all being, essence and knowledge. It carries in itself an absolute meaning, in which, alas, no concrete meaning remains. A light in which complete darkness reigns.

The dialectic of Plato, set forth in Filebe, Sophist and Parmenides, turns out to be, according to Hegel, an image of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and any finite spirit. As for the dialectic of the Cosmos, it, set forth in Timaeus, is reduced to a description of the creation of the world by the Demiurge and other deities subject to him.

A characteristic feature of ancient Greek thinking was that philosophers were looking for the "material cause" of all things, their origin. This was a natural starting point for explaining the world, which was only possible in the absence of more accurate, scientific ideas about the world around us. Following this, the question inevitably arose: what does this primary substance itself consist of?

Having dealt with these problems put forward by Leucippus and Democritus, Plato borrowed their concept of the smallest particles of matter. However, he saw no reason to consider atoms as the fundamental principle of all that exists, as something really existing at all. Plato's atoms are thought of by him as geometric forms, correct in the mathematical sense of the word. The concept of matter in the sphere of the smallest dimensions is transformed by Plato into the concept of a mathematical form. The main trends in the behavior of particles are represented here by geometric shapes, their mutual position and speed.

The underlying structure of all phenomena is given not in the form of material objects, like the atoms of Democritus, but in the form that determines the structure of objects. Ideas become more fundamental than objects. And since ideas can be described mathematically, they are nothing more than mathematical forms. The expression "God is the greatest mathematician" is consonant with Plato's philosophy, although in this aphoristic form it refers to a later period in the history of philosophy.

In the struggle against ancient materialism, Plato took a frank, sharply expressed position of idealism, assuring that not ideas reflect matter, but that matter is a reflection of ideas. To strengthen this position, he presented the idea as objectively existing independently of the person. It was absolute idealism, which was founded in Europe by Plato. His ideal essences, in order to become a kind of models of infinite sensible things and condition an eternally mobile sensible world, themselves had to become living and mobile material, remaining general concepts.

From a young age, Plato became close to the Heraclitans, who argued that sensual things are in a constant flow. But the mind protested against this, since knowledge is possible only about something stable and constant. Following Socrates, Plato therefore abandoned the study of nature and took up questions of ethics, seeking general definitions in this area. General definitions have as their subject something other than sensible things that are constantly changing. How do ideas connect with objects found in the sensory world? The first, being in their own special world, are contemplated by souls in their existence beyond the grave and are remembered when a person, being born, begins his earthly knowledge.

In Plato's time, decisive importance was attached to the bodily and generally earthly aspects of human life. Therefore, in the Renaissance, advanced philosophical thought fought against scholasticism and Aristotelianism adapted to its needs, often from the standpoint of pantheistically interpreted Platonism. The doctrine of Plato and his followers about the identity of the material and the ideal contributed in modern times to the fusion of natural-scientific observation and experiment, on the one hand, and ideal-mathematical constructions, on the other. Thus, some of Plato's ideas, developed after him by neoplatonism, in modern times paved the way for mathematical natural science and, above all, differential and integral calculus in the mechanics of Newton and Leibniz.

Plato created the theory of the general as a law for individual phenomena and thus - the theory of the eternal laws of nature and society, which opposed their actual confusion, blind indivisibility, inherent in pre-scientific understanding. This side of Plato's philosophy largely determined its significance in the history of human thought.

Plato, following Socrates, continued his inspired search for truth, therefore, on the way to new truths, he never stopped at a systematic presentation of his views. Both of them constantly put more and more new questions and were never satisfied with the answers they received. Their constant and restless creative search excluded any isolation and ossification of thought. It is not for nothing that Plato called his main method dialectical, i.e. question-and-answer.

