Fake news. Money and politics. Demagogues who tell the crowd exactly what it wants to hear. And the oldest question of all — what does a good life actually look like? Plato was turning these questions over 2,400 years ago, and his conclusions are as strange and as sharp as ever.

In this episode I'm joined by Professor Angie Hobbs — Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her new book, Why Plato Matters Now, makes the case that if you want to understand democracy, autocracy, truth and the good life today, there is no better place to begin than Athens in the fourth century BC.

We discuss Plato’s life and work from the trial of Socrates and the Allegory of the Cave to his uncomfortable warnings about democracy, his account of how societies slide towards tyranny, and his questions about truth, desire, fame and what money can and cannot buy — and ask what he would make of the world today.

Angie Hobbs' new book — Why Plato Matters Now (Bloomsbury): Why-Plato-Matters-NowAngie Hobbs' website: https://angiehobbs.comAngie Hobbs on X: https://x.com/drangiehobbs

Listen to What Rhymes With Now? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon, and find everything else here: https://linktr.ee/whatrhymeswithnow

ABOUT WHAT RHYMES WITH NOW:

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. What Rhymes With Now? is a podcast that puts today’s biggest challenges in historical perspective. In each episode, we speak to an expert about an important period of history, to help inform our approach to today’s challenges.


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