Plato— the world’s first true and probably greatest philosopher

Born in to a prominent and wealthy family in the city of Athens, Plato devoted his life to one goal: helping people to reach a state of what he termed: Eduaimonia or fulfilment.

Plato had four big ideas for making life more fulfilled:

1.Think more. We rarely give ourselves time to think carefully and logically about our lives and how to live them. Sometimes we just go along with what the Greeks called ‘doxa’: ‘popular opinions’. In the 36 books he wrote, Plato showed this ‘common sense’ to be riddled with errors, prejudice and superstition. Popular opinions edge us towards the wrong values, careers and relationships. Plato’s answer is ‘Knowledge Yourself’.It means doing a special kind of therapy, philosophy. Subjecting your ideas to examination rather than acting on impulse. If you strengthen your self-knowledge, you don’t get so pulled around by feelings. Plato compared the role of our feelings to being dragged dangerously along by a group of wild horses. In honour of his mentor and friend, Socrates, this kind of examination is called a Socratic discussion. You can have it with yourself or ideally, with another person who isn't trying to catch you out but want to help you clarify your own ideas.

2. Let your lover change you. That sounds weird if you think love means finding someone who wants you just the way you are. Plato says in The Symposium ‘True love is admiration’. The person you need to get together with should have very good qualities which you yourself lack. By getting close to this person, you can become a little like they are. The right person for us helps us grow to our full potential. For Plato, in a good relationship,’a couple should not love each other exactly as they are right now’. They should be committed to educating each other — and to enduring the stormy passages this inevitably involves. Each person should want to seduce the other into becoming a better version of themselves.

3. Decode the message of beauty. Plato was the first to ask why we like beautiful things. He found a fascinating reason: Beautiful objects are whispering important truths to us about the good life…We find things are beautiful when we unconsciously sense in them qualities we need but are missing in our lives: gentleness, harmony, balance, peace, strength… Beautiful objects therefore have a very important function. They help to educate our souls. Ugliness is a serious matter too, it parades dangerous and damaged characteristics in front of us. It makes it harder to be wise, kind and calm. Plato sees art as therapeutic: it is the duty of poets and painters (and nowadays, novelists, tv producers and designers) to help us live good lives.

4. Reform Society. Plato spent a lot of time thinking how the government and society should ideally be. He was the world’s first utopian thinker. In this, he as inspired by Athen’s great rival: Sparta…But he wanted to know how could a society get better in producing not military power but fulfilled people? In The Republic, Plato identifies a number of changes that should be made: He wanted to end democracy in Athens. He was not crazy. He just observed how few people think properly before they vote and therefore we get very substandard rulers. He didn't want to replace democracy with horrid dictatorship; but he wanted to prevent people from voting until they had started to think rationally. That is, until they become philosophers, Otherwise, government would just be a kind of mob rule.

To help the process, Plato started a school, the Academy, in Athens, which lasted a good 300 years. There, pupils learn not just maths and spelling, but also how to be good and kind. His ultimate goal was that politicians should become philosophers. ‘The world will not be right,’ he said, ‘untill kings become philosophers and philosophers kings.’