The longest dialogue of Plato, a work from the final period of his creation. Books V, VI. Views on ethics. The establishment of the new regime. The distribution of land. Administration. Election of the rulers. The institution of marriage.
Plato was born in 427 BC, a scion of a prominent Athenian family. He received an excellent education and was acquainted with Greek philosophical currents. However, it was Socrates, with his life, philosophy, and death, that decisively shaped his moral and spiritual essence. The great philosopher was the reason the young Plato turned to philosophy, and the Socratic conceptual framework became the foundation for the later Platonic theory of Ideas.
Plato profoundly interpreted Socrates as a man and teacher, capturing his personality in many of his works. He traveled to Egypt, Cyrene, and Greater Greece, where he unsuccessfully attempted to implement his political principles in the organization of the Greek cities of Sicily. In 387 BC, he founded the Academy in Athens, a famous center of philosophy and the Muses, which lasted almost ten centuries, until the times of Justinian. Plato dedicated himself to teaching and writing until his death (348 BC).
All of his extant works were classified by Thrasymachus into nine tetralogies. Almost all belong to the genre of dialogue, in which Plato emerged not only as a leading philosopher but also as a true poet. His teaching stems from the doctrines of Greek thought, Orphism, Pythagorean and Ionic philosophy, and, of course, the Socratic discourse, ultimately forming, as a personal creation of Plato, a colossal philosophical system.
His philosophy – ethical, ontological, political – is the foundation of global Idealism and may have influenced thought throughout the ages more than any other.
[Excerpt from the text presentation of the publisher or edition]
