60 Fun Facts About Plato

Roughly when did Plato live?

He was born into an aristocratic Athenian family during the Peloponnesian War and is usually called the foundational thinker of Western philosophy.

Which student arrived at Plato's Academy in 367 BC and became as famous as his master?

He came from Stagira, shortly before Plato left on his second trip to Sicily.

What did the property of Plato's Academy consist of at first?

During his lifetime the school's work probably took place in an open area for the study of philosophy and mathematics.

According to Diogenes Laertius, what was Plato's birth name, 'Plato' being a nickname?

Modern scholars widely regard the story as false.

Through his mother Perictione, Plato was descended from which Athenian statesman?

Solon is credited with laying the foundations of Athenian democracy.

Which two brothers of Plato appear as Socrates' main interlocutors in the Republic?

They distinguished themselves at the battle of Megara in 409 BC; Plato also had a sister, Potone, and a half-brother, Antiphon.

What did Plato reportedly do with his youthful poems and tragedies when he met Socrates?

He had written dithyrambs, lyric poems and a tetralogy of tragedies before turning to philosophy.

Plato's relatives Critias and Charmides belonged to which regime installed in Athens in 404 BC?

Plato was invited to join but declined, disillusioned when they tried to implicate Socrates in seizing Leon of Salamis.

Which of Plato's dialogues is the only one in which Socrates does not appear?

It was Plato's longest work and still unfinished at his death.

Which Sicilian city did Plato visit three times, becoming entangled with its tyrants Dionysius I and II?

Dion, the tyrant's brother-in-law, became his disciple; on the third visit Dionysius II held Plato against his will until a friend from Tarentum interceded.

Which Pythagorean of Tarentum was Plato's friend and rescuer from Dionysius II's court?

After the Corinthian War Plato travelled to southern Italy to study with him and other Pythagoreans.

Who succeeded Plato as head of the Academy?

Speusippus was the son of Plato's sister Potone; Xenocrates followed him in 339 BC.

Where was Plato buried after his death in 348/347 BC?

His surviving will does not mention the Academy, suggesting a separate endowment.

What is Plato's most famous philosophical contribution, aimed at the problem of universals?

It holds that the changing material world is only a copy of an unchanging world of Forms grasped by reason.

Which dialogue, set on the day of Socrates' death, first introduces Plato's theory of Forms?

Its subtitle is On the Soul; Francis Cornford called Forms and the immortal soul the twin pillars of Platonism.

Which modern philosopher said the European tradition consists of 'a series of footnotes to Plato'?

Plato's complete works are believed to have survived, unlike those of nearly all his contemporaries.

In the Meno, how does Socrates show that knowledge is recollection?

Plato links recollection to reincarnation, which he discusses in several dialogues.

Where does a late Platonic dialogue locate the three parts of the soul in the body?

The Republic gives the soul the same three parts, mirrored by the three classes of the ideal city.

What dilemma does Socrates pose in the Euthyphro?

The Protagoras separately argues that no one does wrong on purpose and that knowledge is virtue.

What is the Greek title of the Republic?

Written around 375 BC, it asks what justice is and whether the just man is happier than the unjust.

What name does Plato give the utopian city of the Republic, ruled by philosopher-kings?

Karl Popper's 1945 attack singled it out as a dystopia.

Which sophist argues in Republic Book I that justice is simply the advantage of the stronger?

Cephalus had said justice was honesty and repaying debts, which Socrates refutes with the example of a borrowed knife and a madman.

What magical object does Glaucon invoke in Republic Book II to test whether the unobserved stay just?

Gyges uses the ring's invisibility to commit injustices and gain great advantages.

What is the 'noble lie' of the Republic, illustrated by the myth of the metals?

Socrates says the myth would make citizens 'more inclined to care for the state and one another'.

What are the five types of regime Socrates ranks in Republic Book VIII, from best to worst?

Tyranny is the most unjust; democracy's populism lets a demagogue exploit mob rule to seize power.

In which book of the Republic does the allegory of the cave appear?

It follows the analogies of the Sun and the Divided Line and is narrated by Socrates to Glaucon.

In the allegory of the cave, what do the chained prisoners take for reality?

The freed prisoner who returns is the philosopher; the film The Matrix and Orwell's 1984 echo the image.

With what tale of a soldier who returns from the dead does the Republic end?

Book X also banishes imitative artists from the just city.

Which 1945 book by Karl Popper attacked Plato's Republic as a totalitarian dystopia?

Gadamer, by contrast, read the city as an ironic heuristic never meant to be built.

Which Roman general axed the sacred olive trees of the Academy in 86 BC to build siege engines?

Even invading Spartans had spared the 'groves of Academe' out of respect for the Dioscuri.

Which emperor closed the revived Neoplatonic Academy in AD 529?

