Latest / The Occult Rejects / Plato Part 2: Exploring His Major Works

Transcript

Plato Part 2: Exploring His Major Works · The Occult Rejects

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: You see, some things are going to happen. What's going
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to happen? What Plato of Athens stands is one of
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the most influential figures in Western philosophy. A student of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato wrote a unique dialogue
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: form that blends drama with profound inquiry. His work span ethics,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: political philosophy, psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics. Through vivid characters, often Socrates,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and imaginative stories are myths Plato explored and during questions
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: about justice, reality, knowledge, love, the soul, and the ideal society.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: This episode delves into Plato's major dialogues and philosophical ideas,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: from the historical trials of Socrates to the visionary theory
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of forms and the famous allegory of the Cave, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: drawing on scholarly insights to enrich our understanding. We have
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: journey through Plato's life and times, and now we will
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: examine the key themes of his early, middle and late
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: dialogues and discover how his blend of dramatic dialogue and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: philosophical exploration created a living legacy that still shapes thought today.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: His real name was Aristocles, but he became known as Plato,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: perhaps a nickname referring to his broad physique or broad forehead.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Growing up during the Peloponnesian War, the young Plato witnessed
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the political instability of Athens. In his twenties, Plato became
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a devoted student of the philosopher Socrates, whose method of
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: questioning everything left a deep mark on him. Socrates' charismatic
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: quest for truth and his martyr like death were defining influences.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Thirty ninety nine BCE, the Athenian democracy tried and executed
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Socrates for impiety and corrupting the youth. Plato, then about
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: twenty eight, was profoundly affected by the loss of his
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: mentor the apology. Plato's earliest dialogue is actually an account
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of Socrates's defense speech at the trial, and through it
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Plato ensures Socrates's voice and ideals would live on. After
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Socrates' death, Plato withdrew from Athens for a time, traveling
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: perhaps to Megara Sirene in North Africa, Italy, and Egypt.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: These travels exposed him to other philosophies, such as Pythagoreans
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in Italy, that would inform his later work. Around three
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: eighty seven BCE, Plato returned to Athens and founded the Academy,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: often considered the first university. The Academy was an institution
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: for higher learning situated in a grove of olo trees
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: sacred to the hero Academus, just outside Athens. There, Plato
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: taught and engaged students in dialogue for decades. Among the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Academy's most illustrious students was Aristotle, who studied there for
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: twenty years. The Academy became Plato's home base for the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: rest of his life. Plato also made at least two
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: more trips to Sicily in hopes of guiding Syracusan tyrants
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Dionysius the Elder and the Younger in his life. Later years,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Plato concentrated on teaching and writing at the Academy until
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: his death in three forty seven BCE. Understanding Plato's historical
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: contexts enriches our appreciation of his dialogues. He lived through
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the decline of Athenian democracy and the rise of Macedonian power,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: through war and civil strife, through the trial of Socrates
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and its aftermen. These experiences gave Plato a first hand
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: view of political instability and moral uncertainty, fueling his desire
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to fine unshakable truths and better ways to order society.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: The figure of Socrates, questioning ironic, unyielding in his pursuit
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of virtue dominates Plato's early works and remains a touchstone throughout.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: In his sense, Plato's philosophy can be seen as his
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: attempt to preserve Socrates's spirit while also moving beyond Socratic
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: skepticism to construct a positive philosophical system. To achieve this,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Plato wrote in an inventive dialogue form that invites the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: reader into the debate. Before diving into the content of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the dialogues, let us briefly consider the distinctive method of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: philosophical writing. Nearly all the Plato's surviving works are written
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: as dialogues conversations between characters, often historical figures, probing philosophical questions,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: rather than writing treaties or lectures. Plato presents philosophy in
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: a dramatic format, complete with settings and characters, which gives
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: his work a rich literary texture. We meet Socrates debating
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: in an Athenian marketplace, or conversing at a drinking party,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: or talking quietly in prison before his death. These dialogues
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: are not plays meant for the stage, but they are
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: carefully crafted dramas of ideas. Plato's gift for vivid characterization
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: in setting a jubilant symposium, a gymnasium, the courtroom, or
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the shadows of a cave, makes abstract ideas come alive
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: as human experience. Socrates is the central figure of most dialogues.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: He is present in all of them except one, the Laws.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Through Socrates, Plato honors his mentor's legacy, but also uses
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: him as a mouthpiece for exploring Plato's own ideas. Importantly,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Plato never speaks in his own voice in the dialogues.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: There is no professor Plato explaining his doctrine. Instead, he
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: lets arguments unfold through questions and answers, the Socratic method
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of inquiry. Socrates or another lead character poses questions to others,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: refutes floida, answers, and gradually guides the discussion towards deeper understanding.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: This method showcases philosophy as a live process of questioning assumptions.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: It also means Plato's works often don't present doctrines neatly,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: but rather lead readers to think for themselves. As the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy notes Plato is far more exploratory, incompletely systematic, elusive,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and playful than philosophers like Aristotle or cant He does
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: not hand us a finalized system of thought. Instead, many
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: dialogues end inconclusively or even with more puzzles. Plato seems
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to want the reader to participate in the inquiry. Readers
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of a Platonic dialogue are drawn into thinking for themselves
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: about the issues raised, provoking a sense of philosophy as
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: a living and unfinished subject to which they must contribute.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: This open ended dialectical style is deliberate. Plato orphan raises
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: profound questions what is virtue? What is justice? Is the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: soul of mortal and examines them from multiple sides, without
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: always reaching a final answer. In u Thipro, Socrates in
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a priest struggle to define piety and end in perplexity.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: In Theotitis, Socrates and a young mathematician explore what is
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: knowledge and consider then critique definitions like knowledge is sense
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: perception or knowledge is true belief, with an account ultimately
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: concluding they have not yet found a satisfactory definition. Imparmenides
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and Elder philosopher Parmenides subjects young Socrates theory or forms
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to relentless criticism, raising problems of infinite regress and logical
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: contradiction that are left unresolved rather than weaken the dialogue.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: These unanswered puzzles are the point Plato is teaching us
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to think, not merely telling us what to think. As
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: one skyt Dollar observes, Plato's work gives us a few
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: key ideas, along with a series of suggestions and problems
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: about how those ideas are to be interrogated, leaving further
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: work for the readers themselves. This dynamic quality is why
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Plato is often considered the ideal introduction to philosophy. The
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: dialogues don't just preset doctrines, they demonstrate the activity of
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: philosophical inquiry. Despite the variety in topics and tones across
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Plato's dialogues, it is common to divide them into three
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: broad groups, Early, Middle, and late dialogues. These early dialogues
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: are closest to the historical Socrates in style and focus
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: mainly on ethical questions, often ending without a firm conclusion.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: The middle dialogues mark the development of Plato's own philosophical theories.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Here we see the introduction of his theia forms, discussions
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of the soul's immortality, the nature of knowledge, love, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the ideal state. These works still feature Socrates as a protagonist,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: but are generally thought to convey Plato's views more than Socrates. Finally,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the late dialogues are more technical and often involve new
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: characters or a diminished role for Socrates. In the late period,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Plato revisits and sometimes revises ideas from the Middle period.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: For example, Parmenides critically examines the form theory, Sophas and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Statesmen introduce an iliatic stranger as the main interlocator instead
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: of Socrates, and Laws presents a practical political philosophy without
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Socrates at all. With this orientation to Plato's method and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the rough chronology of his works, we can now explore
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: some of his major dialogues and ideas in more depth.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: We will proceed loosely in chronological order of the dialogues,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: beginning with those that center in Socrates' trial and teachings,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: moving through the middle dialogues or Plato's distinctive doctrines emerge,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and ending with the later works. We will proceed loosely
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: in chronological order of the dialogues, beginning with those that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: center on Socrates' trial in Teachings, moving through the middle
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: dialogues where Plato's distinctive doctrines emerge, and ending with the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: later works. Plato's earliest dialogues depict the final days of
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Socrates and introduced core Socratic pres snciples of ethics. The
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Apology of Socrates is not an apology in the modern sense,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: but an apologia, a defense speech. Plato presents Socrates at
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: age seventy, standing before the five hundred and one man
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Athenian jury in three ninety nine BCE to answer charges
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of impiety and corrupting the youth. The scene is historic,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: and Plato likely witnessed it in person. In the dialogue,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Socrates delivers an unyielding defense of his life, devoted to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: questioning in virtue. He famously compares himself to a gadfly
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: stinging the lazy horse of Athens, trying to rouse the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: city to self examination. He recounts how his friend Caaphon
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: asked the Delphic oracle if anyone was wiser than Socrates,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and the oracle replied, no one was wiser. Socrates interpreted
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: this as a divine mission. He was only wise in
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: so far as he knew that he knew nothing, whereas
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: others falsely believed themselves wise. Thus he went about examining politicians, poets,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and craftsmen, exposing their ignorance, which earned him powerful enemies.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: In the Apology, Plato's Socrates definally refuses to give up philosophizing,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: even if it means death. I owe a greater obedience
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to God than to you, Socrates tells the jurors, insisting
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: he will continue to question anyone he meets about virtue
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and truth. He admonishes the court that killing him will
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: harm Athens more than it harms him, for you will
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: not easily find anyone to take my place in urging
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the city toward goodness. Socrates even rejects the usual emotional
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: appeals for mercy, refusing to parade his family in court
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: or weep for pity. Such tactics, he implies, would betray
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: his principles. Ultimately, the jury convicts Socrates by a narrow
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: vote and sentences him to death. Socrates accepts the verdict
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: with equanimity. In a parting shot, he tells the jurors
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: that nothing can harm a good man, either in life
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: or after death, and that his own pursuit of virtue
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: means even death cannot truly hurt him. One of the
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: most iconic moments in apologies when Socrates declares that if
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: they offered to acquit him on the condition that he
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: ceases philosophizing, he would decline, for the unexamined life is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: not worth living for a human being, as he puts it,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the other subjects is really the very best thing that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: a man can do, and that life without this sort
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of examination is not worth living. This ringing statement, the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: unexamined life is not worth living, has echoed through history
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: as a cult to reflection and critical thinking. Plato's apology,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: though essentially a monologue, sets the stage for the themes
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of moral integrity, to quest for truth, and the tension
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: between the philosopher and society. Two other early dialogues, Euthipro
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and Creto, complement the apology by showing Socrates' attitude before
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and after the trial. In Euthyphro, set just before Socrates
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: is hearing, Socrates encounts as a zealously religious man, Euthipro,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and they debate the nature of piety holiness. Socrates, about
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to be prosecuted for impiety, playfully yet seriously questions you Thidro,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: who claims to know the will of the gods. They
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: examine whether something is pious because the gods love it,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: or do the god's love it because it is pious,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a question that introduces a classic dilemma about the grounding
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of morality. The dialogue ends without a clear answer when
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it demonstrates Socrates's method of probing definition and reveals the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: difficulty of pinning down moral concepts. Eutherfro leaves the reader
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: with a sharpened sense of the question rather than a solution,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: which is characteristic of the early Socratic dialogues. After the trial,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Siicro takes us to Socrates's prison cell as he awaits execution.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: His old friend Grido arrives at dawn, offering a plan
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to smuggle Socrates out to safety. Here, Plato dramatizes a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: stork moral choice. Should Socrates break the law and escape
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to save his life, or accept illegal judgment even if
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: it was unjust. Credo implores Socrates to flee for the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: sake of his children and his friend's reputations. They don't
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: want to be seen as not trying to save him. Socrates, however,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: engages Creto on a dialogue about justice. Would it be
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: right to repay injustice with another injustice? Socrates concludes it
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: would not. He personifies the laws of Athens in a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: speech sometimes called the Speech of the Laws, where they
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: argue that Socrates, by choosing to live in Athens, agreed
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to abide by its laws, and that escaping would harm
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the city's legal order. One must obey that commands of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: one city and country, Socrates says, an essence, even if
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the city ers in one's individual case. In the end,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Socrates remains in prison, choosing fidelity to the law in
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: his Principles over Life. Creto thus highlights Socrates's integrity. He
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: will not compromise his ethics for convenience, reinforcing the image
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of Socrates as a martyr for the rule of law
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and philosophy. Together, Apology, Euthyphro and Creto paint a compelling
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: portrait of Socrates, a man guided by conscious and reason,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: fearless in the face of death, committed to seeking virtue
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: above all else. These works also set up many of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: the big questions Plato will tackle more abst exactly later,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: What is justice? What is piety? How should a person live?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: They provide the dramatic and moral backdrop of Plato's subsequent explorations. Notably,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: these earlier dialogues do not introduce Plato's own metaphysical doctrines.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: There is no talk of forms or an apholyte or
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: cosmology yet, except in passing. That changes with the dialogues
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that Plato wrote in the next phase, which begin to
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: venture beyond Socratic ethics into deeper philosophical words. An important
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: transitional dialogue is the Meno, which bridges Socratic ethics in
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Plato's emerging ideas on knowledge. Meno begins with a straightforward
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Socratic question, can virtue be taught? Meno, a young aristocrat
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: first ask Socrates whether virtue urete excellence is teachable, But
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: quickly the discussion shifts to a more basic puzzle, what
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: is virtue? Socrates insist they must define virtue before deciding
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: how it's acquired. Meno proposes a few definitions. Virtue for
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a man is managing public affairs well, for a woman
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: managing the home well, and et cetera. But Socrates refutes them,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: seeking a single definition that covers all virtues. Meno grows
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: frustrated and compares Socrates to a torpedo fish that numbs
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: whoever comes near. He feels paralyzed and unable to answer.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: This leads to Meno's paradox, how can you search for
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: knowledge of something when you don't know what it is?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: If you know it, you don't need to search. If
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you don't know it, you wouldn't recognize it even if
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you found it. Socrates responds with a bold idea that
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: becomes a cornerstone of Platonic thought, the theory of recollection.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: He suggests that the soul is immortal and has learned
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: all things in past lives, so what we call learning
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: is merely recollecting what the soul already knows at some
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: deeper level. To demonstrate, Socrates famously calls over an enslaved boy, and,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: through questioning alone without giving answers, leads the boy to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: work out a geometry problem doubling the area of a square.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: The boy, who has no formal education, eventually arise at
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the correct solution, which Socrates takes as evidence that this
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: knowledge was latent in him all along. This implies that
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: true knowledge is innate and awakening it requires proper questioning.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: In Meno, this idea is still presented as a hypothesis
