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For someone whose influence has been so profound on Western thinking remarkably little is known of the Greek philosopher and thinker Plato. Due to the means and social status of his family Plato was most probably educated by some of Athens' finest teachers. The curriculum would have been rich and varied and include the doctrines of Cratylus and Pythagoras as well as Parmenides. Two major events shaped Plato's life whilst he was a young man. The first was a meeting with the great philosopher Socrates. Socrates's methods of debate impressed Plato and he soon became a devoted follower. From here would flow Plato's career as one of the finest minds civilization has produced. Major event number two was the on-going rivalry between Athens and Sparta which erupted into the Peloponnesian War. This was, in fact, several 'stop-start' wars fought during the period 431-404 BCE. Plato served in the cause of Athens and its Allies between 409 and 404 B.C.E. The comprehensive defeat of Athens by Sparta ended the Athenian democracy, although after a brief oligarchy it was restored. Plato traveled for a dozen years throughout the Mediterranean, studying mathematics with the Pythagoreans in Italy, as well as geometry, geology, astronomy and religion in Egypt. It was during this time that Plato began his writings, a remarkable number of which survive to this day. The writings themselves are usually classified into three distinct periods although there is some uncertainty as to the exact order in which they were written. Having now returned to Athens Plato embarked upon an extraordinary undertaking. In around 385 B.C.E., he established a school of learning, known as the Academy. The extensive curriculum included astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory and philosophy. Plato hoped that those who studied there would be future leaders who would be better equipped thorough its teachings to understand how to build a better government. Plato would preside over its teachings until his death in Athens around 348 B.C.E.

Philosophy, Ancient.

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The first edition of the Cambridge Companion to Plato (1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research and guided new students for thirty years. This new edition introduces students to fresh approaches to Platonic dialogues while advancing the next generation of research. Of its seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by a new generation of scholars. Six others have been thoroughly revised and updated by their original authors. The volume covers the full range of Plato's interests, including ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato's dialogues are approached as unified works and considered within their intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences between them while also tracing their interrelations. The result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be valuable for all students and scholars of Plato.

Plato. --- Philosophy, Ancient. --- Plato --- Philosophy, Ancient

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Stoics --- Ethics --- Philosophy, Ancient

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Greek philology. --- Philosophy, Ancient.

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This volume contains papers and commentaries presented to the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy during the academic year 2007-8. The papers discuss a wide range of topics related to Plato and Aristotle. On Plato, topics include false pleasures in the Philebus , the tripartite soul in the Republic , and rhetoric in the Phaedrus , and on Aristotle, the relation of the physical and psychological in De Anima , of virtue and happiness in the Ethics , of body and nature in the Physics , and the role of pros hen in the Metaphysics . One other paper argues for the Aristotelian origin of Stoic determinism.

Philosophy, Ancient --- Philosophy