In the Phaedo, Socrates implies that his philosophical ideas came from a man who recites a book aloud, and he says that the man told him that the author of the book was Anaxagoras (Phaedo).

In the Pleadings, when Plato defends himself, he criticizes Anaxagoras's theory that the sun is a stone and the earth is a cylinder is worthless. Socrates insists that these ungodly statements were not made by him.

In the Phaedro Socrates criticized the invention of the art of writing, which he believed created a habit of forgetfulness and that books were often passed down to those who should not read them. It was only in one of the dialogues of the Phaedos that Socrates showed his interest in writing, telling his students that he had written some songs based on Aesop's fables one day after his last day in prison.

Many of Plato's dialogues are artificial. Before each discussion or argument begins, Plato sets aside space and time on the stage so that the reader can feel involved.

Conversations are often recorded by someone who was not involved in the initial conversation, and often by listening to the conversation from the perspective of multiple people.

In general, there are no more than three people actively participating in the conversation at any one time, and sometimes different people will join or leave the conversation.

Some dialogues are merely between two people without the participation of a third person, and two of Plato's dialogues (the well-known Apology and the unknown Menecsenus) are merely speeches by Socrates himself. The human component of the dialogue also provides a fairly important clue in judging how the dialogue is interpreted.

The contrast between the different dialogues is also difficult to fathom. Socrates often contrasts philosophy with that of children, and always rejects the latter in favor of the former. He also contrasted philosophy with food in Protagoras.

Socrates often contrasted philosophers with iatros, describing philosophers as cures of the most serious disease of the mind—psyche, which is where the term psych-iatrists comes from today.

Socrates' assertion that the human body is a prison for the soul and that it is difficult to reconcile the body and the soul is still a distinction that is often mentioned today.

Socrates also described himself as a midwife of the mind, helping others to develop sound philosophical ideas.

The conversations focus on the relationship between human nature and political virtue. Underneath these two are religious piety, self-restraint, courage, friendship, and love.

One of the questions that is often asked is whether virtue can be taught, and what virtue is.

Knowledge and public opinion, feeling and reality, nature and man-made, body and soul, pleasure and pain, crime and punishment, and so on, have all been discussed in more than one dialogue.

Others include the immortality of the soul, the role of art and literature, the treatment of women and slaves, the forms of government, and so on, and there are few areas of human knowledge that Plato did not explore.

Platonism is often categorized as a metaphysical dualism. It is sometimes referred to as Platonic realism. According to this interpretation. Plato's metaphysics divides the world into two distinct blocks: the world of "form" wisdom, and the world of what we perceive.

The worldly realm that we perceive is copied from intelligent forms or ideals, but these copied versions are not perfect. Those true forms are perfect and unchangeable, and can only be realized by understanding them using the intellect, which also means that the human intellect does not contain perceptual faculties or imagination.

This distinction can also be found in Zoroaster's philosophy. He also divided the world into wisdom (Minu) and feeling (Giti).

In addition, Zoroaster's imaginary state is similar to the model described by Plato in the Republic. The extent of Zoroaster's influence on Plato remains unknown. Although he appeared hundreds of years before Plato. But most of his writings have been altered.

In Books 1, 2, and 7 of the Republic, Plato cites several metaphors to explain his metaphysical views: the metaphor of the sun, the well-known allegory of the cave prisoner, and the more direct "allegory of the line".

Taken together, these metaphorical stories construct a complex and difficult theory: the form called the "form of the supreme good" or the "ideal of the supreme good" (which is often interpreted as the God of Plato's mind), which is the ultimate goal of knowledge. It is also this form that shapes various other forms (e.g., philosophical concepts, abstractions, and attributes), all of which are "derived" from this form of the supreme good.

The way in which the forms of the supreme good shape other forms is like the sun illuminating or illuminating other objects, so that we can see these things in the realm of consciousness.

According to Plato, tangible things in nature are fluid, but the "forms" or "ideas" that make up these tangible substances are eternal.

Plato pointed out that when we speak of "horse," we are not referring to any one horse, but to any kind of horse. The meaning of "horse" itself is independent of the various horses ("tangible"), it does not exist in space and time, and is therefore eternal.

But a specific, tangible, existential horse that exists in the world of the senses is "fluid", it dies, it decays. This can be used as a preliminary explanation of Plato's "Theory of Ideas".

In the metaphor of the sun, Plato describes the sun as the source of "enlightenment." According to Plato, the human eye is different from other organs because it has to be illuminated in order to see clearly.

The most powerful medium of illumination is the sun, with which we can clearly distinguish ordinary things. The same contrast can be applied to the things of wisdom, and if we try to explore the nature of the things that surround us and the ways in which they are classified, unless we have a rational "form", we will be utterly unsuccessful and ignorant of nothing.

Plato explained his metaphysical theory with a famous cave metaphor: there was a group of prisoners in a cave whose hands and feet were tied and their bodies could not turn around, but only with their backs to the cave entrance.

There was a white wall in front of them, and a fire was burning behind them. On that white wall they saw the shadow of themselves and the thing behind them to the fire, and since they couldn't see anything else, the prisoners would think that the shadow was the real thing.

Finally, a man broke free from the shackles and groped his way through the hole. For the first time, he saw the real thing. He returned to the cave and tried to explain to the others that the shadows were nothing but illusory things, and to show them the path of light.

But to the prisoners, the man seemed even more stupid than he had been before he had escaped, and declared to him that there was nothing left in the realm of the world except the shadow on the wall.

Plato uses this story to tell us that "form" is actually the physical object that shines in the sun, and that all we can feel in the world of our senses is the shadow on the white wall.

Our nature is dark and monotonous compared to the distinct world of reason. Those who do not understand philosophy can see only those shadows, while philosophers see external things in the sunlight of truth.

In Plato's dividedline, we can imagine that everything in the universe represents a series of increasing "realities" that have undergone an uneven split, and the sub-parts of the split have been split again in the same proportions as the first (the second split is in the same proportion). (To be continued......)