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: linked to a mythic account of reincarnation, but it marks
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the first appearance of Plato's belief in an eternal soul
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and in a reality of knowledge beyond the empirical world,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: notions that will be fully developed soon to the question
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: can virtue be taught? Meno ends somewhat ambiguously. Socrates and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Meno reach a provisional conclusion that virtue comes not from teaching,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: since no one can point to a reliable teacher of virtue,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: nor simply from nature, but perhaps by a sort of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: divine gift or inspiration. The dialogue thus leaves us with
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a tantalizing suggestion that virtue ultimately requires right opinion granted
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: by the gods, or, as Plato might later frame it,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the good itself, but it stops short of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: articulating the full theory. In essence, Meno poses the problems
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that Plato's later philosophy will answer. It asks about the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: nature of virtue and knowledge, and hints that answers lie
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: in understanding the immortal soul and its knowledge of eternal truths.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: These themes come into Frutition and Fido. One of Plato's
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: richest and most revere dialogues, Fido is set on the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: final day of socrates life. A Socrates sits in his
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: prison cell in the company of friends, calmly awaiting the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: poison hemlock Fido. A young fellower recounts the scene to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: others afterwards, lending the dialogue a poignant narrative frame. Fido
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: is both a character and the narrator of the story.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: This dialogue combines dramatic power the depiction of Socrates's last
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: hours with profound philosophical argument. It is in Fido that
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Plato first lays out his own metaphysical and epistemological doctrines
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: in a clear way, so much so the ancient commentators
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: nicknamed the Dialogue on the Soul. The Fido covers three
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: main topics, the immortality of the soul, the theory of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: recollection further developed from Meno, and most importantly, the theory
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of forms. Plato's most famous contribution to philosophy, presented here
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: arguably for the first time dramatic context, is that Socrates's
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: friends saddened by his impending death, ask him why he
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: seems unafraid. This prompt Socrates to explain why a true
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: philosopher should not fear death. He argues that philosophy is
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: essentially a preparation for dying, because it involves separating the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: soul as much as possible from the bodily, desires and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: senses in order to attain knowledge of eternal truths. The soul,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Socrates claims, is immortal, and death is merely the soul's
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: separation from the body. To this support, he offers four
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: arguments for the soul's immortality. One the cyclical argument. Opposites
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: come from opposites, so life must come from death as
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: death comes from life, implying an endless cycle. To the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: theory of recollection, learning is re collecting eternal truths, which
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: suggests the soul existed before birth to acquire that knowledge.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Three the affinity argument. The soul is invisible, non composite,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and divine like the forms, so it naturally survives the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: death of the body. And later four the final argument,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: drawing on the form of life, the soul always brings
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: life and thus cannot admit death. In the course of
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: these arguments, Plato introduces forms explicitly. For example, he speaks
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of the equal itself, the beautiful itself, to just itself,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: abstract ideals that are grasped not by the senses but
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: by the mind. At one point, Socrates asks, how do
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: we even form the concept of perfect equality? We've never
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: seen two sticks or stones that are exactly equal in
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: length or quality. Yet we have an idea of equal
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: itself that he says came from before birth, when our
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: souls beheld the pure form of equal, and we recall
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: it when we encounter approximate equalities in life. Early he
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: suggests we recognize the grease of beauty or justice by
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: comparing them to the perfect form of beauty or form
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of justice our soul once new. This is Plato's theory
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of forms, emerging the idea that beyond the imperfect world
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of changeable things we perceive, there is a higher, unchanging reality,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: a realm of forms or ideas ETOs in Greek, which
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: are the perfect archetypes of all properties and values. The
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: physical world we know through the senses is only an
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: imitation of the pure, eternal and unchanging world of the forms.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: The forms are more real than the objects we see.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: They are invisible, eternal, and intelligible, known by the intellect,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: not the eyes. In Fito, this theory is woven into
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the discussion of the soul's immortality. The soul, being akin
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to the divine forms, can know them, end like them,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: is not destroyed when the body perishes. The foto is
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: thus a milestone. It gives us Plato's metaphysics forms. In
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Plato's epistemology, learning as recollection of forms is one narrative,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: it also doesn't shy from objections. Plato has two interlocutors,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Samias and Sebes, raised thoughtful challenges. For example, Sema suggests
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: maybe the soul is like the harmony of a liar,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a beautiful result of the parts, but destroyed when the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: instrument is destroyed. Sebes worries that even if the soul
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: outlines the body, perhaps it wears out after many reincarnations.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Socrates answers these, reinforcing the theory that the soul is
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: an independent substance that pre exists and outlives the body.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: At the dialogue's climax, Socrates recounts a mythic vision of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the afterlife. Virtuous souls dwell on earth's surface, or even
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: ascend to a pure realm of ideal forms, whereas in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: pure souls are dragged back into bodily life. Finally, Socrates
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: calmly drinks the hemlock and bids farewell, telling his grieving
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: friends not to weep. His serenity in facing death, sustained
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: by the conviction of the soul's immortality, provides a moving conclusion.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: The feto is lablishes several major Platonic ideas, the immortality
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of the soul, the existence of transcendent forms, beauty, justice, equality, good,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and so on. The notion that true knowledge is of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: these forms and comes from the soul's recollection of them,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and the view that the philosophical life is a training
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: for the soul separation from the body, hence a preparation
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: for death. We see Plato here building on Socratic ethics
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: care for one's soul through virtue and wisdom and transforming
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: it with a grand of the worldly framework. Virtue, for Plato,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: will increasingly mean aligning the soul with the eternal good
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and the order of the forms, rather than merely ethical
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: behavior in day to day life. But before we get
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: too far into abstraction, Plato will also turn to concrete
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: questions of politics and society, most notably in his masterpiece
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: The Republic. It is in the Republic that Plato's philosophy
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: reaches its fullest scope, tying together is metaphysics, ethics, psychology,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: epistemology and politolitical theory, and giving the world the unforgettable
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Allegory of the Cave. Plato's Republic is a monumental dialogue
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that has been hailed as one of Plato's longest dialogues
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and his magnum opus framed, there's a conversation mainly between
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Socrates and several friends, notably Plato's own brothers. The Republic
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: begins with a straightforward question what is justice and is
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the just life happier than the unjust life? But it
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: unfolds in a wide ranging exploration of morality, politics, psychology, education,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and metaphysics across its ten books. The dialogue dramatic setting
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: is the house of Cephalis during an all night festival,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and it starts casually Socrates speaking with the old gentleman
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Cephalis about old age and justice. Soon, however, Socrates finds
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: himself challenged by the fiery threast Symmetris, who inserts that
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger might
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: makes right. Socrates and his interlocators then embark on constructing
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: an imaginary ideal city Calipolis, as a way to see
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: justice writ large before identifying it in the individual soul.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: This leads Plato to describe his vision of the best
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: society and government, one ruled by philosopher kings. In the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: course of the Republic, Plato presents numerous influential ideas, the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: principle of specialization, each person doing the one thing they
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: are naturally best suited for, the division of society into
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: three classes rulers, auxiliaries or soldiers and producers. The tripartite
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: soul theory, reasoned, spirit, and appetite as three parts of
