platosworld

platosworld

Plato's 36 dialogues form a sort of world, an ordered whole. Within this world, we find penetrating explorations of justice, beauty, happiness, virtue, and the like. In this world of words we see the matters that matter most to us as well as their questionability--more clearly than if looking at the things themselves.

I'm Keith Whitaker. I have been studying Plato's works (and the tradition of philosophy that springs from them) more or less continuously for the last 30 years. I earned a Ph.D. in Social Thought from the University of Chicago, writing my dissertation on Plato. I taught philosophy at Boston College, edited a series of philosophical texts in translation, and wrote a book on Plato's Laws. I have also built a consulting practice working with families of significant wealth on how to live well, and in select cases I serve as an independent trustee. For many years I have served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Scholars.

Plato's Republic Book Six -- Brief Introduction

6:40

Plato's Republic Book Six -- Brief Introduction

5 ай бұрын

Plato's Republic Book Five--Brief Introduction

4:50

Plato's Republic Book Five--Brief Introduction

7 ай бұрын

Plato's Republic Book Four -- Brief Introduction

5:42

Plato's Republic Book Four -- Brief Introduction

Жыл бұрын

Plato's Republic Book Three -- Brief Introduction

6:49

Plato's Republic Book Three -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Republic Book Two -- Brief Introduction

7:07

Plato's Republic Book Two -- Brief Introduction

Жыл бұрын

Plato's Republic Book One -- Brief Introduction

7:20

Plato's Republic Book One -- Brief Introduction

Жыл бұрын

Tom Sawyer--Brief Introduction

5:47

Tom Sawyer--Brief Introduction

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Plato's Letters--Brief Introduction

7:41

Plato's Letters--Brief Introduction

3 жыл бұрын

Plato's Epinomis -- Brief Introduction

6:38

Plato's Epinomis -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Euthydemus -- Brief Introduction

6:14

Plato's Euthydemus -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Philebus -- Brief Introduction

6:00

Plato's Philebus -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Menexenus -- Brief Introduction

6:38

Plato's Menexenus -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Ion -- Brief Introduction

7:03

Plato's Ion -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Lesser Hippias -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Lesser Hippias -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Greater Hippias -- Brief Introduction

7:41

Plato's Greater Hippias -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Meno -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Meno -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Laches -- Brief Introduction

7:16

Plato's Laches -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Hipparchus -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Hipparchus -- Brief Introduction

4 жыл бұрын

Plato's Minos -- Brief Introduction

8:23

Plato's Minos -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Parmenides -- Brief Introduction

7:27

Plato's Parmenides -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Theages -- Brief Introduction

7:41

Plato's Theages -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Lovers -- Brief Introduction

8:06

Plato's Lovers -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Alcibiades II -- Brief Introduction

10:07

Plato's Alcibiades II -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Charmides -- Brief Introduction

8:24

Plato's Charmides -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Alcibiades I -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Alcibiades I -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Symposium -- Brief Introduction

7:39

Plato's Symposium -- Brief Introduction

5 жыл бұрын

Plato's Phaedrus -- Brief Introduction

9:56

Plato's Phaedrus -- Brief Introduction

6 жыл бұрын

Plato's Phaedo -- Brief Introduction

7:23

Plato's Phaedo -- Brief Introduction

6 жыл бұрын

Plato's Crito -- Brief Introduction

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Plato's Crito -- Brief Introduction

6 жыл бұрын

Пікірлер

@businesswalks8301

@businesswalks8301 4 күн бұрын

this is a hard dialogue to get through. there is no examination. there's just a long lecture you're supposed to accept for fear of supersitition. also, all the "love for little boys" that is rampant in the 3 major religions of today, is kind of sickening. if you think you can assume he means "youths" but until he talks about having sex to relief the suffering. hard to stay reading this one.

@platosworld 2 күн бұрын

That's a great expression of how strange eros is, as it stretches from the longing for vision of the hyperuranian beings all the way down to sub-uranian boy-love.

