The Life and Philosophy of Plato

Plato was born in early 420s BCE in Athens, Greece. He was the son of a very wealthy and influential family in Athens, and was given the best schooling available at the time. It was in his schooling that the first notable aspect of Plato appears: his teacher. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, is an enigmatic figure, who is mostly known through his students account, especially Plato. However, Socrates clearly had a dramatic effect on Plato’s life, and a dramatic effect on philosophy. As Plato excelled in his learnings, he began to develop his own ideals, and wrote around 35 dialogues on philosophy. These dialogues became founding principles for much of modern philosophy, and conversed around questions such as relationships, knowledge, and reality.

In Plato’s dialogues, all insights are conveyed by characters, not Plato himself. One of the recurring characters is that of Socrates, Plato’s teacher. Socrates has a very particular view on knowledge and the father-son relationship. Socrates argues that the father son relationship should not be placed at too high a value, and that all gifts that can be given to a son are given at birth. Socrates believed that knowledge was a form of remembering; when he failed to know something, he often claimed he had difficulty recalling the knowledge. He believed intelligence and knowledge to come from the divine, and that people were born with knowledge, which they remembered as their life progressed. This view of knowledge is very different from modern day views; modern scientists and psychologists overwhelmingly tend to view knowledge as something to be gained over time, not something someone is born with. However, in this way Socrates, or even Plato, delves a little deeper into the consciousness.