Plato: Five Dialogues

Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo (Hackett Classics)

By: Plato

Narrated by: David Gwyther

Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

The second edition of Five Dialogues presents G.M.A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato's complete works. It includes: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo.

Euthyphro is a Socratic dialogue whose events occur in the weeks before the trial of Socrates, between Socrates and Euthyphro. The dialogue covers subjects such as the meaning of piety and justice.

Apology is the Socratic dialogue that presents the speech of legal self-defense, which Socrates presented at his trial for impiety and corruption in 399 BC. The dialogue is a defense against the charges of “corrupting the youth” and not believing in the gods in whom the city believes.

Crito depicts a conversation between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito regarding justice, injustice, and the appropriate response to injustice. Socrates thinks that injustice may not be answered with injustice and refuses Crito’s offer to finance his escape from prison.

Meno introduces Socrates’ positive ideas: the immortality of the soul, the theory of knowledge as recollection, the method of hypothesis, and, in the final lines, the distinction between knowledge and true belief.

Phaedo is one of Plato’s best-known dialogues. The philosophical subject of the dialogue is the immortality of the soul. It is set in the last hours prior to the death of Socrates. 

Public Domain (P)2020 Dora's Enterprise

Choppy Audio and frustrating inflections

I was so excited to purchase and download this title and listen while studying the book. However, the audio is a little too high-pitched for my comfort zone and the choppiness of his reading gives new meaning to the phrase "spit and chew." I couldn't listen to more than 10 minutes before I decided to return the audiobook. I hope that someone will re-do this audio very soon as I love Plato's dialogues.

Atrocious narrator

Excellent material, but NOT by this narrator.
Where did they find this guy? It's beyond bad – it's comical. He doesn't pronounce Euthyphro as 'YUthiFro.' He says: 'YeFrEEO.' He literally sounds like a 3-year old with a bad lisp. And these are dialogues, yet there is scarcely a pause at all between different characters, or between the back and forth of characters. Nothing against Mr. Gwyther, truly! No doubt he is talented in some DIFFERENT, non-narrator-like, way. But it is genuinely puzzling why/how this choice was made. Check the sample for yourself.

Painful Narration

It's a brilliant book, but the narrator reminds me of a child asked to read aloud in front of the class.

Stunning literature

Specifically Phaedo is one of the most captivating thought-provoking piece of literature I have read in a long time. I would recommend to any of my friends who wish to engage in a journey of deep thoughts in meditative thinking.

The Narrator… No Bueno

Couldn’t finish the first chapter, maybe this works well for some. It’s just not for me.

Poor narration

The narration is very distracting. Instead of using different voices for each speaker in the dialogue, it announces every time who is speaking. But sometimes the speaker says the name of the other party in the middle of a sentence and it is difficult to know if the speaker changed or if their name was used mid sentence.