Plato Core Concept Videos

These are shorter, more closely focused videos (10-30 minutes long), each of which is focused on one key idea in a philosophical thinker's text.  This list will be constantly growing for the next several years -- so check in every once in a while to see new material I've added.

The Apology

• Socrates' Older Accusers
• Socrates' Divine Mission
• Socrates' Defense Against Charges of Corrupting the Young
• Socrates' Defense Against Charges of Impiety

The Crito

• Crito's Argument
• Living According to Principle
• The Many and the Wise
• The Laws' Arguments

The Ion

• "Speaking Well" and Knowledge
• Do Poets Have Knowledge
• Poetry and Divine Inspiration

The Euthyphro

• What Gods Disagree About
• The Euthyphro Dilemma 
• Piety as a Part of Justice

The Meno

• Defining Virtue
• The Meno Paradox
• Socrates the "Stingray"
• The Doctrine of Recollection
• Plato, Goods, Desires, Knowledge
• Can Virtue Be Taught?
• Knowledge and Right Opinion 

The Phaedo

• Philosophy as Preparation for Death
• Suicide and Readiness for Death
• Philosophical Temperance and Courage
• Misology and Misanthropy in the Phaedo  
• The Body as Prison to the Soul
• Recollection and the Forms 
• The Argument From Opposites
• Is The Soul A Harmony? Arguments For and Against  
• Does the Soul Wear Out? Arguments For and Against
• The Myth of the Afterlife

The Symposium

• Narrative Framework in Plato's Symposium
• Style and Content of the Symposium Speeches
  
• How and Why Love Should Be Praised (Phaedrus' Speech)
• Love, Nobility, and Virtue (Phaedrus' speech)
• Is the Lover or Beloved Greater (Phaedrus' speech)
  
• Heavenly and Earthly Love (Pausanius' speech) 
• Laws and the Love of Youth (Pausanius' speech)
• Paradoxes of Love (Pausanius' speech)
  
• Healthy and Diseased Love (Eryximachus' speech
• Love, Music, and Medicine (Eryximachus' speech)
• Love as a Cosmic Phenomenon (Eryximachus' speech)
  
• Love as a Desire for Lost Unity (Aristophanes' Speech)
• Three Types of Men and Women (Aristophanes' Speech)
• Politics and the Love of Men (Aristophanes' Speech)
  
• Love's Youth, Delicacy, and Suppleness (Agathon's Speech)
• Love as Master of the Virtues (Agathon's Speech)
  
• Love as Lack of the Good (Socrates' Speech)
• Love as Mediator (Socrates' Speech)
• Love, Poetry, and Procreation (Socrates' Speech)
• The Ladder of Love (Socrates' Speech)
  
• Socrates' Ugliness and Beauty (Alcibiades' Speech)
• Socrates the Lover (Alcibiades' Speech)

The Republic

• Wealth, Character and Happiness (Republic bk. 1)
• Knowledge, Practitioners, and Crafts (Republic bk.1)
• Polemarchus' Theory of Justice (Republic bk 1)
• Thrasymachus' Definition of Justice (Republic bk. 1)
  
• What Kind of Good is Justice? (Republic bk. 2)
• Glaucon on The Origin and Nature of Justice (Republic bk. 2)
• The Ring of Gyges (Republic bk. 2)
• Representations of Justice as Instrumental (Republic bk. 2)
  
• Plato's City and the Parts of the Soul (Republic bk. 4)
• Virtues in Parts of the Soul (Republic bk. 4)

• Likeness Between The Sun and The Good (Republic, bk, 6)
• The Divided Line, Truth, and the Faculties (Republic, bk. 6)

• The Allegory of the Cave (Republic bk. 7)
• The Philosopher's Return to the Cave

• Ideas, Things, Imitations, and their Makers (Republic bk. 10)
• Knowledge of Users, Makers, and Imitators (Republic, bk. 10)
• Imitation and Parts of the Human Soul (Republic bk. 10)
• Poets, Knowledge, and Education (Republic bk. 10)
• Poetry as Corrupter of the Soul (Republic bk. 10)