Abstract
Abstract This chapter summarizes the work of the Presocratic philosophers, especially Heraclitus and Parmenides, and how they influenced Plato’s thought—his agreements and disagreements with them. Then it does the same for the work of the sophistic movement of fifth-century Greece—people such as Protagoras of Abdera and Gorgias of Leontini. The chapter lingers over what Plato gained from his primary teacher, Socrates, especially in the field of political theory, and shows how Plato developed Socrates’s work in all respects. For instance, he developed the Socratic search for universals into a full-blown metaphysical theory, the famous theory of Forms. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what we know of the work of other followers of Socrates and whether they were in any sense rivals.
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