Plato: Letters to my Son

by Neel Burton

"Impeccably smooth, 'Letters to my Son' is a kind of dream biography that flows like a summer's day." —Charis Cheevers

An eagle’s old age is better than the youth of a sparrow. Greek proverb

If ever I have achieved anything that might outlive me, it was not for the support and encouragement of my ageing uncles or anyone else in my family, but because I had the courage – they might say the temerity – to resist and defy them whenever they tried to return me to the hackneyed path that I had chosen to leave, and that, in the end, led to their perdition. The hardest thing in life is not to have a vision, for even my uncles once had a vision, but to live it out, to make the hard choices, for the greater good, whatever the costs might seem.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2013

About the author

Dr Neel Burton is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine-lover who lives and teaches in Oxford, England. He is a Fellow of Green-Templeton College in the University of Oxford, and the winner of several book prizes including, the feather in his cap, a Best in the World Gourmand Award. His work features regularly in the likes of Aeon and Psychology Today and has been translated into several languages. When he is not reading or writing, or imbibing, he enjoys cooking, gardening, skiing, learning languages, visiting museums and gardens, and travelling, especially to wine regions.

His books include:

- The Meaning of Myth (Ancient Wisdom 1)
- Stoic Stories (Ancient Wisdom 2)
- The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (Ancient Wisdom 3)
- The Meaning of Madness (Ataraxia 1)
- Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception (Ataraxia 2)
- Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions (Ataraxia 3)

www.neelburton.com

Reviews

[Anzor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a series of letters written by Plato on his deathbed, in which he addresses his little-known and possibly fictional “son”, Adimantes, and gives him advice and guidance distilled from eighty years of life in Athens and throughout the Mediterranean, including Libya, Italy, and Sicily.

Neel Burton has obviously conducted extensive and thorough research, and blends what is known about Plato’s life with the work of his imagination. The book flows beautifully. There are a few passages that are particularly striking, and the chapter in which Plato recalls the prosecution of Socrates is one of the highlights of the book. The chapter is based on Plato's "Apology" and is delivered with extraordinary wit and skill. In one of the passages, Plato mentions how he uses Socrates as a literary device in his dialogues. While reading "Plato: Letters to My Son,” I felt like Burton likewise used Plato as a literary device to express not only what Plato might have been thinking on his deathbed, but also what Burton himself considers to be philosophical truth. Feeling this congruence between the author and his literary device was particularly appealing.

One way in which the book is successful is that it can be read by a wide array of different age groups and professions. Plato addresses multiple themes, including life and love, friendship and family, pleasure, justice, politics, war, death, and so on. Each discussion packs much wisdom. Therefore, the book would be interesting not only to philosophers and philosophy students, but also to anyone interested in history, politics, mathematics, linguistics, and even management and psychology (there is a striking passage reminiscent of the concept of Carl Jung's collective unconscious, and Freud's interpretation of dreams). Burton skillfully incorporates many famous ideas and concepts linked to Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras and other important philosophers, and I was very excited to stumble upon passages in which Plato discusses well-known philosophical paradigms such as the allegory of the cave and the geometry lesson of the slave boy.

I am not a philosophy student, nor have I read many philosophical works. Coming across this book was an eye-opener for me and has significantly expanded my interest in classical Greek philosophy and philosophers. As Plato writes to his son, "teaching is not a matter of closing the mind, but of opening it; and if, at the end, the pupil feels dazed, muddled, and humbled, then he has suffered the greatest good of all.” The book has definitely humbled me and made me very curious to read more about Plato, Socrates and the other ancient philosophers.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a sense this is a celebration of what Burton learned from the Greeks

Plato is growing old so much so that he can barely speak above a whisper yet he feels he must write to his son Adimantes about his life. This work of imagination from Burton who is a psychiatrist and a philosopher can therefore be called a historical novel written in epistolary form.

The novel recalls a bit of the history of Athens, the trial and death of Socrates (of course), Plato’s remembrances of other philosophers and their ideas as well as Plato’s own ideas. Burton quotes liberally from the works that have come down to us from the Greeks, especially those like the Apology and the Phaedo and works by Diogenes Laertius. Because there is no plot to speak of and because the emphasis here is on ideas and not events, this reads more like a fictionalized memoir than a novel.

I have the sense that Burton spent a lot of time studying the Greek philosophers and their work and felt compelled to express what he had experienced, and somehow decided upon this curious form. The book includes several pages of notes, an Index of Names, two maps, and six appendices, viz.

1: History of Athens up to the time of Plato
2: The wheel of Theodorus
3: The slave boy’s lesson in geometry
4: Plato’s line
5: Plato’s cave
6: Timeline of ancient philosophers

Appendices 2-5 are drawings. The history is about 15 pages long and like everything written by Burton is eminently readable.

I took some notes as I was reading:

Here is Plato exulting in the fate that awaits him: “If my death is not, as I say it is, a journey to another place, then it is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, in which case it is no more than a deep and peaceful sleep and all eternity but a single night.” (p. 25)

Here is Solon regretting the lack of binding force in the laws while likening them “to the strands of a cobweb ‘in that if anything small or trifling falls into them, they hold it fast, but if anything large or powerful falls into them, it breaks through the meshes and escapes.’” (p, 30) Still true today.

And here is Plato being sarcastic: “Of course, there is nothing to stop good men from turning up amongst the ranks of the noble. Such men deserve the highest praise, for it is especially difficult to live one’s life justly when one has been given ample freedom to commit the gravest injustices.” (pp. 36-37)

And here is a bit of Platonic wit (reminding me somehow of Mark Twain, who I’m sure read Plato): “But, unlike the majority of men, I have never been much good at fooling myself, and, try as I might, I could not bring myself to think of my military service as anything but a dangerous distraction.” (p. 45)

Here Plato explains in part the why and wherefore of the Socratic method of dialogue: “This method has yet another advantage, especially in the early days, namely, to protect me from any potential detractors, who would have found it difficult to charge me with holding any particular opinion or defending any particular position. In short, having revealed my master, I found that I could easily hide behind him.” (p. 53)

As Socrates is about to speak in answer to some of his accusers before a large crowd and the five hundred members of the jury, Plato describes “a silence so still that I could hear the piercing cry of a golden eagle soaring high above the agora...” (p. 83) Nice.

One more: “Just as philosophy leads to friendship, so friendship leads to philosophy, for philosophy and friendship are aspects of one and the same impulse, one and the same love: the love that seeks to know.” (p. 167)

Although this is a beautiful book I don’t think it is completely realized. Instead of a narrative of ideas and vignettes I think Burton could have encased it all in a dramatic form with a rising tension and then a denouement in the Greek dramatic tradition.

Incidentally (and this is perhaps no big deal) but “Plato: Letters to My Son” is the most typo-free book I have read in years.

—Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”


--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neel Burton's "Plato: Letters to my Son" is a series of letters written by Plato on his deathbed to his son, in which he gives little bits of advice and guidance taken from his own life. I was totally impressed by the research Dr. Burton must have gone through for this book in order to show what Plato's life might have been like along with the author using his own imagination. Filled with Greek Mythology, this is a must read for all ages.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the author which was provided for an honest review.

[Olehdubno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book introduces the reader to the history of Athens and the hardships that Plato dealt with. To his son, Plato communicates how to deal with the inevitable failures and hardships that are to come when embarking on the path of philosophy. Great read!!!

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well crafted and meticulously researched.