Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece.

He was also a mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical

dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western [4] philosophy and science. In the words of A. N. Whitehead: The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.
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Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to him. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding [6] the naming and referencing of Plato's texts. Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religionand mathematics. Plato is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy.
Born c. 428427 BC[1] Athens Died c. 348347 BC (aged c.80) Athens Nationality Era Region School Greek Ancient philosophy Western philosophy Platonism

Main interests Rhetoric, art, literature,epistemology, justice, virtue,politics, education, family,militarism Notable ideas Theory of Forms, Platonic idealism, Platonic realism,hyperuranion, metaxy, khra AKA: Aristocles

AKA: Platon

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Ancient Greek philosopher Plato founded the Academy and is the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence in Western thought.

Biography: Plato was a classical Greek philosopher born 428-7 B.C.E and died in 348-7 B.C.E at the age of 80-81. The trio of Plato, Socrates (his teacher) and Aristotle (his student) they laid the fundamentals of Western philosophy. Along with being a mathematician he was a also a philosopher and a founder of an Academy in Athens, which was first institute which imparted higher end education to students. Socrates has a large influence of his thinking and teachings. Plato was born in a wealthy family to Ariston and Perictione. According to Diogenes' Plato's birth was a result of Ariston's rape of Perictione. He had two older brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone. Plato also had a half brother, Antiphon when his mother remarried after his father died. Even though Plato's family did have political connections they were not commendable. His uncle (Charmides) was a member of "Thirty Tyrants" who destroyed the Athenian democracy in 404 B.C.E. Though people know him by the name of Plato, his given name was Aristocles while Plato was his nickname given to him because of his broad forehead. Plato began his philosophical career under the guidance of Socrates. When Socrates died he traveled to Egypt and Italy studied in Pythagoras and then remained as an advisor for the rulers of Syracuse. When he returned to Athens around

the age of forty he started his own academy, where he tried to impart the Socratic style of teaching to his students. The Academy operated till 529 A.D. after which it was closed, thinking it was a threat to Christianity. Plato and Socrates: Though Plato was a part of Socratic followers, he didn't make it open. During the last days of Socrates, during the trial any followers including Adeimantus (Plato's brother), came to meet him, but Plato citied the reason that he was ill. He distanced himself from the inner circle of followers of Socrates, which he mentions in his work 'Apology'. Narration of Dialogues and Socrates: In his works Plato never makes himself a part of the dialogues nor does he claim that he heard any of the dialogues. While in some dialogues there is no narrator, in other Socrates is speaking to some unknown friend as a first person. Three dialogues (Phaedo, Symposium, and Theaetetus) were narrated by students of Socrates, as distant memories. Phaedo is an account of Socrates' final conversation and hemlock drinking, narrated by Phaedo to Echecrates. Symposium is a narration by Apollodorus to Glaucon, of a story that took place when he was an infant. With the exception of Theaetetus, there is no mention how this oral transmission of dialogues was known to Plato. The facts that Plato is not a part of the narrations and the belief that he was a part of Socrates inner circle, sometimes clashes. The chronology of the characters in his narrations is conflicting. In the Protagoras, Alcibiades and Agathon are teenage boys growing beards, and Apollodoros and Glaucon are fathers of teenage sons. While in reality Glaucon and Apollodorus were infants and Alcibiades and Agathon were full-grown men when the 'Symposium' narrations took place. The 'Trial of Socrates' is one event which connects all the dialogues. This may be the reason why the work 'Apology' is one of the most read dialogues. In this dialogue, Socrates dismisses rumors that he is a sophist and the long standing slander will be the main reason for his demise. The legal reasons implicated against him are false. His decision to solve the riddle of Oracle made everyone think that he was a menace to Athens, which was false.

