Biography
Plato was born in Athens, probably around 428 BC, to a rich and politically well-connected family. In his early days, it was commonly expected that he would become a politician, and Plato himself had political aspirations, but that all changed when he struck up a friendship and tutelage with the infamous Socrates. Socrates had developed a philosophy based almost entirely on asking questions, about everything—including the gods—and he shared his practice with the boys he taught. This didn't sit so well with the conservative religious government, now referred to as the Thirty Tyrants, which Sparta imposed on Athens after the Pelopponesian War (carefully recorded in Thucydides' History). Socrates was put on trial for being an atheist, convicted and sentenced to death by Hemlock poisoning. The death of Socrates had a profound impact on Plato and his philosophies, and ultimately discouraged him from continuing to pursue a career in Athenian politics. Instead, Plato withdrew into academia and began to write discourses—dialogues between characters intended to explore philosophical ideas through argument—about his philosophies. Socrates is prominently featured in many of these discourses. Plato eventually founded a school for higher learning just outside of Athens, where he taught many notable students, including Aristotle. The school outlived him by several hundred years, before Emperor Justinian closed it down in 529 AD.Philosophy
Plato was an objectivist—that is, he believed that there was an absolute truth in the world, outside of human perception, which all humans should strive toward. He was in opposition to a group of philosophers called the Sophists, who believed that things like truth, beauty and goodness were all relative, decided upon by the individual according to his or her own taste and perception. Plato argued that human experience is limited, so that we cannot perceive the higher truths of the world, but that does not mean they do not exist. Additionally, Plato believed that there existed a number of transcendent forms, which all material objects copy or are created from. These forms are eternal and unchanging, though the objects that imitate and use them are not. For example, an apple is round and red—the forms it is copying are roundness and redness. Those forms both exist long before the apple appears and long after it has rotten away, and the apple itself is only one instance of those forms. In this way, Plato explained the world to be both changing and eternal. Plato most famously explored his philosophies with his allegory of the cave (to see an animated version, click here). In it, he postulates that several prisoners chained for all their lives with only the shadows of living things to look at will come to regard those shadows as the things themselves. A “camel” is not a camel at all, but rather a two dimensional, flickering shadow of one, though the prisoners would think the shadow was the real thing because they had no point of reference to tell them otherwise. If one of those prisoners were to escape and see the real world outside, he would have no way to tell his prisoner peers about what he experienced, because it would be beyond their comprehension. In the same way, Plato believed that the material objects we live with every day are only shadows of the real thing—the forms—but we cannot conceptualize them, because we have no point of reference. That doesn't make the forms any less real, however; it only means that they exist in a realm we cannot see. For Plato, the existence of this perfect world outside human perception was what gave philosophy its importance. He believed that every person must strive to understand and achieve the perfection of that higher realm, and the only way to do that was through philosophy.Major Works
Plato is most well known for his two dialogues, the Symposium (which explores the concept of love) and the Apology (which chronicles Socrates' trial), and his book the Republic, in which he outlines his perfect government and how it ought to function, including education, democracy, sexual relationships and the place of women. While the exact order in which Plato wrote his works is still up for debate, they are generally divided into three categories:Additional Resources
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy A detailed overview of the life and philosophies of Plato. European Graduate School: Plato A biography of Plato, from the European Graduate School. Also contains a list of related academic articles. Western Philosophy in Theological Perspective: Plato The life, works and philosophies of Plato, from Boston University. Kids Philosophy Slam A biography of Plato for kids. Other notable philosophers also available.