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Very Short Introductions #079
Plato: A Very Short Introduction
No philosopher has equaled Plato for the imagination & creativity with which he engages readers, enticing them to join in philosophical conversation. This survey introduces Plato’s many-sided, elusive genius in a way that is both stimulating & accessible. In ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind & theory of knowledge, Plato’s wide-ranging, bold & influential ideas continue to challenge, provoke & inspire us today.
List of illustrations
Arguing with Plato
Plato's name & other matters
Drama, fiction & the elusive author
Love, sex, gender & philosophy
Virtue, in me & in my society
My soul & myself
Nature of things
References
Further reading
Index
Picture Credits
List of illustrations
Arguing with Plato
Plato's name & other matters
Drama, fiction & the elusive author
Love, sex, gender & philosophy
Virtue, in me & in my society
My soul & myself
Nature of things
References
Further reading
Index
Picture Credits
Audiobook
First published February 13, 2003
126 people are currently reading
1810 people want to read
About the author
Julia Annas
45 books46 followersJulia Annas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona and author of several books for Oxford University Press, including An Introduction to Plato's Republic and The Morality of Happiness. She is also series editor for the Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
June 2, 2014
Annas focuses on providing as nonintrusive an introduction to Plato as possible for the beginning reader. He does not try to cover the vast array of topics that the prolific Plato has touched on but instead tries to give a general structure on how to approach the dialogues. Annas conveys the difficult yet rewarding nature of reading Plato: that Plato is intensely concerned both with unbiased argument and also with with bold and assertive ideas - creating a subtle contradiction that pervades his technique. The book wants the reader to accept very early on that Plato is diverse in a way that is hard to capture without simplification. One almost feels that Annas is chiding the reader for picking up a VSI on such a thinker as Plato.
The strength of this introduction to Plato then is that it does not attempt either to cover all of Plato's ideas or to provide a recipe for interpreting him, but rather aims to introduce the reader to long-term engagement with Plato. This is done by carefully showing the nature of Plato’s approach towards Philosophy - one of a careful avoidance of dogma.
Plato takes great pains to avoid any pretense towards having a final solution in almost all of his dialogues. As Plato makes a respected older philosopher say to Socrates, in the Parmenides, ‘the further work the theory needs is to be found in the practice of argument’. And this advice of Plato is what this VSI asks the reader to keep in mind as they embark on their own exploration and a lifetime of discussion and engagement (hopefully).
November 28, 2021
The Very Short Introduction Series by Oxford is a bit hit or miss—some are excellent, others mediocre. Some of the titles are reprints from Oxford’s former series called Past Masters originally published in the 80’s (which has been presently reprinted with new covers). Some are new commissions such as Annas’ Plato. This series now extends its scope of introduction to more than just significant individual thinkers, artists, musicians, scientists and so forth, but also to various theoretical concepts, be they religious, scientific, philosophical, historical, practices and disciplines, and so forth. As such, the titles reflect the audience to whom they are aimed; namely, the lower level undergraduate.
Given the intended audience, Annas’ book is deficient for the introductory level—it fails to provide an adequate account of the most pertinent aspects of Plato’s thought. When giving the lower classman the basics of a thinker such as Plato, at least the following should be considered. First, give the historical context in which Plato worked. Secondly, discuss the significance and importance of his work, perhaps briefly commenting some scholarly concerns about the lexical and chronological ordering of Plato’s dialogues, and maybe discuss some salient literary features of his writings. Thirdly, cut to the chase and explicate Plato’s thoughts and theses. Lastly, summarize by showing how his thoughts have been, are, and might continue to be influential and perhaps state some areas of scholarly concern. Annas does most of this.
In this short book, Annas spends plenty of time insuring that the reader is well aware that the traditional English language practice of using the pronoun “him” impersonally is sexist language. Given her point, Annas takes many opportunities to emplace a “her’ or “she” where the word “one” or “it” could easily have sufficed. I found this all far too annoying and it detracts from the content of the book. Frankly, I’m just weary of hearing this trivial stuff repeatedly in academia. We get the point already. Muddying up a book about Plato with politically correct agendas is tiring. This book is too short for this sort of stuff. Instead of taking up limited space explaining this sort of thing, which has no bearing on introducing Plato’s thoughts to newcomers, she could have spent more time on, say, Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology, and political views.
Annas spends an entire chapter discussing the 'oh so' philosophically and historically important views about sexuality and gender. Mind you, this is a book designed to introduce the novice to the immensely interesting and deep thought of Plato. After taking up an excessive amount of space on feminism and its relation to Plato, she concludes: “[S]tudying Plato has little to contribute to modern feminist discussion.” Then why waste so much time on this when you could have explained, must I say it again, Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology?
This is not to say that Annas does not mention Plato’s views on knowledge, the soul, or virtue. She does, but it is all so cursory. Having said that, she makes scant mention of Plato’s most famous idea: The Theory of Forms. I can’t conceive of any plausible way of justifying the virtual omission of such a paramount notion, which is especially salient for the beginner’s understanding of Plato.
There are much better basic introductions to Plato than this; for instance, R. M. Hare’s book in the Past Masters series, also by Oxford.
Given the intended audience, Annas’ book is deficient for the introductory level—it fails to provide an adequate account of the most pertinent aspects of Plato’s thought. When giving the lower classman the basics of a thinker such as Plato, at least the following should be considered. First, give the historical context in which Plato worked. Secondly, discuss the significance and importance of his work, perhaps briefly commenting some scholarly concerns about the lexical and chronological ordering of Plato’s dialogues, and maybe discuss some salient literary features of his writings. Thirdly, cut to the chase and explicate Plato’s thoughts and theses. Lastly, summarize by showing how his thoughts have been, are, and might continue to be influential and perhaps state some areas of scholarly concern. Annas does most of this.
In this short book, Annas spends plenty of time insuring that the reader is well aware that the traditional English language practice of using the pronoun “him” impersonally is sexist language. Given her point, Annas takes many opportunities to emplace a “her’ or “she” where the word “one” or “it” could easily have sufficed. I found this all far too annoying and it detracts from the content of the book. Frankly, I’m just weary of hearing this trivial stuff repeatedly in academia. We get the point already. Muddying up a book about Plato with politically correct agendas is tiring. This book is too short for this sort of stuff. Instead of taking up limited space explaining this sort of thing, which has no bearing on introducing Plato’s thoughts to newcomers, she could have spent more time on, say, Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology, and political views.
Annas spends an entire chapter discussing the 'oh so' philosophically and historically important views about sexuality and gender. Mind you, this is a book designed to introduce the novice to the immensely interesting and deep thought of Plato. After taking up an excessive amount of space on feminism and its relation to Plato, she concludes: “[S]tudying Plato has little to contribute to modern feminist discussion.” Then why waste so much time on this when you could have explained, must I say it again, Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology?
This is not to say that Annas does not mention Plato’s views on knowledge, the soul, or virtue. She does, but it is all so cursory. Having said that, she makes scant mention of Plato’s most famous idea: The Theory of Forms. I can’t conceive of any plausible way of justifying the virtual omission of such a paramount notion, which is especially salient for the beginner’s understanding of Plato.
There are much better basic introductions to Plato than this; for instance, R. M. Hare’s book in the Past Masters series, also by Oxford.
February 7, 2017
I'll review tomorrow.
November 22, 2021
Read this out of curiosity and boredom. The book extinguished the former in the first chapter, excited the latter all the way to the end.
A weak modern approach to Plato. Modern, in that it has chapters on gender and sexuality, largely ignores Ancient Greek history and context, and uses the feminine pronoun throughout (“the reader finds herself,” etc.). Weak, in that it's about 100 pages worth of university undergrad quality writing/research.
I’ve found books about individual people from the Very Short Introductions series to be generally bad compared to those about other categories of nouns (places, things). They're usually built on some flimsy thematic structure, with chapter headings like "Plato and Gender," "Goethe as Artist," etc.
Neither monographic, nor biographic, they end up just being cacographic.
If you knew absolutely nothing about Plato, you’d probably be better off just searching “Plato documentary” on YouTube and avoiding this book.
Or better yet, pick up one of Plato’s dialogues and read it. That's a much better way to spend a few hours.
A weak modern approach to Plato. Modern, in that it has chapters on gender and sexuality, largely ignores Ancient Greek history and context, and uses the feminine pronoun throughout (“the reader finds herself,” etc.). Weak, in that it's about 100 pages worth of university undergrad quality writing/research.
I’ve found books about individual people from the Very Short Introductions series to be generally bad compared to those about other categories of nouns (places, things). They're usually built on some flimsy thematic structure, with chapter headings like "Plato and Gender," "Goethe as Artist," etc.
Neither monographic, nor biographic, they end up just being cacographic.
If you knew absolutely nothing about Plato, you’d probably be better off just searching “Plato documentary” on YouTube and avoiding this book.
Or better yet, pick up one of Plato’s dialogues and read it. That's a much better way to spend a few hours.
April 18, 2020
Plato, mentee kepada Socrates. Plato adalah tokoh pertama yang menginstitusikan falsafah. Plato merupakan pengasas "Akademi". Antara hasil karya Plato yang aku biasa dengar: Apology, Crito, Republic, Meno, Theaetetus, Timaeus, dll.
