Plato is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western philosophy. He was a student of Socrates and a teacher to Aristotle. His ideas about metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and art have influenced countless other thinkers and are still widely discussed in many disciplines today, including law and religion.

Plato was born in Athens, Greece, and lived from about 428 BC until about 347 BC, dying around age 80. He was born into a wealthy and aristocratic family, studied mathematics, and dabbled in politics. At age 40, he founded the Academy, which would go on to become the foundation of Western thought, as it provided a model for what higher education should consist of.

Plato is credited with systematizing many aspects of philosophy. Plato defines knowledge as “justified true belief,” meaning that one can only know something if there is evidence for it (justified), it matches the objective world (true), and one holds the opinion that these things are the case (belief). Plato believes that the highest kind of knowledge is of the Forms, such as Goodness, Love, Justice, and Virtue. They can only be grasped by pure reason. For Plato, objects in ordinary experience are merely imitations or representations of these absolute truths and are therefore inferior to them.