Plato's Symposium: Introduction - Ep. 1

Two main points in this introduction:

First, Plato is in deadly earnest in these dialogues trying to work out how his society and his class were crushed in a war and subject to tyranny and what, if anything, could be done. 

Second, Plato has had an unbelievable impact on our conception of the world through his influence on Christianity. Further, as we will explore in later episodes, his thinking is also foundational to the Enlightenment and Humanism - two intellectual movements that undercut the power of Christianity in Western thought while, oddly, increasing the influence of the already overwhelming power of Platonic thought. In sum, Plato reigns supreme.

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