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- [00:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Today on Ascend, the Great Books Podcast, we are launching into our studies on Plato. We are finally here. We are kicking off with a roundtable of friends, a lawyer, two PhDs, and independent scholar discussing the preliminary questions of who is Plato? Why should we read him? And why should Christians read him in particular? And how should we read him? Is there a wrong and right way to read Plato? We'll also have a brief opening chat on the great books in general and why they are worth reading, we'll which is really at the heart of our mission here at Ascend. We'll end by mapping out the next eight to nine months of episodes on Plato, which includes some of the best university professors and online voices you can find. So join us today for an excellent conversation on who is Plato and why should we read him? Welcome to Ascend, the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I'm a husband, father of five and serves as a Chancellor and general counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. I'm recording on a beautiful evening here in rural Oklahoma. If you're new to Ascend, we are a weekly podcast that helps guide you through the Great books. It's our goal to be like a small group to people, especially first time readers, and we have podcasts, videos and written guides to help you read the Iliad, the Odyssey, Dante's Inferno and many of the Greek plays. You can check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. We appreciate all of our supporters who have access to our written guides and to community chats where you can discuss the great books with others. Visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for our reading schedule and more information today. Today is great. Today is a good day. We are introducing our launch into Plato. We'll look at who he was, why we should read him, in which texts we'll be reading together over the coming months. We have a great crew today to introduce Plato. First we have returning to the podcast, friend of the podcast, Dr. Frank Grabowski, member of our Sunday small group, diaconate candidate, third order Franciscan and the new dean of faculty at our local Classical High School, Dr. Grabowski. How you doing?
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Dr. Frank Grabowski
Doing well, Deacon. Thanks for the introduction.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. For those joining by video, you have to check out Dr. Grabowski's CD collection behind him. It is actually really impressive and it.
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Dr. Frank Grabowski
Actually wraps around so. And I have several boxes in storage right now. So yes, I am a Gen Xer.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Do you have a main genre?
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Dr. Frank Grabowski
Classical? Yeah, 100% classical. Well, it's not 100% classical, but yeah, mainly classical.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
I was going with Metallica. I thought that was a good guess. All right. We also have, returning to the podcast, Mr. Thomas Lackey, also a member of our Sunday Great Books group, independent scholar friend of the podcast, the guy who reads 400 commentaries before every episode. We always appreciate Thomas's insights. Thomas, how you doing?
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Mr. Thomas Lackey
Good, good. It's, it's a good day. It's beautiful weather. Floods have passed, so all is well.
- [03:03]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
We have had flooding out here. Yesterday, actually yesterday I had one of Thomas's children had come to to visit and it took me like 30 minutes to do a 15 minute drive trying to figure out which roads I could actually take. The four runner through that were completely flooded. So, yes, rural Oklahoma sometimes does have its challenges. We also returning to the podcast, or actually first time on the podcast as far as the listeners are concerned. We have Dr. Brett Larson, who's the assistant professor of political science at Tulsa Community College. He's joined our Sunday small group. I've really enjoyed all of his comments, and though this is his first appearance on the podcast, he's actually already recorded an episode with us on Plato and the Vocation of the Teacher, which will air later this year. Dr. Larsen, how are you doing?
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Dr. Brett Larson
Doing great. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. So just tell us like a little bit, just a quick snapshot of like your scholarship and background.
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Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah. So my specialty is political philosophy. So I've been broadly trained in it from the classical thinkers like Plato and Aristotle and Cicero, through the medieval thinkers like Augustine and Thomas, and then up through the modern period, which of course would be Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, K. Mill, Marx, et cetera, and then kind of into the more contemporary period as well too, which would be people like John Rawls or Ronald Dworkin. So my research interests kind of focus on the intersection of the history of political philosophy and philosophical conservatism. So one of the things I'm working on right now is what is conservatism really and what is it supposed to be conserving, which is kind of a hot topic nowadays in some of the more, I guess you'd say, specialized academic circles. Is conservatism just an offshoot of, say, liberalism in the philosophical sense, or is there actually a deeper, longer tradition there? So that's kind of some of the stuff I'm working on as far as my teaching. I work at a community college, so our basic bread and butter course is an Intro to American Government course. You know, the basically, hey, there's a Congress, a President, etc. But occasionally I do get to teach a course called Intro to Political Thought, and it's basically a history of political philosophy, and we start with Plato and we go through Nietzsche, and that is, to date, my favorite course to teach and wish got to teach it more often.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's wonderful. I am really going to exercise some discipline and not go off about how modern conservatism is actually just right. Liberalism, because that is a wonderful conversation to have. Any particular love of Plato?
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Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah, I really enjoy Plato. Probably we might get into this later today, but one of my favorite works by Plato is the Republic, which, incidentally, we are going to be reading in our. In our book group, and I'm really looking forward to that. And so, yeah, Plato has definitely been highly influential in my way of thinking. I have, in general, a very high view of the classical political philosophers. Plato, of course, being one of them.
- [06:04]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, very good. Yeah. So maybe before we jump into Plato, particularly, maybe for those who are new to Ascender, just as really a refresher to all of us, like, let's just talk about the great books. Like, why do we even read the great books? What are the great books? Like, what is our project here on Ascend? So on the podcast, you know, our goal here is to really be like a small group to people. You know, this podcast was actually born out of our small group, our Sunday small group that meets at my home, where I was kind of posting on it about X and saying how much I was enjoying reading this with everyone. And people kept commenting like, oh, I'd love to have a book group like this, but I don't have one to read it with or even like, hey, you know, my buddy and I or three of our buddies want to come together and we want to read the Iliad, but no one's read it before. Just having this, like, cold read is, like, really difficult. And so a lot of, you know, this podcast, the impetus of it was that feedback I received online. And so our goal here is to kind of have just a slow, attentive read, Right? We spent an entire year just reading Homer. We spent six months on the Iliad, six months on the Odyssey. We had a wonderful episode on Hesiod with Thomas and Dr. Grabowski. And then we got into a lot of the Greek plays, ended with the comedies with Aristophanes. And now we are finally kind of ready to read Plato. But when we talk about the great books, what do we actually mean? Because I think a lot of people sometimes are suspicious because we have Great books, like all the ones I just mentioned, which are good and beautiful. We have Plato and we'll get into why we should read him. But also the great books include, say, Machiavelli or Hobbes or Locke or people that we might like, disagree. So when we say, like the great books, what is it that we mean when we say the great books?
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Dr. Frank Grabowski
So I'll take a stab. So I think a good place to start is just to note that, I mean, the great books are very much part of the time in which they're written, so they're very time specific. It's impossible to really appreciate Homer or Plato without acknowledging the time, the place, but the authors somehow manage to address concerns that are timeless. So I guess my first contribution to the conversation is just to note that these are texts, these great books.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
They.
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Dr. Frank Grabowski
Very much address the concerns of today as, as. As much as they addressed the concerns of the time and the place in which they were written.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I think there's perennial truths, right? So if you talk about what are the great books, they're typically books that we would say are engaging perennial truths. They're books that have layers. They're books that can be, you know, a lot of times people say, well, they're great because they can be read and reread over and over again. I think one, two. One thing too that I would mentioned about the great books is like the quote unquote, great books list, which became kind of, you know, popular in last century, and now we have entire colleges based off great books curriculum and things like this. You know, a lot of ways the great books, I think, are actually great simply because of their impact. Whether or not they're actually true, good and beautiful is an argument. Right. Some are actually clearly not. And so a lot of times, like particularly here on the podcast, you know, we'll talk about the ancients and moderns that you have kind of like the ancient thinkers, you know, moving into, say, the time of Christ and then the early church, and then you get the medieval. And that whole movement for the most part, is one kind of harmonious whole that's building up to kind of an ordered cosmos and that we're kind of reflecting upon it. And then the moderns are kind of a rejection. They reject that kind of ordered whole. They reject the inheritance of the west, and they try and replace it with various things which typically just ends up eroding it. When every kind of wave of modernity that we have kind of erodes what had built up in the west until today, you know, it's very common that, well, there is no truth and there is no objective beauty and, you know, everything's really malleable to human volition and these types of things. These ideas didn't come out of anywhere. So I think one distinction I make with the great books is that they are simply great because of their impact. And then we have to discern whether they're true, good or beautiful. We actually have to look at what they did. What was their contribution? Are they contemplating a perennial truth? Are they helping us to explore it, or are they actually tearing it down? Are they deconstructing it?