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the individual psyche, mirroring the classes of society. The role
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of education and censorship. The equality of women, at least
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: in the guardian classes. The communal life of the guardian,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: with property and even family held in common to avoid
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: conflicts of interest, and the degeneration of political systems oligarchy,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: democracy tyranny. Plato does not shy from radical proposals, for example,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: abolishing the traditional family for the guardian class or selecting
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: mating festivals by lot, rigged to promote the best offspring.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: These are meant to eliminate factionalism and keep the rulers
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: focused on the common good. While these aspects of the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Republic are fascinating, we will focus on two of its
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: most famous contributions, the concept of the philosopher king and
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the allegory of the Cave, which together illustrate Plato's view
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of knowledge, reality, and leadership. By Book five of the Republic,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Socrates has described a pretty austere utopia led by guardian elites.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: But his friends ask who would ever be fit to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: rule such a city. Socrates answers with his boldest political idea,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Unless philosophers become kings in the cities, are those whom
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: we now call kings and rulers genuinely and adequately philosophize,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: there will be no rest from its ills in the cities.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: In other words, the only way to truly achieve a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: just society is to have philosopher kings rulers who love wisdom,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: know the true forms of justice and good witness, and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: therefore can govern not by opinion our appetite, but by
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: knowledge of what is truly best This claim is startling
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to his listeners, and Socrates spends considerable effort explaining who
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the true philosophers are, distinguishing them from sophis or fake intellectuals,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and why they are uniquely qualified to rule. Philosophers, he says,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: are those who are able to grasp what always is,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the unchanging realities, the forms, as opposed to ordinary people,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: who grope about in the realm of what comes into
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: being and passes away the transient sensory world. To convey
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: this difference between knowledge and ignorance, Plato introduces three famous
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: analogies in Republic Books six and seven, the Sun, the
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: divided Line, and the cave. The form of the good
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: is compared to the sun. Just as the sun in
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the visible world illuminates objects and enables sight, so the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: good illuminates the forms and gives truth to the knower.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: The divided line is a visual metaphor that segments reality
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and our awareness of it into four levels. At the lowest,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: imagination shadows, reflections, then belief, physical things, then mathematical reasoning,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: abstract thought, and highest of all, dialectical understanding of the forms,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: culminating in the form of the good. But the most
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: vivid and narrative of these is the allegory of the Cave.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: In Book seven of the Republic, Socrates ask Glucon and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: us the readers, to imagine a strange and powerful scene,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: an allegory that has become perhaps the most famous passage
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of all philosophy. The allegory of the cave. Picture and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: underground cave where humans have been imprisoned since childhood, chained
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: by the legs and necks so they cannot move or
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: turn their heads. They face a wall. Behind them, a
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: fire burns. In between the fire and the prisoners runs
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: a walkway where others carry objects and puppets. The prisoners
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: see only the shadows of these objects cast on the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: wall in front of them. They hear only echoes, the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: voices the people behind them speaking, which they naturally assume
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: come from the shadows. Having never known anything else, these
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: prisoners take the shadows to be the real things. They're
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: like us, Socrates says poignantly, for we too often accept
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the world of our senses as the truth. Now imagine
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: one prisoner is freed and compelled to stand up and
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: turn around. At first, the firelight hurts his eyes, and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the shapes he sees the actual objects being carried are confusing.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: He might prefer to turn back to the familiar shadows
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: on the wall and believe those are more real. But
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: suppose someone drags this prisoner out of the cave into
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the daylight above. Blinded by the sun. At first, he
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: gradually acclimates. First he can only see shadows and reflections outside,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: ironically similar to what he saw in the cave. Then
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: he sees things like trees, animals, people directly, and finally
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: he can even look at the sun itself, realizing it
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is the source of light and life. This liberated prisoner
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: undergoes a complete transformation of understanding. He now knows the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: shadows in the cave were mere illusions and that a
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: far richer, brighter reality exists outside. Feeling pity for his
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: fellow prisoners, he goes back down into the cave to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: free them, but re entering the darkness, he can't see
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: well his eyes now used to the sun, and the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: prisoners laugh at him. They think the journey has ruined
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: his sight and resist any attempts to be let out.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: In fact, if anyone tried to drag them out, they
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: might fight and even kill that person Socrates notes, if
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: they could lay hands on the escapee who returned, they
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: kill him, a poignant reference to Socrates's own fate at
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the hands of the ignorant. This allegory brilliantly compresses Plato's
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: philosophical worldview. The cave represents the world of appearances, the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: realm of ordinary perception and opinion. The shadows on the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: wall are the perceptions of sensory objects, which the unenlightened
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: take as the most real things. The difficult descent out
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of the cave symbolizes education, the philosopher's journey from ignorance
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to knowledge. From allusion to reality the outside world, but
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the sun is the realm of true reality, the world
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: of forms. The sun rep presents the form of the good,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the ultimate principle that illuminates all the others. In Plato's theory,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the good is the highest form that gives truth and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: being to the rest, just as the sun makes visible
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: things exist and allows vision. The freed prisoner is the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: philosopher who, through reason and dialect, comes to grasp the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: forms and attain knowledge. The return to the cave represents
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the philosopher's role in society. Having seen the truth, he
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: has a duty to help enlighten others, even if they
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: are hostile or incredulous. Plato thereby explains why philosophers are
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: uniquely suited to rule. They have knowledge of the true realities,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the forms of justice, goodness, and so on, whereas the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: majority only have opinions based on shadows. However, as he
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: acknowledges the difficulty people steeped in ignorance resist enlightenment, they're
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: like us, the text says, most of us are prisoners
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of our own limited perspective. The allegory thus carries not
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: only epistemological meaning the assent to knowledge, but also a
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: moral and political message. It dramatizes the philosopher's compassion and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: responsibility and the society's need for true wisdom, even if
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: it doesn't want it. From an academic perspective, the cave
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: is often interpreted as an answer to the question why
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: study philosophy. It suggests that without philosophy, we are like
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: prisioners' mistaking shadows for reality. In other words, without critical
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: thinking and the pursuit of truth, we live in ignorance.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: The cave dweller's cognitive trap of ignorance is comfortable, and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: they do not know anything beyond the shadows. As one
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: analysis puts it, they even engage in trivial games like
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: guessing which shadow comes next, analogous to how people in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: our world might fixate on gossip, or appearances or conspiracies.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Plato's allegory dramatically illustrates the difference between appearance and reality,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a core Platonic distinction. The world of senses in the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: cave is a world of mere opinion. It's changing, incomplete,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and can deceive us. The world of forms outside the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: cave is permanent, fully real, and noble. Through reason. Education
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: is the painful, butt rewarding process of turning the soul
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: from darkness toward light. A striking moment is when Plato
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: notes how the freed prisoner returning is ridiculed or even
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: killed by the cave dwellers who think he's crazy. This
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: is a thinly veiled reference to Socrates being executed by
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the Athenians who did not understand him. It also shows
