Xeon's Reviews > Plato: Complete Works

Any discipline one hears of, there be echoes of philosophy. As if one can not escape it.

And within the confines of philosophy, there are the echoes and "footnotes to Plato". Claims as audacious as how the whole of the modern world is built on them

Having gone through, I wholeheartedly attest to this

I shall admit, I did not garner much from reading the works themselves. This may have been because I listened to audio of the book alongside over the course of months, fittingly so since philosophy was conducted verbally in the past. I simply did not comprehend the depth, understanding only cursory ideas that held little hold on my soul

However, after the Complete Works of Plato, I read 117 papers over many a month with notes aplenty. These were from, presented in order of my favorites, best to least, of what I would recommend: 1. Oxford Handbook of Plato 2e 2. Cambridge Companion to Socrates 3. (Blackwell) A Companion to Plato 4. (Blackwell) A Companion to Socrates 5. Cambridge Companion to Plato

What I found is that the centuries of commentary, the stories, and the role in history are where the true value lies. Only recently have international teams of philosophers and scholars worked together to create such compendiums. We are among the first to have such an unfair advantage over nearly 2300 years of people trying to grapple with Plato and Socrates. Scholarship on Jesus the only thing similar in such ways. For the same ideas that might have taken years of study to come even close to approaching, can now be attained promptly

Learning Plato and Socrates in such a manner was a far better introduction to the whole of philosophy, its essence and foundations, than all the other texts I read. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to start with this first. Because everything I learned from philosophy makes much more sense now

There was an excerpt I came across when studying poetry recently which might provide some insight: "Few of us begin to write a poem about “death” or “desire.” In fact, most of us begin by either looking outward: that blue bowl, those shoes, these three white clouds. Or inward: I remember, I imagine, I wish, I wonder, I want." —The Poet's Companion. And so too with philosophy. Socrates engaged with normal people in the marketplaces and streets of Athens. The dialogues are unique such that, from the most approachable of topics, one can join the journey of discovering piercing depths. For me, this was falling in love most with the idea of Platonic Forms ♥

Socrates and Plato have been indelible to my thinking. They are dear to my heart. Because through them I found something which I now value in a new way: Whether it be logos, reason, or noumena, such things matter. Not just for understanding the universe to control even the heavens, but for understanding ourselves and living life

Very helpful- thank you 🙏