Works: 1. Spuria Thirteen letters and eighteen epigrams have been credited to Plato. These other works are called 'Spuria'and the 'Dubia'. Both the 'Spuria'and the 'Dubia' are doubted for their authenticity. Ten of the spuria are mentioned by Diogenes Laertius. Only five today exist which are Halcyon, Axiochus, Demodocus, Eryxias, and Sisyphus. 2. Epigrams Seventeen or eighteen epigrams are also attributed to Plato by various authors. Only some of these are authentic. Of the ones that are authentic are is a love poem dedicated to a student of astronomy, funerary inscription for that same student, funerary inscription for Plato's Syracusan friend, Dion, love poem to a young woman or girl. None of this epigrams evoke any philosophical interest. 3. Structure The dialogues of Plato are influenced by human elements. They suggest that Socrates relationship with his followers was more important than his relationship with his family. In this dialogue a long conversation is being listened silently by a group of people. Some dialogues have only 2 characters whose conversations are not heard by anyone else. In dialogues such as Apology, and Menexenus; Gorgias, Protagoras and Lesser Hippias Socrates is being invited to talk with a wise man who is visiting Athens. The dialogues have been divided into 3 periods of scholarship; early, middle and late periods. While the early dialogues depict Socratic philosophy, the later dialogues depict Plato's own view. 4. Important Analogies The analogies are as important as the arguments and in one of them Socrates analogy to a medical doctor is the most interesting. He says the philosopher's cures the mind while doctor cures the body. In one analogy, which is funny, Socrates compares the mind to a bird cage where knowledge is like birds, fluttering, where you try to reach for one thought and catch the wrong one. Like the above ones there are many important analogies described by Plato about Socrates in his works.

5. Recurrent Themes Plato thought a lot about the "father-son" relationship. He questioned whether father's interest in his son's had any direct relation with their character. According to Socrates, he was a son of his mother who was a midwife and made fun of father of spent huge amount of money on the education of their sons. He considered character of a person as 'god-gifted'. Knowledge is a matter of recollection, and not of learning, observation, or study is Socrates' viewpoint. This view is in contrast of his nature of forgetfulness. Knowledge is not a practical but comes from divine power. Socrates believed in immortality and afterlife. Most of his dialogues are antithesis of knowledge and opinion, perception and reality, nature and custom, and body and soul. Socrates always had something to say about art, religion and science, justice and medicine, virtue and vice, crime and punishment, pleasure and pain, rhetoric and rhapsody, human nature and sexuality, love and wisdom. 6. Metaphysics Socrates always denied the existence of material world. This concept of denying and its consequences is called 'Platonism'. Socrates tries to change common man's concept of 'reality' i.e. a thing has to graspable to be real. According to him reality is unavailable to those who use their senses and this clashes his views with the common man. Physical objects and events are shadows of the ideal form and exist to the degree that they create a perfect version of ideal form. They are a transitory occurrence as the shadows. They are mere instances of the ideal forms. The world metaphysics is derived from Aristotle's works on divine reality came after ("meta") his lecture notes on his treatise on nature ("physics"). Plato's metaphysics is understood as the conflicting spheres of material and divine. This theory has cast an important influence on Western philosophy and religion. 7. Theory of Forms The 'Theory of Forms is Plato's view that the material world is not the typical real world which we live in but the shadow of it. Plato spoke of forms in formulating his solution to the problem of universals. These forms are conceptual depiction of things we see around us. 8. Epistemology According to Platonic epistemology, knowledge is inherited and learning is development is ideas hidden in the soul. Plato's viewpoint is that each soul existed before birth with "The Form of the Good" and has knowledge about everything. It just has to be "recalled". He differentiated certain knowledge and uncertain opinion. Opinions derive from the shifting world of sensation; knowledge derives from the world of timeless forms, or essences. 9. The State Plato's philosophical ideology had many social implications, especially on the idea of ideal state or government. Plato declares societies have a tripartite class structure matching the structure of the individual soul. The structure of the individual soul stands for different parts of the body. Productive: Which represents the abdomen. (Workers) Protective: Which represents the chest. (Warriors or Guardians) Governing: which represents the head. (Rulers or Philosopher Kings) According to Plato a state is made of different kinds of souls, which will weaken form aristocracy (rule by the best) to timocracy (rule by the honorable), then to oligarchy (rule by the few), then to democracy (rule by people) and finally to tyranny (rule by one person, a tyrant). He is trying to warn us about the different kind of rulers that can rule the state and which wise souls and best chosen as advisors to the rulers. 10. Platonic Scholarship Plato's thoughts are often compared to his student, Aristotle's views that completely clouded Plato in the Middle Ages that everybody referred him as 'The Philosopher'. However the study of Plato's works continued in Byzantine Empire. The Medieval scholastic philosophers did not have access to the works of Plato nor did the Western civilization. They were accessible Constantinople's era when brought by George Gemistos Plethon.

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Ancient Greek philosopher Plato was the student of Socratesand the teacher of Aristotle. His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language. Plato was the founder of the Academy in Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world.