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Plato's perhaps elitist viewpoint. The masses are deeply ignorant, though
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: not by their own fault entirely, and they might violently
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: resist very knowledge that would free them. This justifies in
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Plato's mind why philosophers, reluctant, enlightened leaders should hold power
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: even if unpopular. The philosopher kings will know what is
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: truly good for the city, having seen the sun the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: good itself. After the cave allegory, the Republic goes on
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to discuss the curriculum that would educate such philosopher rulers,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: including mathematics, dialect, and many years of gradual training. It
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: also features a famous critique of art and poetry. Plato
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: controversially argues that poets and artists are imitators of mere appearances,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: shadows of shadows, and that their work can corrupt the
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: soul by feeding emotions and misrepresenting reality. He even suggests
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: banning most of homer and tragic poetry from the ideal city,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: accept hymns to the gods and praises of good men.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: This is one of the earliest examinations of art's moral
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: impact and has fueled debates about censorship and aesthetics for millennia. Additionally,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: in the Final Book, Socrates relates the myth of Earth,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a story of a soldier who dies, visits the afterlife,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and returns to tell of how souls choose their next lives,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: a kind of moral fable to encourage justice by showing
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: rewards and punishments after death. The myth of arr brings
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the dialogue full circle by reinforcing that a just life
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: is rewarded in the long run, whereas injustice ultimately leads
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: to misery for the soul. In summary, the republic gives
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: us Plato's vision of a just society and a just soul. Justice,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Plato concludes, is when each part performs its proper role.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: In the city, each class does its own work. Rulers
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: rule with wisdom, soldiers uphold courage, produces exercise moderation by
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: obeying the rulers. And in the individual, each part of
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the soul, reason, spirit, appetite fulfills its function with reason
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and command. The just person is harmonious, with reason guiding
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: spiritedness and desire toward good ends, a psychological mirroring of
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the well ordered city. Such an individual will be truly
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: happier than the tyrant who is ruled by lust or greed,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: just as a healthy body is better off than a
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: diseased one. Plato thus answers the initial question justice is
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: worthwhile for its own sake as it aligns one's soul
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: with the good. For a general audience, the Republic remains
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: compelling because of its mix of concrete social commentary. Some
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: see it in early communism or feminism in the mention
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: that women can be guardians too, and timeless abstract parables
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: like the Cave. Academically, it has generated enormous commentary on
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: its political feasibility, on the meaning of the forms and
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the good, on whether Plato's proposal is toldtalitarian or enlightened,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: on the role of education and censorship, and on the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: interpretative question of whether Plato himself endorsed every aspect or
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: intended some irony, a debate known as the open question
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of how literally to take the ideal City. What is
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: indisputable is that the Republic encapsulates Plato's conviction that philosophical
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: wisdom and moral virtues are inseparable and are the only
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: solid foundation for a good human life in society. The
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: allegory of the Cave stands as enduring testimony to the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: transformative power of philosophy, from ignorance to knowledge, from darkness
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: to light, a journey each of us is invited to undertake.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Even as Plato developed profound metaphysics and political theory. He
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: remained deeply interested in human love in the way it
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: connects us to higher things. Two Middle period dialogues, The
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Symposium and the Fidris, are devoted to eros love or
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: passionate desire, and they offer a fascinating blend of psychology, metaphysics,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and even theology of love. These works present a more
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: poetic and mythic side of Plato's thought, complementing the rigorous
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: logic of dialogues like Republic or Feto. In fact, the Syposium,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: set as a banquet conversation, and the Fiedris, set as
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a friendly chat outside the city walls, contains some of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Plato's most beautiful writing. They also introduce the concept of
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: platonic love in its original sense, not just friends as
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: pop culture uses the term, but rather a love that
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: transcends the physical and aims at the ideal beauty. The
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Symposium takes place at a drinking party attended by Socrates
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and a group of notable Athenians, including the playwright Aristophanes
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and the handsome young tragedian Agathon. The guests agree to
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: each give a speech in praise of love Aeros. The
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: scenery allows Plato to showcase a variety of views on love. Aristophanes,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: for instance, delivers a humorous yet poignant myth about humans
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: originally being double creatures split in half by Zeus, so
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: that love is the search for the half, an origin
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: of the idea of soulmates. Others offer more conventional praise
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: of the god of love. The climax is Socrates's turn.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Instead of a speech of his own, he recounts the
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: teachings of a wise woman, Diatoma of Mantinea. Whether she
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: is Plato's frictional invention or based on someone is unclear.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Diatoma gives a profound teaching on the nature and purpose
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: of love, introducing what later commentators call the latter of love.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: According to Diatoma via Socrates, all mortal creatures have an
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: impulse to achieve immortality. For animals and humans, one route
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to immortality is biological procreation, having children to carry on
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: one's genes or name, But there is a higher kind
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of offspring for humans, the birth of ideas, virtue, and
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: creations of the soul, such as art or legislation that
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: confer lasting fame. The desire for immortality through the presence
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: of good and beautiful Diatoma describes how a young person
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: should be guided by love for lower to higher forms
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of beauty in a series of steps. This is the latter.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: At first, one loves the beauty of a particular body.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Then one realizes that many bodies have similar beauty, so
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: one appreciates beauty in all bodies. Next, one comes to
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: esteem the beauty of the soul more than the body,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: loving those who are beautiful in character. From there one
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: assends to love beautiful activities and laws, seeing beauty and
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: customs and institutions than to the beauty of knowledge and ideas. Finally,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: if one is guided correctly, one reaches a vision of
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: beauty itself, an eternal, unchanging, pure beauty, not concrete or physical,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: but the very form of beauty. In the Otuma's famous words,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: at the pinnacle of the ascent, the lover suddenly perceives
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: something wonderfully beautiful in its nature, the form of beauty itself,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: each ternal, not growing or decaying. The lover realizes that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: all particular beautiful things partake of this form of beauty.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Platonic love is thus a kind of spiritual arrows that
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: begins with physical attraction but is ultimately aimed at the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: form of beauty and the birth of true virtue and
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: wisdom in the soul. As the Optimus says, if every
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: one gazes on the form of beauty itself, it will
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: awaken a marvelous love, and one will want to give
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: birth not to fleshly children, but to true virtue and
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: become dear to the gods. In short, love is portrayed
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: as a ladder of assent to the divine, turning earthly
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: desire into a path toward the eternal. The Symposium thus
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: presents a philosophy of love where eros is a driving
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: force that can be sublimated from physical desire to a
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: love of the eternal and the good. It's a deeply
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: optimistic view of love's potential. Love is not just a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: feeling or appetite, but a cosmic force that propels us
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: towards wisdom and immortality. Symbolically speaking, it's also where noting
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that in the Symposium, Socrates credits a woman, Diatema, as
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: his teacher in these matters, which is unique in Plato
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and perhaps a nod to the idea that wisdom can
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: come from unexpected sources. The dramatic ending of Symposium is
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: also memorable. Alquibad is a brilliant but drunken statesman crisis
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: the party and delivers the speech praising and teasing Socrates himself,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: likening Socrates to a salanous figure, ugly on the outside
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: but full of godlike images within, and confessing his unrequitive
