I had to ask a ton of my friends who they thought Plato was, and the number one response was, “Oh, is it that one yummy toy I played with as a kid?”, and I just gave them a cold stare. Really? So today, I’m going to tell you more about Plato, so that people will no longer think that he is a mere toy!
This is a painting of Plato, who was a mathematician, politician, and scientist.
Plato was the youngest son of Ariston and Perictione, two very wealthy people in Athens at the time. he was still young when his dad died, and his mother remarried to a guy named Pyrilampes. In fact, he did a lot of his growing up in the house of Pyrilampes. When he was still a young man, Plato was taught by Cratylus, who was famous for his studies in cosmology. At this time, historians are almost certain that he met Socrates, because his uncle was a close friend to him. Socrates eventually became his teacher at one point (O’Connor and Robertson).
Plato also served in the Peloponnesian War for 5 years. Even after fightin for this long, he didn’t feel very happy, because he wanted to be a politician more than a soldier. After five eyars of service he joined a form of government ruled by multiple families and people, called an oligarchy. This oligarchy was called the Thirty Tyrants. (O’Connor and Robertson)The name says it all. They really abused the people they ruled in search of loot and possessions. Here are some examples: The thirty had a henchman, and he was recorded to have kidnapped someone in order to gain his family's wealth. People would even rip gold earrings from people’s ears in order to get loot. The thirty were eventually taken down, but before that, Plato left the oligarchy because of one of the member’s violent actions (Martin).
Democracy was returned to Athens, and Plato was able to do what he loved most, politics. However, the more influential he was as a politician, the more irritated the authorities became. They considered philosophers and politicians like him a bad influence on the younger populations of Athens. Certain events made him seriously want to stop being a public politician. One of them was that his philosopher friend died because his friend was a bit too influential. That would make you rethink your priorities a bit. Socrates, Plato’s friend was forced to either leave Athens, or drink hemlock. And if you don’t already know, hemlock isn’t a fun plant. It kind of looks like a pinecone, but its really poisonous (Grieve). Socrates had the choice to either leave Athens or drink hemlock (Nails). Fun stuff, isn’t it? Anyways, Plato took a little break from politics and took an awesome vacation to Egypt and Italy. In Egypt, he learned about water clocks, and later, introduced to Greece. In Italy, he learned about the works of Pythagoras, and figured out that he really liked math (O’Connor and Robertson).
Later in his life, Plato actually went into the military again. Many people think that he started writing his famous dialogues at this time. If you don’t know what a dialogue is, it’s basically a conversation recorded on paper. He made a lot of these over the course of his life (O’Connor and Robertson).
A sculpture of Plato's head.
At about 386 BC, he founded his academy in Athens, which lasted even after he died. In this academy, he taught philosophy, math, science, and politics, but unfortunately, way after Plato died, it was shut down in 529 AD (O’Connor and Robinson). This academy lasted for a really long time. Like 915 years. Thats a really long time. To put it into perspective, the famous Trinity College in Ireland was founded in 1592 (Trinity College Dublin, Facts and Figures). That was a while ago. This was around the time of the renaissance. You know, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, The original Martin Luther, and King Henry the Eighth. Trinity College is 422 years old. Plato’s college: 915. See what I’m saying? His school was really old.
The most important contributions Plato made to knowledge, was in politics. Most of his dialogues were on politics. His most famous dialogue is The Republic, where he discussed what makes the ideal government (O’Connor and Robinson).
Many of the mathematical contributions he made are found in the dialogue, Timaeus. This is where the knowledge of Platonic solids comes from. Platonic solids include the cube, icosahedron, octahedron, tetrahedron, and dodecahedron (Plato, Timaeus).
Plato died in 347 BC, when he was attending a wedding. What a wedding gift; A dead guy (O’Connor and Robinson).
Well, if you made it to the end of this blog post, you must have actually payed attention to it. Now you know that Plato was so much more than a toy. He was a very influential politician, scientist, teacher, and mathematician.
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