Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Platonic realism is a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals after the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427 c. 347 BC), a student of Socrates, and the teacher of Aristotle. As universals were by Plato considered ideal forms this stance is confusingly also called Platonic idealism. Plato''s own articulation of the realism regarding the existence of universals is expounded in his The Republic and elsewhere, notably in the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Meno, and the Parmenides.