We decided to go back to basics prompted by the re-release on BBC i-Player of “The Great Philosophers”, a series of discussions broadcast in 1987 by Bryan Magee with various eminent academics each on the subject of a historically significant philosopher.  We discussed the episode on Plato https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002kx5p/the-great-philosophers-series-1-1-plato.  Magee and Myles Bunyeat walked through Plato’s works bringing out the development of his ideas.  His early work documented the life (and death) of Socrates and his (Socrates’) dialogue designed to question and clarify beliefs or claims.  Then in “The Republic" Plato developed a theory of knowledge, that it is is innate and attained through reason and recollection by the soul, not through sensory perception.  He made knowledge crucial to his politics, proposing a meritocracy and rule by the most knowledgeable.  Since knowledge is innate, it must come from somewhere, and his theory of forms - reality as non-physical, eternal archetypes - was a foundation point for Idealism through the ages: “Philosophy ……..consists of a series of footnotes to Plato” (AN Whitehead).  We discussed some aspects we found interesting: From the Euthrypho: "Is what is loved by the gods pious, or is what is pious loved by the gods?”.  From The Republic: Plato proposes a meritocracy - rule by the most capable through education (philosopher kings), this being much better than a democracy.  We didn’t get to Plato’s analogy of the cave, but here is a link to Project Gutenberg - see Book VII..