These five dialogues depict the life, death, and philosophical methods of Socrates, as portrayed by his student and philosophical successor, Plato. Meno offers some of the clearest and most compelling examples of the Socratic method in application. In Euthyphro, Socrates examines the concept of piety and displays his propensity for questioning Athenian authorities. Next, in the Apology, we find Socrates defending himself in court against charges of impiety and co...

Socrates, one of the first of the great philosophers, left no written works. What survives of his thought are second-hand descriptions of his teachings and conversations—including, most famously, the accounts of his trial and execution composed by his friend, student, and philosophical successor, Plato. In Euthyphro, Socrates examines the concept of piety and displays his propensity for questioning Athenian authorities. Such audacity is not without consequence, and in the Apol...

How they changed the world, and how they can change it again.This is the best book on philosophy I have ever read, and I have four master's degrees. —Philip van Heusen for Readers' FavoriteFor better or worse, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle engineered the Western mind.Above all, they formed part of a movement that stood at the crossroads of mythological and scientific-rational thought, at the crossroads of mythos and logos....

Euthyphro/Apology/Crito/Phaedo'Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death'The trial and condemnation of Socrates on charges of heresy and corrupting young minds is a defining moment in the history of classical Athens. In tracing these events through four dialogues, Plato also developed his own philosophy of a life guided by self-responsibility. Euthyphro finds Socrates outside the court-house, debating the nature of piety, while the ...

The definitive translation of Plato's Republic**, the most influential text in the history of Western philosophy.**“To read The Republic as Bloom means it to be read is to question everything we think we know about government, politics, the best human life, and the nature of truth.” —Adam Kirsch, from the introductionA cornerstone of Western thought, The Republic remains a...

The Sophist is one of the late Dialogues of Plato, which was written much later than the Parmenides and the Theaetetus, probably in 360 BC. After he criticized his own Theory of Forms in the Parmenides, Plato proceeds in the Sophist with a new conception of the Forms, more mundane and down-to-earth, and makes more clear the epistemological and metaphysical puzzles of the Parmenides; thus, he refers to that dialogue between Parmenides and young Socrates, which was written probably much earl...

In the long history of philosophy and literature, few have been so widely read and admired as the great thinkers of Greece and Rome. For modern audiences, this eBook bundle—which collects the Modern Library editions of three classics: Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Selected Dialogues of Plato, and The Basic Works of Aristotle—is the perfect introduction to the foundation of modern knowledge. Accompanied by insightful, accessible commentary from some of today’s top...

This new edition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is an accurate, readable and accessible translation of one of the world's greatest ethical works. Based on lectures Aristotle gave in Athens in the fourth century BCE, Nicomachean Ethics is one of the most significant works in moral philosophy, and has profoundly influenced the whole course of subsequent philosophical endeavour. It offers seminal, practically oriented discussions of many central ethical issues, including the role of luck i...

Taking the form of a dialogue between Socrates, Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, GORGIAS debates perennial questions about the nature of government and those who aspire to public office.Are high moral standards essential or should we give our preference to the pragmatist who gets things done or negotiates successfully? Should individuals be motivated by a desire for personal power and prestige, or genuine concern for the moral betterment of the citizens?These questions go to the...

The awe with which Plato regarded the character of 'the great' Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name. None of the writings of Plato have been more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design of the writer is not expressly stated

Parmenides is one of the dialogues of Plato. It is perhaps Plato's most challenging dialogue, as well as one of the most challenging works of philosophy ever written.The Parmenides purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a very young Socrates. The occasion of the meeting was the reading by Zeno of his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality who asserted that Parmenid...

Gorgias is an important Socratic Dialogue in which Plato sets the rhetorician, whose specialty is persuasion, in opposition to the philosopher, whose specialty is dissuasion, or refutation. The art of persuasion was necessary for political and legal advantage in classical Athens, and rhetoricians promoted themselves as teachers of this fundamental skill. Some, like Gorgias, were foreigners attracted to Athens because of its reputation for intellectual and cultural sophistication. Excerpted...