Igor Bubelov

God and Plato on the Human Soul (7/81)

Sun, 15 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Plato, in the Timaeus, argued that although the physical elements might be eternal, the cosmos as their current arrangement is not.

Since the cosmos is not eternal, it follows that it somehow came into being. Everything that “becomes” must have a cause, something or someone ordering it into being. This is an early concept of god, though not yet the omnipotent creator of later monotheism.

The Greeks believed in the soul, and their picture of the soul was much broader than ours. For instance, the world itself was sometimes seen as a living, spiritual being. Another important difference is that the Greeks did not try to locate the soul, which was assumed to be more or less evenly distributed throughout the body.

These arguments are known as causal arguments because they boil down to our innate desire to reduce everything to causes and effects. If something moves, we assume there must be a mover.

This line of thinking has profound moral implications. If there is a god, and god is good, and god does good, then god made us, and we must be good. Plato was deeply critical of atheism, there is little room for non-believers in The Republic.

Plato thought that if you make moral progress in this life, you will have a better start in the next life. The soul, for Plato, is a simple rather than a composite thing. To be simple means to be an indivisible unit, like god. What is immaterial is un-choppable (indivisible). What is indivisible is indestructible. For Plato, what is immaterial is indivisible.

The soul activates bodily potential, it is the source of life. Lives end, but souls are endless. Not all souls are rational. Human souls are, but the souls of flies are not. Aristotle later recognized three kinds of souls (nutritive, sensitive, and rational), but that is beyond our scope.

Plato on God (6/81)

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Picture by Jonathan Borba

Plato’s God and the Cosmos

Plato’s concept of God and the Cosmos is essentially an application of his Theory of Forms. Plato defines three possible states of existence:

Being: The eternal and unchanging realm of the Forms.
Becoming: The realm of change and particulars, which constitutes our physical world.
Non-being: The total privation of form. It is neither eternal nor particular. It is a pure, unordered kind of matter.

How Particulars Come to Be

While the Christian concept of God involves creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo), Plato’s concept is nothing like that.

There is a vast collection of Forms. They are all real, part of the state of Being, and they transcend the particulars. Not only are they separate from the state of Becoming, but they are also distinct from each other. There is no complex hierarchy among them.

What, then, is the relationship between these Forms? Something has to unify them. Do they participate in a higher ideal, a Form of all Forms? To be precise, Plato did not call this unifying principle “God”, he called it “the Good”.

Plato’s God is therefore a shaper, an organizer, the Demiurge. The Good begets rational order. Because the Good is the ultimate ideal, it must be imitated. The goal of human life is to become like the Good.

Being Good means being a relentless artisan, desiring all things to be good and shaping them in accordance with the ideal Forms. This suggests a fundamentally perfectionist attitude.

Where Good exists, Evil also needs to be defined. Evil is essentially disharmony, a state of disorder and irrationality. It occurs because the primordial matter resists the Demiurge’s rational ordering.

Plato's Theory of Forms (5/81)

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Picture by Angelo Casto

Knowledge vs Opinion

Plato saw knowledge as something innate. It’s already inside us and can’t even be transmitted. Being “hosts” to knowledge doesn’t mean we can access it, though. Revealing our innate knowledge takes time and effort, and this process of self-discovery is called dialectic.

For Plato, opinion is a slightly different thing. It’s more of a practical thing since it can be locally right, but at best it’s a raw hint that can be refined into real knowledge by applying dialectic.

Forms or Eide

What is it that we know? The object of knowledge isn’t the world of particulars. Opinion is all we can have about the things that change. Plato uses the term “eide”, but the objects of knowledge aren’t what we call ideas nowadays. The better translation is “form”.

At times, they’re called archetypes, patterns or models. Rather than calling it an idea, you’d better call it an ideal. The ideal of justice is the archetype for anything just, etc.

Particulars participate in forms. It’s a tautology in some way. The forms can be regarded as universal, eternal and unchanging. Particulars are temporal, always changing.

Math

The theory of universals applies to mathematics. Mathematical entities are ideal entities. They obviously do not exist since there is no real-world standard for a point, vector or matrix. That’s the Platonic interpretation of mathematics.

This theory has tremendous ramifications for a lot of disciplines, but it’s not 100% new. What Plato is saying is that we live in a rationally ordered cosmos. He is developing Heraclitus’s logos concept.

Metaphysics

Plato is the OG of metaphysics, which is basically the glue holding all thought of a particular philosopher together. Metaphysics is a system, a unified theory of everything, according to a particular guy. Plato’s metaphysics is extremely influential but open-ended. The next big systems will be much more closed.

Metaphysical models underlie the science, the art and the ethics. Greek models can be considered first-gen, and they dominated thought until the 14th century.

