Plato

Roger introduces Plato's Apology as a gateway into the foundational root of the entire Western philosophical tradition. At the heart of this lecture is Socrates standing trial for his life before the city of Athens — delivering not an apology in the modern sense, but a fearless defense of the philosophic life. Guided by an inner divine voice since childhood and charged by the Delphic Oracle as the wisest of men, Socrates spent his life exposing the ignorance of politicians, poets, and craftsmen out of a deep religious duty to awaken Athens to the truth that real wisdom belongs to God alone. Drawing on Pythagorean roots, the nature of imagination and memory, and the Socratic practice of inquiry as spiritual transformation, Weir illuminates why Socrates remains the single root source from which all of Western education and philosophy ultimately flows.This presentation by Roger Weir was delivered on January 4, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 28, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 21, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 14, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was delivered by Roger Weir on March 7, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on February 28, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered on February 14, 1991 by Roger Weir.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on February 14, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on February 7, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on January 31, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on January 24, 1991.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This lecture explores Plato's Charmides, tracing Socrates' encounter with the strikingly beautiful young Charmides in search of the true meaning of sophrosyne—usually translated "temperance," but really a much richer inner soundness of mind that classical Greeks paired with wisdom (Sophia). Far from being the minor, quibbling dialogue dismissed by many academic commentators, the Charmides is presented as a profound demonstration of how easily we mistake borrowed opinions and surface-level bodily awareness for genuine self-knowledge, and how Socratic inquiry—circling back again and again through failed definitions—works to strip away false "coat hangers" of secondhand wisdom so a person can encounter their own wholeness. Along the way, the lecture connects the dialogue's themes of healing charms, inner balance, and self-knowledge to ancient mythic parallels (from the Sumerian Inanna to Parmenides' logic of being and non-being), building toward Plato's larger claim that only through real interiority—not mimicry of the external world—can a person become free, wise, and genuinely known to themselves.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation on Plato's Ion, Roger explores how the dialogue between Socrates and the master rhapsode Ion reveals a profound distinction between two modes of intelligence: the integrative, image-based world of feeling and the differentiating, idea-based world of thought. Far from being an attack on poets and art, the Ion is shown to be Plato's foundational inquiry into the individual self—dramatizing how Ion, despite his brilliance at reciting Homer, cannot answer Socrates' deceptively simple question of who he is beneath the many masks of his craft. We trace the dialogue's key moves, from the "chain of the loadstone" and divine inspiration through the muse, to the seeds of what will become the archetypal and hermetic traditions, situating Ion within the larger historical drama of Athenian democracy's rise and fall and Plato's lifelong project of teaching humanity to think for itself.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this lecture, Roger explores Plato's Seventh Letter — the closest thing we have to his own spiritual autobiography — in which he reveals the central conviction of his life: that the perfection of the individual soul and the perfection of society are inseparably linked. Through the story of his three fateful journeys to Syracuse and his encounters with tyrants and philosopher kings, Plato lays bare the practical stakes of philosophy as a living discipline. At the heart of the letter is one of the most profound passages in all of Western thought — the doctrine of the five levels of knowledge, culminating in a reality that can never be captured in language but is ignited in the soul like a flame from a leaping spark. Rooted in the Hermetic and Pythagorean wisdom tradition, this presentation reveals the Seventh Letter as an initiatory testament to the path of enchantment that thought itself becomes when pursued with honesty, stamina, and the love of wisdom.This series is a basic introduction to a major root of the entire Western Philosophic Tradition. This is a rare opportunity to survey an essential heritage. We will follow the translations in the Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press. These Dialogues also appear in the Penguin Classics Editions: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, Philebus, Early Socratic Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation Roger Weir discusses Plato's theory of education. Weir asserts this is the "single way of teaching all things."This presentation was delivered by Roger Weir on July 1, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This lecture delves into Plato's Timaeus, one of the most complex surviving works of classical antiquity, in which Plato weaves together cosmology, mathematics, and mysticism to describe the creation of the universe as a living, ensouled being. Drawing on commentary from Plutarch and scholar Sarah Broadie (referred to as "an Ashbell"), the lecture traces Timaeus's account of the demiurge shaping the cosmos from disorder into order, the origin of time as "a moving image of eternity," and the Pythagorean geometry underlying the world's soul—including the famous circles of the Same and the Different. Along the way, the discussion touches on the dialogue's Egyptian origins, its relationship to the Republic and Statesman, and its enduring legacy as the archetypal vision