Skip to main content

Plato Biography

Platand ethics.
o (423 BC – 348 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher, 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 philosophy and science. Plato influenced a whole range of subjects from philosophy to maths, logic
The early life of Plato is only partially recorded, but he was born in an aristocratic family in Athens. This enabled him to gain a good education, where he soon impressed those around him with his speed of learning and clarity of thought.

Early life

Main article: Early life of Plato
Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Plato's early life and education. The philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies. His father contributed all which was necessary to give to his son a good education, and, therefore, Plato must have been instructed in grammar, music, gymnastics and philosophy by some of the most distinguished teachers of his era.

Plato may have traveled in Italy, Sicily, Egypt and Cyrene.[41] Said to have returned to Athens at the age of forty, Plato founded one of the earliest known organized schools in Western Civilization on a plot of land in the Grove of Hecademus or Academus.[42] The Academy was a large enclosure of ground about six stadia outside of Athens proper. One story is that the name of the Academy comes from the ancient hero, Academus; still another story is that the name came from a supposed former owner of the plot of land, an Athenian citizen whose name was (also) Academus; while yet another account is that it was named after a member of the army of Castor and Pollux, an Arcadian named Echedemus.[43] The Academy operated until it was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 84 BC. Neoplatonists revived the Academy in the early 5th century, and it operated until 529 AD, when it was closed by Justinian I of Byzantium, who saw it as a threat to the propagation of Christianity. Many intellectuals were schooled in the Academy, the most prominent one being Aristotle.[44][45]

Throughout his later life, Plato became entangled with the politics of the city of Syracuse. According to Diogenes Laertius, Plato initially visited Syracuse while it was under the rule of Dionysius.[46] During this first trip Dionysius's brother-in-law, Dion of Syracuse, became one of Plato's disciples, but the tyrant himself turned against Plato. Plato almost faced death, but he was sold into slavery. Then Anniceris[47] bought Plato's freedom for twenty minas,[48] and sent him home. After Dionysius's death, according to Plato's Seventh Letter, Dion requested Plato return to Syracuse to tutor Dionysius II and guide him to become a philosopher king. Dionysius II seemed to accept Plato's teachings, but he became suspicious of Dion, his uncle. Dionysius expelled Dion and kept Plato against his will. Eventually Plato left Syracuse. Dion would return to overthrow Dionysius and ruled Syracuse for a short time before being usurped by Calippus, a fellow disciple of Plato.

Style of Teaching

Plato doesn’t write treatises, but writes in an indirect way, encouraging the reader to ask questions and think for himself. There is also signs of development and changes in thought, though some of this is due to uncertainty over whether letters ascribed to Plato, were actually written by him. But, like his teacher Socrates, Plato is often happy to play the role of observer rather than a preacher.

Style of Teaching

Plato doesn’t write treatises, but writes in an indirect way, encouraging the reader to ask questions and think for himself. There is also signs of development and changes in thought, though some of this is due to uncertainty over whether letters ascribed to Plato, were actually written by him. 
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (German twenty April 1889 – thirty April 1945) was a German politician World Health Organization was the leader  Who Was Adolf Hitler? Adolf Hitler (April twenty, 1889 to April thirty, 1945) was chancellor of Deutschland from 1933 to 1945, serving as dictator and leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi German staff Party, for the majority of his time in power. Hitler’s policies precipitated warfare II and LED to the kill called the Holocaust, that resulted within the deaths of some six million Jews and another 5 million noncombatants. With defeat on the horizon, dictator committed suicide with woman Eva Braun on April thirty, 1945, in his Berlin bunker. Early years Hitler's father Alois dictator Sr. (1837–1903) was the whoreson of Maria Pakistani monetary unit Schicklgruber.The sacrament register failed to show the name of his father, and Alois ab initio bore his mother's family name Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mikhail Gorbachev Biography

Mikhail Gorbachev was general secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party from 1985–1991. He was also the first democratically elected President in 1990. Early life[edit] Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family[6] of migrants from Voronezh and Chernigov Governorates. As a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that "In that terrible year [in 1933] nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father."Both of his grandfathers were arrested on false charges in the 1930s; his paternal grandfather Andrey Moiseyevich Gorbachev (Андрей Моисеевич Горбачёв) was sent to exile in Siberia. His father was a combine harvester operator and Red Army veteran, named Sergey Andreyevich Gorbachev. According to Gorbachev, during World War II his father "defended Kurs...
Read more

Charles de Gaulle Biography

Early life De Gaulle was born in the industrial region of Lille in the Nord department, the third of five children. He was raised in a devoutly Catholic and traditional family. His father, Henri de Gaulle, was a professor of history and literature at a Jesuit college who eventually founded his own school.[1] Henri de Gaulle came from a long line of parliamentary gentry from Normandy and Burgundy.[2]:13-16[3] The name is thought to be Flemish in origin, and may well derive from van der Waulle ("from the rampart").[1]:42 De Gaulle's mother, Jeanne (née Maillot), descended from a family of wealthy entrepreneurs from Lille. She had French, Irish, Scottish, Flemish, and German ancestry.[2]:13-16[3] The family had lost most of its land in the French Revolution, which it opposed.[1]:41 De Gaulle's father encouraged historical and philosophical debate between his children at mealtimes, and through his encouragement, de Gaulle grew familiar with French histo...
Read more