The Socratic Dialogues Early Period, Volume 2 cover art

The Socratic Dialogues Early Period, Volume 2

Gorgias, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, Lesser Hippias, Greater Hippias

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Socratic Dialogues Early Period, Volume 2

By: Plato, Benjamin Jowett - translator
Narrated by: David Rintoul, full cast
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £19.99

Buy Now for £19.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Here, in this second collection of Socratic Dialogues from Plato's Early Period, read by David Rintoul as Socrates with a full cast, are contrasting six works. Often, as with Gorgias, which opens the recording, Socrates combats the popular subjects of sophistry and rhetoric, in direct conversation with Gorgias (a leading sophist teacher), and with one of his pupils, Callicles.

In Meno, Socrates encounters another Gorgias pupil, Meno, and a debate on 'virtue' ensues. Virtue is also the topic in Protagoras, though this dialogue is largely narrated by Socrates (David Rintoul), who 'reports' the conversation which had taken place shortly before.

Euthydemus is one of the most entertaining of all the Socratic Dialogues, with the two vastly overconfident brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, supposedly capable wrestlers, boxers and musicians, who have come to Athens to teach sophistry. They enter into philosophical debate with Socrates, who at times is almost amazed by their brash sense of superiority.

The Lesser Hippias dialogue considers issues of morality, truth and lies, with reference to Homer's great characters Achilles and Odysseus, while the Greater Hippias enquires into the nature of beauty.

Translation: Benjamin Jowett.

Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Greek & Roman History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Moral Epistles cover art
Utilitarianism/On Liberty cover art
The Last Days of Socrates cover art
The History of the Peloponnesian War cover art
The Enchiridion & Discourses cover art
On the Shortness of Life, On the Happy Life, and Other Essays cover art
The Antichrist, Ecce Homo cover art
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life cover art
The Art of War cover art
The Ethics of Aristotle cover art
David Copperfield cover art
The Will to Power cover art
Rebbe cover art
Bernoulli's Fallacy cover art
Armenian History cover art
Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815 cover art

What listeners say about The Socratic Dialogues Early Period, Volume 2

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    35
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    39
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    29
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A beautiful rendition

Except.... I no longer know what beautiful is! Or good. Or virtue. To paraphrase Stephen Fry, perhaps the definition of each is like an oily trout. The harder you squeeze it, the faster it slips away.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Soothing narrator brings dialogues to life

The dialogues are beautifully voiced and compelling. I felt like I was transported back to ancient Greece and part of the conversation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Engrossing

If like me you’ve tried numerous times to get into Plato and failed, this could be your lucky break. I always gave up because I got frustrated at some of the seemingly pedantic quibbles but, when you listen to it, the narrators do a really good job of conveying that same exasperation and you begin to realise you’re not alone and several of the characters in the dialogue feel the same way. So Plato was aware that people would respond in this way to some of what he was saying.

I have found these narrations about 10 times easier to listen to than reading the books because the tone of the characters often helps you to understand where they are really coming from. Amazing book! Absolute gem!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars

Not the best of Plato by any means

This was a fairly tough old slog through the Platonic dialogues. The performances made it so much easier but all in all the content just wasn't up to the usual standards of the great king of all Philosophy. Looking forward to volume 3, but volume 2 is nowhere near as good as vol 1.

Still, it's Plato, so it's always worth a hearing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful