Who Influenced Plato

Plato, Influenced by...

Plato was a philosopher in the days of ancient Greece who wrote many works that are still being read today. He was a student of Socrates, credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and the teacher of Aristotle. Because Socrates was his mentor, it is believed by the uniformed that his ideas came from a Socratic way of thinking. While this is with out a doubt true, it is not the complete truth. Plato was also influenced by earlier philosophers, mainly Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno and the Pythagoreans(Pythagoras and his followers). As you will see, Plato had many basis that stemmed from the quintessential ideas of earlier philosophers. It quickly becomes apparent that Plato was a man who accepted many points of view and wove them all together in order to form a basis for his preachings and inevitably change philosophy forever.

There can be little doubt that Parmenides and Zeno had their influences on Plato. Parmenides had emphasis on being. It could be said that Parmenides would answer Shakespeare's quote, “to be or not to be”, quite easily due to the fact that Parmenides believed that not being is inconceivable. His, “The Way of Truth”, explains that reality is one, to change is not possible and that existing is timeless, uniform and unchanging. These ideas had a very strong influence on Plato, and with that, an influence on all of Western philosophy. Plato used the theory of the Forms to approve the Parmenidean requirement of metaphysical unity and stability in knowable reality. He also used both Parmenides and Zeno in his dialogue, the Parmenides. Zeno is an interesting character. He was a student of Parmenides who made paradoxes to prove Parmenides theory of an unchanging world. His most known is the example of a turtle and Achilles. He states that if the turtle was given a head start, Achilles would then run to catch it. However, he would never catch the turtle because by the time he had reached the turtles previous...