The World of Plato: How to Understand Plato's Philosophy

In this lecture, we explore and examine Plato's philosophy and explain how to avoid common mistakes when reading and interpreting Plato. In this talk, we cover the theory of the forms and the cosmos, Plato politics as an opponent of tyranny (against Karl Popper's interpretation of Plato), why Plato doesn't advocate world flight, and the meaning of the soul in the world.

0:00-1:15 - Why Plato Matters
1:15-8:49 - Plato's Cosmos
8:49-24:08 - Plato's Politics
24:08-29:04 - The Problem of "World Flight"
29:04-32:25 - The Soul in the World
32:25-35:36 - Summary & Conclusion
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is a political philosopher, literary critic, and classicist. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, politics, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous publications in the English-speaking world. He is the author of Finding Arcadia (2023), The Odyssey of Love (2021), and the Politics of Plato (2020); he has also contributed to The College Lecture Today (2019) and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters (2022).
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[aaronezekiel]

Very interesting . Thank you . Greater insight into Plato's theory.

[Coltrane]

I will have to revisit The Timaeus within a more political frame of mind.

[canisronis]

What would Plato have thought about the Mandelbrot set? Perhaps the bridge over the divided line?

[j.j.negrontv]

That thumbnail is so evocative, I just had to click.