GOOD AND OTHER IDEAS OF PLATO

Abstract

The article analyzes Plato’s doctrine of forms, discusses whether the use of the concept of Plato’s theory of ideas (forms) is justified, noted that Plato’s views on this matter are inconsistent and contradictory and that there is, in fact, no theory of forms in Plato’s philosophy. A special place in the philosophy of Plato is the idea of good, which he treats as the highest idea. An analysis of the Platonic understanding of good shows that there is no clear and articulated explanation for Plato in relation to this idea. Plato has the idea of good, but he has no conception of good, and he speaks about good without the expanded definition of this concept. To explain the content of the idea of good, Plato uses allegories. The most famous of them is the likeness of the good of the Sun in the «Politeia» dialogue. The article poses the question of why Plato needed the concept of «idea» and «good» if he did not have a clear understanding of what they are. The author believes that there are two reasons for this. The first of them is pedagogical: Plato deliberately does not answer any of the important issues related to the existence of ideas, the relationship of ideas and things, the relationship between the ideas themselves. Plato reveals all these difficulties, but gives his readers the opportunity to understand these problems independently. The second reason is that Plato’s ideas are not intended for the knowledge of being, they are not philosophical categories. This is especially evident in the case of a good idea. The author of the article concludes that the notion of good first appears in Platos ethics and only then becomes ontological. Plato’s ontology in general is intended to justify his ethics and politics. Proceeding from this, the author comes to the conclusion that the ideas of Plato have a religious nature, and Plato himself is not a philosopher, but a myth-creator, a religious prophet and a teacher.