Understanding of Platonism
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:date: 2016-03-27T21:59:01
:category: faith
:tags: blogcomment, philosophy

(comment on the podcast `episode 250`_)

When listening to the Q & A episode #250, I was very excited by
the last question on the relationship between our understanding
of Platonism, or what actually Platonism because during the ages,
and the actual thinking of Plato.

I like what I understand be the meaning of the answer that for
many centuries what went under the label of Platonism was
actually more inheritance of Neoplatonism, which was the only
thing which actually was known to the medieval philosophers.

My question how much of that understanding of Platonism actually
survived the recovery of the true Plato’s works in the
Renaissance Italy. Particularly I have been persuaded for years
that generally Plato belongs to what the Marxists of my youth of
the Communist Czechoslovakia called the idealist type of
philosophy (or using the medieval terminology could be called
*realist*, I guess [#]_). However, when listening to Mr.
Adamson’s coverage of Plato, it seemed to me that his thoughts
were a way closer to nominalists. Or perhaps that Plato’s ideas
were a way more primitive; only the coverage of philosophy
without any gaps gave me better understanding of the time scale
of the development of philosophy, particularly how really
incredibly ancient Classical Athenian philosophers were. In the
usual course on the philosophy I experienced (which was rather
short on the Hellenistic and late Antique philosophy with some
small exceptions), Classical philosophers seemed to live just
next to the Boethius and Marcus Aurelius. For example I remember
that Stoicism was just one brief lecture, but when I look at the
dates more intentionally I see that there are 445 years between
deaths of Zeno of Citium and Marcus Aurelius, that is like from
us to the year 1574, when the pope Innocent X was born who was
fighting with Oliver Cromwell.

So, the question remains, was Plato actually Platonist, meaning
a realist or idealist?

.. _`episode 250`:
    http://historyofphilosophy.net/q-and-a

.. [#] I guess this understanding of Plato was still prevalent
    when Raphael painted his `The School of Athens`_

.. _`The School of Athens`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens