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Why and how should we read Plato? Why did Plato write dialogues? Is Plato a friend to democracy? Dr. Marcus Gibson, John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program, joins Madison’s Notes to provide an introduction to Plato in preparation of a series of episodes on individual Platonic dialogues.
Plato: Complete Works (John M. Cooper): https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Complete-Works/dp/0872203492
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Great to hear the start of a series of episodes on Plato and the Dialogues.
My first lower-division philosophy class failed by leaving me thinking Socrates was a simple man who only knew how to ask questions. (Granted, I was a mere computer science major, who soon got published in the first Apple computer magazine, which led to a change to an English major.)
Then I experienced a real teacher who opened the doors in a Classical Rhetoric seminar. Plato has been a staple ever since. Even led me to edit a public domain version, the main benefit of which I had to work through two translations of each dialogue, as well as the spurious ones. Good for the mind.
Looking forward to upcoming episodes.
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By the way, I think Plato’s Dialogues are more true literary art, and less philosophy and mere mental conversation. Read him like Shakespeare, as poetry, with profound subtext. When Socrates goes “down” to the forum, that artistically means something.
I am auditing a Philosophy course so have just started reading the Dialogues (Grubb edition). Thanks for this episode to give me more background. Looking forward to the other episodes. I think I’ll be letting Mark Alexander do the deeper posts.
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