Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, a citizen of Athens, and a follower of Socrates. He founded the Academy, a school for statecraft, circa 387 BCE, his most famous student being Aristotle. His work – in the form of dialogues – has had an immeasurable influence upon Western civilization. The modern philosopher, Whitehead, once famously quipped that “the whole of Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes on Plato.” The same might be said of other fields of learning where Plato’s thought has been seminal. He has made a profound contribution to both the arts and sciences, including psychology. Many aspects of his thinking foreshadow modern theories. In psychology, for example, his teachings regarding erosas a foundation for human motivation clearly foreshadow the theories of Freud, or, as some prefer, Freud’s theories are a decadent version of Plato’s earlier theory. In religious thought, Plato has long been acknowledged as prefiguring aspects of the...
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Blackhirst, R. (2014). Plato and Religion. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_513
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