of humanity as microcosm, a symbol that would shape Renaissance thought and beyond.This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 29, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this lecture, Roger explores Plato's Statesman — one of the most overlooked and underestimated dialogues in all of Western philosophy. At its heart, the dialogue asks a deceptively profound question: what kind of human being is actually capable of governing well? Through the method of diaeresis — a disciplined process of binary division that progressively strips away the inessential to reveal the real — Plato guides us toward the vision of the true statesman, who turns out to be not merely a skilled politician but a divine archetype. Rooted in the Hermetic and Neoplatonic wisdom tradition, this presentation reveals how Plato's method of paired division is nothing less than a royal road of the mind — a way of thinking that mirrors the structure of reality itself, and that when followed with patience and integrity, carries the soul step by step from the world of appearances toward the singular, indivisible truth at the summit of all inquiry.This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 29, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this lecture, Roger explores Plato's Sophist — a dialogue where Plato begins to unmask one of philosophy's most dangerous figures: the sophist, a master of illusion who trades in false beliefs and leads the soul away from truth. Through the eyes of a mysterious unnamed stranger from the school of Parmenides, we examine the crucial distinction between likeness and semblance, the nature of false statement, and why the sophist's true home is the realm of non-being. Rooted in the Hermetic and Neoplatonic wisdom tradition, this lecture reveals how the purification of the mind — through honest inquiry, the discipline of differentiation, and the courage to sit with perplexity — is not merely an intellectual exercise, but the very path by which the soul reclaims its freedom and its capacity to know what is real.This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 15, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this lecture, Roger explored Plato's Parmenides — one of the most demanding and rewarding dialogues in Western philosophy. The dialogue stages a dramatic encounter between the young Socrates and the aged master Parmenides, who systematically dismantles the Theory of Forms and guides Socrates to the edge of intellectual self-doubt. We examine the via negativa — the path of unknowing — and Parmenides' radical assertion that only the One truly exists. Rooted in the Hermetic and Neoplatonic wisdom tradition, this lecture reveals the Parmenides not merely as an exercise in logic, but as an initiatory text — a philosophical rite of passage in which the soul is awakened to a deeper order of reality beyond the reach of ordinary thought.This is a presentation originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 8, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

This lecture explores Plato's Theaetetus, examining it as the first of four late dialogues—alongside the Parmenides, Sophist, and Statesman—that together form an artistic and psychic whole. This presentation covers the dialogue's unusual structure as a written (rather than spoken) text, the significance of Socrates as a "midwife of ideas," the Pythagorean undertones in the relationship between Socrates and young Theaetetus, and the central philosophical question the dialogue raises: what is knowledge? Along the way, the lecture touches on Parmenides' paradox of being and non-being, the symbolic role of number and harmony in Greek thought, and how this inquiry sets the stage for Plato's later, more esoteric explorations of cosmology and human perfection.This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on March 1, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation, Roger Weir guides us through Plato's Republic — widely considered the greatest of all the Platonic dialogues — revealing it not as a dry political treatise but as a profound and demanding invitation to interior contemplation. Beginning with the Greek concept of theoria, the active seeing within the mind, Weir shows how Plato uses the Republic's vast ten-book structure to systematically clear the mind of second and third-rate imitations of reality, pushing toward the direct apprehension of eternal ideas and divine truth. At the heart of the dialogue is Plato's vision of the philosopher-king — the "athlete of the spirit" trained not for worldly power but for the preservation of civic liberty through the cultivation of wisdom, truthfulness, and fearlessness — while the famous allegory of the cave, the theory of the four levels of mind, and the concept of the vivid paradigm illuminate what it truly means to see with the inner eye. Weir closes with Plato's haunting notion of the remnant — those rare individuals who consort worthily with philosophy and keep themselves free — reminding us that all it takes is one truly integrated human being to rekindle the flame of mankind's integrity.This presentation was originally delivered by Roger Weir on February 22, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation, Roger Weir explains Plato's Symposium, framing it as one of the great spiritual documents of Western civilization—a dramatic dinner party where Athens' most brilliant eccentrics gather to praise love, only to have each speech stripped away as extraneous until Socrates, channeling the teachings of his mysterious teacher Diotima, reveals love as a spirit that bridges the mortal and divine. He traces Diotima's "ladder of love," which ascends from individual beauty through institutions and learning to the vision of Beauty itself, and unpacks key ideas like the realm of "correct opinion" between ignorance and knowledge, the necessity of the body alongside the soul, and love as humanity's longing for immortality. Along the way, the talk touches on Plato's use of myth versus magical language, the symbolic weight of figures like Aristophanes and Agathon, and how Socrates embodies the living center the entire dialogue points toward—setting up next week's turn to the Republic.This is the seventh presentation in a series about Plato created and presented by Roger Weir.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation, Roger Weir explains Plato's Phaedrus, challenging the common scholarly view of the dialogue as a disorganized "unraveled tapestry" and arguing instead that it's a carefully constructed religious and psychological experience meant to guide the reader toward self-knowledge. He traces Socrates' unusual journey outside the walls of Athens with Phaedrus, his discussion of the four kinds of divine madness (prophetic, mystic, poetic, and erotic), and his mythic image of the soul as a charioteer with two winged horses. Along the way, the talk explores Plato's distinction between written and spoken language, the doctrine of the soul's immortality and self-motion, the archetype of wings and remembrance, and how the dialogue's language works to awaken rather than merely describe spiritual insight—setting the stage for next week's discussion of the Symposium.This is the sixth presentation of a series on Plato created and presented by Roger Weir in 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation on Plato's Protagoras, Roger goes far beyond a standard academic read of the dialogue, arguing that even the most respected scholarly editions (like the Bollingen edition) miss what's actually happening in the text. Mr. Weir frames the dialogue as a hidden battle between Socrates, who represents the pursuit of the soul's real nature, and Protagoras, the great sophist whose spellbinding rhetoric offers only appearance and image rather than truth. Along the way, the lecture unpacks Plato's buried symbolism—quotations from Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, the archetype of the Gorgon/Medusa, and the recurring theme of "equanimity" between mind and voice—to show how the dialogue's structure mirrors its philosophical content. Touching on comparisons to Jung, Faulkner, Kipling, and Eastern concepts like Prajnaparamita, this is a dense, discursive exploration of how Socratic dialogue works as a spiritual technology for self-discovery, not just an argument to be won.This is the fifth presentation in a series on Plato created and presented by Roger Weir.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation, Roger guides us through Plato's Meno, the dialogue that introduces one of philosophy's most enduring questions: can virtue be taught? Weir reveals how Socrates leads the confident but intellectually rigid Meno through a process of productive confusion—famously comparing himself to a stingray that numbs those it touches—until Meno's borrowed certainties give way to genuine perplexity, the necessary first step toward real learning. Through the demonstration with Meno's slave boy, Socrates unveils his theory that all learning is recollection, that the immortal soul already possesses the truth within itself and simply needs to be awakened rather than instructed. Touching on themes of true experience versus rote opinion, the courage required to admit ignorance, and the soul's capacity to recognize eternal truths it has always known, this lecture illuminates why virtue, in the end, comes not through nature or teaching, but as a kind of divine gift to those who seek it honestly.This presentation by Roger Weir was originally delivered on January 25, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation, Roger explores Plato's Gorgias, in which Socrates confronts Gorgias, the most celebrated teacher of rhetoric in the ancient world, in a clash between two opposed visions of speech and truth. Weir reveals how Socrates pioneers a new form of consciousness—a method of dialogue built on sequential inquiry and demonstrable truth—standing in stark contrast to rhetoric's mastery of persuasion through belief rather than knowledge. As the conversation moves from Gorgias to his brash student Polus and finally to the fiery Callicles, Socrates exposes rhetoric as mere flattery, a counterfeit of the true arts of medicine, gymnastics, legislation, and justice, insisting that the mind's real task is to serve as the crucible in which the gold of the soul is tested and proven. Touching on power, pleasure, discipline, and the courage to be refuted rather than to win, this lecture reveals one of Plato's most underestimated dialogues as a pivotal moment where Socrates begins to grasp an entirely new kind of mind.This presentation by Roger Weir was originally delivered on January 18, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel

In this presentation, Roger Weir guides us through Plato's Phaedo — one of the most celebrated dialogues in all of Western philosophy — recounting the final hours of Socrates' life as witnessed by his closest companions on the day of his death. Rather than following a simple line of argument, Weir reveals how Plato's dialogue unfolds as a masterful Pythagorean sequencing of pattern and insight, weaving together three distinct traditions: the Pythagorean art of recollection, the Homeric eye for precise detail, and Plato's own dialectical choreography. At the heart of the dialogue, Socrates confronts the deepest questions of human existence — the immortality of the soul, the nature of purification, the law of opposites, and the relationship between pure thought and eternal truth — all while facing death with a fearlessness that Weir shows is not mere stoicism, but the natural fruit of a life fully devoted to philosophy. From the mythic resonance of Theseus and the labyrinth to the Hermetic doctrine of the guardian spirit, this lecture illuminates why the Phaedo remains an inexhaustible wellspring of wisdom at the very root of the Western spiritual and philosophical tradition.This presentation by Roger Weir was delivered on January 11, 1990.More information about these presentations can be found athttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platohttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-educationhttps://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-iiMore presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel