Plato
A Very Short Introduction

Name: Plato
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Julia Annas
ISBN: 9781666113709

Author: Julia Annas

Narrator: Julia Annas

Unabridged: 2 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/08/2021

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Philosophy, Individual Philosophers

Synopsis

This lively and accessible introduction to Plato focuses on the philosophy and argument of his writings, drawing the listener into Plato's way of doing philosophy, and the general themes of his thinking. It looks at Plato as a thinker grappling with philosophical problems in a variety of ways, rather than a philosopher with a fully worked-out system. It includes a brief account of Plato's life and the various interpretations that have been drawn from the sparse remains of information. It stresses the importance of the founding of the Academy and the conception of philosophy as a subject. Julia Annas discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. She also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude to women, and to homosexual love, explores Plato's claim that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and touches on his arguments for the immortality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe.

About Julia Annas

Julia Annas is Regents Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Arizona. Before that she taught at the University of Oxford (St Hugh's College) and she has also taught at Columbia University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford. She has been a Senior Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington DC, and President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association 2004-5, and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala. Annas has written a number of books and articles over a wide range of ancient philosophy, from Plato to the Hellenistic period, including An Introduction to Plato's Republic, The Morality of Happiness, and Platonic Ethics Old and New.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Riku on June 02, 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 difficu......more

Goodreads review by Incek on 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......more

Goodreads review by Erik on 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......more

Goodreads review by M. on 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 no......more

Goodreads review by Evan on August 06, 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 min......more