The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning the definition of justiceand the order and [1] character of the just city-state and the just man. The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it must take place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate [2] specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned". It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most [3][4] intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city (Kallipolis) ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.

What is Plato's definition of justice?

Justice is to mind/do one's own business (or to do one's own work/job) according to Plato/Socrates at Republic BK. IV. 433a to 434a, quote Glaucon: I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. Socrates: Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that ONE MAN should practise ONE THING only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted; --now JUSTICE is this principle or a part of it. Glaucon: Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Socrates: Further, we affirmed that JUSTICE was DOING one's own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Glaucon: Yes, we said so. Socrates: Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference? Glaucon: I cannot, but I should like to be told. Socrates: Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one. Glaucon: That follows of necessity. Socrates: If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject, --the quality, I mean, of EVERY ONE DOING HIS OWN WORK, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm --the question is not so easily answered. Glaucon: Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which. Socrates: Then the power of each individual in the State to DO HIS OWN WORK appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Glaucon: Yes, he said. Socrates: And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice?

Glaucon: Exactly. Socrates: Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Glaucon: Certainly. Socrates: And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Glaucon: Yes; that is their principle. Socrates: Which is a just principle? Glaucon: Yes. Socrates: Then on this view also JUSTICE will be admitted to be the HAVING AND DOING WHAT IS A MAN'S OWN AND BELONGS TO HIM? _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q: I have noticed that Plato (or Socrates rather) has spent a lot of time saying in The Republic what justice is not, but I don't remember him saying what justice is. He spends a lot of time describing a just city, but again, I missed his definition of justice. A: He never found any answer that fully satisfied. But he felt that there was an unambiguous example of justice in the forms. His theory of recollection said that we were aquainted with it in our former life. So, we have a dim recollection of the form, and so we do have some conception of justice. This conception is imperfect, and so we cannot answer the question "what is justice," which is what he set out to do. Since we have some dim recollection we can say some things about justice, about what it is and isn't. A: He believed that, by creating a city and finding justice in it, he was looking at an individual under a magnifying glass, since a city is just a bunch of individuals. Find justice in the perfect city and you'll find what justice is in the individual. Therefore, according to Socrates' argument in the Republic justice is when the three parts of the soul (appetitive, spirited and reasoning) work together in harmony, each doing what it is supposed to be doing. The appetitive and the spirited parts, like the workers and the guardians in the Kallipolis, are under the rule of reason (the philosopher-kings). The just individual will be so because reason rules and appetites are kept in check. It's important to remember that was not "justice" for Plato in the same way we think of it today. ____________________________________________________________________________________

Plato described justice differently than most standard definitions. To Plato, justice meant carrying out ones duty to ones station, i.e. workers work, auxiliaries guard, and guardians rule. Under this premise, if lying is part of ones job, it is only just if one lies. The reason the lie is noble is because it is for a noble cause: the good of the people. Plato raised several questions that are still at the heart of many modern conflicts and heated debates. What is justice? What is goodness? Does a lack of goodness stem from a lack of knowledge about justice? Plato examined these questions as separate aspects of a single theme. He then used his answers to come up with his own rendition of the perfect existence. Platos version of the ideal society was one in which all people would trust that their position in life was just, and would carry out the responsibilities of that position without protest. He believed that the power of wisdom is possessed most abundantly in kings and philosophers, and that others should accept the authority of those wise and morally superior leaders. While there appears to be a logical chain of reasoning to Platos suppositions, there is a chasm of doubt when it comes to the workability of his plan. It seems as if he is promoting an elitist, dictatorial society in which

the only wise leaders are those who happen to be what he happens to be; a philosopher. It is also against the grain of human nature to accept direction without question, which is a problem Plato was well aware of, but it is a problem he did not resolve. Of course, while it may seem that Plato was calling for his own personal version of utopia, a strong argument can be made that Plato was in fact pointing out the weaknesses involved with just such a society. Irony is after all, a remarkably powerful teacher. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Ones search for the meaning of justice in Platos Republic would finally lead to two definitions: -Justice is Harmony. (book 4, 434c) -Justice is Doing ones own job. (book 4, 443b) Finding these two phrases, however, is hardly enough to get a clear sense of what justice is. Plato offers two main analogies to examine the definition of justice - the division of parts in the soul as well as the parts of the state. ________________________________________________________________________

philosopher king - the Platonic ideal of a ruler, philosophically trained and enlightened.
Philosopher kings are the rulers of Plato's Utopian Kallipolis. If his ideal city-state is to ever come into being, "philosophers [must] become kingsor those now called kings [must]genuinely and adequately philosophize" ( The Republic, 5.473d).