Pengetahuan & Kepercayaan adalah 2 perkara yang berbeza. Pengetahuan boleh dipelajari, kepercayaan boleh dipupuk. Darjat "Pengetahuan" lebih tinggi dari "Kepercayaan" kerana untuk mendapatkan "Pengetahuan", seseorang perlu mempelajari subjek tersebut sehingga mampu membuat pengisahan sendiri. Manakala "Kepercayaan" boleh diterap ke dalam minda seseorang hanya dengan suatu penghujahan yang meyakinkan tanpa memerlukan pemahaman seseorang.
Platonik Dualism adalah sesuatu yang menarik. Beliau membincangkan hal "Roh" dan "Jasad", yang mana seterusnya menimbulkan persoalan berkaitan "Bentuk" (Form) dengan panjang lebar. Mula-mula baca, aku rasa ak dah faham. Tapi bila teruskan pembacaan, aku rasa aku tak faham apa-apa. Aku pun pening.
Menurut Plato, matematik merupakan alat asas dalam pembuktian falsafah. Kerana matematik boleh menjelaskan sesuatu yang abstrak dan subjektif walaupun benda tu tak wujud. Tetapi Plato cakap, matematik ni berada di tahap yang rendah dalam teras ilmu falsafah. Selaku orang yang lemah matematik, aku sangat down lepas baca statement ni. 😆
Pengetahuan & Kepercayaan adalah 2 perkara yang berbeza. Pengetahuan boleh dipelajari, kepercayaan boleh dipupuk. Darjat "Pengetahuan" lebih tinggi dari "Kepercayaan" kerana untuk mendapatkan "Pengetahuan", seseorang perlu mempelajari subjek tersebut sehingga mampu membuat pengisahan sendiri. Manakala "Kepercayaan" boleh diterap ke dalam minda seseorang hanya dengan suatu penghujahan yang meyakinkan tanpa memerlukan pemahaman seseorang.
Platonik Dualism adalah sesuatu yang menarik. Beliau membincangkan hal "Roh" dan "Jasad", yang mana seterusnya menimbulkan persoalan berkaitan "Bentuk" (Form) dengan panjang lebar. Mula-mula baca, aku rasa ak dah faham. Tapi bila teruskan pembacaan, aku rasa aku tak faham apa-apa. Aku pun pening.
Menurut Plato, matematik merupakan alat asas dalam pembuktian falsafah. Kerana matematik boleh menjelaskan sesuatu yang abstrak dan subjektif walaupun benda tu tak wujud. Tetapi Plato cakap, matematik ni berada di tahap yang rendah dalam teras ilmu falsafah. Selaku orang yang lemah matematik, aku sangat down lepas baca statement ni. 😆
October 27, 2020
The usual take on Plato is twofold. First, to try to separate Sokrates' thinking from his. Second, to trace the development of Plato's own thinking. Annas does neither. Instead she pretty much black-boxes Sokrates and doesn't try to resolve the contradictions in Plato's texts. Rather than attempting to trace the development of a 'Platonic doctrine', to even chronologically order the dialogues, she takes a minimalist approach. We don't know their order and the contradictions are just that, namely, different approaches to and hypotheses about the matters of concern to Plato. About that, about those concerns, and about the dialogical methods employed, we can speak.
As the subtitle has it, this is indeed a very short introduction to Plato. It might be read profitably by someone already familiar with the dialogues and letters or by one just approaching them.
The first book I ever reviewed for the Ares Press' journal, 'Ancient World', was Annas' study of ancient ethics. That was why I noticed this book at the Newberry Library's annual book sale and purchased it.
As the subtitle has it, this is indeed a very short introduction to Plato. It might be read profitably by someone already familiar with the dialogues and letters or by one just approaching them.
The first book I ever reviewed for the Ares Press' journal, 'Ancient World', was Annas' study of ancient ethics. That was why I noticed this book at the Newberry Library's annual book sale and purchased it.
June 13, 2020
Plato
A Very Short Introduction #79
Julia Annas
A Book about Plato that jumped right ahead into Plato's philosophy and dialogue giving a short account on almost everything in his work, it felt too fast and too short to cover all that plus the print I had was bad leading me to not like this book.
I do not think it is a good VSI I think it needs a bit of background to the subject, it serves a purpose and it is fast and too short so it might be good if you are writing a paper or something like that on him besides that :/
A Very Short Introduction #79
Julia Annas
A Book about Plato that jumped right ahead into Plato's philosophy and dialogue giving a short account on almost everything in his work, it felt too fast and too short to cover all that plus the print I had was bad leading me to not like this book.
I do not think it is a good VSI I think it needs a bit of background to the subject, it serves a purpose and it is fast and too short so it might be good if you are writing a paper or something like that on him besides that :/
June 8, 2025
Much worse than average for the OVSI series. Constructed of short and not well organized asides and digressions about things a new reader to Plato is likely not very concerned about. We learn about matters such as whether “Plato” his real name or just a nickname, the varieties of middle platonic and Neoplatonic schools, the seeming contradiction between the dialogue form and Plato’s thoughts on rhetoric and so on.
The treatment of knowledge at the beginning of the book is bizarrely cerebral for work in this series, and then we don’t return to anything on Plato’s thought until well past halfway into the book, where we then examine love and gender. Finally the questions of virtue, the soul, and the forms are all jammed into the final third of the book.
Not a good introduction to Plato.
The treatment of knowledge at the beginning of the book is bizarrely cerebral for work in this series, and then we don’t return to anything on Plato’s thought until well past halfway into the book, where we then examine love and gender. Finally the questions of virtue, the soul, and the forms are all jammed into the final third of the book.
Not a good introduction to Plato.
September 22, 2022
Annas prunes back Plato, describing his strategies and ideas with little reflection on their connectedness and development.
August 6, 2023
Probably the best introduction to Plato. Before this book, I've read VSI Series on Hume, just before I read Hume's Selected Essays, and that was great choice, because I can absorb more of Hume's ideas because I've already read the VSI series.
Now, I want to read Plato, and this VSI series come to mind, and for me this book did very good job. Julia Annas presents Plato's major ideas systematically but she always give "floating conclusion" about almost everything. That's what I'm looking for, the cliffhanger of thinking process, it sparks my curiousity to read the real Plato's work. A very short yet great introduction.
For my own notes, one of the unforgettable passage in this book is Plato's view of the soul. Simply put, that Plato divide self as soul and body, and these two are radically different. Plato never doubts that when I ask what I, myself really am, the answer will be that I am my soul, not my animated body. Hence Socrates, in his deathbed, jokingly reminds his friends that they will not burying him, only his body.
What a brilliant point of view, and by knowing that, I feel braver facing death and feel relieved about every dead person or relatives that I've met or I pray for.
Now, I want to read Plato, and this VSI series come to mind, and for me this book did very good job. Julia Annas presents Plato's major ideas systematically but she always give "floating conclusion" about almost everything. That's what I'm looking for, the cliffhanger of thinking process, it sparks my curiousity to read the real Plato's work. A very short yet great introduction.
For my own notes, one of the unforgettable passage in this book is Plato's view of the soul. Simply put, that Plato divide self as soul and body, and these two are radically different. Plato never doubts that when I ask what I, myself really am, the answer will be that I am my soul, not my animated body. Hence Socrates, in his deathbed, jokingly reminds his friends that they will not burying him, only his body.
What a brilliant point of view, and by knowing that, I feel braver facing death and feel relieved about every dead person or relatives that I've met or I pray for.
December 28, 2012
I must be alone in and against the clockwise direction of my little circle to find myself willing to entertain the new variants of platonism. There are two parts to this entertainment: the first elevates an ethical and aesthetic view inherited from Iris Murdoch, whose detail of Plato is content to remain unhistorical; whereas, the second is a substantial view about abstract objects that may not even fit best under a platonist heading. Contrasting these with the conservative naturalism (properly physicalism) popular amongst the people I know and it's perhaps understandable that I be easily picked out. So, if I stand to be mistaken for an ancient, then I suppose it's best to know for whom others will take me amiss.
This little volume on Plato is exceptionally clarified and almost laughably concise. Philosophy married to history, the relationship worked out carefully and with devotion, could hardly hope for a better child.
This little volume on Plato is exceptionally clarified and almost laughably concise. Philosophy married to history, the relationship worked out carefully and with devotion, could hardly hope for a better child.
May 2, 2016
Annas does an admirable job here considering how many counter-narratives there are about Plato and how much many fault lines there are in the scholarship. This leads to a non-intrusive and helpful introduction, but it doesn't give one solid rubric for interpretation. Annas does give a good overview of some of the seeming contradictions in Plato, particularly his very differing doctrines around the "soul" and the "forms." Annas does not try to delineate "true Plato" from "true Socrates" nor does she go through all the interpretation traditions or the sometimes contradictory biographical accounts of Plato. While some readers will be frustrated with this, a book of this length could not do this meaningfully. Annas does encourage close reading of Plato's work and gets a good background to the themes that one should notice in Plato scholarship.
March 16, 2021
Particularly good introduction because it first speaks about the different ways Plato was understood in ancient times and interpreted. More introductions / specialists should do that and then move on to some basic understanding and explanations about Plato's ideas.
For the people that are interested in The Republic I can also wholeheartedly recommend her book about that book.
For the people that are interested in The Republic I can also wholeheartedly recommend her book about that book.
