He can discuss Plato as easily as he can Spanish philosopher Jos Ortega y Gasset.

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Karl Popper, a philosopher and ex-communist, criticised thinkers from Plato to Marx who valued the collective over the individual.

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" But perhaps the philosopher who best understood the transcendental possibilities of play was Epicurus' forbear, Plato, who wrote: "Man is made God's plaything and that is the best part of him.

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