Miles Burnyeat on Plato

Alfred Whitehead, one of the most important logicians and philosophers of mathematics of the twentieth century, once remarked that the history of western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato.

Originally inspired as a youth by the charismatic influence of Socrates, and armed with little more than the power of his intellect, his curiosity and his search for a unified theory of reality, Plato managed to explore with unprecedented profundity most of the questions that are still perplexing philosophers two millennia later.

His solutions to many of these problems may not convince many modern thinkers, but it is undeniable that it took a brilliant mind to explain the reality and the conceptual conflict between being and becoming the way Plato did.

In the following fascinating conversation, philosophers Brian Magee and Miles Burnyeat discuss the importance, the intellectual legacy and the lessons we can all still learn from one of the fathers of Western philosophy.

Check out an amazing animation of Plato’s Myth of the Cave, or check out other inspiring conversations about the Masters of philosophy.
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