@businesswalks8301

@businesswalks8301 4 күн бұрын

lysias is otherwise a buddhist who preach desirelessness for fear of attachment, and so socrates treats it as a evil spell that warrants undoing, and prays that its not true to avoid punshiment from gods when they hear what lysias says

@platosworld 2 күн бұрын

Perhaps. My sense is that Lydias is more cynical than that--that he preaches the virtues of non-love as a means to gull his lovers. Or simply to show off as a rhetorician and so gain clients and power. All of which, each in its way, is non-erotic, yet different from Buddhist detachment.

@businesswalks8301

@businesswalks8301 9 күн бұрын

this was a very confusing dialogue; in how random it was, why this story is being told, and why socrates seems to fully support it. perhaps it's something that is "out of left field" can inspire truths, or maybe they were right. many similar themes from meno, theaetetus, phaedo, symposium, and surely others are present here. socrates meets wordplay comedians and gives them all the respect in the world, in fact, they examine socrates. as for the "kingly art", what is it? is it not philosophy or midwifery? or are they only hunting knowledge, and then giving it to someone else to do something with it? i.e. students, as they apply it to their profession, as would eryximachus would have, in the symposium? it's about guiding young men's souls to become virtuous, isn't it?

@platosworld 2 күн бұрын

Thanks--your reply captures some of the puzzling questions that the dialogue prompts. My suggestion is that the brothers really are members of the camp of philosophy, and that seeing them that way forces us to face how shocking, or silly, or disturbing philosophy really can be.

@averyepipelos 13 күн бұрын

I've enjoyed your viewpoints on Plato. Researching and writing about Plato's dialogue, the Sophist, I was oddly inspired to sing one night I happened to be recording. Today is the anniversary of me recording the song. Eccentric, yes. But I think the tune also can apply to Book 7 too. Anyway, I share this link with you in comradery of a larger end, a common goal I assume, we share together. For, as you hint here, 'platosworld' indeed is incomplete without music. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGbNqHpunt9jrJI

@platosworld 12 күн бұрын

Thanks so much! I'm delighted that the Sophist inspired your music. That might be a first! Solos are great, and that's quite an accomplishment mixing Parmenides into the rhyme.

@averyepipelos 2 күн бұрын

@ Thanks. A little known fact, the song was number one on the pop charts for a few weeks back in 480 B.C….🤣 Take care.

22 күн бұрын

Plato's Cratylus and the end of Critias begin with Homer's Odyssey. I doubt any American or English speaker has the ability to speak and understand Greek words related to history. And that's a fact.

@platosworld 22 күн бұрын

Amen to that brother

@ubestbegood Ай бұрын

i guess i didn't get the sense this one ended in aporia really because of the very end at 439b when Socrates seems to be affirming the existence of things themselves and the value of learning those things themselves from themselves rather than from names. and then in 439d where he rejects the flux view and affirms things in themselves. i think the reason he says "how to learn and make discoveries about the things that are is probably too large a topic for you or me" is almost a rejection entirely that the crux of knowledge (of things that are that they are) lies in names to begin with.

@platosworld Ай бұрын

Yes, but how does one learn "from the things themselves"? We see particular things. And perhaps in some way the particular "informs" our soul with its form. But the medium of our learning is language, words. We don't just gaze mutely. We speak. The speech--even if it's as simple as "big" and "small" in reference to one's fingers--prompts the seeking.

@ubestbegood Ай бұрын

@@platosworld i think there are some practical accounts of this in Republic and Meno. Socrates' dialogue with the slave boy to demonstrate mathematical objects of knowledge are remembered not taught is one. and his account in Republic of how the tension between objects that seem both big and small or tall and short or rough and smooth lead us to embark on a rational journey of finding what they have in common. in a sense it's the unveiling of a duality or dichotomy which leads us to seek its unity. but it isn't the word small or the word big which leads us to inquire, it's the tension of the ideas which they represent that gives us pause. and it gives us pause whether we can attach a word to these concepts or not. so i think words still work to help us organize and play with concepts. i certainly don't get the impression Socrates thinks they're useless! just that nothing can be fully expressed with words or given to someone who does not have some sort of idea of the word being expressed already understood in some way.

