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Historical Figure

Plato

428 BC–348 BC

Greek philosopher

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Biography

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens who is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition. An innovator of the literary dialogue and dialectic forms, Plato influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the collection of philosophical theories that would later become known as Platonism.

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Artifacts (7)

The bust of Plato, in a niche

Lucas Vorsterman I|Peter Paul Rubens|Plato

ca. 1620 · Etching and engraving; only state
The Met View

The bust of Plato, in a niche

Plato|Lucas Vorsterman I|Peter Paul Rubens

ca. 1620 · Etching and engraving; only state
The Met View

"Alexander Visits the Sage Plato in his Mountain Cave", Folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi

Basawan|Amir Khusrau Dihlavi

1597–98 · Main support: Ink, opaque watercolor, gold on paper
The Met View

Apology

In what relation the “Apology” of Plato stands to the real defence of Socrates, there are no means of determining. It certainly agrees in tone and character with the description of Xenophon, who...

-399

Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates

Of all writers of speculative philosophy, both ancient and modern, there is probably no one who has attained so eminent a position as Plato. What Homer was to Epic poetry, what Cicero and...

-399

Symposium

Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings,...

-385

The Republic

BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene—a festival in honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening....

-375

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