What do you think?
Rate this book
Ukemi's Socratic Dialogues
The Socratic Dialogues: Late Period, Volume 1: Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Statesman
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
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
- GenresPhilosophy
Audible Audio
Published February 9, 2018
4 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Plato
5,289 books8,778 followersPlato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 18, 2018
These works of Plato were meant to be performed. Ukemi has produced a perfect production for the audible obsessed.
I had listened to Plotinius’ ‘The Enneads’ another Ukemi perfectly produced production and I realized that ‘Timeaus’ was its foundation so that I downloaded this volume in order to better understand ‘The Enneads’. It’s easy to deduce that ‘Timeaus’ and ‘The Enneads’ are two of the most important books ever written since they form the foundation of neo-Platonism and are why one can rhetorically pose the question ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?’. All one has to do is read Augustine or Boethius or my favorite of all the doctors of the Church, Thomas Aquinas in order to see why these works of Plato are still relevant today.
Not only are these dialogs relevant they are actually a fun listen when they are performed as well as they are here. The ‘Sophist’ gets at ‘being’ and ‘not being’ better than even Martin Heidegger does, and the ‘Philebus’ gets at why wisdom trumps pleasure. (I’ll give a hint: truth, the moral, and beauty are primary for the optimum human experience! Of course, each category corresponds to Kant’s three critiques, all available here at Audible). Good argumentation never goes out of style.
Plato will say through his Eleatic stranger, that those who think they know but are wrong constitute one of the worst of the epistemological errors. These dialogs are an antidote for those who believe that alternative facts exist anywhere but in their own fevered fancies. Why do most bloviators on my TV seem to have never read books like this one, but always seem to act like they know things that they don’t know and their arguments are never as sophisticated as the ones presented over 2300 years ago? For one audible credit they could learn more from a book like this than from a year of watching themselves and others like them blabber on with their foundationless arguments.
Ukemi has a real winner with these classic reprints of books which seem to be more relevant and meaningful than ‘The Girl on the Train’ or other such time wasters. (I’m all for wasting time when life bothers me, but when the chaos subsumes it’s books like these from Ukemi I turn to for relaxation!).
I had listened to Plotinius’ ‘The Enneads’ another Ukemi perfectly produced production and I realized that ‘Timeaus’ was its foundation so that I downloaded this volume in order to better understand ‘The Enneads’. It’s easy to deduce that ‘Timeaus’ and ‘The Enneads’ are two of the most important books ever written since they form the foundation of neo-Platonism and are why one can rhetorically pose the question ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?’. All one has to do is read Augustine or Boethius or my favorite of all the doctors of the Church, Thomas Aquinas in order to see why these works of Plato are still relevant today.
Not only are these dialogs relevant they are actually a fun listen when they are performed as well as they are here. The ‘Sophist’ gets at ‘being’ and ‘not being’ better than even Martin Heidegger does, and the ‘Philebus’ gets at why wisdom trumps pleasure. (I’ll give a hint: truth, the moral, and beauty are primary for the optimum human experience! Of course, each category corresponds to Kant’s three critiques, all available here at Audible). Good argumentation never goes out of style.
Plato will say through his Eleatic stranger, that those who think they know but are wrong constitute one of the worst of the epistemological errors. These dialogs are an antidote for those who believe that alternative facts exist anywhere but in their own fevered fancies. Why do most bloviators on my TV seem to have never read books like this one, but always seem to act like they know things that they don’t know and their arguments are never as sophisticated as the ones presented over 2300 years ago? For one audible credit they could learn more from a book like this than from a year of watching themselves and others like them blabber on with their foundationless arguments.
Ukemi has a real winner with these classic reprints of books which seem to be more relevant and meaningful than ‘The Girl on the Train’ or other such time wasters. (I’m all for wasting time when life bothers me, but when the chaos subsumes it’s books like these from Ukemi I turn to for relaxation!).
June 5, 2020
The late Plato is an odd beast. On the one hand, the curmudgeonly old man spends way too much time raving against the dangers of too much freedom, music, and democracy. He is increasingly dabbling in religious myth and collective ideology to bolster a conservative vision of a rational political order. On the other hand, he has accumulated and distilled a lifetime of wisdom and experience and insight, and has refined his skill of philosophical writing and argumentation to become a second nature unmatched among his contemporaries. As a result, any collection of Plato's late works is going to bear witness to these tensions and complexities. This is no obstacle to enjoyment. In fact, this collection contains some of Plato's best works as well as his worst - or at least most controversial.
