Plato Character Analysis in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Plato was an Ancient Greek philosopher who lived during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E. He is famous for his Socratic dialogues, which depicted the philosopher Socrates in conversation with other thinkers; his work Phaedrus is one of these dialogues. Phaedrus studies Plato at the University of Chicago and realizes that Plato turned the Sophist thinkers’ Quality-like notion of “the Good” into a rational concept, thus allowing other philosophers like Aristotle to diminish the role of Quality in western thought for millennia to come.

Plato Character Timeline in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The timeline below shows where the character Plato appears in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Rationality and Irrationality Theme Icon

...of ancient times was a rhetorician who is immortalized as an interlocutor in one of Plato’s Socratic dialogues. Phaedrus was present for the invention of reason, the narrator explains, and when... (full context)

Plato is the next thinker to be studied in Phaedrus’s class, and Phaedrus disagrees with the... (full context)

The narrator gives some historical context for Plato’s rejection of the Sophistic rhetoricians. Plato so vehemently repudiated the Sophists, the narrator says, because... (full context)

Phaedrus then realizes that Plato has simply made arête into a fixed concept: the Good. This allows Aristotle to manipulate... (full context)

...Professor of Philosophy is out sick for many consecutive weeks. In the interim, Phaedrus studies Plato’s text, Phaedrus. His health and sanity are faltering, as his obligations force him to work... (full context)