Dialogues (Complete)

Plato's Dialogues represent the most influential body of philosophical work in Western history. As Alfred North Whitehead famously observed, "All Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato." Works such as the Republic, the Symposium, the Apology, and the Phaedo established the fundamental questions and methods of philosophical inquiry that continue to define the discipline.

A student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, Plato founded the Academy in 387 BCE, creating the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. His dialogues were lost to Western Europe for centuries before their rediscovery during the Renaissance, which transformed European intellectual life. The Republic remains the most widely taught philosophy text in the world, and Plato's works are central to the curricula at Princeton, Oxford, and universities everywhere.