July 16, 2019
This book is titled simply Plato. There is another book out there from a different publisher, Plato: A Very Short Introduction by the same author. It has a different cover, a different layout, and different illustrations, but the text is identical to this one. I've never taken a philosophy course, so this book was very welcome. It gave just enough historical background to support its discussion, and instead of giving a reading of Plato, it invited the reader to try to follow him and argue with him. It explained the mysterious numbering system that is standard with the study of Plato's works, and it noted that we apparently have his complete works, which is amazing for a writer from antiquity. It introduced the reader to Platonic irony, to the different approaches of different dialogues, to the open-ended nature of interpreting him (since we don't know the order of the dialogues and since he approaches the same questions from different angles without definitively clarifying or reconciling his positions.) The author relieves us of the burden of understanding the theory of forms, since Plato never proposed one in so many words, but only alluded to the idea of forms in several dialogues, always assuming the reader knew what he meant and even giving six arguments against them. A welcome, clear, and non-dogmatic introduction.
June 20, 2022
Annas provides a helpful introduction to major themes in Plato. By approaching thematically, she is able to jump from topic to topic and also introduce scholarship that has persisted throughout the centuries as individuals have sought to understand Plato across a bevy of topics from creation to gender.
June 5, 2025
Picked this up as a prelude to revisiting the works of Plato. Can’t say I learned anything new, but it was nice to get an insightful and broad overview of his oeuvre before diving back in. Highly recommended to anyone who has wanted to start somewhere with Plato but feels intimidated by just picking up one of his books.
June 12, 2024
This was ok, not great; “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” –Alfred North Whitehead.; this very short introduction has the quasi impossible task of introducing the reader to the phenomenon and it only barely succeeds.
November 23, 2024
I found it as an interesting tool to learn more about Plato in the context of when and where he was from. I think more discussion on his voices when he writes, and maybe some summaries or mentions of specific works would’ve been good… suppose this book is about the actual person, the philosopher, Plato, and not the philosophy or literature of Platonism.
March 4, 2016
Wow, I read a book about Plato (just for fun!)
I learned that Socrates and I would have gotten along really well. And that he may not have actually existed. (But most assume he did). Where-as Plato and I would have agreed on little that had to do with reality - and he would've had to stay in the Chariot while Socrates and I went to the Buffet.
My favorite quote (pg 23):
"Socrates, after all, rejected everything in philosophy that could be thought of as academic."
YES, I hate academic philosophy. Too many laws and rules of etiquette. We have Plato to partially thank for that. I prefer to use any weird/nasty/trickery to get to the truth. Many philosophers and professors don't even want truth - they just love the game. I find that boring and annoying.
_______________________
This was a short 100 pg. book. (hence - the title). I learned there's a lot of crap in philosophy - people pondering the useless for the sake of...? academics mostly. Thankfully there's also the desperate need for good philosophy. Without the philosophy of science - we would all be experiments in jars waiting to be probed by Nazi's in white coats. Whew! Only Theologians and philosophers can hold back ambitious materialistic scientists.
Plato was born in Athens in 427 BC and died in 347. So well before Jesus. We learn about Plato from found writings. I loved how he used Socrates as a character in his dialogues. Which leads us to wonder whether we are seeing Socrates behavior - or simply Plato's thoughts put into a character.
Sadly, it was funny that there is so much confusion and differing interpretation of Plato's work. Strange that academics would cherish something so unclear.
Which leads me to the chapter on Hinduism/Buddhism and the Soul.
WE know how Judaism and Christianity were doing by this time (445 BC - 3rd return of exiles to Jerusalem under Nehemiah. So we've had Daniel, Babylon, endless wars and prophets).
Buddha appeared and branched out from Hinduism by 500BC.
Quote:
"The First Buddhist council was convened in the year following the Buddha's parinirvana (death), which is 543–542 BCE according to Theravada tradition."
So by the time Plato was discussing reincarnation and Souls being separate from the Body: quote...
"383 BCE: The Second Buddhist council is convened by Kalasoka of the Shishunaga dynasty and held in Vaishali."
So, how many Buddhists marched through Athens around then? Possibly a few.
Plato's spiritual comment: "I am my soul, rather than my animated body". Hence Socrates, on his deathbed, jokingly reminds his friends that they will not be burying him, only his body.
But at the end of the day: Plato is simply a confused theologian with no real answers. I don't think he ever got his hands on a Jewish Bible or even the Old Testament as a whole. That sure would have answered some questions for him. The Old Covenant of the Israelites was completed by abut 500 BC. - Would have been fun if they read and commented on it. (maybe they did... I'll have to look.)
At least Plato doesn't see the hand or foot as part of the soul...
Strangely, Plato writes in Timaeus and Laws: The world as a whole has a soul, of which our souls are individual portions...but my soul is also a portion of a cosmic force which is itself actively in motion. (pg 73-74)
Hmmm? Bit of New Age spiritism there.
Fun comment: by Augustine
"Plato is the Pagan philosopher who comes nearest to Christianity." Hint, that's not necessarily a good thing.
I prefer Peter Kreeft's book on Socrates: Socrates Meets Jesus
________________
Now on to the Pedophile bits. Endlessly disturbing. I'll have to think twice about going to parties with appreciators of classic philosophy. Or letting them babysit my children.
(pg 43) "Plato wrote in a society in which sexual and erotic relations between men...socially acceptable...particularly between an adolescent boy and an adult man..."
What the HELL? I guess the prisons were full of other crimes?
(pg 45) "Plato goes beyond accepting homoerotic relationships...takes the romantic view of them...elevating it to an idealized relation between teacher and pupil which is above physical attraction...
Then something about everybody spending the nights under the same cloaks. WHOA?! They still accept the family and man/woman parenting - but a little gay boy love on the side is unquestionably embraced.
I could read up more on this issue - but i'd rather not.
I'll end with a pleasant quote (pg 83)
"Philosophy always involves argument and discussion, ideally with others, and requires you to be able to defend your position against the arguments of others...Plato is always sure that philosophical thinking is superior to all other kinds."
Sometimes, I don't want to know what others are thinking.
Now i'll go read some Ravi Zacharias books: just to cleanse myself from... Yuch!
I learned that Socrates and I would have gotten along really well. And that he may not have actually existed. (But most assume he did). Where-as Plato and I would have agreed on little that had to do with reality - and he would've had to stay in the Chariot while Socrates and I went to the Buffet.
My favorite quote (pg 23):
"Socrates, after all, rejected everything in philosophy that could be thought of as academic."
YES, I hate academic philosophy. Too many laws and rules of etiquette. We have Plato to partially thank for that. I prefer to use any weird/nasty/trickery to get to the truth. Many philosophers and professors don't even want truth - they just love the game. I find that boring and annoying.
_______________________
This was a short 100 pg. book. (hence - the title). I learned there's a lot of crap in philosophy - people pondering the useless for the sake of...? academics mostly. Thankfully there's also the desperate need for good philosophy. Without the philosophy of science - we would all be experiments in jars waiting to be probed by Nazi's in white coats. Whew! Only Theologians and philosophers can hold back ambitious materialistic scientists.
Plato was born in Athens in 427 BC and died in 347. So well before Jesus. We learn about Plato from found writings. I loved how he used Socrates as a character in his dialogues. Which leads us to wonder whether we are seeing Socrates behavior - or simply Plato's thoughts put into a character.
Sadly, it was funny that there is so much confusion and differing interpretation of Plato's work. Strange that academics would cherish something so unclear.
Which leads me to the chapter on Hinduism/Buddhism and the Soul.
WE know how Judaism and Christianity were doing by this time (445 BC - 3rd return of exiles to Jerusalem under Nehemiah. So we've had Daniel, Babylon, endless wars and prophets).
Buddha appeared and branched out from Hinduism by 500BC.
Quote:
"The First Buddhist council was convened in the year following the Buddha's parinirvana (death), which is 543–542 BCE according to Theravada tradition."
So by the time Plato was discussing reincarnation and Souls being separate from the Body: quote...
"383 BCE: The Second Buddhist council is convened by Kalasoka of the Shishunaga dynasty and held in Vaishali."
So, how many Buddhists marched through Athens around then? Possibly a few.
Plato's spiritual comment: "I am my soul, rather than my animated body". Hence Socrates, on his deathbed, jokingly reminds his friends that they will not be burying him, only his body.
But at the end of the day: Plato is simply a confused theologian with no real answers. I don't think he ever got his hands on a Jewish Bible or even the Old Testament as a whole. That sure would have answered some questions for him. The Old Covenant of the Israelites was completed by abut 500 BC. - Would have been fun if they read and commented on it. (maybe they did... I'll have to look.)
At least Plato doesn't see the hand or foot as part of the soul...
Strangely, Plato writes in Timaeus and Laws: The world as a whole has a soul, of which our souls are individual portions...but my soul is also a portion of a cosmic force which is itself actively in motion. (pg 73-74)
Hmmm? Bit of New Age spiritism there.
Fun comment: by Augustine
"Plato is the Pagan philosopher who comes nearest to Christianity." Hint, that's not necessarily a good thing.
I prefer Peter Kreeft's book on Socrates: Socrates Meets Jesus
________________
Now on to the Pedophile bits. Endlessly disturbing. I'll have to think twice about going to parties with appreciators of classic philosophy. Or letting them babysit my children.