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Mr. Thomas Lackey
I think this would be a harder thread to tease out exactly. But it's. You often hear about the books being in conversation. I think that's one of the threads, one of the things as well that as you see Aristotle not building on, but also it's arguing with, on certain points, Plato, or actually let's even. We go back into a little bit further that Plato is building on and then also in some sense disputing with Homer. And these layer on each other so that while it's possible you can skip here and there, there's a very real sense in which they're building blocks all one upon the other. You're not really even going to. You're not be able to plop down and read Machiavelli's the Prince without some understanding of what everything that came before. I mean, you'll get something out of it. But. So by the way, when I put Machiavelli here as a. As a deliberate contrast to Plato, but to have a contrast, you really have to see the other side of that color. And I think that's, that's another aspect. One question of why to read Plato, but I was just quite. Reading the great books in general, is to enter into this entire stream of conversation that's been going on for thousands and thousands of years. But there's no real way to just hop in at the tail end. It doesn't work that way.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, this is called the Great Conversation. We're entering into the Great Conversation. And one of the reasons that I think here on the podcast, we've made the commitment to mostly for the most part, move in chronological order, because then you can actually see how these authors are dialoguing with one another. And we'll see that very clearly when we read Plato, because we'll see that he's in dialogue with Homer, particularly say in the Republic, but also like in the Gorgias and other places as well. Homer's Just somewhat ubiquitous throughout the Platonic corpus. But obviously, like you said, Aristotle then is going to be in conversation with both Homer and with Plato. And then that kind of just continues to snowball. And so you bring a much more rich understanding to the text if you have read the antecedents. And so if you're new, if you haven't read all those and you don't want to go back, you can jump in with Plato. The first time I was introduced to the Great Books, we just started with Platonic dialogues. We didn't read any of the Greek plays. We didn't read any of the poetics at all. No Homer. So it can be done. But those who have kind of joined us and read with us throughout the Great Books, I think you're going to bring. You're going to really start to see that you're bringing a pretty rich inheritance of the Western tradition already into Plato. And one of the things, too, I would mention, just about reading the Great books in general, is that it really helps you to reclaim your intellectual. And what I mean by that is, like, this entire kind of Western tradition that we've inherited, whether it's the ancients building something up or whether it's the moderns tearing something down, like, it's not something that we stand apart from. Like, we're like the stones in the river, and this, like, washes over us. And so I think that one of the things that I really appreciated reading the Great books is that it forces me to think, like, why do I think the way I do? Why do I have these certain ideas? Why do I have these ideas about the soul or what it means to be a good man? What is virtue? What do I think about the afterlife? Like, in a lot of ways, Right. Even, like, our political presuppositions. Right. Why do I believe in rights? Why am I believing that democracy is the best form of government? Why. Why do we have all of these things in our culture that seem to be assumed norms? Well, we're downstream from all of these thinkers. And the more that we read these thinkers, I think the more we can actually reclaim our own ideas and our own intellects and say, okay, now I actually know the context in which this idea came from. I also can see whether it's congruent with my other ideas. And I think I become much more independent or at least confident in my own intellectual decisions because I've kind of entered this great conversation.
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Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah. And I also think entering that great conversation also enlarges your understanding not of just why you think A certain way, but also the pool of ideas that is available to you. So I'll just give you an example from my own life. So I grew up as, I guess you could say, an unconscious Kantian. You know, I'd never read Kant at this point in my life, but if you'd asked me to give you an explanation of ethics, it would have been something along the lines of Kantianism. There are these, you know, ethical principles that govern us and we have to obey them. It's our duty to obey them. And as long as we don't transgress them, we can go ahead and do as we please. And that's it. You know, the deontological ethics. However, over time, I started reading Plato and Aristotle and Cicero and Augustine and Thomas and other, you know, great authors in this great conversation. And I started discovering that there's an alternative way to think about ethics that we typically call virtue ethics, which starts with an idea of a supreme good. And then virtue is, is those things that help us attain that supreme good. So by participating in this conversation, I discovered something that I had absolutely no idea existed. And that's just one of, I think, you know, many examp I can draw on.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I mean, I think I had somewhat of a similar experience as a young man starting to read existentialism, read a lot of Kirkegaard, read a lot of Camus, had a lot of ideas that resonated with me, but then a lot of things that all of a sudden I was like, wait, is this really congruent with my Christian faith? How does this all come together? And again, even though I wouldn't suggest starting with Kirkegaard as your journey into the great Books, you start with some Homer, go read the Iliad. It did actually start to challenge me and challenge me in my own ideas. And so I think it's part of why we read the great books. So maybe segueing then into if that's a great bookstore overall, why do we read Plato? Why would we read him? So first, as a preliminary, maybe just some brass tacks, like, who is he? Well, we know Plato. I think most people know him, that he's a disciple, a student of Socrates. So who is Socrates? So let me kind of just tee this up for a little bit. So Socrates was born in 470 BC in Athens, Greece. He lived through Athens, Golden Age, but also the Peloponnesian War, which ended in 404 BC. Socrates is the first philosopher. He's truly a lover of wisdom. He thought reality was intelligible and dialogued with people to find truth and to lead them into truth. Most notably, like Jesus Christ, he wrote no books. He is mainly known to us via the writings of his student Plato. And it is in the writings of Plato that Socrates gives us teachings on the soul, virtue, politics, the afterlife, rhetoric, teleology and education. In 399 BC, at the age of 70, Socrates was tried for corrupting the youth and impiety and sentenced to death and was executed via him drinking the hemlock. Anything to add on if just like a quick snapshot on who is Socrates?
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Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, Socrates is perhaps best known for his method, which is illustrated in the dialogues, which we'll get into. The other thing I would just mention in passing is he is the prototypical philosopher. He is the true lover of wisdom. He is someone who pursued wisdom but denied having it. And so I think that he really does serve as such a wonderful model to both teachers and students for, you know, how we ought to pursue wisdom, you know, with humility, with deference, but with, with a degree of optimism.
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Mr. Thomas Lackey
I'd make an a point as well that we talked about the reading the great books itself as a kind of entering into a great conversation. You can look at the life and method of Socrates and that one of the sort of presuppositions that you see in the dialogues is that there is value in having these conversations at all. Right. That we might actually come to know things, or at least sometimes know that we didn't know them as well as we thought. The idea being that at least someone might at some point say, well, why even get into this conversation? What's the real value here? Or why do it this way? I think Socrates can serve as a model there as well, that there is value here and that there are answers to be found. And even when there aren't answers to be found, they can somehow lead into kind of a more profound mystery of the thing. Right. A sense of wonder that can come out precisely through the process.
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Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah. And Socrates is oftentimes called the gadfly of Athens, to refer back to Frank's point there about his particular method. That of course being asking a lot of questions. But I think this is what Plato attributes to him. I forget the dialogue he does it to, but Socrates is said to have said the unexamined life is not worth living. So for Socrates, he thinks we're essentially wasting our lives if we're not asking these really fundamental questions like what is the supreme good? What is human nature? What is justice? What is virtue. And all the other questions that Socrates pursued throughout his life and then ultimately ended up arguably because of the pursuit of these things, getting in trouble with the people of Athens because maybe they wanted to live a life that was in fact unexamined.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I think there are really strong parallels, just kind of looking at the character of Socrates, really strong parallels between him and Jesus Christ. Like if you had to actually choose, like two people, like where are the two persons that really kind of gave a distinct imprint on what we now call Western culture. I don't think a bad answer is Jesus Christ and Socrates, at least the character of Socrates as, as we know him through Plato, right? They're very similar. They're, they're not writing things down, they're not focused on writing books, they're focused on forming those around them. And then obviously they're, they're both killed, right, by the polis. And so we'll see Socrates, as you mentioned, that quote is from the Apology. And so we'll see that Socrates is tried and eventually, you know, executed via drinking poison, but also we have with our Lord, right, Also teaching and then ended up being crucified, you know, in his own polis. And so I think right at the, right off the bat, I think there's like this really distinct parallel between the two that really has captured the imagination of say, Christianity, the early church fathers, etc, that something very distinct is going here. And like there are kind of very deep spiritual reads of Socrates, right? Socrates will say that his teacher was God. Socrates will tell us that God gave him a daemon or a spirit, which the Neoplatonic kind of Renaissance Catholics interpreted as some type of angel that would tell Socrates not what to do, nothing positive, but would kind of check him and tell him what not to do, right? So it's, it's difficult, it's really difficult to even summarize the character of Socrates. But when we're looking at Socrates, I think in my mind we're looking at someone who lived a life that gave what we call Western, Western culture its core characteristics. And I think one of those things that we have to see that he took quite seriously is the soul. We finally have kind of a very robust understanding of the soul. And going back to the Apology, right, this robust understanding of the soul of, like, I understand that, you know, evil men cannot actually harm a good man because you can't force me to actually act against myself. You cannot force a just man to actually be unjust. And so there's this. The more you study him via Plato I think the more these things start to blossom and how rich reading these Platonic dialogues are. But let's kind of sally forth. If that's Socrates, then who is Plato? So just some brass tacks on Plato. So Plato was born in 428 BC in Athens, Greece into an aristocratic family. Plato is actually a nickname. It means broad, kind of like a plateau. Probably due to him being a wrestler with, with broad shoulders. He grew up during the Peloponnesian War, which again ends around 404 BC, which was a very turbulent period. It was basically the World war of the Mediterranean. Right. So it kind of shaped his idea of politics and society. He was a devout student of Socrates and Plato was deeply influenced obviously by Socrates execution In 399 BC, around 387, he founded the academy in Athens. So all of our language of academics, the academy, all of those things come back to the very first place of learning, Right. The academy in Athens, which obviously pioneered this type of education, this type of philosophy. He lived into his 80s and died somewhere around 348 B.C. what do we need to know about kind of Plato the person?
