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GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Plato was born in 427 B.C. (Before Christ), the era preceding the traditional birth of Jesus. of Athenian parents who could provide him with the best education of the day, and ample means and leisure throughout his life. He came to manhood in the dismal close of the Peloponnesian War A devastating 27-year conflict between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.) that signaled the end of the "Golden Age" of Athenian power., when the comic playwright Aristophanes was at the height of his success, and the great tragedians Sophocles and Euripides had produced their last plays.

As a boy, Plato doubtless heard the lectures of Gorgias, Protagoras, and other sophists—itinerant professional teachers in ancient Greece who taught rhetoric and virtue for a fee. His early interests seem to have been directed toward poetry. However, his intelligence was too progressive to remain satisfied with the agnostic The view that ultimate truth or the nature of the divine is unknown or unknowable. position on which the sophistic culture was based. A century before, the philosopher Heracleitus had declared knowledge to be impossible because the objects of our senses are continually changing; yet now a certain Cratylus was trying to build a theory of knowledge upon this assertion of "flux" The idea that the universe is in a constant state of change, often summarized by the phrase "you cannot step into the same river twice." by developing some hints dropped by its mysterious author regarding the truth contained in names.

From this influence, Plato moved into contact with Socrates, whose character and intellectual gifts have left a singular impression on the thought of all humanity. This lasting effect is almost entirely due to Plato's own applications and extensions of his master's ideas...