Plato stands in the center of Raphael's fresco next
to his most famous pupil, Aristotle. Plato is carrying a book
in one arm (the Timaeus) and pointing upward toward the sky with
a finger of his other hand. This symbolizes Plato's view that
true knowledge is found in the world of ideas and through the
reasoning powers of the human mind. There is speculation that
Leonardo Da Vinci is the inspiration for the character of Plato
in the painting.
Plato is one of the earliest Greek philosophers
who is best known to us today as a result of his Dialogues in
many of which his teacher, Socrates, engages students in conversations
about some of life's most important questions. The Socratic approach
to teaching owes its origins to Socrates's use of a conversation
with his students to bring them to insights about a subject by
demonstrating the fallacy or inconsistency of their reasoning
when carried to its conclusion.
According to one distinguished commentator, "[a]t
the heart of Plato's philosophy is the doctrine of ideas....The
main point of Plato's argument is that the realm of ideas is the
reality of the objects which are ordered. What our senses report
about objects is not wholly responsible and must be corrected
by intelligence....Plato's philosophy is unique in the history
of thought since what he said has been stated only once. His greatest
commentators from Aristotle to Hegel have all attempted to improve
upon him. He was poet, thinker, scientist all in one and there
has been no such combination of powers displayed by anyone before
or since. To understand Plato is to be educated...." Huntington
Cairns, in his Introduction to Plato: The Collected Dialogues
(Princeton University Press 1969).
Plato traveled widely throughout his life and visited
modern day Italy on at least three occasions.
To read more about Plato and to study his writings,
examine the following web pages: