Plato
Athenian philosopher whose dialogues founded the Western philosophical tradition.
c. 428/427–348/347 BCE
Biography
Major works
- The RepublicPlato’s dialogue on justice in the soul and the city. Books VI and VII contain the images of the sun, the divided line and the cave, and the Form of the Good, “beyond being”, which shaped the whole later tradition of ascent.
- SymposiumPlato’s dialogue of speeches in praise of love at a drinking party, culminating in Socrates’ account of the teaching of Diotima: the ascent of love from beautiful bodies to beautiful souls and knowledge, and finally to Beauty itself.
- Phaedo: In The Dialogues of Plato, third editionJowett’s translation of the Phaedo, set on the last day of Socrates’ life: philosophy as the practice of dying, the arguments for the immortality of the soul, knowledge as recollection, and the death of Socrates.
- Phaedrus: In The Dialogues of Plato, third editionJowett’s translation of the Phaedrus, on love and speech: the divine madness of the lover, the soul as a charioteer with two horses, its vision of the Forms beyond the heavens, and the limits of writing.
- Timaeus: In The Dialogues of Plato, third editionJowett’s translation of the Timaeus, Plato’s account of the making of the cosmos by a divine craftsman looking to the eternal Forms, the world-soul, and time as the moving image of eternity; the most influential of his dialogues in late antiquity and the Middle Ages.
- Parmenides: In The Dialogues of Plato, third editionJowett’s translation of the Parmenides, in which the aged Parmenides presses the young Socrates with objections to the Forms, then works through a series of hypotheses about the One, which the Neoplatonists read as a theology of the One beyond being.
Philosophical ideas
Cite this entry
“Plato.” Author. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/plato.
“Plato,” author, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/plato.
“Plato.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/plato.
@misc{authors-plato, title = {{Plato}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Author. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/plato} }
Texts in the Library
Related authors
Related concepts
- BeingThe fact or act of existing; the subject of ontology.
- TruthWhat is so; the agreement of thought with reality, and in some traditions reality itself.
- KnowledgeJustified understanding; in contemplative traditions, also knowledge by identity.
- SoulThe life and inner self of a person, in Greek philosophy and Christian thought.
- ContemplationLoving, attentive gazing on what is most real; in Christian use, a gift of prayer.
- FormsPlato’s eternal, unchanging realities, such as Beauty itself and the Good, of which the things of the senses are images.
- ErosLove as longing for the beautiful and the good, which in Plato draws the soul upward to the divine.