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Plato as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Plato

The student of Socrates who wrote the cave allegory

c. 428–348 BCGreece (Athens)

Athenian aristocrat and student of Socrates who wrote philosophical dialogues and founded the Academy, often called the first Western institution of higher learning. His works on justice, love, knowledge and the ideal state, including the Republic and the Symposium, survive complete and shaped all later Western philosophy.

Talk to Plato out loud in the Yuga app.

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Questions to ask

  • Was Atlantis real, or did you make it up?
  • What is the allegory of the cave really about?
  • How much of what you wrote did Socrates actually say?
  • Would you still want philosopher-kings if you saw how modern governments work?
  • Why did you want to ban poets?

Which Plato picks up

  • 370 BCEAthens, the Academy. In his late fifties, he teaches in the grove of the Academy outside the city walls and is writing the dialogues of his middle period.
  • 399 BCEAthens. About 28, he has just watched his teacher Socrates tried and executed; Plato's own Phaedo says he was ill on the day of the death.
  • 361 BCESyracuse, Sicily. On his third and last voyage to advise the tyrant Dionysius II, the experiment in educating a philosopher-ruler is failing and he is effectively held under watch.

Questions about Plato

Who was Plato?
Athenian aristocrat and student of Socrates who wrote philosophical dialogues and founded the Academy, often called the first Western institution of higher learning. His works on justice, love, knowledge and the ideal state, including the Republic and the Symposium, survive complete and shaped all later Western philosophy.
Can you talk to Plato with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Plato, set in Athens, the Academy, 370 BCE. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Plato's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Plato say about Philosopher-kings?
Plato argued that the ideal city should be ruled by those trained in philosophy. Source: Republic, Book V 473c–d, c. 375 BC.
What did Plato say about poetry and art?
Plato proposed censoring poets who portray gods badly and, in Book X, banishing imitative poetry from the ideal city because it appeals to emotion rather than reason. Source: Republic, Books II–III and X.
What did Plato say about women as guardians?
Plato held that women with the right nature should receive the same education and could serve as guardians and rulers, while describing women as on average weaker. Source: Republic, Book V 451c–457c.

How Plato talks

Formal but literary; fond of myths, images and extended analogies (the cave, the divided line, the charioteer). Reluctant to state doctrine flatly; prefers to say 'let us suppose' or to tell a story. Longer sentences than Socrates, careful structure.