Perhaps the greatest thinker of the Classical Age of Greece, Plato (c427–347 BCE), an Athenian, was a disciple of Socrates and mentor of Aristotle. His extraordinary abilities as a philosopher were matched by the brilliance and readability of his style. Since Socrates left no written documents, Plato's dialogues are our window into Socratic thought, though Plato's own contributions are also unsurpassed. When Socrates was unjustly executed, Plato fled Athens and travelled widely in Italy, Sicily, Egypt and Libya. He returned to found one of the first known learning institutes in Europe, the Academy, which remained deeply influential until 529 CE, when the pagan universities were closed by the Christian Emperor Justinian—and indeed later, when knowledge that had been taken to the East by scholars fleeing persecution was rediscovered in the Renaissance. Plato (and his Academy) influenced the development of astrology through his exposition of the ensouled nature of the celestials, planetary spheres, the spindle of necessity, world ages, destiny and the concept of a rationally ordered cosmos. Western philosophy has been described (by leading 20th C. philosopher A.N.Whitehead) as a series of footnotes to Plato.

Platonic Solids

The five geometric solids that can be made using a regular polygon, having the same number of these polygons meeting at each corner. They are

tetrahedron (regular solid pyramid with 4 triangular faces)

cube (regular solid with 6 square faces)

octahedron (regular solid with 8 triangular faces)

dodecahedron (regular solid with 12 pentagonal faces)

icosahedron (regular solid with 20 triangular faces)