Plato

I

Introduction

Plato (c. 428-c. 347 bc), Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential thinkers in Western philosophy.

II

Life

Plato was born to an aristocratic family in the Athenian democracy. His father, Ariston, was believed to be descended from the early kings of Athens. Perictione, his mother, was distantly related to the 6th-century bc lawmaker Solon. When Plato was a child, his father died, and his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an associate of the statesman Pericles.

As a young man Plato had political ambitions, but he became disillusioned with the political leadership in Athens. He eventually became a disciple of Socrates, who had pioneered the search for ethical truth through dialectical questions and answers with anyone claiming to have knowledge. Plato witnessed the execution of Socrates by the Athenian democracy in 399 bc. Perhaps fearing for his own safety, he left Athens temporarily and travelled to Italy, Sicily, and Egypt.

In 387 bc Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the institution often described as the first European university. It provided a comprehensive curriculum, including such subjects as astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory, and philosophy. Aristotle became the Academy’s most prominent student.

Pursuing an opportunity to combine philosophy and practical politics, Plato went to Sicily in 367 bc to tutor the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, in the art of philosophical rule. The experiment failed. Plato made another trip to Syracuse in 361 bc, but again his engagement in Sicilian affairs met with little success. The concluding years of his life were spent lecturing at the Academy and writing. He died at about the age of 80 in Athens in 348 or 347 bc.

III

Works

Plato’s extant writings are all in the form of dialogues, sometimes framed by a narrator. They depict philosophical ideas being advanced, discussed, and criticized in the context of a conversation or debate involving two or more people. The earliest ancient collection of Plato’s work includes 35 dialogues and 13 letters. The authenticity of a few of the dialogues and most of the letters has been disputed. The dialogues are conventionally divided by their presumed dates of composition, based on content, style, and internal references. This yields a useful distinction between the early, middle, and late dialogues.

A

Early Dialogues

The earliest dialogues seem to depict Socrates as Plato saw him at work, questioning leading citizens of Athens about their beliefs. Several of these dialogues take the same distinctive form. Socrates, encountering someone who seems to know much about a particular ethical topic, professes to be ignorant and seeks enlightenment from the person claiming knowledge. As Socrates questions their definitions, however, it becomes clear that the one reputed to be wise does not really know what he claims to know, and Socrates emerges as the wiser person because he at least knows that he does not know. Such self-knowledge, commanded by the oracle at Delphi by the inscription “know thyself”, is regarded by Socrates as the beginning of wisdom. Among these dialogues are Charmides (on temperance, also translated as “moderation”), Lysis (on friendship), Laches (on courage), Protagoras (on the structure of the virtues), Euthyphro (on piety), and Book I of The Republic (on justice).

Another distinctive group of dialogues are those that depict the trial and death of Socrates in dramatic form. These include the Apology, which presents Socrates’s speech in his own defence at his trial on the charges of impiety and corrupting Athenian youth; Crito, in which Socrates examines and rejects his friend Crito’s proposal to help him escape prison and death; and Phaedo, the death scene of Socrates, in which he discusses the theory of forms, the nature of the soul, and the question of immortality. While the Apology and Crito seem to be early in the sense of depicting the historical Socrates, Phaedo seems to open or at least presage the middle period.