@ubestbegood Ай бұрын

i think the account of the whole being the same as all its parts is perhaps the least convincing refutation in the dialogue. if i were Theaetetus i think i would have rejected this in favor of strong emergence. the difference between the whole and the all (the parts) is that one is a one and the other is a many. as for how we can know the "combination" or whole without knowing all its parts, the reason is precisely what you hinted at in proposing each combination has "a look": there is a faculty analogous to our sight which sees when gazing upon a form. this faculty allows us to understand a unity intelligently prior to the constituents. after all, we're reminded of the assertion in The Republic that The Good is to intellect as the sun is to sight. i think i would also reject the notion that we learn the combinations by way of the letters and i would use Cratylus to argue that Plato does as well. after all, Socrates specifically says in that dialogue that learning an idea via the name rather than vice versa is a silly endeavor. the object of our knowledge is not the name, but the idea. i think the primary issue with approaching knowledge via "an account" is, in general, that we are limited by names. i take this to be a kind of mystic type of skepticism and i take his refusal to spell this out directly to be the kind of wisdom a sage would impart by allowing his students to discover this for themselves.

@platosworld Ай бұрын

Thanks for the excellent comment. Your improvement to Theaetetus' position makes a lot of sense. But it also raises the question of how does one "know" a look? As they discuss earlier in the dialogue, does knowledge come "by" or "through" perception? This knowing also somehow involves comparison or analogy. And it involves the "look" or "form" "informing" the soul. It gives a new twist to the old saying, "I'll know it when I see it."

@ubestbegood Ай бұрын

@@platosworld thanks for the kind words! i think this is the grand question of Plato's entire corpus really. i actually just stumbled upon Clitophon on my way to Phaedrus (which i'm reading right now) and if we're to take the interpretation that this character represents Plato and his frustration as one of Socrates' students, i think saying WHAT virtue (or any true object of knowledge) is, is what we learn Socrates thinks is impossible. we can also believe Socrates simply doesn't know. if that's the case, how do we know virtue and thereby right action without some sort of divine guide (like the daemonion he claimed he had in Apology)? personally, i think this is the exact inspiration that led Plato to create his cosmology and theology and his mysticism (if you accept the thesis that he was a mystic) in the first place. in Meno and Phaedo Socrates talks about the role of anamnesis and, more pointedly, the soul's role in apprehending objects of knowledge. it is not up to a temporal nature to gaze upon eternal things. so i think Plato thought the faculty in question is the soul. which already knows these objects of knowledge such as the virtues and goodness. which to me makes sense tbh. no philosophy or philosopher i think would deny we have moral intuitions! however... we're still left with the problem of discernment. there is also an account in Symposium about how gods (which are related to objects of knowledge) don't speak to humans directly, but rather that spirits (like Eros) shuttle messages to us and back. so maybe we actually learn things themselves via an extensive array of profound experiences available to us such as love, dreams, inspiration (sometimes in the form of mania), etc. those things are what shuttle glimpses of such objects of knowledge to us. and our soul remembers them from its time before embodiment. and thus knowing anything true requires a connection between soul, various spirits we tend to reduce to concepts, and our human faculties of reason and intuition.

@ubestbegood Ай бұрын

and i think this is why modern platonism will never fix the epistemological gap unless it starts talking about some sort of soul faculty in a serious way.

@platosworld Ай бұрын

@@ubestbegood Agreed. A helpful place to look is Averroes' discussion of the soul, building upon Aristotle, and informed (so to speak!) by Plato. Classical medieval thought is far ahead of modernity in thinking about the soul.

@dcubed7977 2 ай бұрын

Terrific.

@platosworld 2 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@donutthrow9946

@donutthrow9946 2 ай бұрын

WHY IS IT THE PHILEBUS? 'THE LORD JIM'? 'THE HUCKLEBERRY FIN'?

@platosworld 2 ай бұрын

It's actually THA PHILEBUS

@200310184 3 ай бұрын

Just started by reading of each Plato's dialogue. This page is gold. Thank you very much!

