Plato

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens, born around 428 to 423 BC and dying in 348/347 BC. He is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition. He came from an aristocratic and influential Athenian family; through his mother, Perictione, he was a descendant of Solon, the statesman credited with laying the foundations of Athenian democracy. He had two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who appear in the Republic, as well as a sister, Potone, and a half brother, Antiphon.

His childhood unfolded during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. Like other male citizens of Athens, Plato and his brothers received a traditional education in gymnastics and music, and ancient writers described him as drawn in youth to poetry, including dithyrambs, lyric poems, and tragedies. That early literary interest gave way to philosophy after he met Socrates, who became his teacher and greatest source of inspiration. Plato soon became part of Socrates’ inner circle, meeting with him and with other followers in Athens.

Socrates helped turn Plato’s attention toward questions of ethics and politics. The Socratic method, a disciplined use of questioning to examine ideas, shaped the dialogue form for which Plato became famous. In Plato’s dialogues, he does not speak in his own voice, and every dialogue except the Laws features Socrates, though in some works Socrates speaks only rarely. The exact relationship between the historical Socrates and the figure who appears in Plato’s writings remains a matter of scholarly debate, but Socrates’ influence on Plato is clear.

Politics also marked Plato’s thinking. According to the disputed Seventh Letter, he once imagined a life in public affairs. After Sparta defeated Athens in 404 BC, the Thirty Tyrants came to power, including two of Plato’s relatives, Critias and Charmides. Plato was invited to join the administration but declined, and he became disillusioned by their atrocities, especially when they tried to involve Socrates in the seizure of Leon of Salamis for summary execution. After democracy was restored, the prosecution of Socrates by Anytus ended Plato’s plans for a political career.

Plato later studied with thinkers connected to Heraclitus and Parmenides, two pre-Socratic philosophers with sharply different views of change and permanence. He also studied in Megara with Euclid of Megara and other Socratics. His own best-known contribution, the Theory of Forms, or Ideas, sought to address what is now called the problem of universals. He also founded the Academy in Athens, a philosophical school where he taught the collection of theories later known as Platonism.

Along with Socrates and Aristotle, Plato stands at the center of the history of Western philosophy. His complete works are believed to have survived, unlike those of nearly all of his contemporaries, and they have been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, his thought also influenced Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophy. More than 2,400 years later, his dialogues still invite readers into careful questioning: about justice, knowledge, politics, change, and the life of the mind.