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- [00:00]
A
This episode is brought to you by Avid tv. Where do savvy minds go to find masterful documentaries and hard to find films from across the globe? Try a free month long trial at Ovid and go beyond the mainstream. Indiewire says Ovid is unafraid to program films that matter. And the New York Times calls Ovid a terrific streamer for independent film fans. A boutique hand curated streaming service. Yet now with over 2,400 titles, Ovid is the home to films by auteurs from Chantal Akerman to Chris Marker to Wang Bing and has the richest collection of probing, avant garde and provocative films anywhere. Ovid offers many things except conformity. Try Ovid today and get your first month free. Use promo code N B N O V I D. That's Ovid TV promo code N B N O V I D. Hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network and if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
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B
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of New Books Network. Today I'm honored to be speaking to Professor Angie Hobbs about her most recent book that she has published with Bloomsbury Press. The book is called why Plato Matters. Now, Professor Angie Hobbs is Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Sheffield. Her chief interests are in ancient philosophy and ethics and political theory from classical thought to the present, and she has published widely in these areas, including Plato and The Hero and her most recent publications for the general public is this book that I just introduced. She has also worked with a number of policy sectors and also she has contributed regularly to the radio and TV programs. Dr. Angel Hobbs, welcome to New Books Network.
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C
Thank you so. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to be here.
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B
Why Plato Matters now, he's one of the most famous philosophers, and I guess even those who are not into philosophy have heard of him. And it seems that Plato is also. I really love the title of the book, why Plato Matters now, because the past 10 years, I guess with all the talk about democracy and political, let's say, instability or maybe the decline of democracy in different countries, people have been more and more talking about Greek philosophy, especially Plato. But before we come to talk about the book, can you just very briefly introduce yourself? You're quite well known, but for the, let's say, uninitiated, can you just briefly introduce yourself, talk about your field of expertise, professor of public understanding of philosophy, and then tell us why this book? How did this book come about?
- [03:38]
C
Oh, thank you so much. Yes. So I trained initially. I did a degree in classics and I specialized in Ancient Greek philosophy in that degree. And then I went on and did a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy on Plato's relationship with the epic poet Homer, and I was a research fellow. And then I worked in academic departments in Warwick and then Sheffield University in modern philosophy departments, though teaching Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and also, as you said, the history of ethics from the ancient world right up to the present, and some political theory as well. So I was a standard academic. But more and more, I was doing more and more media work, more and more radio and TV work. And then I was appointed first as Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at Warwick University, and then a chair was created for me at Sheffield University. So I continued with my academic writing and teaching and PhD students and so on. But more and more I was doing media, not just radio and television, but of course, podcasts like this one, webinars and so on. And as you mentioned, a lot of policy sectors, so applying philosophical concepts and arguments to different sectors. I work with the UK Civil Service a lot and the Cabinet Office, and I work with the UK National Health Service and the Health Research Authority. I've done a lot with the World Economic Forum, I've worked in the United States, the United States Air Force Training Academy in Colorado, just for instance. So lots, lots of stuff. And though I'm agnostic myself, I've done a lot on interfaith and faith secular debates. So, yes, and I don't just use Plato in this work, I use a lot of philosophers, Aristotle, the Stoics, Foucault, Marx and so on. But more and more, more and more, I found that it was Plato that was needed to help people think through contemporary issues for all the kind of reasons we're going to be discussing. That's why I thought, right, why Plato matters right now. I mean, by now, I mean, this very minute, this very second, he could not be more relevant.
- [06:18]
B
You're absolutely right. I must say that I'm amazed by just the width and breadth of all the areas that you've been included and you've worked. And I wish more people would do the same thing. And I wish more politicians would come to those in humanities, especially philosophy departments, to get their advice. This is unfortunately something that we don't really see nowadays. But I'm glad that there are still politicians, at least in the uk, who are seeking professional advice.
- [06:47]
C
Well, I didn't say politicians, I said the civil service. The civil service approached me. Politicians sometimes do. Politicians are very nervous about going into these areas in public. Even if they do privately. I wish they would. It would be a vote winner, not a vote loser, I think, to have more philosophically informed public discourse.
- [07:11]
B
Absolutely right. Why Plato matters now, as you mentioned, Plato's become more and more even relevant these days, and in the past few years, at least that I know, there have been a number of books on Plato about Plato's life and why Plato is important. How do you approach Plato different in your book? And who is your intended audience?
- [07:37]
C
Right, yeah. Thank you. So many of the introductions to Plato go through his work dialogue by dialogue, and I decided to take a completely different approach. So my chapters are on different themes, such as democracy, demagoguery and tyranny, such as love and friendship, such as art and censorship and myth, such as the Ethics of Flourishing and the Good Life and the dialogue form. So that's a major difference that I'm looking at it topic by topic, and not just what he says, but how his ideas might be applicable to contemporary challenges, even if we don't subscribe to all of Plato's metaphysics and to all the theories that he puts into the mouth of the main character in his dialogue, Socrates. And we'll get on to whether Plato believes all those ideas himself. So it seemed to me that even if you don't subscribe to his metaphysics, the theory of these perfect eternal forms which are separate from our phenomenal, everyday world. And I don't subscribe to that metaphysics, but there were still masses that we could get from Plato. So that was it. And I wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible. So my intended audience is intelligent, curious, open minded, but they don't necessarily know anything at all about Plato or Greek philosophy or even philosophy particularly. So I've tried to put everything that people need to know in, in the book. So, and of course I, I hope academics read it, I hope students read it, I hope there's plenty in it that will be of use to academics and students. But I also want it to be accessible to a more general audience. So with that in mind, there are some footnotes I've shown some of my workings, but not as many footnotes as I would put into an academic article, for instance, but there's also references at the end. I give people guidance on further reading. For people who want to get deeper into this.
