Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? Philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provide an original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science. Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation into these conundra.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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