Radical Platonism: Plato's open society
Radical Platonism: Plato's open society

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this research is to highlight the revolutionary and radical impact of Platonic philosophy on political reality. Plato introduces a political model which does not end in dogmatism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but is aporetic and subversive even of itself, i.e., deeply philosophical. The only element of the Platonic proposal that can give political definitions is political science, which is personified in the collective political part of philosophers-governors. However, political definitions or institutions are not dogmatic in nature, but dialectical, in the sense that they are always subject to rational criticism and refutation. Also, groundbreaking proposals such as the abolition of nepotism and private property for political governors, social mobility, equality between women and men in terms of education and assuming political positions, the marginalization of slavery, the mixture of liberalism and socialism, etc. compose a strongly revolutionary political manifesto, which can be called radical Platonism. Our methodological approach concerns both the clarification of basic Platonic concepts and the concepts introduced by Alain Badiou in relation to the political and its reinvention in relation to Plato. Thus, we follow the dynamics that develop between the two philosophers and the meta-interpretation of their positions that will yield the logic of radical Platonism into today’s political situation.

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