Plato
Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens who is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition. An innovator of the literary dialogue and dialectic forms, Plato influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the collection of philosophical theories that would later become known as Platonism.
Plato's most famous contribution is his Theory of Forms, which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete works are believed to have survived for over 2,400 yearsunlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Platonism's outgrowth Neoplatonism, he also influenced Christian philosophy, and both Jewish and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead said: "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, a statesman credited with laying the foundations of Athenian democracy. Diogenes Laertius asserts that Plato is a nickname that alludes to his robust figure, and that his birth name was Aristocles, meaning 'best reputation', but this is widely regarded as false by modern scholarship. Plato had two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, both of whom appear in the Republic, and also a sister, Potone, and a half brother, Antiphon.During Plato's childhood, Athens was involved in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. His older brothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon, distinguished themselves at the battle of Megara in 409 BC. Despite the war, Plato and his brothers, like all male citizens of Athens, received a traditional education in gymnastics and music. According to the ancient writers, there was a tradition that Plato's favorite employment in his youthful years was poetry: he wrote poems, dithyrambs at first, and afterwards lyric poems and tragedies, but abandoned his early passion and burnt his poems when he met Socrates and turned to philosophy. There are also some epigrams attributed to Plato, but these are now thought by some scholars to be spurious.
Socrates
In his youth, Plato first encountered Socrates, who would become his teacher and greatest source of inspiration, initially in the company of other Athenian boys in the Palaestra, such as is depicted with Lysis and Menexenus, who discuss philosophy with Socrates in the Lysis, but he soon would become a member of Socrates' inner circle, meeting with Socrates and his other followers. Socrates, along with the sophists of his day, challenged the prevailing focus of Early Greek philosophy on Natural philosophy, and investigated questions of ethics and politics, examining the ideas of his interlocutors with a series of questioning called the Socratic method.Socrates' immense influence on Plato is clearly borne out in Plato's dialogues: Plato never speaks in his own voice in his dialogues; every dialogue except the Laws features Socrates, although many dialogues, including the Timaeus and Statesman, feature him speaking only rarely. Leo Strauss notes that Socrates' reputation for irony casts doubt on whether Plato's Socrates is expressing sincere beliefs. Xenophon's Memorabilia and Aristophanes's The Clouds seem to present a somewhat different portrait of Socrates from the one Plato paints. Aristotle attributes a different doctrine with respect to Forms to Plato and Socrates. Aristotle suggests that Socrates' idea of forms can be discovered through investigation of the natural world, unlike Plato's Forms that exist beyond and outside the ordinary range of human understanding. The Socratic problem concerns how to reconcile these various accounts. The precise relationship between Plato and Socrates remains an area of contention among scholars.
Thirty tyrants and Trial of Socrates
According to the Seventh Letter, whose authenticity has been disputed, as Plato came of age, he imagined for himself a life in public affairs. In 404, Sparta defeated Athens at the conclusion of the Peloponessian war, leading to the election of the Thirty Tyrants, which included two of Plato's relatives, Critias and Charmides. Plato himself was invited to join the administration, but declined, and quickly became disillusioned by the atrocities committed by the Thirty, especially when they tried to implicate Socrates in their seizure of the democratic general Leon of Salamis for summary execution.In 403 BC, the democracy was restored after the regrouping of the democrats in exile, who entered the city through the Piraeus and met the forces of the Thirty 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 the many dialogues that are set between 401 and 399 BC, life largely returned to normal in Athens. However, the prosecution of Socrates by Anytus put an end to Plato's plans for a political career.
Later philosophical development
After the death of Socrates, Plato remained in Athens for roughly three years.Heraclitus and Parmenides
In Athens, Plato studied with Cratylus, a philosopher who followed the early Greek philosopher Heraclitus, and also Hermogenes, an Eleatic philosopher in the tradition of Parmenides. Heraclitus viewed all things as continuously changing, that one cannot "step into the same river twice" due to the ever-changing waters flowing through it, and all things exist as a contraposition of opposites, while Parmenides adopted an altogether contrary vision, arguing for the idea of a changeless, eternal universe and the view that change is an illusion. Heraclitus's views are expounded by Cratylus himself in Plato's dialogue Cratylus and deconstructed in the Theaetetus by Socrates. Plato would go on to depict both Parmenides and Parmenides' student Zeno in the Parmenides, and an "Eleatic Stranger" also appears in the Sophist and Statesman.In roughly 396 BC, Plato left Athens and studied in Megara with Euclid of Megara, founder of the Megarian school of philosophy, and other Socratics.
Mathematics
Around 394 BC or earlier, he returned to Athens, where, as an Athenian male of military age he would have needed to be available to serve in the Corinthian war, which Athens participated in from 395 to 386 BC. Other than potential military service, Plato spent his time studying mathematics with Archytas of Tarentum, Theaetetus, Leodamas of Thasos, and Neocleides in the grove of Hecademus, named after an Attic hero in Greek mythology, northwest of the city of Athens, where he would later found his Academy. During this time, Plato likely began work on some of his earliest works; including the Apology, possibly early drafts of the Gorgias and Republic Book I, and an early form of the Republic books II-IV, in the form of a speech rather than a dialogue, which was ridiculed by Aristophanes in the Ecclesiazusae in 391 BC. Speusippus, the son of Plato's sister Potone, who took over the academy after Plato's death, joined the group in about 390 BC, and Eudoxus of Cnidus, another early mathematician, arrived around 385 BC.Pythagoreanism
After the conclusion of the Corinthian War, Plato travelled to southern Italy to study with Archytas and other Pythagoreans. The influence of these Pythagoreans appears to have been significant. According to R. M. Hare, this influence consists of three points:- The platonic Republic might be related to the idea of "a tightly organized community of like-minded thinkers", like the one established by Pythagoras in Croton.
- The idea that mathematics and, generally speaking, abstract thinking is a secure basis for philosophical thinking as well as "for substantial theses in science and morals".
- They shared a "mystical approach to the soul and its place in the material world".