On Presocratic philosophy as an essential constituent of Platonic philosophy

柏拉图的哲学和前苏格拉底学派的哲学常被说成是对立的，但如果说他们在任何领域都有相互对立的观点，那就太夸张了。相反，前苏格拉底学派对柏拉图哲学的形成有着至关重要的影响;实际上，柏拉图从他们那里继承了知识产权，并以自己的方式发展了它。即使柏拉图发现它们与他自己的有本质的不同，这些不同本身也促使了他新思想的形成。例如，据说前苏格拉底学派的确切著作主要涉及形而上学和宇宙论的问题，而认识论的关注似乎首先出现在柏拉图那里。然而，我们可以有把握地说，关于人类知识的性质、范围、来源和合法性的问题已经被前苏格拉底主义者，如色诺芬尼、巴门尼德、菲洛劳斯和德谟克利特所关注。他们试图摆脱和克服神与人的知识对立的传统，以达到真理，这种对知识的积极态度是他们认识论发展的特征，并为柏拉图的正确知识论提供了一个框架，如真理与意见的对立，理智与感官的对立，柏拉图的本体论也是如此。他在对话录《智者》中谈到了存在的问题;在那里，柏拉图试图证明，不存在的东西不知何故是存在的，而存在的东西不知何故不是存在的;他把这种审判称为“弑父”，但他从未这样做过;柏拉图显然遵循了与巴门尼德相同的思路。阿那克萨哥拉的形而上学与柏拉图中期的形而上学在结构上也有惊人的相似之处。前苏格拉底哲学构成了柏拉图哲学的一些支柱。

The philosophy of Plato and that of the Presocratics are often said to be in opposition, but it is too much exaggeration to say that they have opinions opposed to each other in any domain. Rather, the Presocratics had much crucial influence on the making of the Platonic philosophy ; in effect, Plato inherited intellectual property from them and developed it in his own way. Even if Plato found essential differences in them from his own, these differences themselves prompted the formation of his new ideas.For example, it is said that the exact writings of the Presocratics primarily address issues in metaphysics and cosmology and that epistemological concerns appear to arise first in Plato. However, we may safely say that the questions about the nature, extent, sources and legitimacy of human knowledge are already paid attention to by the Presocratics, such as Xenophanes, Parmenides, Philolaus and Democritus. They tried to escape from and get over the tradition of the contrast between divine and human knowledge in order to attain to the truth and this positive attitude toward knowledge characterized the development of their epistemology and provided Plato with a framework for his proper theory of knowledge, e.g. the contrast between truth and opinion, the opposition of intellect to sens.The same can be said of Plato's ontology. He treats the issue of being in his dialogue Sophist ; there Plato tries to prove that that which is not somehow is and then that that which is somehow is not ; he calls this trial "patricide" but he never committed patricide doing so ; Plato evidently followed the same train of thought as Parmenides's. And there is also a striking similarity of structure between the metaphysics of Anaxagoras and that of Plato in his middle period. The Presocratic philosophy forms some backbone of that of Plato.