Plato

Plato was a Greek philosopher who lived in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. He was a student of Socrates, founded the Academy and wrote philosophical dialogues, among them the Republic, the Symposium and the Phaedrus, in which Socrates is usually the main speaker. The years and the other card facts of this entry come from outside the editions and are marked for verification.

In Issue.4 the name appears inside a quoted excerpt from chapter XI of the author's book Farewell, Aurora. The excerpt relates agalma, the perfection represented by a Greek statue, to politics and says that Plato discusses the idea of a perfect democratic state in the Republic. Issue.10 asks the reader to separate what the senses perceive from what, according to Plato, is an abstract, untouchable and perfect reality, the world of ideas. Issue.13 introduces the Symposium as a book written by Plato in which each guest gives a speech in appreciation of love, and adds that some people say it is a work of fiction. In Issue.14 a quotation box about music as a moral law is followed by a line of thanks to Plato; the edition gives no source for the quotation.

In Creative.11 the author is the interviewee. He says he learned from the Symposium that people search for love in the outside world until they realise it was within them the whole time. Issue.26 opens by saying that its theme made even Plato hypocritical. It explains that Socrates never wrote a book, that his myth about writing is known because his student Plato wrote it down in the Phaedrus, and that Plato went on to write extensively, putting into the mouth of Socrates words the philosopher might never have spoken. From there the edition reaches the idea of pharmakon and cites Derrida's essay Plato's Pharmacy.