Due to the highly colourful nature of Plato's interests in this period, his late essays are of varying style and quality, but every single essay is worth including. Some are worth including mostly for the historical interest, such as Timaeus and Critias which provide Plato's elaboration, in two parts, of the myth of Atlantis. Beyond historical interest, Timaeus is also fascinating for its metaphysical and religious doctrines even though their philosophical value is dubious. However, I would say that Critias is the more interesting of the two despite its unfinished nature, since it contains interesting ideas on the origins of Athenic civilization. Thankfully the other essays in this collection are worth including more for their first rate philosophical content, especially the Sophist and the Statesman. They can be best seen as mature developments and modifications of his earlier writings.
The Sophist is a first rate essay that advances some fresh ideas about language, communication, and ethics. Its methodology exemplifies a more "analytical" side of Plato that matches Aristotle. In particular, although it is an elaborate condemnation of sophistry, its juiciest philosophical substance comes from its discussion of the theory of forms, concepts, and identity. Stylistically, it represents perhaps the very best of Plato's essays. Absolutely first class.
Following up on The Sophist, the Statesman forms an unmissable cornerstone in the political triad of Plato, next to the Republic and the Laws. Its elaboration of the "ship of state" metaphor improves upon the Republic. It also continues the discussion on conceptual analysis started in the Sophist and carries this over to the realm of politics. Its forceful case for monarchical rule as a type of "epistocracy" under uncertainty is fascinating because of its conceptual clarity and argumentative rigour. Its complex examination of the nature of good governance under less-than-ideal assumptions manages to partially answer the objection to the Republic that Platonic rule is too idealistic and rare. Yes, the essay is an absolutely essential piece in the Platonic puzzle.
Lastly, Philebus is Plato's condemnation of hedonism (what we today might call utilitarianism). I found myself unimpressed by most of Plato's arguments. Holding this against Plato might be a little bit unfair since utilitarian theory has had two thousand more years since Plato to deepen its arguments and respond to several objections to its doctrine. So, Plato's arguments here may sound a little bit naive but this is only because they belong to an early phase of the perennial debate. Thanks to his sharp wit, Plato manages to make a few spectacular jabs at naive hedonists, but his negative case against hedonism does not provide a good knockdown argument against it. At the same time, the essay's POSITIVE case for a rationally guided virtue ethics is one of the best and most concise expressions of Plato's theory of the mind and the normative power of goodness.
So where does this collection rate in terms of Plato's oeuvre? If you manage to sit through the boring mysticism and historical fantasy of Timaeus (and some of you might get a kick out of that, I know...), the rest of the collection is pretty excellent. Sure, the late essays mostly elaborate on, and sometimes repeat, old Platonic themes. But thanks to the maturation and development of Plato's thought, it contains some of his most mature, nuanced, interesting, and skilled arguments in the realm of conceptual analysis, epistemology, theory of the mind, ethics, and politics. Good work.
(PS. If you happen to be lucky enough to listen to the Audible version, the audio production is absolutely first class, from the choice of actors to the enunciation of the philosophical drama. This is how philosophical audiobooks should be produced - with exquisite attention to detail.)
Due to the highly colourful nature of Plato's interests in this period, his late essays are of varying style and quality, but every single essay is worth including. Some are worth including mostly for the historical interest, such as Timaeus and Critias which provide Plato's elaboration, in two parts, of the myth of Atlantis. Beyond historical interest, Timaeus is also fascinating for its metaphysical and religious doctrines even though their philosophical value is dubious. However, I would say that Critias is the more interesting of the two despite its unfinished nature, since it contains interesting ideas on the origins of Athenic civilization. Thankfully the other essays in this collection are worth including more for their first rate philosophical content, especially the Sophist and the Statesman. They can be best seen as mature developments and modifications of his earlier writings.
The Sophist is a first rate essay that advances some fresh ideas about language, communication, and ethics. Its methodology exemplifies a more "analytical" side of Plato that matches Aristotle. In particular, although it is an elaborate condemnation of sophistry, its juiciest philosophical substance comes from its discussion of the theory of forms, concepts, and identity. Stylistically, it represents perhaps the very best of Plato's essays. Absolutely first class.
Following up on The Sophist, the Statesman forms an unmissable cornerstone in the political triad of Plato, next to the Republic and the Laws. Its elaboration of the "ship of state" metaphor improves upon the Republic. It also continues the discussion on conceptual analysis started in the Sophist and carries this over to the realm of politics. Its forceful case for monarchical rule as a type of "epistocracy" under uncertainty is fascinating because of its conceptual clarity and argumentative rigour. Its complex examination of the nature of good governance under less-than-ideal assumptions manages to partially answer the objection to the Republic that Platonic rule is too idealistic and rare. Yes, the essay is an absolutely essential piece in the Platonic puzzle.
