Aristocles (later called Platon for the width (platys) of his shoulders or forehead, was probably born in Athens, belonging to an aristocratic family. His mother, descendant of Solon, who in turn (according to Diogenes Laertius) descended from Neleo and Neptune!! While in his paternal line, he had among his ancestors the legendary King Codrus and again Neptune himself. Indeed the aristocrats sought to ensure their superiority by displaying gods in their genealogies. In this sense, the character of his areté (virtue) was hereditary, natural.
It is possible that Plato received lessons in Athens from Cratile, a disciple of Heraclitus. In 407, at the age of twenty, Plato meets Socrates to whom he will remain intensely bound until the death of the master.
In 404 Sparta imposed the oligarchic rule of the Thirty Tyrant, in which some relatives of Plato such as Carmides and Critias participated. In 399, with democracy restored, he sentenced Socrates to death. These events will have a remarkable influence on the entire activity of Plato.
In this sense, it is noted that the whole philosophical project of Plato has a clearly political purpose. And also its external activity: the foundation of the Academy aims to educate those future “governors philosophers” and their travels to Sicily are an attempt to convert to philosophy the tyrants of Syracuse and realize their dream in practice: to create a state in which death of Socrates“The best of all men that least known, the wiser and fairer” (Fedon) is not possible.
The dialogues for the period (399-389) reproduce the teachings of Socrates and the central theme is Virtue. Socrates uses his method to find the definition of a particular virtue but in most cases no solution is reached.
Corredden to this period:
Apology of Socrates (it is not a strictly dialogue but a speech in his defense before the court that would sentence him to death)
Criton (in prison, about civic duties when Socrates refuses to escape)
Lysis (about friendship)
Eutrifon (about piety)
Ion (poetry as a divine gift)
Protagoras (the possibility of teaching virtue is raised and the Socratic concept of virtue appears as a way of knowing)
It is in this period (388-385) that Plato begins to elaborate his personal doctrines. Although Socrates still appears as a wise character, his figure begins to blur.
Political problems predominate at this stage, Socrates faces the sophists and democracy, and there is already a remarkable influence of Pítagoras and probably orphism when the subject of pre-existence and immortality of the soul appears. Thus the first esboxos of the theory of ideas are observed.
The Gorgias deals with rhetoric and justice and contains an implicit criticism of Athenian democracy and includes a myth about immortality.
Menón returns to the problem of the teaching of virtue and speaks of immortality and soul while the conception of knowledge appears as a reminder.
The Cratile deals with the problem of meaning of words and echoes the sophistic discussion of conventions and what is by nature, thus apprehends the theory of Ideas.
They belong to this period also:
Major Hippies (about beauty)
Minor Hippies (about lies and truth)
Eutidemus (about the sophist eristics)
Menexene (parody of funeral prayers)
Plato produces during stage 385-370 the central part of its production. The theory of Ideas will help you contextualize all the topics you will address.
It also elaborates a complete theory of the state.
The presence of Socrates continued but his personality has changed, he shows himself confident and master of the truth. The main Platonic myths are developed in these dialogues.
The Banquet develops the theory of love and ideas.
The Fedon happens in prison: Socrates quietly awaits death and talks about the immortality of the soul and philosophy.
The Republic includes a description of the State as it was conceived at that time and brings together all the main issues dealt with by Plato.
The Fedron will treat about love, beauty and soul.
During 369-362 the style of Plato becomes more dry and difficult, logic problems occupy more and more space and Socrates ceases to be the main character. Myths also lose importance within the work.
The Parmenides, is a self-criticism of the theory of Ideas.
The Teeto is an unsuccessful search for knowledge.
The Sopist and the Politician should have been completed later with the Philosopher who did not write it. It seems that Plato begins to doubt the identification between the politician and the philosopher and intends to unlink the concepts. In these two dialogues, the main interlocutor is a “stranger of Elea” and in the search for definition the most of diaries (dichotomous divisions)
In his latest works, Plato abandons metaphysical questions and focuses on comology and history. The influence of Pythagoras becomes more evident. In the political sphere, his position is tougher and more conservative.
In the Filebo, the problem of pleasure and good is discussed. It seems that it is in this period in which he conceived the propect of a great philosophy of history, which should begin with a “history of the formation of the cosmos” or a “cosmogony”, continue with the description of a primitive and forgotten Athens (according to Plato, a corresponding 9000 years ago) until he comes to the description of the future city. In the Timeo, Platon contests this cosmogony that gathers all the knowledge of the time.
The Critias describes primitive Athens and Atlantis. The dialogue is unfinished, but it can be assumed that it ends with the struggle between Athens and Atlantis and its sinking under the ocean. The myth of Atlantis was probably invented by Plato himself since no background is recorded in the literature of the time.
The third dialogue of the trilogy should be the Hermogenes, which remained unwritten, instead, wrote The Laws which could not be reviewed since he died before doing so. In The Laws, three elders (an Athenian, a Cretan and a Spartan) talk about the constitution of an ideal city. The imagined city scares by the rigidity, minuteness and intolerance of the laws.
Plato may have died tormented by pessimism and disappointment.