Copy after the statue created by the renowned portrait-sculptor Silanion. The original, commissioned by Mithridates, was dedicated to the Muses in the Academy, seat of the philosophical school founded by Plato in Athens.

c. 427 – 347 BC

To understand how Plato came to the conclusions which have exercised such a profound impact on Western thinking, it is necessary to understand his own influences. Born in or around Athens at a time when the city-state was flourishing as one of the most dominant and culturally enlightened places on earth, he was strongly affected by the arguments of another great philosopher, Socrates, who also lived there. Socrates’ approach was to constantly strive for clearer definitions of words and people’s perceptions of those words in order to get nearer to ‘the truth’ that lay behind their often irritational and ill-thought-out use of them. This introduced to Plato the notion of ‘reality’ being distorted by human perceptions, which would become important in his approach to science and, in particular, metaphysics.

. Socrates’ Influence

Socrates’ was executed in 399 BC for allegedly ‘corrupting’ the youth of Athens with his ‘rebellious’ ideas. Reacting to this, Plato fled the city-state and began a tour of many countries which would last more than a decade. On his travels, he encountered a group of people who would become another major influence, the Pythagoreans. Begun by their founder Pythagoras, the school of disciples in Croton continued to promote their ‘all is number’ approach to everything.

. The Theory of Forms

The combination of these two major forces on Plato – plus, of course, his own work – brought him to his Theory of Forms, his main legacy to scientific thought. This consisted of an argument that nature, as seen through human eyes, was merely a flawed version of true ‘reality’ or ‘forms’; in an instructive metaphor, he compares humanity with cave dwellers, who live facing the back wall of the cave. What they perceive as reality, is merely the shadows thrown out by the sun. There is, therefore, little to be learnt from direct observation of them. For Plato, there had always existed an eternal, underlying mathematical form and order to the universe, and what humans saw were merely glimpses of it, usually corrupted by their own irrational perceptions and prejudices about the way things ‘are’.

Consequently, for Plato, like the Pythagoreans, the only valid approach to science was a rational, mathematical one which sought to establish universal truths irrespective of the human condition. This validation of the numerical method strongly impacted on science; disciples following in its tradition ‘made’ discoveries by mathematical prediction. For example, arithmetic calculations would suggest that future discoveries would have particular properties, in the case of unknown elements in Dmitry Mendeleev’s first periodic table for instance, and subsequent investigative work by scientists would prove the mathematics to be true. It is an approach still used by scientists today.

. The Academy

Plato also helped to influence scientific thought in a much more physical sense by founding an Academy on his return to Athens in 387 BC. Some commentators claim this institute to be the first European university, and certainly its founding principles as a school for the systematic search for scientific and philosophical knowledge were consistent with such an establishment. Plato’s influence was pervasive; it is said there was inscription over the entrance to the institute which read, ‘Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry.’ Over the subsequent centuries, the Athenian Academy became recognised as the leading authority in mathematics, astronomy, science and philosophy, amongst other subjects. It survived for nearly a thousand years until the Roman emperor Justinian shut it down in 529 AD, around the time the Dark Ages began.

. The Legacy of Plato

Plato is best remembered today as one of the greatest philosophers of the Western tradition. He might not, therefore, be an obvious candidate for inclusion in any compendium of famous or influential scientists. But in exactly the same way that the influence of Plato’s work stretched into many other academic areas such as education, literature, political thought, epistemology and aesthetics, so it is the case with his science.

Although Plato’s scientific and philosophical knowledge has undergone significant revival and reinterpretation over the course of history, his logical approach to science remains influential, standing testament to his far-reaching ideas.

‘Geometry existed before creation.’ – Plato

• See also: Quantum Leaps: ‘Galileo Galilei’…