Plato

THE BEST PHILOSOPHY IS PLATO'S IDEA OF FLOURISHING

The Big Question: the second of our six writers, Angie Hobbs, picks a way of thinking that engages us emotionally as well as intellectually

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, May/June 2013

"So you see how our discussion concerns that which should be of the greatest importance to any person… that is to say, how one should live."

So says the character of Socrates in Plato’s sparkling dialogue on power and freedom, the "Gorgias", and it encapsulates why for me the greatest philosophy is to be found in Plato’s works—even if you don’t believe (as few of us do) in their underlying metaphysics, the theory of eternal and unchanging forms.

Plato never writes in his own voice; he never tells us what to think. Rather, he educates us in how to think. In his glorious dialogues, a wide variety of characters—philosophers, politicians, playwrights, soldiers and orators—discuss all the questions that really matter: the nature of love, beauty, knowledge and justice. These are discussions that leave space for the reader to enter. Underlying all of them is the question above: what is the best life and what sort of person does one have to be to live it? This approach to ethics focuses on the whole human being rather than on duties or the consequences of actions, and engages us emotionally as well as intellectually. And it is an approach to which the dialogue form is ideally suited: we are presented with an array of possible role models, and we are enabled to see how character, life and beliefs intertwine and influence one another. We are given a sense of the shape of a flourishing life.

"Flourishing"—eudaimonia in Greek—is not the same thing as pleasure, or even happiness. It is a more objective notion, concerned with the full realisation of our best faculties. We cannot always be happy, but we can always aim to fulfil our best potential—providing, of course, that we have done some informed thinking about what "best" might entail here.

For Plato, the best life is one in which reason and its desire for truth guides our sensual desires, and also our longing for honour and status. Without reason’s guidance, these other desires will be adversely shaped by a corrupting environment and will harm both self and society. Through reason, we can escape the confinements of nature and nurture, and see further than our own postcode. But of course reason can only provide this release if it is properly trained—which is yet another argument in favour of sharpening your intellectual muscles by becoming an active participant in Plato’s matchless dialogues.