Lastly, Philebus is Plato's condemnation of hedonism (what we today might call utilitarianism). I found myself unimpressed by most of Plato's arguments. Holding this against Plato might be a little bit unfair since utilitarian theory has had two thousand more years since Plato to deepen its arguments and respond to several objections to its doctrine. So, Plato's arguments here may sound a little bit naive but this is only because they belong to an early phase of the perennial debate. Thanks to his sharp wit, Plato manages to make a few spectacular jabs at naive hedonists, but his negative case against hedonism does not provide a good knockdown argument against it. At the same time, the essay's POSITIVE case for a rationally guided virtue ethics is one of the best and most concise expressions of Plato's theory of the mind and the normative power of goodness.
So where does this collection rate in terms of Plato's oeuvre? If you manage to sit through the boring mysticism and historical fantasy of Timaeus (and some of you might get a kick out of that, I know...), the rest of the collection is pretty excellent. Sure, the late essays mostly elaborate on, and sometimes repeat, old Platonic themes. But thanks to the maturation and development of Plato's thought, it contains some of his most mature, nuanced, interesting, and skilled arguments in the realm of conceptual analysis, epistemology, theory of the mind, ethics, and politics. Good work.
(PS. If you happen to be lucky enough to listen to the Audible version, the audio production is absolutely first class, from the choice of actors to the enunciation of the philosophical drama. This is how philosophical audiobooks should be produced - with exquisite attention to detail.)
June 10, 2020
Plato's late period seems way more systematic and going deeper into the topics at hand than the previous works.
I've always heard about the Timaeus before but I thought it would only speak about the cosmogony and cosmology according to Plato's mathematical and geometrical theories. But it also talks about the creation of mankind, physiology and the hierarchy of deities in the universe. It's fascinating not for the truth in its claims but for the project it set out to do in creating a systematic view of the universe and the sciences according to Plato's philosophical theories.
Critias was the one that caught my attention the least. It's an interesting legend but I think I lack the background to understand what is its philosophical relevance.
The Sophist and The Statement seem to be two parts of a whole where the participants talk to The Stranger who uses a method of classification and division that reminds me of what I heard about Aristotle. By division and exclusion in a dialectical way they try to come to definitions of what a Sophist actually do and what a Statesman should be. Some of the most famous political theories have their roots here, although I definitely don't agree with the view that the Stranger proposes for what a Statesman should be doing.
Finally, there is also Philebus which was surprisingly interesting. A disputation on what is the greatest good: wisdom or pleasure. Socrates sets out to defend that wisdom is better, but I appreciate how intellectually honest he seems to be by coming to conclusions that wisdom by itself is not the greatest good although it is still better than pleasure by itself. It shows a better understanding of the world and that one thing can't be taken out of context.
I've always heard about the Timaeus before but I thought it would only speak about the cosmogony and cosmology according to Plato's mathematical and geometrical theories. But it also talks about the creation of mankind, physiology and the hierarchy of deities in the universe. It's fascinating not for the truth in its claims but for the project it set out to do in creating a systematic view of the universe and the sciences according to Plato's philosophical theories.
Critias was the one that caught my attention the least. It's an interesting legend but I think I lack the background to understand what is its philosophical relevance.
The Sophist and The Statement seem to be two parts of a whole where the participants talk to The Stranger who uses a method of classification and division that reminds me of what I heard about Aristotle. By division and exclusion in a dialectical way they try to come to definitions of what a Sophist actually do and what a Statesman should be. Some of the most famous political theories have their roots here, although I definitely don't agree with the view that the Stranger proposes for what a Statesman should be doing.
Finally, there is also Philebus which was surprisingly interesting. A disputation on what is the greatest good: wisdom or pleasure. Socrates sets out to defend that wisdom is better, but I appreciate how intellectually honest he seems to be by coming to conclusions that wisdom by itself is not the greatest good although it is still better than pleasure by itself. It shows a better understanding of the world and that one thing can't be taken out of context.
January 7, 2025
Timaeus: cosmology, gods, humans and so on. Here one finds the modern physical notion that at the basis of everything is the number (or maybe some geometrical figure) and that everything is composed of some basic and rational elements.
Critias: after the introduction and when things promised to turn interesting, the dialogue stops as the rest was lost.
Sophist: the best dialogue here and one of Plato's finest - goes into the nature of sophist and into fundamental ontological issues like Being and non-Being.
Statesman: a continuation of The Republic and on the nature of the statesman (as opposed to the sophist and philosopher).
Philebus: sensual versus intellectual pleasures - with Socrates defending “the life of the mind”.
Critias: after the introduction and when things promised to turn interesting, the dialogue stops as the rest was lost.
Sophist: the best dialogue here and one of Plato's finest - goes into the nature of sophist and into fundamental ontological issues like Being and non-Being.
Statesman: a continuation of The Republic and on the nature of the statesman (as opposed to the sophist and philosopher).
Philebus: sensual versus intellectual pleasures - with Socrates defending “the life of the mind”.
Read
August 20, 2020(tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews