Plato

Biography

Plato (c. 428–348 BCE) was born into Athenian aristocracy during the Peloponnesian War. His early ambition was political, but the execution of his teacher Socrates in 399 BCE by Athenian democracy permanently redirected him toward philosophy. He traveled to Syracuse (where he attempted, disastrously, to make a philosopher-king of the tyrant Dionysius II), founded the Academy in Athens — the Western world's first institution of higher learning — and wrote approximately thirty dialogues over five decades. The Republic, composed around 375 BCE during his middle period, is widely considered the culmination of his philosophical vision.

Plato at a glance