I’m in the midst of my Plato Project, which is my attempt to read the complete works of Plato. I’m near the mid-way point, and while the reading is quite difficult, it’s been extremely rewarding. I’m dedicating the month of September to Plato’s Republic. One thing that has been interesting so far is to see references to topics from Plato’s other dialogues. It’s making me very glad that I did not start with The Republic but read some of his other dialogues first.
For instance, I keep seeing references to the definition of self-control, something the Charmides dialogue focuses on. Courage is also referenced quite a bit, something the Laches dialogue covers. These references in The Republic have been helpful in answering some of the questions I still had after reading those other dialogues.
In this episode of the podcast, I talk about a few of the connections between Plato’s Republic and Ion dialogues. In Ion, Plato has Socrates question a rhapsode named Ion about his expertise in performing the poetry of Homer. The Republic (written 5 years after Ion) helps answer some questions I had after reading Ion.
This is episode 300 of the podcast, and I can’t think of a more perfect topic to mark the milestone. One of my main goals with this reading project is to make connections across the books that I read, and here, I get to connect different dialogues by Plato and share how they inform one another.
If you’re interested in learning more about Ion, here’s a wonderful discussion I took part in with the brilliant minds over at Ascend - The Great Books Podcast:
