Plato's Pod: Dialogues on the works of Plato

Our coverage of Plato’s longest dialogue, The Laws, continues with a discussion on Book II, building on the connection of virtue and happiness that was emphasized in Book I. As the Athenian, Cretan, and Spartan proceed in considering the ideal framework for a constitution, the theme of harmony in the soul and in the community is central to Book II. How are children to be educated, to instill in them a sense of virtue and to find happiness in its pursuit? When members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups convened on March 24, 2024, questions were raised about a perceived elitism in Plato and whether his educational approach is a form of indoctrination, any more than modern education might be considered as such. In any event, some form of understanding is required to find virtue in the “general concord of reason and emotion,” and Book II focuses on learning to judge the consequences of pleasure and pain that motivate human behaviour. We’ll follow in our next episode with Book III, beginning where Book II ends highlighting the importance of correctly determining proportions and fidelity in representations.

If the constitution for Crete’s new colony, Magnesia, is to succeed in setting the conditions for virtue among its citizens, self control and courage will be required to conquer the pains but equally the pleasures that visit every human life. This is the conclusion of the Athenian, Clinias, and Megillus in the second part of Book I of Plato’s dialogue The Laws, which highlights the benefits of harmony to a society that equips citizens both to govern and to be governed. Members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups met on March 3, 2024 to explore these themes and consider parallels to modern social issues, when virtue is now seldom equated with happiness as it was when the U.S. Constitution was framed some 2,100 years after Plato’s writing. And what of the Athenian’s encouragement for citizens to engage in drinking parties as a test of virtue and self control? It’s both a curious and amusing feature of Book I that we’ll pursue when we read Book II of The Laws in our next meeting, rescheduled to March 24.

Plato’s Pod began discussing Book I of Plato’s longest dialogue, the Laws, which advances the argument for the constitution of Crete’s new colony to cultivate the virtue of its citizens. It’s unlike the war-focussed constitution of Crete itself, represented in the discussion by the character Clinias, and the laws of Sparta whose spokesman is Megillus, but together with the unnamed Athenian they agree that a society of virtuous citizens will be peaceful and enduring. On February 18, 2024, members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups turned to the dialogue’s beginning armed with knowledge of Book X, which opened our extended series on the Laws by exploring Plato’s presentation of the universe as having a soul and, at its core, the supremacy of Reason. Everything comes to be from a cause and Reason and, in Book I, virtue is presented as the reason for a peaceful and just society. Is there a lesson for the world now, 2,400 years after Plato wrote the Laws, in the pursuit of collective virtue as a higher good than the quest for individual freedom? Would a focus on virtue replace the present discord with harmony? Our discussion covered many of the practical considerations including security and protection of material possessions, the problems of measuring cause and effect over time, and the benefit of citizens who (in the words of the Athenian) know both “how to rule and be ruled as justice demands.” Such skill requires self control, a subject we’ll discuss in our next episode when we will cover the second half of Book I of the Laws.

Plato's Pod continues its series on Plato's longest work, The Laws, picking up where we left off two weeks ago with the second part of Book X, near the end of the dialogue. In Book X, the three characters - an unnamed Athenian speaking with Clinias (from Crete) and Megillus (from Sparta) - set out the logic for reason as the primary cause of the universe, and reason's central function in the soul's moderation of need and desire. But have the three gone too far in prescribing the death penalty for any citizen of Crete's new colony, Magnesia, who refuses after every attempt at explanation and reconciliation to acknowledge reason as a god? On February 4, 2024, members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups met to consider the arguments. Is it just to impose reason in the form of a "state religion," one participant asked, or have the Athenian, Clinias, and Megillus adequately established that reason is no longer a matter of belief but a matter of fact? How do they define "impiety," for which death is the ultimate penalty, and is it fair to see it as a disease and demand that non-believers justify themselves? Some fascinating perspectives were offered in our discussion on the very different view of the universe and soul that is presented in Book X, which we will revisit when we turn to the beginning of The Laws in our next episode.

On January 21, 2024, Plato's Pod began its extended series on Plato's longest and perhaps most enigmatic and impenetrable dialogue, The Laws, which is said to have been his final work. Members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups began by discussing Book X, near the end of the dialogue, which features Plato's cosmology. The immaterial soul, says the unnamed Athenian speaking with a Cretan and Spartan, is the oldest thing in the universe, older than material physical matter and therefore the primary cause of all motion. Our discussion ranged from Plato's definition of "god" and the soul's power of persuasion, to the basis of the soul's laws. Are the laws rooted in universal nature, or in the time-bound variability of convention? Many fascinating points were raised, setting the stage for the second half of Book X in our next episode.

Plato brought the legend of Atlantis to the world in the Timaeus, and in the Critias provided many details of the fabulously wealthy and technologically advanced society that fell into disharmony and disappeared in a great earthquake 9,000 years earlier. As the character Critias relates the story, over time the Atlanteans gradually forgot their divine origin from the god Poseidon and began to pursue material wealth, losing their harmony and bringing upon themselves the punishment of Zeus. On December 3, 2023, members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups addressed the curious ending of the tale told by the character Critias, just as he was about to quote the words of Zeus. Was this cliff-hanger, “and he said …” a theatrical device of Plato, or a case of lost writing, or was Plato telling us that no human can know the mind of a god? The theme of memory plays throughout the dialogue, and Critias says that memory is particularly difficult when opinion applies in representing human actions over time. Was the ancient story that Critias relates a warning to the Athenians of his time about social constitutions like those of Atlantis that become too rigidly rooted in the past, and are there warnings in it for our time? The mystery of Atlantis has endured for 2,400 years since Plato’s writing, and in our discussion we may have found some clues to understanding the lessons of Atlantean history.

Plato’s Pod concluded its revisiting of Plato’s Timaeus, covering from 53(a) to 72(d) with a focus on sensory perception in relation to triangles and what have come to be known as the five Platonic solids because of this dialogue. It was 2,400 years ago, when Plato wrote Timaeus, that he revealed to the world knowledge of the only five regular solids in the universe. Why did Plato, who was a geometer as well as a philosopher, go to great lengths to make the character Timaeus discuss triangles and the five regular solids in such detail? A fascinating discussion ensued on November 18, 2023 when members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups brought forth ideas on our souls’ capacity for measurement of the “necessities” in the surrounding realm of Becoming, and the ethical implications of our measurements. The exceptional properties of the five Platonic solids were discussed, and perhaps most intriguing was one member’s question about the spherical universe that Timaeus presents: “Is there a triangle in the very center of the sphere?”

How does perception of shape relate to our understanding of time, when everything we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear is in a constant state of motion and change? The question occupied members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups on November 5, 2023 in reading the assertions of the astronomer Timaeus on the interplay of proportions and probabilities in a spherical universe with a soul circling around its middle. Beginning at 48(a) in the dialogue, Timaeus introduces the concepts of Necessity, a container for the limits of things in the process of Becoming, and the four fundamental physical elements of earth, fire, water, and air – the latter two of which intermediate the first two. What does all of this mean? And what came first in the universe: physical objects, or intelligence? We will pick up in our next episode where we left off in this, with triangles and the five Platonic solids.

Plato’s Pod continues its coverage of Plato’s Timaeus, from 30(d)-47(e) where the astronomer Timaeus explains the construction of the universe centered on the soul. On October 22, 2023, members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups discussed the soul’s vantage in the timeless realm of Being relative to motions in the universe’s physical realm of Becoming, and our capacity for reason to differentiate and integrate information received from the physical senses. Timaeus claims that knowledge of proportion is essential to reason, which is one of the questions that the group considered. Participants brought forward many fascinating observations, including a comparison of today’s atomic model to the way Timaeus depicts the universe as spherical. The session ended with Timaeus’ unique description of the nature of time, which we will revisit at the beginning of the next meeting.

Why does Plato’s Timaeus, on the creation of the universe, begin with Socrates disavowing the imagined city of The Republic? As Socrates and the astronomer Timaeus review their discussion of the previous day, which was the basis of Plato's epic on justice and political organization, Socrates declares that he can’t picture the idealized city in motion. It’s a question discussed by members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups on October 8, 2023, when Plato’s Pod revisited the first part of the Timaeus, covering to 30(d). Why does Plato's dialogue then go on to discuss the legend of Atlantis, before Timaeus describes the fundamental division of the universe between Being – which is the realm of the observer – and Becoming, which is the part of the universe that consists of physical limits? Many fascinating points were raised by participants, touching on the scientific method, determinism and probability, the nature of time as linear or circular, and much more.

