Plato of Athens: A Life in Philosophy - Robin Waterfield Audiobook
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The first ever biography of the founder of Western philosophy
Considered by many to be the most important philosopher ever, Plato was born into a well-to-do family in wartime Athens at the end of the fifth century BCE. In his teens, he honed his intellect by attending lectures from the many thinkers who passed through Athens and toyed with the idea of writing poetry. He finally decided to go into politics, but became disillusioned, especially after the Athenians condemned his teacher, Socrates, to death. Instead, Plato turned to writing and teaching. He began teaching in his twenties and later founded the Academy, the world’s first higher-educational research and teaching establishment. Eventually, he returned to practical politics and spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to create a constitution for Syracuse in Sicily that would reflect and perpetuate some of his political ideals. The attempts failed, and Plato’s disappointment can be traced in some of his later political works.
In his lifetime and after, Plato was considered almost divine. Though a measure of his importance, this led to the invention of many tall tales about him-both by those who adored him and his detractors. In this first ever full-length portrait of Plato, Robin Waterfield steers a judicious course among these stories, debunking some while accepting the kernels of truth in others. He explains why Plato chose to write dialogues rather than treatises and gives an overview of the subject matter of all of Plato’s books. Clearly and engagingly written throughout, Plato of Athens is the perfect introduction to the man and his work.
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This post has 11 comments with rating of 5/5
September 29th, 2023
Why does every Plato biography have to follow the tired hagiography formula?
September 29th, 2023
“The first ever biography of (Plato).”
“Why does every Plato biography…”
We might need a larger sample size to support such a conclusion.
September 29th, 2023
Thanks for this :)
September 30th, 2023
> Most ancient Greek literature has been lost, sometimes by accident, but more often because it was felt to be not worth preserving, in the sense that, in the centuries before the invention of the printing press, no one was asking scribes to make copies. Yet we have the complete set of Plato’s dialogues; not a single word that he published has been lost.
> It is safe to say that, apart from the Bible, no body of written work has had such an impact on the Western world as Plato’s dialogues.
That is, only the bible has had a more devastatingly negative effect, and it’s no surprise that those same people who copied that bible revered Plato over any of the “pre-socratics” whose contributions would have been positive.
September 30th, 2023
While many are indeed critical of Plato on the basis of his sexuality - and this is an important consideration - it’s also possible to evaluate the contribution apart from that. The essential work exploring such vital issues as the Socratic question; the quest for objective knowledge & values; what justice inheres in; the nature of love, ethics aesthetics & politics; the individual’s responsibility to the community; epistemology, metaphysics, etc. etc.
As Alfred North Whitehead apparently observed, it’s all merely footnotes to Plato.
September 30th, 2023
Alfred North Whitehead was himself also a religious mystic, and so of course an admirer.
September 30th, 2023
“Footnotes” due to the vast range of subjects & concerns addressed in the dialogic form (which is actually one of the most stimulating, engaging & productive methods of communicating important ideas). Although the full quote does not necessarily indicate admiration, rather a reasonably objective observation.
As to “mystic,” that’s an odd one. My understanding is that he was interested in religious speculation & texts for some yrs, but mystic would seem to be a sui generis category.
October 1st, 2023
The dialogues did not introduce any new such subjects; as we can glean from citations and references, these were already topics of discussion for many other philosophers and thinkers of the time. And as for the format, one can only read so many “certainly, Socrates, that is so”s before wishing bad ends on the thoughtless strawmen Plato has built…
And mysticism as in “the belief in some animating spirit or force of intent that suffuses the world”, i.e. Whitehead’s “God as the Principle of Concretion”. It’s somewhat ironic that Russel and Whitehead together, in attempting to place a capstone on the platonist worldview, instead highlit the paradoxes that caused its collapse—and that those same paradoxes were apparently already well known to the Stoics who were written off so long ago at the platonist worldview’s beginning.
October 1st, 2023
At their best, the dialogues make for superlative intellectual engagement. I have to say, your hatred of these Greeks does put you in something of a minority. People of diametrically opposed views discover enormous value in these writings. (I would have little in common w Nietzsche, for inst.)
Plato deals with politics, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, jurisprudence, axiology, ethics - to the extent that the subject categories were established. His contributions are necessarily developments on themes.
Of course, the real targets of Plato’s repugnance were the Sophists. Now those guys have made a serious comeback (as Plato waves goodbye, p’haps).
You’re going with a more general definition of mysticism (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It would capture most people on the planet, at most times. These try to offer certain parameters of usage:
1. belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained thru contemplation & self-surrender.
2. vague or ill-defined religious or spiritual belief, esp as associated w a belief in the occult. (New Age-type stuff.)
October 1st, 2023
Maybe that comment on sophists is meant derisively? But i would actually agree, yes. It’s downfall is in people slowly coming to understand that our words for things and the things themselves are not the same, that the map is not the territory, and so a renewed concern with language itself—typified at its worst by vague references to Wittgenstein and “〇〇 is a social construct!”, but at its best a critical self-awareness necessary to advancements in pure mathematics, where platonism has held in a hundreds-of-years stranglehold. Plato would deride this as sophistry, but it’s well time the knee-jerk pejorative tables should be reversed.
Though i said mysticism (thinking of a hidden, secret spiritual truth all around us), the better word is probably animism. And yes, most people at most times in history have been animists, seeing consciousness and intent and spirit in every rock or tree or so on, but among scientists and academics recently, at least, it’s a minority position.
October 1st, 2023
No, the sophist thing is intended seriously. A problem then, & a much greater problem now. If you mean targeted towards you - absolutely not. You always seem extremely sincere. Plato’s bêtes noires, the sophists were/are a universal acid for objective meaning & values. Protagoras & the man is the measure of all things absurdity. Significantly, Nietzsche was signalling the end of meaning - reflecting our current malaise. No truth, merely contending wills, struggling for mastery. Oy.
Causation is key.
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