Plato, born in Athens in -428 / -427, died -348 / -347 in the same city) is an ancient philosopher of ancient Greece, a contemporary of Athenian democracy and sophists, he criticized vigorously. He took the philosophical work of some of his predecessors, including Socrates, whose pupil he was, and that of Parmenides, Heraclitus and Pythagoras, to develop his own thought, which explores the most important fields, including metaphysics and ethics, philosophy of art and politics. Diogenes Laertius said that he is six years younger than his friend Isocrate. It is generally considered one of the first Western philosophers, if not as the inventor of philosophy, to the point that Whitehead could say, "Western philosophy is only a series of footnotes to the page dialogue Plato. " His work, composed almost exclusively of dialogues, is a wealth of style and content, and product, on many subjects, the first conventional formulations of the major problems of the history of Western philosophy. Every Platonic dialogue is the opportunity to question a given subject, such as beautiful or courage. Plato's thought is not monolithic; some of his dialogues lead to philosophical paradoxes: providing a solution to problems, they do not constitute a single, definitive answer. Theophrastus said that Plato was the first by the fame and genius, while the last in the chronology. As he devoted most of his activity to the first philosophy, he also devoted himself to appearances and landed Natural History, in which he tried to establish two principles: one undergoing, like matter called receiver Benjamin Jowett modern variant 15 April 1817 - 1 October 1893) was renowned as an influential tutor and administrative reformer in the University of Oxford, a theologian and translator of Plato and Thucydides. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Early life Jowett was born in Peckham, Kent, and grew up in Camberwell, the third of nine children. His father was a furrier originally from a Yorkshire family that, for three generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England; and an author of a metrical translation of the Old Testament Psalms. His mother was a Langhorne, related to John Langhorne, the poet and translator of Plutarch. At twelve, Jowett was placed on the foundation of St Paul's School (then in St Paul's Churchyard) where he soon gained a reputation as a precocious classical scholar. Aged eighteen he was awarded an open scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his life. He went up in 1836, and was quickly recognized as one of the leading Oxford Dons of his generation, made a Fellow while still an undergraduate in 1838; he graduated with first-class honours in 1839. This was at the height of the Oxford Tractarian movement: through the friendship of W.G. Ward he was drawn for a time in the direction of High Anglicanism; but a stronger and more lasting influence was that of the Arnold school, represented by A.P. Stanley. The controversy caused Jowett to withdraw from High Table at college to lodgings in Broad Street.