Here's the thing: I appreciate the fact that Plato is held up as one of the great craniums. I used to teach the Symposium in my freshman comp classes...so the old guy is useful. But, there's certain things that simply leap out at one and convince me that though he was smart, he was not wise and that he applied his huge intellect mostly to rationalize his own privileges.
There's first his insistence that the only creative act that matters is that of the intellectual man: he dismisses the creation and nurturing of life (women's work), he dismisses the value of work and of artistic creation by arguing that they are second- or third-hand imitations, and overall, he dedicates his entire work to the worship of a thin universe of forms, which are superior precisely because they not connected with labor -- I find no deeper idea here. His writings are invaluable in understanding Greek culture and history, but as a mentor to consciousness he is worthless. He urged us to know ourselves, but neglected to take his own advice.
Joanna