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Throughout history there have been many philosophers that have made great impacts on the students for many years. One philosopher in particular that has made a tremendous impact on the youth of the world is a man named Plato. Plato is one of the worlds most famous writers, and is still being taught to this day. People ask why this man is so important and why he should be still studied today when he is something of the past; well I will help them see in my paper just why he is so important to this nation. This argument will be supported by three different categories; one a biography showing how important he was to man and number two is about how something or someone during the time in which he lived impacted his writing. The third thing is a piece of literature called The Apology, which has been analyzed.
To start Plato was born in Athens, Greece, in 427 B. C. The eighty- year span of his life covered one of the most dramatic and commotion al periods in Greek history. During his childhood, his homeland witnessed the last stages of the Peloponnesian War, a struggle for dominance between the city-state of Athens and its arch- rival, Sparta.
Plato's father, Ariston, and his mother, Perictone, both came from distinguished families, and as a member of the aristocracy, Plato was reared in the most favorable surroundings and enjoyed the best education available (Frank Magill, 1503). His Philosophy, which stresses ethics and reason, is not a distinctly formulated system but a general representation of his thought, expressed in the form of dialogues which are praised for their artistic craftsmanship and poetic character (Gale Research, p. 1). Plato was expected to go into politics, and in fact he went in the total opposite direction. The closer he got to politics the more and more he wanted to get away from them (Magill, 1503).
One event in particular was to have a lasting effect on him, and that was the trial, condemnation, and execution of Socrates in 399 B. C. Socrates had been Plato's teacher, and Plato had a lot of respect for him. It was the event that turned him to philosophy (Magill, 1503).
After his death, Plato traveled at least twice to Italy and Sicily, where he had been invited by his friend Dion to tutor Dion's nephew Dionysius II, trying of Syracuse (Gale Research, p. 1). He also resided for a time in the city of Megara, and he may also have traveled to Egypt and Cyrene. It was during this time that he started to write (Magill, 1503). Some writers say that Plato was trying to make Dionysius into a philosopher, but these speculations are based on hypotheses built on hypotheses by generations of Around 387 B. C. , Plato established an Academy (named after the park it was located in), a school for the pursuit of philosophical and scientific research as well as the study of mathematics (Gale Research, p. 1). The academy, located outside of Athens, developed into one the best philosophical schools by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 529 A.
D. From there on, most of Plato's life was probably dedicated to teaching and All of his known works, including the Apology, thirty-four dialogues of varying length, and thirteen epistles, all are extant. However, a number the dialogues, such as the Alicibiades II, Hipparchus, Rivals, Theater, Clitophon, and Minos, and most of the epistles, are thought to be myths because of the style and content (Gale Research, p. 2). Plato took many of his ideas about Rhetoric form his mentor, Socrates.
Therefore, many of his writing included Socrates as the main character presenting the point of view that he wanted to convey. Both he and Socrates felt that rhetoric is most often used for selfish reasons. This is shown through some of his works called Gorgias. Gorgias says that rhetoric is the queen of all arts (Johnson, p. 1). Plato wrote many stories that were in fact, rhetorical though he felt that rhetoric was immoral.
They were mostly written to persuade people of his opinion of the way the world was. People say he was using the rhetoric to convince people of factual knowledge, so to speak (Johnson, p. 1). When Plato died, in 347 B. C. , in Athens, he was justifiably esteemed as one of the most learned men in the Greek world (Magill, 1505).
He was succeeded at the head of the Academy, not by Aristotle, who, by then, had been for about twenty years student and then teacher at the Academy, but by his nephew, Speusippus. The academy kept functioning, under different guises, for centuries after Plato's death (Bernard). Throughout my research there wasnt many inconsistent facts about my Philosopher Plato. The only inconsistency was that some of the journalists were not sure exactly when he was born or when he died. Plato was a highly respect philosopher, known for his good literary skills because most philosophers didnt excel in that During the time period in which Plato lived The New Renaissance, many historical events happened, but the biggest thing that impacted Plato's writing was a man named Socrates. Socrates was Plato's mentor; almost everything that Plato did was a direct influence from Socrates.
Plato's early writings show his respect for Socrates. As a young man, Plato was influenced a lot by Socrates, who was about years older (Hooker, 1996). The most accurate of Plato's writings on Socrates is probably The Apology. It is Plato's account of Socrates defense at his trial in 399 BC Interestingly, the word apology comes from the Greek word for defense-speech and does not mean what we would think of as an apology (Hooker, 1996). The Apology was probably written within a few years after the actual trial of Socrates and was intended to be read by those who admired Socrates. However, Plato's most famous philosophical work is The Republic where he discusses the nature of justice, the theory of innate ideas, and the ideal state (Bernard, 1996).
The life of the Greek philosopher Socrates, marks such a critical point in Western thought that standard histories divide Greek philosophy into pre-Socratic and post-Socratic periods (Tennent, 1997). Socrates left no writings of his own, and his work has inspired almost as many different interpretations as there have been interpreters. He remains one of the most important and one of the most mysterious figures in Western philosophy (Moss, Wilson, 1997). As a young man, Socrates became interested in the new scientific ideas that Anaxagoras and the latter's associate Archelaus had introduced to Athens. Socrates seems to have been the leader of an Athenian research circle, which explains why the first appearance of Socrates in literature is as an evil, disbelieving scientist in The Clouds of Aristophanes (Tennent, 1997). Young Socrates also knew the Sophists and listened to their debates and ceremonial orations (Bernard, 1996) Socrates is generally regarded as one of the wisest people of all time.
Socrates himself left no writings, and most of our knowledge of him and his teachings comes from the dialogues of Plato (Hooker, 1996). Socrates is known for neglecting his own affairs, instead spending his time discussing justice, and piety wherever his fellow citizens gathered, seeking wisdom about right conduct so that he might guide the moral and intellectual improvement of Athens (Tennent, 1997). Using a method now known as the Socratic dialogue, or di...
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