@platosworld 3 ай бұрын

So glad you're finding it helpful. Enjoy your reading!

@orsolyakunkli7876

@orsolyakunkli7876 4 ай бұрын

Such a great explanation, thank you so much Sir!

@KREN12623 4 ай бұрын

He who kisses the skies as he flies.... Lives in Eternity's sun rise Citat slut

@KREN12623 4 ай бұрын

I have heeeens at home ..... AND a bIg Red cock bob bob bob👍☺️

@SuccessMindset2180

@SuccessMindset2180 5 ай бұрын

Real sophism is underestimated

@platosworld 5 ай бұрын

Undercompensated too.

@book-dy4bc 5 ай бұрын

Thank you for the helpful intro

@platosworld 5 ай бұрын

My pleasure (so to speak), and you're welcome.

@brian782 5 ай бұрын

I had to rewatch your final comment many times

@platosworld 5 ай бұрын

I hope it got better with each viewing. Let me know if you have any questions. All the dialogues are tricky, but the Lesser Hippias is particularly devious.

@brian782 5 ай бұрын

@@platosworld Is the final sentence saying that Socrates wavered on whether he can be as steadfastly devoted to philosophy analogous to Achilles?

@platosworld 5 ай бұрын

@@brian782 Sorry for the late response; I missed your reply. My sense is that in this conversation Socrates is testing and experiencing the tension between the noble / beautiful and the good (which entails knowing how to be "bad" sometimes). If this is the case, then he must also have doubts about any sort of devotion, including to philosophy. On the subject of the possible nobility of philosophy, I'd recommend also checking out Plato's "Lovers / Rivals."

@brian782 5 ай бұрын

@@platosworld thank you. The symposium also questions capital “P” philosophy.

@platosworld 5 ай бұрын

@@brian782 Exactly--you've got it. Republic VI does the same thing, sotto voce. We could probably multiply other examples.

@ИндираКумашова

@ИндираКумашова 6 ай бұрын

Thanks a lot for you❤❤❤

@platosworld 6 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

@DiscipleTy 6 ай бұрын

❤

@edgewaterz 7 ай бұрын

Is there a benefit to aporia (perplexity)? It seems like a tough "reward" or little prize to go through a long and difficult argument about something and to emerge in aporia and that's the end. Is there a more specific reward or boon to participating in Socratic dialogue? Thank you for your videos!

@platosworld 7 ай бұрын

In the Gorgias, Socrates says that he enjoys being refuted even more than refuting others. The enjoyment of being refuted is that of seeing that you thought you knew something that you didn't know, and now you know that you don't know it. It is, in fact, an increase in knowledge. Being "stuck" (aporia--without a way out) is thus not a dead end but a way forward. At least out of the delusion of thinking that you know something. A good example occurs in the Greater Alcibiades 113d-119a--though there too Alcibiades backs away from truly accepting his ignorance.

@edgewaterz 7 ай бұрын

@@platosworld Euthyphro doesn’t seem happy to feel the rug pulled out from underneath what he thought was his wisdom. And at least a few other interlocutors seem to have the same opinion of having their knowledge rendered obsolete. It doesn’t feel liek the birth of wisdom but mroe like a setback. So is happiness at being refuted something Socrates has taught himself ot view as a plus? To recognize refutation as a birth? (Hence being the midwife he calls himself) It’s a bitter pill to swallow and takes some time to recover for his dialogue partners. For which Socrates is always compassionate. But nonetheless it doesn’t feel like a reward when it happens. It’s difficult to view as a prize.

@platosworld 6 ай бұрын

@@edgewaterz That's right. Most of the dialogues show the interlocutor failing to profit from being refuted. It hurts, and most people believe that what causes them pain is bad. Theaetetus, the example you allude to, is different. Socrates there describes refutation not as a birth but as preemptive abortion--the delivery of a "wind-egg." And Theaetetus responds well to it. The difference is both nature and nurture. It would be useful to compare Theaetetus and Alcibiades, both promising young men, each brilliant in his way, and each attracted to Socrates, but Alcibiades can't hold onto it. At the end of the day you have to see gaining knowledge of your ignorance as progress of the most rewarding sort. As Socrates argues in Rep 5 and 6, and as Averroes emphasizes in his commentary, it requires courage of a rare sort.

