Plato is the most widely studied, and probably the greatest, philosopher of all time. He asked his contemporary Athenians for answers to all the difficult and troubling questions that we now call "philosophical", and then recorded their ideas in the form of lively dramatic debates. Plato also had his own distinct views about almost everything: the nature of knowledge and reality, politics, ethics, mathematics, economics, the size of the ideal city and much more.
This book explains how philosophers like Socrates and Pythagoras influenced Plato's thought, offering detailed critical commentary on all the key doctrines of Platonism, and reveals how Plato's philosophy stimulated the work of important modern thinkers such as Karl Popper, Martha Nussbaum and Jacques Derrida.
