Did Plato really say desire destroys freedom and friendship? The truth behind one of the internet’s most shared quotes.

When we use the word “Eros” today, we often invoke assumptions shaped more by psychoanalysis than by the ancient Greek god of love. Psychoanalytic thinkers have long been drawn to Plato’s Symposium.

It is possible to argue about who is the finest Renaissance painter. It is possible to argue in this way about sculptors, writers, poets, more or less any sort of artist. However, if the question is ...

Plato wrote dialogues. This is striking not only because it differs so wildly from the usual philosophical style today; often dry, usually abstract, always tightly argued prose. It matters because we ...

What would it have been like to attend the Academy, Plato's ancient school? You didn't have to pay, though you did have to have wealth to afford the leisure. A pupil of Aristotle, Dicearchus, stressed ...

Let’s sit down and have a chat. Across time, these ‘chats’ have always been central to understanding. Plato’s Dialogues, with Socrates as the primary protagonist, laid the groundwork for philosophical ...

The ancient world gave us lots of things: Democracy, science, literature. It also gave us the columnist. Before Fintan O’Toole there was Simeon Stylites, who preached for more than 30 years from a ...