Socrates and Alcibiades reappear at a party attended by several characters who decide to take turns praising Eros. As the dialogue progresses, we learn there is much more to love, or rather to "eros," than sexual desire, and the characters’ conversation moves on to numerous other topics, including politics, law, and philosophy. ## Notes Symposium is a drinking party were men come together to celebrate. They had celebrated the vict...

Notes Pay attention, or else Mythologies as Compression Algorithms The materialistic view cannot tell us anything about consciousness. Plato proposed that all knowledge was remembering. We do not believe that today because we believe that we gather knowledge as consequence of contact in with world. But there are some things that are predicated on this idea remembering since it strikes such a deep cord. Models of the world that includ...

Alcibiades is one of the most famous figures in military history. He was a successful Athenian general who fled to Athens’ enemy Sparta after being charged with sacrilege. He and Socrates had a very "complicated" relationship. This particular dialogue raises questions about the nature of justice and who is worthy to lead. Notes This dialogue raises questions of justice and who is worthy to lead. Socrates is teaching Alcibiades justi...

Notes Plato‘s Republic is a platonic dialogue. The way to read these books is to skim through it and find something that jumps out at you. The great thing about these books is that it is a conversation. The first reading tends to let the book tell you what questions they have; let them tell you and what you should be interested in. When you come back to the book with the wrong questions they will probably tell you answer to those qu...