Greek Philosophy : Plato's Contributions Of Western Philosophy

Born in Athens in 437 B.C, Greek philosopher Plato is one of the most powerful thinkers in history. Coming from Greek aristocracy, Plato had political ambitions as a young man and appeared to follow the family tradition. However, Socrates and his dialectical method of inquiry, which was to question and answer everything to show ignorance, soon captivated Plato.

Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.

Plato developed such distinct areas of philosophy as epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. His deep influence on Western philosophy is

Our country is built on a set of values derived from ancient civilizations, individuals, and city-states; both negative and positive attributes of these relics can be proven to have assisted in molding our government into a unique and prized entity. Never would one imagine that western civilization is actually inclined by theories of truth and the human beings perception of it. Few would have thought that a primitive concept could be linked to the setbacks of other societies and their forms of socialization, as well as to the success to ours. The basic concept of truth and our natural response to socialization developed an ideal image of our current day country, long before our country existed. In ancient Greece, a great philosopher named

Plato was a philosopher who was born in Athens (470-390 BCE), and was also a student of Socrates. He felt that intelligence and one’s perception belonged to completely independent realms or realities. He believed that general concepts of knowledge were predestined, or placed in the soul before birth even occurred in living things. Plato believed that the cosmos was intelligible, and the the universe was mathematically understandable. He believes that mathematical objects could be seen as perfect forms. Forms, a doctoral of Plato, can be understood as an everyday object or idea, which does not, exists in the everyday realm, but merely is existent in the hypothetical realm or reality.

Aristotle and Plato are two of the most influential philosophers in history. Plato was Socrates’ greatest student and in turn taught Aristotle. In time, Aristotle became Plato’s greatest student. Together Aristotle and Plato, along with Socrates, laid the groundwork for what we now know as Western philosophy and science.

Aristotle is a Greek teacher and is credited for establishing the cornerstone of modern philosophy via his book Para Psyche (Biography.com Editors). His work assumes the existence of divine power and tells that the reason the human body exists is to house our

Aristotle was one of the most important western philosophers. He was a student of Plato and the teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. I found that his biggest impacts on modern society were in the subject areas of ethics, and zoology.

Plato was a philosopher and educator in ancient Greece. He was one of the most important thinkers and writers in the history of Western culture. Plato was born in Athens into a family that was one of the oldest and most distinguished in the city. His father Ariston died when Plato was only a child. The name Plato was a nickname meaning broad shoulders. Plato's real name was Aristocles. Plato had aspirations of becoming a politician, however these hopes were destroyed when his friend Socrates was sentenced to death in 299 B.C. Extremely hurt Plato left Athens and traveled for several years. In 387 B.C., Plato returned to Athens and founded a school of philosophy and science that became known as the Academy. Topics such as astronomy,

Aristotle was not just any person. He was one of the most distinguished and important Greek philosophers of all time. Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in the town of Stagira, Greece. His range of work was very broad, covering most of the sciences and many arts such as biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology. He was the author of what became the foundation of both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after his death in 322 BCE and historic events such as enlightenment, Aristotle’s concepts still remain present in Western thinking and continue to be studied.

In order to compare these great philosophers, it is important that we first of all view their history from an individual perspective.

of the east. The works of Aristotle have left many after him to contemplate his

Plato is regarded by many experts as the first writer of political philosophy. He fashioned a distinctive view of human nature, a view that has had a crucial formative influence on all subsequent theories of human nature. Plato pointed out the distinction between a perfect ideal and its imperfect replicas, and gave the name

Ethics? Philosophy? What do these two words mean? Living life the right way? Always doing what parents instruct? Some people walk through the motions of life and never fully understand what living is really about—it is more than paying bills, earning an education, and having a family. By definition, philosophy is: “a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means”.1 Humankind has studied philosophy for many years trying to figure out the complex meaning of life, an example being Plato one of the greatest Greek philosophers. Philosophy can be very complicated, but life is a beautiful thing (Thesis statement).

In the early life of Plato in Classical Athens he was raised with his brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, by their parents Ariston and Perictione. Plato grew up in an aristocratic and distinguished family. His father claimed that they descended from the god Poseidon and his mother’s side was related to Solon, a lawgiver. During his young life, he was amongst a few people that were in the inner circle around the philosopher Socrates. Most of what we know about Socrates is told through the writings of Plato. But scholars are unsure of how much of what Plato said about Socrates beliefs are actually Socrates words and what parts are Plato’s interpretation of Socrates words. Therefore, this created the Socratic problem, which is “the term for the situation in the history of scholarship with respect to the existing materia pertaining to the individual known as Socrates which scholars rely upon as the only extant sources for knowing anything at all about this individual, but when compared, show contradictions and do not agree.” Plato was greatly influenced by the life and