What is plato known for

Plato c. Plato wrote his books in the form of conversations called dialogues. In a dialogue, two or more people talk about ideas and sometimes disagree over them. The Laws is Plato's longest dialogue and probably his last. Socrates is usually the main person in Plato's dialogues.

Plato, philosophy summary

Often, Socrates talks with people and tries to see if they believe anything that is illogical. In Plato's Apology , Socrates is put on trial by these people and is eventually sentenced to death by drinking poison. Plato is famous for developing the theory of forms. This theory says that everything in our world is imperfect but corresponds to a perfect version of itself that exists in another realm.

For example, there are wooden chairs , metal chairs, square chairs, big chairs, small chairs, etc. The same is true of every other object our senses can perceive : it is imperfect but corresponds to a perfect version of itself.

Plato birth and death

One simple way to think about Plato's theory is with numbers. The difference between "chairness" and a regular chair is similar to the difference between the number five and having five apples, oranges, pears, etc. In other words, Plato thought that the world we live in is just a shadow of the real, "intelligible realm," which only a few people will ever understand.

He thought that all perfect forms come from perfection itself, which he called "the good. People who study Plato argue about whether Socrates really said the same things that Plato makes him say, or whether Plato just used Socrates as a character to make the ideas he was talking about seem more important.