- [10:01]
B
Well, I was an academic in previous life and my area of expertise, let's say, was 18th and 19th century literature, like I told it before we started recording the podcast. And I usually approach philosophy as a novice to learn about things and sometimes I'm too much afraid to approach philosophy. Some of the concepts are really difficult. But I must say that in this book, it's a beautiful mix of. It's the best of both worlds. There's a lot, I guess, for the students, for academics, but at the same time it's highly accessible to the general public as well. You have included a lot of intelligent ideas, I mean, a lot of ideas from Plato without really dumbing them down. But at the same time they're quite accessible to the public. This was my field when I was reading the book and when you were introducing the book, I think at the beginning you said that Plato is becoming more and more relevant. And I've always been interested to know why. Everybody goes back to Plato. Even those who want to study a little bit of philosophy without getting into it that much, they go to Plato, or at least Plato is one of the people they go to. And in your book, I think you beautifully phrased this, that you emphasize the fact that Plato asks the right questions about perennial problems. And you mentioned an of those problems. And that's why, that's, I guess, the secret of his relevance. And also it's the form, it's in dialogue. Dramatic dialogue.
- [11:28]
C
Yes, exactly.
- [11:29]
B
Can you talk about this aspect of Plato? Give us some examples, Right questions, perennial problems. And also how does the dialogue form help us better engage with the Word. How does it invite readers to become an active participant in these discussions?
- [11:49]
C
Okay, thank you. Yes. So, I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about these ideas in more depth. But just to. I mean, I think the dialogue form itself is absolutely crucial. I think the way Plato writes is as important as all the things he says, that the form is as important as the content. In fact, I would go further and say that the form is part of the content. So, yes, so we'll talk about all this in more depth. The dialogue form, and then in terms of the ideas which are so relevant now that his ethics and politics, small P. Politics, are flourishing. By politics, I mean pertaining to the polis, pertaining to the city, the city state, in terms of what he has to tell us about love and friendship, about art and myth, about heroism and celebrity. And of course, an aspect of Plato that people are particularly looking at at the moment, his coruscating analysis of how a democracy can be subverted to tyranny by an opportunistic and cynical demagogue. So, so many areas where he's. And his analysis of what he would call sophistry that, you know, fake news, fallacious arguments, verbal skullduggery, how we can protect ourselves against them. So let's sort of start by looking at this dialogue form. Yes. He never writes in his own voice. He only mentions himself three times in the whole of his works. So there's this huge cast of characters in these dramatic dialogues. You know, beautifully set, very richly realized characterizations. Socrates is usually the main character, not always. And we should be careful that though the character of Socrates is based on the historic Socrates who Plato was a great follower of, and the historic Socrates was Plato's friend and mentor. We shouldn't assume that the character of Socrates in the dialogue is quite the same. But there's a very, you know, we get generals, we get politicians, we get artists, we get sophists, we get all, you know, the doctors. We get this wide range of Athenian society. And I think Plato, I mean, he does many things with these dialogues, but two things in particular. One, as you said, because he doesn't speak in his own voice, we never quite know what Plato thinks of all this. Does he completely agree with everything that Plato, Socrates says? We don't know for sure. So he forces us, he compels us to enter the debate for ourselves and to interpret, to be active philosophers. And that's precisely Plato's view of education. Plato is very keen on the idea. You can't just pour knowledge into somebody's Head, our heads aren't empty. We have to attain wisdom for ourselves through our own active internal work. And so writing in these dialogues, he's sort of inviting us in. We are part of the conversation, we have to interpret. And so he's making us into active philosophers, and that's really important. But also, we've mentioned his ethics and politics of flourishing, and we'll come back, I'm sure, in a minute, to what this word flourishing means. But Plato thinks the two basic ethical questions are how should I live? And what sort of person should I be? Really fundamental questions. It's about a whole person, a whole agent living a whole life. And what he does in the dialogues, he gives us all these different characters living different lives with different professions and different sets of belief. And Plato shows us how our beliefs and our characters and our lives all intertwine. And he gives us models to emulate in certain respects, such as Socrates. But he also gives us plenty of models to avoid, such as the dangerous sophists, Thrasymachus and the Republic, who I'm sure we'll come onto later. So Plato's showing. He's giving us examples of how to live, and he's saying, look, if. If you believe this, if this is your philosophy, this is how you might end up, and this is the kind of life you might end up living. Do you want to live like this? Do you want to be this person? So it gives us really vivid examples. And of course, they're hugely. I mean, a third reason is they're hugely fun to read. Certainly the early and middle dialogues, you know, brilliantly written. Plato's a supreme artist as well as a great philosopher. The later dialogues, if your audience is new to Plato, I mean, I love the later dialogues. They're philosophically very rich, they're wonderful, they are very technical. I wouldn't start with one of the later dialogues. I would start with something like the Symposium on erotic love or the Gorgias on power and freedom. They're brilliantly written, so incredibly entertaining. So for all these reasons, it's a great form. And of course, he's trying to find a form in writing which emulates the technique of his mentor, the historic Socrates, who only used oral question and answer technique as he tramped around Athens, sort of, you know, kind of accosting people and saying, what is justice? Or what is courage? Or whatever. Socrates refused to write anything down because he said he didn't have the requisite knowledge. And he wasn't very happy with the idea of writing because books couldn't answer back. You couldn't engage in a conversation with a book. He preferred an oral technique. Now, Plato does want to write because he wants to reach a wider audience than studying the historic Socrates could in Athens. But he wants to try to find a written form to embody this oral question and answer technique where Plato never quite tells us exactly what he thinks. And if I can just give one example to illustrate that. So people think, oh, Plato hates the arts, he censors the arts. There's a lot about art censorship of the arts in the Republic. The book that we call, or the dialogue, we call the Republic, res publica, the public thing. It's a Latin name given to it by the Roman politician and philosopher Cicero. It was called Politea in ancient Greek. But that dialogue would be banned in the ideally just city that it describes because it doesn't meet the censorship of criteria of that city. So Plato's a great ironist. He has written a book, you know, a dialogue in which art is heavily censored in this ideally just city. But Plato himself would have to be censored. So he's teasing us. We don't quite know what he thinks. And I think that's brilliant. He's saying, no, you've got to do the work. But there's space for you in the conversation. It's not settled. The debate isn't settled. And so future readers like us, 2,500 years later nearly, we can join the conversation.
