- Plato, c 427-347 BCE, Greek philosopher
Like most people, I use Google to gather images and information about the authors to use in my posts. Today, I found this image of Plato. It is interesting because it could actually catch him saying the quote with the finger up for emphasis. Or, he might just be telling you to take another look at his words.
The image source that I used was a Web Project by Sean, an Ohio University student (deduced from the URL). I decided to track it back for the fun of it.
Sean cites Philadelphia Reflections, "The musings of a Philadelphia Physician who has served the community for nearly six decades.", as the source. Scrolling down the postings we find the picture in a post titled Seventeenth Amendment where the author traces the idea of a Republic to Plato.
The good doctor gives us a link, Greek philosopher Plato, to a biography of Plato at philosophypages.com, where the image is also used. Unfortunately, no source for the image was given. I tried the links provided for on line information about Plato to no avail.
Back to Google Image Search. Low and behold, it turned up the image as part of a larger one.
This one showing Plato and Aristotle in a posting titled Plato's Angle in Reditus: A Chronicle of Aesthetic Christianity, where the author uses the passage, "On the other hand, they invariably called Plato ‘divine’. In
other words, Aristotle relates to Plato as an angel does to the word of
God." from -Lucas Siorvanes, Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science.
The author did not give a source for the image.
I clicked the image to see if he left a link. It blew up the image large enough for me to read the note below it. It reads:
"...Plato the teacher, in the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci and holding his Timaeus, strides alongside Aristotle, his greatest pupil, on our right and holding his great works The Ethics."
- So, we are not looking at Plato!
Also, I thought it a coincidence that his book, "The Ethics" relates well to our Avenue for the day, integrity.
Back to Google Image Search and I see this:
It was use in the post The Personal and the Polis: The Intersection of Individualism, the Family and the State (Part 2 of 3) December 4, 2006 by Jack Yoest. - Reasoned Audacity, Business and Politics in Real Life. Again, no image source cited.
It gets better! I Googled "about Plato and Aristotle by Raphael" and came up with this image
Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) Scuola di Atene, (1509-1510)
Stanza della Segnatura (Vaticano).
at http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/raphael/raf_ath4.html.
The site also identifies Plato in the image of Leonardo da Vinci. The image boxed above is the first one used in this post. Compare it with this image of da Vinci found at Wikepedia (below).
Here's a side-by-side with a postage stamp honoring Plato from Greece that I found at mlahanas.de.
I figure the Greek Post Office should know what he looks like.
Lesson learned, you just cannot take everything found on the internet as being correct.
This is the Avenue to Success for 02/20/09
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