Who recommends it
- Philosophy Books for BeginnersReading list
I don’t like to use textbooks or “beginners” books, though I’m not against those that offer a vision of philosophy and thus stand as texts in their own right. Consequently, I teach with primary sources, and I’ve observed over the years that great philosophers who are also the same quality writers made extraordinary…
- Brendan FernandesInterview
- Craig HassedInterview
The first real book I ever willingly picked up, and read because I wanted to, was Plato’s Symposium. I was 25 years old, newly graduated from medicine, and had decided now was the time to broaden my horizons by letting bloom my latent interest in philosophy. I had heard of Plato, and on the back cover it said that the…
- Melissa LaneInterview
In the first term of my first year at university, reading Greek scepticism. The question of whether the sceptic could live out the scepticism being avowed brought home the links between one’s ideas and one’s life that I later found so vividly explored in Plato, in the soul/city analogy of The Republic and in the…
- Lewis GordonInterview
I was 13 when Ms. Fierman, my 8th grade social studies teacher, gave me The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Whether 13 or 16, I would give that book. The others would be Africans and Their History by Joseph Harris, Symposium and Apology by Plato, The Golden Ass by Apuleius, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, My Bondage and My…
- Angie HobbsInterview
I first became intrigued by the problem of free will when studying De Rerum Natura by Lucretius for Latin A Level at school. Then studying classics at university I fell in love with Plato, initially with his Symposium, a glorious dialogue on the nature of erotic love. Plato is a great artist as well as a great…
Often recommended alongside
The Republic
Middlemarch
Apology
Mortal QuestionsMore books by Plato our guests recommend
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases made through links on this page.