- [19:53]
B
When I studied literary criticism, like I told you before, we started with Plato and one of the irons, again, as you mentioned, he has this wonderful, wonderful way of writing and very political, and a political philosopher who hates poetry. And that's how we were introduced, you know, to his ideas in the Republic and where he talks about the role of artists and poetry. And what I find amazing is, and how it again relates to today's zeitcast. I watch a lot of debates on the Internet, listen to a lot of debates, former podcasts. And what I see is that it's so polarized. People have already made up their mind. It's like a fight. Somebody's trying to bring down the other person, but it's not really dialogue. But what you see in Plato is that he doesn't try to force his idea upon you. As you mentioned, there's a dialogue among different people. You listen to them, and it's not only a dialogue, but also it's moral training, how to have a conversation which is a civic virtue. Dialogue is a civic virtue which we have lost, unfortunately, these Days, I feel that because of the high political environment all over the world, different countries, we have lost that civic virtue and something that we need to bring back. And I do see how this. How Plato can be a guide, let's say, for a lot of us.
- [21:12]
C
I think that's exactly right. And he doesn't just give us models in how to live or how not to live. He gives us models in how to conduct a dialogue and how not to conduct it. So the ideal model, which Socrates engages in with some of the more amenable kind of interlocutors, it's collaborative, it's constructive, and the aim is to search for the truth together. It's not to win, it's not to defeat anybody. It's to search for the truth together. And Plato gives us some models of that kind of positive, constructive dialogue. But Plato's also very keen to give us some models of how not to engage in dialogue. So he gives us a sophist, like Thrasymachus in Republic Book 1, or an aspiring politician who's been trained in sophistry, like Callicles and the Gorgias. And they use bullying, they use intimidation, they will be rude. They're trying to win. They're trying to defeat their opponent in another dialogue called the Euthydemus. He gives us another kind of way of not doing in dialogue, not exactly bullying, but using verbal tricks, using skullduggery to win the debate, but by false means, by fake means. And Plato's saying, look, this is not how to do it. Your interlocutor is not your opponent. The goal is not to win. The goal is to find the truth together. And I think, as you say, I think you're so right. The world has really, really lost, and particularly in the last 20 to 30 years, because, of course, we're hoping, put into silos by social media and algorithms and so on. And people are losing that ability to have a civilized, respectful discussion on deep issues in politics, in religion, in ethics, whatever, with people with whom they profoundly disagree. And it is so important to be able to discuss with anybody, including perhaps especially people with whom you profoundly disagree. And Plato is wonderful at showing us ways to do it and ways not to do it.
- [23:41]
B
I really love that phrase, search for truth together. And just that sums up a lot of his dialogues, the essence of that art of dialogue, which, like you mentioned, is something we have lost. And if these days when you go to YouTube, you see videos like A grills B or look how he was roasted by this. And I just. And people Start cheering and clapping. I know, which is really sad.
- [24:06]
C
It does. I mean, it is. It's trying to speak to the worst elements in us.
- [24:11]
B
Exactly.
- [24:12]
C
It's, you know, it's encouraging us to be our worst selves instead of our best selves. And we are being exploited and people are making. Trying to get power and influence and make money out of creating these divisions.
- [24:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [24:28]
C
And we need to not be suckers. We need to not fall for it.
- [24:33]
B
That's right.
- [24:34]
C
You know, and a lot of these people claiming, you know, shouting away. And a lot of them don't even believe the things they're shouting about. They're just looking for clicks. They're trying to get money out of you.
- [24:48]
B
Yeah.
- [24:48]
C
So we shouldn't fall for it and that Plato's trying to give us the inner resources so we don't fall for it. And one of the sectors I work with a lot in the UK is philosophy in schools, including, in fact, especially in primary schools. I keep aiming that every primary school child in my country gets one hour a week for at least one year of unexamined philosophy tuition. It's a long battle, but I keep going. And it's so important that the children are given these inner resources to the fallacious arguments to spot the tricks that are being used on them online. So they can see through all this and they can see through the people trying to manipulate and exploit them. And we have to start really young. Really young.
- [25:48]
B
You're right. You're absolutely right. That's something we desperately need. I guess these days. Desperately need this.
- [25:54]
D
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- [26:25]
B
Let me. I think it's the next question. I was kind of relevant again to this. You mentioned Socrates a number of times. So this is not only a book about Plato, as you again addressed at the beginning. You talk about other philosophers as well. Well, Socrates, obviously. Socrates and Plato. And Socrates has this really famous sentence quote, unexamined life is not worth living. And again, you also talk about how Plato inherited Socrates. Ethical focus on how we should live. How was Plato first of all can you tell us what Socrates mean by unexamined life is not worth living? And how do Plato, let's say how does Plato's idea of how we should live differ or is similar to Socrates. What is a fulfilled life? What is flourishing in Plato's idea?
