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Plato: Philosophers
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Plato spent time at Megara with the Eleatic philosopher Euclides and from 390 possibly visited Egypt, was certainly at Cyrene with Theodorus the mathematician, toured Greek cities in southern Italy where he learned his Pythagoreanism. In 388, Plato founded the Academy in the western suburbs of Athens. Plato died in in 347 while attending a wedding feast. Plato never married.
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Plato is known today as one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He was born about 429 BC, close to the time when Pericles died, and he died in 347 BC, just after the birth of Alexander the Great. Plato was born in Athens, to a very wealthy and aristocratic family. Many of his relatives were involved with Athenian politics, though Plato himself was not.
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Plato (427-347) is often described as the greatest Western philosopher. Historians like to quote A. N. Whitehead who said: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
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Plato's view of society was pinned by the belief that philosophers are capable of knowing the absolute truth about how to rule society and ... are justified in wielding absolute power. Such a view is in striking contrast to that of his principal teacher, Socrates (469-399 BC), who was always conscious of how much he did not know, and claimed superiority to unthinking men only in that he was aware of his own ignorance where they were not.
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The Medieval scholastic philosophers did not have access to the works of Plato, nor the knowledge of Greek needed to read them. Plato's original writings were essentially lost to Western civilization until they were brought from Constantinople in the century before its fall, by George Gemistos Plethon.
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