What Were the Key Influences on Plato’s Education
In short. Plato's education combined Athenian schooling, Socrates, Cratylus and Heraclitus, and later contact with Pythagorean mathematics and the court of Syracuse.
The influences on Plato’s education fall into three layers: the ordinary schooling of a young Athenian aristocrat, the philosophers who shaped his thinking at home (Socrates above all, then Cratylus and the Heraclitean tradition), and the contacts he made abroad, especially with Pythagorean mathematicians in Italy and with the court of Syracuse in Sicily. Almost everything we know about the first layer comes from Diogenes Laertius, who wrote more than five centuries after Plato’s death, so it should be read as tradition. The second is the best attested; the third rests largely on the Seventh Letter, whose authenticity is disputed.
What schooling did a young Athenian like Plato receive?
Diogenes Laertius (III.1–6) says Plato came from a family of high standing, with his father Ariston reckoned a descendant of the legendary king Codrus and his mother Perictione related to Solon. The usual education for such a boy covered letters, music and poetry, and gymnastics. Diogenes (III.4) names a teacher of letters called Dionysius and the wrestler Ariston of Argos (said to have given him the name Plato). Later writers, Olympiodorus’ Life of Plato and the treatise On Music ascribed to Plutarch, add the music teachers Draco and Metellus of Agrigentum. These are late reports, not facts from Plato himself. Diogenes also says Plato wrote poetry and tragedy as a young man and burned it after hearing Socrates (III.5), which may be a story invented to fit his later criticism of poetry. See Plato’s early life and influences.
Socrates
Socrates was the decisive influence. The Seventh Letter (324d–326b) calls Socrates an older friend and the most just man of his time, says Plato hoped for a political career, and turned away from it after the Thirty Tyrants and the trial of Socrates in 399 BC. From Socrates came the method of cross-examining those who claimed to know, and the focus on definitions of virtue. See how Socrates influenced Plato’s philosophy.
Cratylus and Heraclitus
Aristotle, who knew the Academy well, says (Metaphysics I.6, 987a29–b14) that Plato was familiar from youth with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean view that everything perceptible is in constant flux, so that no knowledge of it is possible. Plato later kept the conclusion that knowledge of the changing world is not possible and took it as a reason to seek unchanging objects of knowledge, the Forms. The influence is on Plato’s thinking about the nature of reality, and it came from Cratylus and the Heraclitean tradition at Athens, since Heraclitus lived well before Plato was born. Plato did not meet Heraclitean doctrine in Syracuse, as some accounts claim. See Heraclitus and Plato’s theory of flux and stability.
Mathematics and the Pythagoreans
Mathematics was another strand. Plato’s dialogues show him in touch with the mathematician Theodorus of Cyrene (Theaetetus 147d), and tradition says he travelled to Cyrene and Italy for study. The best-attested contact is Archytas of Tarentum, the Pythagorean mathematician and statesman who appears in the Seventh Letter (338c–d). Aristotle says Plato followed the Pythagoreans in many respects. See Pythagorean mathematics and Plato and the account of Plato’s journeys.
Syracuse: Dionysius I and Dionysius II
The first visit to Syracuse, around 388/387 BC, put Plato at the court of Dionysius I; he returned around 367 and 361 BC to the court of Dionysius II (Seventh Letter; Diogenes Laertius III.18–23). According to the letter, the aim was to educate the young ruler as a philosopher, with the help of Dion. The effort failed, which taught Plato how difficult it is to bring philosophy to political power. The second and third visits came late in his life, after the main outlines of his thought were formed; the first, at about forty, probably came before most of the middle dialogues; on the usual chronology the Academy was founded soon after the first trip (see what institution Plato founded). Later tradition adds a story that Dionysius I had Plato sold as a slave on Aegina, a late anecdote not mentioned in Plato’s own writings. See why Plato was enslaved.
Was Plato educated in Persia or the East?
No. Diogenes Laertius (III.7) says that Plato meant to visit the Magi but was prevented by the wars in Asia. No ancient source reports any Persian instruction, and the idea that Persian values of wisdom, moderation and justice underlie his ethics is unsupported: those are Greek virtues, discussed in Greek terms by Socrates and others before Plato’s travels began. For the origins of that claim, see Plato’s travel and exposure to different philosophies.
Summary
| Influence | Evidence | How firm |
|---|---|---|
| Athenian schooling | Diogenes Laertius III.4–5 | Late tradition |
| Socrates | Plato’s dialogues; Seventh Letter | Very firm |
| Cratylus and Heraclitus | Aristotle, Metaphysics I.6 | Firm |
| Pythagoreans and Archytas | Seventh Letter; Aristotle | Firm |
| Syracuse | Seventh Letter; Diogenes Laertius | Firm for the visits |
| Persia and the East | Diogenes Laertius III.7 (trip intended, not made) | No evidence of influence |
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