- [27:19]
C
Okay, yeah, thank you. So, yeah, thank you so much. So, yes. So what Socrates does not mean is endless tests for four year olds, which we have far too much of, certainly in the uk. He does not mean endless testing of kids, he doesn't mean endless examinations in the schools. We have probably too many of them. He means a little self reflection, a little bit of self knowledge and just some thinking about reflection on what do you think a good human life is and how should you set about creating it? And what does it mean for us to have a good human life living in community with other humans? What is a good communal human life? And Plato takes on that search for that need for inner self reflection and self knowledge and this focus on what it means for a whole person living a whole life, what that means. And he develops this theory of flourishing which Socrates has started. Now the Greek word here is eudaimonia, which literally means being blessed by a good guardian spirit, a good daimon. And it's more objective than our happiness. Our notion of happiness tends to be mostly subjective about how you feel. And eudaimonia can certainly incorporate happiness, but it's much more objective than that. It's about the fulfillment of your potential. It's about the, the best actualization of your different faculties. And in his middle dialogues, and particularly in the Republic, Plato works out this human psychology where he says we have three basic faculties in our psyche. There's an appetitive faculty which desires food and drink and sex and money and material goods. There's a reasoning faculty which desires truth and reality. And there's also a third faculty which he calls the thumoedas, which we might translate spiritedness, which desires honor, success, respect, self respect. It's about your place in the world and how you see yourself and how others see you. And it's very influential in itself. Freud was really interested in this tripartite psychology. And of course Freud has his own ego SuperEGO and the ID and Plato's saying that your flourishing is the harmonization of these three faculties. It's about your inner psychic harmony. He's the first person, as far as I'm aware, in the west at least, to use the phrase mental health, which he uses in the fourth book of the Republic. And he's saying if You've got this inner harmony. And that will only come about if your reason is in control of your two non rational faculties, of your spirited element and your appetitive element. And your reason needs to be in control of their desires and deciding which of their desires it's healthy to fulfill and which it isn't. And the reason, the reason reason needs to be in control is the link Plato makes between reason and freedom. That you won't be truly free as a person unless your life is governed by your reason. So this notion of inner psychic harmony and mental health is really important in itself. But Plato takes it even further and he says that that inner psychic harmony is also your state of justice, it's also your moral virtue. And that's an enormous turn in western thought, at least. So before Plato, the virtue of justice had been seen in terms of external actions, how you treat other people. It's about actions and in the Homeric ethic, it's about helping your friends and harming your enemies. And Plato says, no, it's, it's an internal state, your justice, you know, your actions flow from the state of your psyche, the state of your soul. And he internalizes justice and says it says you're flourishing and your justice are the same. Internal psychic harmony. Now that's a huge move and again influenced Freud a lot and many others.
- [32:02]
B
Yes.
- [32:04]
C
And he goes further and he says the good person, the good person, the just person, should never return wrong for wrong. Which is a complete repudiation of the old heroic ethos. If somebody wrongs you, you do not wrong them back because if you do, you will be harming your own soul and that's the worst possible thing you can do to yourself. So this is an enormous moment. He is really rejecting the whole ethics of that part of the Mediterranean and saying don't ever return wrong for wrong. And of course in that he's prefiguring Matthew's Sermon on the Mount in the Bible and his argument following Socrates is that your psyche, your soul, is your most important possession. Oh, it's the most important thing part of you, and you are the only person who can damage it. Other people can take away your goods, they can hurt your body, they can even kill your body, but nobody else in the world can damage your soul except for you, so don't do it. And if you return wrong for wrong, you're damaging your own soul. I mean, this is an extraordinary, really powerful moment. Anyway, so it's this very rich theory. I mean, I use it a lot. I mean I update it in my own work, because in Plato, the notion of what constitutes your flourishing and the best actualization of your faculties depends on a single hierarchy. That there's one ideal, there's one ideal norm of what it is to be a rational human being. And everybody else sort of falls short of that ideal to certain extents. And that has a damaging consequence for me in that it means that people who are very sick or disabled in various ways can't achieve this perfect human ideal in Plato. So in the work I do, when I apply his ethics of flourishing and politics of flourishing a lot. But I don't talk about the good life. I talk about a good life, which is about the best realization of your individual faculties in the circumstances in which you find yourself. Because I would not want to have an ethics where somebody who was mentally disabled, for instance, was sort of condemned to live a less flourishing life on Plato's ethics. So I've tried to get rid of this single hierarchy and a single notion of the good life and replace it with notions of a good life which had to do with the best realization of your faculties. But I still find it a really helpful notion to have this more objective approach to, to flourishing. Because we can't always feel happy. I mean, sad things happen, bad things happen in life, and sometimes it wouldn't even be appropriate or sensitive to feel happy. If we went and turned on the television right now and saw the terrible suffering in so many cities and communities around the world and we just peeled with laughter. I mean, we would be very unwell. I mean, it's not always appropriate to feel happy. But you, Bupp later says, you can always try to flourish. You can always ask yourself, how can I best use my faculties, my rational, emotional, imaginative faculty, physical imaginative faculties, to make things just that little bit better, both for me and for my community. What can I do now with my faculties to make the world just that little bit better? And that's something you can always do every day, even if you can't always feel happy. And I find that incredibly helpful.
- [36:15]
B
And it's. It's because I. I sometimes feel the same now. Whenever I turn on the television or listen to radio, I just become so disappointed. I. And, and I do these podcasts and I'm. I'm kind. I used to be kind of active on social media. I had 12, 000 followers on Instagram. I would used to write for them. But then I said, who are you writing for? What for? It's not going to change anything. But that idea of flourishing, it's Because I absolutely hate happiness industry. You know what I'm talking about, all that positive psychology, and there are lots and lots of books on that, but a few of them are kind of intelligent who kind of take that approach of a flourished life, let's say. And when you were talking about Plato, I was just amazed how modern and contemporary his ideas are. As you mentioned, it has influenced Freud. There are religious tones to it as well. Most of the religions talk about that idea of forgiveness that you mentioned. It's very modern. And it's also in the world that we are all surrounded or overwhelmed by negativity, sad news, bad news and violence and polarization. That idea of flourishing is an optimistic way, let's say, of both helping yourself and also helping others. That's how I tend to think of it.
- [37:35]
C
I think you're exactly right. I mean, we can tend to feel a bit numb and a bit passive and a bit overwhelmed, can't we, by all the bad stuff going on? No, this ethic is about reclaiming agency. It's about being positive and taking a proactive approach and saying, I am still an active agent. There's still a little tiny something that I can do and that gives. Other people are doing their worst, but I'm going to try to do my best. And. And I find that very inspirational. I mean, it's an ethic of flourishing and of course it can be extended to the community, as I've. I've said it can. You can have a small p. Politics of flourishing. And I've applied it in different ways, or my updated, updated version of it. I've applied in different ways, as I've said, to. To healthcare. I've. I've worked on the prioritization of sort of waiting lists, for instance, with the NHS in the UK and at different stages of the care pathway. I found it a helpful approach with the health. I've worked with the Health Research Authority about how, you know, looking at the ethical challenges posed by research applications. It's obviously very helpful in education. It's really good to get young people thinking quite early on, what do you think a good life is? What are you hoping for in life? What is your version of a good life? And what kind of skills and virtues and values do you need to try to achieve that good life? But also in very practical other issues. I mean, AI, for instance, how do we know what we want AI systems to do for us until we have some kind of idea of what we think a good life is, both for ourselves and our community in the world. How do we know what kind of values we want to try and instill in AI systems until we've done this basic preliminary thinking, but lots of other things. Climate change, the pandemic. There's lot of areas where I found it really helpful.
- [39:53]
B
You raised a lot of important points about AI climate change. And I guess by now the audience can clearly see how much Plato matters. Now, as the title of the book suggests, let me ask you another question, which is about Plato's emphasis on moral and aesthetic formation to shape character, which goes again back to that idea of flourishing which we have been discussing. Can you talk about which aspects of, let's say, this educational program, let's say the moral aesthetic aspects that Plato emphasizes we can bring back or how can we bring back to revive them, let's say, to make them more applicable to today's audience, today's people? Let's.
- [40:44]
C
Yes, thank you. So we've seen how Plato thinks that our flourishing and moral well being all depend on this interior psychic harmony with our reason and control. But he also says that reason doesn't really fully develop until we're a little older. It starts at about 10 maybe. But before that he says that other aspects of our psyche, particularly what he calls this spirited element, the Thermoedes, is very responsive to a Greek word called the kalon, which we translate beauty. But it can be just, it can be both outer aesthetic beauty, which our senses can appreciate, but also inner moral beauty. It's the same word in ancient Greek, which is really interesting. They've got the same term for outer and inner beauty. And he says we're very responsive to that really from birth. So for Plato, it's very, very important that young children grow up in the right healthy, beautiful environment, both aesthetically and also morally. So the achievement of our mental health with our reason and control is in a psychic harmony. It's not, it's not just a matter for doctors, it absolutely isn't. It's actually much more about education, about urban planning, about the right political and social and cultural environment, about access to the right cultural artifacts. Now for Plato, there is this perfect non sensible, that is you can only appreciate it with your mind, a form of beauty which is in a different metaphysical realm from our phenomenal world. And it's perfect and it's absolute. So for Plato, beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. And not many of us would agree that there is a form of beauty. And not many of us would want to be so absolutist or indeed completely objective about what we think beauty is, however. So I think the idea needs updating again, but I still think it teaches us something really important that we need to think about from really very, very early on. Plato does it from birth in the Republic, and in fact, in a later dialogue called the Laws, he says that even the fetus in the womb is. Can appreciate rhythm and harmony and music, and that he wants his pregnant women to have dance classes so that the baby in the womb imbibes this sense of rhythm and harmony and grace. And in that, you know, I mean, when I was pregnant, I was sort of listening to Bach and Beethoven, whale music and all the rest of it. So, I mean, he was centuries ahead of his time and all that. So we can say to Plato, okay, maybe not many of us will want to go as far as you in thinking there's just one absolute form of beauty, but we can still appreciate the general point that it's the whole environment in which a baby and a toddler and a child is raised that's crucial, and that your individual good life and your individual virtue depend on the whole environment around you, and that this is a matter for not just for healthcare professionals, but for educators, for politicians, for artists, for urban and environmental planners, and so on. And so I think we can take some of that. And he also has a really interesting point that we can imbibe the beautiful artifacts to different levels and layers in our psyche. So you could hear a beautiful piece of music say, but only just appreciate it with your appetitive faculty and just take pleasure in it as just as a pleasurable sensory experience, but not actually imbibe its rhythms, its harmonies deeply into your sight psyche. And I think that's really important because a charge that's often put to Plato is, oh, Plato. You say that growing up in the right cultural environment and being surrounded by beautiful sights and sounds will help people be a better person and live a better life. But look at all, you know, look at, I don't know, Goebbels, who sort of said he loved music, but was then part of the final, you know, helped to devise the final solution. And I think Plato has a response to that, which is that you can say you enjoy music at this surface level, but you've not actually imbibed it very deeply into your psyche. I think Plato can say, look, if somebody can listen to Beethoven's Ode to Joy in his Ninth Symphony and say, oh, I enjoyed that piece of music, and then go out and continue to work out ways to slaughter Jews, or in another Culture, Muslims or Christians or atheists or agnostics or whoever it is, you've really not understood what Beethoven was about. You really not appreciated the Ode to Joy, and you've not appreciated its call for human harmony and brotherhood and sisterhood, and you've not taken that into your psyche. So I think Plato said something very profound here, that there are different levels and layers in which we can appreciate art and culture and imbibe them into our psyche. I mean, underlying all this is the fact that Plato's a mathematician by training, and he. He thinks basically the universe is run on mathematical lines of ratio and proportion. That's where his belief in harmony comes from, his belief in mathematical ratios and proportions. And he said, yeah, you can take a kind of superficial interest in a work of art but not actually take it into you and imbibe it and model your life on it. And I think that's very profound. So I think we can learn a lot from Plato about how having a healthy, flourishing psyche and living a healthy, flourishing life, both as an individual and as a community, is not just a matter for doctors. It's a matter for educators and politicians and artists. And all of us have to create the right environment. And I think we can learn a lot from that without necessarily subscribing to Plato's theory of forms and his belief that there is one absolute form of beauty. Does that make any sense?