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: love for Socrates. This adds a poignant human touch, showing
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Socrates as an object of erros, but one who sublimates it,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: never succumbing to mere physicality. Platonic love in modern parlance
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: meaning non sexual affection has its root in this idea.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Socrates and Alcibaides have a form of love that is
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: not consummated physically, which Socrates claims is because true love
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: aims higher than the body. De Fiedris, another dialogue centered
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: on love and beauty, complements symposium, but has a different form.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: It features only Socrates in Fidris, a young and Myra
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: talking outside the city, and it contains two speeches by
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Socrates on love, one critical one celibratory, as well as
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: discussions on rhetoric and writing. The most famous part of
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Fidris is the chariot allegory of the soul. Socrates describes
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the soul as a charioteer driving two horses. One horse
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: is noble and good, representing the spirited part of the
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: soul that can be guided by reason. The other is
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: bad and unruly, representing the appetite part base desires. The
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: charioteer is reason. In the mythic vision, the souls of
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the gods have perfect horses and charioteers, and dwell always
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: in the realm above the heavens, where they behold the forms,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and especially the form of beauty. Human souls follow in
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the train of the gods, riding up to glimpse the forms,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: but the bad horse makes it difficult. In this wild metaphor,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes the soul gets a vision of true beauty, other
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: times it struggles. Eventually, souls fall back to Earth and
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: are incarnated into bodies, and their experience of having seen
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the forms determines what kind of person they become. Philosophers
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: saw more, so they are born with greater insight, others
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: so or less, and became people attached to more base pursuits.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Socrates then links this to love. When a person here
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: on earth sees someone with physical beauty, it triggers a
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: recollection of the true beauty their soul once saw the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: soul's wings start to sprout in yearning for that higher reality.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: The good horse spirit is restrained, but the bad horse
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: passion lunges, leading to inner conflict. If the charioteer reason
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: could guide the whole soul to honor and cherish to
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: beauty rightly, the lovers will practice philosophical self control and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: sublimate their passion into virtue. If they cannot, they may
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: give into desire. But even a relationship that is chase
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: can be profoundly loving. Socrates implies the highest form of
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: earthly love is a kind of platonic friendship, where two
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: souls inspire each other toward the form of beauty and
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the good, rather than merely satiating physical lust. This aligns
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: with the symposiums latter, but adds the imagery of the
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: soul's ascent and full Plato's idea here is that love
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: is a form of divine madness, one of our four
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: kinds of divinely inspired madness. He mentions, the others being prophetic, ritual,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: and poetic madness. Love's madness is a gets from the
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: gods because it can propel the soul back toward its
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: heavenly origin. The Fegis also has an interesting critique of writing.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Socrates famously recounts the myth of the Egyptian god Toath
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: inventing writing, and King Thamas criticizing it because it will
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: make people rely on written words rather than their own
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: memory and understanding. This often puzzles readers, since we only
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: know Socrates through Plato's writing. Is Plato biting the hand
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that feeds him. The deeper point Plato makes is that
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: writing is static and can't answer questions or defend itself.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Live dialect is superior, but ironically, Plato's own dialogues try
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: to overcome this by writing in a way that stimulates
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the reader's dialectical engagement, as if a written text could
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: be as alive as conversation. From Symposium and Fedris, the
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: key philosophical takeaway is Plato's theory of love. Love is
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: fundamentally a desire for eternal beauty and goodness, and erotic
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: love can be an elevating force if guided by philosophy.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: The notion of platonic love, a love that transcends the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: physical and bond soul together in pursuit of higher things,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: comes straight from these dialogues. They also contribute to Plato's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: understanding of the soul. The soul is immortal, again affirmed
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: here as only as an immortal soul could pre exist
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: and see the forms and has parts that can conflict.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: The chariot allegory vividly conveys the tension within human nature,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: a theme that resonates with anyone who has felt reason
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: and passion at odds. Academically, these dialogues have been analyzed
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: for their psychology of love, their treatment of gender, and
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: their poetic style. The Symposium, especially with its layered framing,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: invites questions about history versus myth. But historically these works
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: have inspired views of love from early Christian thinkers who
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: try to merge platonic love with spiritual love of God,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to Renaissance philosophers and even more modern concepts of romance
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: that value the spiritual connection over the physical. In some
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Plato sees Eros as a powerful intermediary between the human
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and the divine. In Symposium, Diatoma calls Eros a great
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: damon spirit that is the child of poverty and resource,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: always needy but clever at seeking fulfillment. The image captures
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the human condition. We are not God's, but through love
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: we reach out for something more enduring than ourselves. Love
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: educates us, in the best case, turning desire into virtue. Thus,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: alongside reason, love is a central pair to as sending
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the latter of knowledge in Plato's philosophy. Plato's late dialogues
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: reflect an aging philosopher turning to review and refine his
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: earlier ideas, as well to venture into new territory such
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: as formal logic, science, and law. These works are generally
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: more difficult and were likely written in the last decade
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: of Plato's life. While not all can be discussed in
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: equal detail, we can highlight a few, the Parmenides, Theotitis, Sophis, Statesman, Timaeus,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: and Laws. In them, Plato shows a willingness to critique
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: his own doctrines, especially the theory of forms, and to address
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: practical and scientific questions more directly. In Parmenides, Plato daringly
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: casts his young hero Socrates in a conversation with the
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: venerable eleatic philosopher of Parmenides. The dialogue reads almost like
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Plato debating himself. Parmenides examined Socrates's theory that there are
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: forms one over many, and systematically hits it with tough objections.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: For instance, he raises what became known as the third
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: man argument against the form of largeness. If large things
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: are large by sharing in the form of large, then
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: mustn't it deposit another form to account for the largeness
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: that the form of large and particularly large things share,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: and so on ad infinitum. He also questions how forms
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: which are changeless can relate to changing things, and how
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: we can know forms at all if they are in
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a separate realm. Does the human mind have a form
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: of mind that touches the others? These puzzles are raised
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and not overly answered by Plato. Indeed, Parmenides ends without
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: resolution after Parmenides puts Socrates to a rigorous exercise and
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: dialectic considering all consequences of assuming a one or not one.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: The effect of this dialogue is to show that Plato
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: was aware of potential logical problems with his own Middle
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Period theories. Scholars still debate whether Plato intended specific solutions
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: or was possibly indicating a shift in his thinking. Regardless,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Parmenides is a treasure troll for understanding the challenges of
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: a two world metaphysics and has spurred countless commentaries on
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the forms. The Theotitis is another gem of the late
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: period focus on epistemology the theory of knowledge. Socrates meets
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: young Theotitis, who would become a noble mathematician, and asks
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: what is knowledge? The dialogue examines three answers. Knowledge is perception,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Knowledge is true belief, knowledge is true belieff with an
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: account logos, essentially anticipating the idea of justified true belief.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Each of these gets refuted or at least found inadequate.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: If knowledge was simply perception, then truth would be entirely subjective.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Each person's perception is truth for them, which Socrates argues
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: is self defeating, because if all opinions are true, then