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Dr. Brett Larson
I think something interesting to add to kind of the brief sketch of Plato's life is that from around 360 to 367 BC, Plato was actually in communication with the ruler of Syracuse, it was Dionysus ii. I think he was called a tyrant at that time, not necessarily because of how he exercised power, but certainly how he gained it, which would be through unlawful means there in ancient Greece. The term tyrant refers to how you gain power, or at least can, and not necessarily how you exercise it. But nonetheless, he traveled to Syracuse at the time, was actually in the court of Dionysus and tried to tutor him. And then also he wrote some letters to Dionysus II as well. Now I don't think Plato was very happy with the outcome of how his tutoring ultimately went. I think he would tell you that he failed to produce the philosopher king he was hoping, but nonetheless, a lot of times I think people think of Plato as being almost kind of a pure academic. You know, he's starting the academy, he's in the academy, he's teaching, he's thinking, he's writing, but he's not really in politics. It's like, well, he did have a seven year period at least where he was actually quite active in politics at that time.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle, and then Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. So I think as far as like actually tutoring an actual successful political figure, I think Aristotle wins that one over his mentor Plato. You know, that the narrative on Plato, there's all kinds of wonderful little anecdotes. The narrative on Plato that's always really captured my imagination is that he was a playwright, that he wrote plays. And the narrative is that upon meeting Socrates, he went back and burned all of his plays. And then now. But it's, you know, obviously the. The benefit here is that the dramatist in him survived. And then he decides then, right, to write the teachings of Socrates in a dialogue format. So that's something that's really interesting. So if those are familiar with, like, Aristotle or most all modern philosophers, we get kind of like a treatise. We get like an instruction manual. Sometimes we get things that are incredibly difficult to read, and sometimes they're difficult to read intentionally. Right. I think it was Hegel. Someone asked him, like, why are you so difficult to read? And he's like, well, because if I was easier, I'd be less famous. So this is what most people think. Philosophy. This is what they think. They think very difficult, dense, unerotic, right. To use that. That Platonic term, reading. And what Plato gives us is something beautiful and rich and alive that has a vitality to it. Right. It's the best way. And he talks about this the best. The best way to learn is a question, answer. But with another human. You're having this conversation. The dialogue seems to be then the next best option, that you kind of reduce that conversation to some kind of writing in which you can kind of hopefully step into that kind of frozen dialogue. But Plato kind of writes in layers. And so, again, like all the great books, we can come back over and over again. But I've always been captured by that, that Plato burned his plays upon meeting Socrates, but then turned around and presented the Socratic teaching, at least initially, and then a lot of his own in a dialogue format.
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Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah, Well, I think. I think Plato never fully got away from his poetic writing there, but he never fully got away of his critique of kind of that literary poetic way of writing as well, too. Like, I think he's somewhat misunderstood at his point when he says this, but he says you got to banish the poets, you know, like Homer, for example. Now, his point isn't that you can't have any poetry. No, he's just saying you need to get rid of the poetry that's corrupting to the soul. It's for pedagogical purposes. But he does, later in the Republic, offer a critique of the artist on the grounds that the artist is a Person who makes a representation of something that isn't really real. So the artist, for Plato does not see to the true realities, the forms, the ideas that are behind things like the form of a chair as opposed to say, the physical manifestation of the chair. All the artist sees is the chair and then makes a copy of the chair, chair there. And I forget how he phrases it exactly. Maybe one of you can, can correct me on this. But something like the, the artist is like doubly ignorant because of, the artist is focusing on a copy of a copy rather than the reality itself. So yeah, I mean you're absolutely right that he, he definitely uses a literary and poetic style. But I still think he, he was a little bit uneasy with it throughout his, his works.
- [28:16]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I think one thing I've come to appreciate is that say in the Republic he'll critique poetry and the poets. In the Gorgias he will critique rhetoric, but at the same time he'll be using poetry and rhetoric. And so what does this mean? Right? How does a man who is teaching through dialogues and giving us beautiful allegories like the cave or myths, like the myth of er or Gyges ring, how does that man critique poetry? And really I think, you know, what we'll see then is philosophy is the highest and it brings all the other arts and bodies of knowledge underneath it. And so you can make these distinctions between say a rhetoric that's in service to philosophy or a rhetoric that is not like we see in the Gorgias. And so I think one of the things that we'll see constantly with Socrates in the writings of Plato is that he's, he's not only trying to understand the essence of things or the definitions of things, he wants to understand the logos, the logic, the internal ordering, the rational principle of a thing, what's the logos of justice. But then also where does it fit in with the whole? Because that's really wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge of the whole. So how does this thing then fit in? I don't want to just understand rhetoric. I want to understand where rhetoric fits in overall, like as an art form. And so I think this is like the search, this is the journey that he's on that he has these dialogues about, that he's constantly trying to understand this truth. So maybe this is kind of a good segue into not just like who Plato is, but why should we read him? Like why. So if, like I'm, if I'm a first time reader and I've never read Plato before, right, we've got two PhDs. You know, Dr. Kurowski, I think, recently stated that he escaped academia to teach at the classical high school. But what do you tell your students, like when you say, when they say, oh, we got to read these dialogues, like, why, why are we reading Plato? Like, it's so old. Like, what are we possibly going to learn from this? Like, what do you tell them?
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Dr. Brett Larson
And think of at least two things I would give them. So one, and I think Frank brought this up a little bit earlier in the context of why read the great books in general? Well, why read Plato? Well, one is there are some questions that all humans ought to ask themselves, even if they don't actually ask themselves. And so by reading Plato, you are going to be forced to spend at least a little time in your life asking and thinking about these kind of questions here. You know, some of them might be things like what is justice? Or perhaps, you know, what is the good life? These are questions that Plato spent a lot of time asking. Or how about this? Why be just? I mean, people oftentimes agree they should be just, but what's the reason for that? Well, Plato has answers to that. So by reading Plato, you are going to start asking those questions. But then a second reason I would give you is that I think Plato gave us very thoughtful, reasoned answers to these questions. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that everything Plato said and wrote was correct or the whole truth or anything like that. I certainly have my quibbles with Plato on certain issues, but you should be aware of what he said because it's a really good starting point for thinking about these. I mean, you just think about a life in general. How do you learn something about something you know absolutely nothing about? Well, one thing you do is you go and you talk to or you read people who actually know something about it, and that gives you some knowledge and then you can explore further on those points. So I'd say, yeah, those are kind of two basic reasons for why you should read Plato.
- [31:50]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, I'm also thinking about this a little bit in the context of, you know, my kids are a little bit young to be picking up the dialogues, but the will come soon enough. And, and probably answering this question as well. But I can think that you can approach it in somewhat Socratic way and start asking questions as I think there would be universal questions of what people think is important. Right. And I think as you would lead this out, I mean, some people will mention some things that they'd like to do, they'd like to travel, or they'd Like a nice house or something like that. But when you drill down, most people will eventually get around to certain answers that they do think things like the truth is important, that goodness, under some term, analogy, at least goodness is important, that justice. These are questions that ultimately you could even ask questions about. Many people will talk about how they'd want to be an artist or something like that. Well, you can even work from that. Say, why is it better that there be more or fewer beautiful things? And if it's good that there'd be more beautiful things, why, why should there be? And you push all these down. And I don't really think people are satisfied with answers. They're mostly fed now that these are simply matters of personal value or taste. There's no intrinsic meaning to any of this. There are no answers to these questions at all. You just make that all up for yourself. I think there's something deeply unsatisfying about that, and I think there is in Plato. Not how. I'm not suggesting Plato as a sort of encyclopedia that you pick up to get the answers to those questions, but he and his, through Socrates is an excellent example of a person and a way of life that refuses to accept cheap substitutes as answers to those questions. And I think there. There's a. I mean, maybe an overly done emphasis on authenticity and as a phrase and all this. I think there is, though, in this idea of an unexamined life, that life is a very high stakes venture which I could get wrong, and that it's important that I know the truth and bear witness to it somehow. And I think that that answer is something that resonates with almost everyone, even though it gets pushed aside by so many other things. And Plato, Plato is an introduction into that in two ways. And I hope I'm just not repeating myself, but it's introduction to that in the dialogue form, as in it's an instruction, it's a teaching, it's all. But it's also a kind of parable, an image of a life lived out that way in the person of Socrates, someone who is so uncompromising in his quest for the truth that he's willing. He's willing to die as a witness to it.
- [34:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that was really well said. No, I appreciate that. Dr. Kabowski, what do you think? Why should we read Plato? Your little classical high school students come up to you and be like, what? We have to read the apology? Why are we reading this?