In Book VI of The Republic[edit]

Plato defined a philosopher firstly as its eponymous occupation wisdom-lover. He then distinguishes between one who loves true knowledge as opposed to simple sights or education by saying that the philosopher is the only person who has access to Forms the archetypal entities that exist behind all representations of the form (such as Beauty itself as opposed to any one particular instance of beauty). It is next and in support of the idea that philosophers are the best rulers that Plato fashions the ship of state metaphor, one of his most often cited ideas (along with his allegory of the cave). "[A] true pilot must of necessity pay attention to the seasons, the heavens, the stars, the winds, and everything proper to the craft if he is really to rule a ship" (The Republic, 6.488d).

*** The Philosopher Kings are a Canadian band who were most commercially successful in the late 1990s. The name
of the band is derived from Plato's Republic, in which he outlines the design of an idealistic government, ruled by philosopher-kings. The group saw minor success in the United States with the single "Charms", which peaked at #36 [1] on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart in 1996.
***The Philosopher Kings Movie (2009) An exploration of wisdom in the heart of America's most prestigious universities. Wisdom is found in the most unlikely places.

And those whose hearts are fixed on Reality itself deserve the title of Philosophers. (Plato, Republic) The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers are kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands, while the many natures now content to follow either to the exclusion of the other are forcibly debarred from doing so. This is what I have hesitated to say so long, knowing what a paradox it would sound; for it is not easy to see that there is no other road to happiness, either for society or the individual. (Plato, Republic) When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence. (Plato, Republic)

Plato's Thoughts On Reality

One of the greatest and oldest questions of the world, "Is reality ultimately one or ultimately many things." Plato brought together both of these ideas. Plato believed that reality was in the form of two separate worlds, otherwise known as a two-tiered metaphysics. He believed that something was an individual object, but could be put together into a larger group. In instance, there are beagles, terriers, collies, hounds, and so forth, but all these are known as the group of dogs. Plato presents an arresting analogy of the Sun as a literary metaphor of his two-tiered theory. In the realm of sensible things the eye can see the sight of colors only in the medium of light, that emanates from the Sun. Likewise, in the realm of Ideas the mind can achieve rational insight into the truth only in the medium of Ideas, which emanates from the highest and brightest of them, that of the Good. As the Sun is the source of both light and life in our physical world, so is the Good the source of all intellectual light and all spiritual life in the world of Ideas. Another analogy that Plato came up with was the allegory of the cave. Here the physical world is in the form of a cave, in which the humans are trapped from the beginnings of our life, where we are stationary and cannot move our heads, so we perceive only shadows and sounds. Without reason, one of us is released and is encouraged to travel upward to the entrance of the cave. This revelation is very confusing to the person. Then he is pulled to the entrance of the cave, where the light is hurting his eyes that are accustomed to the dark, which threatens the only security his life has known. The world of daylight represents the realm of Ideas. His eyes grow accustomed to the light and he can look up to the sun, and understand what the ultimate source of light and life is. This is symbolic of the Idea of the Good in the Realm. This gradual process is a metaphor of education, and enlightenment. Yet the real lesson of Plato is that the enlightened person now has a moral responsibility to the unfortunate people, still in the cave, to rescue them and bring them into the light. This lesson brings about Socrates' famous quote, "As for the man who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow lay their hands on him and kill him, they would do so." This is ironic in nature. The fact that this man is trying to help these people and they are so uneducated masses will resent him and threaten his life. ________________________________________________________________________________________________

What was Plato's theory of reality?

Plato believed that everything that exists is only a reflection of a perfect form of it. The perfect forms, ideas as he called them, exist in a heaven-like plane. So, eg. your computer is only an imperfect reflection of a completely perfect "model-computer" from heaven, as is every other computer. Each human is a reflection of an ideal human, too, so that theory is compatible with monotheism. __________________________________________________________________________________________

Platos Metaphysics and Epistemology:

Metaphysics: Theory of reality. What kinds of things exist? How many kinds of things are there? How are they related to one another? (E.g.: do minds exist? Numbers? God? Forms?)
....

Epistemology: Theory of knowledge. What is it to know something? What kinds of things can we know? What can justify our belief that something is true?