Everything makes more sense when you look at the plans. Like assembling flat-packed furniture. Open the box and it looks, at least to the untrained eye, like chaos that makes no sense. You study the parts and see no meaning in them. But study the plans and now you can see that this particular shape is the front of a drawer, these the sides, these the runners, etc. You follow the instructions and try to make it look like the image on the box. The plans enable you to build order from chaos.
A trained eye can see things differently. If you are in the habit of assembling flat-packed furniture and are already familiar with these things, you might find that you only need to refer to the plans at the trickier moments. Mostly you can trust your cultivated intuition.
There is no plan for life. But what if you pictured it as if there were a plan? Imagine you are the architect of the universe: what would your plan for a good life look like?
In his work, the Timaeus, Plato tells a story about the creation of the physical world. Like many creation myths, it’s clearly meant to be an instructive allegory and probably not intended to be taken literally. The physical world is said to be the work of a ‘craftsman’ who crafts it according to the perfect ideas contained in the intelligible world, like a builder working from plans or blueprints, or like anyone trying to assemble flat-packed furniture. Plato’s point is that for us to understand and see the orderliness in the physical world – which can sometimes seem random and chaotic and confusing – we need to see the world as if from the perspective of the craftsman who created it. Which neatly expresses Plato’s understanding of knowledge: To see meaning in the physical world you need to see it as if from the perspective of the intelligible world.
Plato’s creation myth is his way of illustrating this idea. The physical world is confusing and chaotic, but look at it as if it were the creation of a skilled craftsman who is working from perfect plans: try to understand the world from that perspective and now you can see the meaning in the chaos, the order in the disorder. The world makes more sense this way.
And because this is Plato, this allegory also has important ethical implications: Imagine you are the ‘craftsman’ responsible for the creation of yourself. (Which you are, because who else will do it for you?) A craftsman should work in reference to a plan or blueprint. Without reference to a plan, what you see in front of you can seem chaotic and meaningless and difficult to understand. But everything makes more sense when you look at the plans. So when it comes to the difficult and confusing task of crafting yourself, what plan are you working from?
To understand this you have to investigate the idea of yourself in the intelligible world. Think of what you understand as a ‘good’ person or a good version of yourself; picture it as a perfected idea of what you think you should be. That idea is like a plan, a blueprint, and you should craft yourself according to that plan. You should try to make yourself resemble the pattern of life that looks most like that plan. That’s the important message of the Timaeus: you are your own ‘craftsman’, and by investigating the ‘patterns of life’ in the intelligible world you can create order from chaos.
There is a pattern or idea of life that we call good. We live well to the extent that we resemble that pattern or idea. So investigate the idea of what it is to live a good life, fix your attention on that, and know that when you are resembling that pattern then you are living well and that is all that matters.
How do you investigate this idea? Through philosophy. It’s not easy; there is a lot to learn. It takes dedicated work and humble honesty. But stick with it and over time, with sincere repetition, this becomes a habit, a second-nature. You familiarise yourself with the plans to the extent that you no longer need to refer to them (except in the trickier moments): you can trust in your cultivated philosophical intuition. You remember your maxims: pithy phrases that are easy to remember and remind you of your previous investigations. ‘It is better to suffer evil than to do it.’ ‘A good person cannot be harmed.’ The goal in life is not to have more of what is good but to be more of what is good. The goal in life is to use all things well. ‘Align your will with nature.’
These plans give you a set of instructions, and with them and according to them you can craft yourself into something you would choose to be.
Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy
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