Its concepts include li ( principle, akin to Plato's forms ), qi ( vital or material force ), taiji ( the Great Ultimate ), and xin ( mind ).

Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's Demiurge, which, as Demiurge and mind ( nous ), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism ( also called idealism ).

The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human mind ( as in Kant's theory of transcendental idealism ), or they may be said to exist independently of the mind ( as in Plato's theory of Forms ).

These notions contrasted with Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that pre-existed somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body on Earth ( see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others ).

Larissa was indeed the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 ( retold in Xenophon's Anabasis ) meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia ( Meno is featured in Plato's dialogue bearing his name, in which Socrates uses the example of " the way to Larissa " to help explain Meno the difference between true opinion and science ( Meno, 97a – c ) ; this " way to Larissa " might well be on the part of Socrates an attempt to call to Meno's mind a " way home ", understood as the way toward one's true and " eternal " home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to seek in his life ).

Averroes ( Ibn Rushd ), in his treatise on Justice and Jihad and his commentary on Plato's Republic, writes that the human mind can know of the unlawfulness of killing and stealing and thus of the five maqasid or higher intents of the Islamic sharia or to protect religion, life, property, offspring, and reason.

Some versions of Platonic realism, like that of Proclus, regard Plato's forms as thoughts in the mind of God ; most consider forms not to be mental entities at all.

Cudworth's ideas, like Plato's, have " a constant and never-failing entity of their own ," such as we see in geometrical figures ; but, unlike Plato's, they exist in the mind of God, whence they are communicated to finite understandings.

These notions sharply contrasted with the previously held Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that preexisted somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body here on Earth ( see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others ).

The doctrine of the body as the source of all evil corresponds entirely with the Neo-Pythagorean doctrine: the soul he conceives as a divine emanation, similar to Plato's νοῦς (" mind, understanding, reason ") ( see Siegfried, Philo, pp. 139ff ).

As to maieutics, it is based on Plato's theory of recollection ( anamnesis ), so that it holds that knowledge is latent in the conscious mind, awaiting discovery.

Some central ideas of Plato's dialogues are the Theory of Forms, i. e., that the mind is imbued with an innate capacity to understand and contemplate concepts from a higher order preeminent world, concepts more real, permanent, and universal than or representative of the things of this world, which are only changing and temporal ; the idea of the immortal soul being superior to the body ; the idea of evil as simple ignorance of truth ; that true knowledge leads to true virtue ; that art is subordinate to moral purpose ; and that the society of the city-state should be governed by a merit class of propertyless philosopher kings, with no permanent wives or paternity rights over their children, and be protected by an athletically gifted, honorable, duty bound military class.

One thing that distinguishes Xenophon's account from Plato's is that in the former, the Oracle at Delphi claimed that no one was " more free, more just, or more sound of mind " than Socrates, while in Plato's text the claim was only that no one was " wiser ".

The poem's theme is Beauty, but Shelley's understanding of how the mind works is different from Plato's: Plato wrote ( principally in the Symposium ) that Beauty is a metaphysical object existing independent of our experiences of particular concrete objects, while Shelley believed that philosophy and metaphysics could not reveal truth and that an understanding of Beauty was futile.

He admitted that he was directly influenced by Purchas's Pilgrimage, but there are additional strong literary connections to other works, including John Milton's Paradise Lost, Samuel Johnson's Rasselas, Chatterton's African Eclogues, William Bartram's Travels through North and South Carolina, Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Short Residence in Sweden, Plato's Phaedrus and Ion, Maurice's The History of Hindostan, and Heliodorus's Aethiopian History.

At Athens " in Plato's time ," notes Kenneth Dorter " there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods, as to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven.

As a substitute for this, he commented on Plato's The Republic, arguing that the ideal state there described was the same as the original constitution of the Arab Caliphate, as well as the Almohad state of Ibn Tumart.

According to Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, he visited Neith's temple at Sais and received from the priests there an account of the history of Atlantis.

The passage in which the above occurs has been described as " elaborately ironical ", making it unclear which of its aspects may be taken seriously, although Diogenes Laertius later confirms that there were indeed seven such individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom well before Plato's time.

Plato's Parmenides portrays Zeno as claiming to have written a book defending the monism of Parmenides by demonstrating the absurd consequence of assuming that there is plurality.

Plato's Timaeus and Critias state that in the temple of Neith at Sais, there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for 9, 000 years.