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the opinion that not all opinions are true must also
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: be true, a contradiction if knowledge is true belief. Socrates
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: points out that one can have true belief by luck
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: or persuasion without actually knowing, Like a juror convinced by
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: rhetoric might have a true belief about what happened, but
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: we hesitate to say he knows, the addition of an
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: account or explanation seems promising. The addition of an account
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: or explanation seems promising knowledge has justified true belief, but
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: problems arise in defining what counts as an adequate account.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: The dialogue explores an image of trying to distinguish pieces
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: of wind drone in one's mind. In the end, Theotitis
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: concludes in Apoia without a final definition of knowledge. Yet
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: it's an enormously rich dialogue that maps out the field
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: of epistemology for future generations. Notably, Plato here does not
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: invoke forms of the recollection doctrine overtly. The dialogue stays
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: at the level of every day in logical analysis, which
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: some interpret as Plato stepping back from his earliest certainty
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: about how we know things. Perhaps he's acknowledging the complexity
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: of defining knowledge and the role of perception and true
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: belief within it. For the modern reader, Theotetis is fascinating
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: as an ancient precursor to debates about empiricism, verst rationalism,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and the nature of justification. Sophists and statesmen, sometimes called politicus,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: are a pair of dialogues where an iliatic stranger takes
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the lead. Socrates is mostly silent, present only as a
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: character who listens in sophist. The Stranger and young Theotetis
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: try to define a sophist. This leads them into a
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: rather technical examination of dialectical method and a venture into ontology.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: The philosophy of being and not being, Plato wrestles with
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the concept of non being to explain how false statements
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: are possible. The stranger introduces the theory that that which
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: is not in a sense is namely as difference. For example,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: not being does not mean total nothingness, but being other
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: than something. Thus, falsehood can be explained as saying something
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: is in a way that it is not, like predicating
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: something that is different from the truth. This might sound
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: of truth, but it's Plato's response to parmenites strict idea
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: that one cannot speak or think of what is not,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: since doing so we granted existence. Plato basically invents a
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: rudimentary theory of categories or forms of predication here, distinguishing
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: between being, saneness, difference, motion, rest the greatest kinds. It's
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: a sign of his late interest in logic and language.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: The statesman continues the method of definition, this time trying
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to pin down what a true statesman is, using a
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: lengthly analogy of weaving. The Statesman weaves together the fabric
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: of society, balance and courage anderation in citizens. While not
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: is widely read today, Statesman contains reflection on laws and
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: governance that prefigure Law's dialogue. The Timaeus is unique in
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Plato's corpus. It is his foray into cosmology and natural philosophy,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: whereas most dialogues are about ethics or knowledge or love.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Timaeus gives a grand account of the creation of the universe.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: It is set as a kind of sequel to Republic.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: At one point, Socrates says, yesterday we described the ideal city.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Now let's hear about the universe, and features a single
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: long speech by Timaeus of Locri, a Pythagorean philosopher. In
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: this speech, Plato, through Timaeus describes how a divine demiurge
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Cristman God fashioned the cosmos as a living creature with
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: a soul by imposing mathematical order on chaotic, pre existing matter.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: The Demiurge is supremely good and wanted everything to be
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: as good as possible. Using the eternal forms as blueprints,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: he brings order out of disorder. For example, he creates
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: the world's by mixing elements of saneness, difference, and being,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: and he arranges the stars, suns, and planets to create time,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: for time is the moving image of eternity. In Plato's
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: famous phrase, the four classical elements earth, air, fire, water
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: are explained in terms of regular geometric solids, a striking
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: proto scientific idea that matter is composed of tiny triangles
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: forming the platonic solids, cubes, tetrahedron, and so on, each
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: corresponding to an element. Timaeus even includes an account of
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: human anatomy and physiology, attributing various parts of the body
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: to the God's christmanship, like the liver as an organ
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: of divination, the marrow as seed of generation, and so on.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Is a bizarre but fascinating mix of scientific reasoning some
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: see hints of atomism and embryology and mythic imagination. Importantly,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Plato makes clear that this cosmology is a likely story,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: meaning it is not to be taken as absolute revelation,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: but as a plausible account given our limited understanding. He
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: acknowledges that knowledge of the physical world can only be conjectural,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: since only the forms often certainty. Nonetheless, the Timeeus was
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: hugely influential, especially in antiquity in the Middle Ages. As
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: one of the few detailed creation accounts in Greek philosophy.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: It even influenced early Christian thinkers for its idea of
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: a divine creator imposing order. In the context of Plato's ideas,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Timaeus reinforces the certainty of the forms and the good.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: The demiurge uses the form of the good as a model,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: and it introduces the notion of necessity verse reason. The
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: world is a product of the rational plan of the demiurge,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: but also the necessary laws of the material realm. In
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: the context of Plato's ideas, Thimeeus reinforces the centrality of
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the forms and the good. The demiurg uses the form
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: of the good as a model, and it introduces the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: notion of necessity verse reason. The world is a product
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: of the rational plan of the demiurge, but also the
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: necessary laws of the material realm. The demiurge persuades necessity
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: to cooperate via shapes and numbers, indicating that the cosmos
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: is built by geomet and mathematical principles. The demiurge persuades
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: necessity to cooperate via shapes and numbers, indicating that the
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: cosmos is built by geometric and mathematical principles. This links
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: to the Pythagorean influence on Plato, the belief that mathematical
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: order underlies reality. Finally, Plato's Laws is his last and
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: longest work, often seen as a more practical follow up
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: to Republic. In Laws, Plato abandons the character of Socrates
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: entirely instead. The dialogue is a conversation between an unnamed
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Athenian stranger who likely voices Plato's own late views, and
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: two old men, a Spartan and a Cretan. As they
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: take a long hike on crete, they discuss how to
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: found a new colony in what it laws should be.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: The tone is quite different from Republic, more legalistic and detailed.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Plato seemingly accepts the actual cities will never be run
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: by philosopher kings, so Laws outlines the second best state,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: one governed by laws and a mixed constitution. The Athenian
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: stranger still aims to shape of versvirtuous citizenry, but through
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: rigid laws and social institutions rather than through philosopher rulers.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Laws covers everything from marriage, education and drinking parties to
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: criminal law, economic regulation, and religious rights. It's almost a
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: legal code in dialogue form, complete with the reasoning behind
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: each ordinance given in the form of preambles to laws.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: In fact. One notable idea is that every law should
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: be preceded by a persuasive prelude explaining why the law
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: is just and good. Plato thus acknowledges the educative value
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: of written law by giving citizens rational explanations. The laws
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: themselves teach virtue, not just coerce behavior. This is a
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: very platonic touch. Even in laying down rules, he wants
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: to appeal to reason and the soul's understanding. Compared to Republic,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the government described in Laws is more conservative and less idealistic.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Why this shift, perhaps Plato in old age had become
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: more cautious after seeing the failure of the Syracuse experiments
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and the general resistance to philosopher kings. In Laws, he
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: explicitly plans a city cold Magnesia, where the rulers are
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: not full fledged philosophers. They don't know the forms, but
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: are guided by the law in a sort of civic religion.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: There is a nocturnal counsel of senior officials who study
