What is the best way to live?
Two and a half thousand years ago, in the bustling intellectual streets of ancient Athens, one man set out to do answer just that question. His name was Plato. The world continues to wrestle with Plato’s thoughts and the questions he posed.
Plato’s influence cannot be overstated. He drew together competing ideas of his time and pushed them to their limits. But why revisit him now?
Because the same problems he talked about are still with us:
- Is reality just physical stuff?
- Is truth objective or personal?
- Is life about winning arguments or seeking wisdom?
Plato’s brilliance lies in how he challenged two dominant mindsets of his time, mindsets that remain just as dominant today.
The Materialist Mindset
In Plato’s day, thinkers like Thales and Democritus argued that everything could be reduced to water, air, or atoms. Today, we might hear that human experience is just neurons firing in a brain, or that consciousness is just an evolutionary glitch.
Plato refused to accept that all the things we see and experience could be boiled down to “stuff.” Following his line of reasoning leads us to the possibility that knowing more about the world doesn’t always mean understanding it better.
The Relativist Drift
Another powerful trend in Plato’s time was sophistry: using persuasive speech not to find truth, but to win arguments. Truth became subjective. What matters is what works.
Sound familiar?
Plato, through the voice of his teacher Socrates, saw this as dangerous. Without objective truth, how can we live well? How can we build a just society?
Reflection: Do we sometimes confuse confidence with wisdom? How can we tell the difference?
Socrates: Philosophy’s Reluctant Martyr
At the heart of Plato’s thought stands Socrates, a man who wrote nothing but changed everything. Through relentless questioning (often uncomfortable, always honest) Socrates pursued the truth, not popularity. For that, he was executed in 399 BC, accused of corrupting the youth and introducing new gods.
His real crime? Asking questions that exposed others’ ignorance. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates says he was wiser than the poets, craftsmen, and politicians only because he knew how little he knew.
“I am wise because I know I do not know.”
Plato’s Literary Genius
Interestingly, Plato never appears in his own dialogues. He writes like a dramatist, not a lecturer. His characters speak, argue, reflect, and even change their minds. The result is philosophy not as dogma, but as dialogue.
That’s no accident. For Plato, wisdom wasn’t a possession, rather it was a process. And that process happens best through questioning, conversation, and the humility to say, “I might be wrong.”
Lessons for Today
- Ask deeper questions – Not just “how” but “why.” Why live this way? Why believe this?
- Resist reductionism – You’re not just matter. Your life holds meaning that transcends biology.
- Seek dialogue, not dominance – True learning comes not from winning arguments, but from listening deeply and revising our views.
- Hold beliefs lightly but seriously – Confidence is no substitute for truth. Challenge your convictions with care.
Reflection: When was the last time you changed your mind? What helped you do it?
What Are Plato’s Dialogues?
Plato’s dialogues are fictional conversations featuring Socrates and other figures from Athenian society. While grounded in historical events, the dialogues are not transcripts but artfully constructed philosophical dramas. There are around 35 of them, usually grouped into three phases:
- Early Dialogues: Short, often ending in failure or confusion (“aporia”).
- Middle Dialogues: Longer, featuring major philosophical developments.
- Late Dialogues: Complex, with less Socrates and more abstract argumentation.
Each dialogue tackles timeless questions: What is justice? What is love? What is courage? But they do not present fixed conclusions. Instead, they show how difficult these questions are to answer honestly.
Early Dialogues: The Gift of Failure
The early dialogues like Euthyphro, Laches, and Charmides often end in aporia—a dead-end. Socrates questions generals about courage or poets about beauty and exposes their assumptions as flawed. These failures are not setbacks. They are moments of intellectual humility and clarity.
“I thought I knew what courage was. Now I see I don’t.”
That’s the beginning of philosophy. For readers today, the takeaway is powerful: doubt, if honest, can lead to growth. These early dialogues model the kind of self-inquiry that can shift one’s life direction.