- [48:16]
B
It does, yeah. And I think the example that you mentioned, the example of Goebbels, was the perfect one to talk about how art and ethics are interrelated and the ideas of inner beauty, as you mentioned. Again, I was thinking how, how not only about this question, but throughout this whole podcast and also when I was reading the book, and I think this idea comes across quite strong in your book how as the title, just why It Matters now you come to think how modern his ideas were for somebody who wrote more than 2,000 years ago. And again, I guess, and I'm sure this is, again, what our listeners have also picked up, how incredibly important, relevant it is. And I will ask you again towards the end, I think I will end with a podcast when we come to the end, about how can we better revive, let's say, Plato. I love the idea that you mentioned engaging with school students. My professional work, it's workforce development and skills development, and everybody's talking, you need to engage with school students. That's for professional side, anyhow. But again, it's just amazing to think how if people really appreciated, understood Plato's ideas, and if we had a way to implement it in our educational system, in our policies, in our, let's say, civil services could solve lots and lots of problems. Maybe I'm thinking too idealistically, but that's the fact, I guess, here. Well, I'll come to that towards the end of the interview. I'm keen to know your thoughts, how you can better revive Plato. Again, another relevant topic. I'm sure a lot of people understand that past 20 years or past 30, especially the past 20 years, the world has become too much polarized. We have the decline of democracies, liberal democracies. There is the rise of right wing politicians all over the world. It's not only Europe or America. You can see that in the east, in the West. And a lot of good willing people are talking about how they can resist this wave of, let's say, right wing politics or dictatorships. And again, in your book you talk about some of the ideas of Plato's ideas, his rhetoric, his ethics, his ideas of education. I'm keen to know how can, let's say, Platonic strategies, these strategies we talked about, help us or help democracies resist this shift towards tyranny.
- [51:04]
C
Okay, thank you. So I think Plato would say we need to look at that in two stages. First he would say you need to, to accept and understand what is happening and just really analyze and understand what is going on. And then he's got techniques in how to fight back. So in terms of understanding what's going on, he gives us these, as we've mentioned, the sophists, we've mentioned these purveyors of people who went around the Greek world, professionals teaching rich young men how to get ahead in public life by winning arguments. That's how you got ahead in that. And you needed to win your argument in the assembly and the law courts and so on. And it was about winning and defeating your opponent. It wasn't about truth. And there are two in. Well, there's a sophist and a sophistically trained guy. In particular we need to mention. So the sophistically, the sophistically trained guy in Plato's dialogue, the Gorgias, is called Callicles. And he's a real might is right person. And he makes this distinction between what he calls conventional law, the law made by humans, particularly in democracies. And he's got no time for that. He says weak people form democracies because they're weak. They have to operate together and they've make these conventional laws to suppress the naturally strong few men it's always men like him. And what he does have time for is what he calls natural justice and natural law, which he says that those who are stronger in mind and body and in courage and in intellect and in resources should have more power than other people and they should have more material wealth. It is right and proper that they take power and wealth for themselves because they're superior. Naturally. It's a real might as right philosophy. And that's in Plato's Gorgias. Now in a slightly later dialogue, the Republic, in book one there, we get a sophist called Thrasymachus, who again really admires strength. It's a philosophy of strength. He takes a slightly different line, a very cynical line. He doesn't believe in natural law or natural justice. He says there's only conventional law and conventional justice. And it's a mugs game because he says justice is simply the interest of the stronger. And by that he means that whoever is in power in a state, it could be a democracy, it could be a monarchy, a tyranny, an aristocracy, an oligarchy. Whoever is in power, they make laws in their own interest. So if you are a subject and you obey the laws, all you're doing is furthering the interests of those in power. And you're a fool if you can get away with it. Why would you obey the law if you can get away with not obeying a law because it is not in your interest. So slightly different. They both think conventional justice is a mugs game. They both think that it's just a cynical exploitation. Callicles thinks conventional justice is the democratic majority cynically trying to suppress the stronger few. Thrasymachus thinks that conventional justice is whoever is in power cynically trying to suppress the ruled. So there are some similarities. Despite the differences, the implications of both theories are really powerful because it really means just don't go along with justice. Law really means nothing. International law means nothing at all. It's just whoever's the strongest state in the world can do what they want. Something we're obviously seeing around the world at the moment. And so Plato says the first thing you need to do is accept this is happening and be able to spot it. And later on in the dialogue, the Republic, in books eight and nine, he gives us this brilliant analysis of how a democracy can be subverted to tyranny by a cynical and opportunistic demagogue, sort of trained in sophistic techniques. And though Plato himself, he didn't know about representational democracy, they didn't have it. They just had direct democracy in Athens at his time, and he wasn't a great fan of it. It had put his beloved Socrates to death. Death on false charges. However, he did think that democracy was a lot better than tyranny, of which he had had direct experience in Sicily at the court of Dionysius I, the tyrant of Syracuse. And Plato had only just escaped with his life, so he knew about tyranny and he hated it. He says, first of all, and I mean, my goodness, we should pay attention to this passage in the passages in the Republic. Now. He says, first of all, the demagogue gains power by democratic means. They get themselves voted in. How do they do that? They make all these false promises. They particularly offer the electorate intoxicating quantities of freedom. Freedom is always their banner word. So they get into power by democratic means. They then build up a cult following around themselves, and their cult followers think they can do no wrong. They then start to abuse the legal and judicial systems and bring false charges against their opponents. They have their opponents exiled or killed or whatever. That creates genuine enemies, of course. And they then think, my goodness, I need to protect myself with a private army. So they build up a private army around themselves. They're always starting foreign wars because for two reasons. One, as a distraction from problems at home, and two, because they need to keep their people fearful and in need of a strong leader or thinking they're in need of a strong leader, so they're always starting foreign conflicts and conquests. And also because it was the poor who voted them in. Plato says they need to keep their people poor as well as fearful. And once their initial supporters realize that they've been fooled and start to fight back and criticize this demagogue on the way to becoming a tyrant. The demagogue says, well, I don't need you anymore. And he starts to attack them too, because he only needed them when there was a democratic system and he needed their votes. But he's now destroyed the democratic system. He doesn't need his supporters particularly anymore. He doesn't mind if they turn against him, because he'll just use his private army on them. And Plato doesn't mince his words. He says, the man has become a wolf and the demagogue has become a tyrant. Okay, so that's the first thing. Notice what is happening. And my goodness, this authoritarian playbook has really not changed in nearly 2,500 years. We can see these moves being used by various leaders around the world right now. How do we protect ourselves against that? Well, Plato makes a really interesting point. He says it always starts with the corruption of language and particularly the subversion of key terms like democracy or freedom. I mean, these people will always claim they're working for your freedom and your democracy. I mean, it won't be true, but that's what they will claim. And it is the subversion of moral terms. So Plato says that liberty gets confused with license and shamelessness is called courage. And so all these virtuous words are applied to vices and vice versa. So Plato, way before Orwell, wrote about this in the middle of the 20th century. Plato has, he's predicted Newspeak, Orwellian Newspeak, where war is peace and black is white. And Plato says, you know, they just abuse language. So if you are trained in language to pay attention to it, pay attention to what you read, what you hear, the words you speak, then you're going to be better protected. So this kind of philosophical training, and not just philosophy, but it's a good example in language is really important. The other thing that. So you can spot what's going on before it gets too far and too late. What else does Plato say? Well, it's back to something we were talking about earlier. Don't just be reactive. Don't just wait for bad people to do bad things and then react to it. You have agency. You have rational agency. Think about what you can do with your faculties, your emotional, rational, imaginative, physical faculties to make the world a better place. So don't just respond, but be proactive as well. Well, but yes, it's uncanny. I mean, everybody in the world should read this section of the Republic right now and these sections of the Gorgias.
