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Plato 's Theory Of The Forms

Decent Essays

Plato’s Theory of the Forms
Travis Meyer
PHI 1090 Introduction to Philosophy
12/16/2015

Plato was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and theologian who lived from 424 BC to 348 BC in Athens, Greece. Plato was born into a high class family in Greece and therefore was very active in the Athenian community since he was from a high status family. He was the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is known to be one of the best writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most influential authors in the development of Western philosophy even today. Plato worked alongside his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, laying the groundwork for Western philosophy and science through their collective work. Plato has also been considered one of the founders of western religion, especially Christianity, which Friedrich Nietzsche called “Platonism for the people” (Nietzsche, 2013). A lot of Plato’s philosophy focused on Christian ideals and aspects that are still used today in the Christian churches around the world. Plato was very involved in Athenian politics during his time and this was reflected in much of his philosophy, as he writes about different political questions from a philosophical perspective in dialogues such as The Republic.
Plato’s unique style of writing really set him apart from other philosophers and provided a new way of understanding different philosophical ideals. Plato

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