Plato
Philosopher of Classical Athens
About
Plato (c. 428/423–348/347 BC) was an Athenian philosopher and, alongside his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle, one of the founders of Western philosophy. After Socrates' execution he wrote dialogues that dramatized his teacher's method while developing his own metaphysics, and around the 380s BC he founded the Academy in Athens, a school that endured for centuries. His Theory of Forms holds that the changing physical world we perceive is a shadow of a higher realm of unchanging, perfect Forms — the target of the Republic's Allegory of the Cave, in which prisoners mistake shadows on a wall for reality itself. The Republic and the Symposium ask what justice, the good, and beauty really are beneath their appearances, treating philosophy as the discipline that pulls the mind from appearance toward the real. Almost uniquely among ancient authors, his complete works survive.
Key Contributions
- Founded the Academy in Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world
- Developed the Theory of Forms, positing an unchanging realm of perfect essences behind the changing physical world
- Wrote the Republic, using the Allegory of the Cave to distinguish mere appearance from underlying reality
- Wrote the Symposium, exploring the nature of beauty and love through competing speeches
- Preserved and dramatized Socrates' method of inquiry, shaping the dialogue form as a mode of philosophy