The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo: A Life Examined
These three dialogues revolve around the trial and death of Socrates. In The Apology, Socrates defends his mission of questioning everything. In Crito, he refuses to flee into exile, choosing principle over safety. In Phaedo, he calmly explores the immortality of the soul as he prepares to drink hemlock.
These texts offer a vision of philosophy as a way of living—not just thinking. They raise questions about moral integrity, courage, and what it means to live well.
Middle Dialogues: Seeking the Essence
In the middle period, Plato deepens his philosophical commitments. Dialogues like Republic, Phaedrus, and Symposium explore justice, love, beauty, and the nature of knowledge.
Socrates speaks in longer monologues, and we begin to see Plato’s own metaphysical views emerge such as the belief in objective truths like the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.
Such dialogues provide structured frameworks for thinking:
- The Republic offers a blueprint for a just society.
- The Symposium explores love as a desire for the eternal.
- The Phaedrus reflects on beauty and the soul’s longing for the divine.
Takeaway: Behind every desire is a deeper yearning. What are you truly pursuing?
Late Dialogues: Questioning the Questions
By the time we reach Plato’s late dialogues like Parmenides and Timaeus, things get more complicated. Socrates is sometimes defeated. Plato even critiques his own theories. In Parmenides, his Theory of Forms is put under intense scrutiny.
This willingness to self-criticise is key. Plato doesn’t demand allegiance to his ideas; he asks readers to test them. The goal is not intellectual certainty but deeper insight.
Reflection: Are you open to questioning your most cherished beliefs?
Why It Still Matters Today
Plato’s dialogues aren’t relics of ancient history. They are living documents that challenge us to think better. In a world where soundbites dominate and truth is often bent to serve power, Plato reminds us:
- Truth must be pursued, not imposed.
- Authority must answer to reason.
- Dialogue is the path to discovery.
He also warns us against reducing everything to physical matter or personal perspective. Against materialism and relativism, Plato argues for the existence of timeless realities, truths that guide human flourishing.
“Power must be anchored in the good, the beautiful, and the true.”
Start with a Question
Plato’s dialogues teach us that it is not weakness to admit we don’t know. It is the first step to real knowledge. Whether you’re exploring philosophy, seeking direction, or simply tired of shallow debate, returning to Plato offers something radical: a chance to think, together.
Start with The Apology. Ask a question you can’t yet answer. And be willing to let that question change you.
What do you believe, and why do you believe it?
Let the dialogue begin.
The World of Forms: More Real Than Rocks
Plato may have lived over two thousand years ago, but his central question remains profoundly relevant today: What is truly real, and how do we know?
Central to Plato’s philosophy is his Theory of Forms, a concept that proposes the existence of ideal, eternal templates for all things. According to Plato, the physical world is a realm of illusion and impermanence, while true reality lies in these unchanging Forms. Just as many individual horses share in the ideal Form of a horse, all humans participate in the universal Form of man. This idea had a significant influence on later Christian theology, particularly the notion of man being created in the image of God.
Plato extended his Theory of Forms beyond material objects to include abstract ideals such as justice, truth, and beauty. His influence remains strong in mathematics, especially in the work of thinkers like Frege and Gödel, who echoed his view that numbers and classes exist in a realm of pure logic and perfection.
The Cave and the Climb: Wake Up to Reality Plato’s allegory of the cave remains one of philosophy’s most powerful metaphors. Prisoners, chained inside a cave, mistake shadows for reality. One escapes, sees the sun, and returns to help others.
The cave is our world of distraction and illusion. The sun represents truth. The climb out is education—not the accumulation of facts, but the transformation of the soul.
Reflection: Are you watching shadows on the wall, or seeking the light? What might your own “ascent” look like?
So What? Living Like Truth Matters
Plato’s ideas challenge today’s cultural assumptions:
- Truth is not relative.
- Goodness is not a matter of taste.
- Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.
These things are real, but not always visible. That’s why philosophical inquiry, discipline, and the courage to question are so vital.
And in education? Plato would say: teach through dialogue, not just lectures. Train minds to reason, not just remember. Form character, not just skills.
