Plato's Pod: Dialogues on the works of Plato30 Apr 2022

Dialogue on The Statesman, Session 1: Ripple of Hope

Is the leader born with the skills of statesmanship, or else what is the source of the expertise and theoretical knowledge that the statesman puts into practice in ruling over people? In the opening part of The Statesman, Plato takes us back in time to the beginning of the universe to search for the leader class and asks if there is in fact any natural separation between the ruler and ruled. Members of the Toronto Philosophy and Calgary Philosophy Meetup groups considered the question on April 24, 2022 in the first of three meetings on Plato’s Statesman. We began with own journey in time to listen to a statesman and found the words of Robert Kennedy’s 1966 “Ripple of Hope” speech still have the power to stir the soul’s spirit as much as they did half a century ago. In Plato’s dialogue, the Visitor from Elea likens statesmen to herdsmen who apply the force of their minds to direct the souls of their followers and thereby shape the arc of history when confronted by multiple choices and probabilities. In our dialogue, we explored the problem in the division of differing perspectives as we navigate the course of time. That the challenge might not always be resolved by rational calculation is a foundational principle that we can consider in our next session on The Statesman, in which the Visitor holds the job of the statesman is to find the mean of extremes. In the polarized politics of our time, use of the imagination may be the key to finding the mean where human potential can exceed either of two extremes. The many fascinating thoughts raised in our discussion certainly demonstrated the potential of moving beyond the limits of “what is” to “what if”, as one participant stated most powerfully.

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Episoder(77)

Alfred North Whitehead, Part 2: The Mathematician Who Added Plato to Modern Science

In their second episode featuring the works of modern Platonist Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), James Myers and Michael Fitzpatrick brought Plato into the 21st century through Whitehead’s perspect...

13 Apr 1h 22min

On Modern Platonist Alfred North Whitehead, Part 1: The Mathematician Philosopher

In this episode, James Myers and Michael Fitzpatrick continue to discuss modern Platonists with an introduction to Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), a mathematician who ended up as a professor of ph...

11 Feb 1h 20min

Why Artificial Intelligence is Impossible

Plato’s Pod host James Myers brings the logic of the characters in ten of Plato’s dialogues to bear on the question of “what is intelligence?” and concludes that “artificial intelligence” is impossibl...

5 Jan 41min

Justice in Plato’s Time and Our Time: Words that Shape Constitutions, Justice, and Governments

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15 Nov 202527min

On Modern Platonist Alain Badiou:"Thinking the Event" to Distinguish the Real from Images on the Wall

“Think the event” is central to the philosophy of Alain Badiou, a modern Platonist who has been writing and lecturing in philosophy for over five decades. Badiou said, “Philosophy is the seizure of th...

22 Sep 20251h 52min

Plato’s Letters VI and VIII: Good Kings are Servants of the Laws and Justice

We followed our discussion of Plato’s famous Letter VII by looking at his lesser-known Letters VI and VIII. Together, they form a powerful trilogy in which “Love your neighbour” emerges as an overarch...

9 Mai 20251h 30min

Plato's Seventh Letter, Part 2: Can Virtue Be Taught?

The second half of our discussion on Plato’s Seventh Letter begins with a reading of Plato’s famous statement that he never published any statement of his opinions. That’s both the beauty and, for som...

7 Apr 20251h 33min

Plato's Seventh Letter: On Tyrants Who are Blind to Philosophy

In our first discussion on Plato's letters, we look at his best-known Seventh Letter. In the letter, Plato relates his experience with Dionysius, the tyrannical ruler of Syracuse, and the philosophica...

3 Mar 20251h 17min