Allegory of the Cave

By: Plato

Narrated by: Deaver Brown

Length: 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Experience this live lecture at Harvard, with the sounds not dubbed out and changed. Hear the lecturer stop, pause, turn pages, and experience an authentic lecture. The author points out how little is actually known about the ancient Greek language used by Plato to write The Allegory of the Cave. No one knows the exact pronunciation of names, places, or other such things, which leaves more to the imagination, which can be both inspiring and frustrating. Note: Insert after paragraph three: This lecture has 11 tracks. 1. Introduction. 2. Plato and His Life. 3. The Republic. 4. The Translator: Benjamin Jowett. 5. Reading of Allegory of the Cave, Book VII. 6. Simply Notes. 7. Platonic Idealism and Realism. 8. Universals. 9. Particulars. 10. Criticism. 11. Questions for Discussions & Subjects for Essays.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is what many believe to be the foundation of Western Philosophy. It addresses what is visible and invisible, seen and observed versus intuited and imagined, and what is public versus private and just versus unjust. It also concerns the meaning and importance of education, the state of the soul, the conflict between truth and beauty, animal urges versus higher aspirations, knowledge versus ignorance, and on and on.

With this audiobook, you will hear the original Allegory of the Cave and much more in less than 60 minutes. To improve your understanding of Plato's allegory, we have included original commentary surrounding this subject. This information is intended to give you a fuller understanding of the allegory.

Fewer people than you may think have read or even heard of the Allegory of the Cave. Fewer still have read or heard of Plato's The Republic. If you're seeking to boost your performance in school, or if you're just curious, this audio program will put you ahead of the class!

© and (P) Christina Brown

Why aren't we exposed to this earlier in life?

I liked the introduction and brief history explained in the beginning. The allegory of the cave story speaks for itself, something I believe every human being should be exposed to early in their life.

Narrator did well, but was a bit choppy in his delivery at some points,which made him hard to follow. The solution is to simply hit the 30 second back button to listen again.

I will now begin listening to Platos Republic.

good book

I really like it how is done the introduction help to get a better idea

worth listening...

You definitely get what you pay for... but sometimes that's not good enough.... worth listening to though

Greatest story about government ever written

I love the Allegory of the Cave and believe governments should be based on it. I think it should be a test before electing someone. Have they ever been poor or faced real diversity and overcome, rising to a great leader? A certain "POTUS" probably wouldn't be holding office right now if this were a rule. There would be no way to cover it up or cheat this.

The narration was ok, but the regional accent is from my region and made me very aware of it. haha It was somewhat annoying and the book surrounding it overall is not well organized so was a little difficult to follow as an audio book. It seems to be a teacher's aide book, so I would recommend getting it in print for that purpose. That said, if you don't like to read classical literature, I highly recommend going this route. This information is important and just as relevant today as it was in the time it was written.

i would like to hear it again, different narriator

the narriator was aweful. it was hard to enjoy bacause of his unsuttle voice and his bad pausing.

Narrator is horrible

Couldn’t get through all the fluff just to hear that. Not worth it at all.

more about the reader and their own theory

more about the reader and their own theories than the short reading of the allegory of the cave...

You are getting what you pay for

Its Plato so you know it has to be hard to understand. But the narrator is obviously reading from a script and there is little attempt to edit changes in reading tempo or slight stumbles so it aggravates the listeners ability to understand. I will continue to listen to it over and over but if you think you are going to here it one time and be a Plato scholar you are wrong.

Can't understand reader, talking way too fast...

Terrible, terrible, terrible, am i being to subtle? Talking too fast, like the narrator must have been nervous, audible need to do some sort of quality check before they offer items for sale.

Useless rubbish

I have never written a review before but I have to let prospective customers know what utter garbage this recording is before they click "add to cart". The narrator stumbles and stutters his through this reading as though he is intentionally trying to insult any customer who actually paid for this book. No effort was put into the production of this useless piece of garbage and audible should not sell it. I couldn't even finish it.