Very tempted to subscribe to this one too! Quick question though…will the sessions be as detailed ( ie close reading) as at The Culturist Book Club? As a new subscriber I’m really enjoying the careful analysis of the texts as presented in Sean Berube’s sessions. We’re currently reading The Idiot.
Sean is great! Our goal is to provide a slow, attentive read to each text - so our podcast moves a pace in which you have time to observe and focus the details. For example, we spent six months just on the Iliad. For the Republic, it will be 10 months.
We want the great books to show you why they are great - and that means going slow enough to discuss details.
We have 150 discussions already posted (many of which are on the new website). Go check them out as an example.
We also publish detailed written guides you can download as PDFs with outlines, intros, and Q&A.
Check out the new site! We’d be happy to have you.
Thank you so much for getting back to me - much appreciated! I shall definitely check out the website but you have provided enough reassurance that we shall be exploring and studying these texts in depth. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity - I’ve been wanting to study these foundational works which were largely, if not entirely, overlooked in my school days. Best wishes from London.
The funny thing is that, I just picked this book back up yesterday and her come this post for me to engage in. The timing of all this is astonishing. Great article by the way. I was wrestling with the injustice part right before going onto the musical and unmusical part.
My undergraduate degree is in Philosophy. I've read Plato, etc. Yes, it is true that Plato's ideas have dominated Western civilization and Christians' thinking from the beginning. And I respectfully suggest that THAT is the Problem - the fatal flaw - with Western Civilization and Christian doctrines. The Bible answers those same questions in a very different way. But People don't read the Bible and so don't know how the Bible answers those questions; or their minds have been so perverted by Plato's answers that they are unable to see that the Bible answers those questions differently. Even my beloved C.S. Lewis fell into the Plato trap!
You should read it with us. Not all the scholars are Christian, but it is a deep dive into the text. A lot of thinkers, like St Gregory of Nyssa, St Augustine, St Justin Martyr found Platonic teaching very helpful for Christianity - but not perfect.
I’m sure worth reading in entirety which I’ve attempted unsuccessfully. But I’m reluctant to subject myself for this reason:
In Peter Kingsley’s reading, Western reason has a sacred, feminine source: Parmenides receives logic from a goddess, reached through a descent into the underworld with female guides.
Kingsley locates a decisive split with Plato—the transformation of that sacred teaching into intellectual argument. Reason is severed from its source and eventually elevated into what Kingsley calls “the cult of reason.”
What we now treat as opposites—rationality and mysticism—were originally inseparable.
Interesting. However, that critique seems to ignore the reality of Plato’s Symposium, where Socrates says he practices true erotics and presents an eros by which the soul ascends to the divine beauty-itself - it is a template for both Christian and pagan mysticism for 1000 years.
Also, never forget that Socrates learned erotics from a woman, the priestess Diotima - it is she who explains the ascent to the divine.
Hmmmm… I don’t disagree, but I also think highly of Kingsley’s reading. He argues that Plato wanted to claim succession to Parmenides’ teaching for himself. The context you offer doesn’t negate the philosophical parricide Plato stages in the Sophist, where the Eleatic Stranger challenges “father Parmenides.”
I’m also fascinated by the ancient practice of incubation, which may shed light on what was lost in that transformation—and on Kingsley’s account of reason becoming severed from its sacred, feminine source.
Also, the presence of Diotima doesn’t resolve the question for me. If the body’s wisdom becomes a stepping stone toward a supposedly higher, disembodied truth, isn’t that the split Kingsley is pointing to? Reason claims to have surpassed the very source from which wisdom arose.
I also wonder whether invoking a woman’s teaching about love fully answers a question about feminine knowing. However expansive that teaching is, does locating the feminine in love preserve its authority as a source of wisdom—or narrow it, while reason assumes authority over truth?
Very interesting piece, thank you. Much to agree with, I would just gently question “And Athens, of course, would be nothing without Plato.”. Isn’t there in fact a lot of useful work in exploring Plato’s debt both to the historical Socrates (as opposed to the one he provides in his early dialogues) and other pre-Socratics like Anaxagoras and Parmenides? Let alone other key thinkers like Herodotus, Euripides and Aristophanes whom Plato almost certainly read and admired?
The line about eugenics and the transmigration of souls getting cast aside while the immaterial soul stuck around is canon formation in miniature. Plato's ideas didn't get absorbed into Christian theology wholesale, they got edited down to whatever fit. Same logic as an apocryphal text getting cut: only the convenient parts survive. Even philosophy couldn't escape that kind of curation.
Incredible. Our years of content coming over to Substack to help build a new online book club will be amazing.
So many resources to help such an awesome community read the great books.
Good things are ahead.
An amazing thing you've built, Harrison. It's an honor to work with you on it 🙏
Fantastic news, well done team!
Good summary. Makes me want to pick up Republic and start reading right now
Is it for free?
All our podcasts and videos are posted directly to Substack for free! Join us!
