Plato’s contribution to the history of social thought

Plato maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics. That is to say, happiness or well-being is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it. Plato's most famous philosophy was on the idea of the material world. Scholars before his time generally adopted a view of materialism, in which they believed in the importance and permanence of material objects.

In Plato’s view of society and state it has been established to meet the human needs and protection of life and order there is need for government which consists of machinery for conducting the affairs of the state 


He conceives society as the network of the individual 
He sees society as existing to meet the functional needs of its members 
He considered division of labour,Social inequality and social stratification between the classes as mechanism that maintains stability of social structure 
He views change as an inevitable element of society which enhances by culture class which means if society must exist there must be change 
He perceived ideological change as preceding socio political and economic change