Audiobooks online: genre "Philosophy", page 17

The Apology is Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates as he defended himself in 399 BC[2] against the charges of "corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel" . "Apology" here has its earlier mean...

"Our intention is, that Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man..."'Timaeus' is usually reg...

Schopenhauer used the word "will" as a human's most familiar designation for the concept that can also be signified by other words such as "desire," "striving," "wanting," "effort," and "urging." Schopenhauer's philosophy holds that all nature, including man, is the expression of...

In one of Plato's more accessible works, Apollodorus tells a friend about a drinking party (or symposium) attended by many of intellectuals of late 5th century Athens. The men are one their second night of celebration for Agathon's victory at the city Dionysia, and decide that i...

Seneca the Younger wrote the moral essay "De Brevitate Vitae" — "On the Shortness of Life" — to his friend Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature giv...

The Analects, or Lunyu, also known as the Analects of Confucius, are considered a record of the words and acts of the central Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius and his disciples, as well as the discussions they held. Written during the Spring and Autumn Period through the...

The Art of Controversy (or The Art of Being Right) (Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten) is a short treatise written in 1831 by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in which he presents thirty-eight methods of gaining an unfair advantage in a debate and ...

Anyone, as Freud tells us in Reflections on War and Death, forced to react against his own impulses may be described as a hypocrite, whether he is conscious of it or not. One might even venture to assert—it is still Freud's argument—that our contemporary civilisation favou...

On the Laws (Latin: De Legibus) was written shortly after Cicero's "On the Commonwealth" during the last years of the Roman Republic. The three surviving books (out of an original six), in order, expound on Cicero's beliefs in Natural Law, recast the religious laws of Rome (in re...

Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. These memos survive and continue to inspire others to this day. These writings take the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence ...

On the Soul (Greek Περὶ Ψυχῆς (Perì Psūchês), Latin De Anima) is a major treatise by Aristotle on the nature of living things. His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus plant...

Maritime and metaphysical verse by John Masefield, English poet and author, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death. (Summary by Liam Neely) ...