Plato believed that philosophy was a kind of rescue mission—from illusion into insight, from cave shadows into sunlight. His message is both humbling and hopeful: there is a truth worth seeking, a good worth living for, and a reality more permanent than anything we can touch.
Are we willing to climb out of the cave?
Plato on Politics: Order, Justice, and the Fall of the Polis
Plato writes at a time of immense upheaval. Athens had risen to imperial heights only to collapse into war, plague, and the chaos of competing regimes. Plato’s generation witnessed the fragility of democracy, the failure of war-driven politics, and the tragic death of Socrates at the hands of a jury swayed by sophists. His mission? To rethink the very foundations of political life.
The word politics comes from polis, the Greek term for a city-state. For Plato, the health of the polis is inseparable from the health of the individual soul. To repair the city, one must understand the soul—and vice versa.
The Soul as a City: Justice Inside and Out
Plato proposes a bold analogy: a well-ordered soul mirrors a well-ordered city. The soul has three parts:
- Reason: the rational mind that seeks truth
- Spirit (thumos): the seat of courage and ambition
- Appetite: the drive for pleasure and comfort
In a just soul, reason rules, spirit supports it, and appetite is disciplined. This same structure maps onto the ideal city:
- Gold-souled rulers (philosopher leaders)
- Silver-souled guardians (military and civic defenders)
- Bronze-souled producers (farmers, artisans, and merchants)
Justice is when every part fulfils its function in harmony. Whether in an individual or a city, disorder arises when the lower parts dominate.
Virtue and Leadership
A well-ordered soul practices the four cardinal virtues:
- Wisdom: seeing reality as it is
- Courage: doing right despite fear
- Temperance: mastering desires
- Justice: internal harmony and proper role-playing
For Plato, only philosopher-rulers—those trained in mathematics, dialectic, and the contemplation of the Good—can lead a city wisely. Remarkably, he argues that women are equally capable of this role.
These rulers must live simply, share property, forgo families, and dedicate their lives to the common good. Leadership, for Plato, is not about power or prestige but about service rooted in truth.
The Later Plato: From Idealism to Realism
In his earlier work, The Republic, Plato imagined a perfect society, an ideal city ruled by wise philosopher-kings. Everything in this imaginary city was designed to reflect truth, justice, and reason. In Plato’s ideal state, each citizen performs the role they are best suited to, and society operates harmoniously under the guidance of wisdom and reason. It was a bold, almost dream-like vision of what a truly good society could be.
But later in life, Plato changed his tone.
In his final and longest dialogue, The Laws, Plato takes a much more down-to-earth approach. He seems to realise that real cities, with real people, can’t live up to the perfect model he once described. People have weaknesses. They’re not always rational or just. So instead of designing a utopia, Plato tries to create a practical political system that might actually work in the real world.
Here’s what changes:
- More Rules, Less Freedom: In The Laws, Plato creates a system full of detailed laws and strict rules to guide behaviour. It’s no longer about the ideal ruler; it’s about how ordinary people can be shaped by rules and routines.
- Religion Becomes Central: While religion wasn’t a major theme in The Republic, in The Laws, belief in the gods and regular religious practices become essential. Plato thinks religion can help people behave well and stay loyal to the state.
- Education Is Tightly Controlled: Plato still sees education as powerful—but now it’s used to create good citizens, not just to search for truth. Education is designed to teach discipline and obedience, as much as wisdom.
- The Goal Is Order, Not Perfection: The Republic aimed for a city that reflected perfect justice. The Laws aims for something more modest: stability. Plato seems to accept that in the real world, keeping a society peaceful and orderly is already a big achievement.
So, what’s the big message?
Even though Plato gives up his dream of a perfect society, he never gives up on one core belief:
A good society must be connected to what is true, just, and wise, otherwise, it will eventually fall apart.
He accepts that real-world politics involves compromise, but he still insists that truth should be the foundation of any community that hopes to last.
