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Plato (427-347 BCE)

Greek intellectual, born into a wealthy family in Aegina, a suburb of Athens, and who with Socrates and Aristotle founded the basic priniciples of Western philosophy, logic, and reason. He was a descendant through his mother of the Athenian lawmaker Solon. Tradition holds that he was a disciple of Socrates, though evidence suggests that he was in fact a friend and colleague of the philosopher, but not a formal member of his circle of followers. When Socrates was condemned to death by the Athenian court in 399 BCE, Plato joined other philosophers in exile in Megara. He later travelled, visiting Egypt, Italy, and Sicily, where he studied the philosophy of Pythagoras and befriended Dion, brother-in-law of Dionysus I of Syracuse. In 387 BCE he returned to Athens, where he founded the Academy, teaching philosophy, rhetoric and ethics, and encouraging research by his students in mathematics and science. In 367 and again in 361, Plato tried and failed in assisting his friend Dion in molding Dion's nephew, Dionysus II into a reasoned and lettered monarch under a constitutional monarchy. Dion was eventually murdered in 354, three years after he had resorted to deposing his nephew in order to institute the government he felt Syracuse needed.

At the Academy, Plato influenced and nurtured some of the greatest thinkers of the classical world. His students and colleagues included Thaetetus, who created solid geometry; Eudoxus of Cnidus, who developed the doctrine of proportion and invented the method of exhaustion to determine the areas and volumes of curvilinear objects; Archtyas, inventor of mechanical science; and Speusippus, Plato's nephew, who wrote extensively on natural history and succeeded his uncle as head of the Academy. Ofcourse Plato's star pupil was Aristotle, who contributed much to biology, astronomy, dramatic criticism, and logic, and who with fellow student Xenocrates was a major influence on Alexander the Great. Of all his achievements, Plato considered the Academy to be his greatest, and it survived as a center of learning for two and a half centuries after his death.

Despite his own opinion of the Academy, Plato is today best known and reverred for his dialogues, which addressed issues of ethics and reason through the exchanges between characters in stories. Socrates appears in several, including The Apology, wherein he presents a description of the philosopher's life to the Athenian court, and Crito, which asks if an individual has the moral right to question authority. Plato's most famous work, The Republic, presents a description of a utopian state, one which influenced such varied thinkers as Thomas More, Machiavelli, Thomas Paine, and Karl Marx. Timaeus introduced the kingdom of Atlantis, a land destroyed by the corruption and evil of its rulers. Historians and New Agers alike continue to debate the existence of this kingdom, usually missing the point that Plato was making more of an allegorical statement than an historical account. In Lysis, Phaedrus, and The Symposium, he reveals his own homosexuality, which he considered a nobler form of love. The term "platonic," used today to describe relationships free of sexual intercourse, stems from Plato's own conviction that sensual pleasures should be set aside in favor of intellectual pursuits.

Recommended Reading:


Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium: Plato on Homosexuality	The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues	The Republic	Complete Works of Plato	Great Dialogues of Plato	Timaeus and Critias	Understanding Plato