Plato’s Pod introduces its 4th season by demonstrating the relevance of ancient philosophy to modern technology with the question, “What Would Socrates Say About ChatGPT?” We take Socrates to the offices of OpenAI to meet the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, and imagine the questions that Socrates would have after the technology is explained to him. In the course of the imagined meeting, we bring a number of Plato’s dialogues previously featured in the podcast into consideration, including the Cratylus, The Republic, the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Meno, the Statesman, the Theaetetus, the Critias, and the Philebus. What do you think - are there some timeless and fundamentally questions about our relationship with technology?

What is our relationship with the laws of the society of which we are a part, and what should we do when the laws are misapplied by a misguided majority? For Socrates, in Plato’s Crito, the answer was clear: to endure the consequences, since he benefited from Athenian society and its constitution for seventy years. Wrongly convicted, and faced with his execution in two days, Socrates tells his friend Crito that it is not right for an individual to take the laws into his own hands, even if the laws have been corrupted by their custodians. On June 26, 2023, members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups convened to consider Crito’s reasoning for Socrates’ escape, and the conversation with the laws that Socrates stages at the end of the dialogue. One participant observed there is a family metaphor with Athens throughout the dialogue. Another participant asked, is it philosophy itself that Socrates was defending? And indeed, if Socrates had followed Crito’s advice and bribed his way out of prison, would we be discussing Socrates now, 2,400 years after Plato wrote about him?

“We are all Ions,” one participant observed, and maybe that’s truly the case if each one of us is a link in a storytelling chain. In Plato’s dialogue the Ion, Socrates reminds the title character, who is a proponent of the poet Homer, that since Homer represented an idea, Ion is representing Homer’s representation. With each successive representation, some of the original idea is altered to suit the memory and external influences acting on the storyteller. Is each one of us acting as a representative of a representative of one, or many, original idea(s)? Plato’s short dialogue was the subject of a great discussion and originality of ideas among members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups on June 11, 2023. We concluded that while, like Ion, we all need inspiration, care must be taken to avoid the wrong path because every one of us learns from our failures. In Socrates’ analogy, of the divine power as a magnetic stone that moves surrounding souls as if they were iron rings, where do we stand in relation to each other? What if, as one participant observed, Socrates intended to represent philosophy itself – the original idea – in the magnetic stone, as the timeless presence always in our midst?

In the opening of the last third of Plato’s Symposium, the very drunken Alcibiades erupts in a comic and dramatic demonstration of his love for Socrates. When members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups met on May 28, 2023, we noted that whereas the previous six speeches were about love in the abstract, Plato chose to end the dialogue with the practical. In our discussion, Alcibiades was compared to the prisoner in the cave of Plato’s Republic, caught in between, and pained by, the contrast of the light of love’s beauty and the shadowy images on the cave wall. One observed that Alcibiades was trying to leave the cave, but without the right reasons. And at the end of our discussion, we came to see that Alcibiades’ inability to escape his love from Socrates is a metaphor for Athens’ inability to escape Socrates, and that Socrates’ own fate may be an example of the dangers when the enlightened reveal the truth, of which the prisoner in the cave was warned. It was a fabulous conclusion to three amazing meetings on Plato’s Symposium.

Speeches on love, first by Aristophanes, then Agathon, followed by Socrates who relates the wisdom of Diotima, lead us to wonder whether love is, as Diotima says, the mortal human's search for the immortality of the universe. On May 14, 2023, members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups gathered to piece together the grains of truth from the first six speakers in the symposium, or drinking party, attended by hungover Athenians. In our discussion, we agreed that love is expressed not only between humans, but by philosophers who are, by definition, lovers of wisdom. Some fascinating perspectives on love, and love's purpose, emerged. Our dialogue spoke to themes that touch on an eternal equality of division between one soul and another, and the fluid motion of all souls among the one. Perhaps, as Diotima observed, we are all pregnant and looking to give birth in beauty - whether the birth is that of another human, or the inception of an enduring memory of a great human craft. As one member observed, the childless da Vinci gave birth to a beautiful memory that grows stronger in time - and in this great discussion, some memorable observations were made on love, the thing we all want more of.

