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Socrates, Plato and Modern Life

Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Mark Vernon sees Plato in an old light.

It’s a frustrating time to be a fan of Plato. Public intellectuals routinely misrepresent him, and it’s hard to find courses that can unveil the richness of insight and meaning which the best thinkers of twenty-three centuries, from Plotinus to Iris Murdoch, have discerned in his dialogues.

Take one common misapprehension – that Plato was a body-soul dualist, loathing the body and loving the soul. Yet Plato clearly tells us in The Republic that it’s an error to relate body and soul as if in a hierarchy. Take another: it’s regularly said that Plato is the godfather of secular philosophy because he trusted the powers of human reason.

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