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Platonic Ideas
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It may also refer to: * Platonic love, a relationship that is not sexual in nature * Platonic forms, or the theory of forms, Plato's model of existence * Platonic idealism * Platonic solid, any of the five convex regular polyhedra * Platonic crystal, a periodic structure designed to guide wave energy through thin plates * Platonism, the philosophy of Plato (Classical period) * Middle Platonism, a later philosophy derived from that of Plato (1st century BC to 3rd century AD) * Neoplatonism Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ..., ...
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Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in History of Athens, Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms, theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete ...
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Platonic Love
Platonic love is a type of love in which sexual desire or romantic features are nonexistent or have been suppressed or sublimated, but it means more than simple friendship. The term is derived from the name of Greek philosopher Plato, though the philosopher never used the term himself. Platonic love, as devised by Plato, concerns rising through levels of closeness to wisdom and true beauty, from carnal attraction to individual bodies to attraction to souls, and eventually, union with the truth. Platonic love is contrasted with romantic love. Classical philosophical interpretation Platonic love is examined in Plato's dialogue, the '' Symposium'', which has as its topic the subject of love, or more generally the subject of Eros. It explains the possibilities of how the feeling of love began and how it has evolved, both sexually and non-sexually, and defines genuine platonic love as inspiring a person's mind and soul and directing their attention towards spiritual matter ...
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Platonic Forms
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms. According to this theory, Forms—conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as Ideas—are the timeless, absolute, non-physical, and unchangeable essences of all things, which objects and matter in the physical world merely participate in, imitate, or resemble. In other words, Forms are various abstract ideals that exist even outside of human minds and that constitute the basis of reality. Thus, Plato's Theory of Forms is a type of philosophical realism, asserting that certain ideas are literally real, and a type of idealism, asserting that reality is fundamentally composed of ideas, or abstract objects. Plato describes these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) in his ...
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Platonic Idealism
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms. According to this theory, Forms—conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as Ideas—are the timeless, absolute, non-physical, and unchangeable essences of all things, which objects and matter in the physical world merely participate in, imitate, or resemble. In other words, Forms are various abstract ideals that exist even outside of human minds and that constitute the basis of reality. Thus, Plato's Theory of Forms is a type of philosophical realism, asserting that certain ideas are literally real, and a type of idealism, asserting that reality is fundamentally composed of ideas, or abstract objects. Plato describes these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) in hi ...
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Platonic Solid
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a Convex polytope, convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional space, three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the face (geometry), faces are congruence (geometry), congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edge (geometry), edges congruent), and the same number of faces meet at each Vertex (geometry), vertex. There are only five such polyhedra: Geometers have studied the Platonic solids for thousands of years. They are named for the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who hypothesized in one of his dialogues, the ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'', that the classical elements were made of these regular solids. History The Platonic solids have been known since antiquity. It has been suggested that certain carved stone balls created by the late Neolithic people of Scotland represent these shapes; however, these balls have rounded knobs rather than being polyhedral, the num ...
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Platonic Crystal
Platonic crystals are periodic structures which are designed to guide flexural wave energy through thin elastic plates. The term platonic crystal is formed by analogy to photonic crystals, phononic crystals, and plasmonic crystals. The name emphasizes a thin plate formulation, which is governed by a fourth order partial differential equation, as opposed to a second order equation which governs other types of crystals. There are also strong connections between platonic crystals and metamaterials. The study of platonic crystals is referred to as ''platonics'', and does not refer to the teachings of Plato, or the Platonic solids. The term is now in common usage by multiple research groups in Australia, New Zealand, France, and the United Kingdom. Applications The types of platonic structures that have been examined include arrays of perforations, arrays of pins, arrays of point masses, as well as periodic variations in the plate material itself. Platonic crystals have been shown ...
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Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundamental level, Platonism affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to exist in a third realm distinct from both the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism." Philosophers who affirm the existence of abstract objects are sometimes called platonists; those who deny their existence are sometimes called nominalists. The terms "platonism" and "nominalism" have established senses in the history of philosophy, where they denote positions that have little to do with the modern notion of an abstract object. In this connection, it is essential to bear in mind that modern platonists (with a small 'p') need not accept any of the doctrines of Plato, just as modern nomina ...
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Middle Platonism
Middle Platonism is the modern name given to a stage in the development of Platonic philosophy, lasting from about 90 BC – when Antiochus of Ascalon rejected the scepticism of the new Academy – until the development of neoplatonism under Plotinus in the 3rd century. Middle Platonism absorbed many doctrines from the rival Peripatetic and Stoic schools. The pre-eminent philosopher in this period, Plutarch (c. 45–120), defended the freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul. He sought to show that God, in creating the world, had transformed matter, as the receptacle of evil, into the divine soul of the world, where it continued to operate as the source of all evil. God is a transcendent being, who operates through divine intermediaries, which are the gods and daemons of popular religion. Numenius of Apamea (c. 160) combined Platonism with neopythagoreanism and other eastern philosophies, in a move which would prefigure the development of neoplatoni ...
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Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common ideas it maintains is monism, the doctrine that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One". Neoplatonism began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus (c.  204/5 – 271 AD) and stretched to the sixth century. After Plotinus there were three distinct periods in the history of neoplatonism: the work of his student Porphyry (third to early fourth century); that of Iamblichus (third to fourth century); and the period in the fifth and sixth centuries, when the academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished. Neoplatonism had an enduring influence on the subsequent history of Western philosophy and religion. In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonic ideas were studied and discussed by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers. ...
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Platonism In The Renaissance
Platonism, especially in its Neoplatonist form, underwent a revival in the Renaissance as part of a general revival of interest in classical antiquity. Interest in Platonism was especially strong in Florence under the Medici. History During the sessions at Florence of the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438–1445, during the failed attempts to heal the schism of the Orthodox and Catholic churches, Cosimo de' Medici and his intellectual circle had made acquaintance with the Neoplatonic philosopher, George Gemistos Plethon, whose discourses upon Plato and the Alexandrian mystics so fascinated the learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato. In 1459, John Argyropoulos was lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence, and Marsilio Ficino became his pupil. When Cosimo decided to refound Plato's Academy at Florence, his choice to head it was Ficino, who made the classic translation of Plato from Greek to Latin (published in 1484), as well as a ...
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