Dialogues V

1745

de Beer Eb 1745 P

[Oxford: James Fletcher]

Socrates’ pupil, Plato (427-347 BC) was one of the greatest early original thinkers. His intellectual legacy comes to us in the Dialogues, a series of philosophical discussions he wrote throughout his life. Plato had a conversational style of writing that he hoped would appeal to a wide readership and ‘believed that well-directed conversation may stimulate and clarify our thinking, organise our knowledge and promote the discovery of truth’ (Barnes). Plato’s Phaedo contains theories about the afterlife and immortality of the soul; his Timaeus has been described as ‘the first Greek account of divine creation’; and his work influenced the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Plato established the Academy, the first organised learning institute of its kind, on his estate just outside of Athens in about 387 BC.