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Plato was a famous Greek philosopher. He was probably born in 427 B.C., and died around 347 B.C. Since in B.C. time, the years go backwards to zero, Plato was about 80 when he died. Some of his earlier biographies, that still exist, were written hundreds of years after he died. Apuleis, a biographer in the 2nd century B.C, wrote one of them. Diogenes Laertius, another biographer in the early 3rd century A.D., wrote the other one. These two biographies are very different considering they were written on the same person. Even his dialogues (conversation between two people) don’t say anything about him. He talks about himself only twice, once in the Apology and once in the Phoedo, each time in relation with the trial and death of his teacher, Socrates. Socrates taught Plato philosophy. But, there is a source called the VII letter (7th letter), which is the closest thing to an autobiography of Plato ever found. It was probably written in 354 B.C. when Plato was about 70. Plato came from a wealthy family. He supposedly descended from Codrus, a legendary king of Athens. His brothers were both politicians and his mother was a simple housewife.
Plato’s life was changed when he met Socrates. Socrates was a famous philosopher. If he wouldn’t have met Socrates, he would have been a politician like his brothers. Socrates taught him philosophy and how to write dialogues. Plato was very famous for his dialogues. We do not know if Plato had other teacher after Socrates’ trial and death in 399 B.C. We do know that he knew a lot about Math and Science, and Socrates never taught any of that. A few years after Socrates died, Plato opened a school called the academy. It was opened to teach other people about philosophy, math and science. It was named after Academus, a famous Athenian. Plato taught at the academy except for when he went to Sicily, Italy 3 times.. After Plato’s death, the Academy was taken over not by Aristotle, another famous philosopher, but by Plato’s nephew, Spuesippus. We have no idea when Plato wrote each of his dialogues. We don’t even know if his dialogues were "published", meaning made available outside of the Academy. With little to know about this great philosopher, we know he was a very great person, too. |
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