Second-gen is more mechanistic. It rejected that there is an intrinsic order. Everything is matter in chaotic motion. No morality. Blind, dead, inert matter being pushed around by blind forces.

Third-gen is more nuanced and organic. In the 18th century, we started to think not in terms of isolated chunks of matter being pushed around, but in terms of energy fields and other nerdy stuff.

Conclusion

That’s a lot of food for thought, and most things still aren’t settled. Personally, I find the mathematical analogy fascinating. Those abstractions do indeed feel other-worldly, as if math exists in the ideal world and we can only imitate and approximate it to the best of our abilities. We all know those abstractions, but we’ve never really seen them.

It’s also notable that not every Greek accepted the theory of Forms, and Plato himself wasn’t fully satisfied with it.

Plato's Epistemology (4/81)

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Plato’s cave

Socrates and Plato

The relationship between Plato and Socrates is a werid one, mostly because Socrates wrote nothing, yet his method and martyrdom had a huge influence on Plato.

We need to distinguish between the historical Socrates and “Plato’s Socrates”, which is a fully fictional character. In his early works, Plato mostly faithfully represents his teacher, but in the middle dialogues (like the Meno and Republic), Plato uses Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own ideas, such as Theory of Recollection, the Forms, and the ideal city.

Epistemology

The early philosophers realized that we can’t move forward without defining knowledge in one way or another. All those “knowledge talks” are known as epistemology.

Minos

https://www.platonicfoundation.org/translation/minos/

In this rather short dialogue, we can see some distinctive reasoning patterns we now call a Socratic method. The conversation itself is not that impressive, but we can clearly see the attempts to dig deeper and understand the nature of law in good faith.

Children

If you know something, it is expected that you can share your knowledge with others, but most people would agree that many virtuous and knowledgeable people have terrible kids.

So, can virtue be taught? That’s an open question, I guess, but it’s the question Plato put into a spotlight, and he believed that the answer is no, at least not in a way a craft is passed on or a secret is shared. We’ll expand on that later, but Plato thought that virtue is something internal which can be “unlocked” under certain conditions.

Rhetoric vs Dialectic

It’s pretty hard to define and qualify knowledge. Plato distinguished between two methods of discourse: rhetoric and dialectic. While rhetoric can be relative and its only goal is to win an argument, dialectic is genuine truth-seeking, which is supposed to reach a universal conclusion. For Plato, rhetoric was not true knowledge at all, just a set of tricks you can employ to persuade others.

Innate Knowledge

This is one of the key Platonic ideas. Plato believed that we’re “imprisoned by being born”, which means that our bodies do not fully express our souls. We all have innate knowledge of the universe, but recalling it requires discipline.

The Greek Sophists (3/81)

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Acropolis

City-State

Because the city-state was the Greeks’ observable world, their philosophy is inseparable from it. When you live in a city-state and have a bit of free time, you can’t help but try to build a coherent worldview integrating your lived experience with nature and morality.

Sophists

Sophistry is a word we’re still using when someone is being preposterous and focused on winning a debate over discovering truth. The general definition of sophistry, though, is skepticism about the possibility of knowing objective truth about reality (or nature).

Sophists focus on rhetoric instead of the pursuit of knowledge, and they have no problem trying to win an argument by non-logical means. Rhetoric is an interesting thing: it can’t be qualified as science, nor can it be fitted neatly into philosophy. It is more of a skill set focused on achieving utilitarian goals.

Moral Question

The word “sophist” literally meant “a wise one”, and a man practicing sophistry perceived himself as a pragmatist, which is an attitude that can be seen in sophist views on morality.

Sophists see morality as a convention. It’s a sort of social contract, which means that you don’t need any concept of natural moral law. In the world of sophism, morality is simple and transactional.

Reaction

Sophists weren’t the only thinkers and educators in 5th-century BC Athens, and they faced fierce opposition from guys like Socrates.

While Sophists emphasized measurable results and pragmatism, Socrates argued that care of the soul is essential and should be prioritized over more down-to-earth attributes of success.

Socrates adopted the Delphic maxim “Know thyself!” as his rallying cry, using it to emphasize cultivation and care of the soul over everything else. This mindset is obviously at odds with what the Sophists preached.

The Moral Universe in the Pre-Socratics (2/81)

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pre-Theology

Pre-Socratic thought demonstrates the gradual shift from a mechanical and chaotic universe to a moral and ordered one, which opens the door to theology. We can see similar questions, concepts, and a tendency towards a unified explanation of reality.

Anaximander (610-546 BC)

Anaximander provides the clearest early example of moral cosmology. He wrote that things “give justice and reparation to one another for their injustice according to the order of time”, which is a pretty convoluted way of saying that the cosmos is not morally neutral. No act of overstepping is left without consequences.