(pg 43) "Plato wrote in a society in which sexual and erotic relations between men...socially acceptable...particularly between an adolescent boy and an adult man..."
What the HELL? I guess the prisons were full of other crimes?
(pg 45) "Plato goes beyond accepting homoerotic relationships...takes the romantic view of them...elevating it to an idealized relation between teacher and pupil which is above physical attraction...
Then something about everybody spending the nights under the same cloaks. WHOA?! They still accept the family and man/woman parenting - but a little gay boy love on the side is unquestionably embraced.
I could read up more on this issue - but i'd rather not.
I'll end with a pleasant quote (pg 83)
"Philosophy always involves argument and discussion, ideally with others, and requires you to be able to defend your position against the arguments of others...Plato is always sure that philosophical thinking is superior to all other kinds."
Sometimes, I don't want to know what others are thinking.
Now i'll go read some Ravi Zacharias books: just to cleanse myself from... Yuch!
November 6, 2025
I picked this up hoping for a short, clear introduction, something that would tell me who Plato was, where he came from, and why he matters. Instead, the book starts mid-conversation, diving straight into Socrates and abstract ideas with little sense of context.
Later chapters do add some background and explore major themes, but I kept wishing for a “set and setting” , a simple map of Plato’s world and key ideas in plain terms before the analysis began. The tone is modern and occasionally wanders into topics like gender and pronouns, which felt like sidepaths rather than guides.
It’s not a bad book, but it skips the step that would make Plato truly accessible: explaining him as if to a curious beginner, not an already-initiated philosophy student.
Later chapters do add some background and explore major themes, but I kept wishing for a “set and setting” , a simple map of Plato’s world and key ideas in plain terms before the analysis began. The tone is modern and occasionally wanders into topics like gender and pronouns, which felt like sidepaths rather than guides.
It’s not a bad book, but it skips the step that would make Plato truly accessible: explaining him as if to a curious beginner, not an already-initiated philosophy student.
December 3, 2018
What follows are thoughts that occurred to me while reading this book, organized according to its chapters. For me, the value of a book is determined largely by the quality of thoughts given to me as I read it. If they are of high enough quality, I write them down.
1. Arguing with Plato
Persuasion is a powerful (and sometimes dangerous) tool. If one is persuasive enough, one can convince another person to believe something that is false. This raises a question about the role of persuasion in discovering the truth: Can persuasion lead to knowledge? And, closely related, can persuasion ever justify anything like epistemic confidence? Or should “knowledge” be restricted to a more narrow range—say, to mathematics and first-hand experiences—and persuasion relegated to mere “belief” or “opinion”? This might sound rather pedantic until one stops and looks around. Observe all of the people convinced—via persuasion—of incompatible things. The present political climate in the United States, torn as it is between the so called Right and Left, demonstrates that persuasion is a powerful force in life, by no means mere pedantry. Subjecting the phenomenon of persuasion to philosophical analysis—asking what it is, questioning its value, testing its reliability—is something Plato is very good at. Philosophy, whatever it is for Plato, entails arguing. And arguing involves persuasion. Thus, to practice philosophy (and Plato is keen on philosophy as a practice) is to relate to persuasion in an appropriate manner. Philosophy is incompatible with mere persuasion since it aims only at the truth: What is real, philosophers ask, in spite of popular opinion? And yet, persuasion plays an ineluctable role in searching for the truth. Whatever the truth is, Plato thinks, it must be the most truly persuasive reality—eternally persuasive. This search for the eternally true, the truly persuasive, over and against the perspectival and merely persuasive, is at the core of Plato’s construal of philosophy as the “love of wisdom.”
Knowledge must be attained “for oneself.” There is an inevitable first-hand-ness to knowledge. One must get to know the object of knowledge personally, even passionately. One cannot “know” for another. Regardless of the object of knowledge (be it mathematics, music, a book, the concept of justice), knowledge requires existential commitment from the knower. Plato leads his reader through various arguments and lines of inquiry that grant the opportunity for precisely this kind of commitment. But he only grants the opportunity; he cannot make the commitment on the reader’s behalf. To make this commitment is to begin the practice of philosophy.
2. Plato’s Name, and Other Matters
Plato was born in Athens in 427 BCE and died in 347. In Critias, he writes that his family descended from the sixth-century statesman Solon, who brought reforms that put Athens on the road to democracy. Plato lived through the Peloponnesian War, which Athens lost in 409 BCE. As a result, antidemocratic sympathizers took power and set up a government of thirty (the Thirty Tyrants)—two of whom were relatives of Plato. Plato, in other words, came from a family divided by civil war.
Plato is, understandably, a figure who can be interpreted in different ways. Some reckoned him a superhuman sage, a son of Apollo, a genius among mere cave-dwellers. Others reckoned him a political idealist simply disillusioned with his social context. However he is interpreted, it is worth asking whether or not access to the “real” Plato is even possible, or desirable. Various interpretations of him were probably contested before he died, and this will almost certainly continue to be the case in the future.
The figure of Socrates exercised a lasting influence on Plato. Socrates is the chief character in almost every dialogue, and he models more than anyone else the values of philosophy. Socrates is described as talking to individuals openly about matters of ultimate concern, stressing the importance of understanding precisely what is being talked about (the subject matter). Philosophers ever since have stressed the necessity of defining terms, achieving understanding as to what must be taken for granted at the most basic level of thinking. Cross-examination consists of getting clear about “what is what,” in an ontological sense—what is courage, justice, piety, love, knowledge, the good life? For Socrates, who never wrote a word, this cross-examining comes about through dialogue with others.
Plato’s Academy was a place to think philosophically and carry on the tradition inaugurated by Socrates. While the Academy did not codify a certain set of doctrines that it required its students to adhere to, it did provide a place wherein people could reflect systematically on philosophical questions. In large part due to Plato, philosophy became systematic: not an organized set of dogma, per se, but a set of distinctly philosophical concerns, questions, and attempted answers.
3. Drama, Fiction, and the Elusive Author
Philosophy, for Plato, aims only at the truth, not at mere persuasion. For this reason, philosophy resists the main cultural ways of speaking and thinking, which tend to either forget the question of truth altogether, or grow to despise it outright. Socrates is a controversial figure, admired by some and despised by most, largely because of his uncompromising pursuit of the truth—which, in each of the dialogues, his interlocutors come to realize they do not possess (though they perhaps thought they did before). It is easy, therefore, to become self-conscious and uncertain when practicing philosophy, at least for a time when one is losing one’s unthought-through assumptions and questioning that which was once taken-for-granted. Philosophy, then, is not mere entertainment, nor a tool to get whatever one wants. Philosophy is, instead, a searching, refining, sometimes painful quest for the truth. Plato’s dialogues are, of course, “literary” and imaginative, but more importantly, they raise serious issues and require readers to examine, question, and test claims in a way that leaves behind mere imagination.
Two dominant traditions have claimed Plato’s works as their own. First, there is the Skeptical/Academic tradition. This reading sees Socrates as a figure of irony, knowing nothing himself—except that he knows nothing—and never putting his own positive positions forward. Plato takes no positions of his own, on this reading; he simply presents various philosophical viewpoints through his many characters, and Socrates shows that they all lead to “aporia,” irresolvable internal contradiction. The second, and more familiar, reading interprets Plato as the creator of “Platonism”: a doctrinal system about logic (and epistemology), physics (and metaphysics), and ethics (and politics). Annas suggests that these two traditions can learn from each other since there is an element of truth in both of them—Plato almost certainly does have views of his own on the various issues he writes about, but he writes in dialogue form so as to allow the reader to come to his or her own conclusion about the matter.
Reading Plato takes work. His dialogues do not assert one position that must be assented to on his authority; the reader must think through the issue for him- or herself. Only in this way does the matter of thinking become one’s own, “for oneself.”
4. Love, Sex, Gender, and Philosophy
Homoerotic love was part of Plato’s social world, especially between adult men and adolescent boys. But Plato romanticized the teacher-pupil relationship as transcending merely physical attraction. For him, this idealized relationship consists of concern for the other’s soul—his psychological and mental well-being. The impetus for this relationship, relatedly, is not desire for hedonistic or bodily pleasure, but desire transformed by concern for the soul rather than the body—the desire to become a better person.
Love plays an essential part in this philosophical relationship. In Plato’s Symposium, philosophical inquiry and understanding itself are transformations of sexual desire, which is sublimated beyond particular gratifications and transfigured into contemplation of universal truths. This desire comes from within and is genuine, just like love (eros). It also takes place between persons by means of joint activity like conversation. Philosophical desire, furthermore, cannot be instrumentally produced—it drives one to focus all of one’s efforts to achieve an aim that one feels one cannot live without, however impossible attainment might seem. For Plato, philosophy and love possess certain shared characteristics, and one might even say that they are intertwined—philosophers are lovers of wisdom.
Plato is critical of the nuclear family for the ways in which it creates selfishness, competitiveness, and hostility toward outsiders. It is impossible to create a harmonious and cooperative society, he thinks, so long as the nuclear family remains its most basic organizational mechanism (more on this in the next chapter). For this reason, Plato saw women, who are not to be confined to the home, as having access to the same sorts of responsibilities as men—they are to be guardians of society, along with men. This was, Annas says, revolutionary in Plato’s day. While Plato has little or nothing to teach modern feminism, we can still be impressed by his ability to recognize the role, responsibilities, and contributions of women as a philosophical problem.
