Arabic for Plato (428-7 -348-7 B.C.) One of the greatest of Greek philosophers; disciple of Socrates on whose dialectic his whole philosophy is mainly based. The central doctrine is his theory of Ideas according to which Ideas, Forms, or Universals are eternally real as opposed to the transitory and relatively unreal objects of sense-perception. Though some of Plato's dialogues, viz. the Republic, the Laws and the Timaeus were available to the Muslim philosophers as early as Hunain ibn Ishaq, it is interesting to note that most of the Muslim philosophers did not recognise Plato to be a real representative of Greek philosophy, or at least they subordinated him to Aristotle.