Things exist by arising from the apeiron (the boundless), and they eventually return, paying the penalty for their separation. This is basically a legal and moral framework applied to physics.

The universe, for Anaximander, has a built-in ethical structure. It is an impersonal cosmic justice that anticipates the later personified Dike of Greek tragedy and the Stoic Logos.

Pythagoras (570-495 BC)

The closest one to theology though is Pythagoras. He believed in immortality and transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis). The soul is punished or rewarded by being reincarnated into different life forms based on its conduct.

There is a moral order to the universe that governs the fate of individual souls. Justice is cosmic and personal. It introduces the idea of a moral universe that judges and cycles souls, which is a concept that later influences Plato and, indirectly, Christian theology.

Moira

In Homer and early Greek poetry (8th-7th century BC), the universe is far from being moral. It is governed by Moira, usually translated as “fate”, “portion”, or “share”. Even the heroes who are “good” suffer and die because their portion is suffering and death. There is no guarantee that virtue leads to happiness or any good outcome.

Beauty, wealth, status, and honor are what make a Greek hero. There is no interest in abstract morality.

The idea of cosmic justice is a radical departure from that status quo.

Cosmic Justice

The core of that idea is a belief that the universe is not morally neutral. It has a built-in ethical structure that ensures balance, proportion, and eventual punishment for any violation of its order. Sort of a moral thermodynamics.

Everything in the cosmos has its proper place, measure, or limit. The sun has a path it must follow, seasons have their duration, creatures have their lifespans. This is the “order” part.

To “overstep” these boundaries is an act of injustice (adikia). This applies to natural phenomena as much as to human actions.

Justice (dike) restores balance, it’s a reversion to the mean. The transgressor must pay penalty or give reparation. This is a built-in inescapable restoration of cosmic order.

Nature –> City State –> Moral Life

Since the natural world is believed to be ordered, and we are all trapped in it, it becomes the foundation of being. Order is nature, and nature is order. It’s not something you can escape.

Greek city-states were perceived as microcosms, so it’s a natural way to explain why city life needs a moral order and a justice system of some sort. Each city had distinct elements, such as classes and factions, which were considered key components that needed to exist in a certain balanced proportion.

Political philosophy is born from cosmology. The question “What is the best government?” is really asking “What form of human order best reflects the order of reality?”.

Logos

The Pre-Socratic concept of Logos (particularly in Heraclitus) is a rational principle that ensures cosmic order. It guarantees that, in the end, things work out justly. Wisdom, then, means speaking the truth and acting according to nature. Measure, balance, and harmony give order, value, and meaning to life.

The Opposition

The main opposition to the idea of a moral universe came from the Sophists, who were mostly traveling teachers active in the late 5th century BC (~450–400 BC). They were a loose group, but they shared certain tendencies: anthropocentrism, skepticism, and a focus on pragmatic tools such as rhetoric.

The most famous statement of Sophist philosophy comes from Protagoras (490-420 BC):

Man is the measure of all things: of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not.

This is quite a sceptical take, implying that values are human inventions and the truth is relative. In general, Sophists were very “real” and you can see their intuitions in modern and widely accepted concepts such as realpolitik.

Conclusion

The Pre-Socratic period created an ideological base and a set of key areas of focus for the whole western philosophical project. The cool thing about philosophy is its “durability”, you can still make the same arguments people invoked during those early debates, and hardly anything has been settled.

Our society underwent radical change during the 20th century, but that doesn’t mean our worldview is that different from the people who lived thousands of years ago. People who say that philosophy is mostly useless should at least acknowledge its great work of distillation, separating the ephemeral from the eternal.

The Beginning of Greek Philosophy (1/81)

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Where It All Begins

Western philosophy begins with the Greeks, in the Aegean Sea, on the lips of thinkers in Miletus who were building on mythological traditions. The ruins of Miletus are still accessible for tourism, so it looks like a cool travel destination.

Miletus was the wealthiest city in the Greek world, and that’s, in my view, the key to understanding the origins of philosophy. Wealth creates leisure, and wealth is also generated by trade, which involves cross-cultural exchange. Combine all that and you get a fertile ground for coming up with basic philosophical questions.

Miletus

The First Philosopher

Thales of Miletus (626–548 BC) is considered the first known philosopher of the western tradition. He was a pre-Socratic Greek thinker who proposed that the fundamental principle (or arche) of all things is water. He is also remembered as one of the legendary “Seven Wise Men” of Greece for his practical wisdom, which reportedly included using his knowledge of astronomy to predict a bountiful olive harvest.

Here, we’re getting into Monism, the intuitive idea that everything boils down to a single fundamental building block.

