Plato and Plato's Republic

[astralsilky]

Plato - Wikiquote
Plato Quotes (Author of The Republic) - Goodreads


“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” ― Plato

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato

[munenori2]

Hmm, I wonder if the Tyranny part couldn't be more general in the sense of any one type running the whole show completely. Naturally though, I think that would lend itself more towards some types than others.

Also, maybe his concept of the philosopher king could mean anyone who could adequately make sense of his Platonic Forms, which I would say lends itself most to strong and/or valued without constraining things too much. Though idk, his whole description of what the perfect society would be like was pretty much crap. TOO static, TOO censored, isolationist, nobody gets to lie except the king, and the whole removing everyone's children in order that they be put into their 'caste' and so the parents wouldn't grow attached to them. Pshaw!

That sounds to me like Tyranny, just a different sort.

[munenori2]

i think the better statesmen i have studied, generally recognized the need for large organizations to encompass more than just their own strengths and preferences, regardless of their own type. in other words, not seeking to fashion the state so much like themself.

/agree. Anybody who thinks they can decide definitively with respect to what should be valued and how, I think has made a classic mistake. I'd try to elaborate on this point, but I'm probably not in the best shape to do so right now (and might be less suited to doing so even at the best of times).

Alpha come from stability but move towards dynamic change, not concrete change but a change in the thoughts and minds of the population. In how they systemize the world and model reality and orient them towards modernizing society at it's foundations. This however leads to instability. They are the designers, the planners, not of concrete plans but abstract ideals.

Beta comes from chaos, the thoughts of the people have changed, they spring from this chaos and bring about order, sometimes with a fist. The ideals are tested and experimented upon, sometimes to unpleasant effect. In the end society stabilizes and the labor and energy of people can be directed. Ideals are enforced, profit or otherwise.

Gamma comes and directs the energy built by Beta towards profit and wealth. But they shake up society in the process, the competition and inequalities that are exposed during this time. Ideals are paid lip service to, visible and recognized gains are pursued versus potential gains.

Delta stablizes the problems that arise from Gamma, with wealth and the success garnered by Gamma, a process is enacted to pacify societal ills. Capital is invested in potential and experimental research, there is a diversification of thought and ideals. However, no change is directed systematically... However, with their investiment, Alphas enjoy a enviroment where ideas can be nurtured and brought to fruition and the cycle renews.

That sounds like some gold there. I guess that's hard for me to quantify really (maybe in the sense that things may not be quite so clear cut, both in terms of how I understand it or in how it all actually plays out, or perhaps even neither or both), but I wonder if you couldn't apply this to history. I'm being presumptuous in assuming so, but from my limited knowledge of Russian history, I would guess they're in more of a gamma stage right now (whether that makes sense given that I think Putin is a Beta, idk). Given time will that result in a delta (or assuming I'm wrong, the consequent next quadra) type environment? Maybe this kind of analysis of things might be an argument for integral type, but I'm more exploring the possibilities right now than anything else.

All in all (btw I'm glad that this topic was raised), these kind of things always seem to grab my imagination and run amok, which is a good thing! Also, I wonder if ifmd's and hkkmr's posts reflect a more Te approach to all this, because their assessments seem to be the kind of thing I always wish I could accomplish, but fail to. I apologize for the run-ons and perhaps not making sense. I'm somewhat inebriated atm. I really do think that this thread, if you take all the MVPoints has some serious wisdom to it all, however.

[Quote Unquote]

Just now a terribly interesting question came to my mind, probably this was a subject previously debated, but anyway... what is type that most probably describes Plato's psyche?

Sincerely, for me, he seems to value a lot! His work has no strong neither really strong . I think he was from a quadra that values and and represses and . Assembling my intuitions on his type, I think he was a delta NF type. He obviously values plus : moralistic, idealistic, intellectual, he didn't make a kind of literature based on mystery and symbolism, neither on emotional ardor and vibrant expression (no , neither ). His work is rather moralistic, religious, humanistic, founded on the clear evidence and appeal of ultimate truth and reality, he tried to be a guide for human souls. This pretty much rules out the possibility of he being a beta or a gamma.

I would suggest that he was an INFj, an EII. This would explain the fact of his admiration for Socrates, who according to some was an ILI, and I agree with that, since I guess that many EII's tend to admire deeply ILI's, as much as I admire LSE's. ESTj men always have been my idealization of how every single man should try to be. In this very same way it probably worked with Plato and Socrates, since ILI's are EII's benefactors.

His VI (I don't mind how crazy you'd think I am for trying VI on a statue) indicates that he was really an EII, he looks like Lobo from this forum, anyone else can see it?

Sorry for my english.

[Beautiful sky]

probably INFj
he was not very realistic at times.

[Quote Unquote]

One thing is certain, he was an intuitive type:

I sincerely think that we can go far further than this.

Another leitmotif of him is the concept that things have basic shapes which compose everything, including that the geometry is the base to understand all. That's Ti, I don't know many details about him, though.

I don't want to be judgmental but this doesn't point to anything, I'm rather suspicious regarding typings that take into account superficial content of ideas, beliefs and statements. Anyone from any type can believe in anything, can state anything and can defend any point of view. I think it'd be a better approach if we take into account the form, quality, characteristics and the intrinsic surrounding and deeply rooted into such opinion, statement and belief. Plato isn't known as far as a know as a great mathematician or anything like that. He used these geometrical forms as a way to explain the essential and ideological structure of abstract reality behind the matter, but he never attained deeply to their "mathematicy" in these so called platonic solids, he obviously didn't have mathematical interest and objectives regarding these geometrical shapes. In other words he didn't focus on geometry but rather in idealism and religion behind these forms. What was important for him wasn't mathematics but the meaning of these forms to reality, but not simbolic meaning like but essential and ethereal meaning, like .

We should keep in mind that he had a philosophical approach to geometry as a subject and nothing more, as far as I know. These ideas about the philosophical meaning of geometry and mathematics date back to times prior to Pythagoras, and we could think that Plato's conceptualization on geometry was a reflection of the philosophical tradition of theming at his time and he probably was simply following his contemporary philosophical momentum.

I still think he was an EII, maybe his sympathy (that's what he had toward mathematics, sympathy, not an enthusiastic engagement) for geometry and its abstract purposefulness in reality was due to a developed and well chiseled sense of , as it would be his role function in the case he was an EII, so he could have developed some degree of awareness regarding this function.

I really don't think someone can be typed in an effective way as a valuing type just for his tastes, I've seen many ESI and LIE praising geometry, if I typed them as LII or ILE, I would commit a great mistake, don't you think?

Sorry for my english.

[The Greeter]

Claudius Almagest, I agree with your analysis. I think that Plato's tendency to compare reality with an ideal is consistent with the INFj typing.