Plato lived and worked in that fateful era of the ancient world, when the old freedom-loving classical Greek polis was perishing. Instead, huge empires were born, subjugating the individual. Dissatisfied with the disintegration of contemporary public and private foundations of life, Plato inevitably embodied his ideals in utopia. Already in the "State" he built, proceeding from the best intentions and intentions, such a political system that is so ideal and so absolute that no forward movement, no historicism is possible in it. In a later work, "Laws," Plato recognizes the utopia set forth in The State as too difficult and unrealizable. However, wishing to bring his new project closer to reality, he is already building in essence a barracks utopia that regulates almost all manifestations of human life, up to marriage and sexual relations, without exception.

Naturally, the barracks ideas of the late Plato could not but influence, in turn, the theoretical thought. Since society appears to them as "the element of evil", in so far as he begins to preach the war of all against all, as pertaining to the very nature of society. Plato perfectly understood the limitations of his restorationist worldview and, apparently, therefore, he opposed his barracks state to the order of things, which he himself declared natural, coming from nature itself. In the introductory article to the four-volume edition of the works of Plato A.F. Losev, on the eve of perestroika, noted a kind of historical parallel between the fate of Plato's ideas and the ideas of Marxism.

“Plato all his life preached universal harmony, that is, he was nature, so to speak, of the Apollo type. But harmony can be different. Feast "and" Phaedra. "Another harmony is stagnant, weak, it is based on coercion, violence, does not embody the living contradictions of life and requires a rubber club. Plato, a sensitive nature, could not help but understand his fundamental rejection of classical harmony to sacrifice the harmony of the barracks. " However, a similar evolution took place, following the inexorable laws of history, and many other, no less significant philosophical systems.

The doctrine of Plato - idealism, according to his statements, really exists, not a sensible object, but only its intelligible, incorporeal, not perceived by the senses. At the same time, this doctrine is objective idealism, since, according to Plato, “the idea” exists by itself, exists as a common thing for all objects. Plato uses the word 'idea ›› to denote the essence of an object, as well as to denote' form ››, 'figure ››,' shape ››, 'look ››. He has a “idea” (or “view”) is a form that is comprehended not by the senses, but by the mind - “… immutable essences can be comprehended only with the help of reflection - they are invisible and invisible. ››. One of the important provisions of Plato's ontology is the division of reality into two worlds: the world of ideas and the world of sensible things. ‹– Ideas exist in nature as if in the form of samples, while other things are similar to them ››. The material world that surrounds us and which we cognize through the senses is only a “shadow” and is produced from the world of ideas, that is, the material world is secondary. All phenomena and objects of the material world are transient, arise, perish and change (and therefore cannot be truly existent), while ideas are immutable, immovable and eternal. Each of them is “uniform and existing in itself, always unchanging and the same, and never, under any circumstances, is subject to the slightest change”. For these properties, Plato recognizes them as "genuine, real being and raises them to the rank of the only subject of genuine true cognition". To explain the diversity of the sensory world, Plato introduces the concept of matter. Matter, according to Plato, is “the recipient and, as it were, the nurse of every birth”. Plato believes that matter can take any form because it is completely formless, indefinite, since its purpose “is to perceive well in its entire volume the imprints of all eternally existing things.” nature alien to any form ››. According to Plato, “ideas” are truly existent being, and matter is non-being, and without “ideas”, matter could not exist.

Between the world of ideas, as truly real being, and non-being (that is, matter as such), according to Plato, there is “seeming being” (that is, the world of really real, sensibly perceived phenomena and things), which separates true being from nothingness. Since the world of sensible things, according to Paton, occupies the “middle” position between the area of ​​being and non-being, being a product of both these areas, it to some extent combines opposites in itself, it is the unity of opposites: being and non-being, identical and non-identical, unchanging and changeable, motionless and moving, involved in the singular and plural.

Plato pays a lot of attention to the issue of “hierarchization of ideas”. This hierarchization is a certain ordered system of objective idealism. First, “ideas” of the highest values ​​- “ideas” of good, truth, beautiful and just. Secondly, “Ideas” of physical phenomena and processes: fire, rest, movement, color, sound, etc. Thirdly, “Ideas” exist for certain categories of beings, such as animals and humans. Fourth, sometimes Plato admits the existence of “ideas” for objects produced by man. Fifth, the “ideas of relations” were of great importance in Plato's theory of “ideas”. The highest idea of ​​ideas is an abstract good that is identical with absolute beauty. In every material thing, it is necessary to look for a reflection of ideal beauty, its essence. When a person is able to “see with his mind” a beautiful separate thing, “he will know what is so beautiful in many things”. Thus, one can gradually rise to the most general concept of good. The idea of ​​good is the most important knowledge, through it justice and everything else become usable and useful.

In his dialogues, Plato gave concrete prototypes for constructing his doctrine of ideas. The doctrine of ideas is combined and identified by Plato with mythology, has under it a certain mystical and social experience.

Plato's doctrine of the idea as a principle of understanding things, of their general integrity, which is the law of their individual manifestations, cannot be questioned, no matter what changes occur in nature and in society.

Epistemology of Plato.

Plato's doctrine of knowledge is inseparable from his doctrine of being, from his psychology, cosmology and mythology. The doctrine of knowledge turns into a myth. According to Plato, our soul is immortal. Before she settled on the earth and took on a corporeal shell, it was as if the soul contemplated the truly existing being and retained knowledge about it. A person will know without learning from anyone, but only by answering questions, that is, he will acquire knowledge in himself, therefore, he will remember. Therefore, the essence of the process of cognition, according to Plato, consists in the soul's recollection of those ideas that it once contemplated. Plato wrote that “and since everything in nature is related to each other, and the soul has cognized everything, nothing prevents the one who remembered one thing - people call this knowledge - to find everything for himself and everything else, if only he will be tireless in search ". Therefore, the nature of the soul must be akin to the nature of "ideas." “The soul is similar to the divine, and the body to the mortal, - we read in Plato, - ... to the divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indecomposable, permanent and unchanging in itself, our soul is supremely similar.” The soul must have a similar nature to the absolute, otherwise ... everything that is eternally abiding would remain outside the soul's ability to perceive.

Thinking alone gives true meaning. Thinking, on the other hand, is an absolutely independent process of remembering, independent of sensory perceptions. Sensory perception only gives rise to an opinion about things. In this regard, the process of cognition is defined by Plato as dialectics, that is, the art of oral speech, the art of posing questions and answering them, awakening memories. In other words, this is a rational comprehension of truly existing kinds of being or ideas - "the most perfect knowledge." Plato's dialectic is the path or movement of thought through the untrue to the true. Such an impression or such a thought, which contains a contradiction, can cause the soul to think. “That which affects sensations simultaneously with its opposite, I have defined as motivating,” says Plato, “and that which does not act in this way, does not awaken thought.” The first half of the task of dialectical, in the Platonic sense, research consists in defining an unambiguous, precisely fixed definition of "species." It is necessary, in the words of Plato himself, "covering everything with a general view, to raise to a single idea that which is scattered everywhere, so that, giving a definition to each, to make the subject of instruction clear." The second half of the same task is to "divide into species, into natural constituent parts, while trying not to fragment any of them."

“Plato's dialectic was an important stage in the development of logic. According to Plato, knowledge is not possible for everyone. "Philosophy", literally "love of wisdom", is impossible neither for someone who already possesses true knowledge (the gods already possess it), nor for someone who knows nothing at all (an ignoramus and does not think that he needs knowledge). Therefore, a philosopher is one who stands between complete knowledge and ignorance and strives from less perfect knowledge to ascend more and more perfect knowledge.