5. Virtue, in Me and in My Society
Plato assumes that humans seek happiness (eudaemonia)—not simply to live, but to live well. But what is happiness? And what does it mean to live well? Typical answers to these questions are success, fame, riches, power, or perhaps all of them combined. But Plato was a faithful student of Socrates. And although his teacher relinquished worldly success and ended up condemned as a criminal and executed, Plato believes that Socrates—more than any other person—embodies happiness and reveals what it means to live well. What, then, is happiness and the well-lived life, on Plato’s account?
The answer is virtue. Virtue is a sort of practical reason that enables one to do good with the materials of life, just like a craftsman uses tools (which are useless in the absence of a craftsman who knows how to use them properly) to make something with them. Virtues are “divine goods” that enable one to deal well with the material advantages (“human goods”) of life. Without virtue, human goods like health, wealth, good looks, and so on will not ensure happiness or a well-lived life—indeed, in the absence of virtue, Plato thinks, such human goods might even be harmful. For this reason, virtue is to be valued above all else. It is not one good among others, but the unconditional good that allows all merely conditional goods to be useful in the craft of living well. Without virtue, conditional goods will inevitably spoil and preclude, rather than assist, the attainment of happiness. Virtue is, therefore, the controlling and determining factor in one’s life: all other goods are simply instruments for it to work on. Plato also sometimes writes of virtue in a way that anticipates Stoicism when he says that philosophical activity leads one to detach from everyday concerns. Philosophers are unconcerned with (even despise) making money, looking attractive, attaining social capital, etc. They are concerned only with virtue, even if living virtuously leads to the loss of each of these human goods—or even one’s life, as in the example of Socrates. (On this account, Plato is different from Aristotle, who thinks that human goods are a more essential component of the happy life than does Plato).
Plato also reflects on virtue vis-à-vis society as a whole. In particular, he is very concerned about the harmful impacts of popular entertainment on the moral compass of the polis. Homer’s epics, which were the dominant form of Greek entertainment (somewhat like modern-day television, movies, etc.), depicted gods as betrayers, war-like, etc. and so, Plato thought, were not fit for his ideal society. Plato is perhaps the first to see the role that popular opinion and entertainment play in the construction and distribution of societal values. Such content needs to be rigorously regulated, or else societal virtue will be compromised. For Plato, the main issue that plagues society is competitive individualism. (The nuclear family is complicit in this since it would rather drag its goods into its own house and use them up privately rather than cooperate in the production of shared goods). Plato’s virtuous society, instead, contains citizens who identify themselves with each other and live with a keen eye for the needs of the whole.
A word on democracy: Given Plato’s concern (one might even say anxiety) about society devolving into a chaotic scramble of competing and self-serving voices, he is suspicious of democratic systems of government. In his Republic, political power is in the hands of the philosopher-kings, who own no private property, take part in no nuclear family, and are formally educated in the art and science of political governance so as to ensure that society functions virtuously. In such an idealized society, Plato thinks, individual and societal virtue coincide.
6. My Soul and Myself
In Greek thought, the soul (psyche) is what causes living things to be alive. Without the soul, the matter of which living things consists would lack all source of movement and vitality. This leaves open a great deal of questions pertaining to the soul and its relationship to the body. Plato’s position is “dualistic”: the soul (which moderns often call “mind”) is radically different from the body. Furthermore, Plato thinks that what one most truly is, one’s self (as it were), is to be identified with soul.
Plato thinks that the soul possesses different sources of motivation. He, therefore, divides the soul into three parts or aspects. The lowest part is “desire” (epithumia), which accounts for the simple more instinctual urges for things like drink, warmth, taste, etc. The middle aspect is “spirit” or “passion” (thumos), which accounts for feelings of fear, anger, courage, etc. Finally, and most importantly, for Plato, is the highest part called “reason” or “intellect” (nous), which accounts for the ability of humans to grasp the whole of one’s life and deliberate about what is good for one. The good life is one in which one’s intellectual part of the soul rules the other two. Only nous can see the good of the whole person, whereas epithumia and thumos lack self-control and the capacity for rational deliberation. For example, imagine that the lower part of one’s soul desires to stay up late every single night, watching cartoons and eating potato chips. The higher part of the soul will deliberate about this desire and ask whether any part of this desire is wise: “Is it wise to be sleep-deprived? Are potato chips a good food choice? And what does it mean to sleep and eat well? Probably best that I get to bed at a reasonable hour since I work early most mornings, and maybe fruit is a better snack.” Likewise, imagine that the middle part of one’s soul feels extreme anger every time one gets stuck in traffic, cursing at other drivers on the road and complaining about how annoying and offensive all of them are. The higher part of the soul will deliberate about these feelings and ask whether they are reasonable: “Is it wise to be so angry at these people who, like me, are simply trying to get home from work? Have they done me any harm? And how will cursing at them do me any good? Perhaps there is another route I could take from now on to cut down on commute time, or maybe I could consider taking the train into the city rather than driving.” In these ways, one’s intellectual part guides, and sometimes outright restricts, the potentially harmful desires and feelings that are rooted in the two lesser parts. Left to their own devices, epithumia and thumos can be, at best, catalysts for stupid decision-making, and at worst, catalysts for extreme harm to oneself and others. But with nous as their guide, they can be ingredients of the good life.
Epistemologically, Plato construes the senses as giving the soul data (sense-impressions) that the soul reflects on and goes beyond. Soul, in other words, makes sense of, cognizes, and unifies sensory information about the world.
Lastly, the soul survives a person’s death. Plato pursues various lines of thinking about the soul, and his accounts are not always constant. But he never wavers in thinking that the soul is ontologically different from the body, that it is immortal, and that what one really is is not consigned to one’s embodied human life.
7. The Nature of Things
Plato thinks that the world displays a striking degree of order. He likens the world to the creation of an all-good craftsperson who imposes order on otherwise unruly materials. This divine craftsperson is not to be identified with the God of monotheism: although Plato’s divine craftsperson is wholly good and free of all jealously, he is not the creator ex nihilo (an absurd idea to Greek thought), but rather the organizer of preexisting matter. This theology is deeply out of sync with the popular polytheistic religion of ancient Greece, which viewed the gods as jealous and often treacherous—a mixture of good, bad, and ugly. Plato is critical of the popular religion of his day and censors all of the (mostly Homeric) stories depicting the gods as petty and destructive. Plato, instead, argues that in the ideal society, the gods will be viewed as totally good and incapable of being bribed to overlook wrongdoing.
Plato thinks very highly of mathematics and views it as preparatory for philosophical thinking. Probably the most famous aspect of Plato’s thought is his so called “theory of Form,” which Annas thinks is a suspect notion since Plato never offers anything like a self-consistent “theory.” Since Plato writes of the Forms in such an elusive way, she suggests, his interpreters should be hesitant to make any definitive claims about them. Annas, consistent with her proposed hesitancy, gives very little to her reader by way of interpretation. She does dismiss the common misconception that Forms are identical with “universals,” saying that this view is based on a mistranslation of a passage from the Republic (596a). Annas insists that Plato writes enough to get reflection on the Forms up and running—saying that all material things “come to be” while Forms “are, without coming to be”—without giving a full-fledged account of them. As is fitting for Platonic indirection, the conversation about forms—what they are, whether they are, etc.—continues by means of argumentation (dialectic). Ironically, the Forms, which Plato says “are, without coming to be,” were debated in Plato’s day and are still being debated today. If the Forms are unchanging, thinking about them is certainly not.
In the end, says Annas, Plato’s greatest message is that philosophy is not fundamentally about believing in the existence of Forms, the importance of virtue, or his version of the ideal society, but about engaging with him, and with one another, in the practice of philosophical discussion in the mutual pursuit of wisdom.
1. Arguing with Plato
Persuasion is a powerful (and sometimes dangerous) tool. If one is persuasive enough, one can convince another person to believe something that is false. This raises a question about the role of persuasion in discovering the truth: Can persuasion lead to knowledge? And, closely related, can persuasion ever justify anything like epistemic confidence? Or should “knowledge” be restricted to a more narrow range—say, to mathematics and first-hand experiences—and persuasion relegated to mere “belief” or “opinion”? This might sound rather pedantic until one stops and looks around. Observe all of the people convinced—via persuasion—of incompatible things. The present political climate in the United States, torn as it is between the so called Right and Left, demonstrates that persuasion is a powerful force in life, by no means mere pedantry. Subjecting the phenomenon of persuasion to philosophical analysis—asking what it is, questioning its value, testing its reliability—is something Plato is very good at. Philosophy, whatever it is for Plato, entails arguing. And arguing involves persuasion. Thus, to practice philosophy (and Plato is keen on philosophy as a practice) is to relate to persuasion in an appropriate manner. Philosophy is incompatible with mere persuasion since it aims only at the truth: What is real, philosophers ask, in spite of popular opinion? And yet, persuasion plays an ineluctable role in searching for the truth. Whatever the truth is, Plato thinks, it must be the most truly persuasive reality—eternally persuasive. This search for the eternally true, the truly persuasive, over and against the perspectival and merely persuasive, is at the core of Plato’s construal of philosophy as the “love of wisdom.”
