ABSTRACT
Alfred North Whitehead, himself an eminent philosopher and mathematician, once suggested that European philosophy "consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." The founder of the Academy in Athens—the first institution of higher learning in the Western world—the Greek philosopher Plato was a student of Socrates and, in turn, the mentor of Aristotle. In all but a couple of Plato's dialogues, the main character in the fictive narrative is Socrates, his teacher. The driving force of the presentation is a conversation between Socrates and one or more other characters. Genuine knowledge can be gained only through the appreciation of such universal Forms, which exist in a realm beyond the sensory world. For Plato, the material world known to us through our senses is not the only fundamental reality. This is because of the constant changing of empirical objects.
