An Athenian philosopher and student of Socrates whose dialogues, nearly all of which survive, are the founding texts of the Western philosophical tradition. Plato wrote almost nothing in his own voice, instead staging Socrates in conversation with other Athenians on questions of justice, knowledge, love, and the soul. His theory of Forms holds that the changing things we perceive with the senses are imperfect copies of unchanging, non-physical Forms grasped by reason alone, so that a particular just act is just only by participating in the Form of Justice itself. Around 387 BCE he founded the Academy in Athens, an institution devoted to philosophical and mathematical inquiry that continued, with interruptions, for centuries, and that produced his most famous student, Aristotle. His Republic remains the most widely read work of political philosophy in the tradition he began.
Facts
Disputed
Birth YearAncient sources place Plato's birth in either 429 or 428/427 BCE; no birth record survives and the figure is reconstructed from later biographical testimony, chiefly Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries afterward. TraditionClassical Greek philosophy 3 Classification
NationalityAncient Greece (Historical) 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Al-Farabi, Philosophers Al-Madina al-Fadila directly reworks the political philosophy of Plato's Republic for an Islamic context.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Plato's Symposium, staging a series of speeches in praise of eros, is the foundational Western text on the philosophy of love.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Problem of Universals (Wikipedia)
Plato is the dialogue's author; the dilemma is posed to the character Euthyphro by Plato's Socrates.
Source Euthyphro Dilemma (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Critiqued Here
Aristotle, Philosophers Aristotle, Plato's own student at the Academy, rejected the theory of Forms as an unnecessary duplication of the world, arguing that the form of a thing is realized within the thing itself rather than existing separately in an abstract realm.
Source The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
In Branch
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Influenced
Devotes a chapter of Representative Men (1850), "Plato; or, the Philosopher," to him.
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (1850)
Influenced By
Source Pythagoras (Wikipedia)
Plato was Socrates' student and cast him as the central speaker of nearly all his dialogues; this closes the gap of Plato carrying no teacher on record.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Traditions Founded
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Works Attributed
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Divinity Atlas: Plato, the same subject.
- Also in Education Atlas: Plato's Academy, is where this subject originated.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Plato
WikipediaLead, opening sentenceQuote, Lead, opening sentence
Plato ( PLAY-toh; Ancient Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn; c. 428-347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens who is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition.
2. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Cambridge University Press, 1995Associated With: Aristotle, s.v. Aristotle
3. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationQuote
Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range: perhaps only Aristotle (who studied with him), Aquinas, and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank.
- Influenced By: Socrates, entry: Socrates, sec. 1 Life and sources
- Associated With: Aesthetics, entry: Aesthetics
- Associated With: Epistemology, entry: Epistemology; Plato's Theaetetus
- Associated With: Political Philosophy, entry: Plato's Republic
In Branch: Philosophy of Action, entry: Action, Introduction
There is a long-standing tradition in philosophy going back at least as far as Plato and Aristotle that recognizes an important distinction between the acts that (non-human) animals in general are capable of, and the special sorts of actions that human beings do intentionally, such as going to the store, making phone calls, protesting an injustice, or knitting a sweater.
In Branch: Philosophy of Education, entry: Philosophy of Education, Section 3
In saying this, Plato regarded habituation as a mode of education and identified true beliefs about what is good and reasonable as important educational content.
View the Source Euthyphro Dilemma (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Problem of Universals (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Problem of Universals, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Problem of Universals, Lead section
The problem of universals is considered a central issue in traditional metaphysics and can be traced back to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.
Pythagoras (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Influenced By: Pythagoras, Body, fifth paragraph, first sentenceQuote, Influenced By: Pythagoras, Body, fifth paragraph, first sentence
Pythagoras influenced Plato whose dialogues (especially Timaeus) exhibit Pythagorean ideas.
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