Can't wait
Very tempted to subscribe to this one too! Quick question though…will the sessions be as detailed ( ie close reading) as at The Culturist Book Club? As a new subscriber I’m really enjoying the careful analysis of the texts as presented in Sean Berube’s sessions. We’re currently reading The Idiot.
Sean is great! Our goal is to provide a slow, attentive read to each text - so our podcast moves a pace in which you have time to observe and focus the details. For example, we spent six months just on the Iliad. For the Republic, it will be 10 months.
We want the great books to show you why they are great - and that means going slow enough to discuss details.
We have 150 discussions already posted (many of which are on the new website). Go check them out as an example.
We also publish detailed written guides you can download as PDFs with outlines, intros, and Q&A.
Check out the new site! We’d be happy to have you.
Thank you so much for getting back to me - much appreciated! I shall definitely check out the website but you have provided enough reassurance that we shall be exploring and studying these texts in depth. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity - I’ve been wanting to study these foundational works which were largely, if not entirely, overlooked in my school days. Best wishes from London.
I'm considering joining the club and participating in course on Plato. If I miss a live session, will I be able to see a recorded version?
Yes. The plan is to post them afterward here on Substack for subscribers only.
The funny thing is that, I just picked this book back up yesterday and her come this post for me to engage in. The timing of all this is astonishing. Great article by the way. I was wrestling with the injustice part right before going onto the musical and unmusical part.
My undergraduate degree is in Philosophy. I've read Plato, etc. Yes, it is true that Plato's ideas have dominated Western civilization and Christians' thinking from the beginning. And I respectfully suggest that THAT is the Problem - the fatal flaw - with Western Civilization and Christian doctrines. The Bible answers those same questions in a very different way. But People don't read the Bible and so don't know how the Bible answers those questions; or their minds have been so perverted by Plato's answers that they are unable to see that the Bible answers those questions differently. Even my beloved C.S. Lewis fell into the Plato trap!
You should read it with us. Not all the scholars are Christian, but it is a deep dive into the text. A lot of thinkers, like St Gregory of Nyssa, St Augustine, St Justin Martyr found Platonic teaching very helpful for Christianity - but not perfect.
Yes, CS Lewis had a deep appreciation for Plato.
Join us!
PS - we plan on reading the Bible too!
I’m sure worth reading in entirety which I’ve attempted unsuccessfully. But I’m reluctant to subject myself for this reason:
In Peter Kingsley’s reading, Western reason has a sacred, feminine source: Parmenides receives logic from a goddess, reached through a descent into the underworld with female guides.
Kingsley locates a decisive split with Plato—the transformation of that sacred teaching into intellectual argument. Reason is severed from its source and eventually elevated into what Kingsley calls “the cult of reason.”
What we now treat as opposites—rationality and mysticism—were originally inseparable.
Interesting. However, that critique seems to ignore the reality of Plato’s Symposium, where Socrates says he practices true erotics and presents an eros by which the soul ascends to the divine beauty-itself - it is a template for both Christian and pagan mysticism for 1000 years.
Also, never forget that Socrates learned erotics from a woman, the priestess Diotima - it is she who explains the ascent to the divine.
In Plato, reason and mysticism go hand in hand.
Hmmmm… I don’t disagree, but I also think highly of Kingsley’s reading. He argues that Plato wanted to claim succession to Parmenides’ teaching for himself. The context you offer doesn’t negate the philosophical parricide Plato stages in the Sophist, where the Eleatic Stranger challenges “father Parmenides.”
I’m also fascinated by the ancient practice of incubation, which may shed light on what was lost in that transformation—and on Kingsley’s account of reason becoming severed from its sacred, feminine source.
Also, the presence of Diotima doesn’t resolve the question for me. If the body’s wisdom becomes a stepping stone toward a supposedly higher, disembodied truth, isn’t that the split Kingsley is pointing to? Reason claims to have surpassed the very source from which wisdom arose.
I also wonder whether invoking a woman’s teaching about love fully answers a question about feminine knowing. However expansive that teaching is, does locating the feminine in love preserve its authority as a source of wisdom—or narrow it, while reason assumes authority over truth?
Very interesting piece, thank you. Much to agree with, I would just gently question “And Athens, of course, would be nothing without Plato.”. Isn’t there in fact a lot of useful work in exploring Plato’s debt both to the historical Socrates (as opposed to the one he provides in his early dialogues) and other pre-Socratics like Anaxagoras and Parmenides? Let alone other key thinkers like Herodotus, Euripides and Aristophanes whom Plato almost certainly read and admired?
The line about eugenics and the transmigration of souls getting cast aside while the immaterial soul stuck around is canon formation in miniature. Plato's ideas didn't get absorbed into Christian theology wholesale, they got edited down to whatever fit. Same logic as an apocryphal text getting cut: only the convenient parts survive. Even philosophy couldn't escape that kind of curation.