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: philosophy in theology by night to keep the city on
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: course an interesting compromise. Laws is less frequently read than Republic,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: partly because its dry detail can be tedious, but it
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: is invaluable for understanding Plato's late political thought. It shows
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: him trying to apply his principles to a real worldish scenario.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: The tone is stern. For instance, Laws advocates for state
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: control of education, discourages innovation in music and arts to
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: avoid moral decay, and imposes fairly harsh penalties for various crimes.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: It also stands out for being one of the earliest
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: treaties to claim the law should rule rather than any individual.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: The rule of law concept something even Republic's philosopher king
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: regime didn't emphasize, because the king's knowledge was the law.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: There In Laws, however, Plato writes, if law is the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: master of the government and the government is its slave,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: then the situation is safe and good, implying that no person,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: unless divine, can be trusted with absolute power. This is
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: a notable development. One might ask, is Laws of repudiation
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: of Republic. Plato seems to say that his ideal in
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Republic was too high for ordinary humans. Laws is a
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: pragmatic second best. Indeed, the Athenian stranger in Laws explicitly
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: calls it second after the ideal of a truly wise ruler.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: A revealing line is when the Athenian says that in
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: the ideal case, where people are perfectly virtuous, no laws
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: are needed, but since we don't have divine rulers, we
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: must tie them down with laws like puppets guided by
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: a divine code. The dialogue ends somewhat abruptly with a
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: prayer to the gods to bless the proposed city for academics.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Laws demonstrates the evolution of Plato's thinking and has been
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: studied as an early work in jurisprudence and political theory.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: It contains, for example, the first elaborate discussion of criminal
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: law in philosophy. Plato distinguishes types of homicide, intentions and
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: so on. It's less idealistic and more empirical, perhaps reflecting
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Plato's gathering of information about how actual Cretan and Spartan
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: laws worked in the Lay period. One can sense Plato's
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: mind ranging freely over all subjects logic, Imparmenides and sophists,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: physics and cosmology, and Timaeus and practical governance. In Laws.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: He also wrote Philibus, a dialogue about the nature of
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: pleasure and the good life, where he ultimately argues that
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: neither pure pleasure nor pure intellect is sufficient. The best
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: life is a mixture of intelligence and measured pleasures, with
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: intellect ruling introducing the idea of a quantitative limit to pleasures.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: And there are the critious fragment about Atlantis and Epidomies
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: as a kind of appendix to Laws. Plato's style in
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the late works is often more didactic and less playful
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: than in earlier dialogues. Socrates is no LEAs longer the
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: only voice of wisdom. Plato is experimenting with different modes
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: of exposition, from the youth will portrayal of Socrates and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: apology to the cosmic vision of Timaeus and the legislative
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: project of Laws. Plato's dialogues cover an outstanding range, yet
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: they form a coherent journey. In each stage of his life,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Plato sought to illuminate the question how should we live
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: in the light of what is ultimately real and good?
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Early on, he set the moral and intellectual stage with
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Socratic questioning. In the middle, he posited a visionary answer
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: that we should live guided by the eternal forms by
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the true, the good, the beautiful, and organize our souls
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: in societies accordingly. In the Lay period he tested and
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: refined these ideas, acknowledging human limitation but still striving for
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the best attainable order. Plato's theories of forms, though criticized
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: even in antiquity, remains one of the great strokes of
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: philosophical genius. It offers a way to think about universals, ideals,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: and objective values. When we talk today about something being
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: ideal or perfect, or when mathematicians speak of perfect circles
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: or iffidence sets that no one ever fully sees, we are,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: to some extent speaking platonically. His concept of a reality
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: beyond appearances laid groundwork from metaphysics and even theological thinking.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Plotinus and later Neoplatonists interpreted Plato's form of the good
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: as akin to divine principle. Plato's allegory of the cave
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: still resonates in any context where people feel stuck in
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: ignorance or illusion, whether one applies it to media culture
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: like citizens glued to flickering TV shadows in a dark room,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: or the need for education to liberate and enlighten the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: cave allegory has been used to discuss everything from the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: persistence of conspiracy theories, mistaking shadows for reality, to the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: journey of personal growth. In ethics and politics, Plato set
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the terms of debate by insisting that questions of how
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: to live must consider the health of the soul and
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the objective good. His distrust of democracy, born from seeing
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: it condemned Socrates and Flounder and War, and his idea
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: philosopher kings have been hotly debated. Today, we still struggle
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: with how to ensure knowledgeable governance. Plato's solution was extreme,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: but his diagnosis of demagogery and ignorant mass opinion seems prescient.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: The Republic's critique of poetry and art as mere imitation
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: spurred responses by Aristotle and others, and much later gave
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: fada to debates about art's role should our challenge or
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: uphold moral truths. Plato took his stance art is suspect
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: unless aligned with truth that many disagree with, but grappling
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: with his challenge helped define esthetics as a discipline. Plato's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: influence on subsequent philosophy is immeasurable. His student, Aristotle would
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: diverge on many points, especially rejecting forms existing apart from things,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: but Aristotle's system is in dialogue with Plato's at every turn.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: In late Antiquity. During the Renaissance, the revival of Plato
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: contributed to new ideas about love, like Platonic love as
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: understood by Marsilio Ficino and others, and even scientific rationalism
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: took some Platonic cues. Galileo and Kepler were fascinated by
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Plato's mathematical view of nature. Kepler described astronomer as leaving
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: the cave of Earth to see cosmic order. Academically, Plato's
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: dialogues continue to be analyzed line by line. The Stanford
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Encyclopedia notes how exploratory and multi dimensional Plato is, refusing
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: to reduce philosophy to a dry system. This is why
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: we keep reading him. Each dialogue is not just an argument,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: but a literary drama inviting reinterpretation. For example, is the
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: republic primarily about individual morality or utopian politics or both?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Is the Symposia more about love or about the nature
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: of philosophy itself with Socrates as the ultimate beloved. Different
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: errors have found new meanings inclosing Perhaps the best way
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: to appreciate Plato is to recall the scene at the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: end of Feto. Socrates have given his final teaching on
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the immortality of the soul and the form of life.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Calmly drinks poison and dies among friends, saying his last
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: words a reminder to offer a sacrifice to a Scleppius,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: the god of healing, as if death is a cure
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: for the illness of life. Plato was at present. He
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: knows Plato was sick that day, but he memorialized his
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: teacher with such power that readers for two thousand or
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: four hundred years feel they were in that Athenian jail room.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Plato's writings thus heal in a way they ain't too.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Cure us of ignorance. By engaging us in dialogue, by
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: challenging us to question appearances, those shadows on the wall,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: and ascend towards truth, Plato stimulates the philosophical impulse in
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: his audience. In these episodes, we have followed Plato's journey
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: from the gadfly and Athens to the visionary in the Academy.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: But the journey he really cares about is the one
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: inside each reader's soul. Turning it from darkness to light.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: In that sense, Plato's true academy is not just the
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: location in Athens. It is wherever people gather to earnestly
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: discuss and seek wisdom, And through his dialogues, that academy
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: is still open, inviting us to become lovers of wisdom
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: philosophers in our own right. Thank you all for listening,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: and hope you all enjoyed, And tell the next one.