The Latest Breaking News from Plato

Over the past few weeks, as negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine drag on, I’ve thought back to Feb. 28, 2025: the day of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heated visit to the Oval Office.

With a good voice cast and some ripe political metaphors, this film unpacks some potentially cheesy subjects without making you want to bolt for the exit

The Republic, the best-known work of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, authored around 375BC, has shaped western political thought. Greece is now known as the “cradle of democracy”. Not only was the first democracy in the world in Athens, but the word itself comes from the Greek demos (people) and kratos…

A bracing conteporary account of the philosopher’s age-old prescription for living

IN FOCUS: At first, the response to Apple’s dystopian sci-fi was tepid. But it’s proved itself to be a deliciously compelling examination of what makes us human, writes Nick Hilton. Plato would have loved it

Anyone following the rhetoric around artificial intelligence in recent years has heard one version or another of the claim that AI is inevitable. Common themes are that AI is already here, it is indispensable, and people who are bearish on it harm themselves.

It was probably inevitable, but is deeply sad, that Plato’s Symposium (circa 380 BCE), has been drawn into the culture wars. A dialogue of great complexity and elegance, the book is one of the principal sources of the Greek philosopher’s views on love and beauty.

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Scientists still debate whether our mathematical models of the universe objectively exist