Plato Quiz: do you think you know everything about philosophy and about Plato? Test your knowledge now with the test dedicated to Plato!
With this quiz on Plato you can test your knowledge about this Greek philosopher: Plato is a famous Greek philosopher who lived between 428 BC and 347 BC. From a young age he devoted himself to philosophy and when he was only 20 years old he met his teacher, the equally famous philosopher Socrates. All of Plato's philosophy was influenced by his master's reflections. For Plato, Socrates was more than a guide: he saw in him the embodiment of philosophizing, an ideal to be understood and taken as an example.
Unlike Socrates, Plato left behind several writings. It is through him that we know the details of his master's life and philosophy.
Plato's best known theory is the so-called theory of ideas. For Plato, the world of the senses and experience cannot lead us to true knowledge. Perceptions, in fact, differ from individual to individual, and therefore cannot lead us to absolute knowledge. Absolute certainty, then, can only be the result of rational knowledge. True knowledge consists of ideas, the real and unchanging forms of things.
Alongside the development of the theory of ideas, Plato studies the science of numbers and figures. This area of his research is less well known than the former, but Plato nevertheless devoted several writings to it. Plato studies the science of numbers for its "conceptual purity," which allows reasoning free from empiria, that is, from sense experience, from perceptions. In fact, as we have just seen, for Plato, perceptions are what pulls us away from knowledge and not the means of arriving at it.
Plato also theorizes the immortality of the soul: man passes through many lives, but his soul remains identical. In the various passages, the soul acquires much knowledge and remembers what it has known. Why is the soul immortal? Because it participates in the same nature as ideas, which are immutable and immortal.
Plato was also interested in politics. His goal was to form a government ruled by philosophy and philosophers. He is also credited with founding the Academy of Athens a cultural society with an internal structure reminiscent of a religious organization.