Knowledge must be attained “for oneself.” There is an inevitable first-hand-ness to knowledge. One must get to know the object of knowledge personally, even passionately. One cannot “know” for another. Regardless of the object of knowledge (be it mathematics, music, a book, the concept of justice), knowledge requires existential commitment from the knower. Plato leads his reader through various arguments and lines of inquiry that grant the opportunity for precisely this kind of commitment. But he only grants the opportunity; he cannot make the commitment on the reader’s behalf. To make this commitment is to begin the practice of philosophy.
2. Plato’s Name, and Other Matters
Plato was born in Athens in 427 BCE and died in 347. In Critias, he writes that his family descended from the sixth-century statesman Solon, who brought reforms that put Athens on the road to democracy. Plato lived through the Peloponnesian War, which Athens lost in 409 BCE. As a result, antidemocratic sympathizers took power and set up a government of thirty (the Thirty Tyrants)—two of whom were relatives of Plato. Plato, in other words, came from a family divided by civil war.
Plato is, understandably, a figure who can be interpreted in different ways. Some reckoned him a superhuman sage, a son of Apollo, a genius among mere cave-dwellers. Others reckoned him a political idealist simply disillusioned with his social context. However he is interpreted, it is worth asking whether or not access to the “real” Plato is even possible, or desirable. Various interpretations of him were probably contested before he died, and this will almost certainly continue to be the case in the future.
The figure of Socrates exercised a lasting influence on Plato. Socrates is the chief character in almost every dialogue, and he models more than anyone else the values of philosophy. Socrates is described as talking to individuals openly about matters of ultimate concern, stressing the importance of understanding precisely what is being talked about (the subject matter). Philosophers ever since have stressed the necessity of defining terms, achieving understanding as to what must be taken for granted at the most basic level of thinking. Cross-examination consists of getting clear about “what is what,” in an ontological sense—what is courage, justice, piety, love, knowledge, the good life? For Socrates, who never wrote a word, this cross-examining comes about through dialogue with others.
Plato’s Academy was a place to think philosophically and carry on the tradition inaugurated by Socrates. While the Academy did not codify a certain set of doctrines that it required its students to adhere to, it did provide a place wherein people could reflect systematically on philosophical questions. In large part due to Plato, philosophy became systematic: not an organized set of dogma, per se, but a set of distinctly philosophical concerns, questions, and attempted answers.
3. Drama, Fiction, and the Elusive Author
Philosophy, for Plato, aims only at the truth, not at mere persuasion. For this reason, philosophy resists the main cultural ways of speaking and thinking, which tend to either forget the question of truth altogether, or grow to despise it outright. Socrates is a controversial figure, admired by some and despised by most, largely because of his uncompromising pursuit of the truth—which, in each of the dialogues, his interlocutors come to realize they do not possess (though they perhaps thought they did before). It is easy, therefore, to become self-conscious and uncertain when practicing philosophy, at least for a time when one is losing one’s unthought-through assumptions and questioning that which was once taken-for-granted. Philosophy, then, is not mere entertainment, nor a tool to get whatever one wants. Philosophy is, instead, a searching, refining, sometimes painful quest for the truth. Plato’s dialogues are, of course, “literary” and imaginative, but more importantly, they raise serious issues and require readers to examine, question, and test claims in a way that leaves behind mere imagination.
Two dominant traditions have claimed Plato’s works as their own. First, there is the Skeptical/Academic tradition. This reading sees Socrates as a figure of irony, knowing nothing himself—except that he knows nothing—and never putting his own positive positions forward. Plato takes no positions of his own, on this reading; he simply presents various philosophical viewpoints through his many characters, and Socrates shows that they all lead to “aporia,” irresolvable internal contradiction. The second, and more familiar, reading interprets Plato as the creator of “Platonism”: a doctrinal system about logic (and epistemology), physics (and metaphysics), and ethics (and politics). Annas suggests that these two traditions can learn from each other since there is an element of truth in both of them—Plato almost certainly does have views of his own on the various issues he writes about, but he writes in dialogue form so as to allow the reader to come to his or her own conclusion about the matter.
Reading Plato takes work. His dialogues do not assert one position that must be assented to on his authority; the reader must think through the issue for him- or herself. Only in this way does the matter of thinking become one’s own, “for oneself.”
4. Love, Sex, Gender, and Philosophy
Homoerotic love was part of Plato’s social world, especially between adult men and adolescent boys. But Plato romanticized the teacher-pupil relationship as transcending merely physical attraction. For him, this idealized relationship consists of concern for the other’s soul—his psychological and mental well-being. The impetus for this relationship, relatedly, is not desire for hedonistic or bodily pleasure, but desire transformed by concern for the soul rather than the body—the desire to become a better person.
Love plays an essential part in this philosophical relationship. In Plato’s Symposium, philosophical inquiry and understanding itself are transformations of sexual desire, which is sublimated beyond particular gratifications and transfigured into contemplation of universal truths. This desire comes from within and is genuine, just like love (eros). It also takes place between persons by means of joint activity like conversation. Philosophical desire, furthermore, cannot be instrumentally produced—it drives one to focus all of one’s efforts to achieve an aim that one feels one cannot live without, however impossible attainment might seem. For Plato, philosophy and love possess certain shared characteristics, and one might even say that they are intertwined—philosophers are lovers of wisdom.
Plato is critical of the nuclear family for the ways in which it creates selfishness, competitiveness, and hostility toward outsiders. It is impossible to create a harmonious and cooperative society, he thinks, so long as the nuclear family remains its most basic organizational mechanism (more on this in the next chapter). For this reason, Plato saw women, who are not to be confined to the home, as having access to the same sorts of responsibilities as men—they are to be guardians of society, along with men. This was, Annas says, revolutionary in Plato’s day. While Plato has little or nothing to teach modern feminism, we can still be impressed by his ability to recognize the role, responsibilities, and contributions of women as a philosophical problem.
5. Virtue, in Me and in My Society
Plato assumes that humans seek happiness (eudaemonia)—not simply to live, but to live well. But what is happiness? And what does it mean to live well? Typical answers to these questions are success, fame, riches, power, or perhaps all of them combined. But Plato was a faithful student of Socrates. And although his teacher relinquished worldly success and ended up condemned as a criminal and executed, Plato believes that Socrates—more than any other person—embodies happiness and reveals what it means to live well. What, then, is happiness and the well-lived life, on Plato’s account?
The answer is virtue. Virtue is a sort of practical reason that enables one to do good with the materials of life, just like a craftsman uses tools (which are useless in the absence of a craftsman who knows how to use them properly) to make something with them. Virtues are “divine goods” that enable one to deal well with the material advantages (“human goods”) of life. Without virtue, human goods like health, wealth, good looks, and so on will not ensure happiness or a well-lived life—indeed, in the absence of virtue, Plato thinks, such human goods might even be harmful. For this reason, virtue is to be valued above all else. It is not one good among others, but the unconditional good that allows all merely conditional goods to be useful in the craft of living well. Without virtue, conditional goods will inevitably spoil and preclude, rather than assist, the attainment of happiness. Virtue is, therefore, the controlling and determining factor in one’s life: all other goods are simply instruments for it to work on. Plato also sometimes writes of virtue in a way that anticipates Stoicism when he says that philosophical activity leads one to detach from everyday concerns. Philosophers are unconcerned with (even despise) making money, looking attractive, attaining social capital, etc. They are concerned only with virtue, even if living virtuously leads to the loss of each of these human goods—or even one’s life, as in the example of Socrates. (On this account, Plato is different from Aristotle, who thinks that human goods are a more essential component of the happy life than does Plato).
Plato also reflects on virtue vis-à-vis society as a whole. In particular, he is very concerned about the harmful impacts of popular entertainment on the moral compass of the polis. Homer’s epics, which were the dominant form of Greek entertainment (somewhat like modern-day television, movies, etc.), depicted gods as betrayers, war-like, etc. and so, Plato thought, were not fit for his ideal society. Plato is perhaps the first to see the role that popular opinion and entertainment play in the construction and distribution of societal values. Such content needs to be rigorously regulated, or else societal virtue will be compromised. For Plato, the main issue that plagues society is competitive individualism. (The nuclear family is complicit in this since it would rather drag its goods into its own house and use them up privately rather than cooperate in the production of shared goods). Plato’s virtuous society, instead, contains citizens who identify themselves with each other and live with a keen eye for the needs of the whole.
A word on democracy: Given Plato’s concern (one might even say anxiety) about society devolving into a chaotic scramble of competing and self-serving voices, he is suspicious of democratic systems of government. In his Republic, political power is in the hands of the philosopher-kings, who own no private property, take part in no nuclear family, and are formally educated in the art and science of political governance so as to ensure that society functions virtuously. In such an idealized society, Plato thinks, individual and societal virtue coincide.
6. My Soul and Myself
In Greek thought, the soul (psyche) is what causes living things to be alive. Without the soul, the matter of which living things consists would lack all source of movement and vitality. This leaves open a great deal of questions pertaining to the soul and its relationship to the body. Plato’s position is “dualistic”: the soul (which moderns often call “mind”) is radically different from the body. Furthermore, Plato thinks that what one most truly is, one’s self (as it were), is to be identified with soul.