- [35:02]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
There's a very famous quotation by Alfred North Whitehead, a well known, late 19th, early 20th century philosopher, process and reality, I think. So we find this quotation where he says that the history of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. And I think he says that with a certain traditional or conventional understanding that Plato was your usual didactic philosopher who is. Who's teaching us, who's trying to convey to us what he himself thinks, what he himself believes to be true, but somehow embeds this within a dramatic setting. And so there's this tendency sometimes to strip away the drama and just to reveal the arguments to get to the bottom of what it is that Plato believed. And this is what Platonism is. And I think that that's a mistake. And maybe we'll get more into this when we consider the question how to read the dialogues. But there's a very distinct esoteric side to Plato that I find quite appealing. And by that, by esoteric, I mean that he does tend to bury his meaning. He does tend to hide it in a way. He puts us to work just like Socrates puts his interlocutors to work. And so clearly, Plato had beliefs. I mean, you know, he's not just throwing ideas out there randomly. He has convictions. But I think the real beauty of reading Plato is to try to seek out precisely what it is that he is trying to get across to us through this character of Socrates. I mean, Plato is constantly hidden from us. He's hidden behind Socrates, but he's hidden behind these other interlocutors too. So I think that that, to me, is very compelling about Plato just as an author.
- [37:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, very well said. Yeah. I think we need to circle back to that on how to read him. I think we're still dealing with why to read him. The two points that came to me, which I think are really kind of echoed in the sentiments already shared, is one, Plato is philosophy. Like, just plain and simple, Plato is philosophy. You cannot have philosophy without Plato. And so earlier, I kind of list the things that we have that Socrates kind of teaches us, but we only have the character of Socrates right as Plato presents him. But we're getting. What are we getting reading the soul, virtue, excellence, you know, political philosophy. We're getting basic teleology. We're getting what does it mean to be educated. We're getting a ladder, we're getting spiritual teachings. I think sometimes we don't realize that Plato actually has a deeply spiritual element that maybe we're not even used to seeing inside a philosopher where he's going to tell you, like, how your soul ascends to God. He's going to tell you that God has given him. You know, Socrates will tell us that God has given him a vocation, that God, this is a God that actually cares, apparently, about what happens in Athens and to the people in it. So there's a deep spiritual side of Plato that I think really makes an imprint, particularly on Christianity, that I think has to be noted. But when you talk about Plato is philosophy, I mean, I think one of the core distinctions, and this is kind of echoed in all the sentiments, is that he presents an objective reality. He presents a reality that is true and good and beautiful. It's intelligible, is this ordered cosmos, this kind of cosmic order by which we can come to understand the world around us, but also ourselves. And that claim that he makes and defends and constantly tries to root things kind of in an objective knowledge really is, I think, at the heart of philosophy, right, a true love of wisdom, because it's a pursuit of what's real. It's a pursuit that actually we can experience what is real and satiate in it and come to grow both in our knowledge of what's external to us, but also in our own interior lives. And so I think Plato, right, is really a master of the soul. I think he's really a master of trying to tutor us. And I love what you said, Dr. Krabowski, is that he. He doesn't hide the ball, right, because that's kind of a negative phrase. But like, it's. He makes it like a true conversation. You actually have to do the work. You actually have to kind of unearth these things yourself. But you're so much richer after having done that. But what's beautiful about it is, you know, God bless Aristotle. Like, you can do a lot of work in Aristotle, but sometimes it's really painful because it's like, I had to read all those pages, and it's like an instruction manual, and that's rough. You read a dialogue, and it's beautiful, and you do all that work. But it's like, I loved it, and I want to read it again, and I want to read it again, right? It just speaks to the heart. Maybe I'm playing too many of my cards and I'm, you know, prejudice on such things. But I think it's very good. It's beautiful. Plato is philosophy. Can I change the question just a bit?
- [40:14]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Can I just add one thing? And, I mean, this is going to sound incredibly cheesy and cliche, but, I mean, Plato truly does put the philo in philosophy. There's true love right there's genuine love and passion, not just for philosophy, but for his mentor. And so there's a personal relationship that Plato has to the activity and to his art that I think is harder to see in the more academic, you know, modern, but even, even some of the, some of the, you know, early modern and medieval texts, which is not in no way to diminish the value, their value, but truly, you know, the eros, I mean, the erotic, not, not in a profane or perverse way, but, but, but in terms of that, that, that fire within the heart of the philosopher, who is. Yeah, because I mean, again, to be very brief, I mean, Plato was one of my first introductions to philosophy. I mean, he, he, he's what woke me up to the beauties of, of philosophical inquiry. And, and I mean, no other philosopher, certainly Aristotle. I mean, I've come to appreciate Aristotle, but, but Plato will always have that special place in my heart because again, of the, the genuine love that he has for that, that search for wisdom.
- [41:40]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Beautiful. Well said. Yeah, Just changing the question slightly because, you know, a lot of our, of our audience, but some of those who aren't, is why should a Christian read Plato? And I think that everything we've said already applies to that question, but I want to kind of narrow it and refine it just a little bit. And if I can kind of sally forth first on this. You know, I think that one thing on the podcast we've talked about, you know, coming from a Catholic intellectual tradition and approaching the Great Books, is the understanding that Hebrew faith, coupled together with Greek reason under Roman order, prepared the world for Jesus Christ. That the incarnation of God right in the flesh, to become in flesh was not something that happened accidental. It was not an accident of history, but rather, as St. Paul tells us, right, Christ came in the fullness of time. And so Providence used these cultures to kind of till the soil, if you will, the till the human imagination and the human intellect and the human soul to be able to receive then, say, the New Testament. And so I think when you approach it from that direction, we see that Plato plays really an irreplaceable role in kind of cultivating the soil for the coming of Jesus Christ. And you see this not only in, like, his impact in Hellenized thought, but then we have to keep in mind that, you know, this kind of Hellenized culture comes together with the Hebrew culture, you know, what, 200, 300 years prior to Jesus Christ. The first Old Testament canon, the Septuagint, is actually written in Greek. The New Testament is Written in Greek, it adopts Greek terms. I'm not saying it's all Platonic or straight Platonic philosophy, but there is a Hellenistic imprint on that type of Hebrew thought at that time where our Lord comes. And a lot of that Hellenistic imprint is Plato. And then Plato is the philosopher for at least the first 1200 years of Christianity. If they talk about philosophy, they mean Plato and they know who Aristotle is, but they have some problems with him. He seems like a materialist. He seems too mundane, these types of things. Right. And so I think that in a lot of ways, Plato is philosophy and he is the philosopher for much of Christianity. And I think that it'd be actually really hard to divorce Christianity from Platonic thought. Right. There's been, you know, quotes said that, you know, Christianity is basically Platonism for the masses. And so I think if you're going to approach from a Christian standpoint, I think one, is a historical claim of what was Plato's role then in kind of tilling the soil. And two, what is Plato's like, imprint on Christian thought, which sometimes we're not as aware of.
- [44:23]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, there's not much I can add to what you've just said, Deacon. You know, it's. I don't. I don't. I mean, it's certainly possible to read Augustine's Confessions without having read the dialogues, but I don't think you can appreciate Augustine's intellectual development sans some exposure to the dialogue. Same with Anselm's ontological argument. I mean, the ontological argument draws heavily upon the quote, unquote, Platonic metaphysics. But I would just briefly say that, you know, anecdotally, Plato had a huge impact on my reversion back to the Catholic faith. In particular, the considerations that come up in the dialogues regarding objective morality, the truth of mathematics, I mean, these become very difficult things to square with a secularist worldview. And so I think that Christians can certainly benefit from having read Plato as a way of either quelling doubts or strengthening their faith.
- [45:24]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I think it's in the idea that that grace builds on nature. We come to love God by faith, which is itself a gift. But there's a natural love of God, a natural virtue of religion as well. That's the proper object of philosophy, which is to know and love God, not in the beatific way that is promised through Christianity, where we would come to know and see him as he sees himself, but to know and love him as a creature loves its Creator in a natural mode. And it is by no means wrong, and it's in fact a providentially, I think, both naturally and providentially arranged thing that men would strive to love God even in a fallen world, the best that they're able to find Him. And I think that's what you see in someone like Socrates who is not, who doesn't have the benefit of revelation. So he doesn't have that, that unerring light to follow, but still has a kind of leading to love God according to the lights of human reason. And I use that term on purpose because there's a sense of which, of course, that Augustine will point out that all human reason is illumined by the divine light. Right. So that all truth has to have that divine illumination to it. So that I think that you wouldn't want to cut that off. Yes, it's true that Christianity has a fullness that can't be. Aquinas says elsewhere that you could only come to some even natural truths. It mixed with a lot of error. And, and I think that there are. So I'm not extolling philosophy to the extent that it would arrive at, at all the conclusions of Christianity. It never would, but it can arrive at some, for example, that God exists and that he ought to be loved.
- [47:39]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And, and Thomas, I mean, just, just to kind of follow up on what you just said. Look, I mean, however we want to read the Republic, whether it's, you know, reflecting Plato's actual thought or. But you say that Augustine, that he subscribes to this idea that all is known through some sort of divine illumination, but what we read in the Republic, but all is illumined by the form of the good. So Plato is already approaching this idea that the transcendent is ultimately what provides us with insight, which ultimately provides us with the light by which we can come to know the truth.
