Plato

Life

Born into a wealthy and politically connected Athenian family, Plato might have pursued a career in politics. Instead, the execution of his teacher Socrates convinced him that a just society needed philosophers. He travelled to Italy and Sicily, where he tried and failed to guide the rulers of Syracuse, and around 387 BC he founded the Academy in a grove outside Athens, often called the first university.

Ideas

Plato wrote dialogues in which Socrates usually leads the discussion. In them he developed the Theory of Forms, the idea that the changing world we see is only a shadow of perfect, eternal realities such as Justice, Beauty and the Good, which can be grasped only by reason. In the Republic he imagined an ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings and described the famous allegory of prisoners chained in a cave, mistaking shadows on the wall for reality.

Legacy

The Academy survived in various forms for centuries, and Plato’s influence on Western thought is so vast that the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called European philosophy a series of footnotes to Plato. All of his known works have survived, a rare stroke of luck for an ancient author.