For times immemorial, the unwritten doctrine of Plato hasn’t been considered worthy of discussion. A large number of books written about Plato seem to weaken the magnitude of his contribution to the western culture. However, the first recorded witness about the existence of Plato’s unwritten doctrine was a line written by Aristotle in his “Physics” saying that the philosophical teachings preached by Plato were somewhat different from the teachings that he included in his unwritten doctrine. The term “unwritten doctrine”, here, denotes the fundamental metaphysical teachings of Plato, which he shared only with his most devoted disciples.
In the dialogue Phaedrus, Plato informs us about the reason for not revealing his unwritten doctrine to anyone outside his devoted disciples. He criticizes the written transfer of any sort of knowledge, stating that it is faulty and biased. He also mentions that any person who possesses the knowledge of the beautiful, good and just will not, under any circumstances, pen his knowledge down in ink. Plato’s same argument is seen once more in his seventh letter in which he says that each and every person who deals with a serious topic of discussion never pens his words down.
On the contrary, many historians believe that Plato’s unwritten doctrine was disclosed to the public once; in his famous lecture, “On the Good”. The contents and fundamentals discussed at this lecture have been passed from generation to generation by the word of mouth. One of the most famous witnesses of this mega event was the great Greek philosopher, Aristonexus who describes the event in detail. He says that each and every person who attended the event came with an expectation to learn something about what is good for men and for women which included things like physical strength and good health. However, they were treated to something very different and valid. Plato put forth before them numerous numbers and mathematical presentations. And to conclude the lecture, Plato made one of the most famous statements made by him; “Good is One”. As was the case with all the great philosophers of his time, the common people didn’t give much thought to the statement. Some people even rejected it blindly. But Plato meant by the statement, “Good is One”, was the fundamental principles of everything, including forms, were One and Indefinite Duality. He called these principles Large and Small.
The accounts of many other great philosophers match the account that Aristotle provides about Plato’s doctrine on metaphysics. Aristotle declares that since the forms were the cause of everything in the world, Plato believed that the basic elements of the forms were also the basic elements of everything else.
The most important part to consider while studying the unwritten doctrine of Plato is that the neoplatonic version of Ficino and Plotinus were not only mistaken but may also have been heavily influenced by an oral dictation of Plato’s doctrine. Nowadays, numerous scholars and historians are recognizing the enormous importance of Plato’s unwritten doctrine and are putting in a lot of effort to study it.
Description: The unwritten doctrine of Plato is been a vast topic of study in recent times. Numerous historical versions of this doctrine are available in the dialogues and scripts written by other great philosophers who witnessed the famous Platonic lecture, “On the Good”.