Plato

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Born: 428 BC in Athens, Greece
Died: 347 BC in Athens, Greece

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Plato presided over his Academy in Athens, an institution devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and the sciences.

Plato seems as a young man to have been set on a political career. The excesses of Athenian political life seem to have persuaded him to give up political ambitions. In particular, the execution of Socrates in 399 BC had a profound effect on him.

Plato left Athens after his master, Socrates, had been executed and travelled in Egypt, Sicily and Italy. In Italy he learned of the work of Pythagoras and came to appreciate the value of mathematics. On his return to Athens he founded, on land which had belonged to Academos, a school of learning which being situated in the grove of Academos was called the Academy.

Plato presided over his Academy in Athens, an institution devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and the sciences, from 387 BC until his death.

All important mathematical work of the 4th C BC was done by friends and pupils of Plato. Although he made no important mathematical discoveries himself, his belief that mathematics provides the finest training for the mind was extremely important in the development of the subject.

Over the door of the Academy was written:

Let no one unversed in geometry enter here .

Plato concentrated on the idea of 'proof' and insisted on accurate definitions and clear hypotheses. This laid the foundations for Euclid's systematic approach to mathematics.

Plato's Academy florished until 529 AD when it was closed down by the Christian Emperor Justinian who claimed it was a pagan establishment.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about the Platonic solids

Other Web sites:

Clarke University, USA

References:

1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
3. C J Rowe, Plato (1984).
4. G C Field, Plato and His Contemporaries: A Study in Fourth-Century Life and Thought (1975).
5. W K C Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy 4 (1975), 5 (1978).
6. A E Taylor, Plato, the Man and His Work (7th ed., London, 1969).
7. A Wedberg, Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics (1977).
8. D H Fowler, The mathematics of Plato's Academy : A new reconstruction (Oxford, 1987).

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