Plato

Plato (PLAY-toh; Ancient Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn; c. 428–347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, widely regarded as the founding figure of the Western philosophical tradition. He pioneered the use of literary dialogues and dialectic, shaped both theoretical and practical philosophy, and established the Academy in Athens, a school where he taught the body of ideas that came to be called Platonism. His most famous idea is the Theory of Forms (or Ideas), which addresses what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, though much of what is known about them comes from Plato himself. Alongside his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle, Plato is a key figure in Western philosophy. Remarkably, his complete works have survived for over 2,400 years, unlike nearly all of his contemporaries. Their popularity has varied, but they have been continuously read and studied. Through Neoplatonism, an offshoot of Platonism, he also shaped Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said that "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

**Life**

Plato was born between 428 and 423 BC into 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. Diogenes Laertius claims that Plato was a nickname referring to his robust build, and that his birth name was Aristocles (Ἀριστοκλῆς), meaning 'best reputation,' but modern scholarship widely considers this false. He had two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, both of whom appear in the *Republic*, as well as a sister, Potone, and a half-brother, Antiphon. During his childhood, Athens was fighting the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. His older brothers distinguished themselves at the Battle of Megara in 409 BC. Despite the war, Plato and his brothers, like all male Athenian citizens, received a traditional education in gymnastics and music. According to ancient writers, there was a tradition that Plato’s youthful passion was poetry: he wrote dithyrambs, then lyric poems and tragedies (a tetralogy), but he abandoned this early interest and burned his poems after meeting Socrates, turning to philosophy. Some epigrams are attributed to Plato, but many scholars now consider them spurious.

**Socrates**

In his youth, Plato first encountered Socrates, who would become his teacher and greatest inspiration, initially among other Athenian boys in the Palaestra, as depicted in the *Lysis*, where Lysis and Menexenus discuss philosophy with Socrates. He soon became part of Socrates’ inner circle, meeting with him and his followers. Socrates, along with the sophists of his day, challenged the earlier focus of Greek philosophy on natural philosophy and instead investigated ethics and politics, examining his interlocutors’ ideas through a series of questions known as the Socratic method. Socrates’ immense influence on Plato is clear in Plato’s dialogues: Plato never speaks in his own voice, and Socrates appears in every dialogue except the *Laws*, though in some, like the *Timaeus* and *Statesman*, he speaks only rarely. Leo Strauss notes that Socrates’ reputation for irony raises doubts about whether Plato’s Socrates expresses sincere beliefs. Xenophon’s *Memorabilia* and Aristophanes’ *The Clouds* present a somewhat different portrait of Socrates from Plato’s. Aristotle attributes a different doctrine of Forms to Plato and Socrates, suggesting that Socrates’ idea of forms could be discovered through investigation of the natural world, unlike Plato’s Forms, which exist beyond ordinary human understanding. The Socratic problem concerns how to reconcile these various accounts, and the precise relationship between Plato and Socrates remains debated among scholars.

**Thirty Tyrants and Trial of Socrates**

According to the *Seventh Letter* (whose authenticity is disputed), as Plato came of age, he imagined a life in public affairs. In 404, Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War, leading to the election of the Thirty Tyrants, which included two of Plato’s relatives, Critias and Charmides. Plato was invited to join the administration but declined, quickly becoming disillusioned by the Thirty’s atrocities, especially when they tried to implicate Socrates in the seizure of the democratic general Leon of Salamis for summary execution. In 403 BC, democracy was restored after democrats in exile regrouped, entered the city through the Piraeus, and met the Thirty’s forces at the Battle of Munychia, where both Critias and Charmides were killed. In 401 BC, the restored democrats raided Eleusis and killed the remaining oligarchic supporters, suspecting them of hiring mercenaries. As depicted in many dialogues set between 401 and 399 BC, life largely returned to normal in Athens. However, the prosecution of Socrates by Anytus ended Plato’s plans for a political career.

**Later Philosophical Development**

After Socrates’ death, Plato remained in Athens for roughly three years.

**Heraclitus and Parmenides**

In Athens, Plato studied with Cratylus, a follower of the early Greek philosopher Heraclitus, and also with Hermogenes, an Eleatic.