@edgewaterz 6 ай бұрын

@@platosworld So it’s about happiness (eudaimonia)? When Socrates is refuted and discovers he doesn’t know something he’s happy. Meanwhile the rest of us become depressed or disillusioned. But Socrates would rather know he was wrong than not know he was wrong. That’s why it makes him happy to be refuted? Suggesting there is an extra step in the process the lay person isn’t consciously taking. We received bad information, but that’s ok, now we’re the wiser for it.

@platosworld 6 ай бұрын

@@edgewaterz Perhaps this is too simplistic, but I see it as something akin to the pleasure that any of us feel when we realize we are getting better at something or are improving in some way. E.g., learning to play tennis is frustrating at first, and you constantly miss shots or get smoked. But as you practice you see your improvement and you enjoy that. Being refuted hurts at first, and maybe always has some sting to it, but over time it contributes to that pleasure of feeling that you're improving.

@edgewaterz 7 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for these videos!

@platosworld 7 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

@gabrielkochanny7904

@gabrielkochanny7904 8 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@platosworld 8 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

@daniel-zh4qc 8 ай бұрын

So good.

@platosworld 8 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@brg8960 8 ай бұрын

Protagoras does not speak for himself. Socrates uses "if he could get his head out of the world below" as an example of if he could rise up and speak. Socrates speaks on his behalf, though stating he is not the best defender of Protagoras. Excise the verb "to be" - "Tout autre est tout autre."

@platosworld 8 ай бұрын

Right: it's actually a comic scene. To imagine the ghostly head of Protagoras rising up out of the ground in front of them to defend the claim that knowledge is perception. It's possible that Socrates doesn't do P justice. On the other hand, it's possible that Socrates presents the core of P's thought even more powerfully, or at least more explicitly, than P does in his "myths."

@luccabarreira8115

@luccabarreira8115 9 ай бұрын

Hello, my name is Lucca, I'm undergraduate student on philosophy at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). First of all, your video is elegant and clear. Congratulations! I've already taught Plato's Lesser Hippias to a high school group but I have to admit that I wasn't capable of having, even near, your clearness. Secondly, I'd like to know your name in order to search for any article or essay of yours! Kind regards, God bless you

@platosworld 9 ай бұрын

Thank you, Lucca! I'm very glad you've found the videos helpful. My name IRL is Keith Whitaker. These videos are my main Platonic products, though I also published an English translation of the Parmenides many years ago, and I edited the original Focus Philosophical Library, which contains many excellent English translations of Plato's and Aristotle's works (among others). Finally, I wrote an book on Plato's Laws: "A Journey into Platonic Politics." Apart from that, all my books and articles concern topics related to family wealth, such as on giving wisely, raising healthy children amid wealth, and structuring family trusts. You can find more about my day job here: www.wisecounselresearch.com/managing-directors Best wishes, Keith

@luccabarreira8115

@luccabarreira8115 9 ай бұрын

@@platosworldthank you, mr. Whitaker! I'm going to check everything presented. Best wishes, Lucca

@sergiohenriquedefaria9624

@sergiohenriquedefaria9624 10 ай бұрын

Really good explanation

@platosworld 10 ай бұрын

Glad you found it helpful!

@czarnygawron21

@czarnygawron21 11 ай бұрын

You speak an accessible language. Thank you. You helped me a lot to understand this dialogue.

@platosworld 11 ай бұрын

You're welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

@leonardosarmiento6959

@leonardosarmiento6959 11 ай бұрын

Hello! I’ll have a speaking Semantics exam about Plato’s Cratylus and this video helped me a lot with the example of slaves and masters. Thank you so much!

@platosworld 11 ай бұрын

You're welcome! That example is crucial. It highlights the central matters of language: conventionality and justice (correctness). Hope your exam goes well.