- [48:16]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and of course, St. Paul on Mars Hill appeals to the Athenians and using a, you know, a dialogue sort of form. Now, his success, I admit, is limited, but the, the point. He doesn't entirely reject this as a method. Right. Or as an approach. He said he is already hinting that, look, you're in, like, in that, in this scriptural example that you, you've been worshiping an unknown God. Well, I'm here to make him known to you. Well, he's not at that point entirely rejecting their ignorance, which is true. But I mean, as, as, how to put it? As a, as if it were pointed 180 degrees in the wrong direction. He's saying, no, you're stumbling because you don't. You, you can't see clearly what can only be revealed. But at least you were trying to stumble in the right direction. And I'm here to make it clear to you. And I think that's the sort of the idea that there would be, as it were, pointers on the right path is. It shouldn't be surprising to us. C.S. lewis wrote persuasively on this as well.
- [49:27]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I think one of the things that I think about is St. Basil's letter, you know, should young Christian men read the pagans? And he gives this wonderful example in there that, you know, your, your soul is like a branch. And reading holy Scripture is like bearing fruit, but reading the classical pagans is like bearing leaves. And to go to Dr. Grabowski's testimony, the leaves actually prepare you to bear fruit and to bear fruit in a better way. And so I think we see deep, deep parallels. You know, going. Still focusing on our question is like, you know, why should a Christian read Plato? I think you see really deep parallels between Platonic thought and Christian thought to the degree that I'm not entirely sure how much those could actually be divorced from one another. Because Plato in a lot of ways provides the philosophical lattice by which then Christianity kind of gets grafted onto and grows, particularly throughout the early Church. So just as basic examples, the four cardinal virtues that we see listed, say, in Plato, like, particularly, say, Plato's Republic, are also then listed in the Hellenized Old Testament texts like the Book of Wisdom. Like, these are already in dialogue with one another before even Christ comes. And then even say, you know, St. John at the beginning of his Gospel saying, you know what, the second person of the Blessed Trinity who became flesh, he's the Logos. Now, what does that term mean? Right? This, this term that Plato and Aristotle are using all the time, is he using it in the same way? We can have lots of good discussions there. But the point is, is that he. That Hellenized thought is imprinting how the gospel writers Hell, St. John, our mystic, decides to present the second person of the Blessed Trinity. And the best, probably the best writing on this is Pope Benedict 16th Regensburg address, that you simply cannot have a de. Hellenized Christianity. Christianity is Hellenized. Any kind of myth that there was kind of some pure Hebrew Christianity that, you know, existed apart from like a Greek corruption is a historical fiction. It doesn't really exist. So I think that, you know, going back to the question, I think that Christians have to understand, I think the Platonic impact that's actually on their faith in that, in A lot of ways reading Plato will make you appreciate better a lot of the claims that Christianity makes, but also allow you to have kind of a philosophical substructure that kind of like metaphysical structure that we need to then graft on, you know, certain doctrines which we see the early church fathers do, you know, time and time again. So maybe moving on to the next question. Okay, so we've talked about, you know, who is Plato? Why should we read Plato? Why should Christians read Plato? Let's go to what Dr. Hrabowski brought up earlier, which is how should we read Plato? We have these, these dialogues, we have these stories. So Dr. Growski, how. How should we approach these? Maybe what's the wrong way? And then maybe what's the correct way? Like, how should we read all these texts?
- [52:33]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I think the wrong way is just to not read Plato at all. I don't think that there is necessarily a wrong way. This is, this is the real genius of Plato is that Plato writes in a way that does lend itself to a number of different hermeneutics. So there are several separate questions here, Deacon and I don't want to monopolize the conversation, but how should we read Plato? But my whole way of approaching Plato has really changed over the years. When I was in graduate school, I read Plato didactically. All I was concerned about were his arguments. Didn't care about the. The characters, didn't really care about the drama, the setting. None of that really factored in. But then over time, I've really been won over by, I mean, people will may call it a Straussian reading of Plato, but it's just the sensitivity to the fact that these are dialogues and that these dialogues contain characters, many of whom are like real historical people. Why did he pick these people? Why is he having Socrates interact with these individuals? You know, many of the dialogues, when you look at the dramatics, dramatic date, in other words, when these dialogues are taking place dramatically, they are taking place at a time long before Plato would have ever met Socrates. So these are not historical documents. I mean, with maybe the exception of the apology. Right. As we know, Plato was there. But again, just to sort of wrap up, I think that, you know, it certainly bears a great deal of fruit to be sensitive to the dramatic dating, the setting, the characters. There's a wonderful book by Deborah Nails entitled the People of Plato, and she gives this incredibly. It's an extensive comprehensive list. It's an encyclopedia of all the characters that appeal and appear in all the dialogues. And she gives us sort of historical background who These people were when they were born. Oh, yeah, There you go.
- [54:38]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [54:38]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
You got that? Yeah. Did you get that because I told you to get it, or did you get it on your own?
- [54:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I do everything because you told me to, Dr. Hrabowski.
- [54:44]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No, I'm just. No, but it's a great book, and it's something that I think, whether you're serious, a serious platonic scholar, or you're just somebody who is reading it for pleasure, I think that's a great. That's an amazing supplementary text because it does fill in a lot of the gaps. So, I mean, that's. I mean, that's how I'll start out the conversation. Just interested to hear what Thomas and Brett have to say.
- [55:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Can I. Can I sharpen one thing before we move on? Yeah, I'm sure that sharpen.
- [55:18]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Most of my points are dull.
- [55:21]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's what I meant. Totally. So I want to sharpen that contrast that you presented, because I think that this is really key on how do we approach, right, this kind of getting really into, like, how do we read the dialogues? I really want to paint that contrast that you made that, you know, there is a school. I think that school has. Has largely kind of crumbled, but there is a school that, you know, the dialogue is all just fluff. And every dialogue, there's basically a philosophical principle. And our goal is to read the dialogue and find what the philosophical principle is and just kind of coldly extract it, right? So in First Alcibiades, it's know thyself, congratulations. If you know that principle, you have exhausted the entire wisdom of First Alcibiades. Throw the rest of it away, right? That's contrasted to say, yeah, you said maybe a Straussian read, or really just a read that appreciates the drama as a drama. And what I mean by this is when you start reading a dialogue, all of a sudden there's immediate questions. Because this is not, like you said, a historical document, right? This is not just a transcript. This is Plato representing some type of teaching in an art form. And so we immediately have to ask ourselves, why is the dialogue in this setting? Why is the interlocutor for Socrates, this individual person? Why does he choose Euthyphro? Why does he choose Alcibiades? Why does he choose Glaucon? Like, all of these things have an import. Why do they walk up to the city? Why are they drinking wine? Why are they sitting in this order, right? What we realize is that everything in the drama starts to have a lot of import into understanding the actual true Philosophy. The quick principle that you could probably extract in a lot of ways is the appetizer. It's the thing on the surface that's really actually trying to call you into a deeper understanding of the text. And all the back and forth, the interlocutors, the settings. It's a lot like scripture. And I think this is something we have to mention is that if we say again, going back to like, why should Christians read Plato? In a lot of ways, it's because reading Plato will make you a much, much better reader of scripture because you read Plato in a very similar way. You have to pay attention to details. There's really no unnecessary details in Plato. There's really no unnecessary details in scripture either. They're both ancient texts. And then the way that Plato wrote and the way that people read him, understanding that there were layers, right, there's like the literal, but then also he's going to write like say in an allegorical way or just by way of analogy. And it's like, okay, well wait, this character probably is a stand in for this, right? This character is actually a stand in for this. And all of a sudden there's an allegorical level. Well, that Platonic, Hellenized way to read a good text. That a good text had multiple layers, really, then flows into the early church when the early church fathers are saying, well, how should we read scripture? And they really take that Hellenized Platonic approach and say, well, no, scripture also has layers. It has a literal and an allegorical and a moral and an anagogical layer, right? There's these four layers of scripture that is completely downstream from Plato. And so I think that when I agree with you 100%, when we approach the dialogues and we discuss the dialogues, you know, sometimes we spend 30, 40 minutes on the opening because it's like, why did he open this way? What's the setting? Who's the interlocutors? All of these are clues. They're all guideposts to help us have a better understanding of what Plato's trying to teach us.
- [58:53]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And Deacon, you know, people sometimes. And so this, this is, this would be a comment for those of your audience who, who may not have read Plato before. You know, a lot of people will crack open a dialogue and they'll rush through a lot of the more perfunctory matters wanting to get right to the philosophy. Well, this is to let your listeners know that the philosophy begins on line one all the time in all the dialogues, whether it's the Republic, whether it's the Sophist, whether it's the Parmenides, you can't ignore that. It's not perfunctory, it's not accidental, it's deliberate. Plato is a genius, and so every character, every setting, every exchange that Socrates has with his interlocutors is meaningful.
- [59:43]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, on that score, I'd say, I think my favorite part of the Republic is still the opening scene. Yeah.
