Plato was a Greek philosopher. It is considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Born in Athens, Greece in 428 BC The son of an aristocratic family, was a disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. The first guided his thinking and his life, helped in the search for truth and woke up his interest in scientific knowledge. Dead Socrates, Plato began a series of trips back to Athens and founded, to 387 a. C., a philosophical school. The Academy worked in the gardens of Academe hero, hence the name of the establishment. There he taught botany, zoology, astronomy, mathematics and philosophy. Plato devoted much of his life to teaching and writing their works. He died in 347 a. C. He established a theory of knowledge that distinguished the one hand, the relative knowledge of reality through sensory perception and, second, scientific and rational knowledge, which penetrates the true nature of things and is the world of ideas.
His works can be grouped into four periods: the Socratic or period of youth (Book I of The Republic, Apology of Socrates, Crito, Protagoras, other), a transitional stage, which begins to develop his theory of ideas (Menon , Gorgias, Cratylus, other), the period of maturity, which investigates the ethics, politics and knowledge (the Symposium, Phaedo, Books II to X of The Republic, etc..), and late dialogues (Philebus Parmenides, politician, Critias, others).