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

Disappointed Customer

I am very disappointed with this audiobook. When I purchase an audiobook from Audible, I have come to expect professional quality recordings. The narrator slips over words, pauses, rereads words that were first stated incorrectly, and stumbles over main character names. If this audiobook were .99, I would understand, but at $5 for 45 minutes, I definitely expect a professional quality recording. Additionally, most of the 45 minutes of the recording is narrator commentary, which is not entirely correct or useful... I have never been so disappointed with an audiobook from Audible.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Philisophy student

Bad, Bad, Bad!
The story the Allgory of the Cave is wonderful!! But the person reading is horrible. Mispronounced words, no ediiting and straight forward reading! You can tell when he is flipping pages and tries to pick up from where he left off. $2.94 is way too expensive for this.
Audble, I hope you take this off you list of books. It is really bad.

16 of 17 people found this review helpful

The narrator destroys Plato utterly

I would like to suggest that Deaver Brown becomes a member of the Toastmasters. When he has completed his Competent Communicator manual he must immediately proceed to the Interpretative Reading one, then he can redo this current reading.

As a postgraduate student of Greek, I thought, well, this version of the "Allegory of the Cave" would help me a lot. I was disappointed, not because of the translation, but because of the WORSE narration I've ever heard. While Brown gives some important information about Plato in his introduction, he becomes more hesitant when reading the text. I tried several times to listen though this audiobook, but has been unsuccessful even after sitting with the Greek text in front of me.

Don't waste money on this book, you will definitely regret buying the book.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

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.

11 of 15 people found this review helpful

I would rather a better reading...

I didn't care at all for the editorial/commentary which detracted from the horrible reading of the Cave.

This seems to me like something you'd get for free rather than buy. But, if you need to get through "The Cave" allegory in a hurry and need a rather shallow interpretation...here you go.

Chris Reich

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Ghastly Narrator

I loathed this presentation. It was simply unbearable listening. Horrible in the extreme. Very disappointed in this reading.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

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.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

worth listening...

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

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

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.

A story that delineates the concept of thought.

Socrates, as described by Plato, tells us in this simple story what it means to be ignorant. He then shows that there is a choice we can make, all people can make, to be less ignorant.

Not recommended, but very accurate translation.

the problem with this audiobook was that the explanation of the allegory by the narrator was restricted to his views and was oversimplified; i understand that not everybody can easily see through a deep philosophic analysis but with a cheap substitute the text itself loses the meaning. It would be much better without any introduction but then the price would not be justified.
The translation was very good(I have read the ancient text my self).