SİYASAL BİR TASARI OLARAK PLATON'DA İDEA THE IDEA FOR PLATO AS A BLUEPRINT FOR POLITICAL PRACTICE (original) (raw)

The decision by the Athenian democracy to put Socrates to death had a profound impact on his student Plato. In the eyes of Plato this was an act of horrific injustice for far from being a criminal, Socrates had for him simply attempted to better his own society through universal moral teachings. Thus, Plato was completely alienated from the Athenian democracy and this feeling was expressed literally in his leaving his homeland and travelling extensively in what was then thought of as being the civilized world to learn how societies of a stratified, and thus undemocratic, kind actually functioned to see if these were superior to that of his home city-state. He came to feel that they were, so when he returned to Athens, Plato drew on these examples to create a plan for an ideal state which would, like the ones he had seen, be stratified, but in his case, the ruling class would not be kings or priests but rather philosophical guardians. By making this state an ideal one, Plato sought to place it above worldly affairs and make it immune to criticism, thus establishing a political formula that would be universal for time and place. This article aims to examine Plato's concept of the perfect state which is based on what he claims are absolute truths, i.e. ideas. It stresses that this concept was formed by him to serve a pratical purpose which is the formation of a workable state. In looking at what kind this would be, the article first reveals Plato's rejection of democracy which is caused, in addition to his coming from an aristocratic family, by the sentencing to death of his beloved teacher Socrates by his native democratic Athens. Then it will show that this feeling was given some political shape by the societal structures of the non-democratic Eastern societies that Plato then came to see on his travels. Next, it will be shown that Plato idealized these experiences and observations to form his ideal political order and the subsequent concept of the ideal state that comes from them. It will emphasize that Plato, who is inspired for this reason to draw parallels between the state, man and the universe upon the concepts of order and truth, believes that his ideal can only be grasped through the faculty of reason, and therefore only philosophers, those with minds capable of comprehending what to him are true ideas, can perceive the ideal form of the state and put it into practice.