ABSTRACT
While often presented as the ultimate philosophical idealist, Plato can better be understood as a rather thorough pragmatist. This is so for two reasons. The dialog form in which he always wrote was actually a way of dealing with a single or set of problematic questions by working through them. Seldom is a conclusion clear and lasting. Rather there is always the need to develop more clarity on the subject. Also, along with this pragmatic approach in each dialog, there is a more general pattern to all of the dialogs. The earlier dialogs are shorter and more incomplete, the later longer and more finished. The central dialog is really a collection often dialogs called The Republic. In these ten dialogs is the statement of the most absolute idealism in Plato. Our knowledge is to be somehow reaching the ultimate form or idea of truth itself. Our actions should strive to attain goodness itself. But while the earlier dialogs lead upward to this idealistic presentation, the later dialogs lead on downward to the complexities and details of everyday life. The whole sweep of the Platonic enterprise is not to reach some never changing set of answers to ethical questions, but rather to provide an idealistic frame in which to deal precisely with individual questions.
