Socrates and Plato
Considered as a metaphysicist, Plato's greatest contribution was to promote the Forms or "Ideas." Plato coined the Greek word for idea (ιδέα) from the past tense verb "to see." For Plato, ideas are something we have seen when our souls made their great circuit of the heavens before coming to Earth.
Plato was inspired by Pythagoras. Other than Pythagoras, whose fundamental understanding of reality was based on mathematics, the other
pre-Socratics were all materialists.
Socrates had no interest in the materialists and their physical theories. He wanted to understand the human being and ethical values. He famously insisted that "virtue is
knowledge." Anyone doing an evil thing must be doing it out of ignorance of the Good.
Ironically, Socrates spent his life showing that very few, if any, people understand what it is to know anything.
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