- [61:02]
B
For a moment, I thought you were talking about, well, America. Well, obviously not Americans happening, as you mentioned, everywhere in the world. But it's just amazing, especially with the things that happen over the weekend between American win as well.
- [61:15]
C
Exactly.
- [61:16]
B
Yes.
- [61:18]
C
Plato would have said, I told you. I mean, this years ago. I mean, since 2016, I've been posting on various social media where we are in Plato's Republic about the decline of democracy into tyranny. So this is, you know, 10 years or nearly 10 years. So none of this is a surprise. And that's another reason to keep reading Plato and other philosophers. We shouldn't be so surprised by all this.
- [61:53]
B
Yeah, you're right.
- [61:53]
C
These people around the world, they're not doing anything original, they're not doing anything new. The playbook has been written and Trump won't have read the Republic. But I mean, some of the people advising him might well have done.
- [62:09]
B
And another important point you raised was that subversion of language and also the meaning of, of concepts such as democracy, liberty, and unfortunately, I mean, it's really sad to know that all these things have been talked about, Orwell has talked about, as you mentioned, but then we're seeing it played out again in 2025, and unfortunately a lot of people fall for it again and again. But that's something I'll ask as a last question. But before that, I have one more question for the last.
- [62:40]
C
But can I just wanted to intervene there that. I mean, as I said, I'm agnostic myself, though I'm very interested in religion. And I mean, I'm not an atheist. I literally don't know, but I'm really interested in religion. And I've been very admiring of the way the new Pope Leo is calling out abuses of the very term Christianity and people claiming to be Christian when they are literally going against the teachings of Jesus. I mean, I don't call myself a Christian, but I do actually try to follow the teachings of Jesus in my daily life most of the time. And it is, you know, and I thought good for Pope Leo. He is calling this out and saying, no, you do not get to call yourself a Christian if you are literally going against what Jesus taught about welcoming strangers and et cetera, et cetera, and tolerance and, and kindness and so on. Anyway, so, yes, you're absolutely right.
- [63:45]
B
One question. And Plato's also written about the idea of love failure and eros. And in this digital world and again in this world that we are all obsessed with these stories of success, individuality, competition, feels that more and more people are feeling lonely. Identity conflict and identity crisis. People are atomized. And that's why a lot of activists, I guess, are trying to build their communities, organize again the same way they did in 1960s and 70s, to fight against tyranny. But this idea of loneliness and we are all, we think, let's say we're lonely together, we think we are together, but we are lonely. And part of it, I guess, is all that, a new means of entertainment that has been available to us, digital world as well. How do you think notions, how can we use Platonic notions of philia and eros to rebuild bonds of trust, to rebuild communities, communities of care among people. And just as a preface maybe to that, I sometimes talk to a lot of people that I don't agree with. Some of them are even new Nazis. But then I feel like, look, I have a lot in common with you in terms of you identify the problems, but your approach to that problem is wrong. And we cannot talk to one another because we haven't been able to build this bond to be able to have that dialogue. But how can we use those ideas of Philia and Ross to stop community building?