@TannerCLynn 11 ай бұрын

I wonder if Socrates used the “unnamed questioner,” he kept playing the role of, to avoid culpability in what Hippias immediately labeled sacrilege?

@platosworld 11 ай бұрын

That makes sense. "Plausible deniability." Though Hippias sees through this disguise, and Socrates himself drops it. I like to think that in the unnamed questioner we get a glimpse of the real Socrates, so to speak, his insistent disintegration of seeming wholes (including himself).

@rudolphbripple6733

@rudolphbripple6733 11 ай бұрын

Thank you for the perspective I was having trouble finding a way into this one!

@platosworld 11 ай бұрын

My pleasure--glad it helped!

@josephthunstrom1942

@josephthunstrom1942 Жыл бұрын

nice little Calvino section in the library!

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thanks--it's small, but dear to me

@sukup1 Жыл бұрын

Thank you, for your videos.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome! There's a pleasure intrinsic to the activity.

@ryth3m890 Жыл бұрын

Thank you, this was helpful.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome!

@Gabriel_RSC_ Жыл бұрын

Great video, sir. Thank you!

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome--glad you liked it.

@hopeintzempelis

@hopeintzempelis Жыл бұрын

thank you this was very helpful

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome--glad it helped.

@edgewaterz Жыл бұрын

Is the fascinus specifically related to the Phaedo? I don’t remember it talking about the evil eye or virility.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Not explicitly. However, Eros--love--is treated as a god in the dialogue. And at one point Socrates speaks with his head covered, in shame and fear that he has offended against the god. Then he offers a "palinode" to atone for his offense, in which he presents the beauty of the god or rather of speeches about the whole of things. So you could say that the dialogue explores the power (attractive and defensive) of the fascinus.

@nicholastaylor6455

@nicholastaylor6455 Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome!

@DLDLDLDLDLDLD Жыл бұрын

So much tension in this dialogue

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Interesting. On the surface it's clearly comic. But I think you're right that there are tensions present too. Where do you see them?

@DLDLDLDLDLDLD Жыл бұрын

@@platosworld Well, to be honest, I'm mostly new to Plato and so am probably not picking up on the subtler facets of the text/reading things a bit over-literally. At any rate it was the first dialogue I've read (as reading from the collected edition I'm using, starting from Euthyphro leading to the present Euthydemus) that depicts actual conflict between interlocutors, specifically anyway the apparently defensively angry Ctesippus in a few points of the text. My favourite being right after Dionysodorus stated that insofar as Socrates desires Clinias to become wise he desires him to perish, following which the text reads: "When Ctesipuss heard this he became angry on his favourite's account and said, Thurian stranger, if it were not a rather rude remark, I would say "perish yourself" for taking it into your head to tell such a lie about me and the rest, which I think is a wicked thing to say - that I could wish this person to die!" And a few other such points where Socrates comments to Crito that he jumped in between the two of them when it seemed they were getting rough which each other. Once again though I don't pretend to hold a full comprehension of the dialogue in its subtleties, or any of them for that matter, but it did strike me as different in this regard from the ones I've read thus far, though it was funny when Ctesipuss essentially said that he would tell the stranger to perish himself, if it wasn't apparently too rude. (Edited for various typos)

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

@@DLDLDLDLDLDLD Great observation. That is a crucial moment. The lover erupts at the implication that he would want his beloved dead. Quite the opposite. The dialecticians, on the other hand, easily imagine such a possibility. The exchange reveals something of the difference between lovers and philosophers.

@joeybossolo7 Жыл бұрын

@@platosworldbut philosophers are lovers too. Lovers of sophia, or wisdom! ;)

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

@@joeybossolo7Very true. But there is a difference between loving another person and "loving" something that never can love you back.

$@fractal_gate$

@fractal_gate Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the video. I just read The Sophist and it was surprisingly difficult, especially the discussion on being, oneness and difference. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the dialogue keeps doubling back on itself and the speaker and interlocuter correct previous mistakes. However, I think that it is this very property of the dialogue that actually shows philosophy in action as opposed to claiming you know everything and writing a treatise.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome! It is a challenging dialogue, in no small part since the question that lurks in all the dialogues--what is philosophy, who is the philosopher?--is made explicit here.

