Plato has 30 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 25 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 227 ratings. The most-rated is Plato's Republic.
Plato's Republic
Summary
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing? Several characters in the dialogue present a variety of tempting answers to those questions. Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and Glaucon all offer definitions of justice. Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus explore five different forms of republic and evaluate the merits of each from the standpoint of goodness. Two contrasting models of education are proposed and examined. Three different forms of poetry are identified and analyzed. The difference between knowing and believing is discussed in relation to the objects of each kind of thinking. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Apology
Summary
Socrates is on trial for his life. He is charged with impiety and corrupting young people. He presents his own defense, explaining why he has devoted his life to challenging the most powerful and important people in the Greek world. The reason is that rich and famous politicians, priests, poets, and a host of others pretend to know what is good, true, holy, and beautiful, but when Socrates questions them, they are shown to be foolish rather than wise. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
The Socratic Dialogues Middle Period, Volume 1
Summary
Here are three important but very different Dialogues from the Middle Period. Symposium, the most well-known in this collection, is concerned with the theme of love. In the house of Agathon, a group of friends - each very different in personality and background - meet to consider and discuss various kinds of love. Each one, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes (the playwright) and Agathon (a prize-winning tragic poet), presents his particular view in a short discourse until Socrates speaks at greater length. This would be the end except that, unexpectedly, Alcibiades (the vain general and controversial statesman) arrives, rather worse for drink, and makes his loud contribution with direct references to his personal relationship with Socrates. Symposium is an absorbing Dialogue, related, however, by one man - Apollodorus. It is read here by Hugh Ross. Phaedo is a very different Dialogue. It contains the moving account of the last hours of Socrates. Condemned to death by the Athenian court for impiety and the corruption of youth, he has been ordered to commit suicide. Friends gather around him on this last day, but even at such a moment Socrates chooses to spend the time considering the nature of the soul, whether it is immortal and what may happen after death. It concludes with a description of his final moments. In Theaetetus, Socrates engages with a young mathematician on the definition of knowledge, the examined life, and how the active life compares with the contemplative life. Translation by Benjamin Jowett.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Productions Ltd
The Socratic Dialogues: Early Period, Volume 1
Summary
Here are the Socratic Dialogues presented as Plato designed them to be - living discussions between friends and protagonists, with the personality of Socrates himself coming alive as he deals with a host of subjects, from justice and inspiration to courage, poetry and the gods. Plato's Socratic Dialogues provide a bedrock for classical Western philosophy. For centuries they have been read, studied and discussed via the flat pages of books, but the ideal medium for them is the spoken word. Some are genuine dialogues while some are dialogues reported by a narrator supposedly at a later date. Ukemi Audiobooks presents all of the Socratic Dialogues in a series of recordings divided into Early Period (Volumes 1 & 2), Middle Period (Volumes 1 & 2) and Late Period (Volume 1) - based on their likely composition by Plato. This opening volume starts with perhaps the most famous speech, The Apology, Socrates' doomed defence against the charge of heresy and corrupting the young. It is followed by Crito, in which Socrates' friend offers to spirit him out of Athens to avoid execution. Among the others are discussions on Courage (Laches), and Friendship (Lysis). The role of Socrates is taken by David Rintoul, a widely admired and experienced audiobook reader who studied philosophy at university before taking a different path to RADA, TV, theatre and film. He is joined by a broad range of readers, most known to Audible listeners. Each Dialogue is prefaced with a short introduction to set the scene for newcomers to Plato. Translation: Benjamin Jowett.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Audiobooks
Plato's Symposium
Summary
The dramatic nature of Plato's dialogues is delightfully evident in 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 all present their ideas about love - from Erixymachus' 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. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Phaedo
Summary
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? © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Euthyphro
Summary
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. Euthyphro is not able to provide satisfactory answers to Socrates' questions, but their dialogue leaves us with the challenge of making a reasonable connection between ethics and religion. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
The Socratic Dialogues Early Period, Volume 2
Summary
Here, in this second collection of Socratic Dialogues from Plato's Early Period, read by David Rintoul as Socrates with a full cast, are contrasting six works. Often, as with Gorgias, which opens the recording, Socrates combats the popular subjects of sophistry and rhetoric, in direct conversation with Gorgias (a leading sophist teacher), and with one of his pupils, Callicles. In Meno, Socrates encounters another Gorgias pupil, Meno, and a debate on 'virtue' ensues. Virtue is also the topic in Protagoras, though this dialogue is largely narrated by Socrates (David Rintoul), who 'reports' the conversation which had taken place shortly before. Euthydemus is one of the most entertaining of all the Socratic Dialogues, with the two vastly overconfident brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, supposedly capable wrestlers, boxers and musicians, who have come to Athens to teach sophistry. They enter into philosophical debate with Socrates, who at times is almost amazed by their brash sense of superiority. The Lesser Hippias dialogue considers issues of morality, truth and lies, with reference to Homer's great characters Achilles and Odysseus, while the Greater Hippias enquires into the nature of beauty. Translation: Benjamin Jowett.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Plato's Laches
Summary
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? © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Crito
Summary
The Athenian court has found Socrates guilty and sentenced him to death. While he is waiting to be executed, his friend, Crito, comes to the prison to persuade him to escape and go into exile. Socrates responds by examining the essence of law and community, probing the various kinds of law and making distinctions that go far beyond the particular issue of whether or not Socrates should escape. © Agora Publications
Public Domain (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
Plato's Meno
Summary
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. © Agora Publications
©2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies (P)2015 Agora, New Internet Technologies
The Socratic Dialogues Middle Period, Volume 2
Summary
The remarkable range of Plato's Dialogues is vividly demonstrated by these three works. It opens with Phaedrus, a highly personal discussion between Socrates (David Rintoul) and the young, love-struck Phaedrus (Gunnar Cauthery). They go for a walk outside the walls of Athens and, under a plane tree by the banks of the Ilissus, talk about love - erotic and 'Platonic'. Socrates endeavours to steer Phaedrus away from infatuation and show him that real love is based on concern for the beloved while also delivering a pointed criticism against lack of clarity in thought and expression! The subject of Cratylus is the meaning and etymology of names and words - a Dialogue unlike any other. Why is Zeus called Zeus? What is the origin of the names of Pallas Athene, Poseidon, Uranus? And how did psuche come to mean 'soul' and soma body? Attic Greek, the Greek of Plato's day, is prominent here, and care has been taken in the appropriate pronunciation for this recording. Finally, there is Parmenides, often regarded as the most challenging of all the Dialogues. Cephalus (Laurence Kennedy) repeats a discussion he heard between Socrates, Zeno and Parmenides as Socrates defends pluralist views and the theory of forms against monism. Translation by Benjamin Jowett.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Productions Ltd
The Republic
Summary
In The Republic, Plato tackles the big issues of the state and the individual: how the state should be ruled, and by whom; and the way the individual should lead his life - and why. Plato casts Socrates in the role of the leader and teacher in this carefully-reasoned enquiry held in association with the students of his circle. Yet despite the rigor of the argument - the need for a philosopher-king; the need for just behavior by all - the beneficient humanity of Socrates and the poetic imagination of Plato are vividly apparent. The lively quality of the dialogue can be clearly appreciated in this new translation by Tom Griffith.
Public Domain (P)2000 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd., All Rights Reserved
The Trial and the Death of Socrates
Summary
The Trial and the Death of Socrates remains a powerful document not least because it gives a first-hand account of the end of one of the greatest figures in history. In Apology, Socrates defends himself before the Athenian court against charges of corrupting youth. Phaedo is the account by a young man of the actual last words and moments of Socrates. Tom Griffith presents these with scene-setting introductions to the historical situation in this new translation. Translated by Tom Griffith.
©2001 Naxos AudioBooks Ltd. (P)2001 Naxos AudioBooks Ltd.
