MENON or ON VIRTUE: A dialogue that examines the problem of virtue. How is virtue acquired? Definition of virtue. The Platonic theory of recollection. The psychological experiment with the slave of Menon. Is virtue teachable? The teachers of virtue. The aporia as a methodological principle of inquiry.

CLITOPHON or EXHORTATIVE: A brief excerpt concerning the determination of the concept of justice. Text of disputed authenticity.

MINOS or ON LAW: A dialogue that examines the nature of law. The aim is to show that the command is not an element of the essence of law. Law as a discovery of truth. The authenticity of the work is disputed.

Plato was born in 427 BC, a descendant of a prominent Athenian family. He received a great education and became acquainted with Greek philosophical currents. However, what decisively shaped his moral and spiritual being was Socrates, with his life, philosophy, and death. The great philosopher was the reason that the young Plato turned to philosophy, and the Socratic terminology became the basis for the later Platonic theory of Ideas.

Plato interpreted Socrates profoundly as a man and teacher, and he captured his personality in many of his works. He traveled to Egypt, Cyrene, and Greater Greece, where he attempted, without success, to apply his political principles in the organization of the Greek cities of Sicily.

In 387 BC, he founded the Academy in Athens, a famous center of philosophy and the Muses, which lasted nearly ten centuries, until the times of Justinian. Plato dedicated himself to teaching and writing until his death (348 BC). His works, all preserved, were classified by Thrasyllus into nine tetralogies.

Almost all belong to the genre of dialogue, in which Plato emerged, besides being a leading philosopher, as a true poet. His teaching stems from the doctrines of Greek thought, Orphism, Pythagorean and Ionian philosophy, and of course the Socratic discourse, and ultimately takes shape, as Plato's personal creation, into a colossal philosophical system.

His philosophy - ethical, ontological, political - is the foundation of global Idealism and perhaps has influenced thought throughout all time more than anyone else.