Monism vs Pluralism

The elements battle boiled down to Monism vs Pluralism: how many elements are really basic? There was an initial tendency to look for a single basic element. Thales thought that everything is derived from water: liquid, solid and vapor. It is essential to life. Water is really fundamental to everything. Maybe it’s the basic stuff?

The early philosophers played with different elements: earth, air, fire and water. Those are all popular Greek elements.

Philosophers can be seen as pre-scientific scientists. Early philosophers were obsessed with basic elements, primitive cosmology, and most importantly, morality. Do we have a cosmic justice? Not that different from the Chinese Mandate of Heaven, is it?

Duality

In the late 6th century BCE, two philosophers, Pythagoras and Heraclitus, independently recognized that reality is defined by duality and change.

Pythagoras observed that everything has two opposing aspects: limited and unlimited, odd and even, male and female. He believed these opposites were held together by harmony, which could be expressed through numbers. For him, the universe was an ordered cosmos where opposites coexist in balance.

Heraclitus, on the other hand, was struck by the fact that everything is constantly changing. He used fire as his metaphor: like fire, the world is always consuming and transforming. He also saw that opposites are locked in perpetual tension: life and death, waking and sleeping, but argued that this very conflict creates unity. As he put it, “Harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.”

In other words: both saw two sides to everything. Pythagoras sought the eternal harmony between them, while Heraclitus embraced the perpetual fire of their conflict.

Ethics

A cosmic order also implies the need for an ordered life, and with that realization, ethics enters the stage. The intuitive idea is that if the universe has a rational structure, then human beings, as part of that universe, should align themselves with it.

The Annoying Guy

Zeno was a remarkable figure and he was busy with paradoxes. Change is a paradoxical self-contradictory thing. Hare and tortoise mental experiments, etc. That Zeno guy, he pissed off everyone and no one wanted to follow him. If everything is illusory, why even say that? It’s self-defeating, but he forced later philosophers to try refuting his arguments.

Theology

Anaxagoras (The Teleologist: Purpose/God/Mind)
Democritus (The Mechanist: Blind Forces/Chance/Matter)

They created western agenda. What are the basic stuff. We still ask. Protons, quarks, your choice.

Every major debate in western philosophy and science can be traced back to the clash between these two fifth century BCE thinkers. They asked the same question, “What is the fundamental nature of reality?”, and arrived at answers that are not only opposite but irreconcilable.

Metaphysics

The Pre-Socratics were the first western thinkers to ask purely metaphysical questions:

What actually exists? Only the physical world? Or something beyond it? (Pythagoras pointed to numbers, Parmenides pointed to an unchanging One behind appearances)
What does it mean for something to be? (Parmenides drew the first stark line between Being and non-Being)
Is reality one thing or many things? (The Monists said one, the Pluralists said many)

Epistemology

While epistemology becomes the central obsession of the Modern period (Descartes, Hume, Kant), its roots are firmly planted in Pre-Socratic soil. When Parmenides used logic to declare that change is impossible, contradicting his own senses, he forced philosophy to ask: which source of knowledge do we trust? The answer to “What is real?” depends entirely on “How do we know?”

Money?

Miletus was also one of the first places to adopt standardized coinage, and it had its own mint and coin design. The chemical composition and the technology itself was borrowed from the neighboring Lydia. It’s unclear whether there is a link between the birth of abstract money and the birth of abstract thought, but that might not be a pure coincidence.

Miletus coin

Conclusion

The introduction to the history of philosophy is pretty dense, and it makes it clear that philosophy doesn’t really advance as quickly as other sciences, if it even advances at all. I mean, all those fundamental questions the early Greeks discovered are still unresolved. It really helps you appreciate the “eternal” stuff, philosophy doesn’t focus on the ephemeral.

Igor Bubelov

God and Plato on the Human Soul (7/81)

Plato on God (6/81)

Plato’s God and the Cosmos

How Particulars Come to Be

Plato's Theory of Forms (5/81)

Table of Contents

Knowledge vs Opinion

Forms or Eide

Math

Metaphysics

Conclusion

Plato's Epistemology (4/81)

Table of Contents

Socrates and Plato

Epistemology

Minos

Children

Rhetoric vs Dialectic

Innate Knowledge

The Greek Sophists (3/81)

Table of Contents

City-State

Sophists

Moral Question

Reaction

The Moral Universe in the Pre-Socratics (2/81)

Table of Contents

Pre-Theology

Anaximander (610-546 BC)

Pythagoras (570-495 BC)

Moira

Cosmic Justice

Nature –> City State –> Moral Life

Logos

The Opposition

Conclusion

The Beginning of Greek Philosophy (1/81)

Table of Contents

Where It All Begins

The First Philosopher

Monism vs Pluralism

Duality

Ethics

The Annoying Guy

Theology

Metaphysics

Epistemology

Money?

Conclusion