Plato
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Plato
From Pythagoras (whether by way of Socrates or not) Plato derived the Orphic elements in his philosophy: the religious trend, the belief in immortality, the other-worldliness, the priestly tone, and all that is involved in the simile of the cave; also his respect for mathematics, and his intimate intermingling of intellect and mysticism. From Parme
... See moreBertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
CHAPTER XIII The Sources of Plato’s Opinions
Bertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
Part II. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
Bertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
Plato and his students were not narrow specialists, not pedants, not ideologues; they were rather propelled to dispute, to discover, everything there was to know, and to test the boundaries of knowing itself.
Bradley McDevitt added
The philosopher is depicted as the man who is, above all, pure and therefore free.
Plato • Phaedo (Focus Philosophical Library)
The purely philosophical influences on Plato were also such as to predispose him in favour of Sparta. These influences, speaking broadly, were: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Socrates.
Bertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
Plato believed that it was essential for them to guide human societies. His entire political philosophy revolves around the need to aspire towards ideals, and so to uphold universal standards of beauty, bodily health, and all-round excellence or arete.
the critic • The death of Ideals
Keely Adler added
What most men have taken from Plato is belief in a supersensible intellectual world and in the superiority of the immortal soul to the mortal body. But Plato was many-sided, and in some respects could be regarded as teaching scepticism. The Platonic Socrates professes to know nothing; we naturally treat this as irony, but it could be taken seriousl
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