Plato
(429-347 BC)
Biography
Plato was born in
thens of an aristocratic family. He recounts in the
Seventh
etter, which, if genuine, is the closest thing to an autobiography of him we have,
that the spectacle of
the politics of his day brought him to the conclusion that only philosophers could be fit
o rule. After the death of Socrates in 399, he travelled extensively. During this period
he made his first trip to Sicily, with whose internal politics he became much entangled.
He visited Sicily at least three times in all and may have been richly subsidised by
Dionysius. It is probably some time after returning home from his first trip to Sicily
that he began formal teaching
and set up what became the Academy, in the suburbs of Athens.
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Plato is generally regarded as the inventor of the philosophical argument as we know it,
and many would claim that the depth and range of his thought have never been surpassed.
A. N. Whitehead, the 20th century American philosopher,
even went as far as to write in Process and Reality
that all western philosophy was nothing
more than a series of footnotes on Plato's dialogs.
Works
Plato's fame rests on his Dialogues, which are all preserved. They are usually divided in
three periods, early, middle, and late, on the (unproven) assumption that his thought
evolved all through his life and he wrote them over many years, starting soon after
Socrates' death, while this evolution process was taking place.
The so-called "early dialogues" establish the figure of
Socrates, portrayed as endlessly questioning, shattering the false claims of his
contemporaries. The "middle dialogues" are for the most part no longer in direct dialogue form
(though they still are reported dialogs), and don't exhibit the
Socratic method. These are the dialogues that best defend the doctrines commonly thought of
as "Platonism". In the late works, especially the last and longest dialogue, the Laws,
Plato returns to the character of the ideal republic in a more sober manner, with
civic piety and a purified religion taking much of the burden of education away from
philosophy, at least for ordinary citizen.
Plato Online