Plato

About this figure

Plato (c. 428-348 BCE) was an Athenian philosopher whose dialogues, written mostly as conversations centered on his teacher Socrates, established much of the vocabulary and many of the enduring questions of Western philosophy. Born to an aristocratic Athenian family, Plato came of age during the Peloponnesian War and the political turmoil that followed Athens's defeat, events that shaped his lasting suspicion of Athenian democracy, particularly after the city's execution of Socrates in 399 BCE on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth.

Ancient sources report that Plato traveled to Sicily and southern Italy, including at least one visit to the court of the ruler Dionysius at Syracuse, though the details and number of these visits are recounted with varying reliability across surviving sources. Around 387 BCE, Plato founded a school in Athens known as the Academy, often described as a forerunner of later institutions of higher learning, where he taught for the rest of his life and where Aristotle studied for roughly twenty years.

Plato's surviving works consist entirely of dialogues, among them the Symposium, a set of speeches on the nature of love delivered at a fictional dinner party, and other dialogues collected in modern editions of his complete works. Because Socrates himself left no writings, much of what is known of his philosophy comes filtered through Plato's dialogues, and scholars continue to debate how far the character "Socrates" in the later dialogues represents the historical figure rather than Plato's own developing views. Plato died in Athens at an advanced age, and the Academy he founded continued to operate for centuries afterward.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.