Hedy's Folly
Summary
What do Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common? The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary invention based on the rapid switching of communications signals among a spread of different frequencies. Without this technology, we would not have the digital comforts that we take for granted today. Only a writer of Richard Rhodes’s caliber could do justice to this remarkable story. Unhappily married to a Nazi arms dealer, Lamarr fled to America at the start of World War II; she brought with her not only her theatrical talent but also a gift for technical innovation. An introduction to Antheil at a Hollywood dinner table culminated in a U.S. patent for a jam- proof radio guidance system for torpedoes - the unlikely duo’s gift to the U.S. war effort. What other book brings together 1920s Paris, player pianos, Nazi weaponry, and digital wireless into one satisfying whole? In its juxtaposition of Hollywood glamour with the reality of a brutal war, Hedy’s Folly is a riveting book about unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world.
©2011 Richard Rhodes (P)2011 Random House Audio
The Socratic Dialogues: Middle Period, Volume 3
Summary
The Republic is perhaps the single most important, the most studied and the most quoted text of all of Plato's Socratic Dialogues. Through the medium of Socrates, Plato outlines his view and ideas concerning the ideal working of the city-state. Socrates narrates a conversation that took place the previous day with Cephalus, Glaucon, Thrasymachus and others. The dialogue is organised into 10 books and covers a broad range of topics, including the ideal community, the ideal rulers of the community - philosophers and the philosopher king - and various forms of government, including timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. Part of the Ukemi recording of the complete Socratic Dialogues by Plato, it uses the classic translation by Benjamin Jowett and is read with authority by David Rintoul.
Public Domain (P)2018 Ukemi Productions Ltd
The Laws
Summary
The Laws is the longest of Plato’s Dialogues and actually doesn’t feature Socrates at all - the principal figure taking the lead is the ‘Athenian Stranger’ who engages two older men in the discussion, Cleinias (from Crete) and Megillus (from Sparta). The Dialogue is set in Crete, and the three men embark on a pilgrimage from Knossus to the cave of Dicte, where, legend reports, Zeus was born. The topic under examination is the making of laws appropriate for a well-ordered city: having considered this in The Republic many years earlier, Plato is now taking a less idealistic view and presenting more practical and earthbound proposals, based on law rather than the philosopher-king. It is significant that each of the participants comes from a city with a different system of government: a democracy (Athenian Stranger), a monarchy (Crete) and an oligarchy (Sparta). The Laws is divided into 12 books. Though Socrates is not involved, it can be counted a Socratic Dialogue in terms of form and structure. The Athenian Stranger is played by Laurence Kennedy, with Hayward Morse as Cleinias and Sam Dale as Megillus. The translation is by Benjamin Jowett.
Public Domain (P)2018 Ukemi Productions Ltd
The Socratic Dialogues: Late Period, Volume 1
Summary
These five very different Socratic Dialogues date from Plato's later period, when he was revisiting his early thoughts and conclusions and showing a willingness for revision. In Timaeus (mainly a monologue read by David Timson in the title role), Plato considers cosmology in terms of the nature and structure of the universe, the ever-changing physical world and the unchanging eternal world. And he proposes a demiurge as a benevolent creator God. Though unfinished, Critias (read by Peter Kenny) is a fascinating document in which Plato tells the story of the strong island empire of Atlantis and reports of a more ideal Athens in the past. In Sophist, Plato questions the nature of the sophist and how he differs from a statesman or a philosopher. In Statesman, Plato questions his earlier projection as the philosopher king as the ideal ruler (The Republic) and considers the importance of other issues such as political awareness. In Philebus, Plato's spotlight falls on hedonism, the life of pleasure - and the balance offered by wisdom and intelligence. Translation by Benjamin Jowett.
Public Domain (P)2018 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Plato Collection: The Republic, the Apology, Crito, and Symposium
Summary
This audiobook contains Plato's most notable books, narrated brilliantly by Kevin Kollins. The works contained in this audiobook include The Republic, The Apology, Crito, and Symposium. Enjoy these four amazing philosophical works that have stood the test of time.
©2017 Combray Media (P)2019 Combray Media
How Socrates Died
Summary
Presents the famous Socratic dialogues as presented by his most noted disciple, Plato. Designed to encourage a discussion of age-old philosophical questions concerning the meaning of life and death. This is an abridged edition of the dialogues.
©2014 MSAC Philosophy Group (P)2018 MSAC Philosophy Group