- [59:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And I mean, there's, there's a Diogenes. Wait, not Diogenes. What was his name? I forget his name now, but. But there was an ancient scholar who remarked that Plato would take such pains at writing and rewriting his dialogues.
- [60:14]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
And he gives the example, I think that was Diogenes. By the way, it's put this Dio. It's not the Diogenes that everybody's thinking Halicarnassus.
- [60:22]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I forget his first name. Anyhow, the listeners can look him up, but combing, just combing, going through the language that when after Plato died, people uncovered several different ways, several different versions of the opening of the Republic. And so, yeah, it goes to show you that this is a guy who was so meticulous and so deliberate with, I mean, not just the arguments that he gives or that he puts into the mouth of Socrates, but just in the artistic aspect of it, that the art is very much, I mean, it's so enmeshed and it's inseparable from the philosophy.
- [61:04]
Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah. And I think this is one of the reasons that Plato is such an excellent place to start if you're diving into philosophy, especially for the first time. Because I think one of the things that's really intimidating about philosophy is that it can be really dry and dense and you have to sift through really complex arguments to try and figure out, okay, what is this person arguing? But with Plato, you have, as you all have just described, you have this incredible beauty of this art that leads you into philosophy. So I guess just to echo what you guys have said, if you're a first time reader of Plato, just enjoy the fact that this is probably some of the most beautiful philosophy that you will ever read.
- [61:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Read.
- [61:46]
Dr. Brett Larson
So don't feel like you need to race through the, the opening or any other parts of it. Just sit there and kind of take in. This is absolutely gorgeous here because, well, there's definitely good writers after Plato and some are more literary than others. But I think this is really a high point in like a, a truly aesthetic form of philosophy.
- [62:05]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
He is beautiful. His writings are beautiful. I think it, it leads us into a certain beauty that Is philosophy. You know, one of the things that I appreciate about Plato that I'm not sure if I've mentioned, is that Plato has no concept of you studying philosophy and your life remaining the same. There's no. There's no way that philosophy can simply just be kind of sterilized and set over here as, like, a neat habit or hobby that I have. But rather like, he makes claims on your whole soul. He says, no, no, no. If you're going to live like this, this is what you have to do. This is how it works. You see this in first Alcibiades. You see this in the Symposium. You see this him counseling Glaucon throughout the Republic. Like, he wants your soul to be beautiful. He finds virtue to be a certain health and beauty of the soul, and he wants you to have that beauty. And so one thing I think is really challenging in reading Plato, and in the best sense of that word, is simply that you feel like he's challenging you, that you can't just read these beautiful principles, these beautiful lessons in the dialogues and then walk away and be ugly. He's inviting you to have a beautiful soul. And again, I think that a lot of ways this is an antecedent, you know, to then the. To Christianity, right? To the coming of Christ. I think that's one last point I want to make on how we read him is I think that we, you know, even from coming from like, a Catholic intellectual tradition, I think it's very important first to understand Plato qua Plato, if that makes sense. Right? We want to understand him as Plato's trying to teach us, and then later understand how then are these teachings then, you know, adopted into Christianity. And so, you know, even though we're coming from, you know, not actually all. Not all the guests on Ascend are coming from that same perspective. And sometimes iron sharpens iron, and it's. It's good to see those. But even like myself, I would say that, you know, I try and view all things through the lens of Jesus Christ because he is the Logos, he is the truth. Any, any. Anything I read is illuminated when read through Jesus Christ. But at the same time, that doesn't mean I'm just like, rushing through Plato trying to find the things that I think are helpful for Christianity or the things that I think are, you know, parallel to maybe early church teachers or early church fathers. But rather, I do think, like, as we read him, we have to first encounter him as Plato the pagan and meet him. Like, does that make sense? Like, play meet him as Plato the Pagan. And what is he trying to teach us? And what. And I mean, this is already mentioned earlier, but, like, the amount that he's able to ascertain by reason and an observation of nature is astronomical. It's amazing what things that he can actually come up with. And so I think we, as we read him, I want to kind of make that distinction that I think first we understand Plato qua Plato, and then we start to understand him in that Western tradition, which includes then how he was adopted, you know, into Christianity, and then also how then Christianity. I'm thinking in particular of, like, St. Justin Martyr looked back at Plato and said, you know what? Providence was really active here. So I think it's an important distinction.
- [65:16]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Ekan, I'd like to add one thing, too, and that just very briefly, you know, we've spoken about, like, how, you know, in reading the dialogues, we're introduced to this philosophical life, this philosophical activity and how beautiful it is and how it can really spark the soul. But, you know, one of the messages that I think Plato is very keen, and this comes across repeatedly, is that the philosophical life is not easy. And I don't just mean the activity itself. It's the reputation that philosophers earn for themselves and what ultimately happens to Socrates. So, you know, we read about that in the Apology, and of course, the Crito and the Phaedo. Socrates is ultimately put to death. But, you know, how do the prisoners trapped in the cave receive? The prisoner who was able to escape and to see the truth, you know, he comes back, and he's not just belittled, but he's beaten. And so, you know, I think this is something that, you know, Plato comes. Comes around to the point that he comes. He comes back around to time and again, and that is. That is the philosophical life, contemplative life, the highest form of life. Yes, but it's not. It's a life not without its hazards.
- [66:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, if you're gonna go ahead and. Go ahead, Dr. Larson.
- [66:47]
Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah, I was gonna say absolutely. And I mean, nowadays, at least in the United States, you know, those of us who might be in the academy, we probably aren't super worried about people coming in and beating us, per se. But the same idea is, is there still. It's that, oh, those eggheads in the academic world, they're completely irrelevant, and we should just totally ignore them in some sense there. And so Plato, of course, famously says in the Republic, and I think he reiterates this at some other point as well. He says, well, is the problem that the people who Pursue philosophy? Or is it, or is the problem that people don't make use of the philosophers? And his answer is it's kind of both. He says there are unfortunately those who take up philosophy and they're unworthy of it and they give it a bad reputation. But then on the other hand, he also does kind of criticize the readers of philosophy who do not make use of it even when it is valid and good and life changing. Something that we ought to pay attention to.
- [67:49]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
What I was going to connect a little bit of what Deacon said with what Dr. Grabowski said, and it swirls through this as well, is that in the notion of it being challenging the, the metaphysical approach, although he doesn't use that word that comes a little bit later that Plato takes means that the things like if I came to know even a little bit more about what justice was, that would make demands on how I live the rest of my life. And if I every, every step down this road of knowing a little bit more of things that are really true or a little bit deeper into what the virtue really is, a demand on how I live my life. And the opposite side of that coin is that since I can't step back from that, I mean, at least in this Platonic idea that if you really know, essentially there's no turning back in a more gospel illusion, once you put your hand to the plow, right, there's no, there's no going back. And so I think that not just your manner of life, but your, as it were, intransigence in that manner of life becomes a reproach, right? This is the problem that both in the myth as regards the cave, but in Socrates's own life. It's not just that Socrates critiqued the self indulgent life of the Athenians. I think he doesn't say this because he says he's going to keep sort of preaching his message. I think it, it is fair to argue from what Plato sets out that Socrates's own manner of life, of life became a critique of the Athenian manner of life. If he had never had to say another thing, right, his very presence, and that's why he became so intolerable to them. And I think this is something that is setting up, you know, sort of the, the project. And I think also why in recent days you might argue more political philosophers like Karl Popper will actually spend such great time critiquing Plato because that kind of intransigence they view as dangerous right now. We're never supposed to believe anything that deeply. Everything is only to be held lightly and as a kind of intellectual, dilettantish pursuit. It's not. It's not meant to actually make demands that in the case of Socrates, demands at the level of life and death. So I suppose that would. Well, I. I will say. Or maybe this would be the why not to read Plato part portion. This is a. To make more gospel references. You know, you've got to count the cost before you start building the tower. That would be. I mean, if this reading Plato may change your life. So think about that sort of before you. You get in.
- [70:48]
Dr. Brett Larson
Well, with much knowledge comes much pain, or so Ecclesiastes says. Right?
