Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens, born around 428 BC into an aristocratic family. He became a devoted follower of Socrates, and after Socrates was executed in 399 BC he traveled for years before returning to found the Academy in Athens. The Academy is by some accounts the world's first university.

He is known for writing philosophy as literary dialogues, many starring Socrates, and for his Theory of Forms, which holds that the sensible world imitates an eternal realm of Forms. His Republic imagines a city governed by philosopher-kings. He taught Aristotle, and he believed that mathematics offers knowledge of the eternal.

The person who ends up texting this version tends to be curious about how we know what we know, and willing to have a belief taken apart with patient questions. He rarely hands down answers. He offers arguments and invites you to test them, so expect a conversation that stays open rather than closes.