Understanding Plato
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Republic Book IX EP 22 (Final Episode) Tyranny and the Tyrannical Soul
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We have come to the end of Plato's Republic and the end of the podcast. In the final episode, Socrates satisfies Glaucon's challenge to show that a j...
Republic Bk VIII & IX EP 21 Defective Constitutions and Damaged Souls
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Plato extends his analogy between the constitution of the city-state and the soul of the individual by presenting a theory about how the constitutions...
Republic Book VII EP 20 Allegory of the Cave
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is one of the most famous thought experiments in the history of Western philosophy. An allegory is "a story, poem, or pi...
Republic Bk VI, VII EP 19 Analogy of the Sun
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Socrates tells Glaucon that philosophers should be kings because only they have access to the Form (concept) of the Good. The concept of Justice cann...
Republic Bk.VI EP 18 Only Philosophers Should be Kings
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode begin with Socrates' astounding claim that "only philosophers should be kings." However, he soon qualifies this with the remark that he ...
Republic Book V EP 17 Women, Marriage and Children in the Ruling Class
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Socrates argues in defense of his recommendation that women can and should be rulers in the ideal state. His argument is that there is nothing releva...
Republic Book IV (cont.) EP 16 Humunculi, Self-Control and Injustice
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is a discussion of the concluding paragraphs of Republic, Book IV. It is about the question "Why do we need a theory to explain self-con...
Republic Bk. IV (cont.) EP 15 The Theory of Parts of the Soul and the Humunculus Problem
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If Socrates is to convince Glaucon that justice and injustice in the soul is like justice and injustice in the city-state, then he must prove that the...
Republic Book IV EP 14 The Advantages of Justice in City and Soul
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Socrates takes the first steps toward discovering the meaning of justice in the city-state and the place in the city where it is most likely to be fou...
Republic Book II EP13 Glaucon's Challenge
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Glaucon asks Socrates if he can provide a defense of justice (right conduct) that will show not only that justice is good for the sake of its conseque...
Republic Bk. I (cont.) EP12 Is Injustice More Profitable than Justice
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the second part of Republic, Book 1, Socrates agrees with Thrasymachus that in the precise sense of the word "ruler," a ruler never makes mistakes....
Republic Book 1 EP11 What is Justice?
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It is in Book 1 of Plato's dialogue Republic that political philosophy begins. The character Socrates begins by asking a pivotal question "What is ju...
Phaedo EP10 The Death of Socrates
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is about the death of Socrates. The reading is from the last pages of Phaedo, the final book in the Socratic dialogues, without commenta...
Meno (cont.) EP 9 Learning as Recollection
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Socrates believes he has solved Meno's Paradox by denying that a person can never know that they have found what they are inquiring about. Socrates t...
Meno EP8 Meno's Paradox
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Meno suggests that there will never be a solution to the question "What is virtue?" because one either knows what virtue is or one does not know this....
Meno EP7 On Virtue
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The scene of this episode is a discussion between Socrates and a young aristocrat named Meno. The first part of the discussion is not unlike an earli...
Crito (cont.) EP6 Moral Realism
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This 4 minute episode has a short summary of the previous episode, emphasizing Socrates' passionate claim that the duty to obey the law is always supe...
Crito, The Duty to Obey the Law EP5
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Crito is the title of the third dialogue in Plato's series of Socratic dialogues about the events before and after Socrates' execution. In this dialog...
Apology (cont.) EP4
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is about the final speech of Socrates at his trial after he has been convicted and sentenced to death. He tells the jury that no one sho...
Apology. EP3. The Trial of Socrates
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading from chapter 3 of his book Understanding Plato, Professor Laurence Houlgate explains how Plato's dialogue Apology is best understood by breaki...
Euthyphro EP2 On philosophy and science
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Continuing the discussion of Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, emphasizing the implicit distinction Plato makes between philosophy and science. Listeners a...
Euthyphro EP1
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Episode 1, Laurence Houlgate, author of Understanding Plato, shows how the character Socrates uses the "elenchus" method to refute the character Eu...