Plato's Symposium

The dramatic nature of Plato’s dialogues is delightfully evident in the Symposium. The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at Agathon’s house to celebrate the success of his first tragedy. 
With wit and insight, they each present their ideas about love—from Erixymachus’s scientific naturalism to Aristophanes’ comic fantasy. The unexpected arrival of Alcibiades breaks the spell cast by Diotima’s ethereal climb up the staircase of love to beauty itself. Ecstasy and intoxication clash as Plato concludes with one of his most skillful displays of dialectic.

Politics & Social Sciences

Plató

Philosophy

Agora Publications, Inc.

The dramatic nature of Plato’s dialogues is delightfully evident in the Symposium. The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at Agathon’s house to celebrate the success of his first tragedy. With wit and insight, they each present their ideas about love—from Erixymachus’s scientific naturalism to Aristophanes’ comic fantasy. The unexpected arrival of Alcibiades breaks the spell cast by Diotima’s ethereal climb up the staircase of love to beauty itself. Ecstasy and intoxication clash as Plato concludes with one of his most skillful displays of dialectic.

What should we teach young people about religion? The characters Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo passionately present and defend three sharply different answers to that question. Demea opens the dialogue with a position derived from René Descartes and Father Malebranche. God's nature is a mystery, but God's existence can be proved logically. Cleanthes attacks that view, both because it leads to mysticism and because it attempts the impossible task of trying to establish existence on the basis pure reason, without appeal to sense experience. As an alternative, he offers a proof of both God s existence and God s nature based on the same kind of scientific reasoning established by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Taking a skeptical approach, Philo presents a series of arguments that question any attempt to use reason as a basis for religious faith. He suggests that human beings might be better off without religion. The dialogue ends without agreement among the characters, justifying Hume s choice of literary style for this topic. As Pamphilus, Cleanthes pupil, says in the prologue: Any philosophical question that is so obscure and uncertain that human reason can reach no agreement about it, if it is treated at all, seems to lead us naturally to the style of dialogue and conversation.

Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

David, Hume

He who knows others is knowledgeable. He who knows himself is wise. 
These words, written 2500 years ago by Lao Zi, resemble Socrates’ account of his own quest in Plato’s Apology. Ancient philosophy, both in China and in Greece, places self-knowledge at the center of the search for wisdom. Contemporary philosophers are often misled about this way of thinking, because the self has been detached from external things and separated from nature and society. The Dao De Jing exists on the border between poetry and philosophy, embracing both mythos and logos. Its poetic form can stand alone, but it is enriched when its timeless ideas are analyzed and explained through careful scholarship. 
This unabridged oral interpretation of the poem, read by Albert Anderson, is designed to accompany Keping Wang's book The Classic of the Dao: A New Investigation (Foreign Language Press, Beijing, 1998).

Dao De Jing

Zi, Lao

Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo These four dialogues present the trial, imprisonment, and execution of Socrates who Phaedo said was “the wisest, best, and most righteous person I have ever known.” In the Euthyphro, Socrates approaches the court where he will be tried on charges of atheism and corrupting the young. On the way he meets Euthyphro, an expert in religious matters. Socrates challenges Euthyphro’s claim that ethics should be based on religion. In the Apology, Socrates presents his own defense. He explains why he has devoted his life to challenging the most powerful and important people, a process that has generated great resentment and has led to his indictment. He insists that instead of being punished, he should be rewarded for his service to his fellow citizens. Socrates fails in his attempt to avoid the death sentence, but his friend Crito has bribed the guards and offers him a way to escape. In the third dialogue, Crito tries to persuade Socrates that it is right to flee from the unjust sentence imposed on him. In the course of their conversation, they probe the foundations of civil and moral law and treat issues that are as relevant to our time as to theirs. The Phaedo presents Socrates’ final conversation. What will become of him once he drinks the poison prescribed for his execution? Socrates and his friends examine several arguments to prove that the death of the body does not result in killing the soul.

Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo

Each of us knows what we must know and what we must do. This knowledge is the common property of everyone! The three works included in this volume articulate the most fundamental principles of Kant s ethical worldview. What is Enlightenment? (1784) and Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) were written in the period between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Toward Lasting Peace was published then years later, after the French Revolution had turned sour. It foreshadowed the conceptual groundwork for the League of Nations and the United Nations. Taken together, these works challenge free people to think about the requirements for self-determination in our individual lives and in our public institutions. In spite of its formidable title and its sometimes dense philosophical style, Kant s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals is dedicated to the proposition that all people can know what they need to know to be honest, good, wise, and virtuous. The purpose of Kant s moral philosophy is to help us become aware of the principles that are already contained within us. Innocence and dependence must be replaced with wisdom and good will if we are to avoid being vulnerable and misguided. According to Kant, freedom of thought leads naturally to freedom of action. When that happens, governments begin to treat human beings, not as machines, but as persons with dignity. Translated by Leo Rauch and Lieselotte Anderson.

Kant's Foundations of Ethics, SECOND EDITION

Immanuel, Kant

Socrates: Phaedrus, I am a friend of division and synthesis as ways of promoting speech and thought. So, if I encounter someone who is able lead the way in discerning such natural unity and diversity, I follow in that person s footsteps as I would a god. Only the gods know whether I give such people the right name or not, but I call them dialecticians. Plato s dialogues frequently treat several topics and show their connection to each other. The Phaedrus is a model of that skill because of its seamless progression from examples of speeches about the nature of love to mythical visions of human nature and destiny to the essence of beauty and, finally, to a penetrating discussion of speaking and writing. It ends with an examination of the love of wisdom as a dialectical activity in the human mind. Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. The Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy. It simultaneously embodies the entire process in some of the greatest poetry ever written.

Plato's Phaedrus

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Agora Publications, Inc. publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Agora Publications, Inc.

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Agora Publications, Inc. publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Plato's Symposium

Plato's Symposium

Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Dao De Jing

Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo

Kant's Foundations of Ethics, SECOND EDITION

Plato's Phaedrus