- [70:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. If you. If you're comfortable with a lazy life and an ugly soul, do not read Plato. Just stay away. So, no, these are all really good thoughts. Let's move into what we have coming up. So let's move into our schedule. What are we doing? What are we gonna do with these kind of Ascend studies into Plato? So those are familiar with Ascend, the Great Books podcast. You might know that we actually record well ahead of time, usually eight to 10 months, sometimes a year between the recording and when we're actually published. So we have actually already recorded over 20 episodes, leading us into play. D'oh. And so I just want to kind of sketch out what our reading schedule is and maybe just get some, like, quick hot takes from you guys about, like, these particular dialogues. And why should we read them? Because one thing I am very happy about, and I will say this, and I'm very much in debt to Alec Bianco and to our friend, Athenian Stranger. I asked them, I don't know, maybe 18 months ago, where should we start? Where should one start with Plato? And I put it on X. And I said, of course, I got like 50 different answers. Right? Everyone has. Which 9 times out of 10, their answer is whatever dialogue they read first is the great one that you're supposed to. And so, you know, because I think mine was like, Euthyphro, I think. And they both recommended this dialogue called First Alcibiades. And we have four episodes on First Alcibiades. Alex from Cost of Glory is going to come on and do kind of like a historical looking at Plutarch's lives, like, who was Alcibiades? Because his life is frankly insane. And you kind of need to understand historically who he was to see why Plato chooses him as a character. And then Alec Bianco and Athenian Stranger are going to come on for two episodes to lead us through first Alcibiades and then Dr. Shields from Wyoming Catholic College is going to come in and talk to us about First Alcibiades and kind of a collegiate level of welcoming freshmen into college. And they actually read First Alcibiades at Wyoming Catholic as part of their kind of intro into college life. And so what is First Alcibiades and why should we read it? I was completely new to the dialogue, and I will tell you that after 20 episodes and right now we're scheduling our stuff on the Republic. First Alcibiades probably still lives in my imagination more than anything else that we've read thus far. Maybe the Gorgias, which I was also new to. The First House of Ides is the historic first dialogue that students of Plato would read. And it is a story. It's a dialogue about Socrates talking to a young Alcibiades and trying to convince him why he should live the philosophic life. And you see, why, why would that be a great dialogue? Well, it's probably because that's where a lot of our audience probably is. Why should I do this? Why should I invest the time? Well, you're like Alcibiades and Socrates is going to try and convince you to live this philosophic life. And the principle that we get from First Alcibiades is the famous know thyself that the philosophic life, this life of beauty, this life of what's true and good and beautiful, it starts with know thyself. We have to understand our own soul. I'm just telling you that the First House of Idea's dialogue, it really kind of lives rent free in my imagination right now. I greatly enjoyed it. Okay, so moving on. First we'll read First Alcibiades. Then we're going to read the euthyphro. We have two episodes on the euthyphro, which actually Dr. Grabowski and Thomas join us alongside Dr. Joey Spencer. And so we'll have two episodes there and then actually a third one on the Euthyphro called Aquinas and the euthyphro dilemma with Dr. Donald Prudlow at the University of Tulsa. The Euthyphro, if you're not familiar, it's. It's a must read. It's wonderful. Everyone knows what the Euthyphro Dilemma is, but I think there's again, as Dr. Rowsley talked about, there's a way to kind of extract it from the dialogue as a philosophic principle, but there's also a way to read it as part of the larger drama and as someone Who I. I will say, as someone who thought that I understood the Euthyphro well, I think our journey through it this time, it really blossomed and there's whole parts of that dialogue that I didn't really, I think historically pay attention to, that I didn't think were that rich. That on this read through are now some of my favorite parts.
- [75:18]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
This is still one of my favorites. I'm going to bring up the cliche that Deacon just did of saying that was the first one I read, which it was the first one I read. But the more I've come back to it, it's also a very short dialogue. So this is worth pointing out that some of these, obviously there's very quite a bit in length, but this is very short and I'm continually impressed by how much I seem to have missed every single time I've read it.
- [75:47]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
All I was going to say is that this is where those who have been regular listeners to the podcast, they'll need to dig out their notes from the Iliad and Odyssey and to focus in particular on questions involving piety. Because it's quite obvious that Plato is writing this dialogue with this traditional understanding of piety in mind. And he's really calling into question what is the relationship between piety and the gods. And that of course becomes manifest in the famous dilemma.
- [76:23]
Dr. Brett Larson
And of course, this is another one of the examples of Plato anticipating one of the great debates in the history of philosophy and theology that, well, is.
- [76:32]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Still with us today, which actually goes back to. It goes back to answering Deacon's question, why should a Christian read the dialogues? This is a great example.
- [76:40]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. I think one of the things that I've come to appreciate is that, you know, as we've moved through the Greek plays, it's really amazing to me how often in whether it's Homer or reading the Oresteia or reading Sophocles, etc, during that journey, we actually made reference to Euthyphro and said, oh, just wait, Plato's going to take this up explicitly. Just wait, Plato will do this. So now we finally come to it, right? We finally come to understanding what is the relationship between man, the gods, piety. Can there be multiple gods? Can there be one God? Right. There's a way to read the dilemma. And this is a good distinction of reading the dilemma in the context of Plato and then extracting that dilemma and reading it in a monotheistic way to maybe challenge our own Christian presuppositions. Just incredibly rich. And also, if the audience isn't familiar with Dr. Donald Paul Prudlo, one of the most intelligent humans I have ever met. And he comes on and helps us understand Aquinas in the Euthyphro dilemma. How would Aquinas answer the questions that Plato puts forward in that dialogue? It is an incredibly rich conversation, and I learned a lot. After the Euthyphro, we'll take up the apology, probably one of the most famous dialogues ever. It's Socrates defense, if you want to call it that, before the Athenian assembly, who's going to convict him, writes his trial. And for those episodes, we have two. On the apology, we have Father Justin Brophy, who is actually a Dominican friar of the eastern province of St. Joseph, but also a great lover of Plato. Justin is actually his religious name, so he's actually after St. Justin Martyr, who also had a great appreciation for Socrates and Plato. And so he leads us through two episodes on an apology, which I think is very much worth your time. Easily, you know, the best, if not one of the best speeches in all of Western culture. Okay. And then we get into the Crito. So Socrates is in prison, and he's going to give some commentary on the laws. On the political side, It's a fascinating dialogue. We'll have a professor from Wyoming Catholic College again come and join us for that, Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos. Then we get into the phaedo or the phaedo. So this is when Socrates dies. It is like a long, complicated dialogue. It's probably the ones I struggle with the most. It's just a very different tone. His logic in it is a little bit different. It's, you know, him about to die. He dies at the end. So it's. But you have to think, well, this must be really important. This is the last thing he talks about with his friends. It's ironic. It's hilarious. You know, he's comforting his friends who are crying, and he's trying to have this philosophical discussion, and they're, you know, weeping around him. And for this, we have a few people coming on. So to the intro to the Feedo, we'll have a whole episode again with Athenian Stranger and Alec Bianco. That's actually going to be a live recording that we did on X. And then we'll have two episodes on the feedo with Dr. Christopher Frey from the University of Tulsa, who really does an absolutely marvelous job of just. I mean, just pedagogy, one on one, taking us by the hand and walking us through all of Socrates's arguments for the soul and for immortality. Why is the soul immortal. Why does there have to be an afterlife? He gives a series of arguments. It's a beautiful dialogue, but I very much appreciated that I had someone like Dr. Frey to kind of hold my hand and walk me through it. Okay, after that, we'll get into the dialogue. The Mino. We'll have two dialogues, or, excuse me, two episodes on the Meno, one with Montana Classical College, if you're familiar with him, on X, and then Another one, the Meno in classical education with Dr. Daniel Wagner of Aquinas College and also the Lyceum Institute. You can go check them out on X as well. And then we get into probably one of my favorite series of the entire Plato study that we've recorded thus far, our episodes on the Gorgias. The Gorgias is almost 80 pages. It's a long dialogue Peter Kreeft talks about. It's basically the Republic, but without the quote unquote, weird politics. But it covers almost all the same subjects. We read it. Actually, not only we read all of these in our Sunday Great Books group, but we also read the Gorgias in our diaconate formation program, which has a great Book sequence into it. And so we'll have three episodes on the Gorgias. We'll have an intro and also covering the section with Gorgias himself with Jonathan B. And the Athenian Stranger, two kind of big voices on X, on the Great Books. And then the second episode will be part two of the Gorgias, the dialogue with Polis. And we'll be joined by Dr. Matthew Bianco of the Searcy Institute, an institute that helps with classical education. And so he'll kind of come on and talk about his view of that dialogue, particularly from an educational background. And then three, we have part three of the Gorgias is the dialogue with Callicles, which is probably the part that's actually living in my head rent free. And with that, we actually have Dr. Gregory McBrayer of the New Thinkory podcast. And that podcast actually was already published several weeks ago, actually on the New Thinkry, if you want to cheat and listen ahead, but I will tell you the Gorgias and the section with Callicles, particularly the myth. So just like the Republic with the myth of Ur, the Gourdius ends with a myth. And the myth that's at the end of Callicles is probably one of my favorite myths. I mean, it might be my current favorite myth in all the Platonic corpus. And then we'll take a quick break from Plato actually, and read a Short story. We're actually going to read the Lame Shall Enter first by Flannery o'. Connor. Just take a little palate cleanser and read some Flannery o'. Connor. I was a first time reader of the story and when I got to the end, I pretty much threw my book across the room because I. I don't know why, I don't know what I was expecting. It's Flannery o'. Connor. I should have known better. But I had this like stupid hope that crept up in me like halfway through and that was just like crushed. And so anyway, we have a con. We have a whole episode on that short story with Dr. Brian Kempel of the Lyceum Institute. He does a wonderful job of leading us through that. And then we actually have a episode on the teacher as a lover of the soul, which is actually with this exact group. It's Tom Slackie, Dr. Frank Grabowski, and Dr. Brett Larson. So we'll kind of look at a certain thread that's in Platonic thought of what does it actually mean to be a teacher according to Plato. I thought that was a really rich and beautiful conversation. So after that we'll do a short little series, if you will, on kind of Platonic history. And so we'll look at Plato and St. Augustine and then we'll also look at Plato and Boethius, and then we'll look at Plato and Aquinas and kind of see is, you know, is Aquinas's reputation as like a pure Aristotelian actually true? Or actually is his Neoplatonic teachings been kind of like overshadowed or forgotten? And so we'll kind of dig in to Plato versus those three thinkers and kind of see his impact in the west, which I think will give us a good kind of intellectual history. We'll take a brief break from Plato because it will be Lent. And so we're actually going to pick back up the Divine Comedy and read Dante's Purgatorio as our spiritual read during Lent. So if you want to do that with us and you haven't read the Inferno, you have plenty of time to go back and check out those seven episodes leading you through Dante's Inferno. And then we will jump into the Republic and we will spend actually 10 months reading the Republic, one book a month, a slow, attentive pace. And I'm very happy to say that we already have a fantastic lineup on that. Alex Preux is signed up to kind of kick us off on Republic. We actually record with him in just a few weeks. And then we also have Dr. Gregory McBrayer is going to come back. And also Xena Hits has signed up to come back as well. So when we get to the Republic, it's going to be absolutely amazing and wonderful and I very much look forward to reading it with everybody.