In our first of three sessions on Plato's Symposium, the dialogue on love that occurs among a group of hungover Athenians, participants from the Toronto, Calgary, and Philosophy Meetup groups pointed to grains of truth in the poetry of love presented by three speakers at the symposium. On April 30, 2023 we met to read parts of the three speeches, each of which examines love from a different perspective, to look for a common thread. Is love a god that rules over us, or is love ours to fashion? Love, several members reminded us, is not just between people, but also between people and knowledge - thus the word philosophy, which means "love of wisdom." The path to wisdom is paved with knowledge, and there were some uniquely powerful expressions of knowledge that harmonized in our dialogue on the theme of love.

What is the truth? In our previous discussion, we heard the conclusion of Socrates that measurement is the greatest skill that we can exercise. The title character of Plato’s Lesser Hippias, or Hippias Minor, is unable to separate cause and effect in the motions of time, and the dialogue challenges not only Hippias but the reader to measure the difference that separates truth and lie – not just in objective physical outcomes but also in subjective value judgments. It’s a matter of special importance now, 2,400 years later, as technology is used to generate and broadcast value judgments globally, often anonymously and of questionable intent. As one participant pointed out, truth and lie can both be present at the same time and, as the observer, it’s the soul’s job to measure its own relative perspective in distinguishing the difference. Recalling the division of the line of knowledge that Socrates describes in The Republic, gauging differences in perspective may be our guide to the path of truth that connects our hypotheses to the first principles of things – especially with predictive technologies like ChatGPT that we discussed in the conclusion.

In concluding our 3-part series on Plato’s Protagoras, a consensus may have emerged that virtue is not a universal form – but if it has no consistent definition, what is virtue, and can it be taught? Members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups convened on March 26, 2023 to consider the teachability of virtue, which is the subject of Plato’s dialogue. If virtue is really a form of knowledge, as Socrates concludes, then it can be taught, but that would contradict Socrates’ initial view that virtue is not teachable. Meanwhile, the position of the sophist Protagoras appears to have changed to the point where he argues that virtue is not a matter of knowledge, and so as Socrates points out, the upshot of the discussion is “topsy-turvy.” Maybe the real question, as one participant observed, “"What is the motivation of these people teaching virtue, what is the advantage...?"

Is there a first principle of virtue? If virtue is knowledge that can be taught, does the teacher need to know the limits of virtue as a single thing - or does virtue consist of a range of attributes, each with different limits that are somehow connected? These and more questions on the nature of virtue were the subject of discussion on March 12, 2023 among members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups. In considering the dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras, the former holding that virtue is unteachable and the latter claiming qualifications as its teacher, some felt that Socrates established unfair advantage over the sophist with words and leading questions. Is virtue a matter of social conventions, and has Socrates met his match? At one point even Socrates questions his own abilities, as he attempts to demonstrate flaws in the knowledge claimed by Protagoras. Or, is virtue knowable only through a process of dialectic, if all knowledge is recollection as Socrates stated in the Meno? We will attempt to reach some conclusions, and maybe even define the thing that we call virtue, in two weeks' time in our final session on Plato's Protagoras.

Plato’s dialogue Protagoras revolves around the question of whether virtue can be taught. If it can, then how do we define virtue? Is there a universal form for virtue, one thing alone that defines virtue regardless of our cultural, religious, or family circumstances? If virtue is not taught, how would anyone acquire the essential attributes that are needed to govern societies such as ours? Whether the sophist Protagoras has a valid justification for his selling of knowledge or not, Socrates’ position that virtue cannot be taught came under fire during the discussion of members of the Toronto, Calgary, and Chicago Philosophy Meetup groups on February 26, 2023. We will reconvene on March 12 for the second part of the Protagoras, where the title character and Socrates continue their battle of words, each with a fierce dedication to his differing views. Socrates is on the ropes more than once, and we begin to wonder if he has met his match in a roomful of sophists.