$@fractal_gate$

@fractal_gate Жыл бұрын

Thank you very much for this intro to a dialogue not often covered here!

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome--it is a challenging one!

@musicsubicandcebu1774

@musicsubicandcebu1774 Жыл бұрын

Very useful to me, thanks.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Glad to help!

@touchedbyasong

@touchedbyasong Жыл бұрын

Hello, about a year ago we interacted in your comments, and I suggested that "beauty is that which inspires" and as I recall, you had a counter-argument. But nevertheless, I stuck with it and wrote a song about it. I am still working on bullet-proofing my definition philosophically, but you might get a kick out of the song since it's inspired by Hippeas Major: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4vIeaqpnLF_q68

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much--and sorry to take so long to respond. The song is lovely. Watching it on YT reminds me of the last definition offered in the GH: beauty is what's pleasing in sight or hearing. (One could ask how the song would sound without the video.) As for the beautiful as that which inspires, it makes sense; in fact, I think that definition could be equivalent to the second-to-last one offered in the dialogue, that the beautiful is what's beneficial, i.e., that which promises some good. (To make that case would require analyzing "the promise of good.") Alternatively, your definition captures what seems like a universal response to the beautiful: wonder--wonder at an (apparent) whole. Thanks again!

@ZakaryCousto Жыл бұрын

I am adding Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche to the platosworld wishlist! ☀

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

I share your wish! In the meantime, you can check out the Leo Strauss Center at the U of C for courses in which LS discusses Zarathustra, such as this 1967 offering: leostrausstranscripts.uchicago.edu/philologic4/strauss/navigate/15/1/2/

@ZakaryCousto Жыл бұрын

@@platosworld Thanks!

@musicsubicandcebu1774

@musicsubicandcebu1774 Жыл бұрын

Plato, to me, always seems to be speaking in a "tongue in cheek" manner, and directly from the "world of reality beyond the senses". He knows it all (as does every graduate of his 'academy' whose apparent purpose is to train prospective parents). Dante is the only other author I know who wrote in this self-aware style; except his writing has the flavour of a sudden revelation (Inferno). It's totally brilliant. Shakespeare wrote on the same level (and then some) . . . but it's uncertain how connected he was to his observations. Cervantes is another of similar rank - he haunts Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost".

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thanks--all great authors. The difficult thing about Plato's "tongue in cheek" style is to know when he's doing it and when to take him deadly seriously. As Aristotle supposedly said, when asked, "What's the profit of telling lies?" "When you tell the truth, you're not believed."

@ZakaryCousto Жыл бұрын

Love platosworld!! I can suggest these; 1) I am That Nisargadatta Maharaj and 2) Nan Yar (Who am I) Ramana Maharshi. Take care 😎

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@musicsubicandcebu1774

@musicsubicandcebu1774 Жыл бұрын

Very helpful, thanks

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it

@sinemeak Жыл бұрын

thank you!

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome!

@talithacumi5 Жыл бұрын

Thank you. Subscribed!

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

You're welcome! Good to have you on board. New content coming soon

@helge136 Жыл бұрын

Great to see you back! Plato is one of my favorite philosophers.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thanks--video on Republic II coming soon

@trampston1482 Жыл бұрын

Surprisingly comprehensive for such a short video! No wasted space, really well done 👍

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@Tw1stedAce Жыл бұрын

Sounds like a very interesting book. I'll be sure to check it out. My old man always told me that the best way to be happy and hold an overall cheery disposition in life was to never fully grow up. At the time, I viewed it as a simplistic perspective, but as I'm growing older myself, I'm starting to see the merit of that sentiment. Won't need to reminisce about the great times you had as a boy in the past if you continue to have those great 'boy' times in the present.

@platosworld Жыл бұрын

Thanks--great comment. One thing I didn't bring out in the intro is that Tom's adventures are inspired by his reading of adventure stories. In this respect, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is meant to take its place within the life-giving tradition of stories, inspiring young and old.