- [84:33]
Dr. Brett Larson
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the Republic too. And I think towards the beginning I'd said that it's one of my favorites, if not my favorite dialogue of Plato. And I'll just give you a little teaser on it. I think this is Plato's most sustained, thorough argument for the case that justice is valuable for its own sake, not for the sake of something else it might bring with it. And that's one of the big questions he's trying to answer. And it's posed to him by his brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus. And they have a very, very rich formulation of that question. And yeah, I really love how Plato tries to tackle that question.
- [85:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
One last point, just kind of a little housekeeping. Point one I tend to forget but is actually fairly important is is what translations are we reading and what book should I buy? I get this question a lot on X, so I just want to point this out to everyone. This is the Plato's Complete Works edited by John Cooper. It's the Hackett Edition. Sometimes it's called the Giant Red Brick. So for those joining by video you can ascertain why, but you really need to pick this one up. So particularly if you're a first time reader of Plato, don't try and go buy an individual monograph on every single dialogue, et cetera. Like if there's one that really interests you, then as we move through them we'll kind of make some other recommendations if you want to pick up something more specific or sometimes a commentary and things like this. But really if you just want to get started, most of the translations that we're going to pick out of is this omnibus published by Hackett. So I think if you want to join us, just pick this up and you'll have what you need when you get to the Republic. However, that one we will switch over and we'll actually be reading the Alan Bloom translation. So I'll hold up here and do a good Vanna White for everybody. And so we'll actually be reading this translation when we get to the Republic, but that will not be until mainly, I think, early summer of 2026. We are in it for the long haul. So one thing about Ascend is that we do not move quickly. So it's a small group. You can read with us. I think I've done the math. I think my 12 year old daughter is going to have to take over the podcast. Somewhere around Aquinus, I think is how this is going to work. This is going to have to be like a family heirloom that I pass down to maybe somehow catch up to the modern age. But I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you guys this evening, how much I appreciate all the work that you've already done on this kind of launching into Plato and all the dialogues that you've already kind of led us through. I've been personally enriched through this. Again, I think reading Plato is incredibly fruitful and I'm just excited. I mean, this is what happens right. When you find the truth, you have an excitement about it. You want to share it with other people. You want other people to experience and to grow and kind of beautify the soul. And I think that's really what we've done over the last, say, you know, half a year reading Plato. And I'm excited to share that with everybody. So any kind of like last thoughts maybe for first time readers or those on the fence about why they should read Plato?
- [87:29]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I can't get by without mentioning that Plato is actually really funny. I mean, this is an underappreciated quote. The idea that there's, there's no better way to get some points across than, than through humor. And, and I said that in a deadpan, so it probably didn't come have the. I didn't sell it the way it needs sold, but he actually is really, really funny. There's no way to read Plato without, without snickering. It's. You might even do more than snicker, but you'll at least snicker.
- [87:56]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's a good point. You should laugh when you read the dialogues because he's deeply ironic and that comes out almost a sarcasm sometimes and it's just funny.
- [88:04]
Dr. Brett Larson
Well, think of it like this. You have, if you're reading Plato, a great opportunity to, as well to quote Machiavelli here, who's not particularly Platonic, to commune with the ancients. Machiavelli has this story that after he was exiled from politics, he would work on his farm during the day and then at night he would wash himself and put on his, you know, more regal dress. And then he would study the ancients, you know, particularly like the ancient Romans. So here you too have an opportunity to do something like this.
- [88:39]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I think he just described the rural Oklahoma ideal.
- [88:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, except we don't have our regal dress. We just have 5,000 pairs of muddy boots by the door and then come in in our car hearts and then read Plato. But it's a beautiful life, right? It's a beautiful life. Reading, play doh and chasing chickens and doing other such things out here in rural Oklahoma. Any last kind of thoughts or comments, any last words of wisdom, anything about, just quickly about like what Plato's meant to you or how it's impacted you?
- [89:06]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I was just gonna say that the mayno, I think, impacted me a lot more this time now that I, I'm thinking about the education of my own children and what it means to. What it means to be a teacher and a student. And so I, I would just. We. We kind of sped by the maino earlier, but I, I would, I would, I would recommend anyone, as you go through any, any parent should also, I think, read the main. This is not just a, A matter for teachers, but every parent is a teacher, right? So probably a good one to ponder. I'm still pondering. That one's the one that's, that's, that's sort of haunting my mind.
- [89:52]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I would invite those who may be reading Plato for the first time to find themselves, to locate themselves within the conversations that are taking place in the dialogues. What I mean by that is that I really think this is one of Plato's goals. Again, he's not lecturing to us. I mean, the works are didactic in a sense, but there's a word that some scholars use to describe the dialogues, and that is protreptic. That is to say that they're designed to inspire philosophical activity within the reader. And so if you encounter arguments, if the readers encounter arguments in Plato's dialogues that seem bad, and some of the arguments are quite awful, it's probably deliberate because I think Plato wants us to be Socratic and to question the very ideas that are being presented, whether they're by Socrates or whether by one of Socrates interlocutors. And so transport yourself within this conversation. You are a spectator, but you can also be a participant. And so I think that that is ultimately Plato's aim is to make us participants in the philosophical activity.
- [91:19]
Dr. Brett Larson
I guess one last thing I'd like to throw out here is this. When you read Plato, you're probably going to encounter a really different way of thinking about the world. And it might seem bizarre, it might seem weird, it might seem completely implausible to you. I'd really encourage you to not be too quick to dismiss Plato. Consider the possibility that maybe the assumptions that you hold, that you have somehow come to, you know, whether consciously or not those assumptions might need to be questioned. And by reading Plato, who is going to probably question a lot of your assumptions, he's not going to share a lot of them, you have an opportunity to reflect more deeply upon them. And maybe at the end of the day you'll come to the conclusion that, okay, these assumptions that you have that certainly are contrary to many of the ideas of Plato, maybe you'll come to the conclusion that, yeah, those are correct. But you might, and I, I would say that certainly this was true with me is I came to the conclusion that a lot of the stuff that I assumed before I read Plato actually turned out to be on fairly weak ground, and I had to rethink it. So really, really encouraging you to read Plato with an open mind, but also go in knowing you're gonna, you're gonna be ramming your head against a wall because really, he's gonna, he's gonna force you to rethink a lot of what you probably end up believing right now.
- [92:45]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well said. Well said. However, with the whole ramming your head in the wall, please know that we are gonna help you. So you have the podcasts, I should mention. Go check out the Great Books podcast where you have our reading schedule and very helpful links. Our Patreon page has all of our written guides. So we have written guides to a lot of our texts. So if you're reading yourself, you want something tangible, or maybe you're reading in a small group and you want some small group discussion questions. You really want to have this broken down in a question answer. Maybe you're helping to lead a class discussion. These written guides are really invaluable. So you can go check out our library of written guides on our Patreon page, which is going to include the dialogues of Plato. And next week we're going to then kick in to understanding first Alcibiades and looking as a kind of a prologue, looking at Alcibiades, the historical character with Alex from the Cost of Glory podcast. And then we'll get into first Alcibiades, the dialogue with Alec Bianco and Athenian Stranger. So pick up first Alcibiades, start reading it. It's going to be a beautiful, beautiful journey into Plato and Thomas. Dr. Grabowski, Dr. Larson, I deeply appreciate all of your thoughts tonight, but also all the work and thoughts and just help that you've provided me in my own growth and learning throughout all of our studies on Plato.
- [94:10]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Oh, the feeling is mutual, Deacon.
- [94:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
All right, everyone, go check out thegreatbookspodcast.com and follow our account on X, Facebook and YouTube. And check out our Patreon page. And we will see you next week. Thank you.