Plato, 428-348 B. C. E.

Plato, 428-348 B.C.E., was an Athenian Philospher from a wealthy important family. He was given the name Aristocles, after his grandfather, and was nicknamed Plato which meant “broad”. Plato wrestled at the Isthmian games and had broad shoulders, which is how he had acquired the nickname “Plato”. His parents were Ariston of Athens, whom was his father, and Perictione, whom was his mother. Plato had two older brothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a sister Potone. Plato’s father died when Plato was very young and his mother remarried her uncle, Pyrilampes, a Greek politician and an ambassador to the Persian court several times.

Throughout his life, Plato had two major events in his early life. One of Plato’s major events was that he was in military service from 409 BC to 404 BC. He served in Peloponnesian war. The other major event was when Plato met Greek philosopher, Socrates. Plato was a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. He was the most dedicated young follower of Socrates. Everything we know about Socrates we learned from Plato, his student. Inspired by Socrates’s dialogues, Plato became a writer and a teacher. After Socrate’s death, 399 BC, Plato traveled twelve years throughout the Mediterranean region studying mathematics with the Pythagoreons in Italy and geometry, geology, astronomy, and religion in

The prisoner in the cave, the cave itself, the shadows on the wall, and the prisoners leaving the cave. The prisoner in the cave is the “regular” human, who does not know what reality is, because they think reality is just what they can see, the shadows, which is not reality at all. The cave itself represents our everyday life as a regular human, not a philosopher, because a regular human is born in the cave and they stay there their entire life only believing in what they see. The regular humans never change their thoughts or beliefs, so they are stuck in this cave their entire life which is