A dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus concerning the essence of love, the art of rhetoric as capable of meeting scientific claims, and the immortality of the soul. The myth regarding the origin of writing.

Plato was born in 427 BC, a scion of an eminent Athenian family. He received an excellent education and was familiar with Greek philosophical currents. However, it was Socrates, with his life, philosophy, and death, that fundamentally shaped his moral and spiritual being. The great philosopher was the reason the young Plato turned to philosophy, and the Socratic concepts became the foundation for the later Platonic theory of Ideas.

Plato deeply interpreted Socrates as a man and teacher, capturing his personality in many of his works. He traveled to Egypt, Cyrene, and Great Greece, where he attempted, without success, to apply his political principles in the organization of the Greek cities of Sicily.

In 387 BC, he founded the Academy in Athens, a renowned center of philosophy and the Muses, which lasted almost ten centuries, until the times of Justinian. Plato devoted himself to teaching and writing until his death in 348 BC. All of his works, which have been preserved, were classified by Thrasyllus into nine tetralogies.

Almost all belong to the genre of dialogue, with which Plato emerged not only as a leading philosopher but also as a true poet. His teaching derives from the doctrines of Greek thought, Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and Ionian philosophy, and of course from Socratic discourse, ultimately taking shape as Plato's personal creation in a colossal philosophical system.

His philosophy - ethical, ontological, political - is the foundation of global Idealism and perhaps influenced the thoughts of all eras more than any other. [Excerpt from publisher or edition presentation text]