Since true being resides in the world of the forms, we must direct our intellects there to have knowledge, in Plato's view ; otherwise, we are stuck with mere opinion of what may be likened to passing shadows.

The Aristophanic Socrates is much more interested in physical speculations than is Plato's Socrates yet it is possible that the real Socrates did take a strong interest in such speculations during his development as a philosopher and there is some support for this in Plato's dialogue Phaedo 96A.

In the early Middle Ages, there was a resurgence of what is now called Neoplatonism, which is generally based on Plato's philosophy.

Although this may seem obvious, there have been some philosophers who have denied the concept of metamorphosis, such as Plato's predecessor Parmenides and later Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, and perhaps some Eastern philosophers.

Much like Plato's Academy, there were in Aristotle's school junior and senior members, the junior members generally serving as pupils or assistants to the senior members who directed research and lectured.

Many scholars guess that Plato's Apology was one of the first, if not the very first, dialogues Plato wrote, though there is little if any hard evidence.

That is the reason why I have never written anything about these things, and why there is not and will not be any written work of Plato's own ( oud ' estin sungramma Platonus ouden oud ' estai ).

A passage in Plato's Euthyphro seems to confirm the tradition concerning Socrates ' family trade: Socrates is there made to say that Daedalus is his ancestor.

But there are some historians who disagree and some have gone so far as to say that its origin dates back to Plato's Republic.

Presupposed in Plato's system is a doctrine of levels of insight, in which a certain kind of detached understanding is alone capable of penetrating to the most sublime wisdom.

The idea here is one of discharge but this must stand in opposition to a second view, Plato's notion of the arousal of emotion.

Plato's attitude toward poetry has always been something of an enigma, because he is so completely sensitive to its charm.

And we can add that Krutch's interpretation of purgation is also one answer to Plato's fear that poetry will encourage our passions.

In Plato's Republic communism is -- to speak anachronistically -- a communism of Janissaries.

Moreover, it is too readily forgotten that in the Republic what gave the initial impetus to Plato's excursus into the construction of an imaginary commonwealth with its ruling-class communism of goods, wives, and children, was his quest for a canon for the proper ordering of the individual human psyche ; ;

To derive Utopian communism from the Jerusalem Christian community of the apostolic age or from its medieval successors-in-spirit, the monastic communities, is with an appropriate shift of adjectives, misleading in the same way as to derive it from Plato's Republic: in the Republic we have to do with an elite of physical and intellectual athletes, in the apostolic and monastic communities with an elite of spiritual and religious athletes.

Whether or not Plato's tale of the lost continent of Atlantis is true, skeptics concede that the myth may have some foundation in a great tsunami of ancient times.

Together with Plato and Socrates ( Plato's teacher ), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy.

The traditional story about his departure reports that he was disappointed with the direction the academy took after control passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus upon his death, although it is possible that he feared anti-Macedonian sentiments and left before Plato had died.

Thus, according to the character Pausanias in Plato's Symposium, Aphrodite is two goddesses, one older while the other younger.

A centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC in later centuries on the rest of the then known European continent.

He is best known for his appearance in Plato's Symposium, which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for his first tragedy at the Lenaia in 416.

Stylistic evidence suggests that the poem ( with most of Plato's other alleged epigrams ) was actually written some time after Plato had died: its form is that of the Hellenistic erotic epigram, which did not become popular until after 300 BC.

An example of ancient aesthetics in Greece through poetry is Plato's quote: " For the authors of those great poems which we admire, do not attain to excellence through the rules of any art ; but they utter their beautiful melodies of verse in a state of inspiration, and, as it were, possessed by a spirit not their own.

Atlantis ( in Greek,, " island of Atlas ") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC.

The philosopher Crantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, is often cited as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact.

His work, a commentary on Plato's Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it.

A character in the narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is similar to Plato's and places Atlantis in America.

In the Timaeus, Plato's major cosmological dialogue, the Platonic solid he associated with fire was the tetrahedron which is formed from four triangles and contains the least volume with the greatest surface area.

Cerberus featured in many prominent works of Greek and Roman literature, most famously in Virgil's Aeneid, Peisandros of Rhodes ' epic poem the Labours of Hercules, the story of Orpheus in Plato's Symposium, and in Homer's Iliad, which is the only known reference to one of Heracles ' labours which first appeared in a literary source.

According to Dr Rupert Thompson, the Orator of The University of Cambridge, the earliest reference to drinking games in Western literature is from Plato's Symposium The Drinking Party.