Plato
c.427 B.C. –347 B.C.

Plato, Athenian philosopher, was born probably in 427 B.C., by one account in Athens, by another on the island of Aegina. He came of an aristocratic family; some stories made him the son of Apollo. In youth he is said to have written poetry; a few epigrams in the Anthology are ascribed to him. Aristotle says that from his youth he had been familiar with Cratylus, a follower of Heraclitus, and that he was influenced by Socrates, the Pythagoreans and the Eleatics. If Plato was, as Diogenes Laertius says, twenty years old when he first became companion of Socrates, his discipleship lasted for eight years. According to his own account in the Phaedo, he was prevented by illness from being present at the last conversation of his master (399 B.C.). Plato made no attempt to enter to enter a political career. Through family ties he was connected with the anti-democratic party, who admired Sparta. His youth was passed amid the disasters and failures of the Athenian democracy; and the martyrdom of his master would not increase his sympathy with that form of government. After Socrates’ death he seems to have stayed some time at Megara, where he studied the Eleatic philosophy. He is also reported to have visited Cyrene, Egypt, Italy and Sicily. On his way back from Sicily, Plato is said to have been seized by order of Dionysius and sold as a slave in Aegina, but ransomed. Back in Athens (389 or 387 B.C.), he now began to teach in the Academy, a place of exercise and planted like a grove. There and in his own adjacent garden, he gathered round him a band of disciples, teaching them mainly by conversations, and embodying the results of his thinking and teaching in his written Dialogues. He twice revisited Sicily, having in 368 B.C. been summoned to Syracuse in the vain hope that he might convert the younger Dionysius to philosophy. He died at home after a peaceful old age ‘in his eighty-first year’ at a wedding feast (347 B.C.). He was succeeded in the Academy by his sister’s son, Speusippus; but his greatest disciple was Aristotle. Of Plato’s philosophical writings none apparently have been lost; but along with undoubtedly genuine works there have come down to us others whose authenticity is open to question. Almost all modern scholars reject the Epistles; and the authenticity of some ten or more of the dialogues has been much disputed. Fortunately, the most important works are the least open to question, and these may be best arranged in groups. First of all come those short dialogues in which Plato does not go beyond what Socrates might have said; the most important of this group is the Protagoras. The Apology, Defence of Socrates on his Trial, has probably more historical accuracy than any other composition of Plato’s (Plato tells us he was present at the trial), and may have been written soon after Socrates’ death. The Phaedo (the last conversation of Socrates on the immortality of the soul) is probably of later date. Some modern scholars assign the great metaphysical dialogues (Parmenides,Theoetetus, Sophist, Statesman) to the time between 399 B.C. and 386 B.C., when Plato began his teaching at the Academy. Others, with more probability, consider these dialogues, and Philebus, to belong to a later period than the Republic. The Phaedrus , Symposium, Gorgias, Republic and Phaedo in which (along with the Theoetetus) Plato’s literary skill is at its very highest, may perhaps be all assigned to the period of his life after forty, but before his old age. In these dialogues the personal characteristics ascribed to Socrates are probably represented with historical and, at least, with dramatic truth; but theories are introduced which betray strong Pythagorean influences. Plato’s philosophy is a development of the teaching of Socrates, but contains elements derived from the earlier philosophies.