- [65:18]
C
Right, Absolutely. And I'll say something about Philia, friendship and aerosorotic love in a second. But I mean, the first point is precisely emphasizes Plato's emphasis on dialogue itself and the ways he shows us how to engage in it better. And we will be less lonely if we learn how to talk and reach out and just make those initial moves and find out that there may be something you've got in common. It may be a shared food or you love chocolate, or there's something you've got in common. Yeah. So philia, which means friendship or family love. I mean, Plato writes about this very beautifully in dialogues such as the Lysis. And he looks at different models. What is the best kind of friendship? And he said the best kind is when a good person is friends with another good person because they wish good for that other person because that other person is good. You're wishing well for each other because you can see that you both deserve it. And it's not egoistic, it's not trying to appropriate the other person or absorb them into you. It's wishing somebody else well for their own sake. Now he want, and in the Republic, he wants his ideally just city to be built out of. Of different overlapping circles of friendship, which is something that Aristotle later picks up on as well too in his book on the politics. Now we might kind of think, oh gosh, that might lead to nepotism, it might lead to cronyism. We've got problems with all that at the moment, but I don't think it has to. And I think just because we're worried about cronyism, we shouldn't give up on the ideal that politicians should be trying to create social unity and not deliberately trying to create disunity because they think they can win power and money through creating disunity rather than unity. So I think we lack political ambition at the moment. And I think it's really good to look at the ways in which Plato thinks that we can build stronger social bonds of friendship. Now, one of the ways he does that in the Republic, which is, is there are lots of ways in the Republic I wouldn't want to advocate. I'm not a totalitarian. There appear to be slaves. There's lots of things in the ideally just City, I would not think were ideal. But one thing Plato says is really interesting, and that is his attempt to divorce power from wealth. Now, he has a very extreme approach to this, and I think way too extreme for most of us. So in the ideally just city, there are. There are three classes analogous to the three faculties in the psyche. There's a ruling class of philosopher rulers, philosopher queens, I should note, as well as philosopher kings, there's an auxiliary class of. Well, sorry, there's a military and executive and police force called auxiliaries, who are there to assist the philosopher rulers. And then there's a producer class, who are the ones who engage in business and make the stuff and trade the stuff and so on. Now, the philosopher rulers and their auxiliaries are that together are the two. They're the guardian class. They form the guardians, and they are not allowed to own any wealth or property whatsoever, maybe nothing beyond a hairbrush or a sponge. They live together in camp communes, and all their material needs are supplied for them by the producer class, who have all the money but none of the power. Now, as I said, that's way too extreme for most of us. But it is really interesting to think about, given the debates around the world at the moment about oligarchies and about how much, if anything, should politicians be allowed to make out of their jobs on the side, how much should there be a limit on donations to a political party, and so on and so forth. So we're having right now, around the world, including in my own country, really keen debates about the relationship between power and money. And Plato's solution in the Republic is, as I said, brutal, but something to think about. I mean, we would, I think, want a less extreme version. Complete divorce. Complete divorce. And so though the philosopher rulers and their auxiliaries, they have the power, but that power is actually curtailed in practice, because if they don't treat the producers well, they are not going to get fed or housed or clothed. And that's a pretty good incentive to treat your subjects well. Anyway, so plenty to think about. I said it's way too extreme for most of us. These. I mean, in these camp communes, the poor guardian women, they're not even allowed to see the babies they produce. The babies are taken away at birth and raised in state nurseries. So way too extreme for most of us, however, interesting. And Plato does have really interesting debates on what is friendship? How can we be better friends? How can friendship enrich both our individual lives, but also our communal lives? Lives, erotic love, Eros. I mean, the dialogue for this. And I would recommend this to maybe the first dialogue for your audience to read. If you've read no, Plato is the Symposium. It's relatively short, it's very accessible, it's huge fun. And it's about erotic love. And all these different characters with different jobs and professions and personalities give their take on what they think erotic love is, is. And again, how do we define it? What are its origins? What are its aims? What are its objects? Why do we fall in love with the people that we do? And huge numbers of different examples are given. I mean, one is a clear indication that what we think of as romantic love is often very egoistic and selfish. And what you shouldn't be doing is try to appropriate your beloved into you. You shouldn't be using your beloved to fill up the missing bits and needs of you. And that seems that Plato's pretty clear about that. We sometimes talk about your other half. And it's one of the speeches in Plato's Symposium that's the first place in Western literature that gives this model of your beloved being your other half. And it appears that Plato, the author, we don't know for sure because he's off stage, but that he's saying, no, your beloved is not your other half. They're not the missing bit of you. You're not the missing bit of them. That's incredibly egoistic. You should be loving somebody as a whole in their own right. Another speech talks about ways in which we might re channel erotic energy away from humans onto ever more abstract, philosophical, scientific, artistic and ultimately religious goals. And again, that's a speech that really Freud was very influenced by. Freud says he gets his theory of the libido very much from Plato's theory of eros, erotic life, love. And Freud says he gets his theory of sublimation from Plato's theory of re channeling of erotic energy. In fact, as I talk about in the book, there are some differences between Freud and Plato which Freud doesn't necessarily realize. But the basic point is there that how can we be better lovers and friends? What, what could love be? What could friendship be? What are their possibilities both for our individual lives, but also for the community? And I don't know of any philosopher who writes with more depth and richness about friendship and love than Plato does.
- [73:54]
B
As a final question, as we can see, he's extremely relevant to us. He's answer to a lot of problems we have today. How can we revive Plato? How can we, let's say, kick people's interests, especially young people's interests, politicians interest in reading and engaging with his ideas, with Plato's ideas.
- [74:15]
C
Thank you. Well, I think in primary schools, the primary school children don't even need to be reading Plato to get a lot from being taught through a Platonic method of dialogue and question and answer. So I think we can use his methodology from a really young age and then that can be used in many adult professions as well. In terms of his ideas, though, as I've suggested, I think his ideas on community and flourishing need a little bit of updating for the 21st century. I still think there is an enormous amount we can learn from these basic questions. How should I live? What sort of person should I be? What kind of skills and virtues and values do I need to create a good life, both for me and for my community? And in that process, we're going to learn so much about how to love, how to live, how to. There's so much we've not talked about, about art, about myth, myth, about censorship, heroism and celebrity. Plato is really rich on that and how he could say, look, we need to keep heroism, but get rid of celebrity culture. There's lots we can learn. So keep the dialogues alive, keep the methods alive, keep thinking about these things. Even if his answers are too extreme sometimes, he nearly always asks the right questions. And because he doesn't speak in his own voice, he's always giving space for us to think for ourselves and to keep asking, how does Plato help us right now?
- [76:02]
B
Professor Angie Hobbs, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us. Lots of wonderful ideas were discussed and there's a lot more in the book. I strongly recommend this book to our listeners and viewers. Why Plato Matters now, which was published by Bloomsbury Press. Highly accessible, highly relevant to whatever that is going on around the world today. AI, climate change, politics. Really enjoyed talking to you and thank you very much for your time.
- [76:28]
C
Thank you so much for having me on. And can I also tell your listeners I also narrated the audiobook, so if you're.
- [76:34]
B
Oh, wonderful. Where is it accessible?
- [76:37]
C
All the usual platforms. All the usual platforms.
- [76:40]
B
Wonderful.
- [76:40]
C
So I also narrated the audiobook, if your audience prefer listening to books rather than reading them. Did so much. I've really enjoyed it and thank you for the great work you're doing and the great podcasts you're making. It's so important right now.
- [76:54]
B
Thank you very much.
- [77:07]
E
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- [77:35]
C
Experian.