Plato's philosophy of war

The article reconstructs Plato's philosophy of war. The growing up of the famous idealist philosopher took place during the war of his native polis with Sparta, therefore the problem of the germ and nature of war occupies an important place in his philosophy. This is reflected in his constructions about the state, in the ethics, and even in his ideas about the human nature. According to Plato, in war the state appears in motion. The philosopher divides wars into external (the wars with the barbarians) and internal (the wars of the Greeks with each other). He considers internal wars using ethical criteria, at the same time external wars are discussed on completely different grounds. Plato regards not only the political and ethical dimension of war, but also the ontological one.