Biography of Plato.

Biography of Plato. Plato (427 B.C. - 347 B.C.). By Jesus Del Cid Moses Robles  
Born in Athens his real name was the Aristocles. The nickname of "Plato" as it is popularly known means "broad-shouldered. He was the son of Ariston he belongs to an ancient royal family of Codro. His mother was Perictyone, she belonged to the Athenian aristocracy, as was the descendant of Solon. Plato's education was common to the young Athenians, which consisted of lessons in gymnastics, music, painting, poetry.
Furthermore all young Greeks had to attend "the arena". Place listened to speeches of famous Athenians who had distinguished themselves by their wisdom, their courage in war or success in public affairs. It was there where he had the opportunity to meet Socrates.
But in Plato's philosophical beginnings received instruction from Cratylus, the disciple of Heraclitus. Already when I was 20 years young Plato decided to join the teaching of Socrates. Although Plato was the vocation of politics, it was thanks to the wisdom of Socrates that he felt the rapture of devotion to philosophy.
But experience more affection than Plato was the prosecution, the trial and execution of his master by the enemies of the great Socrates, as was the impression made upon the young man who made several dialogues Plato setting forth the teachings of the Athenian gadfly and the ideas that make the same achievement. Thus, the great Greek master unfolds much as the real Socrates and the Platonic Socrates in Plato's work.
When Socrates died, Plato could not be with him because he had fallen into a strong disease. Later Plato along with other disciples fled towards the town of Megara Euclid where shelter, returning to Athens in 395 BC c.
Plato made several intellectuals to travel for Egypt and Cyrene to learn astronomy and mathematics. I travel to Sicily where he was influenced by the Pythagoreans intellectual acquis adopting its various elements of Pythagoreanism. It was where he befriends Tarentum Archytas.
The influences that received bowl along in his life were those of the following thinkers:
Pythagorean spirituality, the immortality of the soul, metempsychosis or transmigration of the soul, panmatematicismo or explanation of the universe through geometry and mathematics.
Heraclitus drew significant dynamism.
Parmenides taught that true reality is eternal, unchanging and timeless. That the changes perceived by the senses are mere appearances and illusions.
De Socrates about morality and care for the soul. And to reject the false rhetoric of the Sophists.
With the wisdom of Plato, philosophy becomes systematic, orderly and scientific development.
Plato trying to make a political project to improve the government of any city through the authority of a true leader who cares about the material and spiritual welfare of the people. A political and spiritual leader who named philosopher king. But that project was unsuccessful until twice.
In a bowl trip to Syracuse was invited to advise the tyrant Dionysius the old and he accepted by the requests of his friend Dion. But after the tyrant Dionysius developed a severe hatred for the philosopher as this did not utter vain flattery but serious criticism of the acts and orders to exercise the tyrant. Ended up being sold into slavery, after being rescued by his friend Annicerís, a moderate sum of 20 pounds, and returned to Athens.
As Annicerís refused to let him bowl retribuyera the payment of ransom, the philosopher buy with money, gardens next to the temple of the hero Akademos thereby founding the Academy in 387 BC Being the first organized school of philosophy in a pedagogical plan, Plato already had 40 years.
It was at this school where Plato elaborates a range of knowledge gained so far in his life and expressed the strong influences he had received from their guardians. This was demonstrated with a warning placed on the entrance of the academy: "Do not let anyone who does not know geometry." With which indicated an appreciation for the Pythagorean. Duro several years devoted to teaching the disciples to fight against the fallacies of the sophists and sophistry. But Plato still maintained its firm political ideal. As well as to Syracuse again embarked on what was the second son of Dionisio Dionisio old. But as past experience and ended up being rejected by the tyrant captive for about a year when he had the opportunity to flee the city. Over time again Plato to Syracuse back when this city was ruled by his friend Dion, but again fail due to political instability. Return to Athens to stay and teach at the academy until his death. Yet Plato wrote his political model in one of his greatest works The Republic.
Platonic thought was an explanation of beings in a plane and not merely the physical or material issues, with the claim that the model of all things were ideas. Same did not belong to this reality we live, but are in perfect shape in a world above this earthly reality which topus named Uranus.
Plato makes a division between the sensible and intelligible world and in the nature of knowledge: knowledge sensitive (through the senses) and intellectual knowledge (through the intellect or the soul).
For Plato the intelligible world is the real world that becomes the same forms, ideas or models of the things we found in this natural world.





The ideas exist in an ideal world, beyond space and time (mole uranium or hiperuranius). Corporeal things mimic those ideas and share them imperfectly. To make things God sent a Demiurge or inferior god that copies in accordance with the celestial patterns but did not quite right.
In addition to knowledge is obtained not from external things, nor with sense perception. Since these perceptions are mere appearances and things around us and we are only shadows or imperfect copies of the ideal models that are in the hiperuranius. Knowledge in men is a reminiscence or memory, in which the soul remembers more than knowing what I knew before being reincarnated in the present life, as part of the process of metempsychosis (Pythagorean element) or transmigration of souls.
"The human soul is immortal, reborn and never destroyed. Passing from one body to another.
"The soul gives rise again to mind what she already knew about the reality in a past life."
The body is a prison for the soul and spirit that prevents the pursuit of truth.
The body makes sorrowful and impedes the exercise of thought.
"If we launch a clear look at something, we must separate the body and contemplate things in themselves only with the soul."
For Plato the soul pre-exists the body and is immaterial. And the soul takes the body three ways: vegetable soul, animal soul and intellectual soul that is where the exercise of reason and is immortal. And the purification of the soul leads man to the contemplation of the highest wisdom.
The greatest happiness of all mankind is in possession of superior wisdom delight that takes the ideas.
Plato died at age 81 due to illness surrounded by his disciples. Among those was a young man who arrived Stagira the academy with the aim of the love of wisdom. Eventually coming to heighten even more knowledge of Greek philosophy, this young man was Aristotle.
Plato is one of the most influential philosophers have even to this day by both the classical philosophy of this thinker remains a living thought, whose depth and universal truth is not exhausted but flowing through the various branches of science because of their great contributions. Platonic thought is not dead but still alive.