Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—who between them laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture. Building on the life and thought of Socrates, Plato--of Athens, or Aegina, Greece--developed a profound and wide-ranging system of philosophy. His thought has logical, epistemological, and metaphysical aspects; but its underlying motivation is ethical. It sometimes relies upon conjectures and myth, and it is occasionally mystical in tone; but fundamentally Plato is a rationalist, devoted to the proposition that reason must be followed wherever it leads. Thus the core of Plato's philosophy is a rationalistic ethics.
"Plato." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 20 Oct. 2005 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9108556>.
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Plato, the son of Ariston and Perictione, was born in Athens, or perhaps in Aegina, about 428 BC, the year after the death of the great statesman Pericles. His family, on both sides, was among the most distinguished in Athens. Ariston is said to have claimed descent from the god Poseidon through Codrus, the last king of Athens; on the mother's side, the family was related to the early Greek lawmaker Solon. Nothing is known about Plato's father's death. It is assumed that he died when Plato was a boy. Perictione apparently married as her second husband her uncle Pyrilampes, a prominent supporter of Pericles; and Plato was probably brought up chiefly in his house. Critias and Charmides, leaders among the extremists of the oligarchic terror of 404, were, respectively, cousin and brother of Perictione; both were friends of Socrates, and through them Plato must have known the philosopher from boyhood.