The subject of the dialogue "Teetet" is the question of the essence of knowledge. In the dialogue, three solutions to this question that are inconsistent from the point of view of Plato are refuted: 1) knowledge is sensory perception; 2) knowledge is the correct opinion; 3) knowledge is a correct opinion with meaning. In the first question, Plato starts from the doctrine of the unconditional fluidity and relativity of everything that exists. "Everything moves and flows ... moving and changing." The sensible, as fluid, must be preceded by something that is not fluid and not sensible, therefore, knowledge is not identical to sensory perception. Secondly, knowledge cannot be defined as true opinion, regardless of the ratio of true opinion with false opinion. If we take an opinion precisely as an opinion, then nothing can be said either about its truth or its falsity. Since "convincing, they inspire the opinion that you want." Correct opinion is generally not definable without pure knowledge as such. And, thirdly, how not to understand "meaning" - as an explanation in the form of words as such, as an explanation in the form of an integral structure of words, as an indication of a distinctive feature - in all these cases, adding "meaning" to the "correct opinion" is not can create knowledge. So, we conclude that knowledge, according to Plato, is neither a sensation, nor a correct opinion, nor a combination of a correct opinion with meaning. Knowledge must be a combination of sensibility and mind, and the mind must comprehend the elements of sensory experience.

Plato's ideas about cognition are most extensively presented in the myth of the cave. Human knowledge, says this myth, is similar to what prisoners see, sitting in a cave with their backs to the true beautiful life. “Imagine that people are, as it were, in an underground dwelling like a cave, where a wide opening stretches along its entire length. From an early age they have fetters on their legs and necks ... People are turned with their backs to the light emanating from the fire, which burns far above, and between the fire and the prisoners there is an upper road, fenced off, imagine, by a low wall ... behind this wall other people carry various utensils, statues and all sorts of images of living beings ... Do you think that people see something their own or someone else's, except for the shadows cast by fire on the cave wall located in front of them? ››. The shadows running in front of them are just projections of people, things. They call the shadows they see, but they imagine they are calling the things themselves. “It will seem to them that by calling what they see, they are calling what is being carried ... ››. If they stood up and looked at the light, they would experience from the light suddenly hitting them a feeling of pain and powerlessness to look at what the shadows of which they had cast before. “Let one of them be untied, suddenly forced ... to walk and look up at the light: while doing all this, would he not feel pain from the brilliance, would he not feel powerless, looking at what he had seen shadows before? .. Not he would have thought that what he saw then is truer than what is now indicated by ››. Their eyes could not see truly existing objects. This requires a habit of ascent and an exercise in contemplation. The fate of most people who adhere to the established way of life is the cave knowledge of shadows.

Only those who are able to overcome the influence of sensible things on them and soar into the world of eternal ideas can possess genuine knowledge. According to the teachings of Plato, such an approach is only capable of sages - philosophers. Wisdom lies in comprehending the enduring reality, the kingdom of ideas, in considering from these positions all natural things and human affairs. Thus, Plato's theory of knowledge is imbued with intellectual aristocracy. Philosophy is interpreted as the love of wisdom for its own sake, characteristic only of selected natures.

Conclusion

Plato is one of the great thinkers of antiquity. His work has enriched the spiritual culture of all mankind.

Since the basis of Plato's doctrine was philosophical idealism, it is quite natural that Plato always made the greatest impression on thinkers inclined to idealism. In the teachings of Plato, they saw a model for their own idealistic constructions and hypotheses.

There is an indissoluble connection between the idealism of Plato's philosophy and religion. But in this connection there is a peculiarity that gives her the character of a purely antique, ancient Greek view. The religious sources of Platonic philosophy are inseparable from mythology, and mythology itself bears the stamp of Platonic dialectics.

From the writings of Plato, ideas were drawn not only by the luminaries of objective idealism - Plotinus, Augustine, Eriugena, but also thinkers, scientists of the Renaissance - Nikolai of Cusansky, Campanella, Galileo, Descartes. In the minds of many, Plato was a philosopher with a pantheistic doctrine of living space and a hierarchy of living forces operating in space.

Plato was a pioneer in the field of philosophical coverage of a vast complex of political and legal issues, and the development of many of them was marked by the seal of his creative genius.

Plato is one of those truth-seekers and heroes of thought who become the eternal companions of mankind and contemporaries of more and more new eras and generations of people in their incessant search for truth and justice, in their relentless striving for a more rational and perfect life.

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