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Plato

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Symposium Audio CD – Audiobook, January 1, 2006

by Plato (Author), David Shaw-paker (Narrator)

4.5 55 ratings

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New translation by Tom Griffith In Symposium, a group of Athenian aristocrats attend a party held by Agathon to celebrate his victory in the drama festival of the Dionysia. They talk about love until the drunken Alcibiades bursts in, and decides to talk about Socrates instead. "Symposium" gives a picture of the sparkling society that was Athens at the height of her empire. This classic discussion on love is presented in its ideal medium: a multi-voice recording.

Language

English
Publisher

Naxos Audio Books
Publication date

January 1, 2006
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.25 x 4.75 inches
ISBN-10

9626343834
ISBN-13

978-9626343838
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Naxos Audio Books; Unabridged edition (January 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9626343834
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9626343838
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.25 x 4.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,894,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,265 in Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy
- #38,948 in Books on CD

Customer Reviews:
4.5 55 ratings

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Plato

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Plato (428-348 BCE) was a philosopher and mathematician in ancient Greece. A student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle, his Academy was one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy.

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4.5 out of 5

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Roger Petrich

almost like being at the party!

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2012

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Having read the "Symposium" in print previously, it was a delight to HEAR it presented as an Audio CD, where one could just sit back and listen to the conversation! The variety of voices keep things moving, and the conversations are lively. It is the same as lifting Shakespeare off the printed page and into the theatre. It is more than ink on paper, suddenly it is PEOPLE! People with passion and persuasive skills! Watch out you may get converted, and never be the same again.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Fun read for a super old book

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2019

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Had to read this for class, The audiobook made it so much easier to understand.

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2013

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Thank you for speedy response. Thanks for your help in my class. It was very helpful in my school and made things easier.

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2017

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Great

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Monique Cornish Rodriguez

Great reading

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2014

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This book was one of the easiest readings for me in my Philosophy course. It's my all time favorite and still have it on top of my desk. I would highly recommend this reading to those individuals that like to think out side the box and view love in a different ways.

One person found this helpful

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steph

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2014

great

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2004

.
Plato's "Symposium" is the story of Agathon's dinner party where conversation takes place with a small group of men, who recline, eat and drink around a table offering their views on Love. This story is an amazing account of how intelligent and yet so different a culture the men from ancient Greece were compared to our society today. Each speaker has this most amazing ability to tell two stories at the very same time, an creative artistic movement of what love 'is' in each and every story. applying and , metaphorically. intertwining a cultural, mythological story of the gods, giving far deeper meaning. In addition to this, the love relationships and sexual nature of these men also permeate an entire cultural feel to the story, enveloping a radical differentiation from our de-mystified and de-enchanted world back into a once existing world of substantial meaning and profundity.
Phaedrus, speaks first and relates how love is the greatest good, the beautiful, is shameful of ugly things and how only lovers are willing to die for one another.
The second speaker, Pausanias, applies two types of love, one Aphrodite, a common base love working at random with men's feelings, for money, for loving physical bodies, boys, men and women. The other type of love, from a much younger goddess, being a higher type, the heavenly, who only loves other men and boy love, but this is not physical body love but from affection of the mind of virtue and wisdom..
Aristophanes has the hiccups, so it is Eryximachus, a doctor, who speaks third, applying the idea of love as a double love; "for bodily health and disease are by common consent different things and unlike, and what is unlike desires and loves things unlike." p.82 The god of art was said to implant love as a healing art, all such love guided by this god. "It is quite illogical to say that a harmony is at variance with itself or is made up of notes still at variance." "So love as a whole has great and mighty power, or in a word, omnipotence ."
Aristophanes, the comic writer, gives a moving account of Love as a absolute human need, a desire for completion to the point of each person once shaped differently being cut in half, taking our current shape, in need of the other to complete the whole of what we once were. "For first there were three sexes, not two as at present, male and female, but also a third having both together," and they were violent, strong and forceful and would even attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods held a meeting and decided to cut them in halves and make them weaker. From then on, they were sexually drawn to one another, both heterosexual and homosexual, reasons all due to the way of the cutting of the halves.Lesbianism and boy to man love is freely spoken of and justified according to this story of the gods. His moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. For Socrates found such a romantic explanation of love as untrue to what love really is and what love contains, as it does not contain all the beauty and good.
The fourth speaker, Agathon gives a moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, it is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. "For all the gods are happy . . and love is the happiest of them all being the most beautiful and best . . the youngest of gods." In his speech, love is every good, virtuosos and beautiful thing.
The last speaker, Socrates, found such a romantic explanation of love to be untrue, for what desires good, virtue and wisdom is only something that does not contain such, something lacking, and therefore lacking it desires such things. Love only desires what it lacks. Love is neither beautiful nor ugly. "To have right opinion without being able to give reason is neither to understand nor is it ignorance. Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance."
It is so interesting how common and free sexuality and homosexuality were, how each man present commented on the beauty of the young men in their glory of youth. Alcibiades, jealous of Agathon, also a young beautiful male, makes a moving speech how Socrates refused his love and how other like young men, also were moved with his amazing wisdom and prose.
While women are generally discounted, and the bonding of affection in male love was considered a higher love by Pausanias, Socrates explanation of love, by far the most profound, was one he received from a woman named Diotima. Here, as another reviewer has stated, shows Plato's the egalitarianism and wisdom, like that of the beauty and ultimate goal of Love.
Later a group of men crash the party and the drinking really gets started. Some leave, while Socrates stays all night, never loosing integrity from his drinking and leaves with all his integrity.

6 people found this helpful

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desertowl

Worthy presentation

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2008

This is a multi-actor presentation of the Tom Griffith translation. The actors' British accents give it that panache that says 'culture.' Griffith's translation is well chosen--it is swift an unlabored, perfect for a dramatic presentation. The Symposium, as Plato intended it, succeeds both as a work of philosophy, and as a work of serio-comic theater. Look for the On Plato's Symposium translation for a more literal version, available in a Dialogues of Plato paperback.

9 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mangal Bahadur Tamang

Thanks

Reviewed in India on August 11, 2019

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Wonderful book with great service from amazon

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2016

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great book and fast service

One person found this helpful

Scott

Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2019

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Very interesting read!

Aditya Singh

Great Read.....

Reviewed in India on June 14, 2018

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A great book which defining what love actually is,.

J. Constable

A sloppy edition.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2015

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It's not even clear where the author's introduction ends and Plato's Symposium begins. I bought this for two friends so that they could see and understand why Symposium remains one of the greatest works of philosophy, but I fear this edition might actually put them off.

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