Understanding Plato

By: Laurence Houlgate
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  • Summary

  • Do you need help understanding the great books of philosophy? In his podcasts, Professor Laurence Houlgate reads and discusses the classic works of Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and David Hume. His short readings are based on his acclaimed Smart Student's Guides to Philosophical Classics series (learn more at www.houlgatebooks.com). The episodes begin with the dialogues of Plato and will continue week by week through each chapter of Understanding Plato. For those who want to read along, a digital or print copy of the book can be purchased at Amazon.com at this address: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I5GAIJI
    New episodes will usually be broadcast weekly on Monday evening at 5 p.m. PST.
    Copyright Laurence Houlgate
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Philosophy Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • Republic Book IX EP 22 (Final Episode) Tyranny and the Tyrannical Soul

    Republic Book IX EP 22 (Final Episode) Tyranny and the Tyrannical Soul
    Nov 23 2021
    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 just state is always preferable to an unjust state and being a just person is always better than being unjust. He has previously described the just and unjust governments (kingship and aristocracy) and corresponding souls. Socrates now contrasts them to each stage of the degradation of the city-state and soul, concluding with a discussion of Tyranny and the tyrannical soul. The conclusion is that kingship and aristocracy are always preferable to any other type of government or soul, especially tyrannical states and souls.
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    26 mins
  • Republic Bk VIII & IX EP 21 Defective Constitutions and Damaged Souls

    Republic Bk VIII & IX EP 21 Defective Constitutions and Damaged Souls
    Nov 16 2021
    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 slowly devolve from the ideal (kingship or aristocracy) to the most imperfect (tyranny) and how this is mirrored by the slow degradation of the soul.
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    20 mins
  • Republic Book VII EP 20 Allegory of the Cave

    Republic Book VII EP 20 Allegory of the Cave
    Nov 9 2021
    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 picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one" (Oxford). The question asked by Plato scholars and repeated here is "What meaning is most consistent with the moral and political ideas promoted by Socrates in the preceding discussion about the form of the Good?"
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    15 mins

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