The original Academy had ended as a skeptical school after Philo of Larissa's death in 83 BC.

According to a story recorded 700 years later, what phrase was inscribed over the Academy's entrance?

The story is unverifiable but reflects the mathematical curriculum Plato favoured.

The Academy took its name from a sacred grove linked to which legendary Attic hero?

He was said to have told the Dioscuri where Theseus had hidden Helen.

Which god do the guests praise in speeches at the banquet of Plato's Symposium?

The host Agathon was celebrating his first victory in the dramatic competition of 416 BC.

Which comic playwright's turn to speak in the Symposium is delayed by a fit of hiccups?

The physician Eryximachus prescribes cures and speaks in his place; Aristophanes later tells the myth of humans split in two.

Which wise woman does Socrates cite in the Symposium as his teacher on love and beauty?

She plays with Socrates the questioning role that he plays with Agathon.

Which drunken general bursts into the Symposium late and praises Socrates instead of the god?

The disastrous Sicilian expedition he co-commanded came the following year, after which he defected to Sparta.

Which dialogue, mostly long speeches, argues for a divine craftsman or Demiurge who made the cosmos?

It also introduces the myth of Atlantis, which the unfinished Critias continues.

According to Critias, in which country did an Athenian lawgiver hear the story of Atlantis?

Ancient Athens, the tale goes, was once an ideal state that fought a war against Atlantis.

Which three men formally accused Socrates at the trial recorded in Plato's Apology?

They represented the politicians and craftsmen, the poets, and the rhetoricians respectively.

Who asked the Delphic oracle whether anyone was wiser than Socrates, according to the Apology?

The Pythia said no one was, and Socrates set out to disprove it, earning a reputation as a gadfly.

What were the two charges against Socrates in 399 BC?

Socrates twice mentions in his defence speech that Plato is present in court.

With which two Pythagorean followers from Thebes does Socrates debate the soul's immortality?

The dialogue is told as a frame story to Echecrates of Phlius.

On Socrates' last day, which childhood friend takes charge of his body and sacrifices a rooster?

A day or two earlier, in the Crito, he had failed to persuade Socrates to escape from prison.

Which follower of Heraclitus did Plato study with in Athens after Socrates' death?

Heraclitus's flux doctrine is expounded by Cratylus in the dialogue named after him and taken apart in the Theaetetus.

Whose first-century AD grouping of the dialogues underlies the standard Platonic corpus?

Modern scholars split the works stylistically into early, middle and late, though the exact order is disputed.

Which Renaissance scholar's Latin translation of Plato was printed in 1,025 copies in 1484?

Neoplatonism, founded by Plotinus, had earlier carried Plato into Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought.

Which comedy of 391 BC is thought to have ridiculed an early version of Republic Books II–IV?

The Clouds and The Birds had already parodied Socrates and his students.

Which three pre-Socratic thinkers are said to have most influenced Plato?

Much of what is known about them comes from Plato himself.

Which student edited Plato's unfinished last work and probably wrote its appendix, the Epinomis?

That work was published together with five other late dialogues as a unified group.

What did Socrates first sketch in the Republic before Glaucon dismissed it as 'a city of pigs'?

Socrates then builds a luxurious 'fevered state' with endless variety, which needs guardians.

The standard page-numbering system for Plato's works comes from whose 1578 Geneva edition?

Henri Estienne's edition carried a parallel Latin translation and commentary by Jean de Serres.

Which brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I became Plato's disciple during his first visit to Syracuse?

Dion later overthrew Dionysius II and ruled Syracuse from 357 to 354 BC before Calippus usurped him.

Which Athenian usurped Dion in 354 BC, a man Plato insisted had no link to the Academy?

Plato makes the disclaimer in the Seventh Letter, whose authenticity scholars still dispute.

Which scholar brought Plato's original writings from Constantinople to Florence in the 15th century?

Lorenzo de' Medici's circle saw Plato's philosophy as the basis for progress in the arts and sciences.

Which was the only Platonic work known to Western scholarship through most of the Middle Ages?

Aristotle's reputation so eclipsed Plato's that the Scholastics simply called him 'the Philosopher'.

Which 17th-century group tried to reconcile Plato's belief in metempsychosis with Christianity?

Plato's reputation was fully restored by the 19th century, when it stood at least on par with Aristotle's.

Which logician argued for a Platonism about abstract mathematical objects, reviving Plato's influence on logic?

Einstein suggested a philosophically serious scientist might appear as a Platonist or Pythagorean.

In which public lecture is Plato said to have identified his highest principle with the One?

Konrad Gaiser collected the sources on Plato's 'unwritten doctrines' as Testimonia Platonica.

Which Jewish philosopher references Plato in his Guide for the Perplexed?

Al-Farabi, inspired by the Republic, had proposed an ideal city governed by philosopher-kings.