Aristotle: A Loyal Critic?
Aristotle is often painted as Plato’s great philosophical adversary. But to understand their relationship solely as oppositional is misleading. Aristotle critiqued Plato, yes, but not to reject him. He absorbed, refined, and embedded many Platonic ideas in new forms.
Instead of placing the Forms in a transcendent realm, Aristotle located essences within objects themselves. These weren’t just abstract ideals floating beyond the world; they were structured patterns built into the natural world. Similarly, Aristotle expanded Plato’s conception of the soul: all living beings, from plants to humans, possess a soul appropriate to their function. At the top, human beings are defined by their capacity for reason and contemplation.
Though Aristotle focused more on biology and empirical observation, he still upheld a world of hierarchy, meaning, and purpose. For both thinkers, the highest human life was the life of contemplation — and both saw reality as fundamentally ordered.
Takeaway: Criticism is not the opposite of reverence. Aristotle reinterpreted Plato, but did so from within a shared vision of the world as purposeful and intelligible.
Philo of Alexandria: Plato Meets the Bible
A major turning point in Plato’s afterlife came through the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. Living around the time of Christ, Philo operated at the crossroads of Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology. He interpreted Genesis through a Platonic lens, fusing the Biblical Creator with Plato’s concept of the Demiurge — a divine craftsman who imposes rational structure on the cosmos.
Philo’s most lasting innovation was the concept of the Logos, a rational, immaterial principle that orders the universe. This idea would become deeply influential in early Christian thought, particularly in the Gospel of John (“In the beginning was the Word [Logos]…”). Plato’s eternal Forms were no longer just philosophical abstractions; they became divine thoughts in the mind of God.
Reflection: Is meaning something we create, or something we discover? Philo’s fusion suggests the deepest truths are both revealed and rational.
Meaning Is Given, Not Made
One of Plato’s boldest (and most surprising) ideas is this: meaning isn’t something you make up. It’s something that already exists, whether you know it or not.
That might sound strange at first. In today’s world, we often hear phrases like “create your own truth” or “you decide what your life means.” But Plato didn’t agree with that. He believed that just like mathematical facts (like 2 + 2 = 4) truths about life, goodness, beauty, and purpose are real and unchanging, no matter what anyone thinks.
So what does that mean for you?
It means you don’t have to invent who you are from scratch. You don’t have to carry the heavy burden of making up your own meaning out of nothing. Instead, you can go on a journey to discover it, to uncover the truth that’s already there, waiting to be found.
Think of it like being an explorer:
- You don’t invent the mountain, you climb it.
- You don’t create the stars, you study them.
- You don’t make up your own meaning, you discover it by learning what’s real and right and good.
This idea might feel countercultural, because it pushes back against the pressure to “be whatever you want” or “make up your own rules.” But Plato would say that’s exactly what makes it powerful. If meaning is real, if there’s something true and good out there to aim for, then your life has a direction. You’re not lost. You’re on a path.
Conclusion: A Philosopher for Every Generation
Plato can be hard to pin down. Some people read his ideas and say, “This sounds too strict, too controlling.” Others say, “This is inspiring, it’s about becoming your best self.” The truth is, Plato’s work can be both.
His writing asks tough questions about freedom, leadership, and what really matters in life. He wasn’t just trying to build a better government, he was trying to help people live better lives. And that starts with how we govern ourselves.
For Plato, becoming a good leader doesn’t start with rules or power. It starts on the inside, with self-control, wisdom, and a strong sense of purpose. He believed that if we can learn to rule ourselves, with reason guiding our actions, then we are better prepared to lead others, help our communities, and live meaningful lives.
He wanted us to ask questions like:
- Am I in control of my emotions, or do they control me?
- Do I make choices based on truth and reason, or just on what feels good in the moment?
- Am I building habits that shape me into someone I admire?
Plato believed that before we fix the world, we have to work on ourselves. That’s what it means to live like a philosopher ruler, not someone who tells others what to do, but someone who leads by example, with wisdom and integrity.