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Audiobooks Narrated by William Sigalis
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The dramatic nature of Plato’s dialogues is delightfully evident in the 'Symposium.' The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at Agathon’s house to celebrate the success of his first tragedy. With wit and insight, they each present their ideas about love — from Erixymachus’s scientific naturalism to Aristophanes’ comic fantasy. The unexpected arrival of Alcibiades breaks the spell cast by Diotima’s ethereal climb up the staircase of love to beauty itself. Ecstasy and intoxication clash as Plato concludes with one of his most skillful displays of dialectic.
After Socrates is sentenced to death by the Athenian court, his friend Crito comes to the prison to help him escape and go to another country. Socrates responds by saying that he would accept Crito’s offer only if he can be convinced that it is right and just to do so. This dialogue is not only about Socrates’ particular choice but also about the very essence of law and community.
In Euthyphro, Socrates is on his way to the court where he must defend himself against serious charges brought by religious and political authorities. On the way, he meets Euthyphro, an expert on religious matters, who has come to prosecute his own father. Socrates questions Euthyphro’s claim that religion serves as the basis for ethics.
Socrates questions Ion, an actor who just won a major prize, about his ability to interpret the epic poetry of Homer. How does an actor, a poet, or any other artist create? Is it by knowing? Is it by inspiration? As the dialogue proceeds, the nature of human creativity emerges as a mysterious process and an unsolved puzzle.
Laches, a general in the Athenian army, saw Socrates fight bravely in the battle of Delium. When he and Nicias, another general, are asked to explain the idea of courage, they are at a loss and words fail them. How does courage differ from thoughtless and reckless audacity? Can a lion be said to be courageous? What about small children who have little idea of the dangers they face? Should we call people courageous who do not know whether their bravery will produce good or bad consequences? What kind of education and training promotes both courage and goodness in people, whether they are young or old? Plato constantly presents courage as an essential quality for all who seek to live a good life, so what does it mean when even the bravest leaders of Athens cannot tell us what courage really is?
Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that 'beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful,' but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he means, Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition. The more Socrates probes, the more absurd the responses from Hippias become. This is one of Plato’s best comedies and one of his finest efforts at posing the philosophical problem of the difference between particular things and universal qualities.
A dialogue between Socrates and Meno probes the subject of ethics. Can goodness be taught? If it can, then we should be able to find teachers capable of instructing others about what is good and bad, right and wrong, or just and unjust. Socrates and Meno are unable to identify teachers of ethics, and we are left wondering how such knowledge could be acquired. To answer that puzzle, Socrates questions one of Meno’s servants in an attempt to show that we know fundamental ideas by recollecting them.
Plato’s dialogues frequently cover several topics and show their connection to each other. The 'Phaedrus' is a model of that skill because of its seamless progression from examples of speeches about the nature of love to mythical visions of human nature and destiny to the essence of beauty and, finally, to a penetrating discussion of speaking and writing. It ends with an examination of the love of wisdom as a dialectical activity in the human mind.
Socrates is in prison, sentenced to die when the sun sets. In this final conversation, he asks what will become of him once he drinks the poison prescribed for his execution. Socrates and his friends examine several arguments designed to prove that the soul is immortal. This quest leads him to the broader topic of the nature of mind and its connection not only to human existence but also to the cosmos itself. What could be a better way to pass the time between now and the sunset?
Gorgias of Leontini, a famous teacher of rhetoric, has come to Athens to recruit students, promising to teach them how to become leaders in politics and business. A group has gathered at Callicles' house to hear Gorgias demonstrate the power of his art. This dialogue blends comic and serious discussion of the best life, providing a penetrating examination of ethics. Is it better to suffer evil or to do evil? Is it better to do something wrong and avoid being caught or to be caught and punished? Is pleasure the same as goodness? As the characters in the dialogue pursue these questions, the foundations of ethics and the nature of the good life come to light.
Perception, memory, truth, and knowledge all play major roles in this dialogue. What is remarkable about Plato’s treatment of those ideas is how contemporary are both the questions and the answers he puts in the mouths of his characters. Socrates is adamant in asserting that he does not know the answers but that his function is simply to help formulate and critically examine the doctrines presented by others. While he was still alive, the great sophist Protagoras was a friend of Theodorus who has subsequently given up abstract philosophical inquiry and now teaches mathematics, astronomy, and logic to young people such as Theaetetus, the most gifted student he has ever encountered. Socrates examines young Theaetetus to determine whether or not what he has learned from Theodorus provides wisdom and truth. The analogies and metaphors that emerge during their conversation foreshadow the theories of mind favored by contemporary cognitive scientists, but Plato’s dialogue also raises serious doubts about the cogency of those explanations.
'The Birth of Tragedy' stands alongside Aristotle’s 'Poetics' as essential works for all who seek to understand poetry and its relationship to human life. In this, his first book, Nietzsche developed a way of thinking about the arts that unites the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus as the central symbol of human existence. Although tragedy serves as the focus of this work, music, visual art, dance, and the other arts can also be viewed using Nietzsche’s analysis and integration of the Apollonian and the Dionysian.
