Читать книгу Classical Sociological Theory - Sinisa Malesevic - Страница 13

Some of the biographical facts concerning Plato’s life are based on disputed evidence and much of what we know comes from the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius. Plato was born in 428 bce in Athens to a highly distinguished aristocratic family during a period in which the Peloponnesian War was already underway. The family was steeped in politics: Ariston, his father, was said to be a direct descendant of the last king of Athens, while his mother, Perictone, was reputed to have been related to the famous law-maker Solon (638–558 bce), who is credited with laying the foundations of Athenian democracy. When Plato’s father died his mother remarried, to Pyrilampes, a close acquaintance of Pericles. Plato, had two brothers, Adiemantus and Glaucon, a sister, Potone, and a half-brother, Antiphone. It is reputed that Plato’s birth name, Aristocles, was replaced by the nickname Plato, referring to his broad shoulders. As a child he studied music, rhetoric, mathematics and poetry at a gymnasium owned by Dionysios and Palaistra of Argos. He served and fought in the military three times between 409 and 404 bce. In 407 he met and became a pupil of Socrates (470/469–399 bce) who would be of central influence for the rest of his intellectual life, and whose thought is difficult to disentangle from his.