Plato thinks that the soul possesses different sources of motivation. He, therefore, divides the soul into three parts or aspects. The lowest part is “desire” (epithumia), which accounts for the simple more instinctual urges for things like drink, warmth, taste, etc. The middle aspect is “spirit” or “passion” (thumos), which accounts for feelings of fear, anger, courage, etc. Finally, and most importantly, for Plato, is the highest part called “reason” or “intellect” (nous), which accounts for the ability of humans to grasp the whole of one’s life and deliberate about what is good for one. The good life is one in which one’s intellectual part of the soul rules the other two. Only nous can see the good of the whole person, whereas epithumia and thumos lack self-control and the capacity for rational deliberation. For example, imagine that the lower part of one’s soul desires to stay up late every single night, watching cartoons and eating potato chips. The higher part of the soul will deliberate about this desire and ask whether any part of this desire is wise: “Is it wise to be sleep-deprived? Are potato chips a good food choice? And what does it mean to sleep and eat well? Probably best that I get to bed at a reasonable hour since I work early most mornings, and maybe fruit is a better snack.” Likewise, imagine that the middle part of one’s soul feels extreme anger every time one gets stuck in traffic, cursing at other drivers on the road and complaining about how annoying and offensive all of them are. The higher part of the soul will deliberate about these feelings and ask whether they are reasonable: “Is it wise to be so angry at these people who, like me, are simply trying to get home from work? Have they done me any harm? And how will cursing at them do me any good? Perhaps there is another route I could take from now on to cut down on commute time, or maybe I could consider taking the train into the city rather than driving.” In these ways, one’s intellectual part guides, and sometimes outright restricts, the potentially harmful desires and feelings that are rooted in the two lesser parts. Left to their own devices, epithumia and thumos can be, at best, catalysts for stupid decision-making, and at worst, catalysts for extreme harm to oneself and others. But with nous as their guide, they can be ingredients of the good life.
Epistemologically, Plato construes the senses as giving the soul data (sense-impressions) that the soul reflects on and goes beyond. Soul, in other words, makes sense of, cognizes, and unifies sensory information about the world.
Lastly, the soul survives a person’s death. Plato pursues various lines of thinking about the soul, and his accounts are not always constant. But he never wavers in thinking that the soul is ontologically different from the body, that it is immortal, and that what one really is is not consigned to one’s embodied human life.
7. The Nature of Things
Plato thinks that the world displays a striking degree of order. He likens the world to the creation of an all-good craftsperson who imposes order on otherwise unruly materials. This divine craftsperson is not to be identified with the God of monotheism: although Plato’s divine craftsperson is wholly good and free of all jealously, he is not the creator ex nihilo (an absurd idea to Greek thought), but rather the organizer of preexisting matter. This theology is deeply out of sync with the popular polytheistic religion of ancient Greece, which viewed the gods as jealous and often treacherous—a mixture of good, bad, and ugly. Plato is critical of the popular religion of his day and censors all of the (mostly Homeric) stories depicting the gods as petty and destructive. Plato, instead, argues that in the ideal society, the gods will be viewed as totally good and incapable of being bribed to overlook wrongdoing.
Plato thinks very highly of mathematics and views it as preparatory for philosophical thinking. Probably the most famous aspect of Plato’s thought is his so called “theory of Form,” which Annas thinks is a suspect notion since Plato never offers anything like a self-consistent “theory.” Since Plato writes of the Forms in such an elusive way, she suggests, his interpreters should be hesitant to make any definitive claims about them. Annas, consistent with her proposed hesitancy, gives very little to her reader by way of interpretation. She does dismiss the common misconception that Forms are identical with “universals,” saying that this view is based on a mistranslation of a passage from the Republic (596a). Annas insists that Plato writes enough to get reflection on the Forms up and running—saying that all material things “come to be” while Forms “are, without coming to be”—without giving a full-fledged account of them. As is fitting for Platonic indirection, the conversation about forms—what they are, whether they are, etc.—continues by means of argumentation (dialectic). Ironically, the Forms, which Plato says “are, without coming to be,” were debated in Plato’s day and are still being debated today. If the Forms are unchanging, thinking about them is certainly not.
In the end, says Annas, Plato’s greatest message is that philosophy is not fundamentally about believing in the existence of Forms, the importance of virtue, or his version of the ideal society, but about engaging with him, and with one another, in the practice of philosophical discussion in the mutual pursuit of wisdom.
March 13, 2021
4.5/5. This is, thankfully, a down to earth and clear introduction to Plato the philosopher, and his accompanying philosophy.
I won't do a huge write-up for this one, because there isn't too much to dissect here. This is just a nice introduction to Plato. I have read some of his dialogues, but I do think that this would be very palatable without any knowledge of him.
It gives you a rundown of Plato as a person, and this occupies the first part of the book. I personally found this to be more interesting than the second half, which outlines the major aspects of his thought, but thats because I am already acquainted with that aspect.
The only reason that I deducted points is that I think some time should have been dedicated to Plato's very specific style of writing philosophy involving Socrates. This is mentioned, of course, but I think it wasn't given the attention it deserves.
If you want to start studying philosophy, this is a great way to go.
I won't do a huge write-up for this one, because there isn't too much to dissect here. This is just a nice introduction to Plato. I have read some of his dialogues, but I do think that this would be very palatable without any knowledge of him.
It gives you a rundown of Plato as a person, and this occupies the first part of the book. I personally found this to be more interesting than the second half, which outlines the major aspects of his thought, but thats because I am already acquainted with that aspect.
The only reason that I deducted points is that I think some time should have been dedicated to Plato's very specific style of writing philosophy involving Socrates. This is mentioned, of course, but I think it wasn't given the attention it deserves.
If you want to start studying philosophy, this is a great way to go.
August 26, 2013
Effective introduction for Plato beginners...Clearly demarcates important aspects and themes of Plato's dialogues...Clarifies that Plato didnt leave for us any ready-made theory or dogma but a vibrant tradition and expectation of dialogue which engages others and as well as one's own self. Highlights the homoerotic aspects of Plato's writings which were subsequently marginalized by Christianity's appropriation of Plato. Dispels major misconceptions about Plato's theory of Forms and his ideas about soul.
October 18, 2018
A good introduction to some aspects that I had not considered. To understand Plato one needs to read many books, methinks, and this one is certainly a help when trying to get the jigsaw puzzle together!
April 2, 2021
So most of these Oxford VSI's do a great job of overview. Maybe the problem here is the vasty topic, but I felt I was learning nothing. Got P. sorted from one or two other philosophers ok, but I clearly need a 'Longer than Very Short Introduction' to do him justice.
August 25, 2021
Serviceable as an intro book but I've seen a lot better from this series (A Very Short Introduction). The formatting wasn't great and the topics could have been approached better. 3 Stars, better off reading a slightly longer introduction with more meat on the bone.
April 12, 2014
کتاب خیلی خوبیه. اطلاعات جالبی در مورد افلاطون و اندیشههاش بهم داد.
March 11, 2025
Plato In the Very Short Introductions Series
Many years ago I was an undergraduate philosophy major and took my first course in Ancient Philosophy from a teacher I have always remembered. The class gave me my first academic exposure to Plato. I was deeply moved, as many of Plato's young readers have been over the centuries. My teacher encouraged my interest and suggested a study of Ancient Greek if I wanted to do serious work. I did in fact study Greek for two years. My dreams of graduate work in philosophy, of further serious study of Plato, and of an academic teaching career did not materialize. I continued to think about Plato and philosophy over the years, both while working and in retirement.
Written as part of the Very Short Introduction series of Oxford University Press, "Plato: a Very Short Introduction" (2003) brought back memories of my study of Plato, of my love for the study, and of philosophy. The author, Julia Annas, is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. She has published widely on Ancient Philosophy and on Plato. The VSI series offers "concise and original introductions" to a broad range of subjects. I have learned a great deal from books in the series on subjects both unfamiliar to me and familiar, such as the thought of Plato.
It is odd because I picked up this short introduction and immediately was hooked. Annas begins in medias res with the nature of knowledge in a chapter titled 'Arguing with Plato" She explores Plato's dialogue "Theaetetus", the first of Plato's dialogues I wrote about in college. Knowledge for Plato involves recollection and Annas helped me recollect. She also, within a few pages of an introductory book taught me something new. She taught me again when, later in the book, she discusses Plato's "Timaeus" and pointed out some of the consequences of the difference between Plato's God and the Jewish-Christian-Islamic God that I hadn't sufficiently noticed.
Still, this book largely brought back memories of issues and things that I knew, as Annas discusses Plato's theory of knowledge, the importance of his dialogical presentation, his relationship to Socrates, his views of love, sex, and gender (the latter at too great length and somewhat polemically), the nature of individual and social virtue, the soul, and, at last the theory of forms. These are matters for a book many times the size of this VSI, but the discussion brought me back to thinking about Plato.
As Annas stresses, Plato has been read many different ways over the centuries and still is today. His works are endlessly deep and fascinating. Broadly, some readers see Plato as teaching no substantive doctrine himself but rather working to instill a love of and search for truth in his readers. Others see Plato as offering strongly substantive positions on many matters. And, of course, there are many possible ways of combining both positions. Annas describes Plato, rightly so, as the first professional philosopher. Plato wrote, at the least, to make his readers think and to understand that the philosophical search differed from other forms of knowledge and that it was worth exploring and pursuing. It involved, perhaps, a search for meaning and for truth, in addition to Plato's own efforts at substantive teaching.
The goal of Annas's book is not to give a detailed summary of Plato but instead to persuade readers to study him further. She writes early in her study:
"What is difficult and also rewarding to bear in mind about Plato is that he is intensely concerned both with argument and with bold ideas. in a way that is subtle and hard to capture without simplification. This introduction to Plato does no pretend either to cover all of Plato's ideas, or to provide a recipe for interpreting him. but rather aims to introduce you to engagement with Plato in a way that will, I hope, lead you to persist."
She concludes with the following observation: "For in the end [Plato's] deepest message is not that we should believe in Forms, or in the importance of virtue, but that we should engage with him, and with our own contemporaries, in aspiring to understand these matters."
This was, for me, a highly moving book. It brought Plato back to me and reminded me of the love of philosophical thinking which, I hope, has stayed with me even though my career path took a different direction.
Robin Friedman
Many years ago I was an undergraduate philosophy major and took my first course in Ancient Philosophy from a teacher I have always remembered. The class gave me my first academic exposure to Plato. I was deeply moved, as many of Plato's young readers have been over the centuries. My teacher encouraged my interest and suggested a study of Ancient Greek if I wanted to do serious work. I did in fact study Greek for two years. My dreams of graduate work in philosophy, of further serious study of Plato, and of an academic teaching career did not materialize. I continued to think about Plato and philosophy over the years, both while working and in retirement.
Written as part of the Very Short Introduction series of Oxford University Press, "Plato: a Very Short Introduction" (2003) brought back memories of my study of Plato, of my love for the study, and of philosophy. The author, Julia Annas, is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. She has published widely on Ancient Philosophy and on Plato. The VSI series offers "concise and original introductions" to a broad range of subjects. I have learned a great deal from books in the series on subjects both unfamiliar to me and familiar, such as the thought of Plato.
It is odd because I picked up this short introduction and immediately was hooked. Annas begins in medias res with the nature of knowledge in a chapter titled 'Arguing with Plato" She explores Plato's dialogue "Theaetetus", the first of Plato's dialogues I wrote about in college. Knowledge for Plato involves recollection and Annas helped me recollect. She also, within a few pages of an introductory book taught me something new. She taught me again when, later in the book, she discusses Plato's "Timaeus" and pointed out some of the consequences of the difference between Plato's God and the Jewish-Christian-Islamic God that I hadn't sufficiently noticed.
Still, this book largely brought back memories of issues and things that I knew, as Annas discusses Plato's theory of knowledge, the importance of his dialogical presentation, his relationship to Socrates, his views of love, sex, and gender (the latter at too great length and somewhat polemically), the nature of individual and social virtue, the soul, and, at last the theory of forms. These are matters for a book many times the size of this VSI, but the discussion brought me back to thinking about Plato.
As Annas stresses, Plato has been read many different ways over the centuries and still is today. His works are endlessly deep and fascinating. Broadly, some readers see Plato as teaching no substantive doctrine himself but rather working to instill a love of and search for truth in his readers. Others see Plato as offering strongly substantive positions on many matters. And, of course, there are many possible ways of combining both positions. Annas describes Plato, rightly so, as the first professional philosopher. Plato wrote, at the least, to make his readers think and to understand that the philosophical search differed from other forms of knowledge and that it was worth exploring and pursuing. It involved, perhaps, a search for meaning and for truth, in addition to Plato's own efforts at substantive teaching.
The goal of Annas's book is not to give a detailed summary of Plato but instead to persuade readers to study him further. She writes early in her study:
"What is difficult and also rewarding to bear in mind about Plato is that he is intensely concerned both with argument and with bold ideas. in a way that is subtle and hard to capture without simplification. This introduction to Plato does no pretend either to cover all of Plato's ideas, or to provide a recipe for interpreting him. but rather aims to introduce you to engagement with Plato in a way that will, I hope, lead you to persist."
She concludes with the following observation: "For in the end [Plato's] deepest message is not that we should believe in Forms, or in the importance of virtue, but that we should engage with him, and with our own contemporaries, in aspiring to understand these matters."
This was, for me, a highly moving book. It brought Plato back to me and reminded me of the love of philosophical thinking which, I hope, has stayed with me even though my career path took a different direction.
Robin Friedman
October 31, 2024
As a very short introduction to Plato, it's excellent! But reading it felt like taking medicine because I really just wanted to read the actual dialogues. The book is organized by themes rather than dialogues. So, when she talks about Plato's philosophy of soul, she brings in relevant passages from Phaedo and The Republic, as opposed to having a section or chapter just about Phaedo or Republic.
Ch. 1. Plato’s epistemology. Reading between the lines in Plato.
Ch 2. Plato fun facts: Plato’s fame grew steadily, in his life and after. The man who led Plato’s school after he died declared that Plato was actually the son of Apollo. This dovetails with the dogmatic Platonists that followed his positive pronouncements. Plato as the first to demarcate philosophy as a distinct discipline and mode of inquiry.
Ch 3. Plato as the most *literary* of philosophers. Socratic irony: the tendency for Socrates to mock his interlocutors through irony. Tension between Plato’s denouncement of persuasion and his own methods. Plato’s dialogue form avoids the tendency to argue from authority present in treatise form. Tension between two traditions following Plato: the Skeptic or Academic tradition and the dogmatic Platonic tradition. The early, middle, late dialogues debate. The progression of Plato’s hostility towards Greek reverence for poetry and myth.
Ch 4. Homosexuality, homoeroticism, Platonic love, pederasty. Definitely makes me want to read Alcibiades! Misogyny.
Ch. 5. Virtue and the good life. Comparison with Aristotle. Cultural education. The Republic: individualism vs communalism (or polis-ism), the family, democracy.
Ch 6. The soul (*psyche*) and it’s separation from the body. Influence on Christian metaphysics.
Ch 7. Plato’s metaphysics. The gods. Mathematics. The Forms.
Ch. 1. Plato’s epistemology. Reading between the lines in Plato.
Ch 2. Plato fun facts: Plato’s fame grew steadily, in his life and after. The man who led Plato’s school after he died declared that Plato was actually the son of Apollo. This dovetails with the dogmatic Platonists that followed his positive pronouncements. Plato as the first to demarcate philosophy as a distinct discipline and mode of inquiry.
Ch 3. Plato as the most *literary* of philosophers. Socratic irony: the tendency for Socrates to mock his interlocutors through irony. Tension between Plato’s denouncement of persuasion and his own methods. Plato’s dialogue form avoids the tendency to argue from authority present in treatise form. Tension between two traditions following Plato: the Skeptic or Academic tradition and the dogmatic Platonic tradition. The early, middle, late dialogues debate. The progression of Plato’s hostility towards Greek reverence for poetry and myth.
Ch 4. Homosexuality, homoeroticism, Platonic love, pederasty. Definitely makes me want to read Alcibiades! Misogyny.
Ch. 5. Virtue and the good life. Comparison with Aristotle. Cultural education. The Republic: individualism vs communalism (or polis-ism), the family, democracy.
Ch 6. The soul (*psyche*) and it’s separation from the body. Influence on Christian metaphysics.
Ch 7. Plato’s metaphysics. The gods. Mathematics. The Forms.
July 14, 2018
The language is clear, and touches the important parts for Plato, but i am not much sure if it would be helpful even if i would just need to get some foundational idea about Plato
It is repeatedly told in some parts that the Socratic method involves the philosopher to sit aside and just try to show the fallacies of the ideas, and also Plato generally chooses to falsify ideas in their own reasoning, but after a while i felt like this is not taken into count in some parts by the author, and contents of the books of Plato are taken as an unitary view sometimes. In some parts the book claims the books are inconsistent with themselves; it is a known fact that there are inconsistencies between different books of Plato since they are written in a long time period, but the repetition of inconsistency claims made me quiet suspicious that the author is taking it to a point that it is not valid anymore. The dialogues of Plato uses different actors to let different views on the same topic speak for themselves, and lets the reader to see different arguments clashing with each other to come to a point that there is no more agreement between different views. Sometimes still there are quiet bold proves that show an intention of some claims being made, but generally "if it was like X wouldn't it mean that Y would happen" kind of arguments or using different metaphors in different parts to make a point doesn't mean that there is an inconsistency
As a reference book, i can say that i m not much impressed, but still worth reading
It is repeatedly told in some parts that the Socratic method involves the philosopher to sit aside and just try to show the fallacies of the ideas, and also Plato generally chooses to falsify ideas in their own reasoning, but after a while i felt like this is not taken into count in some parts by the author, and contents of the books of Plato are taken as an unitary view sometimes. In some parts the book claims the books are inconsistent with themselves; it is a known fact that there are inconsistencies between different books of Plato since they are written in a long time period, but the repetition of inconsistency claims made me quiet suspicious that the author is taking it to a point that it is not valid anymore. The dialogues of Plato uses different actors to let different views on the same topic speak for themselves, and lets the reader to see different arguments clashing with each other to come to a point that there is no more agreement between different views. Sometimes still there are quiet bold proves that show an intention of some claims being made, but generally "if it was like X wouldn't it mean that Y would happen" kind of arguments or using different metaphors in different parts to make a point doesn't mean that there is an inconsistency
As a reference book, i can say that i m not much impressed, but still worth reading
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